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MPs are back at Westminster to prepare for a busy November with the pre-Budget report and the Queen's Speech. Robert Hill reports. MPs are back at Westminster to prepare for the pre-Budget report, the Queen's Speech, and a watershed general election. Public spending will continue to dominate the political debate. The scene for this ongoing battle was set on Parliament's first day back after its summer recess when Mr Brown announced the sale of public assets worth £16bn. The Liberal Democrats had a mixed conference week. Nick Clegg and Vince Cable overreached themselves in going for a tax on millionaires' mansions and ditching the promise to abolish student tuition fees. Backbench MPs rebelled, and while the muddle may not have resulted in much political short-term damage, they will have to sort themselves out by the time the election is called. Given its standing in the polls, Labour's conference was quite benign. There was little bloodletting and UK business secretary, Peter Mandelson, managed to reinvent himself as a conference darling. Prime minister, Gordon Brown's speech was competent, but overshadowed by The Sun newspaper's decision to defect to the Tories. And Labour left Brighton having made little headway in turning public opinion round. Tory leader, David Cameron, and his troops decided to show their hand on certain expenditure cuts they would go for. Some of the proposals were as much theatre as substance – for example, cutting the prime minister's pay by 5%, reducing the number of MPs by 10%, and requiring public sector agencies to get the chancellor's approval before they can pay anyone more than the prime minister earns. You would not have thought that a party of the free market would be espousing wage controls! But other cuts would be real enough – means-testing tax credits, freezing public sector pay for 12 months, and raising the pension age – even if their impact was rather undermined by spending commitments on inheritance tax and supporting marriage in the tax system. Labour is trying to portray itself as a prudent spender and preserver of quality public services while categorising the Tories as the party which would ‘slash and burn' the public service legacy the Government has built up. The Conservatives, on the other hand, argue that only they have the will and the means to tackle the sea of debt under which they say the country is sinking. The noise from the public spending debate will reach a crescendo in November, when the chancellor announces his pre-Budget report (PBR). This will be a significant event. We will find out whether the Government is going to change the spending totals for 2010/11 – the last year of this spending review period. Local government can expect the lid to be kept very firmly on council tax rises – already, all eight of the London boroughs controlled by Labour are reported to be committed to a zero rise next year. And in an odd form of limbo-dancing, some Tory authorities are trying not to just match but beat that by cutting levels of council tax. The PBR may also provide some indication of spending levels for individual services and departments from 2011/12 – although any announcement should be seen as provisional and dependent on the outcome of next year's election. But public spending will not be the only issue on the Westminster agenda. November will also see another Queen's Speech, and the outline of the legislation for the final session of this parliament. Some of the measures announced will have little if any chance of reaching the statute book. Plans, for example, to remove the final hereditary peers are unlikely to have sufficient cross-party consent to make it into law before Parliament is dissolved. But it is possible that legislation on issues as diverse as child poverty, flood and water management, a prohibition on the production and use of cluster bombs, the licensing of wheel clampers and measures requiring everyone under 25 and out of work for more than 12 months to have to accept a job or training or have their benefits cut, will become law. Then, of course, there are the things that government can do without requiring legislation. The extra money that is being made available for social housing is a good case in point. The Government may be in its twilight phase, but it can still make significant policies and decisions that affect the country in general and local authorities in particular. Robert Hill is an independent public policy analyst and consultant.

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WHITEHALL

Back to prepare for battle

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