13008_19 Reproduced from electronic media, promoted by Louise Magee, General Secretary, Welsh Labour, on behalf of Welsh Labour, both at 1 Cathedral Road, Cardiff CF11 9HA.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION – MARK DRAKEFORD AND CHRISTINA REES 6 FOREWORD – JEREMY CORBYN 8

A GREEN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 11 ECONOMY AND ENERGY 12 TRANSPORT 22 ENVIRONMENT 26 ANIMAL WELFARE 29

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 30 FUNDING 31 HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE 33 EDUCATION 41 POLICE AND SECURITY 48 JUSTICE 52 COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT 55 FIRE AND RESCUE 59 DIGITAL, CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT 60

TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY 63 WORK 64 WOMEN AND EQUALITIES 71 MIGRATION 76 SOCIAL SECURITY 78 HOUSING 82 THE CONSTITUTION 86

THE FINAL SAY ON BREXIT 90 THE FINAL SAY ON BREXIT 91

A NEW INTERNATIONALISM 95 A NEW INTERNATIONALISM 96 EFFECTIVE DIPLOMACY 98 DEFENCE AND SECURITY 102 INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 105 INTRODUCTION

This general election is the most in Wales to make us a truly 21st century important in living memory. Nearly a nation. decade of punishing Tory austerity has We’re proud of what our Welsh Labour taken its toll on working people and Government has done to stand up their destructive policies have left our for Wales and protect working people. communities damaged and divided Welsh Labour has kept our NHS public, and our planet plunged into a climate created thousands of new jobs and emergency. quality apprenticeships, put in place This election is our chance to put our biggest-ever investment in new that right. schools and colleges, promoted the Welsh language and put renewable The choices we make next about energy and biodiversity at the heart addressing the climate change of what we do. emergency, Brexit and the future of our public services will shape Wales And with Labour in power at and our lives for the next generation. Westminster, we can do so much more. We need to make sure that it’s a UK Progressive politics is about Labour government making those understanding our past in ways that decisions and that there is the can help us shape our future. It is about maximum number of Welsh Labour MPs setting out a compelling vision of at Westminster, acting as a strong and the journey ahead and taking people radical voice, standing up for Wales. with us on that road. That is what this This general election has to be about manifesto is designed to do. It’s a real change. It is our chance to set out contract with the people of Wales that on a different road ahead in the next sets out how Labour governments in decade. Labour is the only party that Wales and in Westminster will work will give the people of Wales a final together - in a new and progressive say on Brexit, but just as importantly partnership - to invest in our public we need to put Labour in government services, to protect working people, to at Westminster so it can work with our tackle climate change and to protect Labour government here in Wales to our planet for generations to come. build the stronger, greener and fairer Though the issues we seek to address nation we all want to see over the next are complex, this general election is few years. Labour will invest in our a clear and simple choice. A choice public services and our people, making between a Labour government for the sure that we have the funds we need

6 STANDING UP FOR WALES many or a Tory government for the few. A choice between a Labour government that wants to put in place a £10 Living Wage, ban zero hours contracts and invest in a Green Industrial Revolution or a Tory government that wants to sell off our NHS to Donald Trump, strip away rights for working people, put profit before the planet and cut our public services to the bone.

You can stop that from happening – with a positive vote for Welsh Labour in this general election.

Our most radical days are ahead of us. A Labour government at Westminster, with a Labour government in Wales, can push the boundaries of what’s possible, building a different and better future - one that we can be proud to pass on to future generations.

Mark Drakeford First Minister of Wales and Leader of Welsh Labour OUR MOST RADICAL DAYS ARE AHEAD OF US. A LABOUR GOVERNMENT Christina Rees Shadow Secretary of State for Wales AT WESTMINSTER, WITH A LABOUR GOVERNMENT IN WALES, CAN PUSH THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT’S POSSIBLE.

INTRODUCTION 7 FOREWORD

This election will shape the UK for a sleeping rough on the streets. I am not generation. It is your opportunity to prepared to put up with communities get rid of the Tories and elect a UK blighted by Tory austerity and millions Labour government that works not just struggling to make ends meet, while tax for a few, but for all of us. cuts are handed to the richest.

This election is about more than We can do better than this. How can Brexit. It’s also about the climate, it be right that in the fifth richest about investment, about living country in the world, people’s living standards, about poverty and fair taxes. standards are going backwards and life Above all it’s a chance for real change expectancy is stalling? across the UK. The Tories are failing. They have failed It’s time to take on the vested interests on the economy, failed on the climate holding people back. The last decade crisis, failed on investment for the has seen a wealth grab by a privileged future and failed on investment for few, supported by the Conservatives, our public services. at the expense of the majority. The And with the Tories’ reckless handling of big polluters, financial speculators and Brexit, Boris Johnson poses the biggest corporate tax-dodgers have had a free threat to the UK. ride for too long. A UK Labour government will work with I’m proud of what Welsh Labour has First Minister Mark Drakeford and his done in government in Wales over the Welsh Labour government to unlock the last few years. They’ve stood up for potential of all those held back for too working families; they’ve kept our NHS long. We will be on your side. Labour in public hands, and they’ve put in place will rewrite the rules of the economy, the biggest school building programme so that it works for everyone. Wales has seen in a generation. We will invest in our public services, by With Labour in government at taxing those at the top to properly fund Westminster we can build on this the services we all rely on. platform and do so much more. We will launch the largest-scale Labour will build a fairer UK that cares investment programme in modern for all, where wealth and power are times to fund the jobs and industries shared. of the future. I am not prepared to continue to see We will kick-start a Green Industrial more people queuing at food banks or Revolution investing in renewable

8 STANDING UP FOR WALES THE FUTURE IS OURS TO MAKE. IT’S TIME FOR REAL CHANGE – FOR THE MANY, NOT THE FEW. TOGETHER, WE CAN DELIVER IT.

energy, investing in rail and electric We will bring in a Real Living Wage of cars, investing in energy efficiency - at least £10 per hour for all workers reducing fuel poverty and excess winter – with equal rights at work from day deaths and creating high skilled jobs at one on the job. We will end insecurity the same time. and exploitation by ending zero hours contracts and strengthening trade We will bring rail, mail and energy into union rights. public ownership to end the great privatisation rip-off and save you Labour will invest in Wales – in people money on your fares and bills. and communities - and provide the Welsh Labour government with a We will deliver full-fibre broadband massive injection of funds to invest free to everybody in every home in in public services. our country by creating a new public service, boosting the economy, Labour will protect our security at connecting communities and putting home and abroad. After years of failed money back in your pocket. foreign interventions and wars, we will instead have a foreign policy based on We will end food bank Britain and lift peace, justice and human rights. And children and pensioners out of poverty. we will get Brexit sorted in six months

FOREWORD 9 by giving people the final say – with a choice between a sensible leave deal or remain. We will implement whatever the British people decide.

The choice could not be clearer at this election. Labour will put wealth and power in the hands of the many. Boris Johnson’s Conservatives will look after the privileged few.

And only Labour can rid this country of the Conservatives.

This manifesto offers the chance of real change for every generation and every community. When Labour wins the nurse wins, the pensioner wins, the student wins, the office worker wins, the engineer wins.

When Labour Wins, Wales Wins.

We can and we must do better as a country.

Our manifesto offers hope, security and a fairer society.

The future is ours to make. It’s time for real change – for the many, not the few.

Together, we can deliver it.

Jeremy Corbyn Leader of the Labour Party

This Welsh Labour manifesto replicates the UK manifesto on areas that are not devolved to Wales. In devolved areas such as health, education and local government, this manifesto spells out our policy proposals for Wales.

10 IT’S TIME FOR REAL CHANGE A GREEN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

12 ECONOMY AND ENERGY 22 TRANSPORT 26 ENVIRONMENT 29 ANIMAL WELFARE

11 ECONOMY AND ENERGY

The climate emergency This election is a time to set out the urgent actions and the crisis of living we must all take at a UK level to deal with the standards across the challenges we face. A time to make our economy UK are the most serious and our communities genuinely fit for future challenges of our time generations. – ones that will impact In government in Wales, Labour has shown what our lives, our economy is possible. The innovative Wellbeing of Future and our communities for Generations Act makes a sustainable, healthier and generations to come. more equal Wales the new lens through which we now take all of our decisions, including how we are facing up to the important and radical changes we need to make in the way we live, work and travel.

The Welsh Labour government was the first in the world to declare a climate emergency and also introduced a new Economic Contract through which support for business is now driving inclusive growth. Working with a UK Labour government we can do so much more. We want to lead the world in fighting climate change and drive up living standards by

12 STANDING UP FOR WALES transforming our economy – so that it our natural environment. A UK Labour can become one low in carbon and rich government’s Green New Deal aims to in good jobs. One that is radically fairer achieve the substantial majority of our and more democratic. emissions reductions by 2030 while creating an economy that serves the The climate crisis ties us all into a interests of the many, not the few. common fate. This election is our best hope to protect future generations from Just as the original industrial revolution an uninhabitable planet. The United brought industry, jobs and pride to our Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on towns, Labour’s world-leading Green Climate Change has said we need to Industrial Revolution will rebuild them, cut global emissions in half by 2030 with more rewarding well-paid jobs, to have a chance of keeping global lower energy bills and opportunities heating within safe limits – that means in new industries to communities the acting now, and acting decisively. length and breadth of Wales.

Our efforts in Wales to boost renewable For some, industrial transition has energy generation have been become a byword for devastation undermined by the decisions taken by because successive Conservative the Tory government to slash support governments were content to sit back for renewables. We need a UK Labour and leave the fate of whole industries government that is prepared to take on and communities to the mercy of the big polluters. market forces. Labour will never let that happen. Where the Tories banned onshore wind and pushed through dangerous We will show the world how prioritising fracking in England, the Welsh Labour sustainability will not only deliver government banned fracking and has immediate improvements to everyone’s supported a doubling of renewable lives but also offer humanity a pathway energy capacity in the last five to a more equitable and enlightened years. The proportion of our energy economy: one that protects our consumption from renewables in Wales environment, reins in corporate power, is now more than 50%, but we need a revitalises democracy, unites our UK Labour government so we can go communities, builds international further and faster. solidarity and promises a better quality of life for all. A UK Labour government will mean that we can accelerate the Green The scale of the challenge requires Industrial Revolution, started here nothing less. in Wales, to transform our industry, Tackling the destruction of our planet energy, transport, agriculture and is a question of justice – for the buildings while protecting and restoring

A GREEN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 13 communities at home and abroad Investment who are most affected by it and for Delivering the far-reaching changes future generations who will bear the needed to tackle the climate and consequences if we don’t. Social justice environmental emergency will require defines Labour’s approach. We will a full mobilisation of our national make sure that the costs of the green resources, both public and private. transition fall fairly and are mostly A Welsh Labour government will work borne by the wealthy and those most with a UK Labour government to responsible for the problem. coordinate the significant additional Just as we have done in areas like investment needed to tackle climate steel we will work in partnership with change and support inclusive growth. the workforce and trade unions in A UK Labour government will create every sector of our economy to lead a Sustainable Investment Board the transition in industry to new, good to bring together the Chancellor, quality jobs of the future and to making Business Secretary and Bank of sure the extensive skills of our workforce England Governor to oversee, co- is passed on to the next generation ordinate and bring forward this of workers. investment – involving trade unions 2019 saw the blossoming of a global and business. We will ask the Office for movement calling on politicians to Budget Responsibility to incorporate wake up and act on climate change. climate and environmental impacts Labour in Wales welcomed that into its forecasts so that the cost of not movement and we have responded acting will be factored into every fiscal to their demands with detailed, credible decision. The cost of not acting is far plans for real change. greater than the cost of acting.

At the same time as the Tories in A UK Labour government will launch a Westminster were forcing through new Transformation Fund of £400 billion an illegal ban of the climate protests and rewrite the Treasury’s investment in London in October, the Welsh rules to guarantee every penny spent Labour government brought together contributes to meeting our climate and campaigners and schoolchildren with environmental targets – and that the leaders from the public and private costs of not acting are fully accounted sector to work together to co-create for too. the next phase of our plan of action Of this, £250 billion will directly to achieve a low carbon Wales. fund the transition through a Green Transformation Fund across the UK

14 STANDING UP FOR WALES dedicated to renewable and low carbon A UK Labour government will change energy, transport, biodiversity and the criteria a company must meet to be environmental restoration. listed on the London Stock Exchange so that any company that fails to The Welsh Labour government and contribute to tackling the climate and the Development Bank of Wales will environmental emergency is delisted. have a share of these funds to provide additional lending for businesses, infrastructure and innovation over the Levelling Up next decade. As well as largescale projects, smaller loans will be made A vibrant, socially just economy is available through the Welsh Labour the engine which provides for quality government for new start-ups, small public services, available to all. To every businesses, local co-operatives and democratic socialist, an economy community projects in towns and geared to meet the needs of the many villages up and down the country. is the foundation of what we mean by a good society. The Welsh Labour government is currently in the process of establishing Welsh Labour is committed to building a new Community Bank. It will continue a prosperous, sustainable and fair to work with partners on this project work nation that can support poverty to improve the diversity and presence reduction, business competitiveness of financial support in communities and inclusive growth in all parts of across Wales. Wales and its economy.

A UK Labour government will make Though the last decade has been tough sure the UK’s financial sector is helping and UK Government austerity has hit to tackle the emergency rather than hard, our Welsh Labour government has fuelling it. We will improve the fitness been able to support good quality jobs of our financial authorities to mobilise right across Wales in key areas such as green investment and give them powers aerospace, advanced manufacturing to manage the risk to financial stability and the creative industries. Thanks to posed by shortsighted investment in Labour’s work in government more than polluting assets. a quarter of a million more people are in work in Wales than in 1999. Just 100 companies globally are responsible for the majority of carbon However, it is clear that the emissions. A UK Labour government Welsh economy is changing won’t be afraid to tackle this wanton rapidly. New technology, automation, corporate destruction by taking on demographic change and the climate the powerful interests that are causing emergency are having profound effects climate change. on businesses and the economy of

A GREEN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 15 Wales – in turn impacting people, The Welsh Labour government is families and communities across committed to enhancing the contract the country. and extending its reach into new areas of funding. Welsh Labour is committed to supporting our economy through Welsh Labour will be innovative by these important and profound changes. taking forward the approach it has Committed to supporting businesses developed towards the Foundational to make the transition to the low Economy – those basic services on carbon technologies of tomorrow, which every citizen relies and which to supporting individuals to train and keep us safe, sound and civilised - care, re-train for opportunities in industries food, housing and energy, for example. of the future and, importantly, ensuring Welsh Labour in government recently inclusive growth in all parts of Wales. launched a new £4.5m Foundational This has been the context in which Economy Challenge Fund set up to the Welsh government published its test innovative new ways of enhancing Economic Action Plan which seeks to the physical and economic well-being fundamentally change the way the of communities. Welsh government supports economic Welsh Labour will take the learning from growth. In doing so, it has sought to these trials and spread and scale best respond to many of the fundamental practice across Wales. As part of this concerns expressed in the 2016 EU work, Welsh Labour will help to grow the referendum vote - to address the ‘missing middle’ – grounded, medium challenges and unfairness of Brexit and sized businesses that are the backbone to support inclusive growth across all of many economies across Europe, parts of Wales. such as Germany. A key aim of this In Wales, Welsh Labour has developed approach is to support a more resilient a new Economic Contract, which sets economy across Wales – one able to out a new and fairer relationship with withstand the economic forces that business. One based on the principle have battered it in the past. of ‘public investment with a social The Welsh Labour government has purpose’. It requires businesses seeking been proud to champion cooperatives Welsh Labour government support to and social enterprises across Wales. commit to growth, fair work, reducing Working with the Wales Co-operative their carbon footprint as well as Centre and the new Cooperative promoting equality, health and learning Development Agency being established in the workplace. Over 200 businesses by the UK Labour government, we have now signed the contract.

16 STANDING UP FOR WALES will seek to double the size of the Energy cooperative sector. The Welsh Labour government has Welsh Labour will continue to promote demonstrated higher ambition in the success of the Better Jobs Closer to its emissions reduction targets than Home project, developed in partnership any other UK administration. With a with trade union partners through the UK Labour government we will put Wales TUC. Wales on track for a net zero carbon energy system within the 2030s – Labour will work with a UK Labour and go faster if credible pathways can government to ensure a progressive be found. Across the UK, we will deliver trade strategy that can help develop nearly 90% of electricity and 50% of the industrial base needed to deliver heat from renewable and low carbon high-quality exports and the decent sources by 2030. jobs that go with them. A UK Labour government will uphold the highest A UK Labour government will build: environmental and social regulations • 7000 new offshore wind turbines in all our trade relations, not the downgrading of standards as ‘barriers’ • 2000 new onshore wind turbines to trade. • Enough solar panels to cover It will also ensure that the UK’s trade 22,000 football pitches negotiating position - whether inside or • New nuclear needed for outside the EU - reflects the interests energy security of all parts of the UK and is agreed with the devolved governments when As part of our commitment to a devolved powers are at stake. Green Industrial Revolution, a UK Labour government will create jobs in Welsh Labour completely rejects Wales through environmental energy the attempts being made by the schemes such as the Swansea Bay Tories to centralise future decisions lagoon project. over structural funding in Whitehall. A UK Labour government will work The Welsh Labour government is with the Welsh Labour government to already leading the way in renewable ensure that if we leave the EU, Wales energy innovation. Some of the is not a penny worse off and future world’s most advanced wave and tidal decisions over successor structural technologies are in development in the funds are made in Wales, by the test areas established around the Welsh Welsh government. coast. With a UK Labour government we can become the world leaders in marine

A GREEN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 17 energy where once we were world With a UK Labour government, we leaders in the production of coal. will upgrade the vast majority of homes in Wales to the highest energy The Welsh Labour government took efficiency standards, reducing the action to ban fracking in Wales. A UK average household energy bill in the Labour government will extend the ban UK by £417 per household per year by on fracking to cover the whole of the UK. 2030 and eliminating fuel poverty. We The Tories have failed to invest in will introduce a zero carbon homes renewable heat schemes and refused standard for all new homes. to devolve decision-making and funding to Wales despite the fact that renewable heat is inherently local. Ownership A UK Labour government will allow us We will not achieve the promise of a fair to invest in the roll out of renewable and sustainable economy if we repeat heat technologies including heat the mistakes of the carbon era, when pumps, solar hot water, hydrogen, the capture of a natural resource for and district heat networks using waste private profit created a vastly unequal heat. A UK Labour government will and polluting economy dominated by enable the Welsh Labour government powerful vested interests. to invest in the power storage, grid enhancement and interconnectors It’s not just carbon. From the depletion we need to bring more renewable of fish stocks to the burning of energy on stream more quickly. the Amazon, profit has proved a poor regulator for use of our global The Tories have let down the people natural resources. Whether it is the of Ynys Môn by failing to deliver the trillions of litres of water lost through Wylfa project. Labour will work with leakages, barriers to renewable energy people on the island to maximise connecting to the grid or the billions its potential for new nuclear energy, of pounds of bill-payers’ money being alongside investment in renewables. siphoned off in dividends to wealthy Action by the Welsh Labour shareholders, Tory privatisation of our government has helped lift more utilities has been a disaster for both our than 150,000 households out of fuel planet and our wallets. poverty. In England, the Tories scrapped Learning from the innovative the Warm Front programme and fuel Dŵr Cymru model in Wales, a UK poverty has remained at static levels as Labour government will put people a result. In contrast, through continuing and planet before profit by bringing to fund home energy efficiency as part our energy and water systems into of our own Warm Homes programme democratic public ownership. in Wales, fuel poverty has halved.

