THE LABOUR PARTY MANIFESTO 2017

FOR THE MANY

FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW NOT THE FEW

THE LABOUR PARTY MANIFESTO 2017

CONTENTS

FOREWORD 4

1 CREATING AN ECONOMY THAT WORKS FOR ALL 7 A fair taxation system 9 Balancing the books 10 Infrastructure investment 11 Upgrading our economy: Labour’s industrial strategy 13 Transforming our financial system 16 A new deal for business 17 Widening ownership of our economy 19 Sustainable energy 20

2 NEGOTIATING BREXIT 23 Immigration 28 International trade 30

3 TOWARDS A NATIONAL EDUCATION SERVICE 33 Early years 35 Schools 37 Skills 39 Higher Education 43

4 A FAIR DEAL AT WORK 45 Rights at work 47 Self-employed workers 51

5 SOCIAL SECURITY 53 Dignity for pensioners 54 Dignity for those who cannot work 56

6 SECURE HOMES FOR ALL 59 Home ownership 61 Private renters 62 Council and social tenants 63 Homelessness 64 7 HEALTHCARE FOR ALL 65 NHS 66 Towards a National Care Service 71 Mental health 73

8 SAFER COMMUNITIES 75 Police and crime 76 Border security 78 Fire and Rescue Services 79 Justice 80 Prisons and Probation service 82

9 LEADING RICHER LIVES 85 Local communities 86 Transport 90 Environment 93 Animal welfare 94 Culture for all 95 Media 97 Sport 99

10 EXTENDING DEMOCRACY 101 England 103 Scotland 104 Wales 105 Northern Ireland 106

11 A MORE EQUAL SOCIETY 107 Women 109 LGBT equality 111 Diverse communities 112 People with disabilities 113

12 A GLOBAL BRITAIN 115 Diplomacy 117 Defence 120 Development 122 FOREWORD

A big part of being the leader of a political party is that you meet people across the country and hear a wide range of views and ideas about the future. For me, it’s been a reminder that our country is a place of dynamic, generous and creative people with massive potential.

But I’ve also heard something far less the rich getting richer, more children positive, something which motivates in poverty, our NHS failing and our us in the Labour Party to work for schools and social care in crisis. the kind of real change set out in this Or you can vote for the party that manifesto. It is a growing sense of has a plan to change all of this – anxiety and frustration. The Labour Party.

Faced with falling living standards, Britain is the fifth richest country growing job insecurity and shrinking in the world. But that means little public services, people are under when many people don’t share in increasing strain. Young people are that wealth. Many feel the system held back by debt and the cost of is rigged against them. And this housing. Whole families are being manifesto sets out exactly what held back from the life they have can be done about it. worked towards. Britain needs to negotiate a Brexit I’m constantly told of these pressures deal that puts our economy and in the workplace. Faced with constant living standards first. That won’t cuts and interference, our police, be achieved by empty slogans and nurses, doctors, teachers and council posturing. We cannot put at risk staff are held back from delivering our links with our largest trading the public services they signed up to. partner. Instead we need a jobs-first Brexit that allows us to upgrade our Workers are held back by falling economy for the 21st century. real pay and job security. Our entrepreneurs and managers are Labour will invest in the cutting-edge being held back from growing their jobs and industries of the future business. If you are increasingly that can improve everybody’s lives. asked to do more with less, then Which is why this manifesto outlines you are not alone. a fully costed programme to upgrade our economy. From childcare Every election is a choice. What to transport, housing to lifelong makes this election different is that learning, Labour understands how the choice is starker than ever before. a successful economy depends on You can choose more of the same: services that support us all.

4 FOR FORTHE THE MANY MANY NOT NOT THE THE FEW FEW So yes, this election is about what the homes we need to rent and sort of country we want to be after buy, keeping our communities safe Brexit. Is it one where the majority with more police officers, giving our are held back by the sheer struggle children’s schools the funding they of getting by? That isn’t the Britain badly need, and restoring the NHS Labour is determined to create. to its place as the envy of the world.

So let’s build a fairer Britain where Don’t let the Conservatives hold no one is held back. A country where Britain back. everybody is able to get on in life, to Let’s build a Britain that works have security at work and at home, to for the many, not the few. be decently paid for the work they do, and to live their lives with the dignity they deserve.

