Project 2029: A Plan to Reshape Britain

Project 2029 is Policy Exchange’s programme to address head-on the biggest issues facing Britain.

Successive Governments have failed to overcome the country’s challenges. Governments of both hues have squandered their large majorities, unwilling or unable to take the decisive actions needed to properly address the biggest issues of our time. We must learn the lessons: that a failure to plan for Government in advance is fatal and that a Government must have a clear understanding of its desired outcomes. 

Project 2029 is Policy Exchange’s new programme, working on a cross-party basis, to establish a game plan for the first 100 days after the next General Election, and beyond, to begin tackling the country’s biggest issues. This must contain the essential actions that a new Government of any party must implement from Day One if it is to hit the ground running, alongside the evidence base and legal groundwork to support it. Though some outputs from the programme could be implemented sooner, if the Government has appetite, to fully address the challenges facing the UK will require a comprehensive plan to fundamentally address the legislative barriers that are impeding change.

An effective reforming Government will need three qualities: skill, will and courage. It will need a plan (not a diagnosis, but a prognosis) before the election which considers both trade-offs and downsides, a mandate from the electorate, a fiscal plan, a legislative programme and a timescale for achieving it. Policy Exchange will use its unique convening power to bridge party divides, bringing together outside insurgents with fresh ideas and dissident insiders with the expertise to turn them into reality, creating the coalition for radical change.

The State has been captured by ‘stakeholder’ groups who lobby for sectional interests, not the common good. Powerful Quangos, overmighty courts and overreaching legislation at home and abroad increasingly raise impediments to every aspect of public policy. National debt is at near record levels, with unfavourable fiscal projections and demographics and an increasingly challenging international security backdrop – and yet politicians are unwilling to level with the electorate about the costs of fixing it. Project 2029 will therefore work across six major focus areas, that collectively inhibit any serious attempt at addressing these issues.

• Civil Service, Quangos and Government Reform. How to increase Ministerial authority and reclaim the State from capture by ‘stakeholder’ lobbies? How can Parliamentary Government and accountability be strengthened and restored? How to remove sectional interests from their privileged position inside government? Can AI be deployed to vet applicants and provide ongoing monitoring of public servants who are being drawn into political activity? How to reorientate the system to deploy cutting edge technology to improve performance and delivery, rather than paperwork? How to pare back the Codes that minimise the role of Parliament as the political forum of the nation, and make intelligent changes to the system of managing civil servants that encourage the best people from all walks of life to serve?
• Human Rights Law, Judicial Review, and International Law. Equality law, European human rights law and international law now distort almost every aspect of public policy, limiting Parliament’s freedom to make law and Ministers’ power to act.  How should the UK go about freeing itself from the European Convention on Human Rights?  Should the Human Rights Act be replaced by a Bill of Rights or repealed without replacement?  How should judicial review be reformed to enable effective government?  When should Ministers be obliged to undertake consultations?  Should the Equality Act be amended or repealed?  Which treaties should the UK leave?  Which should it reform?  How can Ministers who prioritise the national interest engage effectively with international law?  
• Immigration and Small Boats. Why are we addicted to mass low-skilled immigration – and how do we change this? How can the Small Boats Emergency be halted? To what extent is mass immigration contributing to the acute problem of declining community cohesion? How can we ensure the welfare state consistently prioritises British citizens over immigrants and asylum seekers? What are the full economic costs of immigration on housing, on public services and on the welfare state?
• Crime and Disorder. How do we prevent a repeat of the Grooming Gang scandal – and what does this tell us about the systematic State failure within the justice system? How do we put the criminal justice system back on the side of the public, not criminals? How do we roll back “two-tier” justice, tackle extremism and restore the primacy of maintaining public order? How can the backlog within the court system, and the crisis within our prison estate, be resolved?
• Planning and Energy. What is the impact of high energy prices – and how much is the current, rapid, trajectory towards Net Zero costing Britain? How could a more pragmatic, market-based energy policy be implemented? How much do repeated legal challenges cost the UK economy – both directly and in terms of deferred investment? How can planning laws be reformed to unlock more investment in infrastructure? How can we build more houses and help repair the intergenerational compact?
• Welfare. What must be done to get Britain’s benefit bill under control – and ensure that those who can work, do? Are too many young people being overdiagnosed and consigned to non-working status on the basis of mental health conditions? How to ensure that those who have contributed get a fair deal – and that those who have not do not take advantage?

Policy Exchange’s Project 2029 intends to develop the detailed roadmap for how a radical reforming Government – of any party – could deliver noticeable change, rapidly, across these areas, provided it is willing to take decisive action. This will involve developing a concrete plan for:

• Which laws must be repealed or reformed?
• Which treaties or international bodies must the UK withdraw from?
• What new laws must be enacted?
• Which practices of Government should be repudiated or reformed?
• Which quangos need to be abolished?
• What are the key roles in Government and the public sector in which allies must be placed?
• What are the characteristics of the individuals required for these roles?

Within the first 100 days, Government must have introduced and begun progressing key Bills through Parliament – Bills that will repeal the laws that are thwarting progress and grant new powers to Ministers to take effective action. Project 2029 will give them the roadmap to do so, setting out the evidence, the principles, the legislation required and the operational programmes needed to address the country’s biggest challenges.

Policy Exchange’s work will draw inspiration from international examples but adapted to the UK’s distinctive political, legal and social settlement, in addition to looking to our own historic methods of Government that have been forgotten and distorted over time. Our aim is radicalism, not revolution: restoring, not destroying, the core British institutions of Parliament and Government, while stripping away the ideological expansive conception of domestic and international law that have marred their operation.