18 STANDING UP FOR WALES Public ownership will secure democratic squandered on tax cuts for the richest control over the United Kingdom’s and captured in profits for the few, strategic infrastructure and provide instead of investing them in our future. collective stewardship for key natural We now stand at an even greater resources. crossroads in the development of our In the case of energy, it will also help national economy. Under a UK Labour deliver a new UK Labour government’s government our green future will ambitious emissions targets. Whereas be owned by all of us and whenever private network companies have failed public money is invested in an energy to upgrade the grid at the speed generation project, the public sector and scale needed, publicly owned will take a stake and return profits to networks will accelerate and coordinate the public. investment to connect renewable and low carbon energy while working with energy unions to support energy Industry and Innovation workers through the transition. Averting climate catastrophe Under a UK Labour government: offers huge economic opportunities. But Britain will only benefit from a • A new UK National Energy Agency will Green Industrial Revolution with the own and maintain the national grid right policies. infrastructure and oversee the delivery of our decarbonisation targets Over the past three decades Britain has reduced its emissions at the • 14 new Regional Energy Agencies in expense of domestic industry by England and National Energy Agencies offshoring production. This is an in Wales and Scotland will replace the accounting trick, not a solution. It does existing district network operators not protect the climate, is unfair to and hold statutory responsibility for other countries and damages jobs and decarbonising electricity and heat communities at home. and reducing fuel poverty. Labour will take full responsibility for • The supply arms of the ‘Big Six’ our carbon footprint instead of energy companies will be brought passing the buck. We will instruct the into public ownership where they will Committee on Climate Change to continue to supply households with assess the emissions the UK imports energy while helping them reduce as well as those it produces, and their energy demand. recommend policies to tackle them, The Conservatives allowed the including making UK industry the proceeds of North Sea oil to be greenest in the world.

A GREEN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 19 The Conservatives have presided over vital manufacturing sector in Wales. a lost decade of productivity and Across the UK, Labour governments allowed Britain to fall behind in the will work together to provide a clean green technologies of the future. Labour and long-term future for important will make sure this never happens again. industries to Wales.

Key to tackling the societal challenges Back in March 2016 when Tata we face – the climate crisis, our announced that it was selling its productivity problem, the plastic filling UK operations, the Welsh Labour our oceans, our ageing population, government put significant financial antibiotic resistance – will be ensuring support on the table to support the that there is targeted science, research workers and the communities involved and innovation being undertaken in and keep steel production and steel these important areas. jobs here in Wales.

As part of our plan to usher in a Green Though there is still more to do, thanks Industrial Revolution, a UK Labour to the financial support made available government will set a target for Welsh Labour proved that there is still 3% of UK GDP to be spent on research a future for the steel industry in Wales and development (R&D) by 2030. It and that an active approach to industrial will achieve this target by increasing policy really does work. direct support for R&D and encourage Welsh Labour will promote an active greater private investment. A UK Labour industrial policy and create the right Government will establish a Foundation business environment which can Industries Sector Council to provide a support a sustainable steel industry in clean and long-term future for existing the United Kingdom. heavy industries like steel and glass and fund R&D into newer technologies Welsh Labour will continue to support like hydrogen and carbon capture our vital automotive manufacturing and storage. base, by using the positive example of the Advanced Manufacturing Research The Welsh Labour government will Centre in North East Wales to work work with a UK Labour government to with vital supply chains; support the ensure more of that vital R&D happens application of - and transition to - in Wales, with particular emphasis on new technologies and support workers attracting funding in existing areas of to update their skills and capabilities strength as well as newer technologies. throughout their careers. Welsh Labour will work tirelessly Working together across the UK, with its trade union colleagues to Labour’s progressive trade strategy secure a sustainable future for our will help develop the industrial base

20 STANDING UP FOR WALES needed to deliver high-quality exports numbers remain on track and by 2021 and the decent jobs that go with them. the Welsh Labour government will have Labour will champion exports from created over 100,000 during the course the environmental goods and services of the Assembly term. sector, building on the jobs that the The Welsh Labour government will sector already sustains. We will uphold continue to focus investment where the highest environmental and social it is needed in our economy and will regulations in all our trade relations, use the intelligence sourced through not the downgrading of standards as reformed Regional Skills Partnerships ‘barriers’ to trade. to support more of the skills needed to For small businesses, we will ensure no lead the world in clean and emerging quarterly reporting for businesses below technology. the VAT threshold. Welsh Labour has been proud to work with Trade Union partners to deliver the WULF programme. In government Skills in Wales, Labour will continue to Labour’s Green Industrial Revolution support the programme so it can go will create 1m jobs across the UK and on changing the lives of thousands of Welsh Labour will work with a UK working people across the country. Labour government to ensure that Funding from a UK Labour government the jobs created in Wales are well- will allow the Welsh Labour government paid, unionised jobs – in line with our to make new investments in the WULF ambition to make Wales a fair work and ESOL services. nation. Welsh Labour will build on the foundation of the Economic Action Plan to support people with the skills they need to access these jobs of the future.

The Tories’ Apprenticeship Levy has been beset by problems with a number of critical reports demonstrating how it is not working for business. In Wales we have taken a different approach and shaped our apprenticeship programme around the needs of learners and our local economies.

In Wales, because of our approach, we haven’t seen the large drop-off in starts seen in England. Apprenticeship

A GREEN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 21 TRANSPORT PHOTO: Ed Webster

In government Welsh Crucially, the Welsh Labour government wants to Labour has set out an encourage people to switch from private car use ambitious plan to build and increase the number of people using public a world class, low carbon transport. This will help to cut emissions, pollution and and integrated public congestion as well as improve air quality. In Wales we transport system, are using our ground-breaking Future Generations Act a system grounded to inform the decisions and investments we make. on the principle that The Welsh Labour government has been clear that the transport is an essential free market model of bus services put in place by the public service. We Tories in the 1980s has been an abject failure. Carrying want to use our public more people than any other mode of public transport, transport system to buses are essential to our lives, providing a lifeline deliver our economic, for older and younger people and particularly many social and environmental economically disadvantaged groups. ambitions as a nation over the coming decade In government in Wales, Labour is developing new and beyond. legislation that will give local councils the powers to improve bus services through franchising as well as giving them the power to create municipal bus

22 STANDING UP FOR WALES companies. We will utilise additional maintain and strengthen this important funding from a UK Labour government relationship over the coming years. to increase funding for local bus The Welsh Labour government will services and to extend the MyTravelPass create 600 new jobs on the Welsh rail scheme providing discounted travel for network, invest in skills and widen access younger people. to the industry. It will work with partners The Welsh Labour government will to take forward innovative projects such publish a new Wales Transport Strategy as the Global Centre of Rail Excellence to to encourage more people onto public help make Wales a hub of rail expertise transport and to build on the significant as well as strengthen supply chain £5bn investment being made in the capacity, improve productivity and Welsh rail service to deliver significant support the inclusive growth benefits of improvements for rail passengers. significant rail infrastructure investment.

The Welsh Labour government will Working with a UK Labour government invest more than £800m in new rolling the Welsh Labour government will bring stock, support increased weekday our railways back into public ownership, and Sunday rail services; extend free using options including franchise rail travel for younger people, with expiry to rebuild our railways as an free travel for under 11s and introduce integrated public service. The Welsh half-price fares for 16 – 18 year-olds Labour government will work with a UK and allow under 16s to go free off peak. Labour government to develop a model Welsh Labour will examine transport where the responsibility and powers for pricing to keep fares affordable, passenger services and infrastructure are particularly in deprived areas. It will comprehensively devolved to the Welsh invest around £200m in new rail station government in a way that harnesses the improvements. significant knowledge and skills of both the staff that run the railway and the Labour in Wales will utilise additional citizens that use it. funding made available from a UK government to enhance the exciting A UK Labour government will deliver Metro project in South East Wales as rail electrification and expansion well as progress the North Wales and across the whole country, including in Swansea Bay Metros. In establishing Wales. We will ensure that these major Transport for Wales, the Welsh Labour infrastructure projects are a model of government has worked closely good employment practice and pay due with trade union colleagues to build regard to the environmental impact. a stronger rail network, including keeping a guard on every train. We will

A GREEN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 23 A UK Labour government will improve Labour’s transport programme in accessibility for disabled people, Wales is focused on creating better, ensure safe staffing levels and end the publicly accessible transport systems. expansion of driver only operations. By improving public transport, Labour will help people to become less reliant The Welsh Labour government is on their cars, for our better health, for making the biggest investment in a cleaner environment and to improve active travel Wales has ever seen. quality of life in our towns and cities. It has committed more than £60m to The Conservatives have committed schemes over the next three years to to ending new sales of combustion encourage more people to walk and to engine vehicles by 2040. A UK Labour cycle. The Welsh Labour government government will aim for 2030. will prioritise funding for active travel on routes that are most likely to encourage Labour will position the UK at the people who currently do not walk or forefront of the development and cycle to shift their mode of transport. manufacture of ultra-low emission vehicles and support their sale. Through the development of new The Welsh Labour government is Integrated Network Maps the Welsh investing in electric vehicle charging Labour government will set out infrastructure and it will work with a stretching new targets for walking and UK Labour government to develop cycling. Welsh Labour will use Transport this important network. A UK Labour for Wales to better plan walking and government will accelerate the cycling routes into major transport hubs transition of our public sector car and improve cycle storage facilities. fleets and build on the Welsh Labour The Welsh Labour government is government’s commitment to ensure developing safer routes to schools and that all taxis and buses in Wales will improving road safety to communities have a zero carbon footprint within across all parts of Wales. The Welsh 10 years. Labour government will make 20mph The Welsh Labour government will bring the default speed limit for residential forward legislation in the next Assembly areas with limited exceptions where term to reform taxi and private hire a case can be made. It will also tackle services, including a review of licensing the barrier that pavement parking authority jurisdictions, setting national poses to walking. We will adopt an standards of safety and accessibility ambitious Vision Zero approach to and updating regulations to keep pace UK road safety, striving for zero deaths with technological change to ensure a and serious injuries. level playing field.

24 STANDING UP FOR WALES The Welsh Labour government saved Cardiff Airport from closure when it purchased this important piece of economic infrastructure in 2013. In government, Welsh Labour will retain the airport in public ownership on behalf of the people of Wales to encourage further growth in passenger numbers and routes, examining a range of different ways to support investment in the airport in future years.

Wales is the only devolved nation to not have any power over Air Passenger Duty. A UK Labour government will act on the cross party consensus and strong evidence base presented by the Welsh Labour government and the Welsh Affairs Committee to devolve power over APD so that Wales is no longer treated less favourably than other nations.

The Welsh Labour government is committed to addressing the problems of motorway congestion around the Brynglas Tunnels and will use the recommendations of the Burns Commission to deliver innovative, affordable and sustainable solutions in the shortest possible timescale.

A UK Labour government will take action to end nationality-based discrimination in seafarer pay.

A GREEN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 25 ENVIRONMENT

Labour’s Green We are facing a climate and environment emergency, Industrial Revolution is and unlike the Tories, we will not trade our environment complemented by our in pursuit of reckless trade agreements. Labour will determination to reverse support and strengthen protected area designations centuries of damage to from National Parks to Local Nature Reserves and our natural environment. urban green spaces. Our commitments to ecosystem repair and environmental A Healthy Environment protections work hand The Welsh Labour government led the way by in hand with sustainable creating our own Environment (Wales) Act 2016, jobs and industries, and building on our Wellbeing of Future Generations Act. social justice. These have put us in a stronger position than other nations in fighting off the Tory attempt to dismantle our hard-won environmental protections. We will work with a UK Labour government to maintain and continuously improve the existing standards of EU environmental regulation.

26 STANDING UP FOR WALES The Welsh Labour government is extinction. We will create new National developing a Clean Air Act for Wales to Parks and strengthen the system of help bring about faster reductions in designations, safeguarding local wildlife air pollution from all sources, including sites that provide essential connectivity road traffic and industry, to meet the and allowing more people to enjoy World Health Organisation guidelines. living close to nature.

A UK Labour government will assist The Welsh Labour government has these efforts by introducing a UK-wide begun the process of establishing vehicle scrappage scheme to enable a National Forest for Wales, with our more people to switch away from vision for the forest to extend the polluting cars. entire length of Wales. This will build on our success in creating the Wales Where the Tories have neglected the Coastal Path. flood risk to millions of people in the North of England, the Welsh Labour government is investing more than Land £350m in protecting communities the length and breadth of Wales who are at Land is a public good, but it is not risk from flooding and coastal erosion. a common asset. With a UK Labour government, we will be able to invest in more county farms to replace those Nature Restoration lost, and will work with agricultural organisations to increase access into Welsh Labour’s Environment (Wales) farming for new entrants. Act put into law by the Welsh Labour government has strengthened the The Welsh Labour government has legal duties on all public authorities fought for fair funding and support to protect and restore nature. The for farmers in the face of the threat Welsh Labour government has brought of the chaotic Tory Brexit. together local communities, businesses In contrast to the proposals put and public bodies to work together to forward by the Tories, our proposals for maintain and enhance our most vital agricultural support after Brexit would habitats in every part of Wales. mean that, at all levels of the scheme, As the UK Labour government reverses all farmers would be paid on the basis a decade of Tory cuts, we will be able of the environmental outcomes they to expand these schemes and bring deliver instead of on the basis of the forward nature restoration on an amount of land they farm. unprecedented scale, bringing our most Our guiding principle in designing precious species back from the brink of future agricultural support is that we

A GREEN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 27 must keep Welsh farmers on the land of tenant farmers so they can play and we are working closely with farmers a full part in producing sustainable to design the scheme. food alongside positive environmental outcomes with government support.

We will set maximum sustainable Food yields for all shared fish stocks, A quarter of all food purchased is redistribute fish quotas along social wasted every year, equivalent to over and environmental criteria and, if 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas people vote to leave the EU, require emissions, costing over £20 billion. the majority of fish caught under a UK quota to be landed in UK ports. Yet Britain has an epidemic in food- related ill health, obesity, malnutrition Labour will aim to achieve net zero and diabetes, as well as increased food carbon food production in Britain insecurity – with a boom in food bank by 2040. use and record levels of hunger.

A UK Labour government will introduce Waste and Recycling in law a Right to Food. It will end Food Bank Britain and ensure everyone Waste, including plastic waste, pollutes has access to healthy, nutritious, our land and seas, killing wildlife and sustainably produced food. A UK contaminating our food. Labour government will halve food bank We will make producers responsible usage within a year and remove the for the waste they create and for need for them altogether in three years. the full cost of recycling or disposal, We will make food security a reason to encouraging more sustainable design intervene in the economy and work with and manufacturing. In government in local councils to minimise food waste. Wales, Labour has transformed the Labour will put farmers, fishers, food position of recycling, placing us in the producers and workers at the heart top five globally for recycling rates. A of our plans for delivering healthy UK Labour government will learn food locally. A UK Labour government from Wales’ example, and will also will follow the example of our Welsh back bottle return schemes. Labour government by establishing an Agricultural Wages Board for England, so that the terms and conditions of workers in the rural economy are fully protected in every part of the UK. We will continue to strengthen the rights

28 STANDING UP FOR WALES ANIMAL WELFARE

The Conservatives have In Wales, the Welsh Labour government has resisted demonstrated they are the calls for a badger cull and instead have put in place more than willing to vaccination programs that the evidence clearly shows sacrifice animal welfare is both more effective and more humane. standards in trade deals The Welsh Labour government is strengthening the with other countries. welfare standards for domesticated and wild animals. They threaten to bring We are banning the use of wild animals in circuses back fox hunting and are and introducing new stricter regulation of third-party pursuing the ineffective puppy sales and breeding establishments. badger cull – the largest destruction of A UK Labour government will work internationally a protected species in to end commercial whaling, ban the importation of living memory. hunting trophies of threatened species and boost police resources to tackle rural and wildlife crime.

