The case for contribution
Britain’s success or failure rests on our efforts for the common good.
Our society only succeeds when people pay their taxes, care for their families and communities and are recognised for these contributions. Our economy only succeeds when people work, develop skills, take risks, and start businesses. And our democracy only succeeds when people vote, are educated, and are willing to argue about and represent their communities and country.
A belief in making these efforts for the common good is a fundamental, differentiating Labour vision. We are not pure individualists. As every Labour membership card says, by the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more than we do alone.
This essay argues that this Labour government should root itself in an ethic and expectation of contribution: the actions we take that make other people better off. This can be work, care, volunteering, paying taxes or helping out in your community. These are the basis of reciprocity and solidarity. Actions we take for others, in the anticipation that they will take them for us.
To make this shift, Labour has to meet the public where they are. Contribution is the main thing they mean by fairness. They believe that to get something out of the country, you have to put something in.
They do not believe the state is doing its part. Labour needs to deliver to change their minds.
But a politics of contribution would mean much more than delivery. The state would shift focus, towards enabling, rewarding and expecting people to contribute. It would give people and places the power, capability and agency to solve their problems, with and for others.
This essay focuses on trying to persuade you of the political and moral case for making this shift. But it is worth considering at the outset the kind of priorities and policies a Labour government that focused on contribution would embrace.
In social security, it would mean stopping the pretence that the public will support a welfare system they often see little benefit from themselves. It would mean keeping a minimum income guarantee through Universal Credit, while creating contributory social insurance on top: earnings-linked, short-term unemployment insurance, better family and care entitlements, higher contributory pensions where entitlements were easily visible. Over a decade, the state would rebalance spending on social security away from means-testing towards one that aims to insure, reskill and match to well paid jobs. A new national occupational health service would focus on enabling disabled people’s contributions (whether economic or otherwise). It might mean subsidising employers to take them on if they had been out of the labour market for a long time or more high-quality re-training opportunities.
In migration, it would mean making the social democratic case in favour of controlled migration. Britain would welcome migrants who can contribute to Britain’s economic and social life, as long as they come through legal, fair means. Usually this will mean expecting them to be net fiscal and economic contributors over their lifetime.
The government would set a National Migration Plan that sets out, sector by sector, what the economy needs and ensures that we only accept migration at a level that Britain’s public services, infrastructure and house-building can keep pace with. It would set contribution contracts for newcomers as part of a path to citizenship, with expectations set early on that everyone learns English and economically contributes, with sanctions or delays to citizenship if these expectations are not met. The state would implement digital identity to regulate access to non-urgent benefits and public services, demonstrating that only people with a right to be here can access the services/benefits that we fund for one another.
In criminal justice, it would mean continuing to reform our failed justice system, replacing ineffective short sentences with early release if prisoners can demonstrate that they are ready to contribute to society or incorporating visible contributions into our punishment of petty crime.
For the Treasury, it would mean continuing large increases in growth investment and starting to devolve tax-and-borrowing powers to places. This would allow regions that are not thriving to take charge of their future and capture the rewards from their efforts, rather than just rely on transfers from London and the southeast. Local taxation would fund local services. And it could mean equal taxation of income, so that workers, business owners and investors each have to make equal contributions to the common good.
Other Labour Together papers and arguments have or will have these policy positions at their core. Some of these will be controversial and we expect people to disagree. It is the clarity of contribution that gives it legs as a governing principle, as opposed to a more ephemeral idea of fairness. This essay aims to persuade you that this is the right place for Labour to be.