Let’s build a country where we invest our wealth to give everyone the Jeremy Corbyn best chance. That means building Leader of the Labour Party

INTRODUCTION 5 6 FOR FORTHE THE MANY MANY NOT NOT THE THE FEW FEW CHAPTER 01 CREATING AN ECONOMY THAT WORKS FOR ALL

FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW 7 Labour will turn this around. CREATING AN We will upgrade our economy, breaking down the barriers that hold ECONOMY THAT too many of us back, and tackling the gender pay gap. Our National WORKS FOR ALL Transformation Fund will deliver the investment that every part of Labour’s economic strategy is Britain needs to meet its potential, about delivering a fairer, more overcoming years of neglect. Our prosperous society for the many, industrial strategy will support not just the few. businesses to create new, high- We will measure our economic skilled, high-paid and secure work success not by the number of across the country, in the sectors billionaires, but by the ability of our of the future such as renewables. people to live richer lives. e will stop our financial system being rigged for the few, turning the Labour understands that the creation power of finance to work for the of wealth is a collective endeavour public good. And we will put small between workers, entrepreneurs, businesses at the centre of our investors and government. Each economic strategy. contributes and each must share fairly in the rewards. The growth created by our national investment plan, underpinned by the This manifesto sets out Labour’s plan responsible economic management to upgrade our economy and rewrite embodied in our Fiscal Credibility the rules of a rigged system, so that Rule, will create good jobs, drive up our economy really works for the living standards and improve the many, and not only the few. Britain is public finances. the only major developed economy where earnings have fallen even It is a plan that will deliver Labour’s as growth has returned after the vision of an economy that works for financial crisis. ost working people the many, not just the few – a Britain in Britain today are earning less, after in which no one is held back. ination, than they did ten years ago. Too many of us are in low-paid and insecure work. Too many of us fear our children will not enjoy the same opportunities that we have.

8 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW Under Labour’s plans, 95 per cent of taxpayers will be guaranteed no increase in their income tax contributions, and everyone will be protected from any increase in personal National Insurance contributions and VAT. Only the top 5 per cent of earners will be asked to contribute more in tax to help fund our public services. We renew our pledge not to extend VAT to food, children’s clothes, books and newspapers, and public A FAIR TAXATION transport fares. Corporation ta in the is the SYSTEM lowest of any major developed economy. Our new settlement with Taxation is what underpins our business will ask large corporations shared prosperity. All of us, to pay a little more while still keeping including business, benefit from corporation ta among the lowest a healthy, educated and skilled of the major developed economies. In population, with access to basic turn, we will meet the business need services and secure housing. for a more skilled workforce with extra corporate tax revenues while We believe in the social obligation contributing to education and to contribute to a fair taxation scheme skills budgets. for the common good. We will take on the social scourge of tax avoidance We will protect small businesses by through our Tax Transparency and reintroducing the lower small profits Enforcement Programme, and close rate of corporation tax. We will also down tax loopholes. exclude small businesses from costly plans to introduce quarterly reporting But we will not ask ordinary and take action on late payments. households to pay more. A Labour government will guarantee no rises Labour will give H evenue in income tax for those earning below Customs the resources and skills £80,000 a year, and no increases necessary to clamp down hard on in personal National Insurance those unscrupulous few individuals Contributions or the rate of VAT. and companies who seek to avoid the responsibilities that the rest of us meet.

CHAPTER 01 CTIN N CN THT S LL 9 Responsibility, which we will make BALANCING accountable to Parliament. We will also consult on implementing the THE BOOKS recommendations of the erslake Review of the Treasury. Our manifesto is fully costed, with all current spending paid for out of taxation or redirected revenue streams. Our public services must rest on the foundation of sound finances. Labour will therefore set the target of eliminating the government’s deficit on day-to-day spending within five years.

But government must have a laser- like focus on how we earn, as well as how we spend. At the same time as eliminating the current deficit, Labour will invest in our future, to ensure faster growth and help us to earn our way as a country again.

To maintain good fiscal health, we will have a firm rule in place to guide all our taxation and spending decisions. Our Fiscal Credibility Rule is based on the simple principle that government should not be borrowing for day-to- day spending, but that future growth depends on investment. It was designed in conjunction with world- leading economists. It also means we are committed to ensuring that the national debt is lower at the end of the next Parliament than it is today.

Compliance with the rule will be overseen by a strengthened and truly independent ffice for Budget

10 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT

Our country and its people have been held back by a lack of investment in the backbone of a modern economy – the infrastructure of transport, communications and energy systems. And when investment has happened, it has been too concentrated in too few places.

