Stephen Kinnock MP interview

Will Barber-Taylor: Hello, and welcome to the Centre Think Tank interview series. As always, I am your host, Will Barber-Taylor. And in this episode, I am delighted to be joined by the Member of Parliament for Aberavon since 2015, Shadow Minister for Asia and the Pacific 2020 to 2021, Shadow Minister for the Armed Forces 2021 to 2022, and the current Shadow Minister for Immigration, Stephen Kinnock. Welcome to the interview, Stephen.

Stephen Kinnock: Thank you, Will. It is great to be here.

Will Barber-Taylor: It is great to have you on, Stephen. And the first question that I would like to ask is, and this is a think tank called Centre Think Tank. So the first question I would like to ask is, what do you think of as the centre in British politics? What do you think is characteristic of it?

Stephen Kinnock: Well, the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. famously said that the middle of the road is not the vital centre, it is the dead centre. And I agree with that. I am not particularly keen on the centrist label because it puts the cart before the horse. It seems to sort of say, well, everything we do should be aiming to triangulate, to aim for a middle point between different ideologies and political views. Whereas I think your starting point should be what is best for the country? What is best for solving the problems and addressing the challenges, and ensuring that we are aligned with our values? And if you start with that, I think you do often end up in a more nuanced position because, in my opinion, generally speaking, simplistic, ideologically driven positions are rarely those that deliver the best possible outcomes. And as politicians, we are here to represent the people who elected us and to improve their lives. So I think that what that means is that you have to have a basic framework of values and principles.

I believe that is about having a market economy, but ensuring that that market economy is properly regulated. I believe that regulation saves the market economy from eating itself. We saw with the financial crash, for example, when unfettered deregulation was the order of the day, the market eats itself and destroys itself, and that is bad for everybody. A well-regulated market economy, real strength on national security, real building of the resilience of our economy through ensuring that local people have great job opportunities and help to build a country that can stand more firmly on our own two feet, but balancing that with internationalism and recognising that we have to have good, positive, constructive relationships with our neighbours, particularly our democratic allies in this very turbulent and dangerous world in which we live. And that is an example that illustrates this need for a balanced and nuanced approach. On the one hand, really standing up for British industry, building a strong manufacturing base, but without slipping into protectionism, balancing the need to stand up for the nation with the need to be internationalist. And I think that is just one example. Some people call that centrism. I just call that good politics and recognising the world in which we live as a complex place, and there are rarely simplistic answers for solving complex problems.

Will Barber-Taylor: Absolutely. And you touch upon British industry there and how best to approach it in a positive political way. And of course, that is part of the heart of Labour Renaissance, which you are the chair of and has been doing a great deal of work attempting to reconnect voters with the Labour Party who may have felt distant from the Labour Party in the past. For people who have not heard of Labour Renaissance before, could you just explain what Labour Renaissance is and what it aims to do?

Stephen Kinnock: Yes, it is a group that I set up along with several other colleagues, people like Justin Madders MP, Carolyn Harris MP, Ruth Smeeth, who was a colleague here in parliament and others. And it is all about reconnecting with the voters that Labour lost in December 2019, but we recognise that many of the losses in December 2019 were a long time coming. This was not just an overnight decision that people made to abandon the party, to abandon the Labour Party. It has been an issue that has been bubbling under for a long time. And so what we did was establish eight conversations with former voters across the country, but all in constituencies that we lost in December 2019.

We asked them several questions about their thoughts on politics and the broader state of the nation. And then we talked to them about possible stories about the future of the country that Labour could and should be telling, and got their feedback on those stories and what worked. Broadly speaking, there is a real appetite for a Labour Party that is the party of work, passionate about work. The clue is in the name. We are the Labour Party. We stand for the labour interest. We stand for the interests of working people. And we want to create good jobs that you can raise a family on across the country.

Secondly, a Labour Party that is very responsible in the way it manages the economy. And this idea of investing now to save later, everything that we do, every decision we make in terms of money that we invest, must be about saving money for the taxpayer in the long term. It is, prevention being much better than a cure. Great examples are investing in education, which ends up saving you a huge amount of money because you are creating young people who actually are going to go out there, be productive and get good jobs. And that is good for them. And it is also good for the economy.