A GREEN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 29 REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES

31 FUNDING 33 HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE 41 EDUCATION 48 POLICE AND SECURITY 52 JUSTICE 55 COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT 59 FIRE AND RESCUE 60 DIGITAL, CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

30 FUNDING

Universal public services These universal principles have been made a reality collectively provided in Wales where prescriptions have been free since through general taxation 2007 in a Welsh NHS that has not been carved up for and free at the point private profit. They are the reason the Welsh Labour of use for all are how government has not introduced free schools or we guarantee the right academies in Wales. to a good life. Public A decade of Tory cuts has slashed the funding available services do more than for Welsh public services. A UK Labour government will make sure everyone has work with the Welsh Labour government to make our the basics. They create public services the best and most extensive in the world. shared experiences and strengthen social bonds. We will pay for this by creating a fairer UK taxation They make our lives richer system asking for a little more from those with the and more fulfilling. broadest shoulders, and making sure that everyone pays what they owe.

A UK Labour government will reverse some of the Tories’ cuts to corporation tax while keeping rates lower than in 2010.

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 31 We will ask those who earn more than refuse to play fair. £80,000 to pay a little more income A UK Labour government approach tax, while freezing National Insurance that shares our values will incentivise and income tax rates for everyone else. good working conditions with services The Welsh Labour government will not procured that support environmental increase income tax this Assembly term. standards, equalities policies, tax We will end the unfairness that sees compliance and pay ratios. Despite income from wealth taxed at lower austerity, the Welsh Labour government rates than income from work. VAT is has made investing in our future a a regressive tax that hits the poorest priority. When the Tories stopped hardest and we guarantee no increases building new schools and colleges in in VAT. England, the Welsh Labour government strove ahead with the largest building We will launch the biggest ever programme in a generation. crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion and reform the inefficient By benefiting from the UK Labour system of tax reliefs. government’s £150 billion Social Transformation Fund, the Welsh Labour The Welsh Labour government is government can go even further with introducing a Social Partnership Bill to new funding to invest in our schools, support our mission to make Wales a fair hospitals, care homes, council houses work nation. Our new approach to public and the fight against climate change. procurement will build on the Code of Practice for Ethical Employment in The Welsh Labour government has Supply Chains designed to support fair already rejected the PFI model in Wales, work from expanding the living wage to dramatically reducing the number of eliminating zero hours contracts. projects with rip off bills compared with the rest of the UK. The Welsh Labour government has already legislated to roll back the Tory Our most valuable assets are the Trade Union Act, which was designed to dedicated people who work in our public undermine workers’ rights in our public services, but under this UK government, services. We will continue to choose their pay has been cut in real terms. A UK partnership over conflict with new Labour government will restore public agreements to apply fair work standards sector pay to at least pre-financial crisis through public procurement. levels (in real terms), by delivering year on year above inflation pay rises, starting Responsible businesses that treat with a 5% increase, to reward and retain their workforce fairly and act to reduce the people who do so much for us all. their impact on climate change do not deserve to be undercut by those that

32 STANDING UP FOR WALES HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE

The NHS is one of Welsh Labour remains committed to the values on Labour’s proudest which our NHS was founded; free from market forces achievements. and driven not by profit but by what works best for The right to free the people who rely on it. This is in stark contrast to at the point of use the health service in England, which is being sold off healthcare, universal piecemeal by the Tories to private companies. and comprehensive Despite a decade of Tory cuts that have slashed the in scope is socialism Welsh budget, the Welsh Labour government has met in action. its commitment to invest more per head in health and social services than was invested in England. Spending per person in Wales is 11% higher than in England.

The needs of our communities change and new treatments and health technologies are developing all the time. The Welsh Parliamentary Review on Health and Social Care was clear that system-wide transformation was necessary to reduce the pressure on our overstretched A&E departments, improve performance and deliver high standards of care to

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 33 meet the needs of individuals and We have provided a £100m communities. Transformation Fund to support these Regional Partnership Boards to test The Welsh Labour government’s plan and scale up new ways of working for health and social care sets out how that move care closer to home, services will develop to ensure they join up health and social care services are sustainable in the longer term. and put more emphasis on prevention. Key to this vision is the provision of integrated health and care services The Welsh Labour approach to that provide support close to home and local healthcare means that GPs in focus on helping people stay well and Wales will work with pharmacists, out of hospital. We are committed to physiotherapists, social workers and supporting our health and care services others to provide people with direct to offer more through the medium access to a range of care and support of Welsh. We will ensure the voices close to home. of local people are at the centre of We have introduced Access Standards – developments in the health and social supported by £13 million of investment care system and that decisions that that will make it easier for people to impact on staff are considered in get an appointment with a healthcare social partnership. professional at their local GP surgery.

We are committed to reviewing our Quality Care for All dental workforce and changing the way we contract dental services to make A Labour government in Westminster it easier for people to access a dentist will mean Wales gets the money it when they need one. Contract reform is needs to support our health and care significantly further ahead in Wales than services to develop and transform at in England, over 30% of dentists have pace and scale. Increased investment signed up to our new approach so far. will support our plans to deliver more care closer to home and ensure Thanks to our Welsh Labour that when people do need care and government Wales already has a treatment in hospital, our specialist more generous set of access rules to services are cutting edge; using dentistry than in England. A UK Labour the latest in medical innovation. government will ensure that the Welsh Labour government has the funding The Welsh Labour government has it needs to invest further in our NHS bought together, on a regional basis, services and consider what further partners from health, local authorities actions we can take to improve access and the third sector to plan and to dental services across Wales. deliver services.

34 STANDING UP FOR WALES The Welsh Labour government has Welsh Labour is committed to driving increased investment in community up quality wherever and however in pharmacy. In England the Tories have Wales people access healthcare. cut funding for community pharmacy We have bought forward new legislation by 7% since 2016. Since the launch to introduce duties of quality and of the Common Ailment Service over candour which will further promote a 100,000 consultations have been culture of openness and excellence in completed and over 80% of people our services. accessing the service say they would We have made parking free in all our have visited their GP, out-of-hours or hospitals and introduced standards A&E if it had not been available. for hospital food. We are committed to continue to The Welsh Labour government’s reform and adapt our approach to ten year plan for health and social contracting primary care services, care recognised the use of digital including dental services. This will technologies as a key enabler of ensure that people across Wales have transformational change. £50m access to the support they need to has been committed to support keep well and manage long-term programmes, covering services for conditions. patients, the public and professionals All Wales networks are supporting as well as modernising devices and improved outcomes for people with investing in data and cyber security. specific conditions such as stroke, We ensure data protections for NHS heart disease and cancer. and patient information, a highly A UK Labour government will help us valuable, publicly funded resource to accelerate our ambition to deliver that can be used for better diagnosis modern and fit for purpose facilities of conditions and for ground-breaking to support new models of care. research. We will ensure NHS data is This means continuing to invest not unfairly exploited by international in improving primary, community, technology and pharmaceutical social care and hospital facilities. corporations.

The Welsh Labour government has The Welsh Labour government has invested £68 million to develop new invested over £45m during the last integrated health and care centres three years on large imaging equipment across Wales by 2021, bringing a range such as Computerized Tomography (CT) of health and social care services and Magnetic Resonance Imaging together closer to people’s homes in (MRI) scanners. community and town centre hubs. We will continue to support

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 35 developments that will improve image waiting times despite reporting against sharing across Wales and enable a larger set of tests. accurate detection of disease through Therapy waits were 98% lower at the artificial intelligence. end of March 2019 than March 2018, Since 2019 the Welsh Labour the best performance on record. government has advanced microscopy The number of delayed transfers of in all health boards. We have established care remains at historically low levels a National Imaging Academy and are in Wales. 2017 saw the lowest figures developing an all Wales approach recorded in the 14 years that statistics to investment in Positron Emission have been collected. Figures in 2018 Tomography (PET) scanners. were the second lowest on record. The Welsh Labour government has an The Welsh Labour government will ambition for the public sector in Wales continue to invest and focus on these to be carbon neutral by 2030. NHS key areas of NHS performance to Wales, as the largest public sector body maintain and sustain improvement in Wales, has a key role to play. and ensure that service transformation Health boards and shared services are delivers for everyone. introducing low emission vehicles into A UK Labour government will review the their fleets as part of our target for all tax and pension changes implemented new fleet cars and light goods vehicles by the Tory government to ensure that to be low emission by 2025. the workforce is fairly rewarded and Welsh Labour recognise that continued that services are not adversely affected. investment in digital and advanced and The changes introduced this April have greener technology is a crucial part of impacted on NHS performance across our plans to transform services. the UK with health boards in Wales reporting that between April and August These system-wide developments are 2019, over 2,000 outpatient, diagnostic, helping to deliver improvements across inpatient or day case sessions have the Welsh NHS and starting to drive been lost as a result, affecting over down the length of time people are 15,000 patients. waiting for key treatments.

Overall in Wales there are fewer people waiting too long for care and treatment. Mental Health At the end of March this year 89.1% During the life of its 10 year mental of patients were waiting less than 26 health strategy, the Welsh Labour weeks from referral, the best position government has invested in actions that since March 2013. Wales also continues have reduced stigma around mental to show improvements in diagnostic

36 STANDING UP FOR WALES health and encouraged more people to a common, multi-agency offer to access support. We have invested across Wales in improved support in the community, • Further improving children and including crisis intervention for children, young persons’ mental health services young people and adults, and early - improving access across primary intervention in psychosis. and specialist CAMHS as well as New community perinatal mental supporting the new curriculum and health services have been established, whole school approach. providing support across all areas • Further development of perinatal of Wales. We have ensured greater mental health services including service user and carer involvement developing in-patient provision in the development and planning of services at both a regional and But we recognise that there is more to national level, significantly reduced the do. The Welsh Labour government will number of children and young people do more to support vulnerable groups waiting longer than 4 weeks to access – including offenders, those with co- treatment and reduced the number occurring mental health and substance of mental health hospital admissions misuses issues and services for those through an emphasis on more support with eating disorders. in the community. A UK Labour government will We have reduced the number of implement in full the recommendations delayed transfers for people with set out in the Independent Review mental health issues, the number of of the Mental Health Act. The Welsh people (both adults and children) that Labour government will consider how need to be sent outside of Wales for recommendations relating to devolved treatment and the number of people in issues should inform future policy. mental health crisis detained in a police cell as a place of safety. Inequalities During the last 3 years of the strategy actions will focus on: Welsh Labour are committed to reducing health inequality and giving • Improving access to psychological everyone the best possible opportunity therapies for children and adults - to live well for longer. This includes to increase the range of therapies supporting people to make healthy on offer and deliver a significant choices and take responsibility for their reduction in waiting times own health and wellbeing. • Further improving crisis and out of Our First 1000 Days Programme is hours for children and adults – moving designed to give all children the best

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 37 start in life. It brings together families The Welsh Labour government has of young children with cross sector launched a new Healthy Weight services to find the best ways to act on Strategy setting out the system- opportunities, build resilience, amplify wide approach that will be required to protective factors, prevent problems tackle obesity, recognising that the from developing and intervene earlier environment influences our everyday when risks are identified. choices. We will develop and scale up approaches to reverse the current Breastfeeding is important for the imbalance placed towards unhealthy health and development of infants and food choices and ensure that our active is linked to the prevention of major environment can help to make good health inequalities. The Welsh Labour physical activity choices. A UK Labour government has published a plan government will extend the sugar tax to to improve uptake and support for milk-based drinks, set more ambitious breastfeeding. targets for salt reduction in food The Welsh Labour government was the and enforce stricter rules around the first in the UK to ban smoking in school advertising of junk food. grounds, hospital grounds, playgrounds Immunisation rates in Wales remain at and cars carrying children. As part of the top of international benchmarks. a wider strategy on substance misuse The vast majority of children in Wales the Welsh Labour government has are fully immunised before they start legislated to introduce a minimum school. Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) 50p unit price for alcohol and taken a has been routinely available for people public health approach to gambling at risk of HIV from sexual health services supporting an all Wales gambling across Wales since 2017. treatment service. Our Future Generations and Wellbeing The Welsh Labour government is Act enshrines health aims in all Welsh investing £5.4 million to support government and public sector policies projects that strengthen community and plans. assets and promote and enable healthy activity for targeted groups who might otherwise be less likely or have fewer Workforce opportunities to participate. In order to ensure that our health Our Design to Smile programme, services attract the very best people now ten years old, has delivered to live and work in Wales, the Welsh dramatic improvements in the level of Labour government has invested in an children’s tooth decay with the biggest international recruitment campaign for improvement being seen in our most doctors, nurses and midwives. deprived areas.

38 STANDING UP FOR WALES The NHS Wales workforce has grown Medicine by 10.4% over the last five years and Prescriptions remain free in Wales we are training more doctors, nurses whilst fees in England now stand at and allied healthcare professionals than £9.00 per item. ever before. Over the last five years, nurse training places have risen by 40% £80 million has been invested in our with an increase across all four fields of ground breaking new Treatment Fund nursing. Health visitor training places which was a key manifesto commitment have increased by 30%, midwifery from the Assembly election in 2016, training places by 71%, and district meaning that the most advanced drugs nursing by 95%. and treatments for cancer and other life threatening illnesses become available Over the same period the quota for GP to patients in Wales on average only 13 training places increased from 136 to 160 days after approval. with 186 places filled this year. Our 10 year plan for health and social We remain committed to investing care in Wales recognises the importance in our dedicated NHS workforce and of earlier detection and intervention. never transfer NHS staff to subsidiary Precision medicine, including advanced companies to undermine terms and diagnostics and personalised therapies, conditions. will play a key part in this. The NHS will Under a Labour government, Wales was be at the forefront of the development the first country in Europe to legislate for of genomics and cell therapies. nurse staffing levels and has maintained Welsh Labour is committed to ensuring a bursary for student nurses, midwifes that people in Wales are able to and allied health professionals. benefit from these new treatments for A UK Labour government will guarantee conditions such as cancer and dementia year on year above inflation pay as they become available. rises; enabling us to extend the We will increase investment and support implementation of this radical safe nurse the development of new, fair and staffing legislation. value based cost models and will play an active role in medical innovation, A Labour government will help us recruit ensuring rewards and incentives match more of the staff we need by removing the areas of greatest health need. the obstacles to ethical international recruitment. A UK Labour government will establish a generic drug company and use the Patent Act provisions and compulsory licences if fair prices are rejected for patented drugs.

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 39 Welsh Labour has been very clear – our and meet the social care needs of the NHS is not for sale and should not be population including brokering more care sold off in any trade deal. A UK Labour from social enterprises and cooperatives government will ensure that all parts or through direct delivery. of the NHS, the treatment of patients, The Welsh Labour government is the employment of staff and medicine committed to ensuring that people who pricing are all fully excluded and need social care are able to access a protected from any international quality service. We have devoted an trade deals. increasing share of our own resources to We will progress clinically appropriate social care. We spend £3,051 per person prescription of medical cannabis. every year on health and social services - the highest of the four UK countries.

Welsh Labour is clear that people should Social Care not have to pay for the care they need The Welsh Labour government has met and if funding allowed, would make its commitment to invest more per head more care available for free. A UK Labour on social care than in England. government will deliver a significant boost to the funding available to the We have delivered on our key pledge to Welsh government. With this additional more than double the capital limit from resource we would engage with people £24,000 to £50,000. This is the amount and communities to inform our approach of money people can keep before to extending free social care. they are asked to pay for care. The level in Wales is now much higher than The Welsh Labour government has anywhere else in the UK. committed to making Wales a fair work nation. We have regulated to We have maintained a cap on the end compulsory zero hours contracts amount local authorities can charge for for care workers and ensure care staff homecare and other non-residential are paid for travel time. Mindful of social care and support. This ensures a the forthcoming UK Supreme Court person cannot be charged more than judgment on care worker sleepover £90 per week for all non-residential care. pay, we will abide by the court’s ruling This only applies to people with high and ensure there are no consequential levels of income or capital. Those on low disruptions to service provision. incomes continue to pay a lower charge or no charge at all. A UK Labour government will increase the Carers Allowance for unpaid Through our Integrated Care Fund we full-time carers. are supporting health and social care partners to work together to identify

40 STANDING UP FOR WALES EDUCATION

Education makes But education isn’t just of value to our economy our economy stronger, – it lets people develop their talents, overcomes our society richer and injustices and inequalities and helps us understand our people more fulfilled. each other and form social bonds. Whether it’s businesses We haven’t lost sight of the value of education, finding people with which in Wales is undergoing significant reform to the right skills, a tech give individuals of all ages the opportunity to learn, start-up making our to grow and to thrive. Our reform programme is a economy more dynamic, long-term one, but it’s clear the ambitious policies or more people in better being put in place are having a positive impact on paid work and able to attainment, standards and the physical fabric of contribute to public our learning environments. services, we all benefit from an educated society. Welsh Labour is fundamentally committed to the comprehensive principle of education and believes that selection has no place in the Welsh education system. Welsh Labour completely rejects the Tory model of free schools in England which sees schools as simply another place for the private sector to make money. Welsh Labour believes that schools should

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 41 be supportive places, open to young to the age of seven. Against a backdrop people from every background. of falling rates of child immunisation, take up in Wales remains consistent at In government, Welsh Labour has done around 95%. everything in its power to mitigate the impact of Tory austerity on schools in The Welsh Labour government’s Wales. While things have been tough, flagship early years Flying Start Welsh Labour has tried to ensure that programme has been available to every part of our education system all children living in relative areas of gets the funding it needs to succeed. deprivation since 2007 and to children in need living outside those areas We are delivering on the commitment since 2014. to make available over £100m of additional funding for Welsh schools About 36,000 children in Wales each in this Assembly term and a Welsh year benefit from the programme which Labour government will work with a offers free part-time childcare for two UK Labour government to increase to three-year-olds, an enhanced health funding for education. visiting service, access to parenting support and access to early language development support. Early Years With additional funding unlocked Early years education is vital to through a UK Labour government, children’s development. Children from the Welsh Labour government will disadvantaged backgrounds start falling build on the success of Flying Start by behind their peers before they even extending and enhancing the offer it start school. Early years education also makes to children and families living helps parents – usually mothers – by outside current catchment areas. providing a bridge between maternity As well as the high quality early leave and school. education offer for three and four-year- Our Welsh Labour government is olds in Wales through the Foundation fundamentally committed to ensuring Phase, the Welsh Labour government’s that children and young people have childcare offer was a flagship promise the best possible start in life and every from the 2016 Assembly elections that opportunity to develop their abilities we have been proud to roll out ahead of and talents. schedule. It provides working parents in Wales with a mixture of childcare and The Welsh Labour government’s early education for children aged 3 or 4. Healthy Child Wales programme ensures equitable access to consistent Welsh Labour wants our early years universal health services for children up education and care system to continue

42 STANDING UP FOR WALES to develop to be able to provide more providing additional funding for learners support for the children who need a from the poorest backgrounds. Major little extra help. We want to create reforms have included the introduction a system which helps our language of school categorisation, funds to and culture to thrive and increase the support class size reduction and new number of children able to access accreditation criteria for initial teacher Welsh language or bilingual education training providers. services. The hard work put in by the Welsh Our new approach to early childhood Labour over many years shows in the education and care will be built on gradual improvement of exam results these foundations and at its core is the across Wales. This year’s GCSE results aim that all children will have a high- in 2019 showed overall performance quality stimulating learning and care continuing to increase and at A-Level, experience in any education and care Wales is now ranked first for A* setting they attend. Additional funding compared to the English regions and from a UK Labour government will help Northern Ireland. us to do this. Welsh Labour has already begun the A UK Labour government will also next phase of its reform programme enhance the rights and support for schools through the creation of the available to families through the first, made-in-Wales curriculum. The extension of paid maternity leave Welsh government has published the to 12 months. implementation plan ‘A curriculum for Wales – a curriculum for life’, setting out The Welsh Labour government in detail how schools and professionals has been proud to support the are to build the exciting new curriculum. Free Breakfast in Primary Schools programme and we will ensure it The support for implementation of continues to benefit schools and the new curriculum is being delivered families right across the country. through a network of Pioneer Schools. A draft version of the curriculum has been published, with first formal Schools teaching by 2022.

