A smaller state is a liberal ideal to be proud of – the question is how you get there

New leader, new members, wins in the Lords - the fightback is on. But Liberal Democrats shouldn't ditch the crucial debate about what the party is for.

A values-driven blueprint for opposition is essential, but doesn't answer the killer question. If the Lib Dems didn't exist, why invent them? The party cannot simply become a vessel for virtue signalling. I believe that a bold, liberal vision should rest on a progressive case for a smaller central state.

This ambition is usually framed negatively - but a smaller state is a positive ideal. I once joined a group exercise involving best-case and worst-case scenarios. The facilitator recalled running the exercise with two police forces. The first group's 'Hell' scenario was 'No police'. The second group cited exactly the same - as their 'Heaven' scenario. I hope Lib Dems would embrace the latter: how can the state focus not on self-perpetuation, but on supporting society to solve problems?

I'm not suggesting a campaign to abolish the police. But surely the long-term aim of such an institution should be to try - though perhaps never manage - to put itself out of a job? Lib Dem justice policy exemplifies a strong, distinctive liberal approach on reducing reoffending and reforming drug laws. These policies aim to reduce demand at source for 'regrettable necessities' such as policing, rather than indulging in hollow, expensive 'tough on crime' posturing.

The party should extend this approach to more policy areas, openly aspiring to a smaller central state and setting out a liberal vision for how to get there. Not through simplistic, disjointed budget cuts, or obsessing about state expenditure as a percentage of GDP, but through policies which empower individuals and communities; increase resilience and independence; challenge vested interests; respect subsidiarity and disperse power; and resonate through practical effect, not symbolic weight.

That means seeking the best outcomes, not joining a spending arms race on health, education and pensions as we have since 2005. It means devoting serious energy to addressing market failures and championing evidence-based but sometimes unpopular measures, resisting the easy option of regulation and targets - contrast the recent 'five green laws' to the previous campaign for a 'green tax switch'. It means engaging with the detail of decentralising power - a crucial liberal priority on which Lib Dems were drowned out in Government - and ignoring ineffective centralist relics like the Regional Growth Fund, bizarrely featured in the 2015 manifesto. It means taking on Whitehall fiefdoms to transform public services. And it means tax and spending policies with clear, transparent revenue-raising and behavioural impacts - designed to maximise public benefit, not burnish a populist conception of fairness.

Despite the 'small state' tag often lazily - and erroneously - attached to the Conservatives, it is the Liberal Democrats who can make a virtue of this approach to policymaking. Following the Budget, Allister Heath described George Osborne's 'attempts to marry, not entirely coherently, a smaller state with extensive government intervention'. The pursuit of fiscal conservativism, without a counterbalancing vision of what a smaller state means and how to get there, is politically dishonest, socially destructive and something that Liberal Democrats must oppose. But the party should also use its freedom from the constraints of coalition to develop and communicate the positive small-state vision which the country needs.

* Max Parish is a pseudonym for a policy professional and Lib Dem member who is in a politically restricted post.

This article attracted 131 comments on Liberal Democrat Voice which can be read here