Labour will make different choices. into Scotland, consulting with and, We will take advantage of near- where necessary, compensating) record low interest rates to create communities. e will link HS2 with a National Transformation Fund other rail investments, such as that will invest £250 billion over ten Crossrail of the North tying together years in upgrading our economy. our great northern cities) and on to We will ensure that the huge the Durham Freight Centre. We will potential of every part of our country build a new Brighton ain Line for is met. The next Labour government the South ast. will rebuild communities ripped apart In London, to ensure our capital by globalisation and neglected for continues to prosper, we will build years by government. We will rebuild Crossrail 2. and transform our economy so that it works for the many, not the few. To harness the economic potential So we will put in place tight rules of new technologies and science, to ensure that investment is fairly we will complete the Science ale shared around every region and transport arc, from Oxford to nation of the . e will tear Cambridge through ilton eynes. down the barriers that have held nd we will deliver rail electrification too many people back. and expansion across the whole A Labour government will complete country, including Wales and the the HS2 high-speed rail line from South est. London through Birmingham to Leeds and anchester, and then

CHAPTER 01 CTIN N CN THT S LL 11 We will transform our energy systems, investing in new, state- of-the-art low-carbon gas and renewable electricity production.

We will deliver universal superfast broadband availability by 2022. Labour will improve mobile internet coverage and expand provision of free public wi-fi in city centres and on public transport. We will improve 4G coverage and invest to ensure all urban areas, as well as major roads and railways, have uninterrupted 5G coverage. On day one we will instruct the National Infrastructure Commission to report on how to roll out ultrafast’ 300bps across the within the net decade.

12 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW ast. nd while the South ast UPGRADING struggles with a rising cost of living crisis, many northern and coastal OUR ECONOMY: towns have watched as their economies and communities are left LABOUR’S behind. Britain’s failure to get all its regional and local economies working INDUSTRIAL can be seen in the deterioration of the country’s current account, STRATEGY weak productivity growth and underinvestment in infrastructure. Our economy is suffering from years of neglect by governments Britain can only be stronger if every that have refused to support nation and region is given the our industries, businesses and resources and support to succeed. workers. This wasted potential Only a Labour government with is holding us all back. Inequality a credible industrial strategy can has ballooned as the economy reach this untapped potential and has shifted towards low-paid, deliver prosperity to every corner insecure jobs. of our country, working with devolved administrations. Britain’s manufacturing base has declined and we have relied too Our industrial strategy will be built heavily on the financial sector, on objective, measurable missions centred on London and the South designed to address the great

CHAPTER 01 CTIN N CN THT S LL 13 challenges of our times. In meeting • Procurement – by requiring the these challenges, we will move best standards on government beyond the narrow approaches of contracts. the past, and mobilise the talents and • Research and development – resources of our whole country to by committing extra research deliver an economy fit for the future. investment. The first missions set by a Labour • Energy costs and security – by government will be to: capping costs and investing in new 1. ensure that 60 per cent of the ’s publicly owned energy provision. energy comes from zero-carbon While our industrial strategy is one or renewable sources by 2030 for growth across all sectors, Labour 2. create an innovation nation with recognises that certain sectors are the highest proportion of high- of strategic significance to the skilled jobs in the Organisation economy. For each strategic industry, for Economic Co-operation and the next Labour government will Development by 2030. e will establish a council modelled on meet the CD target of 3 per cent the highly successful Automotive of GDP spent on research Council) to oversee its future security and development by 2030. and growth. We will also encourage private investment by removing new In order to create a fertile ground for plant and machinery from business businesses to achieve these missions rate calculations. Labour will take action across the areas we know are necessary for National and local government spends business and industry to grow: £200 billion a year in the private- sector procurement. Labour will put Skills by creating a National that spending power to good use to ducation Service for ngland. upgrade our economy, create good • Infrastructure – by investing £250 local jobs and reduce inequality. We will billion over the next ten years. reuire firms supplying national or local government to meet the high standards supply chains by targeting we should expect of all businesses: government support where there paying their taxes, recognising trade are gaps. unions, respecting workers’ rights and • Trade – by negotiating a new deal equal opportunities, protecting the with Europe that puts jobs and the environment, providing training, and economy first. paying suppliers on time. We will expect

14 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW suppliers to reduce boardroom pay excesses by moving towards a 20:1 gap between the highest and lowest paid.

