Newsletter #60: Reform announce ‘Project 2029’

PLUS: Rachel Reeves balances an increase in tax on average earners with symbolic tax raids in the wealthy

Good morning.

This week we discuss Reform’s big speech on their plans to transform government, and dive into some more rumours in advance of Rachel Reeves’ budget.

This newsletter’s agenda: Reform announce Project 2029 (free/paid); Rachel Reeves to balance an increase in the basic rate of income tax with symbolic raids on the wealthy (paid).

Reform announce ‘Project 2029’

On Tuesday, Danny Kruger (Reform’s newest MP and head of ‘preparing for government’) and Zia Yusuf (Reform’s ‘head of policy’, to whom Kruger apparently reports) appeared together at a press conference to discuss the ongoing development of Reform’s plans for transforming the operations of government and the civil service once in office. The two are reportedly close allies within Reform leadership, and have got along well since Kruger defected in September.

Kruger’s presentation began with the announcement of Reform’s intention to develop a far more detailed agenda for government than any incoming administration in recent memory, including a range of pre-written legislation to give them a running start to their first term in office. In addition, the party will have candidates lined up for key appointments, bringing in ‘expertise, advice and executive capacity’ from outside Whitehall, to both civil service leadership and ministerial roles. The intention, according to Kruger, is to ensure that a Reform Government is positioned to give a clear list of priorities to civil servants upon entering Downing Street — not the other way around.

He went on to outline a series of reforms designed to bring the civil service to heel, including a new civil service code which removes duties to consider international law and expands the definition of impartiality to cover expression and promotion of ‘socially controversial views’ (rather than just direct support for a political party). He declared that senior civil servants and those at the center of government will be made accountable to ministers, including giving ministers the power to hire and fire key people in their delivery team.

These changes are welcome, and demonstrate the level of seriousness which Reform has adopted over the past six months in particular. Whilst the first weeks of the Trump administration demonstrated the power of ‘shock and awe’ to keep internal resistance to a minimum, the subsequent slow-down has shown the limits of that strategy, and whilst expanding the definition of impartiality is useful, civil servants who wish to pursue their own agenda will still seek to do so regardless of any restrictions. For that reason, we must hope that as plans further develop, and further develop they must, they lean more on the latter measures — making as much of the civil service as possible vulnerable to direct ministerial accountability — than the former.

Kruger lambasted the growth of the Civil Service, which has accelerated since COVID, and the failure of pay freezes which have merely led to rampant overpromotion and an absurd situation in which there are substantially more middle-grade employees than low-grade. He suggested that the civil service would have its headcount substantially reduced, allowing leases on many government buildings (which come up for renewal during the next parliament) to lapse and restoring the government to its eponymous home street of Whitehall.

Crucially, he did not commit to specific numbers on employee reductions, instead insisting that the size and shape of the civil service must be informed by a revised understanding of its desired functions. Such a commitment represents a refreshing rejection of populist temptations which the Conservative Party readily embraced in arbitrary calls to return headcounts to 2016 levels.