A tale of four summits

The first thing a summit does is allow Ministers to set the political agenda. It is cheap symbolism. The holding of a summit allows an issue to be aired, with no commitment of funds. Ministers get invited onto Today (as was Caroline Spelman) to tell us that there is a problem and she is “doing something” and getting ahead of the problem. It is even possible that something mildly useful might come out of bringing in water companies, environmentalists, farmers etc to think about what will happen if unusually low rainfall continues (or it may even mean the start of prolonged rainfall as the Environment Agency’s announcement of drought last summer seemed to do). But Defra summits are definitely second best.  The real prize is an invitation to a No.10 summit. Last week there was a summit on insurance – the so-called Whiplash summit. The Prime Minister got a lot of good publicity for taking on a second order issue about the rising cost of car insurance, got industry players into a room – and appears to have got some commitments to action. Excellent, safe filler Recess material beloved of government spin doctors. The question is whether in six months time any of this results in action. The same questions will be asked about tomorrow’s Cities summit – though good coverage is guaranteed in the Times at least as No.10 have picked up their safe cycling campaign. Today’s NHS summit is rather different. The NHS Bill is hardly an issue which is lacking political salience and needs boosting up the agenda. The PM’s official spokesman was forced to explain that this was about listening to how implementation was going – slightly premature since the Bill is still some way from Royal assent. The entire media focus is not on what happens – but on who is invited and who is not.  Summit guest lists matter. And this appears to be a real attempt by No.10 to signal who is inside the tent – and who is definitely out. The main point of summits is  to coopt attendees – a few No.10 biscuits with the Prime Minister and they are on board. But in contrast to normal summits, it looks like the PR bonus today is on being on the “out” list. Those who have said yes are being painted by their excluded colleagues as collaborators.  The twittersphere is speculating on whether the main impact of the summit will be to force the Royal College of Physicians to withdraw support for the bill.  If that happens a PR stunt will have backfired spectacularly. But tomorrow it will be back to summits as normal. The Health Summit has yet (3.30) to make it onto the No.10 website. No. 10 will be hoping that as the pictures of Andrew Lansley being jostled on his entry into Downing Street will be quickly replaced by a smiling Prime Minister and a lot of happy cyclists.