We will appoint a Digital Ambassador to liaise with technology companies to promote Britain as an attractive place for investment and provide support for start-ups to scale up to become world-class digital businesses. Our Digital Ambassador will help to ensure businesses are ready to grow and prosper in the digital age.

CHAPTER 01 CTIN N CN THT S LL 15 Labour will overhaul the regulation TRANSFORMING of our financial system, putting in place a firm ring-fence between OUR FINANCIAL investment and retail banking that will protect consumers. We will SYSTEM take a new approach to the publicly-owned BS, and launch A decade after the devastating a consultation on breaking up the international financial crisis, our bank to create new local public financial system is still holding banks that are better matched back too many of our small to their customers’ needs. And we will businesses and local economies. etend eisting Stamp Duty eserve Labour will transform how our Tax to cover a wider range of assets, financial system operates. ollowing ensuring that the public gets a fairer the successful example of Germany share of financial system profits. and the Nordic countries, we will Labour will change the law so that establish a National Investment banks can’t close a branch where Bank that will bring in private capital there is a clear local need, putting finance to deliver 250 billion of their customers first. Britain has lending power. a successful international finance This new public institution will industry, but we also need a strong, support a network of regional safe and socially useful banking development banks that, unlike giant system to meet the needs of our City of London firms, will be dedicated own regional economies and to supporting inclusive growth in their communities. We will commit to communities. The banks will deliver creating a more diverse banking the finance that our small businesses, system, backed up by legislation. co-operatives and innovative projects need across the whole country. The National Investment Bank will fill eisting gaps in lending by private banks, particularly to small businesses, and by providing patient, long-term finance to D-intensive investments. It will also be given the task of helping to deliver our industrial strategy, by prioritising spending in line with its objectives.

16 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW A NEW DEAL FOR BUSINESS

The majority of businesses play by the rules: they pay their taxes and their workers reasonably and on time, and they operate with respect for the environment and local communities. That is why it is vital that government ensures that businesses doing the right thing are rewarded rather than undercut or outbid by those unscrupulous few that cut corners, whether duty directly not only shareholders, on taxes, workers’ conditions, but to employees, customers, the environmental standards, or environment and the wider public, consumer safety and protection. and we will consult on bringing But our business culture doesn’t forward appropriate legislation always work like this. Scandals such as within this Parliament. the failure of BHS show how the long- Labour will amend the takeover term growth of a company can be regime to ensure that businesses sacrificed for the sake of a uick buck. identified as being systemically When shareholders are looking important’ have a clear plan in place for quick short-term returns, they to protect workers and pensioners encourage companies to cut corners. when a company is taken over. That means they look to cut wages, Labour will also legislate to reduce instead of investing for the long term, pay inequality by introducing an or they spend longer inventing new Excessive Pay Levy on companies tax avoidance schemes than they with staff on very high pay. do inventing new products. Our small and medium-sized By reforming the rules our companies enterprises Ss are the backbone operate under, we can make sure of our economy, providing 60 they stay focused on delivering per cent of private-sector jobs. shared wealth. Labour will amend Technological changes, like the company law so that directors owe a spread of digital manufacturing and

CHAPTER 01 CTIN N CN THT S LL 17 rapid communication, mean smaller, • Declare war on late payments by: faster businesses will be the future of • Using government procurement our economy. to ensure that anyone bidding et this Conservative overnment for a government contract pays has taken small businesses for its own suppliers within 30 days. granted. Labour is the party of small • Developing a version of the businesses. We understand the Australian system of binding challenges our smaller businesses arbitration and fines for face. In order to provide the support persistent late-payers for the many small businesses need, private and public sectors. a Labour government will: We will also bring forward legislation andate the new National to create a proper legal definition for Investment Bank, and regional co-operative ownership. The National development banks in every Investment Bank and regional region, to identify where other development banks will be charged lenders fail to meet the needs with helping support our co-operative of Ss and prioritise lending to sector. Labour will aim to double the improve the funding gap. size of the co-operative sector in the • Reinstate the lower small-business , putting it on a par with those in corporation tax rate. leading economies like Germany or the S. • Introduce a package of reforms to business rates – including switching from RPI to CPI indexation, exempting new investment in plant and machinery from valuations, and ensuring that businesses have access to a proper appeals process – while reviewing the entire business rates system in the longer run.

Scrap uarterly reporting for businesses with a turnover of under £85,000.