The changes Welsh Labour have put in Welsh Labour will continue to place in our schools have been focused support the rollout of the new on re-shaping school improvement, curriculum through the next decade improving literacy and numeracy and will make investments that support standards across the board, supporting the creative development of students. professionals at the frontline and This will include building on the National

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 43 Endowment for Music to enable more colleagues to successfully devolve young people to access musical teachers’ pay and conditions to opportunities. maintain a common, national approach. Welsh Labour will continue to work in The most effective way to deliver social partnership with trade unions to the new curriculum and to improve retain the confidence of the workforce educational outcomes for young people and improve recruitment, training and in the round is to ensure that those retention of those working across all working at the front line – teachers, parts of the education sector. lecturers and classroom assistants – are supported with effective, accredited Welsh Labour has taken action to and robust professional development. ensure that young people are not disadvantaged in education because Welsh Labour is committed to of their backgrounds or their family supporting professionals through the circumstances. Welsh Labour has new curriculum process with high supported the poorest pupils through quality professional development for the Pupil Development Grant, the existing workforce. We will see now worth £1,150 per pupil. It has through the ambitious changes being also doubled the early years Pupil made to Initial Teacher Education and Development Grant with a sum of training to ensure new entrants to £700 per child now being made teaching are ready to deliver the new available to Foundation Phase curriculum. providers in both the maintained Leadership is critical to the success and non-maintained sector. of any school or college and Welsh It’s been Welsh Labour that has Labour is supporting leaders at all maintained funding support to help levels and at whatever stage they the poorest families with the cost of are of their careers—whether they School Uniforms and developed a are taking the first steps into formal ‘holiday hunger’ pilot scheme aimed at leadership or are experienced leaders. supporting low income families during We will build on the new and innovative the holidays. Masters in Educational Practice which is helping to improve skill levels of the In government, we will accelerate teaching workforce and develop the this work to support those from new National Academy for Educational the most deprived backgrounds in Leadership. school, including utilising school and college buildings to support learners As the Tories in England have and their families more effectively. dismantled the national framework for Utilising additional funding from a UK pay and conditions, Welsh Labour has Labour government, the Welsh Labour been proud to work with trade union

44 STANDING UP FOR WALES government would look to extend that is worthwhile and necessary if further entitlement for free school we are to secure the vitality of the meals. Welsh language for the benefit of future generations. Welsh Labour will continue to look across the world to support evidence- We are committed to the bold changes led school improvement right across needed to achieve this ambition by Wales. A key part of our focus will be increasing the use of Welsh including to ensure mental health and pastoral in the workforce and by supporting the support in and around education is infrastructure and conditions in which enhanced and developed, working with the language can thrive. schools to more effectively support the We are increasing the number of Welsh challenges many young learners face. learners in statutory education and will A UK Labour government will deliver help each learner develop skills in Welsh additional funding to Wales to help to a standard which will enable them rebuild youth services, providing every to use the language in their everyday young person in Wales with access to lives. Welsh Labour will work with local local high quality youth work. authorities across Wales to effectively measure and meet the demand for Nearly a quarter of learners in Wales Welsh-medium education. have some form of additional learning need. That is why in 2018 the Welsh Welsh Labour’s commitment to Labour government successfully education is most visible in the passed the Additional Learning Needs transformative school and college and Education Tribunal Act which aims building programme we have brought to transform the system in Wales for in over the last decade. Through the supporting children and young people 21st Century Schools Programme the aged 0-25 years with additional learning Welsh Labour government, working with needs. The Bill responds to concerns partners in local government, has put from families who say the current in place the biggest capital investment system is inefficient, bureaucratic programme our school and college and costly and is not child-centred or system has ever seen. user-friendly. We are committed to By 2023 Welsh Labour will have successful implementation of the Act. invested, alongside local government, Welsh Labour has set an ambitious nearly £3.7bn in new and refurbished target to see the numbers of people schools and colleges, transforming being able to enjoy speaking and using outcomes for learners and supporting Welsh reach a million by 2050. This is a the workforce. challenging ambition, but a challenge

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 45 Welsh Labour is already taking action and further education sectors in Wales. to remove the tax concessions made to The plans will build on the work of the private schools in Wales. Hazelkorn review which suggested establishing a single regulatory, oversight and co-ordinating authority Further Education and Skills for the post-compulsory education sector. With automation and the Green Industrial Revolution bringing major Establishing one arm’s length body changes to industry, it is more to oversee the whole of post- important than ever that people have compulsory education will improve the opportunity to retrain and upskill strategic planning and help to prevent throughout their lives, and the social, duplication and gaps in provision. It functional and creative skills to help will promote collaboration between them adapt. institutions and strengthen links with others, including schools and In recent years the Welsh government businesses. has done a huge amount to improve the quality of Further Education in Wales. Welsh Labour will use new technology The sector has a significant role to play to support people to upskill throughout in enabling young people and adults to their lives and explore new ways to fulfil their potential and in delivering a support lifelong learning. It will use the skilled workforce and quality has been learning from the recent Welsh Labour rising. Success rates for activity within government trial of new Personal Welsh colleges now stands at over 80%. Learning Accounts and increased funding from a UK Labour government Welsh Labour is committed to to support greater investment in enhancing support for learners in adult learning and by giving more further education, establishing clearer opportunities to individuals to re-train learning pathways and providing better throughout their lives. information on the options available to students of all ages.

Funding for Educational Maintenance Higher Education Allowances (EMAs) has been maintained Over the last few years the Welsh at £30 per week - scrapped by the Labour government has worked with Tories in England. Welsh Labour will partners across Wales to transform protect the EMA. student finance in Wales. Welsh Labour is developing a new Through the cross-party Diamond strategic authority to oversee skills, Review the Welsh Labour government funding for research and the higher has been able to ensure that students

46 STANDING UP FOR WALES in Wales receive the equivalent of the undertake a further review of the impact National Living Wage in maintenance of any changes made in England on during term time while they study. universities and students in Wales and follow the Diamond Review model of The Welsh student support package is consulting with students, universities now the most generous scheme in the and employers about changes in Wales. UK and students from Wales do not have to pay loans until they’re earning Welsh Labour will build on the over £25,000 a year. Every student in success of the Seren programme Wales is guaranteed a minimum level it has developed to work with our of maintenance support and all eligible universities and widen access to higher full time students receive a non-means- education for those from the poorest tested maintenance grant of £1,000 backgrounds. per annum.

Support for part-time students has also been re-shaped. Students now receive a loan to pay for their fees, depending on the cost of their course, as well as receiving maintenance support which consists of a non-means-tested grant of up to £500.

New support for postgraduate master’s students is also being implemented. This includes a combination of loans and grants as a contribution to costs for completing a postgraduate master’s degree course, similar to the undergraduate package of support. Latest figures show a 35% increase in part-time undergraduates in Wales and a 58% increase in the number of post-graduates.

Welsh Labour has always been clear that education should be free and if funding allowed, there would be no tuition fees. We also recognise that higher education operates within a UK context. When a Labour government is elected at Westminster we will

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 47 POLICE AND SECURITY

The primary duty Recorded crime has risen, including violent crimes of government is to like knife crime which has risen to record high levels, keep people safe. Our up 80% in the last five years. Last year more than 11 communities were million crimes were recorded, and the proportion of damaged and police offences charged has fallen across all categories: officers endangered violence, drugs, robbery, burglary, weapons possession when 21,000 police and vehicle theft. Prosecutions have fallen to a record officers were taken off low level. Some offences have been decriminalised in our streets. practise. Only 1.4% of reported rapes are prosecuted.

Where the Conservative government has failed, a Labour government will take action to address the causes of crime and end the epidemic. We will invest in our communities and public services to build the stronger, fairer society that will make us all safer. Rebuilding our criminal justice services, we will focus on crime prevention and early interventions, giving people the best chance of rehabilitation.

48 STANDING UP FOR WALES The UK Tory government has cut police needs are met. force budgets in Wales by over £160m The Tory approach to policing has been since 2010. Despite policing remaining different: reckless, remote, authoritarian, a UK government responsibility, the ineffective policing-on-the-cheap. It Welsh Labour government has stepped has led to what HM Inspectorate of up to support safer communities, Constabulary described as dangerous, investing in 500 extra Community disturbing practices, with investigations Support Officers. shelved, vulnerable victims let down Wales is a nation of sanctuary and in and dangerous suspects remaining the face of rising hate crime, Welsh at large. Labour is investing to support victims We will retain local democratic through the National Hate Crime Report accountability for police forces and and Support Centre and organisations reform the police funding formula to supporting BAME communities in ensure sufficient, sustainable resources Wales. are fairly allocated. We will agree resources with the police authorities to combat crime and restore community Police policing by consent. A UK Labour government will invest in Effective police work requires the police policing to prevent crime and make our to serve their communities and work communities safer, and we will enforce collaboratively with youth workers, the laws protecting police and other mental health services, schools, drug emergency workers from violent assault. rehabilitation programmes and other We will rebuild the whole police public agencies. A police force working workforce, recruiting more police within our communities, with the officers, police community support capacity to gather local intelligence, officers and police staff. We will re- is also the frontline of our domestic establish neighbourhood policing and security, the first eyes and ears of recruit 2,000 more frontline officers effective counter-terrorism. than have been planned for by the We will work to eliminate institutional Conservatives. We will work with police biases against BAME communities. forces to invest in a modern workforce Proportionate stop-and-search based to tackle the rise in violent crime and on intelligence is a needed tool of cybercrime under the Tories. To deliver effective policing, but the use of these priorities Labour will work with expanded powers means black and Police and Crime Commissioners to Asian men are still more likely to be reform police funding to share new stopped and searched, poisoning resources fairly, and to ensure that local

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 49 relations between the police and the Intelligence and Security Committee. local communities they serve. We will constrain the right of the Prime Minister to suppress publication of We will ensure better police training committee reports. on domestic abuse and offences arising from coercive control, as well A Labour government will review our as historical abuses and other crimes security strategies. neglected by the reduced forces We will review the Prevent programme operating under Tory austerity. to assess both the effectiveness and A UK Labour government will establish potential to alienate communities a Royal Commission to develop a and consider alternatives including public health approach to substance safeguarding programmes to protect misuse, focusing on harm reduction those vulnerable to the recruitment rather than criminalisation. The Welsh propaganda and ideologies of the far- Labour government will consider how right and others who promote terror as recommendations relating to devolved a political strategy. issues should inform future policy. We will review the Protect programme We will introduce minimum legal to ensure that public authorities take standards of service for all victims appropriate security measures, without of crime. alienating the communities they serve.

We will evaluate the mobile phone trials with the aim of introducing an Security emergency alert system. We will address the failure to take We will use our diplomatic services, effective measures against a growing our aid budgets and our international problem of extreme or violent standing to promote peaceful solutions radicalisation. We will ensure closer to conflicts and tackle the risks arising counter terrorism co-ordination from poverty, natural catastrophes and between the police and security population displacements. Our national services, combining neighbourhood security is linked to global threats. We expertise with international intelligence. will respect international law and avoid We will ensure the powers exercised by needless military interventions. the security services are proportionate Our security co-operation and used in accordance with human arrangements with EU neighbours are rights. We will review the circumstances essential for our safety. If the British requiring judicial warrant. We will people confirm their decision to leave, ensure agencies are accountable and we will prioritise agreement of a new strengthen the powers of the Joint UK-EU Security Treaty.

50 STANDING UP FOR WALES Cyber Security Border Security

Cybercrime and cyberwarfare are Our border security prevents serious growing, all around the world. Every crimes including child abduction, aspect of our lives, from the NHS, to people trafficking, smuggling of drugs our nuclear facilities, from transport and guns, terrorism and modern systems to communications networks day slavery. The Tories have further are vulnerable. weakened our borders, cutting another 200 jobs over the last four years. A UK Labour government, ever more dependent on digital technology, will They have failed to deliver exit checks. overhaul our cybersecurity by creating In place of an effective border control a co-ordinating minister and regular they have required landlord, teachers review of cyber-readiness. and medical staff to work as unpaid immigration officers, creating a hostile We will review the role and remit of environment. the National Cyber Security Centre to determine whether it should be given A UK Labour government will review powers as an auditing body, with the our border controls to make them more ability to issue warnings to private effective. and public sector organisations and designate risk.

A UK Labour government will also review the structures and roles of the National Crime Agency, to strengthen the response to all types of economic crime, including cybercrime and fraud and ensure a modern, technologically advanced police service that has the capacity and skills to combat online crime, supported by a new national strategy on cybercrime and fraud.

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 51 JUSTICE

Smarter justice requires We will champion a joined-up approach, fostering close cross-government action working relationships between criminal justice agencies to reduce the impact with education authorities, health services and others by of adverse childhood establishing violence reduction and ensuring vulnerable experience and to break people get the support they need by boosting public the vicious cycle of health, mental health and early years services. Prison poverty, inequality is not the best place to address the drug addictions, and crime. mental illnesses and debts that lead many people into crime.

Nine years of Tory cuts have compounded the problems facing the justice system in Wales. The Welsh Labour government commissioned the former Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas, to undertake a review of the Justice System in Wales. The Commission reported in October 2019 and makes it clear that the justice system is not working for Wales.

The UK Conservative government dismissed the conclusions of this landmark report within minutes of

52 STANDING UP FOR WALES its publication. We need a UK Labour expand problem-solving courts and plug Government committed to using the the funding gap in the female offender report to put right the many challenges strategy. We will further consider the in the way the justice system currently evidence for effective alternatives and operates in Wales. rehabilitation of prolific offenders.

That means addressing the many A Labour government will reunify anomalies in the way in which probation and guarantee a publicly run, services are delivered to ensure that local accountable probation service. the system is available and accessible Under Labour, probation staff and right across Wales. professional standards will once again be properly valued. The crisis in our criminal justice system has left communities less safe, victims Legal aid cuts mean essential legal less supported and people less able to help is too often denied. To help people defend their rights. Labour will defend enforce their rights, we will restore all the rule of law. early legal aid advice, including for housing, social security, family and Cutting thousands of prison officers has immigration cases. driven record levels of prison violence. A UK Labour government will restore A UK Labour government will recruit total prison officers to 2010 levels, and hundreds of new community lawyers, phase out dangerous lone working. We promote public legal education and build will bring PFI prisons back in house and an expanded network of law centres. there will be no new private prisons. We will ensure legal aid for inquests We will tackle the prison maintenance into deaths in state custody and the backlog and develop a long-term estate preparation of judicial review cases. We strategy. will consult on the civil legal aid means- The Ministry of Justice’s own evidence test levels and act on the criminal legal shows tens of thousands of crimes aid review. could be prevented if robust community We will defend workers’ ability to sentences replace short prison recover legal representation costs from sentences. We will set new standards for negligent employers. community sentences and introduce a presumption against prison sentences We will keep the right for workers to be of six months or less for non-violent and represented and recover their costs in non-sexual offences. cases of employer negligence leading to an injury at work. We will review the We will invest in proven alternatives to eligibility criteria for the criminal injuries custody, including women’s centres, compensation scheme.

