Labour Party Launches Manifesto – ‘Change’

As expected, there were zero surprises with Starmer majoring on economic growth across the country and his business-friendly plan for Britain. He burnished those business credentials by being introduced by the CEO of Iceland supermarkets. Starmer will be hoping that his commitment to a ‘tax lock’ for working people – freezing income tax, national insurance, and VAT – will be enough to neutralize the Tory attack line du jour that a Labour Government will mean a £2000 tax increase per family.

While the watering down by Party bigwigs of some elements of the manifesto agreed at the National Policy Forum last year is likely to rile those on the party’s Left flank – including the lack of commitment to abolishing the two-child benefit cap and the watering down of language around NHS privatisation – it is unlikely to significantly shift the dial either way among the electorate.

The main benefit of the manifesto will be to provide a riposte to Sunak’s repeated jab that Labour has no plan for Britain – Starmer can now point to 136 pages worth.

As Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting reportedly sang ahead of the launch – we can expect some Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes come the 5^th of July.

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

Economy and Pensions

• Replace the business rates system with a new system that will level the playing field between the high street and online giants.
• A ‘tax lock’ for working people with no rises in income tax, national insurance, and VAT.

• Strengthen the role of the Office for Budget Responsibility. Every fiscal event making significant changes to taxation or spending will be subject to an independent OBR forecast.
• Appoint a fixed-term Covid Corruption Commissioner and use every means possible to recoup public money lost in pandemic-related fraud and from contracts which have not been delivered.
• Abolish non-dom tax status.
• End the use of offshore trusts to avoid inheritance tax.
• Establish a £7.3 billion National Wealth Fund to support Labour’s growth and clean energy mission.
• Undertake a review of the pensions landscape to consider what further steps are needed to improve pension outcomes and increase investment in UK markets.
• Adopt reforms to increase investment from pension funds in UK markets
• lntroduce a new industrial strategy alongside an Industrial Strategy Council.
• Cap corporation tax at the current level of 25 per cent.
• Retain the triple lock for the state pension

Health

• Ban TV junk food ads before 9 p.m.
• Provide an extra 100,000 urgent and emergency dental appointments for children per year as part of the overall plan to raise the number of NHS appointments by 2 million a year (40,000 per week) in its first year.
• Hit 18-week NHS waiting time target within 5 years.
• Introduce a new ‘Fit For the Future’ fund to double the number of CT and MRI scanners.
• Commitment to delivering the New Hospitals Programme.
• Develop an NHS innovation and adoption strategy in England including a procurement plan.
• Train thousands more GPs, guarantee a face-to-face appointment for all those who want one and deliver a modern appointment booking system.
• Implement a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to areas that need them most.
• Reform the dental contract, with a shift to focusing on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.
• Create a National Care Service, underpinned by national standards, delivering consistency of care across the country.
• Establish a Fair Pay Agreement in adult social care.
• Recruit an additional 8,500 new staff in mental health.
• Implement the NHS Workforce Plan.

Tech

• Renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030.
• Create a National Data Library to bring together existing research programmes and help deliver data-driven public services.
• The new industrial strategy will support the development of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector, removing planning barriers to new data centres.
• Create a new Regulatory Innovation Office, bringing together existing functions across government.
• Ensure the safe development and use of AI models by introducing binding regulations on the handful of companies developing the most powerful AI models and by banning the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes.