18 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW parcel charges, and failed to meet WIDENING its customer service obligations, while its owners trade shares at OWNERSHIP OF significant profit. The Conservative Government’s privatisation of Royal OUR ECONOMY ail was a historic mistake, selling off another national asset on the cheap. Britain is a long-established democracy. But the distribution Across the world, countries are of ownership of the country’s taking public utilities back into economy means that decisions public ownership. Labour will about our economy are often learn from these experiences and made by a narrow elite. More bring key utilities back into public democratic ownership structures ownership to deliver lower prices, would help our economy deliver more accountability and a more for the many and lead to a fairer sustainable economy. We will: distribution of wealth. • Bring private rail companies In government, Labour would give back into public ownership more people a stake – and a say as their franchises expire. – in our economy by doubling the • Regain control of energy supply size of the co-operative sector and networks through the alteration introducing a “right to own,” making of operator license conditions, employees the buyer of first refusal and transition to a publicly owned, when the company they work for is decentralised energy system. up for sale. We will act to ‘insource’ our public and local council services • Replace our dysfunctional water as preferred providers. system with a network of regional publicly-owned water companies. any basic goods and services have been taken out of democratic control • Reverse the privatisation of Royal through privatisation. This has often ail at the earliest opportunity. led to higher prices and poorer Public ownership will benefit quality, as prices are raised to pay consumers, ensuring that their out dividends. For example, water interests are put first and that bills have increased 40 per cent since there is democratic accountability privatisation, and our private energy for the service. providers overcharged customers by £2 billion in 2015. In private hands, oyal ail has increased stamp and

CHAPTER 01 CTIN N CN THT S LL 19 household energy bill remains SUSTAINABLE below £1,000 per year, while we transition to a fairer system ENERGY for bill payers.

Labour’s energy policy is built • Take energy back into public on three simple principles: ownership to deliver renewable energy, affordability for • To ensure security of energy consumers, and democratic supply and ‘keep the lights on’. control. We will do this in the • To ensure energy costs are following stages: affordable for consumers and • Regaining control of energy businesses. supply networks through the • To ensure we meet our climate alteration of the National and change targets and transition Regional Network Operator to a low-carbon economy. license conditions.

The energy system is Supporting the creation outdated, expensive and polluting. of publicly owned, locally Privatisation has failed to accountable energy companies deliver an energy system that and co-operatives to rival delivers for people, businesses or existing private energy suppliers, our environment. with at least one if every region.

One in ten households are in • Legislating to permit publicly fuel poverty, yet the Competition owned local companies to arkets uthority found customers purchase the regional grid are overcharged an enormous infrastructure, and to ensure £2 billion every year. that national and regional grid infrastructure is brought into Labour understands that many public ownership over time. people don’t have time to shop around, they just want reliable Labour will insulate four million and affordable energy. So the net homes as an infrastructure priority to Labour Government will: help those who suffer in cold homes each winter. This will cut emissions, • Introduce an immediate improve health, save on bills, and emergency price cap to ensure reduce fuel poverty and winter deaths. that the average dual-fuel

20 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW Homeowners will be offered interest- focused on protecting vital North free loans to improve their property. Sea assets, and the jobs and skills For renters, Labour will improve on that depend on them. eisting Landlord nergy fficiency We are committed to renewable regulations and re-establish the energy projects, including tidal Landlord nergy Saving llowance lagoons, which can help create to encourage the uptake of manufacturing and energy jobs efficiency measures. as well as contributing to climate- Labour will ban fracking because change commitments. it would lock us into an energy The has the world’s oldest nuclear infrastructure based on fossil fuels, industry, and nuclear will continue to long after the point in 2030 when the be part of the energy supply. e Committee on Climate Change says will support further nuclear projects gas in the must sharply decline. and protect nuclear workers’ jobs Emerging technologies such as and pensions. There are considerable carbon capture and storage will help opportunities for nuclear power and to smooth the transition to cleaner decommissioning both internationally fuels and to protect existing jobs and domestically. as part of the future energy mix. To Building a clean economy of the safeguard the offshore oil and gas future is the most important thing industry, we will provide a strategy we must do for our children,

CHAPTER 01 CTIN N CN THT S LL 21 our grandchildren and future generations. et recent years have seen a failure to progress towards our targets. A Labour government will put us back on track to meet the targets in the Climate Change Act and the Paris Agreement.