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 53 A Labour government will halt court We will improve the safety of the family closures and cuts to staff, and court system for domestic violence undertake a review of the courts reform victims and prohibit their cross- programme. We will facilitate a more examination by their abuser. We will representative judiciary while upholding introduce protections for the victims its independence, and review funding for of revenge porn. Labour will introduce the Crown Prosecution Service. a no-fault divorce procedure. We will uphold women’s reproductive rights and We will tackle the disproportionate levels decriminalise abortions. of BAME children in custody, review the youth custody estate, strengthen youth A UK Labour government will establish courts and build on the Lammy Review. public inquiries into historical injustices including blacklisting and Orgreave, Violence against women and girls is and ensure the second phase of the unacceptable as is many women’s Grenfell Inquiry has the confidence of all experience of criminal justice agencies. A those affected, especially the bereaved UK Labour government will learn lessons families and survivors. We will also from the Violence against Women, consider a public inquiry in the case of Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Zane Gbangbola. (Wales) Act passed by Labour in Wales which is the first legislation of its kind We will require judicial warrants for in the UK and the only law of its kind in undercover operations and retain the Europe to include a specific focus on Mitting Inquiry into undercover policing. violence against women. A UK Labour government will release all The Act in Wales brings in a National papers on the Shrewsbury 24 trials and Adviser on Violence Against Women, 37 Cammell Laird shipyard workers and and mandatory Violence Against introduce a Public Accountability Bill. Women Strategies at a local and Wales It will ensure fair compensation for the wide level. Most crucially it includes victims of contaminated blood products preventative measures including across the UK. education for children and young people, a national training framework for public sector workers, workplace policies and public awareness raising.

A UK Labour government will establish an independent review into shamefully low rape prosecution rates. It will establish a National Refugee Fund, ensure financial stability for rape crisis centres and reintroduce a UK Domestic Abuse Bill.

54 STANDING UP FOR WALES COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Had the Welsh Labour This has been one of the biggest costs of a Tory government budget government at Westminster. grown in line with the Against this backdrop of ruthless Tory imposed economy since 2010-11 austerity, the Welsh Labour government has worked in there would have been partnership with local government to protect services an extra £4bn to invest in as best it can from the excessive and regressive cuts public services in Wales dealt to English councils. in 2020-21. Instead, our budget for next year will The Welsh Labour government has sheltered local be £300m lower (real authorities from the level of Tory cuts seen in England, terms) when compared where the most severe austerity has been deliberately with 2010-11. targeted at the poorest areas. The Revenue Support Grant for Wales is larger than the whole of the RSG for English local authorities.

Councils are the collective voice of local communities and are on the frontline in delivering many essential public services.

The Welsh Labour government has consistently called for an end to Tory austerity. Across the UK Labour will

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 55 work with our local authorities to invest The Welsh Labour government was in the services we all depend on. proud to work with Welsh Labour’s Deputy Leader, Carolyn Harris MP, The Welsh Labour government’s public in her campaign to scrap child burial service ethos has pushed back against fees across the UK. By scrapping the privatisation and outsourcing during an charges Labour in Wales has led the era of ruthless Westminster imposed way, offering support to families at austerity. That’s why we have worked the most painful and saddest of times. with trades unions in Wales to keep the We will extend this to fully cover the Two Tier Code - abolished by the Tories cost of coffins. in England - which exists to protect the terms and conditions of workers The future of town centres has to be transferred to contractors. about more than retail alone and needs to include investment in commercial Welsh Labour will give 16 and 17 year premises, housing, leisure and public olds the ability to vote in Senedd and services. A UK Labour government will local government elections. revive town centres by stopping bank In the recently published Local branch closures and banning ATM Government Bill, the Welsh Labour charges. government will work with local The Welsh Labour government will build authorities as they create coordinated on this by exploring a town centre first regional arrangements for economic principle - reinvigorating town centres development, transport, planning and by requiring public sector and other educational improvement. In each bodies to consider town centres as the region of Wales the new arrangements optimum location for their headquarters will bring together the public and or next development. private sector to deliver ever more productive regional activity. The aim We have shown through the proposed is to transform the economic future of move of Transport for Wales to each part of Wales. Pontypridd that Welsh Labour can positively use the power of the Welsh The Welsh Labour government will government and the public sector utilise additional funding from a to locate more services and office UK Labour government to explore accommodation in town centre opportunities to better support social locations. These moves are important infrastructure such as public squares, to spark vibrant and new economic youth clubs, libraries and other vital development at the heart of our community assets – services and communities once again. facilities which are so vital to the economic and social fabric of Wales. To support this work the Welsh Labour government will reshape existing

56 STANDING UP FOR WALES regeneration capital programmes local authority trading standards as a single fund to focus on town department and other consumer centres and simplify the process for protections agencies have the financial support. resources to enforce those rights and standards. The Welsh Labour government has invested £40 million to bring empty A UK Labour government will stop properties back into use and assist Crown Post Office closures and bring owner occupiers to improve their Royal Mail back into public ownership homes. Through this fund we are on at the earliest opportunity, reuniting track to bring 5,000 empty homes back it with the Post Office. In re-shaping into use during this Assembly term and the Post Office network, a UK Labour we will do more to give local authorities government will work with the Welsh greater flexibility through loans to Labour government to support its extend this work. complementary plans for a Community Bank and ensure every community has Our approach is shifting to one that easy access to face-to-face, trusted is more enforcement led, including and affordable banking. supporting more compulsory purchase orders and providing the resources to There is a shared commitment across enable local authorities use of these the Welsh Labour government to powers to the greatest effect. This is ensuring that children and young part of our coordinated effort to take people have the best possible start action against those whose run down in life and every opportunity to properties that blight our town centres. develop their abilities and talents. This includes ensuring that young people Half of all businesses in Wales pay get the opportunities, guidance and no rates at all. The Welsh Labour experiences they need to develop government is providing over £230m personally, socially and academically. of relief to ratepayers in Wales this year. With a different tax base, it is The Welsh Labour government has right that Wales designs a local tax taken forward legislation to further system that meets the needs of promote children’s rights, giving Welsh communities. The Welsh Labour children the same protection from government is already looking at physical punishment as adults have. options for how a Land Value Tax Over the past 15 years we have seen could be applied in Wales. the number of looked after children in We will make sure the rights of Wales increase by 34%. A recent report consumers are enhanced and by the Nuffield Foundation found that protected, that safety standards are the number of new-born babies in maintained and improved, and that care has increased over time and the

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 57 incidence in Wales is now higher than England. This is unacceptable. All local authorities in Wales have a plan to reduce the overall number of children in care, including the number of out of county and out of Wales placements.

Local authorities are working together to share learning on preventative measures and the Welsh Labour government has funded the roll out of the Reflect project which supports mothers who have had children removed.

The Welsh Labour government is also working with local authorities to support residential solutions in Wales to support children with the most complex needs.

58 STANDING UP FOR WALES FIRE AND RESCUE

The number of fires Fire casualties have also fallen steadily, and fires in in Wales has reduced dwellings – which pose by far the greatest threat to life – since responsibility was had fallen further and faster here than anywhere else in devolved in 2005. There the UK by March 2019. has been particular The UK Labour government will provide resources for a success in reducing the public Fire and Rescue College to ensure that necessary number of fires that are training, research and planning is undertaken. started deliberately – not only to grassland but Wales became the first country in the world to legislate also to waste, abandoned for sprinklers systems in all new homes, a groundbreaking vehicles and derelict commitment delivered by Welsh Labour. buildings. The Welsh Labour government has already introduced a duty on the fire service to respond to flooding incidents – the most comprehensive such role in the UK. In Scotland and Northern Ireland the service is required to respond to flooding but not other water rescues. In England, under the Tories, there is no duty at all.

When Wales brought in the duty, the Welsh Labour government provided £2 million extra funding to allow the service to buy new rescue boats and other equipment.

Labour will work to ensure that governance and funding arrangements equip fire and rescue services to face the challenges ahead and support a sustainable service.

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 59 DIGITAL, CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

Digital Labour government has had to step in and provide funding over the last Digital and technological advancements few years to support its roll out in bring challenges, but also huge Wales is because the UK Conservative opportunities. Automation and Artificial government has failed to do its job and Intelligence are changing workplaces provide the funding needed to reach and our society as a whole. areas where the commercial market will The Welsh Labour government has been not provide. very clear for some time, Broadband is A UK Labour government will rectify this no longer a ‘nice to have’ or an accessory and deliver free full-fibre broadband to – it is an important utility and it should all by 2030. be treated as a universal service. The Welsh Labour government’s Superfast We will establish British Broadband, with Cymru project is aimed at bringing two arms: British Digital Infrastructure access to high speed broadband to (BDI) and the British Broadband Service homes and businesses in Wales that (BBS). We will bring the broadband- would not otherwise have had it through relevant parts of BT into public private sector commercial programmes. ownership, with a jobs guarantee The first phase of the Superfast Cymru for all workers in existing broadband project has resulted in superfast infrastructure and retail broadband work. connectivity to over 733,000 premises BDI will roll out the remaining 90–92% across Wales. of the full-fibre network, and acquire Broadband is a non-devolved area necessary access rights to existing and the primary reason why our Welsh assets. BBS will coordinate the delivery

60 STANDING UP FOR WALES of free broadband in tranches as the of Wales’ economy. Across the UK, full-fibre network is rolled out, beginning Labour will work with trade unions with the communities worst served by and employers to make creative jobs existing broadband networks. Taxation accessible for all, ensuring diversity in of multinationals, including tech giants, the industries so that everyone sees will pay for the operating costs of the themselves represented on-screen and public full-fibre network. The plan will on-stage. A UK Labour government boost jobs, tackle regional inequality will review the copyright framework to and improve quality of life as part of a ensure fair remuneration for artists and mission to connect the United Kingdom. content creators.

The Welsh Labour government A UK Labour government will make the recently commissioned work to provide distribution of National Lottery funding recommendations with insights on more transparent to help communities the training and skills needed to meet get their fair share of project funding. the challenges of the fourth industrial Labour will maintain free entry to revolution. museums, because everyone should A UK Labour government will enforce a have access to our shared heritage. legal duty of care to protect our children Building on the success of the UK City online, impose fines on companies that of Culture, a UK Labour government will fail on online abuse and empower the launch a Town of Culture competition. public with a Charter of Digital Rights.

Media Culture A UK Labour government will ensure a Arts and culture drive investments healthy future for our all public service and encourage tourism. The Welsh broadcasters, including BBC Alba and government’s support for the creative S4C. It will protect free TV licences for industries has not only raised the profile over-75s. of Wales internationally, it has also had A free and fair press is vital to protecting a positive economic impact. Film and democracy and holding the powerful to TV productions are worth more than account. A UK Labour government will £100m to the Welsh economy, with address misconduct and the unresolved 2,000 people employed full-time in this failures of corporate governance raised growing area. by the second stage of the abandoned The Welsh Labour government is Leveson Inquiry. It will take steps to currently in the process of establishing ensure that Ofcom is better able to Creative Wales to enhance this sector safeguard a healthy plurality of media

REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SERVICES 61 ownership and to put in place clearer when clubs change hands. It will regulate rules on who is fit and proper to own or safe standing in stadiums and ensure run TV and radio stations. that a proportion of the Premier League’s television rights income is spent on A UK Labour government will take action grassroots football facilities. to address the monopolistic hold the tech giants have on advertising revenues A UK Labour government will add and will support vital local newspapers the ICC Cricket World Cup to the list and media outlets. It will consult media of crown jewel sporting events that sector workers and trade unions to are broadcast free-to-air. It will establish an inquiry into the ‘fake news’ commission an Independent Review undermining trust in media, democracy into discrimination in sport. and public debate and on a legal right of public interest defence for journalists. Gambling

A UK Labour government will curb Sport gambling advertising in sports and Sport enriches our lives, binds introduce a new Gambling Act fit for communities together and helps us all to the digital age, establishing gambling stay healthy. Sport must be accessible limits, a levy for problem gambling and run in the interests of those who funding and mechanisms for consumer participate in it and love it. compensations.

In football, the professional game has become divided between the extremes Civic Society of the very rich and the very poor. A UK Labour government will examine the The Welsh Labour government has state of the game, its governance and done its best through the decade of regulation, its ownership rules and the Tory austerity to protect third sector support and funding of the clubs that are organisations that play such an vital to local communities. It will review important role in our communities. the ‘fit and proper person test’ for club Through the Third Sector Partnership owners and directors and ensure that Council it will go on working with these supporters’ trusts have a proper role so bodies to maintain the vital work they do that the professional game is properly in our public services. run for all its fans and all its clubs.

A UK Labour government will legislate for accredited football supporters’ trusts to be able to appoint and remove at least two club directors and purchase shares

62 STANDING UP FOR WALES TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY

64 WORK 71 WOMEN AND EQUALITIES 76 MIGRATION 78 SOCIAL SECURITY 82 HOUSING 86 CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

63 WORK

Work should provide Under the Tories, pay has stagnated while insecurity and a decent life for all, inequality are rising. guaranteeing not just Work no longer guarantees a way out of poverty. Of the dignity and respect in the 14.3 million people in poverty, nine million live in families workplace, but also the where at least one adult works. Real wages are still lower income and leisure time than before the financial crisis, while dividends paid to to allow for a fulfilling life shareholders are up 85%. outside it. In government, Welsh Labour is committed to making Wales a ‘fair work nation’ where workers are fairly rewarded, fairly heard and fairly represented - where workplaces are healthy, inclusive environments and rights are respected.

The UK Labour government will eradicate in-work poverty in our first term by tackling the structural causes of poverty and inequality, such as low pay and high living costs, while raising the floor provided by our social safety net.

64 STANDING UP FOR WALES Too many people have found will explore other innovative ways of themselves in a spiral of debt as wages responding to low pay, including a pilot have fallen and housing costs risen. of Universal Basic Income. Labour will cap the total amount that Growing numbers of the workforce can be paid in overdraft fees or interest are self-employed. While for some on a loan. this brings freedom and autonomy, it We will rapidly introduce a Real Living can bring insecurity. Self-employed Wage of at least £10 per hour for all people will benefit from a broad range workers aged 16 and over and use any of our policies, from free childcare and savings to public finances to help small full-fibre broadband to face-to-face businesses manage the extra cost. lending and business support through our Development Bank of Wales and new The Welsh Labour government will work Community Bank. with social partners and a UK Labour government to take forward the Fair We will also seek to develop tailored Work Commission’s report, which sets support and protections for the self- a blueprint for how we can use the employed, including collective income full force of the Welsh government’s protection insurance schemes, annual spending and procurement power to income assessment for those on drive up the quality and availability of fair Universal Credit and better access to work in Wales. mortgages and pension schemes.

We are committed to increasing the We will tackle late payments that leave number of employers accredited as small businesses and the self-employed Living Wage employers in Wales. waiting months to be paid, including banning late payers from public We will give workers a stake in the procurement. companies they work for – and a share of the profits they help create – by requiring large companies to set up Ministry for Employment Rights ‘Inclusive Ownership Funds’ (IOFs). Up to 10% of a company will be owned Throughout history, working people collectively by employees, with dividend in Britain have improved their lives by payments distributed equally among coming together to demand rights and all, capped at £500 a year and the rest protections. Even after decades in which being used to increase support for workers’ rights have been cut back and apprenticeships. their unions’ capacity to defend them has been slashed, the Tories believe that The cap will rise to ensure that no more workers’ terms and conditions should be than 25% of dividends raised by IOFs dictated by employers on a ‘take it or are redistributed in this way. And we

TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY 65 leave it’ basis. bargaining will increase wages and reduce inequality. This will also stop We are proud of the trade union good employers being undercut by movement’s historic achievements in bad employers. giving people a voice at work through collective action. It is not just part of our We will tackle insecurity by: history, it is also part of our future. Only • Giving everyone full rights from day by shifting the balance of power back one on the job. towards workers will we achieve decent wages, security and dignity at work. • Strengthening protections for whistleblowers and rights against unfair We have seen what a Labour dismissal for all workers, with extra government in power can do – a protections for pregnant women, those Welsh Labour government passed going through the menopause, and the Agricultural Wages Act to protect terminally ill workers. farmworkers; we repealed the Trade Union Act in Wales and introduced the • Ending bogus self-employment and Code of Practice on Ethical Procurement creating a single status of ‘worker’ for in Supply Chains. everyone apart from those who are genuinely self-employed on their own The Welsh Labour government will account, so that employers cannot introduce a ground-breaking Social evade workers’ rights, and banning Partnership Bill putting our successful overseas-only recruitment practices. social partnership approach into law and helping to deliver a fairer, a more • Introducing a legal right to collective prosperous and a more equal Wales. consultation on the implementation of new technology in workplaces. The next UK Labour government will transform people’s lives for the better • Banning zero hours contracts and through the biggest extension of strengthening the law so that those workers’ rights in history. who work regular hours for more than 12 weeks will have a right to a regular We will give working people a voice contract, reflecting those hours. at the Cabinet table by establishing a Workers will have a right to a minimum Ministry for Employment Rights. contract of 16 hours average per week. We will start to roll out sectoral collective We will help people balance work and bargaining across the economy, bringing family life by: workers and employers together to agree legal minimum standards on a • Increasing wages through sectoral wide range of issues, such as pay and collective bargaining. working hours that every employer in the • Requiring breaks during shifts sector must follow. Sectoral collective

66 STANDING UP FOR WALES to be paid. representatives.

• Requiring cancelled shifts to be paid • Setting up a Royal Commission to bring and proper notice for changes in hours. health (including mental health) and safety legislation up to date. • Giving all workers the right to flexible working. • Ensuring public-facing workers are protected by toughening-up the law • Extending statutory maternity pay against abuse and violence. from nine to 12 months. • Banning unpaid internships. • Doubling paternity leave from two weeks to four and increasing statutory We will remove unfair and unnecessary paternity pay. restrictions on trade unions, allowing people to come together and speak up • Introducing statutory bereavement on issues that affect them at work. leave, guaranteeing workers time off to grieve the loss of close family members We will: or following miscarriage. • Allow trade unions to use secure • Introducing a new bank holiday for electronic and workplace ballots. St David’s Day and the other national • Remove unnecessary restrictions on patron saints‘ days. industrial action. • Reviewing family-friendly employment • Strengthen and enforce trade unions’ rights, including rights to respond to right of entry to workplaces to organise, family emergencies. meet and represent their members and We will make sure people are treated to recruit. equally at work by: • Ban union-busting, strengthen • Requiring employers to devise and protection of trade union implement plans to eradicate the representatives against unfair dismissal gender pay gap – and pay inequalities and union members from intimidation, underpinned by race, sex and/or harassment, threats and blacklisting. disability – or face fines. • Repeal anti-trade union legislation, • Requiring employers to maintain including those parts of the Trade workplaces free of harassment, Union Act 2016 that still apply in Wales including harassment by third parties. and create new rights and freedoms for trade unions to help them win a better • Increasing protection against deal for working people. redundancy for people wherever they work. • Simplify the law around union recognition. • Giving statutory rights to equalities

TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY 67 • Give union reps adequate time for • Mandating bargaining councils to union duties. negotiate reductions in working time

We will develop collective income • Investing to increase productivity and protection insurance schemes for the making sure workers share the benefits. self-employed. We will introduce a We will keep restrictions on Sunday maximum workplace temperature to trading in place and review unpaid protect workers and require employers overtime. to take counteracting measures.

