Labour has a plan to reboot our economy, revitalise our public services and re-energise our communities.
Here are just some of the policy pledges and commitments from this year’s conference.
Health and Social Care
Labour will use revenue from keeping the 45% rate of income tax to fund one of the biggest NHS workforce expansions in history.
- The biggest expansion of medical school places in history to give the NHS the doctors it needs (doubling from 7,500 – 15,000) – at a cost of up to £1.1bn per year.
- Double the number of medical school places from 7,500 to 15,000 to make sure that everyone who wants to train as a doctor in Britain can.
- Double the number of district nurses qualifying every year, train 5,000 more health visitors and create an additional 10,000 nursing and midwifery clinical placements every year.
- Labour will also produce a long-term workforce plan for the NHS for the next 5, 10 and 15 years (supported by over 100 health and care organisations).
- Labour would create a new independent body (negligible spend – transferring these functions out of NHS England) with three key responsibilities:
- Undertaking independent workforce projections and producing a plan.
- Creating new types of health and care professionals that draw on a diverse skills mix and ensure our workforce is fit for a future of new health challenges.
- Creating new career paths into the NHS and social care and reviewing existing training pathways to ensure they’re fit for purpose.
Energy and Climate
Labour will make the UK a world-leading clean energy superpower by 2030.
- Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan to unleash the economic benefits of the green transition for communities across Britain. Secure energy independence by establishing GB Energy – a publicly-owned, clean energy company that will deliver British jobs and greater energy security.
- Double onshore wind, triple solar and quadruple offshore wind power, “re-industrialising” the country to create a zero carbon, self-sufficient electricity system, by the end of this decade.
- Keep bills down by insulating 19 million homes.
- Safeguard nature with a crackdown on sewage dumping.
- Create 1 million new green jobs.
Labour’s world-leading proposals will:
- Cut energy bills for good, saving UK households £93 billion over the rest of this decade; or a saving of £475 per household every year until 2030.
- Make the UK energy independent, freeing the UK from being exposed to the fluctuations of the global gas market, which has been too-easily manipulated by Vladimir Putin and petrostates.
- Reindustrialise the UK, supporting the creation of over 200,000 direct jobs and up to 260,000-300,000 indirect jobs over the decade.
- Tackle the climate crisis to leave a better world for our children by making the UK the first major economy to have a zero-emission power system.
Levelling Up and Housing
Labour will grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out, where all people can contribute to our economy and enjoy the benefits of prosperity.
- Labour will establish a National Wealth Fund to invest in Britain’s towns and cities to create jobs and grow our economy.
- Our green prosperity plan will bring good, well-paid, and secure jobs to the industrial and coastal towns across Britain, putting money back in people’s pockets and reinvigorating locale economies.
- Labour will introduce a powerful new Private Renters Charter to make renting fairer, more secure, and more affordable, through a higher-quality and properly regulated Private Rented Sector. The charter will include:
- The right to have pets.
- The right to make reasonable alterations to ensure their house feels like a home.
- The right to request speedy repairs.
- Ending automatic evictions for rent arrears.
- Ending Section 21 no fault evictions.
- Introducing four-month notice periods for landlords.
- Introducing a national register of landlords.
- Making deposits more portable, fairer, and more flexible.
- New target for 70% to own their own home.
- Prioritise first time buyers over buy to let for homes.
- Review right to buy to so that it will help councils build more social housing rather than expanding the gap between sales and replacements.
- Within the first 100 days of being elected to government, we will produce a White Paper to make renting fairer, more secure, and more affordable.
- The White Paper will set out how longer-term tenancies will become the norm and we will consult on our proposals with landlord and tenant groups on how best to stabilize rent increases within tenancies.
- Labour will reprioritize social housing to tackle housing poverty and the rental debt crisis, providing genuinely affordable housing for those in need, and supporting our wide plans for home ownership – under Labour social housing will again become the second largest tenure.
- We will significantly boost the building of council homes, reforming arcane purchasing rules to rebalance power between developers and communities and bring in a new generation of council house building.
- We will introduce licensing for letting agents and a new code of practice, ensuring all letting agents must be sufficiently qualified.
- We will introduce also legally binding ‘Decent Homes Standard 2’ updated for the next decade and will apply and enforce it to all PRS buildings. This new standard will include:
- Affordable warmth standards.
- A mission to decarbonise homes.
- Requirements for modern ventilation.
- Reasonable standards for internet connectivity.
- Labour has already committed to retrofitting 19 million homes to a minimum standard of EPC Band C. This will include fitting homes with insulation, double glazing, upgraded home heating systems, and other renewable and low carbon technologies.
Home Office
More and better police: Neighbourhood policing, charges and police reform.
- Our Neighbourhood Policing Programme will recruit an additional 13,000 more police and PCSOs on our streets in community teams to keep residents safe.
- Labour will reform policing so that police forces return to neighbourhood policing teams, increase professional standards, increase the number of criminals caught and charged, and restore public confidence in the vital work the police and emergency services do to keep us safe.
