25 YEARS OF FAIRNESS IN PARLIAMENT: 1998-2023

18 OCTOBER 2023

A key objective of the Fairness Foundation is to explore the extent to which it is possible to build and popularise a vision of a good society in the UK based around fairness, which appeals to people of varying political views by, for example, blending individual agency with the need to reduce inequality. Our proposed definition of fairness, The Fair Necessities, is our first attempt to build such a vision, and recently we have carried out a number of polls to understand public attitudes to various fairness-related issues.

While politicians are considerably influenced by public opinion, they also play a key role in leading and shaping public attitudes (alongside the media and other opinion-formers). So it’s important to understand how they talk about fairness - and, by extension, how they think about it. Do politicians from different parties have completely opposing conceptions of fairness, or is there at least the potential to identify and build a consensus? Has this changed over time, and does it vary between the various parliaments of the UK?

To find out, we asked Paul Hebden at Campaign Salience to conduct a quantitative and qualitative analysis of all 16,000 mentions of the term “fairness” in UK parliaments over the last 25 years, from mid-1998 to mid-2023, via theyworkforyou.com (a project of MySociety). The analysis covers the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the London Assembly (it was completed before theyworkforyou.com added coverage of the Welsh Senedd in June 2023).

The dataset includes mentions of the term “fairness” in debates as well as in written answers and ministerial statements. Paul used corpus analytics (using the R coding language and Quanteda software) to carry out the analysis. Corpus analytics is a powerful tool for analysing and applying statistical analysis to unearth linguistic patterns and carry out qualitative analysis. The techniques help to unearth and interpret meaning by analysing large bodies of written text.

How is the word “fairness” used by politicians in the UK? What do they mean when they talk about fairness?

To what extent do politicians explicitly or implicitly align fairness with equality (and unfairness with inequality)?

What forms of equality or inequality (e.g. class, race) are they talking about, and in relation to what issues (e.g. housing, health)?

How do the ways in which fairness is talked about vary by political party, over time, or by country of the UK?

Mentions of the word “fairness” rose between 1998 and 2023, despite a slight dip in frequency between 2013 and 2019. However, we do not know whether this represents an increase in the salience of fairness as an issue, as comparisons to other issues and keywords was beyond the scope of this research.

Fairness was mentioned regularly by politicians from all parties, including both Labour and the Conservatives. Unsurprisingly, the frequency of mentions by politicians from a particular party was at least partially correlated with the number of seats that the party held in a given parliament, as this graph shows.

However, when fairness mentions are calculated as a proportion of seats held, there is an inverse relationship between fairness mentions and the number of seats held by a particular party. This graph shows a reduction in the number of fairness mentions (per seat) in the House of Commons by Conservative MPs between 2005 and 2010 as they gained more seats in parliament. By contrast, the proportion of Labour speeches that mentioned fairness rose as they lost seats.

This relationship also holds when we look at other parties. For example, politicians from the Scottish National Party mentioned fairness less often, in relation to seats held, after the 2015 general election in which they won 56 seats in the House of Commons, having won just six seats in 2010. Meanwhile, Liberal Democrats talked about fairness much more often after the end of the Coalition Government in 2015.

What can we conclude from these findings?

We know that there is an inverse relationship between the number of seats a party has and how often fairness is mentioned by politicians from that party (relative to the number of seats it has in the House of Commons).

Does this mean that there is a inverse relationship between talking about fairness and holding power? Is fairness in some way the language of opposition, and/or the language of smaller parties? We cannot know for sure, but it seems logical that politicians from parties that are in power might feel that they gain less from appealing to fairness, unlike politicians from parties that are in opposition.

The frequency with which fairness is mentioned in parliament gives us some insights, but for a deeper understanding we need to investigate the context within which fairness is being discussed.

This section sets out the quantitative methods that help to unlock a shared vocabulary of fairness ‘regular expressions’ in politics. Analysing these expressions uncovers qualitative differences between the ways in which politicians of different parties frame arguments about fairness.

Frames are semi-structured elements of discourse that people use to make sense of information and concepts. We study frames because the words and metaphors that people choose to use when discussing issues like fairness influence audience interpretations and biases. In a political context, the way that issues and concepts are framed can make some actions, strategies and policies appear more plausible than others. For example, inheritance tax can be framed as double taxation or as a redistributive tax, which influences the way people think about inheritance tax. Similarly the death penalty can be framed in terms of of morality (“an eye for an eye” vs “thou shalt not kill”) or fairness (“wrongful execution” vs “an acceptable price to pay”).

The corpus contained around 16,000 political statements that included the word fairness. We analysed the words that most commonly co-occurred with fairness. The graph below lists the most significant words that made up these “fairness regular expressions”. These expressions (”fairness and”, “fairness to”, “fairness in” and so on) formed the basis of nearly every mention of fairness in parliament.

Regular expressions provide a means to identify and analyse specific linguistic patterns and give clues to learning about context including the issues, groups, concepts and personas that are the subject of political discourses about fairness.