The low-carbon economy is one of the ’s fastest-growing sectors, creating jobs and providing investment across each region. It employed an estimated 447,000 employees in the in 2015 and saw over £77 billion in turnover. With backing from a Labour government, these sectors can secure crucial shares of global export markets.

Currently, the buys and sells energy tariff free from urope, an arrangement which saves families and businesses money, and helps balance the power grid. As part of the Brexit negotiations, Labour will prioritise maintaining access to the internal energy market. Labour will also retain access to Euratom, to allow continued trade of fissile material, with access and collaboration over research vital to our nuclear industry.

22 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW CHAPTER 02 NEGOTIATING BREXIT

FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW 23 to our society: they are part of our NEGOTIATING society. And they should not be used BREXIT as bargaining chips. It is shameful that the Prime Labour accepts the referendum Minister rejected repeated attempts result and a Labour government by Labour to resolve this issue before will put the national interest first. Article 50 was triggered. As a result We will prioritise jobs and living three million EU nationals have standards, build a close new suffered unnecessary uncertainty, relationship with the EU, protect as have the 1.2 million UK citizens workers’ rights and environmental living in the EU. standards, provide certainty A Conservative Brexit will weaken to EU nationals and give workers’ rights, deregulate the a meaningful role to Parliament economy, slash corporate taxes, throughout negotiations. sideline Parliament and democratic We will end Theresa May’s reckless accountability, and cut Britain off approach to Brexit, and seek to unite from our closest allies and most the country around a Brexit deal that important trading partners. works for every community in Britain. Labour recognises that leaving the We will scrap the Conservatives’ EU with ‘no deal’ is the worst possible Brexit White Paper and replace it deal for Britain and that it would do with fresh negotiating priorities that damage to our economy and trade. have a strong emphasis on retaining We will reject ‘no deal’ as a viable the benefits of the Single arket option and if needs be negotiate and the Customs Union – which transitional arrangements to avoid are essential for maintaining a cliff-edge’ for the economy. industries, jobs and businesses in The issues that affect our continent Britain. Labour will always put jobs now will continue to do so in the and the economy first. future – and Labour will continue A Labour government will to work constructively with the immediately guarantee existing EU and other European nations rights for all EU nationals living in on issues such as climate change, Britain and secure reciprocal rights refugee crises and counter-terrorism. for UK citizens who have chosen e will build a close co-operative to make their lives in EU countries. future relationship with the EU, EU nationals do not just contribute not as members but as partners.

24 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW A Labour government will ensure access allowing British farmers and that the UK maintains our leading food producers to continue to sell research role by seeking to stay part their products on the Continent. of Horizon 2020 and its successor Labour will also protect our farmers programmes and by welcoming and rural economy by ensuring research staff to the . e will Britain continues to set the highest seek to maintain membership of standards in food quality and welfare. (or equivalent relationships with) We will not allow Brexit to be used as uropean organisations which offer an excuse to undercut our farmers benefits to the such as uratom and ood Britain’s food chain with and the European Medicines Agency. cheap and inferior produce. We will seek to ensure that Britain remains part of the Erasmus scheme We will drop the Conservatives’ so that British students have the Great Repeal Bill, replacing it same educational opportunities after with an EU Rights and Protections we leave the EU. Bill that will ensure there is no detrimental change to workers’ The EU is the UK’s single largest rights, equality law, consumer trading partner in agricultural rights or environmental protections produce, with the vast majority as a result of Brexit. of British exports being sold to European markets. A Labour Throughout the Brexit process, government will end the uncertainty we will make sure that all -derived for our farmers and food producers laws that are of benefit including by securing continued EU market workplace laws, consumer rights and environmental protections – are

CHAPTER 02 NEGOTIATING BREXIT 25 fully protected without ualifications, A Labour government will never limitations or sunset clauses. We will consider these rights a burden work with trade unions, businesses or accept the weakening of and stakeholders to ensure there workers’ rights, consumer rights is a consensus on this vital issue. or environmental protections. A Labour approach to Brexit will We will introduce legislation to ensure there can be no rolling back ensure there are no gaps in national of key rights and protections and security and criminal justice that the UK does not lag behind arrangements as a result of Brexit. Europe in workplace protections and environmental standards in future. Labour recognises the vital role that cross-border agencies such as The EU has had a huge impact in Eurojust and Europol have played securing workplace protections and in making Britain safer and that environmental safeguards. But we European Arrest Warrants have been all know that for many Brexiteers invaluable. A Labour government will in the Tory Party, this was why seek to retain membership of these they wanted to Leave – to tear up agencies and continue European regulations and weaken hard-fought Arrest Warrant arrangements. rights and protections.

