In conversation with Steve Race

Benedict Thompson and Austin Taylor, Features Editors, talk to Steve Race, Labour candidate for Exeter, about local politics in Exeter, domestic affairs and his vision for Exeter

rience and what they think generally.

É: According to St Petrock’s, since 2021, homelessness in Exeter has doubled. How would you tackle this issue?

UK climate scientists either here or at the Met Office, and my job as an MP is really to make sure that continues.

É: What is on your mind about the ongoing NHS strikes?

needs, such as hearing aids, met. Would you nationalise care homes?

STEVE Race is standing to replace Ben Bradshaw as Exeter Labour’s Parliamentary candidate in the 2024 general election. Race previously worked for Bradshaw as an assistant. He currently serves as a Labour Councillor in Hackney, London. Benedict Thompson and Austin Taylor, Features Editors, spoke to Race about his political background, domestic affairs and his vision for Exeter.

É: Thank you for coming. We would like to know at what moment you realised that you wanted to become an MP.

SR: So, you don’t necessarily want to become an MP. What you want to do is change something or make a difference. That can sound a bit hackneyed, but it is what most MPs want to do, certainly in the Labour Party. I grew up on a council estate on the edge of Hull with my mum, brother, and sometimes a stepdad. Overall, until I was about 14, it all felt a bit of a struggle. We’d share an old textbook between three people at school and things like that. With the change in 1997 and the investments in public services, though, you could sense a change. I had a sister who was born with a genetic condition — she was quite severely disabled. Things got better for her, and my mum felt like things were working a lot better after that time. I wanted to be part of that change, so, I joined the Labour Party and got involved. I really liked the door knocking aspect and picking up on people’s problems on the doorstep. So, I was really inspired by Ben and his election, and was very excited when I went to work for him and see the difference he made to Exeter over the years. It has really got its sense of civic pride over the last sort of 20 years. People are proud to be from Exeter, they’re proud of their inclusivity and openness, and their climate change agenda. Exeter does a lot in that regard with the Met Office and the University.

SR: So, I think people have short memories, and I think that’s perfectly reasonable. However, if you look back at the figures and data for the Labour government up until 2010, homelessness was at historic lows and they almost completely abolished it. This was because political decisions were made to focus on the two main reasons for rough sleeping — mental health, and the fact that the people made homeless were often veterans. There was a big focus on supporting people into accommodation, and that has totally ended over the past 13 years. You then have the issue that Exeter is surrounded by a large, semi-rural area, and when people are homeless they gravitate towards the centre. St Petrock’s do a fantastic job of dealing with such a big geographical area, but you have to have a national strategy. It can be done when the national government puts the funding and the policies behind it. It is a struggle for local authorities, though, when they have lost 60 per cent of their core funding.

It can be done when the national government puts the funding and the policies behind it

SR: Listen, I think strikes are strikes and industrial action is an integral part of any democracy. I think sometimes people forget that when workers go on strike, they don’t get paid for those days, so it’s a real last resort for those people. I think across all the sectors, we have a specific problem with inflation. That’s not being driven by wage inflation, because we’ve got inflation without wage inflation. In fact, we’ve had wage deflation in many places for the last sort of ten to 12 years. So, I completely support people’s right to strike and the fact that they are. In fact, we didn’t need to get to this position; the government has, in every sector, failed and often refused. The Tories are essentially trying to use it as a political wedge to paint the Labour Party as being on the side of unions and not on the side of people. In reality, it is more the fact that the Tories could solve this and have refused to do that. It is weak leadership from the Tories not having wanted to, or not actually knowing, how to fix this.

I completely support people’s right to strike and the fact that they are What you want to do is change something or make a difference

É: Some would argue that coming from a working-class background often makes getting into politics more difficult — did you ever feel like that was a challenge? If so, how did you get that block out of your head ?

SR: Definitely, I think you have a bit of imposter syndrome. I’ve got over that over the years, a little bit. But, when you’re first in a room with the Prime Minister just because you’re a member of the Labour Party, it is a massive thing, right? But, actually, what you realise is that joining political parties is a real sort of leveller, because you are all on one team. When people say that not many workingclass people get into politics, I think we just have a different working class today. When people say ‘working class’, they usually mean people working on factories and stuff. Obviously, we have less of that in this country these days and have moved a bit towards a skills-based economy. We do need to make sure that the people who represent the country also represent their communities. I think we do get that, but I think there’s a lot of people who say that, in general, MPs don’t reflect them, but that their local MP does. So, I think there is a separation between their own personal expe -

É: You touched on it a bit there, but what would your idea of a greener Exeter be?