Having established the significance of these fairness regular expressions, we harvested every example of politicians using them in the corpus along with ‘context windows’, using a technique called ‘key words in context’ (KWIC).

Looking at the “fairness to” and ”fairness for” regular expressions, a list of personas that describe certain groups in society starts to emerge.

A list of the personas and groups that ranked alongside “fairness for” and “fairness to” for Labour and Conservative politicians is in the appendix at the end of this report.

For Conservative politicians, “taxpayers”, “hard-working households”, “individuals” and “pensioners” emerged as the key groups whom there should be fairness “for” and “to”.

Fairness for…. (Conservative politicians, 1998-2023)

Fairness to…. (Conservative politicians, 1998-2023)

For Labour politicians, taxpayers were also a group to whom there should be fairness. But in addition, they talked about fairness in relation to a wider list of personas and groups, including “staff”, the “state”, the “public”, the “police”, “defendants”, “claimants”, “consumers” and “workers”.

Fairness for…. (Labour politicians, 1998-2023)

Fairness to…. (Labour politicians, 1998-2023)

Why do Conservative and Labour politicians talk about fairness in relation to such a strikingly different range of groups in society?

We must assume that this is largely driven by political and ideological differences between the parties. It is also possible that a politician's role (for example, if they are a government minister) influences how they talk about fairness. For example, a minister might find it more necessary or useful to speak about "fairness for the taxpayer” than an opposition politician.

Our analysis found that after 2014, Conservative politicians often sought to frame a divisive argument about fairness using the persona of the “hard-working household” or the “hard-working, taxpaying family”.

This framing featured prominently among Conservative politicians when they sought to justify changes or cuts to the social security system.

We found examples of Conservative politicians using "fairness for hard-workers" to justify policies such as the benefit cap and the “spare room subsidy” (bedroom tax). The “hard-working” frame became more popular among Conservatives in 2014, which may be connected to the introduction of the benefit cap in 2013.

The “hard-working” frame provided a rhetorical means of justifying and differentiating between “hard workers” and others, such as benefit claimants. Conservative politicians were consistent in using this framing to defend the benefit cap from 2014 onwards.

This table includes a selection of quotes by politicians that use the “hard-working” frame.

The most frequently used fairness regular expression was “fairness and”, which was used by politicians of all parties to compare and contrast fairness with different conceptions of the good or as a norm in its own right. However, there were notable differences between Conservative and Labour politicians in terms of these competing conceptions of the good. Conservatives were more likely to talk of “fairness and transparency”, while Labour politicians were more likely to mention “justice” and “equality” alongside fairness.

Fairness and…. (Conservative politicians, 1998-2023)

Fairness and…. (Labour politicians, 1998-2023)

Politicians of both parties used a “fairness between” frame in a similar way to the “fairness and” frame, to adjudicate between different groups or personas.

Fairness between…. (Conservative politicians, 1998-2023)

Fairness between…. (Labour politicians, 1998-2023)

This graph shows the politicians who used the “fairness and transparency” frame on at least two occasions between 1998 and 2023. This frame was mentioned 319 times during that period. The phrase was mostly used by Conservative politicians. Transparency is mentioned alongside fairness more often than any other conception of the good, including values traditionally associated with political Conservatism such as freedom.

The "fairness and transparency” frame seemed to be safe territory for all MPs, but particularly for Conservatives. This chimes with the important role that a number of Conservative MPs have played in civil society campaigns to bring about greater transparency in government. Below is a selection of quotes since 2020.

The phrase “fairness and equality” was widely used by politicians of all parties. This graph shows the politicians who used this phrase on at least two occasions since 1998. There were 264 such instances during the period.

The phrase “fairness and equality of opportunity” was frequently used by Conservative politicians such as Kemi Badenoch, Theresa Coffey and Dean Russell. It was also used by the Labour politician Seema Malhotra as a means of holding the government accountable to its own values. Labour MP Clive Lewis talked of “fairness and equality for children”, while SNP MP Gavin Newlands spoke about “fairness and equality” for a “marginalised group of trans citizens”.

Below is a selection of “fairness and equality” quotations from politicians since 2020, each with a 10-word context window.

There were 239 mentions of “fairness and justice” by politicians during this period. Although Labour MPs used this formulation more than Conservatives, it was also regularly mentioned by Conservative MPs and in the House of Lords.

Below is a selection of quotes by politicians using the “fairness and justice” regular expression.

As already discussed, fairness and the taxpayer are common bedfellows in political discourse, particularly in Conservative politicians’ use of the “fairness for” and “fairness to” framings. However, it is also common for politicians to speak of “fairness in the tax system.”

Appeals for fairness in the tax system were often made by Conservative politicians, particularly when they were seeking to adjudicate between different groups or interests. Common phrases included “fairness in the tax system between individual taxpayers and business” or “fairness in the tax system and social security system.” They also spoke of “protecting” the Exchequer through “fairness in the tax system”.

