By Jamie Connolly

As I sat down with Nick Herbert MP in late July to discuss the current political climate and the Conservative Party’s vision for the future, he told me about when he was visiting China a few years ago. He was asked by a Chinese citizen, unaware of what a Member of Parliament was, “Who do you work for? Do you work for the people or do you work for the Government?” Nick Herbert is a man who works for the people.

Since becoming MP for Arundel and South Downs in May 2005, he has been a staunch advocate of localism and the reempowering of individuals and communities by shifting power from Whitehall to the local communities. He has retained these roots as he rose through the ranks of the Conservative Party, quickly becoming Shadow Minister for Police Reform and now Shadow Justice Secretary, only two years since taking office in the House of Commons.

In his commitment to the advancement of localism, Nick Herbert has been an avid supporter of Direct Democracy, a movement dedicated to making localism the core of the Conservative Party’s platform, with his own experiences as an MP reinforcing his commitment to its ideals. “Citizens feel disconnected from politics and the political process; the return of power to the people and communities will be a very important way of re-connecting them. I see in my constituency, whole communities seem to be shut out from decisions that actually affect them. Whether it was over the future of their local hospitals… post office closures or the amalgamation of police forces… the communities just felt that they weren’t getting a say – that they weren’t being listened to.”

“We live in one of the most centralised countries in the world, where increasingly decisions are taken in Westminster and Whitehall, by wholly unelected bodies or people. We need to restore accountability, we need to return power to the local level to encourage active participation in politics; this is an incredibly important way of building trust and confidence again in the political system. Because we have to show people that politics matter and that they can change things, that things won’t go on being the same, that their voice matters. This cause of localism is one of the great new issues of the day, one which the Conservative party is enthusiastically embracing. We want to give citizens the ability to get matters debated in Parliament, we want to give citizens the powers of initiation and also give them information about what is going on. All this is very important if we are going to encourage the kind of active politics that we want to see.”

However, Mr Herbert warns that this reengagement of citizens in the political process should not be attempted through reform of the voting system. “I have never thought that electoral reform, of the voting system anyway, is the way to rebuild engagement and confidence in politics. In fact, I think it would be a recipe for creating instability and uncertainty… We don’t favour any change to the first past the post system… because we want a system that produces stability of governments and I think the real electoral agenda should be about doing things like introducing individual voter registration to secure the integrity of the ballot.”

One of the key advantages of localism, he believes, is the opportunity to refocus central government on its “proper role” of wholly national matters: “We need to have a look at… the areas in which [central government] is engaged where it should not be, and where decisions could far better and more appropriately be taken by bodies which are closer to the communities. Central government will have an important role… much more focused on what [it] should be doing and that is not interfering with what truly are personal or local decisions.”

One area that a Conservative localism agenda would not reintroduce is the regional agenda, such as regional assemblies whose powers he says are being transferred to unelected QUANGOs and regional development agencies. “A QUANGO state is one of the reasons that people feel less empowered and feel that decisions are being taken away from them. We need to take a very careful look at the growth of QUANGOs and return power where we can – for instance, the regional assemblies are being abolished but those powers are being transferred to unelected regional development agencies. Well, we say that those powers should be moved down to local authorities – that’s where those powers truly belong, that’s where the decisions should be taken.”

In addition to localism, the Conservative Party remains committed to the implementation of a British Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act, which Mr Herbert states has not safeguarded our essential human rights. This Bill of Rights “could then lead to a body of jurisprudence being decided by our own judges that are more in tune with British sensibilities, [it] would safeguard essential rights but what I think would be a more sensible balance between rights and responsibilities…

“There must be inalienable human rights which can’t be balanced or eroded by responsibilities… [but] there are plainly some responsibilities that can be conferred against rights. For instance, if you engage in electoral fraud, you forfeit the right to vote in that election. That is an example of a right that is taken away by the failure to exercise a certain responsibility.”

“A British Bill of Rights needs to be produced with a proper consultation and that needs to be discussed widely by lawyers, by parliamentarians, and by interest groups. I don’t think that should be muddled up with the Government’s rather gimmicky proposals for a British Statement of Values or, for instance, to tour around the country to hold citizens’ summits and discuss what should be in this statement of values until you have some sort of focus driven process… I think we should separate all of that… the Government is making a huge mistake in embarking on that process.  I think it will backfire. I think there is a reason for it being delayed and that is the government itself realises it is problematic.”

With regards to proposals for House of Lords reform, Mr Herbert has consistently voted in favour of a “democratically legitimate” elected second chamber, a stance shared by the Conservative Party. “The formal view of the leadership is that we would like to see a mainly elected second chamber and that’s what we’ll work towards.  I think it’s obviously true that there is strong resistance to the creation of an elected second chamber in the House of Lords itself and there is by no means unanimous agreement in the House of Commons… There is much work left to do and what we will try to do is seek a consensus around creating that mainly elected second chamber.”

On the current state of devolution and the problematic asymmetric exertion of power, Nick Herbert and the Conservative party have expressed support of the “elegant solution” to the West Lothian question provided by Ken Clarke and the Democracy Task Force. “I do not think we should be seeking to address these questions through the prism of English nationalism or do anything that will foster nationalism in any of the countries of the Union. We need to find ways of strengthening the Union and I don’t see that there’s any problem with achieving a sort of sensible voting arrangement, the kind that Ken Clarke has suggested.”

Regarding the Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, Mr Herbert emphasised that what is interesting lies not in the proposals set forth but rather how constitutional reform has “slipped down the government’s agenda. This started out being Gordon Brown’s first statement as Prime Minister – he made it within a day or two of taking office in the House of Commons. We now see this whole constitutional agenda slipping back, being pushed back, whether it’s the Bill of Rights or the Statement of Values or this Draft bill.” Concerning the proposals themselves, Mr Herbert acknowledged that there were many things within the bill with which the Conservative Party could agree.  However, he continued to describe the government’s proposals as a “worthy but inadequate…ragbag collection of measures [that] fall short of the kinds of more radical constitutional checks that we need to see, which is about the empowerment of the citizen and the community… it’s a missed opportunity.”

This article was originally published in the Autumn 2008 issue of Citizen, Unlock Democracy’s member’s magazine. To download a copy, click here.