Energy and Environment

• Establish GB Energy within the first year - a new publicly-owned champion in clean energy generation - to build jobs and supply chains in the UK, funded with £8.3 billion over the next parliament.
• £500 million investment to support the manufacturing of green hydrogen.
• £1 billion investment to accelerate the deployment of carbon capture.
• Implement the Green Prosperity Plan to invest in the industries of the future and create 650,000 jobs by 2030.
• Work with the private sector to double onshore wind, triple solar power, and quadruple offshore wind by 2030.
• A new Energy Independence Act will establish the framework for Labour’s energy and climate policies.
• Ensure the long-term security of the sector by extending the lifetime of existing plants, and getting Hinkley Point C over the line.
• Maintain a strategic reserve of gas power stations to guarantee security of supply.
• Close the loopholes in the windfall tax on oil and gas companies.
• Extend the sunset clause in the Energy Profits Levy until the end of the next parliament and increase the rate of the levy by three percentage points
• Put failing water companies under special measures to clean up our water and give regulators new powers to block the payment of bonuses to water firm executives.
• Set a target for half of all food purchased across the public sector to be locally produced or certified to higher environmental standards.

Education and Early Years

• Free breakfast clubs in every primary school.
• Convert 3,334 classrooms to nursery settings, adding 100,000 childcare places, in schools where there is spare capacity due to falling birth rates.
• Ban online and retail sales of energy drinks containing over 150mg per litre to under-16s.
• Recruit 6,500 new teachers in key subjects.
• End the VAT exemption and business rates relief for private schools to invest in our state schools.
• Provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school.
• Transform Further Education colleges into specialist Technical Excellence Colleges.

Research and Skills

• Reform the apprenticeship levy and rename it the “growth and skills levy,” with firms given more freedom to use up to half of government funding to cover apprenticeships or provide training for existing staff.
• Scrap the short funding cycles for key R&D institutions in favour of ten-year budgets.
• Establish a youth guarantee of access to training, an apprenticeship, or support to find work for all 18- to 21-year-olds.
• Guarantee two weeks’ worth of work experience for every young person.
• Establish Skills England to bring together business, training providers and unions with national and local government to ensure we have the highly trained workforce needed to deliver Labour’s Industrial Strategy

Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

• § Make the government’s existing mortgage guarantee scheme permanent, with the state acting as guarantor for a portion of 95 percent mortgages allowing a 5 percent deposit.
• § Create a new National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, bringing together existing bodies, to set strategic infrastructure priorities and oversee the design, scope, and delivery of projects.
• § Update the National Policy Planning Framework to undo Conservative changes, including restoring mandatory housing targets.
• § Build 1.5 million new homes over the next parliament.
• § Prioritise the development of previously used land wherever possible and fast-track approval of urban brownfield sites.
• § Build a new generation of new towns.
• § Strengthen planning obligations to ensure new developments provide more affordable homes.
• § Deepen devolution settlements for existing Combined Authorities and widen devolution to more areas, encouraging local authorities to come together and take on new powers
• Abolish Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and prevent private renters from being exploited.
• Strengthen the relationship with the devolved administrations.

Rural

• Set a target for half of all food purchased across the public sector to be locally produced or certified to higher environmental standards.
• Introduce a land-use framework.
• Ban trail hunting and the import of hunting trophies.
• Ban puppy smuggling and farming, along with the use of snare traps.
• Create nine new National River Walks, one in each region of England, and establish three new National Forests in England, whilst planting millions of trees and creating new woodlands.
• Expand nature-rich habitats such as wetlands, peat bogs and forests.

Defence

• Put the Armed Forces Covenant fully into law and establish an independent Armed Forces Commissioner to improve service.
• Scrap visa fees for non-UK veterans who have served for four or more years, and their dependents.
• Set out the path to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence.
• Conduct a Strategic Defence Review within the first year.
• Bring in ‘Martyn’s Law’ to strengthen the security of public events and venues.
• Ensure the police and intelligence services have the powers and resources they need to protect the British people from terrorism and hostile espionage.
• A commitment to a ‘triple lock’ on Trident.

Transport

• Bring railways into national ownership.
• Set up GB Rail which will be responsible for investment, day-to-day operational delivery and innovations and improvements for passengers.
• Give new mayors powers to lift the ban on municipal ownership and create unified and integrated transport systems.
• Develop a long-term strategy for transport, ensuring infrastructure is delivered efficiently and on time.
• Set up a ten-year infrastructure strategy, aligned with the industrial strategy and regional development priorities, including improving rail connectivity across the north of England.