Gordon Brown talked of “fairness in the tax burden” in 2000 when he was Chancellor, suggesting a focus on ensuring that the tax contributions are distributed in a more just way (for example, with the wealthiest paying more).

The table below provides examples of mentions of “fairness and the tax system”.

Politicians used “fairness to” and “fairness for” alongside personas such as “the taxpayer” or “hard-working households” to describe various groups in society who they think should (or should continue to) benefit from fairness.

However, there were some notable differences between the frequency with which different personas were invoked by Conservative and Labour politicians.

Conservatives were more likely to speak of fairness to and for the “taxpayer”, “hard-working households” and “pensioners”.

Labour politicians also used the “taxpayer” persona, but in addition they were more likely to speak about a wider range of personas, such as “consumers”, “workers”, “employers”, “businesses”, “communities” and “families.”

Public opinion polling shows a broad consensus of views about fairness - that fair process is important, but fairness is also about giving everyone a chance to maximise their potential.

Looked at in this way, fairness can be about unifying people around a shared vision of what a good society looks like, rather than pitting one group against another. Our proposed five fair necessities aim to set out a unifying vision of fairness that speaks to people’s varying views about what fairness means.

However, politicians from all parties often talk about fairness in relation to working people, with the implication that other groups are less deserving of fairness. This rhetoric was evident in some of the key speeches from the 2023 party conferences, from both Conservative and Labour politicians.

Which group of people, by implication, are outsiders who are being portrayed as being less ‘entitled’ to fairness? Is it people who are too wealthy to need to work? Or people who either can’t find work or are unable to work? In most cases the latter seems more likely.

Our research found that there was an uptick in this kind of rhetoric in 2014. We found examples of Conservative politicians using "fairness for hard workers" to justify policies such as the benefit cap and the “spare room subsidy” (bedroom tax). The “hardworking” frame became more popular among Conservatives in 2014, which may be connected to the introduction of the benefit cap in 2013.

This rhetorical focus on working people - something that both Labour and Conservative politicians have employed repeatedly in recent years - is unhelpful, because it suggests that people who cannot work are in some way less valuable to society, and that while they might be due compassion, they are not deserving of the ‘fair essentials’, let alone fair treatment, opportunities or rewards. It creates an artificial divide that harks back to the Victorian idea of the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor; but few people in today’s Britain still believe that we are a nation of ‘strivers and scroungers’.

Some politicians narrow the ‘in’ group down still further by talking about hard-working taxpayers and/or working families, as though those people who are not in work, or do not earn enough to pay tax, or do not have a family, are somehow not entitled to fairness.

Ironically, the rhetoric around ‘working people’ serves only to exclude many people who are working class. This is explored in more detail in a 2017 book, The New Politics of Class.

Can we move towards a new narrative, which is based on a less meritocratic version of fairness, or at a minimum recognises that Britain today is not a meritocratic society (as most people now realise)? People’s station in life is not a direct result of their talent or their hard work, but bears just as much relation (and arguably more) to the circumstances into which they are born and to the advantages and disadvantages that affect them throughout their lives. Politicians should recognise that most Britons understand this, and should aim to talk about fairness as something that should apply to everyone, whether or not they are in work.

Much contemporary political communication strategy relies on personifying and framing salient political groups in society.

Examples include Basildon Man in the 1980s, Workington Man in the 2019 General Election and 2023’s Stevenage Woman.

Policy is developed to appeal to these groups, and politicians select rhetorical language that enables them to communicate their alignment with such groups and to differentiate them from others. When politicians use phrases like “fairness to taxpayers” or “fairness for hard-working households” they are rhetorically framing their alignment with those groups.

Politicians used “fairness and” to compare, contrast and align fairness with other values and conceptions of the good society.

However, there were some notable differences between the frequency with which these other values and conceptions were invoked (see the appendix for a full list of values and conceptions mentioned alongside fairness).

Conservative politicians often cited “transparency” alongside fairness. Other values they cited to a lesser extent included “equality”, “equity”, “balance”, “freedom” and “responsibility”.

Labour politicians talked more frequently about “justice” and “equality” than “transparency”. Other values they cited included “equity”, “balance”, “consistency” and “opportunity”.

Politicians did not appear to contest the legitimacy of fairness as a value; who could disagree with fairness? 

However, Conservatives were much more likely than Labour politicians to frame “fairness and transparency” as complementary values.

It is plausible that the correlations between fairness and these other values illustrate something significant about Conservative and Labour politicians’ differing political values.

For researchers

Researchers should look in more detail at how related concepts have been discussed in UK Parliaments, such as equality and inequality, meritocracy, social mobility and so on.

For politicians

Politicians should consider whether talking about fairness in a more unifying (and united) way might be more aligned to public attitudes and might encourage better policy-making.

For campaigners

Campaigners should ensure that their advocacy to politicians from different parties and with varying beliefs is aligned to those politicians’ core values and priorities.