26 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW Labour will seek a Brexit deal that government can continue to delivers for all regions and nations create jobs and prosperity in of the UK. We will introduce a the years to come. ‘presumption of devolution’ where Where Theresa May wants to shut devolved powers transferred down scrutiny and challenge, Labour from the EU will go straight to the will welcome it. We will work with relevant region or nation. For many Parliament, not against it. people and for much of our country, On an issue of this importance power can feel just as remote and the Government can’t hide from unaccountable in Westminster as the public or Parliament. it does in Brussels. So a Labour government will seek to put powers A Labour approach to Brexit also as close to communities as possible. means legislating to guarantee that Parliament has a truly meaningful We will ensure there is no drop vote on the final Breit deal. in Structural unding as a result of Brexit until the end of the current EU funding round in 2019/20. As part of Labour’s plans to rebalance and rebuild the economy, we will ensure that no region or nation of the UK is affected by the withdrawal of funding for the remainder of this Parliament. This will also apply to the funding of peace and reconciliation projects in Northern Ireland.

We will also improve engagement and dialogue with the devolved administrations and seek to ensure the final Breit deal addresses specific concerns. In particular Labour will ensure there is no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and that there is no change in the status or sovereignty of Gibraltar. We will also protect Gibraltar’s economy and ensure that its

CHAPTER 02 NEGOTIATING BREXIT 27 Working together we will institute a IMMIGRATION new system which is based on our economic needs, balancing controls Labour offers fair rules and and existing entitlements. This may reasonable management of include employer sponsorship, work migration. n trade negotiations permits, visa regulations or a tailored our priorities favour growth, mix of all these which works for the obs and prosperity. e mae no many, not the few. apologies for putting these aims before bogus immigration targets. Labour will protect those already working here, whatever their Freedom of movement will ethnicity. Our National Education end when we leave the European Service will raise the level of skills Union. Britain’s immigration system and training. We will take decisive will change, but Labour will not actions to end the exploitation of scapegoat migrants nor blame migrant labour undercutting them for economic failures. workers’ pay and conditions. Labour will develop and implement Labour will crack down on fair immigration rules. We will not unscrupulous employers. We will discriminate between people of stop overseas-only recruitment different races or creeds. e will practices, strengthen safety-at- end indefinite detentions and work inspections and increase distinguish between migrant labour prosecutions of employers evading and family attachment and will the minimum wage. continue to support the work of the Forced Marriage Unit. We will Working with trade unions, we replace income thresholds with a will end workplace exploitation. prohibition on recourse to public Labour values the economic and funds. New rules will be equally social contributions of immigrants. informed by negotiations with the Both public and private sector EU and other partners, including employers depend on immigrants. the Commonwealth. We will not denigrate those workers. Whatever our trade arrangements, We value their contributions, we will need new migration including their tax contributions. management systems, transparent For areas where immigration and fair to everybody. Working with has placed a strain on public services businesses, trade unions, devolved we will reinstate the Migrant Impact governments and others to identify Fund and boost specific labour and skill shortages.

28 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW it with a contributory element from the investments required for High Net Worth Individual Visas. Labour will restore the rights of migrant domestic workers, and end this form of modern slavery.

Labour will ease the underlying pressures in any areas struggling to cope with seven years of austerity by our programme of investments. We will not cut public services and pretend the cuts are a consequence of immigration.

Refugees are not migrants. They have been forced from their homes, by war, famine or other disasters. Unlike the Tories, we will uphold the proud British tradition of honouring the spirit of international law and our moral obligations by taking our fair share of refugees. The current arrangements for housing and dispersing refugees are not fit for purpose. They are not fair to refugees or to our communities. We will review these arrangements.

Labour welcomes international students who benefit and strengthen our education sector, generating more than £25 billion for the British economy and significantly boosting regional jobs and local businesses. They are not permanent residents and we will not include them in immigration numbers, but we will crack down on fake colleges.