For years, the UK has been in breach of our international obligations. We Enforcement will bring UK law into line with the Rights don’t mean anything unless they International Labour Organisation are enforced, but that is not happening standards it has ratified so Britain leads under the Tories. the world, instead of engaging in a race to the bottom. That doesn’t just hurt workers who lose out, it is also bad for employers who follow the law and are undercut by Working Time unscrupulous competitors prepared to break it. Time off to rest, relax and be with family is essential to a happy and fulfilling life, Strong trade unions are the best and but workers in the UK put in some of the most effective way to enforce rights at longest hours in Europe. work. Labour will also introduce a new, unified Workers’ Protection Agency Labour will tackle excessive working to enforce workplace rights, including hours. Within a decade, we will reduce the Real Living Wage. It will be given average full-time weekly working hours extensive powers to inspect workplaces to 32 across the economy with no loss of and bring prosecutions and civil pay, funded by productivity increases. proceedings on workers’ behalf. We will meet this target by: We will keep employment tribunals free, • Ending the opt-out provision for the EU extend their powers and introduce new Working Time Directive and enforcing Labour Courts with a stronger role for working time regulations. people with industrial experience on panels. • Setting up an independent Working Time Commission to advise on raising minimum holiday entitlements and Rewriting the Rules reducing maximum weekly working time. Social justice also means levelling the

68 STANDING UP FOR WALES playing field between small and big running it, that company generally does business, and ensuring that democracy better and lasts longer. and accountability are valued across We will introduce a broader “public society, including in the private sector. interest test” to prevent hostile takeovers Businesses are the heartbeat of our and asset-stripping weakening our economy, creating jobs, wealth and industrial base and destroying treasured innovations. home-grown companies. And we will give workers a voice on public bodies, But the upper echelons of corporate such as the Competition and Markets Britain have been corrupted by a culture Authority. in which the long-term health of a company is sacrificed for a quick buck We will let struggling companies go into for a few: a short-term culture has seen protective administration, so they can some treasured companies asset- be sold as a going concern rather than stripped, leaving workers, suppliers and collapsing into insolvency. pensioners in the lurch. Too often, the Audits are vital to corporate link between reward and long-term accountability, but the auditing industry performance is broken for short-term is dominated by a few players riddled greed. with conflicts of interest. Labour will Labour will take on short-termism and separate audit and accounting activities corporate greed, making sure businesses in major firms and impose more robust are rewarded not undercut. We will rules on auditors. rewrite the rules of the economy and We will tackle regulatory capture and ensure everyone plays by them. streamline regulation by creating a new We will amend the Companies Act, Business Commission, responsive to requiring companies to prioritise parliamentary select committees. long-term growth while strengthening protections for stakeholders, including smaller suppliers and pension funds. Social Justice Commission We will tackle late payments that leave Labour will usher in a new era of social small businesses waiting months to be justice in Britain. Everyone in our society paid, including banning late payers from should be able to flourish, regardless of public procurement. what class or postcode they are born We will require one third of boards to be into, or the colour of their skin. reserved for elected worker-directors But that’s impossible when you can’t and give them more control over meet your most basic needs and have executive pay – because when those to choose between eating or heating who depend on a company have a say in your home. Britain is one of the richest

TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY 69 countries in the world, but under the Tories millions of people can’t make ends meet. They tell us that we shouldn’t care about inequality, because social mobility allows those who work hard to get on. But nobody becomes a billionaire through hard work alone and as inequality has grown it has become more entrenched.

For Labour, the true measure of fairness is not social mobility but social justice. Implicit in the notion of social mobility is the idea that poverty and inequality are acceptable provided that some people can climb the social ladder. Social justice on the other hand, demands we end poverty, reduce inequality and create a society in which the conditions for a fulfilling life are available to everyone.

Labour will replace the Social Mobility Commission with a Social Justice Commission, based in the Treasury, with wide-ranging powers to hold us and future UK governments to account.

70 STANDING UP FOR WALES WOMEN AND EQUALITIES

Labour is the party of The Conservatives have failed to tackle society’s equality, committed to burning injustices. Instead they inflicted injustice after achieving a world free injustice on women, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic from all forms of bigotry (BAME) and LGBT+ communities and disabled people. and discrimination. More than 85% of the burden of the Tory cuts has fallen Whether campaigning on the shoulders of women. on the streets or passing Labour will create a new UK Department for Women legislation in government, and Equalities, with a full-time Secretary of State, Labour is the only party responsible for ensuring all policies and laws are to consistently stand with equality-impact assessed in order to deliver a fairer women, disabled people, society for women and all under-represented groups. people from ethnic We will establish a modernised Women’s Commission minority backgrounds, as an independent advisory board to contribute to a UK and LGBT+ communities. Labour government.

We are guided by our firm commitment to the Human Rights Act and Convention on Human Rights that have been consistently attacked by the Conservatives.

The Welsh Labour government was the first in the UK to introduce a law to tackle domestic abuse and violence against women. A UK Labour government will

TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY 71 ratify both the Istanbul Convention on further auditing and fines. By the end preventing domestic abuse and the ILO of 2020, we will lower the threshold to Convention on Ending Violence and workplaces with 50 employees whilst Harassment at work. providing the necessary support for small businesses. Labour is committed to tackling discrimination wherever it occurs • Revolutionise parents’ rights by and in Wales we will enact the socio- increasing paid maternity leave from economic duty – something successive nine to 12 months, doubling paternity Tory governments have refused to do. leave to four weeks and extending This will require public bodies to adopt pregnancy protection. We will ban the transparent and effective measures to dismissal of pregnant women without address the inequalities that result from prior approval of the inspectorate. differences in occupation, education, • Transform the workplace and require place of residence or social class. all large employers to have flexible working, including a menopause policy and consider changes to sickness and Women absence practices. Labour will put women at the heart of • Enable positive action for recruitment our government and programme. Next to roles where employers can justify year marks the 50th anniversary of the the need for more diversity and Equal Pay Act yet women still earn 13% introduce a right for all workers to less than men. Labour will take action to request flexibility over their hours from close the gender pay gap by 2030. the first day of employment. A UK Labour government will also: • Ensure that the single-sex based • Deliver gender pay equality by making exemptions in the Equality Act 2010 the state responsible for enforcing are understood and fully enforced in equal pay legislation for the first time. service provision. The new Workers’ Protection Agency • Create a safer society for women and working with HMRC will ensure that prioritise domestic abuse as a health employers take equal pay seriously issue, introduce 10 days paid leave for and take positive action to close the survivors of domestic abuse and ensure gender pay gap. Women will no longer women’s refuges receive the long- be left to take enforcement action by term sustainable funding they need. themselves through the courts. Misogyny and violence against women • Require all employers with more than and girls will become hate crimes. 250 employees to obtain government certification on gender equality or face

72 STANDING UP FOR WALES • Increase women’s representation A UK Labour government will: across the UK parliament by building • Seek to end the politics of hate and on the Equality Act, passed by the commission an independent review last Labour government, and enact into the threat of far-right extremism Section 106 so that all political parties and how to tackle it. publish diversity data about electoral candidates. • Put wealth and power in the hands of the many, extend pay gap reporting to BAME groups and tackle pay Race Equality discrimination on the basis of race.

Achieving racial equality is a bedrock • Implement the recommendations of Labour value. It has never been more the Lammy Review to address the important than in the current climate. disparity of treatment and outcomes We are proud of the way our country for BAME people within the criminal has been shaped by the contributions, justice system. cultures and values of people from • Create an Emancipation Educational around the world. Trust to educate around migration and The Conservatives have fanned the colonialism and to address the legacy flames of racism using difference to of slavery and teach how it interrupted divide. They have made people from a rich and powerful black history, which BAME communities pay the price for is also British history. their failed austerity project and have Working through Welsh Labour scapegoated refugees and migrants. government levers, such as the Never was this starker than with their Development Bank of Wales, we will “hostile environment”, leading to the address discrimination in access to scandalous treatment of the Windrush finance, which many BAME business generation. Hate crime has more than owners face and will take action to doubled in the last five years. This is a ensure BAME and women business wake-up call for all of us. owners have access to government Labour will ensure a pathway to contracts and spending. economic inclusion for all, putting an end On religious discrimination, we will: to all forms of racism and discrimination in our economy and society. Inclusion • Strengthen protection for religious will be at the heart of our programme for communities and amend the law to government. include attacks on places of worship (including synagogues, temples, mosques and churches) as a specific aggravated offence.

TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY 73 • Review current levels of funding for be independent and equal in society, and access to the Places of Worship with choice and control over their own Protective Security Funding Scheme, lives. maintain funding in real terms for the • Transform the workplace for disabled Community Security Trust and consult people by requiring that all employers on giving it statutory protection to be trained to better support them, while ensure that religious communities have introducing mandatory disability pay the support they need. gap reporting for companies with more than 250 employees.

Disability with Dignity • End disability discrimination and update the Equality Act to introduce Over the last 10 years, through a new specific duties including disability catalogue of punitive welfare policies, leave, paid and recorded separately the dignity of people with disabilities has from sick leave. been degraded by the Conservatives. Not one, but two, UN reports describe • Recommend the Equality and Human the government having committed Rights Commission prepare a specific “systematic violations” of the rights of Code of Practice on reasonable disabled people. More disabled people adjustments to supplement existing are now living in poverty and some have codes. This will provide an appropriate died because of this Tory government’s balance between flexibility and clarity choice to make the most vulnerable pay on how ‘reasonable’ cost is determined. for tax cuts for the few. The code will also set timescales for implementation of reasonable Labour will end this cruelty, restoring the adjustments to end the long and protections that disabled people and distressing delays experienced by their families – many of whom shoulder disabled workers. the cost of their care – should expect in one of the richest countries in the world. • Adopt a British Sign Language Act giving BSL full legal recognition in law. Labour supports the principle of ‘nothing about us without us’. We will work with employers, trade unions and public services to improve We will: awareness of neurodiversity in the • Follow the Welsh Labour government’s workplace and society. example and champion the social model of disability throughout government. Through a new Department for Women and Equalities we will ensure that disabled people can

74 STANDING UP FOR WALES LGBT+ Equality • Respond fast and firmly wherever LGBT+ people face violence or Labour has a proud history of standing persecution internationally and appoint shoulder to shoulder with LGBT+ a dedicated global Ambassador to the people. We abolished Section 28, Foreign Office on LGBT+ issues. equalised the age of consent, created civil partnerships, and only with Labour will work with organisations and Labour votes could equal marriage charities already making the UK a more become law. Labour is committed to equal and fairer society and together reforming the Gender Recognition Act we will build a country for the many, 2004 to introduce self-declaration for not the few. transgender people, but we are not complacent about the culture shift required to make LGBT+ inclusivity a reality. The Conservatives have been slow to understand the scale of abuse and discrimination LGBT+ people face in our society.

In Wales, we are changing the way schools teach sex education to focus on relationships and sexuality, including teaching about LGBT+ issues. We want to end the right to withdraw, making it a compulsory part of our new curriculum from ages three to 16.

A UK Labour government will eliminate remaining areas of discrimination in law, ensuring LGBT+ people can live in safety and dignity.

A UK Labour government will:

• Put LGBT+ equality at the heart of government, ensuring public services are LGBT+ inclusive and delivering on their LGBT Action Plan.

• Take steps to safeguard LGBT+ rights inside or outside the EU, such as retaining and promoting the Human Rights Act.

TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY 75 MIGRATION

A Labour government Instead, our system will be built on human rights and will establish a humane aimed at meeting the skills and labour shortages that immigration system exist in our economy and public services. and end the ‘hostile Our immigration system must allow us to recruit the environment’ that caused people we need, and to welcome them and their the Windrush scandal families. Our work visa system must fill any skills or of British citizens labour shortages that arise. The movement of people being deported. around the world has enriched our society, our economy and our culture.

We will take decisive action to regulate the labour market to stop the undercutting of wages and conditions and the exploitation of all workers including migrant workers. It is the actions of bad bosses and successive Conservative governments that have driven down wages and working terms and conditions. Labour will ensure all workers have full and equal rights from day one, with a Real Living Wage for all.

The Conservative policy of pursuing net migration targets has undermined our economy and our public

76 STANDING UP FOR WALES services, refusing entry to essential benefits that free movement has key workers, including nurses. It has brought both in terms of EU citizens here created a hostile environment within and UK citizens abroad – and we will our communities, encouraged the seek to protect those rights. demonisation of migrants and enabled In accordance with our values and the callous use of three million residents domestic laws, we will uphold the as bargaining chips in our negotiations right to a family life for British, EU and over EU withdrawal. non-EU residents alike. We will end Moreover, the Tories have not once met the deportation of family members of their own targets. Their migration policies people entitled to be here and end the are a complete and damaging failure, minimum income requirements which whichever way they are looked at. separate families.

We will scrap the 2014 Immigration Act, introduced by the Tories with their Refugees Liberal Democrat coalition partners. We will level up rights – not race to the Refugees are victims of wars, bottom. We will not tolerate a two-tier environmental catastrophes, famine system for those entitled to be here. or persecution.

The Windrush scandal continues to This Tory government has failed its create new victims. We will end its international legal obligations to injustices and provide fair compensation refugees and to allow people to exercise to those who have unfairly suffered. their rights to seek asylum.

We will end indefinite detention, review A UK Labour government will uphold the alternatives to the inhumane those rights and meet those obligations. conditions of detention centres and We will work with others to resume close Yarl’s Wood and Brook House, rescue missions in the Mediterranean, from which immediate savings would co-operate with the French authorities contribute towards a £20m fund to put an end to the horrific camps to support the survivors of modern and establish safe and legal routes for slavery, people trafficking and domestic asylum seekers. violence. We will ensure justice for Once here, refugees will have the right to migrant domestic workers and restore work, access to public services and will the overseas domestic workers’ visa. be treated humanely by government at If we remain in the EU, freedom of all levels. movement will continue. If we leave, it will be subject to negotiations but we recognise the social and economic

TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY 77 SOCIAL SECURITY

Labour holds social While Labour wants a society in which people care for security in the same one another, the Tories are trying to pitch us against esteem as our health and each other. education systems. It is Under the Tories, the social security system has lost there to help each of us in sight of its purpose. Poverty has become endemic, the times of need. If someone glue that binds our society together has come unstuck falls on hard times – and, in the words of the United Nations, the UK’s because they lose their social safety net “has been deliberately removed and job, get sick or lose a loved replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos.” one – Labour will help them live with dignity and The cruelty and heartlessness of the Tories has made provide support to get the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) a them back on their feet. symbol of fear. When people feel the DWP is more about harassment than a helping hand, something has gone seriously wrong. Labour will completely change this culture, replacing the DWP on day one with a Department for Social Security, which will be there to help and support people, not punish and police them.

78 STANDING UP FOR WALES The Welsh Labour government was the We will end the five-week wait by first in the UK to incorporate the UN introducing an interim payment Convention on the Rights of the Child based on half an estimated monthly (UNCRC) into law; it established the UK’s entitlement. We will immediately first children’s commissioner and put suspend the Tories’ vicious sanction children at the heart of everything we regime and ensure employment support do in Wales. As the UNCRC celebrates is positive not punitive. its 30th anniversary, a UK Labour We will stop 300,000 more children government will follow that example and from falling into poverty by scrapping incorporate the convention into UK law. the benefit cap and the two-child limit, so ending the immoral and outrageous “rape clause”. Universal Credit A UK Labour government will protect The Tories’ flagship social security women in abusive relationships by programme, Universal Credit (UC), has splitting payments and paying the child been a catastrophe. It has pushed tens element to the primary carer. It will make of thousands of people into poverty, it easier for people to manage their caused families to lose their homes and living costs by introducing fortnightly forced parents to visit foodbanks in order payments and paying the housing to feed their children. element directly to landlords. Labour will scrap UC. We will The Conservative’s “digital only” immediately stop moving people onto approach is excluding vulnerable people. it and design an alternative system that Labour will end the digital barrier and treats people with dignity and respect. offer telephone, face-to-face and Our ambition will be to end poverty by outreach support. We will recruit 5,000 guaranteeing a minimum standard of additional advisors to deliver this. living. Tory cuts are pushing people into rent We will start developing this system arrears and leaving them at risk of immediately. But we have learned the homelessness. A UK Labour government lessons from Tory failure – major policy will stop housing costs running away change can’t be delivered overnight, from benefits by scrapping the bedroom especially when people’s lives depend tax and increasing the Local Housing on it. So we will also implement an Allowance. emergency package of reforms to mitigate some of the worst features of UC while we develop our replacement system.

TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY 79 Disabled People repeatedly and falsely find ill or disabled people fit to work, and make sure all The Labour Party stands with and for assessments are done in-house. disabled people. We will always challenge stigma and discrimination wherever it is Social security is meant to help disabled found and support the right of disabled people cope with the additional costs people to live independently and be and disadvantages they face. But the treated with respect. Tories have cut back that support to inadequate levels. Time and again The Tories’ rhetoric of ‘scroungers’ disabled people have had to fight and ‘skivers’ has whipped up hatred of through the courts to receive the disabled people, with disability hate support they are entitled to. crime skyrocketing, up 37% in the last year alone. Labour will never demonise Building on the ground-breaking Social disabled people or the unemployed. Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act, which tailors support around individuals’ Labour follows the social model of needs, a UK Labour government will disability – it’s not people’s condition make sure people who are ill and or impairment that disables them disabled receive the support they need but society’s failure to adapt to those to lead full, independent lives. conditions and impairments. We are committed to removing the barriers We will: constructed by society and ensuring • Increase Employment and Support that disabled people can participate fully Allowance by £30 per week for those in and equally in our society. the work-related activity group. The Conservatives have created a hostile • Raise the basic rate of support for environment for disabled people, who children with disabilities to the level of have borne the brunt of Tory cuts. The Child Tax Credits. United Nations has said that the Tories have systematically and gravely violated • Increase the carers’ allowance to the disabled people’s rights by denying level of jobseekers’ allowance. them the support they are entitled to. We will help disabled people who want Labour will end this hostile environment. to work by bringing back specialist employment advisors, introducing We will give effect to the UN Convention a government-backed Reasonable on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Adjustments Passport scheme to help into UK law and amend the Equality Act people move between jobs more easily, to reflect the social model of disability. and reviewing support for disabled We will stop the dehumanising Work people at work, including the Access to Capability and PIP assessments, which Work scheme.

80 STANDING UP FOR WALES Pensions of employees are now in workplace pension schemes. But too many People work hard for most of their lives people are still not saving enough for a and deserve a decent retirement free of comfortable retirement. financial stress and insecurity. We will stop people being auto-enrolled Under the Tories, 400,000 pensioners into rip-off schemes and seek to widen have been pushed into poverty and a and expand access for more low income generation of women born in the 1950s and self-employed workers. We will have had their pension age changed establish an independent Pensions’ without fair notification. This betrayal Commission, modelled on the Low Pay left millions of women with no time to Commission to recommend target levels make alternative plans – with sometimes for workplace pensions. devastating personal consequences. We will create a single, comprehensive Labour recognises this injustice and and publicly-run pensions dashboard will work with these women to design that is fully transparent, including a system of recompense for the losses information about costs and charges. and insecurity they have suffered. We will ensure that such an injustice can We will legislate to allow the CWU-Royal never happen again by legislating to Mail agreement for a collective pension prevent accrued rights to the basic state scheme to proceed and allow similar pension from being changed. schemes.

The Conservatives have repeatedly Labour has listened to the NUM and raised the State Pension Age despite in government will end the injustice of overseeing a decline in life expectancy. the state taking 50% of the surplus in Labour will abandon the Tories’ plans the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme and to raise the state pension age, leaving introduce new sharing arrangements it at 66. We will review retirement ages so 10% goes to government and 90% for physically arduous and stressful stays with members. This new sharing occupations, including shift workers in arrangement will also apply to the British the public and private sectors. Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme.

We will maintain the ‘triple lock’ and We will ensure the pensions of UK guarantee the Winter Fuel Allowance, citizens living overseas rise in line with free TV licences and free bus passes as pensions in Britain. universal benefits.

Thanks to automatic enrolment, which was introduced by the last UK Labour government, record numbers

TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY 81 HOUSING

Everyone has the right Under the Tories, housing has ceased to be a public to a decent, warm and responsibility. The Right to Buy and Right to Acquire, safe home. But too many while helping people to buy their own home, have people are being denied resulted in the loss of around 140,000 council homes this right. and 3,600 housing association properties in Wales – almost half of the housing stock.

Labour will keep the Land Registry in public hands, and make ownership of land more transparent. In Wales, we have set up a public land division to unlock the potential of public land for development. We will work with a UK Labour government to introduce new ‘use it or lose it’ taxes on stalled housing developments.

We will not ignore the value of our assets – we want to see that value reflected in ambitious plans for development. The days of selling off assets to the highest bidder are over.

We are committed to creating places we can be proud of. We will make brownfield sites the priority for

82 STANDING UP FOR WALES development and protect the green belt being borne by individual leaseholders. in Wales. We will continue to restrict Labour in Wales introduced world- housing development in flood risk areas. leading legislation in 2016 to ensure Place-making is at the heart of our all new and converted homes in Wales national planning policy. We have an are fitted with sprinklers and we are integrated approach to development so promoting the retro-fitting of sprinklers communities have easy access to the in existing buildings. We will develop a services they need. new low cost loan scheme to support the retrofitting of sprinklers in blocks of But we don’t just want to build houses flats. in sustainable, well-connected places, which are attractive and engaging places to live – we also want high-quality Council and Social Homes design. The only way to deliver on everyone’s It’s our ambition that all housing should right to a home is to build publicly- have the same high-quality standards of funded social housing. space and energy efficiency. We want all homes built in Wales to meet the We have protected council homes in needs of future generations and be zero- Wales by ending the Right to Buy and carbon, helping the environment and we are proud we have helped councils lifting households out of fuel poverty. build again.

Our £90m Innovative Housing We are investing more than £1.7bn this Programme is exploring new ways Assembly term to build 20,000 new of building homes to respond to affordable homes in Wales – double the climate change and new construction number in the fourth Assembly term. developments. Decarbonisation brings Social housing is our top priority and with it new opportunities to create jobs, we want to build on and strengthen develop new skills and training and new the work already started with local supply chain opportunities throughout authorities, housing associations and the Wales. construction industry.

We are committed to building and Our approach is to substantially increase maintaining safe homes and have the supply of social housing for rent taken action to rebuild confidence in including council houses. However, the industry, following the Grenfell we support a UK Labour government’s tragedy. We have identified all high-rise commitment to scrap the definition residential buildings with non-compliant of ‘affordable’ – set as high as 80% of ACM cladding in Wales. Cladding has market rents – and replace it with a either been removed or replaced or plans definition linked to local incomes. are in place to do so. The costs are not

TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY 83 Home Ownership urgently investigate how leasehold rights can be extended in Wales. We will work Home ownership is still out of reach for with a UK Labour government to protect too many people. freeholders’ rights on privately-owned We are committed to ensuring at least estates. half of all new housing developments in Wales are truly affordable. Private Renters Help to Buy Wales has helped more than 9,500 households since 2014 buy Tenants need peace of mind when a new-build home, helping to stimulate renting a property. Everyone should feel growth in the house building industry secure in their own home and be able and associated supply chains. This to plan ahead for the future. We banned has helped people get on the property letting agents fees in September 2019, ladder. saving tenants in Wales an estimated £200 per tenancy. The Welsh Labour government will explore opportunities to make changes A UK Labour government will control the to the scheme so home buyers and cost of renting. In Wales, we will use our builders can continue to benefit from powers to meet Wales’ unique needs our support, while we ensure some of whilst at the same time getting rid of our other housing objectives are being the discriminatory rules that require achieved. landlords to check people’s immigration status or that allow them to exclude The Welsh Labour government funds people on housing benefit. local authorities to bring empty homes back into use and is on track to achieve Welsh Labour introduced Rent Smart its 5,000 target. Wales – all private rented property in Wales and their landlords are registered In 2017, we legislated to enable councils and all self-managing landlords and to charge a premium of up to 100% agents who let and manage property are of the standard rate of council tax on licensed. second homes and long-term empty homes. Wales remains the only part of We support UK Labour’s commitment to the UK, which has given local authorities fund new renters’ unions in every part of these powers. the country – to allow renters to organise and defend their rights. The actions already taken by a Welsh Labour government to address the The Welsh Labour government has been abuse of leasehold has virtually proud to take action to end the scandal eradicated Welsh government schemes of unfair, no-notice evictions. being used for new leasehold houses. We have asked the Law Commission to

84 STANDING UP FOR WALES Homelessness

No one should be sleeping without a roof over their head in one of the richest countries in the world.

The Tories’ cuts to welfare and a decade of austerity have caused an explosion in homelessness and people rough sleeping. We are committed to preventing all forms of homelessness – and where it cannot be prevented – ensuring it is rare, brief and un-repeated. We have invested more than £20m to prevent and relieve homelessness this year, supporting a range of statutory and non-statutory services.

We will re-shape homelessness services around a rapid re-housing approach – moving the focus towards long-term housing-led solutions. We have made a significant start with our Housing First programme and we are committed to taking a whole-system approach to homelessness prevention.

We have established a homelessness action group, which has provided immediate advice about the actions we can take to address rough sleeping this coming winter in Wales.

We will work with a UK Labour government to tackle some of the wider causes of homelessness, including raising the local housing allowance, to repeal the Vagrancy Act and amend anti-social behaviour legislation to stop the law being used to harass people because they are homeless.

TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY 85 THE CONSTITUTION

For many people, A UK Labour government will act immediately to end politics doesn’t work. the hereditary principle in the House of Lords, and work The Westminster bubble to abolish the House of Lords in favour of Labour’s is a world away from their preferred option of an elected Senate of the Nations and daily lives. The Labour Regions, but we also believe that the people must be Party was founded to give central to historic political changes. working class people a The renewal of the UK Parliament will be subject to voice in politics. recommendations made by a UK-wide Constitutional Convention, led by a citizens’ assembly. This Convention will answer crucial questions on how power is distributed in the UK today, how nations and regions can best relate to each other and how a Labour government can best put power in the hands of the people.

Only a Labour government will safeguard the future of a devolved United Kingdom, reforming the way it works to make it fit for the future.

Brexit has only accentuated the need for fundamental reform of the way the United Kingdom operates. Labour’s constitutional convention will include

86 STANDING UP FOR WALES consideration of the Welsh government’s so by introducing a system of automatic 20 point plan for the future of the United voter registration. It will abandon plans to Kingdom, reflecting the new realities of a introduce voter ID which has been shown devolved United Kingdom. to harm democratic rights.

Alongside this work, we need long-term reform of how the UK allocates public Tackling Vested Interests expenditure to ensure that it reflects the needs of different parts of our country A UK Labour government will change and that no nation or region of the UK is how politics is funded, banning donations unfairly disadvantaged. from tax avoiders and tax evaders and closing loopholes that allow the use of A UK Labour government will work with shell companies to funnel dark money devolved governments to complete the into politics. review of the current inter-governmental machinery which is already underway It will free the voices of civil society and overhaul relations between the UK by repealing the Lobbying Act 2014 government and Westminster and the and overhauling the rules that govern devolved governments and legislatures corporate lobbying. It will introduce a in a way which fully respects the vital lobbying register covering both in- constitutional role of the Senedd and the house lobbyists and think-tanks and Welsh government. extending to contacts made with all senior government employees, not just Our democratic revolution will also extend ministers. to elections. A UK Labour government will increase A UK Labour government will repeal the the financial penalties available to Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011, which the Electoral Commission and require has stifled democracy and propped up imprints for digital political adverts. weak governments. It will maintain 650 constituencies and respond objectively A UK Labour government will stop MPs to future, independent boundary reviews. from taking paid second jobs and replace Building on the measures already being ACOBA, the business appointments taken in Wales, a UK Labour government committee, with a sufficiently resourced will oversee the largest extension of the and empowered new body, governed by franchise for UK general elections in a diverse and representative board and generations. established in law. We will also overhaul the system of ministerial appointments to A UK Labour government will follow the public office. lead in Wales and reduce the voting age to 16 in general elections, giving full voting A UK Labour government will bring rights to all UK residents and making sure greater transparency by extending everyone who is entitled to vote can do Freedom of Information rules to cover

TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY 87 private providers of public services, on the island to maximise its potential setting new standards of consistent for new nuclear energy, alongside disclosure practice and ending the investment in renewables. 6 months time-limit in which the Nine years of Tory cuts have done untold Information Commissioner can prosecute damage and the Thomas Commission the deliberate destruction of public on Justice in Wales is clear that the records. justice system is not working for Wales. Labour governments in Wales and Westminster will work together, using the Wales Commission’s report, to put that right. Labour’s constitutional convention will Three years on from the 2016 EU include the Welsh government’s 20-point referendum we understand much plan for the future of the UK to better more about how Wales will be uniquely recognise the realities of a devolved UK. exposed to a hard Brexit. Only Labour will Alongside this work, we need long-term put this decision back in the hands of the reform of how the UK allocates public people, and in Wales the Welsh Labour expenditure to ensure that it reflects the government will campaign to remain. needs of different parts of our country and that no nation or region of the UK is unfairly disadvantaged. Northern Ireland

Labour in Wales has pioneered the social The Good Friday Agreement and long- partnership approach. With a UK Labour term peace in Northern Ireland is one government investing an extra £3.4 of the great achievements of Labour billion in Wales, and a UK Ministry for in government. Therefore, as a priority, Employment Rights we will be able to do Labour will work quickly and tirelessly to much more. secure the return of a genuine power- sharing government in Northern Ireland. Wales led the first industrial revolution and with a Labour government in The devolved power-sharing institutions Westminster, we will be at the forefront have not been running in Stormont for of the Green Industrial Revolution of over 1,000 days. During this period people the future. We will create jobs in Wales have suffered in the face of a funding through environmental energy schemes crisis as austerity continues to damage such as the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon public services, which Labour will resolve. project. Working with a new assembly and power- The Tories have let down the people of sharing government, Labour will invest Ynys Môn by failing to deliver the Wylfa an extra £1.9 billion to end austerity and project. Labour will work with people rebuild public services in Northern Ireland.

88 STANDING UP FOR WALES Women in Northern Ireland should This is the difference a UK Labour have access to abortions in Northern government would make to Scotland. Ireland. A Labour government will fully As part of our Green Industrial Revolution implement new laws on equal marriage we will invest £6 billion in retrofitting in Northern Ireland so that same-sex houses across Scotland, which will help couples are no longer treated as second- tackle the climate emergency at the class citizens. We will work with all major same time as lowering bills, ending fuel parties in Northern Ireland to provide poverty and creating 35,000 jobs. a good platform for the restoration of devolution alongside bringing forward A UK Labour government will also provide and implementing a Bill of Rights for the Scottish National Investment Bank, Northern Ireland as outlined in the Good under Scottish control, with £20 billion Friday Agreement. of lending power to deliver funds to local projects and Scotland’s small businesses. A Labour government will also protect Northern Ireland and its people in any Labour believes that Scottish future Brexit outcome by ensuring independence would be economically that there is no return to a hard border devastating and it would be the many between Northern Ireland and the not the few who would pay the price. Republic of Ireland or the creation of a Scotland needs the transformative regulatory border down the Irish Sea. investment coming from a Labour government, not another referendum and not independence. Scotland A UK Labour government will focus on Labour in government will give around tackling the climate emergency, ending 700,000 Scottish workers a pay rise when austerity and cuts, and getting Brexit we introduce a Real Living Wage of £10 sorted. That’s why in the early years of a an hour. UK Labour government we will not agree to a Section 30 order request if it comes We will also provide Scotland with at least from the Scottish government. £100 billion of additional resources over two terms. This investment will transform The Tories and the SNP are failing Scotland’s people, communities, public to tackle the growing drugs crisis in services and industries. As part of that Scotland. Drug deaths in Scotland have additional resource Labour would want more than doubled since 2008 and more to see £10 billion from our new National than 1,000 people died from drug misuse Transformation Fund invested in the in Scotland in the last year. building of 120,000 council and social homes in Scotland over the next ten years, ending the housing crisis and creating up to 50,000 jobs.

TACKLE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY 89 THE FINAL SAY ON BREXIT

91 THE FINAL SAY ON BREXIT

90 THE FINAL SAY ON BREXIT

A UK Labour government A Welsh Labour government will campaign for remain will give the people the because we believe our future is best secured by final say on Brexit. Within remaining in the European Union. three months of coming A UK Labour government will implement whatever the to power, a Labour people decide. government will secure a sensible deal. And within Only a Labour government will put this decision in the six months, we will put hands of the people to give you the final say. This will be that deal to a public vote a legally binding referendum and we will implement the alongside the option to people’s decision immediately. remain. The Tories have failed for three years to get Brexit sorted, in a shambles of repeated delays and uncertainty. Whether people voted Leave or Remain in 2016, people and businesses are crying out for politicians in Westminster to finally focus on the wider challenges we face.

The Welsh Labour government has done what was necessary to protect the interests of people in Wales by preparing as best we could for a disastrous no deal

THE FINAL SAY ON BREXIT 91 Brexit while making absolutely clear our It will include: opposition to such an outcome. Labour • A permanent and comprehensive rules out a no deal Brexit, and a Labour UK-wide customs union which is vital government in Westminster will end the to protect our manufacturing industry scandal of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ and allows the UK to benefit from joint money being wasted on no deal UK-EU trade deals, and is backed by preparations. No deal has never been a businesses and trade unions. viable option. It would do enormous harm to jobs, rights, security and to our NHS. • Close alignment with the Single Market – ensuring we have a strong future Labour has led the campaign to stop a no economic relationship with the EU that deal Brexit. A majority Tory government can support UK businesses. would pose a renewed threat of the UK crashing out with no deal. Only a UK • Dynamic alignment on workers’ rights, Labour government can prevent this. consumer rights and environmental protections so that UK standards keep A UK Labour government will rip-up the pace across Europe as a minimum, deeply flawed deal negotiated by Boris allowing the UK to lead the way, not fall Johnson. We opposed his deal precisely behind. because it would do such harm to workers’ rights, environmental protections and to • Continued participation in EU agencies our manufacturing industry. and funding programmes, including in such vital areas of co-operation as Boris Johnson’s deal is even worse than the environment, education, scientific Theresa May’s: it would leave the UK research and culture. £70bn worse off by 2029, it would give the green light to deregulation undermining • Clear commitments on future security UK manufacturing, and it would leave arrangements, including access to the our NHS at the mercy of a trade deal European Arrest Warrant and shared with Donald Trump. This sell-out deal is databases making people safer at home unacceptable to Labour. and abroad.