And thirdly, about this idea of a Britain that can stand more firmly on its own two feet. So we need to be much stronger in manufacturing. We believe that manufacturing should be rebuilt in our country because that is the basis of our resilience. The pandemic exposed the extent to which we have outsourced so much of our critical national infrastructure to other countries. And many of those countries are certainly not friends of the United Kingdom, China being probably the most salient example. And so that idea of bringing back manufacturing, rebuilding manufacturing, but as I was saying earlier, not at all slipping into protectionism, but just having a relationship with our partners and allies in the European Union that works for business, promotes good competition and innovation and investment so that we can get our economy firing on all cylinders again.

Those are the three main narratives that worked well with the voters that we spoke with. And, we have been working closely with Keir Starmer’s office and others to take those ideas forward. And in fact, I do not know if there are any members of the Labour Party listening to this, but we have been taking Renaissance out to constituency Labour parties all over the country. We have done dozens of Zoom discussions where we have set out what Renaissance is about. And we have had great question-and-answer sessions and discussions with Labour members afterwards. So if there is anybody there who would welcome the opportunity to have a Renaissance discussion in their Constituency Labour Party, I am sure you know how to contact me or Will, and you could help as well. So that was a shameless plug for our work, but we are keen to get this debate moving forward across the Labour Party and indeed across the country.

Will Barber-Taylor: Absolutely. And I am sure that there will be many people, members of the Labour Party, listening who would very much like to take you up on that offer and would be very interested in that. Moving on to your current role, Shadow Minister for Immigration, you mentioned Britain’s relationship with the EU, which has changed significantly in the past few years. How do you view immigration, and how do you think we can ensure immigration runs smoothly in a post-Brexit world? Because one of the major issues in the referendum was related to immigration?

Stephen Kinnock: We need an immigration system that is firm, fair and well-managed. There are essentially two big aspects of the job that I am doing as Shadow Immigration Minister. One is the asylum system, and one is work-based migration. We must see those two things as very different beasts. Those people who are fleeing violence and persecution, many of them risking their lives to cross the channel on small boats. They are not economic migrants. They are seeking refuge. And there is a big difference between the two. So it is very important to emphasise that.

Looking at those two aspects of the job, what we need on the asylum side is three things. We have to negotiate a successor to the Dublin regulations. So when we were in the European Union, we were part of the Dublin regulation, which enabled countries to return asylum seekers to a safe country. And that was enabling us to return when we were in the European Union, those who were unsuccessful in securing asylum. And one of the reasons that we have seen a huge upsurge in the number of people risking their lives by coming across the channel on small boats and clinging to the axles of lorries is that when we came out of the Dublin regulation, the government did not attempt to negotiate a successor to it. And as a result, the word gets out amongst the people smugglers that if you can get to the UK, the UK has nowhere to send you to or back.

Of course, the government is trying now to address that with this disgraceful Rwanda policy. That is not the right way to do things, particularly because the Rwanda policy is not about processing people who could potentially come back to the UK if their applications are successful. It is a one-way ticket to Rwanda. It is an offloading policy, not a processing policy. So Labour profoundly disagrees with that, and we have been making that clear in Parliament.

So there is a need for a returns agreement. There is a need for safe and legal routes. We have got things like the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, and the Dubs Scheme for unaccompanied minors. The government has closed all of those schemes down. So it is no wonder that people are coming on these small boats because they have no safe and legal route to come through. And the other huge piece that we need to do is invest in fixing our broken asylum application processing system that has completely collapsed since the pandemic, to the point where we now have 37,000 asylum seekers languishing in hotels, they have not been granted asylum yet, they are seeking asylum. 37,000, which is costing the taxpayer an eye-watering four million pounds a day. So, three big things to fix there.

