Conservative Party Launches 2024 Manifesto – ‘Clear Plan, Bold Action, Secure Future’

Having only last month said that he blamed Sunak for the “chaos” of the local election campaign, Tory Mayor Ben Houchen introduced the Prime Minister, reiterating the key messages that it was Sunak that introduced furlough and helped with energy bills, things they hope will be at the forefront of people’s minds instead of abandoning D-Day commemorations early.

After urging voters not to give Starmer a “blank cheque, when he hasn’t said what he’ll buy with it, or how much it’s going to cost you”, Sunak clearly tried to appeal to Reform voters, committing to putting "security and your family finances ahead of unaffordable eco-zealotry". Even this was a bit of a “quinoa salad”, stopping short of making solid commitments on the European Convention of Human Rights. The first regular flights to Rwanda will apparently leave in July.

Speaking at Silverstone racecourse to celebrate the success of Formula 1, which is emblematic of British success, Sunak will be hoping he has turned his election campaign around and will now be able to take the Tories over the line.

The full Conservative Party Manifesto can be found here. Key pledges include:

Economy, Work and Pensions

• Continue cutting National Insurance so that by 2027, it is halved to 6%
• National Insurance scrapped for self-employed people over the course of the next Parliament
• Maintain the National Living Wage in each year of the next Parliament at two-thirds of median earnings
• Work with the British Business Bank and private sector fund managers to secure a £250 million Invest In Women Fund to support female entrepreneurs.
• Keeping the VAT threshold under review and explore options to smooth the cliff edge at £90,000
• No raises to Corporation Tax or Capital Gains Tax
• Increase the multiplier on business warehouses to support the high street
• Improve access to finance for SMEs including through expanding Open Finance and by exploring the creation of Regional Mutual Banks.
• Lift the employee threshold to allow more businesses to be considered medium-sized
• Well-off parents will keep receiving full child benefit until they earn £120,000 a year — double the current £60,000 threshold. The salary at which a parent receives no child benefit at all would rise to £160,000, double the current £80,000.
• The creation of an "age-related" tax-free personal allowance in the income tax system, which would rise to keep it above the rate of the state pension.
• Overhaul the fit note process so that people are not being signed off sick as a default.
• Introduction of tougher sanctions rules so people who refuse to take up suitable jobs after 12 months on benefits can have their cases closed and their benefits removed entirely.

Health

• Increase NHS spending above inflation every year
• Recruit 92,000 more nurses and 28,000 more doctors
• Moving care closer to people’s homes through Pharmacy First, new and modernised GP surgeries and more Community Diagnostic Centres.

Tech

• Implement a new MedTech pathway so that cost-effective MedTech, including AI, is rapidly adopted throughout the NHS.
• Invest in new technology to achieve our ambitious broadband targets for hard-to-reach areas.

Energy and Environment

• Within the first 100 days of the next Parliament, approve two new fleets of Small Modular Reactors to rapidly expand nuclear power, create well-paid, high-skilled jobs and deliver cheaper, cleaner and more secure energy
• Halve the time it takes for new nuclear reactors to be approved, by allowing regulators to assess projects while designs are being finalised, improving join-up with overseas regulators assessing the same technology and speeding up planning and environmental approvals.
• Treble offshore wind capacity
• Build the first two carbon capture and storage clusters, based across North Wales, the North West of England and Teesside and the Humber
• Invest £1.1 billion into the Green Industries Growth Accelerator to support British manufacturing capabilities
• Deliver a new gigawatt power plant at Wylfa in North Wales and work with industry to deliver existing projects at Hinkley Point and Sizewell.
• Target of UK becoming a net exporter of electricity
• Implement a new import carbon pricing mechanism by 2027 to ensure that imports of iron, steel, aluminium, ceramics and cement from countries with a lower or no carbon price will face a comparable carbon price to those goods produced in the UK
• Ensure that green levies on household bills are lower and rule out further green levies
• Reform the Climate Change Committee, giving it an explicit mandate to consider cost to households and UK energy security in its future climate advice
• Maintain energy price cap and reform standing charges to keep them as low as possible
• Introduce more efficient local markets for electricity
• Give households a choice of smart tariffs
• Implement the recommendations of the Winser Review, ensuring networks are able to buy forward with confidence and cutting waiting times to get a grid connection
• Undertake a rapid review into the advantages of alternative network technologies, compared to overhead pylons
• Ensure democratic consent for onshore wind
• Encourage solar PV on brownfield land and rooftops, not agricultural land
• Use fines from water companies to invest in river restoration projects
• Embark on new tree planting programmes and designate an 11th National Park

Education and Early Years

• The introduction of 100,000 more apprenticeships a year by the end of a five-year parliament, costing £885 million a year by 2029/30. Funded by curbing funding to “rip off degrees”.
• The introduction of Mandatory National Service for every 18-year-old by the end of a parliament, choosing between a 12-month full-time placement in the armed forces or cyber defense, or 25 days over a year working for free in flood defenses, the NHS, fire service, charities, search and rescue, or other roles to be decided by a Royal Commission.
• Introduction of the Advanced British Standard, replacing A-levels and T-levels
• Give working parents 30 hours of free childcare a week from when their child is nine months old to when they start school.
• Banning the use of mobile phones during the school day
• Legislate to create a register of children not in school.

