Is our Government letting down young people and as a consequence the rest of us? The theoretical benefit of a fixed 5 year Parliament is that there is no uncertainty, Ministers and their Civil Servants will plan a full 5 year workplan and stick to it, without any risk that the Prime Minister will call an early return to the ballot boxes, just because there is favourable polling data. This means that the electors benefit from knowing that the country will be run as effectively as possible until the election, and the chaos created in local statutory agencies trying to second guess the decisions taken in Number 10 will also be abolished. However if the Government instead of planning a full five year legislative strategy, chooses to adopt a lightweight fifth year, in order to allow Ministers to work on the forthcoming election, with a step change in the number of visits to marginal or target constituencies, such as those that have taken place recently in Sussex then there is a real risk for all of us. The benefits of a fixed Parliament passes from the country which seeks stable and measured government to the Political Parties who believe that a year long election campaign will enable them to do better on election day than if they stay at their desks in Whitehall and put in an honest days work.  This coupled with the impact of the incoming Government spending a year adjusting to their new roles, making knee jerk decisions and then having to cover their tracks means that in effect we get 3 years Government for every 5 years salary. No Government is perfect and so the best we can hope for is a country that runs at 50% efficiency. This is not good enough and demands a change in approach. If Governments were to change from a flip flop mentality to one that increased the prospect of successive Parliaments building on the good work of their predecessors, even where this may not be their ideal approach this hiatus would be less of a problem. Whilst some momentum might be lost, the overall impact of U turn upon U turn would not create the damage that it currently does, particularly when coupled with the loss of efficiency in the Government.

These problems affect all of us, but are a particular problem for the parts of society who need particular care. The children born in the last few weeks, will be nearly three before they feel the impact of any policies introduced by the next Government, assuming that these decisions will contradict the current arrangements. These years are crucial to children and impact significantly on their life chances. This was raised in the House of Commons last week by a previous childrens Minister, Tim Loughton. I met Tim several times in his capacity as a Minister and know he was passionate about improving the life chances for our young people. “I think it [youth unemployment] is probably the biggest challenge – economically – that this country has. If you don’t sort out people getting into work, decent training, decent apprenticeships, getting the chance to get on that ladder of your career early on, then it’s a false economy not to do so because the financial problems it creates for society is considerable – but the social cost is probably even more……The most important thing is to improve the educational outcomes of young people living in this country. Education isn’t something that just starts at GCSE when you get to secondary school. We know that if you don’t help young people and kids from deprived areas by the time they start primary school then they are instantly at a disadvantage”

Although I disagree with Tim Loughton on many issues, I agree with him on this and know there is plenty of evidence to back both of us up. The problem however is that when Tim became Minister, his Government wasted time and precious funds dismantling some of the good provision that the previous Government introduced. Yet here he is speaking in the dying days of this Government, one that is sending Ministers into marginal constituencies because they think that will improve their chances of re-election. It is clear that unless there is a major change of culture the next Government will dismantle provision put in place by Tim and his successor at the Ministry. The children just born cannot afford to wait until we have a new Government before their early years provision is determined.  We need a new way of running our country, a way that will demand that Governments spend longer listening to the opposition, objective and unbiased experts and indeed to the country than they do at present. This is no way to run a Government, let alone an education policy.