Cameron and Sunak

David Cameron’s return to front line politics has been heralded as the return of moderation at a time when the Conservative Party appear to be dipping its toes ever further into populist waters. But the reality of Cameron’s time in government was anything but moderate.

In fact, Cameron became the chief architect of a programme of deregulation and austerity that hollowed out regulatory agencies, putting in motion a deregulatory momentum that cuts across government today. Okay, he was never paraded through the streets wielding a chainsaw, Javier Milei-style, but Cameron’s government presided over a fundamental change in the size, scope and capacity of the modern British state.

The impact of these cuts have been pervasive. Whether it’s the steep budget cuts to the Environment Agency resulting in mass pollution of our rivers, crumbling school infrastructure due to falling building inspection rates, or the tragic loss of life that occurred during the Grenfell disaster, communities across the country have felt the impact of weak regulation and the eroded capacity of our regulators.

As Cameron makes his return to Cabinet, the question we should be asking however is not simply what he did, but how he was able to drive through these far reaching reforms with such success.

A masterclass in changing the narrative

The Coalition Government’s success in this regard was underpinned by their creation of an extremely effective political narrative which reframed the debate on regulation. This new narrative belittled the importance of effective regulation through repeated attacks on ‘health and safety culture’, which Cameron insisted was stifling the country’s economic recovery from the financial crash. Gradually, everyone from health and safety officers to building inspectors – those whose job it was to ensure our safety – were dismissed as agents of an infantilising nanny state and were ridiculed as ‘enemies of enterprise’ and common sense.

The narrative laid the groundwork for a series of policy initiatives which axed existing regulations and slashed the funding for enforcement bodies.

The Red Tape Challenge was launched in April 2011, asking the public to submit pieces of regulation for the cutting board. Despite the Business Secretary at the time, Vince Cable, acknowledging that the initiative led to the government being bombarded with calls for more regulation, the Coalition embarked on several purges. In 2014, for example, they announced plans to rip up 80,000 pages of environmental protections in order to streamline business costs and boost growth. Alongside these cuts, the government created a one-in-one-out rule on regulation, meaning no new regulation could be considered unless at least one was cut.

With protections stripped right back, austerity took care of the rest. The Cameron years saw some of the deepest cuts to the budgets of regulators leading to a huge erosion of enforcement capacity. Between 2009 and 2019 for example, the budget of the Environment Agency fell by 63%, whilst Health and Safety Executive funding fell by 58%.

A new zeitgeist on protections

Cameron’s vision still holds currency within today’s Conservative Party. Just two months ago, the current Business Secretary, Kemi Badenoch, announced the government is launching yet another review of our regulators, with plans to use our “Brexit freedoms to scrap unnecessary regulations that hold back firms and hamper growth.”

But any attempt to build an electoral strategy around deregulation would be a serious misreading of the public mood.

Our research with voters in the ‘Blue Wall’, the cluster of mostly suburban Remain-voting constituencies in England that have traditionally voted Conservative, stands this up. It’s these constituencies which Cameron’s brand of Conservatism is meant to hold most appeal, but two thirds agree that the UK currently has the right amount or not enough regulation.

And it’s not just Blue Wall voters who say this. ‘Red Wall’ voters as well as those in key marginal constituencies that will have a significant bearing on the outcome of the next election, are perhaps amongst the most opposed to deregulation.

Whatsmore, aside from the most libertarian strands of the tech industry, the government’s claims that deregulation is a key priority for the private sector seems unfounded. Just last month, UK manufacturing groups hit out against Sunak’s net zero u-turns, describing the move as a ‘huge setback’ for industry planning. In a statement, the chair of Ford UK said, “our business needs three things from the UK government: ambition, commitment and consistency. A relaxation of 2030 [net zero goals] would undermine all three.”

Outside the most libertarian circles, stability rather than deregulation is consistently cited as the greater priority, and so patience with this government’s fickle policy commitments has worn thin.

Lessons from Cameron’s playbook

Thirteen years have passed since the Coalition government took power, and once again UK voters are crying out for change.

For any party intent on taking power, the lesson from Cameron’s era is that delivering effective change comes by galvanising the public around a new story. Fixing ‘broken Britain’ provides that opportunity to tap into the desire for long lasting and transformative change by reshaping how the public views the role of the state.

This must start by putting an end to the tired and tested claims that deregulation benefits communities, and by telling a new story about the value of strong protections in creating a fairer and more prosperous Britain. We need a new story about regulation that is cognisant of voters’ desire for more security. We need to show that powerful and well funded regulators are key to creating the fairer and more accountable society voters crave. And we need to reinterpret sound economic management to ensure that regulation goes hand in hand with sustainable growth and long term investment in our economy.