Research and Skills

• 100,000 more apprenticeships a year by the end of a five-year parliament, costing £885 million a year by 2029/30. To be paid for by independent regulator closing the “poorest performing” university courses.
• Increase public spending on R&D to £22 billion a year, up from £20 billion this year.
• Maintain R&D tax reliefs
• Continue investing over £1.5 billion in large-scale compute clusters
• Continue the previously announced Advanced Manufacturing Plan, providing a £4.5 billion commitment to secure strategic manufacturing sectors including automotive, aerospace, life sciences and clean energy

Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

• Introduction of a New Help to Buy scheme, with an equity loan of up to a fifth the cost of a new-build home.
• Temporary Capital Gains Tax exemption for some landlords. A two-year scheme would let landlords sell homes to tenants without paying Capital Gains Tax.
• Temporary nil-rate threshold of £425,000 for first-time buyers would be made permanent
• Re-commitment to scrapping Section 21 notices for renters
• Expediting planning permission on brownfield land
• The introduction of a “Backing Drivers Bill” which would ensure a “binding local referendum” on all new low traffic neighbourhood and 20mph zones, including in Wales; unilaterally reverse London’s ULEZ expansion; and ban mayors and councils from ever introducing pay-per-mile road taxes
• Allocation of £600m to 30 towns (£20 million per town) as part of the Long-Term Plan for Towns
• Extension of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund for another three years, delivering a further £540 million a year for communities across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Rural Policy

• Increase the UK-wide farming budget by £1 billion over the Parliament, ensuring it rises by inflation in every year
• Introduce a legally binding target to enhance our food security.
• Reform planning system to deliver fast track permissions for the building of infrastructure on farms
• Back cutting-edge technology in areas such as fertiliser and vertical farming
• Move away from reliance on seasonal immigrant labour
• Replicate the £100 million UK Seafood Fund

Defence

• The introduction of a Veterans’ Bill to criminalise wearing medals you’re not entitled to, give equality for military and civilian qualifications and create a veterans’ strategy.
• Defence investment to be raised to 2.5% of GDP by 2030

Foreign Affairs

• Strengthen relationships with the G7, Five Eyes, NATO, US and Commonwealth
• New defensive treaties with Germany and Poland
• Finalise free trade deal with India and seek closer ties with Gulf State
• Return development spending to 0.7% of GNI when fiscal circumstances allow
• Appoint a Minister for British Civilians Overseas

Transport

• Invest £8.3 billion of investment to fill potholes and resurface roads
• Deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail with the intention for more frequent trains, more capacity and faster journeys
• Commitment to spend £1.75 billion to fund the Midlands Rail Hub in full.
• Reopen Beeching lines and stations to reconnect communities around the country

Immigration

• Raise the Immigration Health Surcharge for students from £776 to £1,035 a year
• Raise “all visa fees” by 25% across the board, on top of rises of 15-35 %that came into effect in October.
• A new annual cap on visas set by the Migration Advisory Committee, whose remit would be lowering net migration year-on-year “to sustainable levels”. This cap will legally have to fall every year of the next Parliament.
• Hold a global asylum summit to change international asylum rules
• Continue Rwanda deportation scheme
• All asylum claims to be processed within six months

Crime

• Recruit 8,000 new police officers - an additional 2,000 officers each year for four years to 2027/28
• Build four new prisons, completing our programme of 20,000 new prison places by 2030.
• Life imprisonment without parole to become mandatory for more of the worst crimes, while rapists and other serious sexual offenders will have to spend their whole sentences behind bars.
• Tougher sentences for knife crime, grooming gangs and assaults against retail workers
• Courts to be given the option of adding points to people’s driving licences if they are convicted of fly-tipping.
• Give police officers new powers and tools to catch criminals, including technology like facial recognition and powers to seize knives and track down stolen property
• Introduce new licensed police officers for specialist roles
• Increase the use of community payback and electronic tagging
• New 25-year prison terms for domestic murders
• Strengthen police powers to prevent protests or marches that pose a risk of serious disorder

Culture, Media and Sport

• Amend the Equality Act to make clear the protected characteristic of sex is biological sex
• Launch a review of England’s nighttime economy aimed at reversing the decline in pubs