SR: Yeah, I mean, there’s two things around that. We’ve got huge amounts to do in terms of water quality and sort of the biodiversity and making sure that the city continues to be green, it’s one of the greenest cities in the country, which is great. We need to do better at that, though. There is a problem that lots of places have, which is the number of short car journeys we use. The move to electric cars is fine — it cuts down the emissions of the tailpipe, but it doesn’t cut down emissions through the supply chain. Furthermore, no city can just bear an ever-increasing number of individual private cars. On the flip side, though, you need better public transport, you need greener, more reliable, more regular, more affordable public transport. People haven’t been able to rely on the bus system in Exeter for the past year or so. And hopefully, it’s getting a bit better. We also really need to work on making Exeter a real cluster of excellence for climate tech and new businesses. We need to make sure that in the future, when people want a new set of clients or businesses, they need to come to Exeter not just because they want to, but because they have to go where everyone else is. We have got the top five of

SR: I don’t know about that to be honest. I don’t really have an answer for you. I know the Labour Party is doing a lot of thinking on what it wants to do about social care afterwards. Lots of care home chains have monetised the land and the buildings and they’ve leveraged their way out and things like that. I am sure they do some good stuff as well. To have a national care service you don’t need to nationalise everything. I have never been the sort of person to think that the government must own everything for it to be a real national service. Often something like a pharmacy is a private organisation, but it delivers services on behalf of the NHS. GPs are a classic example of this. They have never been nationalised but are an integral part of the NHS. There are different ways of fixing the issue. I don’t necessarily think that nationalisation is the answer, but then I don’t know the answer yet. We are heading into a general election where we’re not going to have much money, and we are going to have to decide what the spending priorities will be after the general election. We cannot promise everything that we want to do now. It will be a bit of a slow process.

É: Is there any cladding on tower blocks which has been deemed dangerous in Exeter?

É: Keir Starmer has referred to NHS reform a few times before. What do you think that could look like under a Labour government?

SR: Yes, I think reform is one of those words that people say, but people often don’t necessarily know what it means. The NHS is an enormous organisation, there are over a million people employed, it has a huge budget, and has lots of sites dealing with very different things. Technology, medicine, and treatment pathways are always changing, and the NHS needs to be in constant reform to keep up with that. But, in terms of reform, generally, we have an NHS which is very good at being a sickness service. When you are acutely sick, it can patch you up and send you off. When you’re chronically sick, it is ok, but not necessarily as good as it should be. We have come to think of hospitals as being the NHS. Actually, we need to be doing lots of treatment at home. Lots more investment into public health and social care will free up the NHS. And we need to make sure that the NHS is more focused on patient outcomes, and more on treatment at home. We also don’t do enough on diagnostics, where lots of other countries do more identifying of issues and events.

É: There are some care homes in the private sector that are making huge profits, whilst there are some people that haven’t had their basic

SR: Good question. It has not be raised with me, but I can definitely check on that.

É: If there was, would you fight for that to be taken away?

SR: Yes, absolutely. Certainly, partly the local authority stuff has been done. The last couple of years, there has been wranglings between the government and the industrial sector about private housing. I think they have come to a conclusion on that over the last couple of months about who pays, but it has taken far too long. Even if the cladding is not unsafe, it is often down to the certification, there are not enough inspectors to go around and work it out. So, there are lots of people with mortgages who have been unable to sell their home and move, lots of people have been stuck in houses and it’s not been ideal. For sure, where the council is responsible for it they need to make sure that social housing is up to the highest standard.

É: Did you have any tips for a student who wants to get involved in politics?

SR: My instinct is to get involved, and not necessarily through a political party, if you don’t feel you want to. This might sound a bit hackneyed, but I always believed that anyone can make a difference. I know that the Exeter Labour Student Society get involved in loads of stuff across the city, not only supporting me in the Labour Party, but things like helping to run a food bank, and that kind of thing.