We’re breaking down the key highlights of each manifesto to help you make the best decision you can at the ballot box this July.
With TikTok, Instagram, 24 hour news, YouTube and more, there’s more information than ever at our disposal. However for many of us, that hasn’t made understanding politics any easier, especially during an election.
Naked Politics’ Manifesto Breakdown Series is here to help you decide which party- if any- you might consider voting for, by cutting through the petty politics and looking at what matters: the policies.
The Labour party, it's fair to say, has undergone a transformation since it was last led by Jeremy Corbyn in 2019. Keir Starmer was elected leader of the party on the basis of some fairly similar policies, such as lifting the two-child cap on child benefit, scrapping tuition fees and increasing tax on the top 5% of earners in the UK.
Since then, the Labour party leader has shifted dramatically, dropping every pledge made to the membership and moving the party closer to the right, leading to criticism that it is not so different from The Conservative party and raising issues of trust. Looking at current polling the Labour party is the most popular party by far with both 18-24 year olds and 25-40 year olds, although their lead has dipped by a few points in the last week.
So what are The Labour party offering you this election? Read below to find out more.
Climate change
Labour’s biggest spending commitment is the £23.7bn for “green initiatives'' tied into its economic strategy. They are promising to create a publicly-owned “Great British Energy company” to roll out nuclear and renewable energy and they say it will create 650,000 jobs by 2030. There is an additional £1.1bn a year to help improve the energy efficiency of UK homes, and a pledge to restore plans to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.
The youth group Green New Deal Rising has been critical of labour’s approach to the climate crisis, saying the fiscal (tax) rules that labour want to put in place will prevent them from putting enough money behind “meaningful climate action”. They also accused Labour of “u-turning” on the original policy to spend £28 billion on green investment.
Healthcare
Labour is promising to create an extra 40,000 appointments and operations a year by introducing more weekend services and controversially, turning to the private sector. There is also a commitment to create a National Care Service; a “home first” approach to care to help people live independently.
The Nuffield Trust Think Tank has stated “both Conservative and Labour proposals would represent a lower level of funding increase than the period of ‘austerity’ between 2010-11 and 2014-15.” Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies told The Guardian newspaper that for Labour to deliver the change it is promising there would need to be more money provided: “Labour’s manifesto offers no indication that there is a plan for where the money would come from to finance this.”
Housing
Their core offering is to get property companies to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years- an ambitious number. They want to kickstart the “biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation” but there are no explicit numbers committed to in terms of social housing (that is government owned housing that tenants rent at a cheaper rate).
Aside from promising to eliminate no fault evictions for private tenants (which the Conservatives have also promised) there is not much there for private renters in terms of improving affordability. The emphasis is largely on current home owners and increasing the number of first time buyers- which some would argue would continue to increase house prices and private rent.
Employment, wages and tax
Their commitment to end zero hours contracts remains, and they want to get rid of the discriminatory age bands that set separate minimum wages for those aged 16, 21 and 25. There is also a promise to “strengthen the collective voice of workers” through trade unions but no details are provided.
They have committed to no tax increases on National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of Income Tax, or VAT, which tend to be the types of taxes paid by young people. There is also a commitment to get rid of “Non Domicile” statuses which wealthy people can use to reduce the amount of tax they pay in the UK (if any) and tackling tax avoidance- although the details on how they will do this are quite vague.
There is no commitment for a wealth tax (e.g. a tax on assets like land or property) or higher taxes for those on the highest incomes. They are capping corporation tax at 25%, which will be the lowest rate of corporation tax paid in the 7 richest countries in the world.
Education
There’s the promise to add 20% VAT to private school fees (approximately only 7% of the UK population attends fee paying schools) to pay for 6,500 extra teachers in England’s state schools. Labour also wants to open an additional 3,000 nurseries “through upgrading space in primary schools” and conduct an “expert review” of the current curriculum in schools. They are proposing to tackle poverty a free breakfast programme for all primary state school children to aid the cost of living crisis. There is also a focus on apprenticeships, promising “a flexible Growth and Skills Levy, with Skills England consulting on eligible courses to ensure qualifications offer value for money.”
In terms of university students the picture is extremely vague, promising to “improve access to universities and raise teaching standards….[and] secure a future for higher education”. We couldn’t find any actual concrete commitments.
Migration
The party has promised to scrap the controversial Rwanda scheme that the Conservative government was attempting to roll out, and create a new Border and Security Command. They also promised to “restore order to the asylum system so that it operates swiftly, firmly, and fairly”, with an emphasis on a more efficient asylum system but not necessarily one that will seek to increase the amount of asylum seekers Britain takes in.
Social Justice
Labour are promising a new Race Equality Act, to secure the full right to equal pay for Black, Asian, and other ethnic minority people. They also want to include trans people in the ban on conversion therapy for gay, lesbian and bisexual people, and simplify the gender recognition process for trans people- although there is no detail as to how to do that, such as allow trans people to self identify as their own gender rather than have to go through lots of prescriptive measures to do so.
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