Immigration

• Reform the points-based immigration system so that it is fair and properly managed, with restrictions on visas - linking immigration and skills policy.
• Barring employers who break visa rules from hiring workers from abroad.
• Strengthen the Migration Advisory Committee, and establish a framework for joint working with skills bodies across the UK, the Industrial Strategy Council and the Department for Work and Pensions.
• Bring in workforce and training plans for sectors such as health and social care, and construction.
• Create a new Border Security Command, with hundreds of new investigators, intelligence officers, and cross-border police officers.
• Hire more caseworkers to clear the immigration backlog.
• Set up a new returns and enforcement unit, with an additional 1,000 staff, to fast-track removals to safe countries for people who do not have the right to stay here.
• Negotiate additional returns arrangements to speed up returns and increase the number of safe countries where failed asylum seekers can swiftly be sent back.

Crime

• Give His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire & Rescue Services new powers to intervene with failing forces.
• Introduce a new expanded fraud strategy.
• Introduce a ‘Hillsborough Law’ which will place a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities, and provide legal aid for victims of disasters or state-related deaths.
• Roll out a direct entry scheme for detectives to boost investigation skills.
• Introduce a new Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee.
• Increase the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner.
• Introduce new Respect Orders to ban persistent adult offenders from town centres, and stamp out issues such as public drinking and drug use.
• End the practice of empty warnings by ensuring knife-carrying triggers rapid intervention and tough consequences.
• Ban ninja swords, lethal zombie-style blades and machetes, and strengthen rules to prevent online sales.
• Create a new Young Futures programme.
• Set up specialist rape and sexual offences teams in every police force.
• Fast-track rape cases, with specialist courts at every Crown Court location in England and Wales.
• Introduce domestic abuse experts in 999 control rooms.
• Strengthen the rights and protections available to women in cohabiting couples, as well as for whistleblowers in the workplace, including on sexual harassment.

Culture Media and Sport

• Implement a creative industries sector plan as part of the Industrial Strategy, accelerating growth in film, music, gaming, and other creative sectors.
• Support children to study a creative or vocational subject until they are 16.
• Support the role grassroots sports clubs play in expanding access to sport.
• Launch a new National Music Education Network.
• Introduce a Football Governance Bill, which will establish an independent regulator to ensure the financial sustainability of football clubs in England.

Foreign Affairs

• Keep Britain steadfast in its financial, military and diplomatic support of Ukraine.
• Support calls for a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression for Vladimir Putin.
• Create a long-term strategy to manage the UK’s relationship with China.
• Commit to recognising a Palestinian state as a contribution towards a renewed peace process in the Middle East.
• Rebuild and reset the UK’s relationship with the EU - but crucially remain outside of it.
• Negotiate a veterinary agreement with the EU to prevent unnecessary border checks and help tackle the cost of food.
• Create a new Clean Power Alliance, bringing together a coalition of countries at the cutting edge of climate action.]
• Seek a new UK-EU security pact.
• Modernise trade rules and agreements, promoting deeper trade and co-operation including through the World Trade Organisation and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
• Deliver a new approach to engaging with Africa.
• Implement the OECD global minimum rate of corporate taxation.
• Introduce a new security agreement with the EU to ensure access to real-time intelligence and enable our policing teams to lead joint investigations with their European counterparts.

Employment & Workplace

• Introduce a ‘New Deal for Working People’ by introducing legislation within 100 days. This will include banning zero-hours contracts; ending fire and rehire; and introducing basic rights from day one to parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal.
• Strengthen the collective voice of workers, including through trade unions, and create a Single Enforcement Body.
• Change the remit of the independent Low Pay Commission so for the first time it accounts for the cost of living.
• Remove the discriminatory age bands of the minimum wage.