A Qualified Success: Labour Conference Review
As delegates battle it out for seats on the train back from Labour Conference, there’s little doubt that Keir Starmer and his team consider their week in Liverpool a success. The open conflicts predicted by many politics-watchers were mostly smoothed over in the halls and bars of the Albert Dock. The leadership pitch that had been anticipated from Andy Burnham became more of a reverse ferret. MPs and the party faithful were given the red, Reform-baiting meat they had hoped for in a peppy and punchy Leader’s speech. Overcoming expectations is, so often in our politics, the primary metric and measure of success. Starmer managed it and should therefore be considered a genuine winner from conference season.
On the ground, the atmosphere was one of smiles for the cameras and whispered nervousness. Everyone was making an effort to get along and to signal confidence. But in the bars, in private rooms in restaurants, in snatched chats by the Mersey, there was also a lot of acknowledgement that the fundamentals haven’t changed, and the fundamentals are bad. Labour are currently polling at a level that would see them wiped-out come an election. Reform are finally reaching numbers that would see them in touching distance of governing alone (perhaps even with a significant majority). And in the coming months we will see some really big tests – a budget in the most difficult of circumstances, elections in Scotland and Wales, and the potential wipe-out of thousands of Labour councillors.
What this conference shows, then, is a level of steely determination that has proven more robust than many feared. No, the party doesn’t think that everything is fine or that they’re cruising towards a second term. But no, the party hasn’t given up yet. Whether the answer ends up being doubling down on Starmer or a change of tack is another argument for another day – but whichever way they go in the end, the Labour Party isn’t in a surrendering mood just yet.
Key announcements from Conference:
Ministry of Defence
- Continued UK leadership on Ukraine, including the highest-ever level of military aid and coalition-building with over 30 nations.
- £10bn warship deal with Norway, securing 4,000 unionised jobs in the UK.
- Investment in British defence manufacturing and innovation, building capabilities across the UK.
- The biggest armed forces pay rise in two decades, the return of 36,000 military homes to public ownership, and record support for veterans.
- New funding for an advanced welding centre in Glasgow.
- £1.5bn investment in military housing and a new consumer charter to improve housing standards.
- A new “Forces First” policy offering service personnel and veterans priority access to homes.
Department for Business and Trade
- Support for small businesses through timely payments and fair practices.
- Commitment to welcome and value skilled workers who contribute to Britain’s economy.
- Tackle labour exploitation through the introduction of digital ID cards.
- Confirmation that the Government are in conversations with the EU with regards to reinstating youth mobility.
Department for Education
- A national rollout of free breakfast clubs from April.
- Commitment for there to be a new library in every primary school.
- A new Youth Guarantee to ensure that all young people are offered a place in college, an apprenticeship or one-to-one support to help them find a job.
- New targeted maintenance grants for students most in need.
- New rules to control the cost of school uniforms.
- Stronger regulation of profiteering in children’s social care.
- Free school meals for a further half a million pupils.
Department for Work and Pensions
- Commitment to protect the existing triple lock on pensions.
- Commitment to turn the Department for Work and Pensions into “something new” to “build a system that invests in success,” not one that “counts the cost of failure.”
- Create a welfare system focused on “opportunity,” not dependency.
- Double the number of youth hubs in the next three years.
Home Office
- Continued cooperation with France to disrupt small boat crossings and break the business model of criminal gangs.
- End the use of hotels for asylum seekers.
- Extend the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain from five years to ten, with conditions tied to work, contribution, language skills, and community involvement.
- Focused police efforts on crimes that matter most to the public, including knife crime, shoplifting, and anti-social behaviour.
- Recruit 3,000 additional neighbourhood police officers by 2026.
- Expand targeted operations tackling local crime, building on the “Summer of Action” with a “Winter of Action” later this year.
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
- Teach one million secondary school students new tech skills.
- Create new tech scholarships and apprenticeships.
- Upskill 7.5 million workers in AI by 2030.
- Launch a Women’s Tech Taskforce, with industry experts, to help “break the glass ceilings” in the sector.
- Require social media companies to remove content promoting suicide and self-harm.
- Make cyber flashing a priority offence.
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
- A new national competition to recognise the “UK Town of Culture.”
- £132.5m for the new “Every Child Can” initiative, designed to reverse the decline in funding for youth centres, grassroots sport, art, and music in communities that “need it most.”
- £150m was announced for the new “Creative Places Growth Fund” to unlock the potential of “film, music, media, TV and fashion.” It will be split equally between Greater Manchester, the North East, the West Midlands, the West of England, West Yorkshire and the Liverpool City Region.
Department for Health and Social Care
- Commitment to defend a universal, publicly funded NHS, free at the point of use.
- 2,000 extra GPs, 13,000 more nurses and midwives, and 7,000 more doctors.
- Investment in AI, data, and new medical technologies for the NHS.
- Fair pay agreement for care workers, backed with £500m.
- The largest uplift in carers’ allowance since the 1970s (£2,000 more for family carers).
- Build a National Care Service with better pay, terms, and security.
- Target NHS resources to areas of deepest deprivation.
- Commitment to address racial and regional health inequalities.
Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs
- Abolish Ofwat and create a new single regulator for water.
- Introduce a new Water Reform Bill to deliver long-term change.
- Use fines from water companies to invest in cleaning rivers and seas.
- Deliver a Farming Roadmap and Land Use Framework to ensure profitable, sustainable farming.
- Establish nine new National River Walks and two more National Forests.
- Create a Nature Restoration Fund alongside reforms to planning rules to deliver housing and protect the environment.
Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
- Commitment to deliver clean power by 2030 as a central mission of government policy.
- 10,000 new jobs at Sizewell C and investment in Rolls-Royce modular reactors.
- Introduce a Fair Work Charter as a condition of public investment in clean energy.
- Commitment to fair pay and decent employment rights offshore, onshore, on land and at sea.
- Extend the Warm Home Discount to almost three million more families and roll out a Warm Homes Plan.
- Install rooftop solar panels in 45 more schools and over 50 NHS sites.
- A new partnership between Great British Energy and the Ministry of Defence to lower energy bills for service personnel.
- Commitment to ban fracking in the UK.
Department for Transport
- Roll out of zero emissions buses in Greater Manchester.
- A new light railway system in Leeds.
- Commitment to Northern Powerhouse Rail.
- Reopen Doncaster-Sheffield Airport.