And then on the work-based migration, well, we have left the European Union, we are not going to go back to free movement of labour, we need to keep the points-based system. But there are a lot of improvements that can be made to the points-based system, particularly linking it better to a skills strategy and ensuring that employers are not just solving issues in their companies by simply importing labour from other countries. We need to see a clear skills plan. We want to promote the idea of dialogue between trade unions, government and business to set out strategies for each sector of the economy to determine how many migrant labourers and how many workers from other countries are needed to bring in, whilst balancing that against ensuring that you are recruiting and skilling up your local workforce. I guess that is a good example of what we were saying earlier about a nuanced position, saying, “Look, we need a regulated labour market. And if you have a properly functioning work-based, point-based migration system, you can regulate the labour market more effectively.” And that is what we are after.

Will Barber-Taylor: Absolutely. I would now like to just turn to your views on Welsh devolution because, of course, you represent a Welsh constituency and some people will argue that devolution in Wales has gone far enough, some who will argue that it needs to go further. What do you think should happen regarding devolution? Do you think that there are further changes that need to be made about Wales’s relationship with the rest of the UK? Or do you think that the settlement in terms of devolution for Wales is far enough, and any further would go on to something akin to independence?

Stephen Kinnock: I am convinced that this so-called levelling up policy cannot work without real and meaningful devolution. But I think it needs to happen across the UK. What we have got into is a dangerous imbalance between Wales and Scotland, having very visible, high-profile political representation now and clearly defined policies. And of course, the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the unintended outcomes from the point of view of the hyper-centralising Conservative government, is that it did underline to people that there is a very clearly devolved government in Scotland and a devolved government in Wales, and they are making decisions every day that affect people’s daily lives. And that I think has reinforced the value of devolution, bringing decision-making closer to people, making it clear to people that they have got more ownership of the issues and that you can solve problems more effectively by taking decisions closer to people than thinking you can just pull a lever in Whitehall and it is going to have the desired impact in Scunthorpe or Wigan or Cornwall, or wherever it may be.

So I believe in the principle of devolution as a better way of delivering good outcomes. But it has to be across the UK. So I think we need a constitutional convention. I think we need citizens’ assemblies about how this should work because it would be pretty ironic, wouldn’t it, if you ended up making decisions about devolution through some men in pinstripe suits in Westminster’s ivory towers. We have got to get this debate out of Westminster and Whitehall into the rest of the country. And we have to set up a proper process that would make recommendations and lead to legislation.

Of course, you need the centre to play a strong and active role in that. You do need, to some extent, an overall plan and framework from the centre to drive this forward because it has to be a partnership. And, I think that more UK-wide devolution would be very helpful for devolution in Wales and Scotland as well. And it would ensure that you do not end up with a situation where power gets centralised in Westminster or Cardiff, or Edinburgh. It needs to be to local authorities, local enterprise partnerships, and city region deals that we have in Wales.

So I do not have a one-size-fits-all answer to your question because, by definition, I think a one-size-fits-all answer would be running counter to the spirit in which I think you asked that question. I think it needs to be based on deliberative democracy, an inclusive process, citizens’ assemblies leading to a constitutional convention with a set of recommendations that can be debated both here in parliament and right across the country. And it should include things like devolution of tax-raising powers, devolution of spending powers, devolution of every aspect of the system, which is currently not devolved, where you, in essence, test each case and ask, Could we improve things by doing it this way? What resources would be required, and let us devolve accordingly?

And I think we have also got examples around Europe of how that has worked pretty well in places like Germany, to some extent in Spain, of course, they have had massive problems with Catalonia, but I recently attended a presentation by a senior councillor from the Basque region about how they have regenerated Bilbao. And it is an extraordinary story.

And it is based on the principles of radical devolution. And what they have done in Bilbao is an absolute example of levelling up. And I do not think they could have done it without a radically devolved model.

Will Barber-Taylor: Absolutely. Now, Centre Think Tank has taken a lot of inspiration from Nordic countries in terms of areas such as collective bargaining, environmental policy, etc. And of course, you have a very close link to one of those nations, to Denmark. Do you think that there are any policies or ideas that we in Britain could learn from Denmark, or that we could take from Denmark and adapt to the UK?