- Labour will end the postcode lottery in police standards, by introducing mandatory professional standards in place of current guidance for forces and using Her Majesty’s Inspectorate to hold police forces to account for compliance.
- Labour will also introduce new safeguards and national standards covering the strip searching of children, including publishing proper data to ensure accountability, so that a case like Child Q can never happen again.
- Labour will also overhaul misconduct, training and vetting procedures to raise standards – including compulsory anti racism training and compulsory training on violence against women and girls.
Transport
Labour will renationalise and revitalise rail.
We will bring rail back into public ownership as contracts expire to put passengers back at the heart of our railways and deliver a better deal for working families and the taxpayer.
Education and Early Years
Labour will invest in school recovery to deliver an education system that is fit for purpose and empowers pupils to thrive.
- Free breakfast clubs for every primary school in England.
- A full-time mental health professional in every secondary school, and a part-time professional in every primary school.
- Open access mental health hubs for children and young people in every community.
- Children’s Recovery Plan which includes small group tutoring for all children who need it and extracurricular activities for every child.
- A coherent plan to support children with SEND, from preschool to further and higher education.
- A fair pay rise for teachers.
- Funding for 6,500 more teachers and ongoing professional development for school staff.
Defence
Labour will build Fleet Solid Support Ships in Britain.
- Fleet Solid Support ships will be built in Britain, as part of Labour’s commitment to Buy, Make and Sell more in Britain to grow the economy.
- Labour backs British jobs and industry. Building these ships in Britain will create jobs, grow our economy, and boost manufacturing.
Work and Pensions
Labour are committed to ‘full and fulfilling employment’ with goal of the highest employment in the G7.
- The UK has 9 million missing from the labour market as a result of employment below pre-pandemic levels, and thousands over of 50s who have left work.
- Economic inactivity due to long-term ill health is rising at its fastest ever rate and has reached the highest level ever.
- Labour’s employment support provision will specifically target the over 50s and those out of work for long-term ill health – over half a million (578,000) people who are long term sick say they would like a job, and nearly 760,000 people aged between 50 and 64 years are either actively seeking work, or are inactive but are willing or would like to work.
- Job centre reform: moving away from a culture of threats and Tory sanction to one of personalised help and would allow self-referrals and GPs, housing associations and community groups to easily direct people to employment support.
- Targeted help for over 50s: work across government, to offer all those who have previously worked but recently left the labour market “back-to-work support and guidance”.
- Specialist help for those with long term ill-health: We will build on targeted programmes, including those that join up with the NHS, to provide better specialist support.
- Locally delivered services: Freedom for local partnerships to decide how best to design services, with a focus on providing tailored support that meets the needs of the local area. We will move away from rigid, national contracting and ensure resources to help people find work are closer to the communities we serve.
- Fulfilling quality employment: We will reform Universal credit to give people support to move into work, or into better jobs. Our reforms will help people into jobs paying decent wages with decent terms and conditions.
Environment, Fisheries and Rural Affairs
Labour will clean up the water industry.
- End the scandal of losing a quarter of our water in leaks while declaring water shortages by putting the target to halve leakage by 2050 on a statutory footing.
- Introduce mandatory monitoring of all sewage outlets, automatic fines for discharges, and a standing charge penalty for discharge points failing to meet monitoring requirements.
- Give the Environment Agency the power to properly enforce the rules.
- Introduce a legally binding target to end 90% of sewage discharges by 2030.
- Ensure that if companies fail to improve, the cost will be paid for by eroding dividends, not adding to customer bills, or hitting vital investment in the system.
- Labour will strike off company directors who are persistent offenders, so they cannot simply delete ‘illegal environmental damage’ from their CV and move on to their next role.
- Labour will ensure stronger legal and financial sanctions for failing to meet regulatory requirements.
International Trade
Labour will create British Climate Export Hubs.
- Work in every region of the UK to marry up innovation on climate change, with international markets to drive high value exports and growth.
- Climate investment pledge of £28bn every year for every year of the decade – to deliver the British industries and jobs of the future.
- The UK Climate Export Hubs, will help to capitalise on the outcomes of Labour’s £28bn annual climate investment which will drive and help deliver export led growth.
- Binding duty on trade negotiators to help deliver economic opportunities across the whole of the UK.
Culture
A new settlement for the digital age: Labour will harness the ‘white heat’ of technology to propel Britain into the future and build a high tech economy that works for all.
- Labour will engage, empower and enlist tech innovators, small business, entrepreneurs, civil society, trade unions and others.
- Keep Channel 4 in public hands. And we will secure the future of the BBC as a universal, publicly owned broadcaster.
- Giving communities a bigger stake in their football teams by introducing a statutory, independent regulator to oversee English football.
- Labour will protect the legacy of the Lionesses’ historic win and create an Equal Access Guarantee for school sport.
Industrial Strategy
Labour’s industrial strategy has four clear missions.
- Delivering clean power by 2030.
- Harnessing data for public good.
- Caring for the future.
- Building a resilient economy.
