Over the years, many people have drawn my attention to polls
which suggest that a significant majority of people would be prepared to pay
more tax or higher charges if the extra money raised was being directed to the
NHS. As it happens, I support that view.
Unfortunately, the same people want to ignore all the
research evidence which shows that, when actually offered that choice, people
don’t vote to pay more. When challenged about the contradiction, people explain
their decisions by saying “I didn’t believe the extra cash would go to the NHS”
or “I would pay more…….. but only when the number of managers is cut, or there
isn’t any waste,”.
Of course, we have the right to expect that all our public
services are run efficiently, effectively and responsively and that there is a
continuous quest for performance improvement. Actually, the evidence suggests
that they are, despite the relentless flow of stories to the contrary from some
parts of the media which are determined to promote a particular view of the
world.
There is an irony in the fact that, as an important part of
our democratic process, we devote resources to exposing and making transparent any
failure in public performance. I’m the chair of an all-party select committee
part of whose remit is to hold the government’s performance to public account
and quite right too.
But, just imagine the outcry there would be if there was a
proposal that all companies were required to fund overview and scrutiny of
every aspect of their own performances and that all the information and
findings had to be made public.
I wonder what Volkswagen’s scrutiny committee would have
disclosed about the technology for assessing noxious emissions? Or what would
Tesco’s scrutiny committee have told us about its accounting practices? Or what
would the banks’ scrutiny committees have told us about the integrity of their
activities?
As a matter of interest, the world’s biggest 20 banks have
now paid getting on for £200bn in fines alone since 2008. But, despite the
extent of public anger about the banks’ activities, in true contradictory
style, when faced with the choice, the same people express reluctance to
regulate to intervene.
