20

Number of

Number crunching

36

ministerial posts held by the Liberal Democrats

Number of pages in the formal coalition agreement

June 22

Date of the government’s emergency Budget

£6.2bn

Amount of waste ministers expect to save in the fi rst year

possible in his appointments. In both 1979 and 1997, just over three-fifths of the new Cabinet had shadowed the same posts in opposition. Now, the main exceptions are Theresa May at the Home Office and Philip Hammond at Transport. Kenneth Clarke at Justice is familiar with the pris- ons side of his department from his time at the Home Office in 1992/93. Even the need to make room for the LibDems has not disrupted this too much since both Cable and Huhne had shadowed their current areas until late 2007.

Running order: the

Queen’s Speech was delayed for a week to allow MPs and ministers time to settle in

numbers. Maude is also expanding the number of business people sitting as non-executives on the boards of govern- ment departments, now to be chaired by secretaries of state.

The centre will continue to take a leading role in strategy through the inter- linking activities of Oliver Letwin (in charge of the negotiations over the coali- tion agreement); Steve Hilton, Cameron’s strategic thinker; and James O’Shaughnessy, the head of policy. This has involved the Strategy Unit looking at longer-term questions such as the Big Society, the main theme of the Tories’ now superseded manifesto, and other cross-cutting matters.

The other main institutional innovation

is the creation of the Office for Budget Responsibility to provide an independent assessment of the nation’s finances. Ini- tially, this will operate on a non-statutory basis under Sir Alan Budd, the distinguished former Treasury chief economist and an early member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Com- mittee. The OBR will make independent forecasts of the economy and public fi- nances to be published ahead of the Budget on June 22. However, unlike the Monetary Policy Committee, the OBR’s role is advisory, to provide a public benchmark against which the decisions of the politicians can be judged. Cameron has also listened to advice in trying to achieve as much continuity as

MINISTERS ARE HAVING TO WORK WITH THEIR OLD POLITICAL FOES

www.publicfi nance.co.uk

The coalition has also benefited from the decision to delay the meeting of Par- liament and the Queen’s Speech by a week, to May 18 and 25 respectively. The suggestion, made by the Commons Modernisation Committee and the Insti- tute for Government, was essentially to allow new MPs longer to settle in at Westminster and new ministers longer to get to grips with their new departments, especially in preparing legislation for the Queen’s Speech. This delay has proved to be very useful since some of the ministers in the new coalition were not appointed until after what would normally have been the day for the Queen’s Speech. The government’s legislative pro- gramme is very ambitious – dominated by the deficit reduction programme but also featuring far-reaching legislation on schools, welfare reform and a constitu- tional agenda (electoral reform for the Commons, fixed-term Parliaments, creating an elected second chamber, the recall of MPs found guilty of abuse and a Freedom Bill to scrap identity cards and strengthen civil liberties). That range and pace of activity should ensure the coalition’s survival for at least the long 18-month first session of Parliament. The LibDems will want to stay in the coalition at least until the referendum on the Alternative Vote is held, in autumn 2011 at the earliest, and until the legislation on fixed-term Parliaments is approved. But that will also be the time when the public spending cuts are biting. LibDem activists and MPs might be dis- contented then. Looking forward to the next election, it is hard to see how the Tories and the LibDems can face the electorate in harness, without the latter losing their identity. Clegg already needs to be thinking about his exit strategy.

■ Peter Riddell is chief political commentator of The Times and a senior fellow of the Institute for Government

MAY 28–JUNE 3 2010 PUBLIC FINANCE 19

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