A harder bargain

“This was our moment of greatest strength and leverage… this was the point at which to try and impose our will on as much of the Government’s business as we could”. But Harvey believes that the Liberal Democrats squandered many of the opportunities offered by the coalition negotiations in May 2010. Given a second chance this May, he argued, they should seek to strike a much harder bargain in terms of ministerial posts and political influence.

Nick Harvey speaking at the Institute for Government

As Minister for the Armed Forces from May 2010 to September 2012, Harvey has experience of the Coalition from the very beginning. In After the Rose Garden, a new pamphlet for the Institute, Harvey has used this experience to set out the conditions that the Lib Dems should demand in exchange for their support in the next Parliament. On Tuesday, in a speech to launch the publication, he set out the three clear messages for his party going into another coalition negotiation: take your time; demand representation and support across all departments; and don’t be afraid to say no. Take your time in any coalition negotiations Harvey’s first argument was that the 2010 coalition negotiations were rushed. At the time this was unavoidable, given the pressure from the financial markets to deliver stability. “The world expected a government to be formed, and to be formed damn fast,” he said – and so it was. Nevertheless, Harvey argued that in the rush to agree coalition terms, important questions of personnel and protocol – of “how many Liberal Democrats there would be in the government, what posts they would occupy, how well supported we would be” – were overlooked. This was a significant error which would come back to haunt his party: “We came to realise that the arrangements we had made, the number of posts we had secured, the lack of resource, had all been negotiated just too quickly.” Harvey advised taking longer over negotiation, and perhaps covering issues such as personnel and protocol before an election. Demand representation and support in every department Harvey also set out in detail what his party should demand in these negotiations, drawing on his own experiences as a Coalition minister. He likened his role in the Ministry of Defence to being “parachuted in behind enemy lines, with no line of communication open to base camp… guessing what command and control would expect me to do in these circumstances”. The Lib Dems were spread too thinly across government, he said: some departments had no Lib Dem representation – a situation which he considers “ridiculous” – whilst others had only a junior minister with limited support from the Civil Service. For these isolated and under-resourced ministers, “trying to protect coalition equity and impose Lib Dem will on the work of their entire government department was frankly impossible”. Harvey suggested that, if the Lib Dems are the kingmakers after the 2015 election, then their “minimum demand” should be a minister and a special adviser in every government department, with equal access to government papers and the freedom to initiate policy work. Just say no Harvey’s final piece of advice was not to shy away from opposing the larger coalition party. He recalled advice given to the party by European Liberal and Democrat politicians with coalition experience: “If you don’t agree with something, don’t agree to it!” On issues such as tuition fees, Harvey argued, the Lib Dems gave in too easily. In future, the smaller party should be willing to use its position of influence to block policies: “It should be relatively easy for the smaller party to stop the larger party doing something it doesn’t want them to do, because the larger party cannot do a thing without the consent of the smaller party.” Responding to Harvey’s speech, David Willetts – who, as a minister in the Liberal Democrat-led business department, had a parallel experience to Harvey – suggested that Harvey was “a bit harsh on his own side”; and, by implication, on the Coalition as a whole. He argued that Lib Dems were not under-supported; the Deputy Prime Minister’s office has been significantly expanded, and other Lib Dem ministers could escalate concerns to this office or the Quad. He added that the disputes Harvey had described between coalition partners occur between ministers even in a single-party government. And he suggested that, far from damaging the party’s identity, coalition with the Conservatives had allowed the Lib Dems to benefit from a narrative “in which it is the civilising, big-hearted, compassionate Lib Dems stopping the mad, neoliberal axe-men running amok”. This has “skilfully located” the Liberal Democrats in the centre ground of politics, he said: “If I were a Lib Dem, being the heart to the Tory head is a much more attractive narrative than being the head to Labour’s heart.” So how likely is it that, in May 2015, the Liberal Democrats will be in a position to make the demands that Harvey suggests – and that they will be accepted? Much of what Harvey recommends rests – as he admitted – on the Liberal Democrats having sufficient negotiating power at the next election: “The critical thing is,” he added, “are we the difference between making a government and not making a government? If that’s what’s on offer from the Liberal Democrats, I would not be trimming back my demands one inch.” There is, of course, no guarantee that this will be the case. The polls do not bode well for the Lib Dems and, as the Institute’s Akash Paun pointed out during the discussion at the event, a coalition partner is unlikely to offer more ministerial positions in exchange for fewer parliamentary seats. A smaller party making the kind of demands set out by Harvey could easily overplay its hand, pushing its negotiating partner into attempting a minority government. But many of Harvey’s recommendations as to how the machinery of government should adapt to coalition are sensible: indeed some, such as greater clarity on what the Civil Service can offer junior ministers, have been recommended by the Institute for Government. Harvey’s position does require the Lib Dems to secure enough seats to represent the only way into government for one of the major parties. But if the parliamentary arithmetic is in their favour, the Lib Dems’ negotiating partner can expect to pay a much higher price for the party’s cooperation this time around. The party of May 2010 that Harvey described – eager to return to power after 80 years in the wilderness – no longer exists. The Lib Dems have learned the political costs that coalition can exact, and upped the price of cooperation: “It would be a mistake for the Liberal Democrats in this election to think that just because we’ve done it once, we’ve got to do it twice,” Harvey concluded. “We’ll only drive a reasonable deal from our point of view if we are genuinely willing to walk away and say no.” Potential coalition partners should take note.