Labour will secure a new Brexit deal – A UK Labour government will quickly one that protects jobs, rights and the secure a revised Withdrawal Agreement environment, avoids a hard border in that provides legal protection for citizens’ Northern Ireland and protects the Good rights, meets our international obligations Friday Agreement and the peace process. – particularly with regard to the Good We will also ensure that there is also no Friday Agreement – and ensures an change in the status or sovereignty of appropriate transition period to allow Gibraltar. businesses and citizens to adapt to any new arrangements. The deal will be based on the principles set out by the UK Labour Party over the last two years.

92 STANDING UP FOR WALES A UK Labour government will also secure We will introduce a Withdrawal Agreement robust and legally binding protections and Referendum Bill, providing the legal for workers’ rights, consumer standards basis to conduct and implement the and environmental protections, and outcome of the referendum. ensure level playing field protections are We will scrap the Brexit legislation maintained. Labour will never accept an currently proposed by the Tories and outcome that puts rights and standards introduce new legislation that is in line at risk. with Labour’s priorities and principles Once Labour has secured this new to protect our economy, trade, jobs deal we will put it to a legally binding and rights. referendum alongside the option of This will include new legislation to ensure remaining in the EU. support and certainty for UK farmers, the This will take place within the first six fishing industry and protection for the months of a Labour government. natural environment.

Labour is the only party that can heal Labour recognises the huge benefits of the harmful divisions in our communities immigration to our country. Many British and address the devastation caused by citizens have benefited from freedom ten years of austerity, ruthlessly imposed of movement which has given them on society by the Tories and Lib Dems. the opportunity to study, work or retire While other parties have exacerbated abroad. Likewise our public services and polarisation, defining everyone by how our industry have benefited from skilled they voted in the 2016 EU referendum, workers coming here. Here in Wales, the Labour has consistently reached across Welsh Labour government has set out this divide. a consistent approach to managing EU migration, based on ensuring a much Only Labour will deliver a final say closer link to employment and cracking referendum. down on exploitative employers. People Only Labour will offer the choice of who come from the EU to work in our remaining in the EU, or leaving with a health service, our universities and our sensible deal. businesses are not responsible for poor wages and lack of protections in the This final say referendum will not be a workplace. re-run of 2016. It will be legally binding. A UK Labour government will implement Labour believes that citizens’ rights should the decision of the British people never have been used as a bargaining chip immediately. in the Brexit negotiations, and recognises the huge anxiety this has caused for the Labour will introduce legislation to three million EU nationals living in the UK facilitate this referendum and to provide and the 1.2 million UK nationals who have legal certainty and stability following made their home elsewhere in the EU. the result.

THE FINAL SAY ON BREXIT 93 A UK Labour government will end the mean accepting the status quo. Labour uncertainty created by the EU Settlement will work with partners across Europe Scheme by granting EU nationals the to make the case for radical reform of automatic right to continue living and the EU – in particular to ensure that its working in the UK. This new declaratory collective strength is focused on tackling system will allow EU nationals the chance the climate emergency, tax evasion and to register for proof of status if they wish ending austerity and inequality. but will mean they no longer have to apply The EU needs a new political direction to continue living and working in this and, if the people decide the UK should country. This will help ensure reciprocal remain in the EU, Labour, working with our treatment for UK citizens living in the EU. sister parties across the EU, will lead the It will also prevent a repeat of the way to ensure that change. shameful Windrush scandal and avoid unnecessarily criminalising hundreds of For too long a politically inflicted wave thousands of EU nationals. of austerity has damaged communities across Britain and across Europe. The In complete contrast to the shambolic most vulnerable members in our society mismanagement by the Tory government, have suffered, while the super-rich the Welsh Labour government has, continue to be rewarded by a system that throughout the Brexit process, been allows them to thrive at the expense of rigorous in its use of evidence and analysis the many. to understand and explain what is in the best interests of Wales. It is clear now This must change. If the country decides that remaining in the EU is the option to remain, a Labour government will take which best safeguards Wales’ interests. a different approach and strive to ensure This reflects the fact that a significantly that the EU works for people across our larger share of Welsh exports goes to communities. The EU should focus on the EU than is the case for the UK as a policies that value investment, protect whole, while the Welsh economy is more public services and makes those who dependent on sectors such as advanced have the most pay their fair share. manufacturing and agri-food which If people decide to leave, a UK Labour are critically dependent on completely government will work constructively with barrier-free trade with our closest the EU on vital issues of mutual interest neighbours. For this reason, the Labour- and to the mutual benefit of the UK and led Welsh government has been clear EU. But we will leave the EU. that in any referendum with remain on the ballot paper, it will campaign to remain Most importantly, under a UK Labour within the EU. government, you will get the final say on Brexit. If in a referendum the British people decide to remain in the EU, this must not

94 STANDING UP FOR WALES A NEW INTERNATIONALISM

96 A NEW INTERNATIONALISM 98 EFFECTIVE DIPLOMACY 102 DEFENCE AND SECURITY 105 INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

95 A NEW INTERNATIONALISM

Labour will put human International peace and security will be a primary rights, international law objective of a Labour government’s foreign policy. and tackling climate Britain deserves better than the Conservatives’ change at the heart of our reckless approach to complex global challenges or international policies, and the outsourcing of UK foreign policy to US President use our global influence Donald Trump. to end the ‘bomb first, Failed military interventions in countries like Libya talk later’ approach to have worsened security across North Africa, security. Labour will accelerating the refugee crisis. always do what is needed to protect the security of Our approach will be based on our values. Within the people in the UK. first year of government Labour will:

• Introduce a War Powers Act to ensure that no prime minister can bypass Parliament to commit to conventional military action. Unlike the Conservatives, we will implement every single recommendation of the Chilcot Inquiry.

96 STANDING UP FOR WALES • Conduct an audit of the impact of Britain’s colonial legacy to understand our contribution to the dynamics of violence and insecurity across regions previously under British colonial rule.

• Invest an additional £400 million in our diplomatic capacity to secure Britain’s role as a country that promotes peace, delivers ambitious global climate agreements and works through international organisations to secure political settlements to critical issues.

A NEW INTERNATIONALISM 97 EFFECTIVE DIPLOMACY

Internationalism is at We will: the core of the Labour • Establish a judge-led inquiry into our country’s movement. We recognise alleged complicity in rendition and torture, and the our responsibility to operation of secret courts. confront injustices we see today and to correct • Issue a formal apology for the Jallianwala Bagh the injustices of the past. massacre, and hold a public review into Britain’s role in the Amritsar massacre.

• Allow the people of the Chagos Islands and their descendants the right to return to the lands from which they should never have been removed.

• Uphold the human rights of the people of West Papua and recognise the rights of the people of Western Sahara.

We have a duty to stand up for the security and sovereignty of our overseas territories, including the Falklands, and for the rights of our citizens and dual- nationals abroad, and will continue fighting for justice

98 STANDING UP FOR WALES on behalf of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip, the and other British nationals wrongly use of rape as a weapon of war against imprisoned or suffering mistreatment in the Rohingya community in Myanmar captivity abroad. and the indiscriminate bombardment of civilians in Yemen.

• We will work through the UN and Human Rights the Commonwealth to insist on the Human rights and international protection of human rights for Sri humanitarian law are fundamental Lanka’s minority Tamil and Muslim pillars of a secure global system. These populations. principles are under threat. Some of the • Appoint human rights advisers to world’s most powerful states choose work across the Foreign Office and to sell arms to human-rights abusing government to prioritise a co- states. Conservative ministers, including ordinated approach to human rights. Boris Johnson, have signed off well over £2 billion of arms sales to repressive • Advocate for human rights at every regimes since June 2017. bilateral diplomatic meeting.

Around the world, human rights defenders and civil society activists Climate Diplomacy remain vulnerable to attacks, often carried out with impunity. There is no greater injustice today than countries in the Global South paying We will: the price for a climate crisis they did • Immediately suspend the sale of not cause. Yet some world leaders, arms to Saudi Arabia for use in including US President Donald Trump Yemen and to Israel for arms used and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, in violation of the human rights of champion a climate change denial Palestinian civilians, and conduct a agenda. root-and-branch reform of our arms Britain’s climate change diplomacy exports regime so ministers can never was respected internationally, playing again turn a blind eye to British- an important role in securing the Paris made weapons being used to target Agreement, following the leading role innocent civilians. the UK played in securing the Kyoto • Reform the international rules- Agreement. However, Boris Johnson – based order to secure justice and who has described global warming as accountability for breaches of human a ‘primitive fear… without foundation’ rights and international law, such as – has overseen a 60% cut in the UK’s the bombing of hospitals in Syria, the global network of climate experts.

A NEW INTERNATIONALISM 99 Only Labour can rebuild Britain’s Labour is committed to a leadership on the most serious threat to comprehensive peace in the Middle our shared humanity. East based on a two- state solution – a secure Israel alongside a secure and We will: viable state of Palestine. • Rebuild our climate expertise within There can be no military solution to this the Foreign Office, putting climate conflict, which must be settled on the diplomacy at the heart of our foreign basis of justice and international law. policy. All sides must avoid taking action that • Use our influence at the UN, EU, G7, would make peace harder to achieve. G20, World Bank, the Commonwealth That means both an end to the and other global institutions to blockade, occupation and settlements, promote policies to tackle the climate and an end to rocket and terror attacks. emergency. Labour will continue to press for • Use our diplomatic expertise to an immediate return to meaningful negotiate and deliver more ambitious negotiations leading to a diplomatic global targets to deal with the climate resolution. A Labour government will emergency, starting with COP 26 in immediately recognise the state of Glasgow next year. Palestine.

Labour will take all lawful action necessary to counter and confront all Prioritising Conflict Prevention forms of terrorism, and we will advocate and Building Peace a long-term multinational political The Conservatives have failed to play strategy, led by regional actors, to a constructive role in resolving the tackle the spread of extremism. world’s most pressing humanitarian We believe effective diplomacy can crises, including in Kashmir, Yemen address the drivers of conflict and and Myanmar, and the escalation of insecurity. tensions with Iran. The treatment of the Kurdish people in Syria, including We will: by Turkey, and of the Uighurs in China • Build support for UN reform, has been met with total inaction and including assessing and developing apathy by the current UK government. democratisation initiatives, and In some cases, they set aside regard for improving the engagement of the international law, including refusing to General Assembly in decision-making criticise Crown Prince Mohammed Bin to ensure its institutions are more Salman of Saudi Arabia over the murder effective at achieving peace. of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

100 STANDING UP FOR WALES • Prioritise our responsibility to prevent conflict by investing in local capacities for peacebuilding in areas of conflict advocating for political, multilateral strategies for peace.

• Act immediately to urge negotiations towards a political resolution to conflict wherever it arises, including in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.

A NEW INTERNATIONALISM 101 DEFENCE AND SECURITY

The primary duty Our security at home is made stronger when the of government is to security of others elsewhere is guaranteed too. guarantee the security An incoming Labour government will undertake a of people in the UK. Strategic Defence and Security Review to assess the Labour’s defence policy security challenges facing Britain, including new forms will be strategic and of hybrid, cyber and remote warfare. This review will also evidence-led. take account of the climate emergency, and associated threats of resource competition, involuntary migration and violent conflict.

Under the Conservatives:

• Boris Johnson refuses to publish the report into possible foreign interference by Russia in UK democracy.

• Trained army personnel have been cut from 102,000 to just over 74,000.

• Armed forces and their families have been forced to live in sub-standard accommodation.

102 STANDING UP FOR WALES • Failing outsourced contracts have not mental health problems – Veterans NHS been terminated. Wales; fund the bespoke supporting service children in Wales fund to help Our armed forces personnel received armed forces families and we will below-inflation pay rises for seven years. continue do everything we can to The security challenges we face know promote the armed forces covenant. no borders. Labour will increase funding We will pay a lump sum of £50,000 for UN peacekeeping operations to to each surviving British nuclear-test £100 million. We will maintain our veteran to support them and their commitment to NATO and our close families with the health conditions they relationship with our European partners, have suffered as a result of exposure to and we will use our influence at the radiation. We will also ensure that black United Nations to support peace and and Asian soldiers who fought in Britain’s security worldwide. colonial armies receive a full apology Labour supports the renewal of the and explore ways to compensate them Trident nuclear deterrent. Labour will also for the discriminatory demob payments actively lead multilateral efforts under they received compared to their white our obligations to the Non-Proliferation counterparts serving at the same rank in Treaty to create a nuclear-free world. the same regiments.

Labour’s commitment to spend at least The UK defence industry is world- 2% of GDP on defence will guarantee leading and Labour will continue to that our armed forces are versatile and work with manufacturers, unions and capable of fulfilling the full range of roles export partners in line with Labour’s and obligations. foreign policy to support innovation in this sector to ensure it maintains We will scrap the public sector pay cap, its highly skilled workforce and world- which resulted in a real-terms pay cut class apprenticeship programme. We for our armed forces, ensure decent are committed to procurement that housing for forces members and their supports UK defence manufacturing families, and guarantee better access including our aerospace and for all forces children to good quality shipbuilding, alongside a vibrant local schools. We will consult on creating supply chain that includes the British a representative body for the armed steel industry and other component forces, akin to the Police Federation. manufacturing companies providing The Welsh Labour government is fully good jobs throughout supply chains. committed to supporting our armed Labour will publish a Defence Industrial forces and veterans. We will continue Strategy White Paper, including a to fully fund the UK’s only dedicated National Shipbuilding Strategy that national service to care for veterans with

A NEW INTERNATIONALISM 103 keeps all Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary shipbuilding contracts in the UK, to secure a long-term future for the industry and its workers.

Reducing our carbon footprint can only happen with ambitious emissions reduction targets at the Ministry of Defence, one of government’s biggest energy users. So as part of our Green Industrial Revolution, we will create a Climate Change Sustainability Committee within the department to review the feasibility of increasing the use of sustainable energy in defence, and publish a strategy to accelerate the safe and sustainable recycling of our old nuclear submarines.

104 STANDING UP FOR WALES INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

The scale of the Labour will use Britain’s influence within the World challenges facing our Bank, IMF and WTO to transform the rules of the world are enormous. global economy so they work for the many. Conflict, climate change We recognise the need to address historic injustices and a global economy and will reset our relationships with countries in the rigged in favour of a Global South based on principles of redistribution tiny elite are driving and equality, not outdated notions of charity or instability and inequality imperialist rule. across the world. A bold international Unlike the Conservatives, Labour is fully committed development policy to a standalone Department for International driven by social justice Development (DfID), with an aid budget of at least has never been more 0.7% of gross national income. We will introduce the needed. reduction of inequality as a goal for all aid spending alongside existing poverty reduction and gender equality goals.

For the Conservatives, too often humanitarian aid is undermined by their disastrous foreign policy, as in Yemen. Under Labour, we will ensure policy

A NEW INTERNATIONALISM 105 coherence across our international- rights, and make companies legally facing departments. Under Labour, accountable for failing to prevent DfID will continue to respond to human rights abuses or environmental the world’s biggest crises and will damage in their operations and supply ensure humanitarian aid is provided chains, including criminal liability in according to need, not whether the the most serious cases. UK has commerical or other interests • Implement a gender transformative in the country. DfID will assume a approach across all our international strong position in cross-government work, including tripling funding for decision making, including a permanent grassroots women’s organisations seat on the Export Control Joint Unit and establishing an independent responsible for licensing arms exports. ombudsman to tackle abuse in the Our international programme will be development sector. based on human rights and gender Labour believes in climate justice. equality. Wealthy countries like the UK bear the We will: greatest responsibility for the climate emergency. Countries in the Global • Uphold basic rights to education, South that have done the least to cause health and clean water by establishing climate change are already facing the a new Unit for Public Services worst impacts, such as rising sea levels, within DfID, which will include more frequent hurricanes and greater increasing direct budgetary support food insecurity. We have a duty to right to governments so they can build this wrong. sustainable services for their citizens. We will: • Promote fairer international tax rules and help countries in the Global South • Provide a top-up of new and build progressive tax systems to additional spending on international finance essential public services. climate finance to bring the total to £4 billion a year, and also support • Support trade unions internationally international calls for compensation in their efforts to promote collective to those nations already suffering loss bargaining for better pay and and damage. conditions, and include binding social chapters in trade agreements to • Stop all aid spending on fossil fuel safeguard workers’ rights. production overseas, redirecting it towards clean, renewable energy • Support ongoing UN efforts to for all. introduce a binding international treaty on business and human

106 STANDING UP FOR WALES • End all UK Export Finance support serious human rights abuses, and to fossil fuel projects, and reject any require all UK trade agreements trade deals that conflict with our to be consistent with international climate principles. humanitarian law.

Undertake a root-and-branch reform • Introduce legislation to ensure of CDC Group plc (DfID’s principal transparency and parliamentary vehicle for encouraging private scrutiny of trade and investment sector investment in developing agreements. countries), transforming it into a green • Reject any trade agreements that development bank mandated to fight undermine labour standards or poverty, inequality and climate change. environmental protections, and rule Labour respects the crucial role played out UK Export Finance support to by small-scale farmers the world over in companies engaged in bribery or guaranteeing people the right to food. corruption.

We will: Labour recognises the right to essential medicines as an integral part of the • Establish an aid-funded Food right to health. Sovereignty Fund to enable small- scale farmers in the Global South We will: to gain access to land, seeds and • Promote fairer international patent finance, and uphold indigenous regimes that do not prevent countries peoples’ right to land. from accessing essential medicines • Support sustainable local food and and support efforts to increase the agriculture markets in the fight against transparency of medicines pricing so climate change. governments can negotiate fair prices.

Labour believes human rights should • In the long term, ensure that all drive our trade policy. medicines developed with the support of UK taxpayer money are accessible We will: to people in the Global South. • Implement UK arms export controls to the highest standard, putting an end to exports where they might be used in violation of human rights or international humanitarian law.

• Ensure government procurement contracts are not granted to companies that are complicit in

A NEW INTERNATIONALISM 107 108 STANDING UP FOR WALES