Stephen Kinnock: Yes, I think labour market reform is an area where I think Denmark is an outstanding example of how to do it. So they have this system called Flexicurity, which is based on building a strong safety net for people who lose their jobs, for whatever reason. So we live in a fast-moving, fast-changing economy. And it is often the case that for businesses to survive and remain competitive, they have to change. They have to restructure. They sometimes look for different and new skills. And that means that they often have to change their workforce.

We have got so many examples in the UK of that, those changes happening, and then people just being put onto benefits and left to their own devices. And of course, South Wales still bears the scars of the catastrophic failures of Margaret Thatcher’s government to have a plan B for all of those miners who lost their jobs following the effective closing down of the coal mining industry in South Wales.

That is just one example of where there was no proactive labour market support. In Denmark, if you lose your job, you genuinely have a Rolls-Royce service. It is almost more like a headhunting sector where there is exactly that. So they are publicly funded, the job centres, but it is each job centre worker has a very, very small number of people that they support and they proactively go out and support with CV writing, support with thinking about where the right move might be, support with liaising with different businesses that might be looking for somebody of that profile, setting up meetings, and a very generous unemployment support package so that people might leave the job they are leaving, but they are bouncing right back into the economy and often ending up in a better place than they were before.

That drives productivity, it drives better morale, and it ensures that you have good people having good and meaningful jobs that they can raise a family on. The principle of Flexicurity, of investing in retraining people, because of course it helps productivity in the company that people have left because the employers there have been able to make the changes that they need to make and they are confident that if they do make those changes, they are not kicking people onto the scrap heap, quite the opposite, they are putting them in onto a trampoline, which will help them to bounce back and jump higher. So those, I think, are the principles of a proactive labour market support system. And I feel that our system is just, and it is anachronistic, it is under-resourced, there has not been enough support for it, under-invested, and as a result, we have ended up with people getting more and more distant from the labour market and less and less able to get back into it and less and less able to get back into it at a level which is commensurate with their abilities. The British government should look very closely at the Danish Flexicurity system.

Will Barber-Taylor: Absolutely. We are coming towards the end of the interview, Stephen. It has been great to have you on, and I have one final question. Now, Wales will be playing off against the Netherlands. It is going to be, I am sure, a game that you will watch tensely. So my final question is, if you could play in any iconic game, whether it be a famous football game or a famous rugby game, if you could have your moment in the sun in one of those games that is immortalised in history, which football game or rugby game would you choose to appear in?

Stephen Kinnock: Oh my goodness, what a question. I did not see that one coming, Will. Well, I of course watched Wales winning 1-0 to get to the World Cup against Ukraine. And that was a tough one to watch in some ways, because of course, we all were feeling for Ukraine, and it was such an odd match in some ways. But I have to say the boys played extremely well and thoroughly deserved to win. And I am so, so chuffed that we have ended 64 years without qualifying for a World Cup for the first time since 1958.

I did see the Netherlands match the other night. I was very disappointed by that last-minute header for the Netherlands that gave them the 2-1 victory. And yeah, really fingers crossed for this evening. But yeah, I am passionate about rugby. And I have to say there was a legendary match in which Scott Gibbs scored a legendary try against England to win it, and I cannot even remember the year now, but it was that. I would, if I could have been Scott Gibbs, that sidestep was without doubt the greatest sidestep I have ever seen. So I think being the guy who executed that sidestep would probably be my dream sporting moment.

Will Barber-Taylor: Well, I think that it is a sporting moment that a lot of people would like to have experienced as well. Thank you once again for coming to the interview, Stephen. If people want to find out more about you and about Labour Renaissance, where should they go to find out more?

Stephen Kinnock: Yeah, we have a website. And if you just Google Labour Renaissance, you will see the website. You can sign up there and get information about all the work that we are doing. And of course, please feel free to perhaps message me through Will if you would like Labour Renaissance to come to your Constituency Labour Party for a short presentation, and it is all about the question-and-answer session and the debate. That would be the best way to do it, but just Google us Labour Renaissance and you should get the information you are after.

Will Barber-Taylor: Excellent. Thank you once again for coming on, Stephen.

Stephen Kinnock: Thanks, Will, I appreciate it.

Note: This interview has been edited for grammar, clarity, and flow. The original recording is the final and definitive version.