CHAPTER 02 NEGOTIATING BREXIT 29 jobs and high standards. INTERNATIONAL We will ensure all future trade deals safeguard the right to TRADE regulate in the public interest and to protect public services. Labour is pro-trade and pro-investment. he ’s future Labour is committed to the prosperity depends on minimising rules-based international tariff and non-tariff barriers that trading system of the World Trade prevent us from exporting and Organisation (WTO). We will rejoin creating the jobs and economic the Government Procurement growth we need. Agreement, whilst safeguarding the capacity for public bodies to A Labour government will work make procurement decisions in with devolved administrations to keeping with public policy objectives. bring forward an integrated trade and industrial strategy that boosts Labour will build human rights exports, investment and decent jobs and social justice into trade policy. in Britain. We will ensure that trade agreements cannot undermine human rights and Labour will set out our priorities in labour standards, and that UK Export an International Trade White Paper Finance support is not available to to lead a national debate on the companies engaged in bribery or future of Britain’s trade policy. We corrupt practices. will ensure proper transparency and parliamentary scrutiny of all future We will work with other WTO trade and investment deals. members to end the dumping of state-subsidised goods on The EU accounts for 44 per cent our markets. The Conservatives of our current exports and will consistently blocked efforts to continue to be a priority trading respond to such dumping with the partner. As our trading relationship duties needed to defend the British with the EU changes it is vital that steel industry. Labour will develop we retain unrestricted access for the full range of trade remedies our goods and services. necessary to support key sectors Through our Just Trading initiative affected by these unfair practices. launched in 2016, Labour will work Labour will champion the export with global trading partners to interests of Ss, ensuring all develop best-in-class’ free trade and new trade agreements include a investment agreements that remove commitment to support their market trade barriers and promote skilled access needs. We will develop an

30 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW As part of our commitment to a low-carbon future, we will actively support international negotiations towards an Environmental Goods Agreement at the WTO. Labour will use trade negotiations to boost market access for British environmental goods and services, alongside support for investment into new green technologies and innovative low-carbon products.

Labour will develop capital investment schemes and other incentives to encourage investment eport incentive scheme for Ss into the UK, especially into target based on international best practice, areas identified by the industrial and we will ring-fence Tradeshow strategy. We will champion the UK Access Programme grants to help as a safe investment environment. Ss reach new customers around the world. Labour will review our historic investment treaties with other Labour will use the full range of countries, ensuring they are fit for eport credit, finance, insurance purpose for the 21st century. Labour and trade promotion tools to boost opposes parallel investor-state British exports and support priority dispute systems for multinational industrial sectors. corporations and we will open a We will create a network of regional dialogue with trading partners trade and investment champions on alternative options that to promote the export and provide investor protection whilst investment interests of businesses guaranteeing equality before the law. across the country, and we will include regional representation on overseas trade missions.

Labour is committed to growing the digital economy and ensuring that trade agreements do not impede cross-border data ows, whilst maintaining strong data protection rules to protect personal privacy.

CHAPTER 02 NEGOTIATING BREXIT 31 32 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW CHAPTER 03 TOWARDS A NATIONAL EDUCATION SERVICE

FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW 33 When the 1945 Labour government TOWARDS established the NHS, it created one of the central institutions of fairness A NATIONAL of the 20th century. The NES will do the same for the 21st, giving people EDUCATION confidence and hope by making education a right, not a privilege, SERVICE and building bridges where the Conservatives build barriers. Education is what empowers us all to realise our full potential. When it fails, it isn’t just the individual that is held back, but all of us. When we invest in people to develop their skills and capabilities, we all benefit from a stronger economy and society.

At a time when working lives and the skills our economy needs are changing rapidly, governments have the responsibility to make lifelong learning a reality by giving everyone the opportunity to access education throughout their lives.

To meet this responsibility, Labour will create a unified National Education Service (NES) for England to move towards cradle-to-grave learning that is free at the point of use. The NES will be built on the principle that ‘Every Child – and Adult – Matters’ and will incorporate all forms of education, from early years through to adult education.

34 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW Under the Conservatives, the free hours entitlement is chronically under-funded, with provision patchy and hard to navigate. Many providers now simply refuse to participate in the scheme. The result is that many parents aren’t even getting the hours they’re entitled to.

Labour would:

1. Overhaul the existing childcare system in which subsidies are given directly to parents who often struggle to use them, and transition EARLY YEARS to a system of high-quality childcare places in mixed environments with Currently, there is a gap between direct government subsidy. the end of maternity leave and the beginning of full-time schooling. 2. Maintain current commitments his gap can mae it dicult for on free hours and make significant parents, particularly women, capital investment during our to return to work, unless they first two years of government, have access to informal childcare to ensure that the places exist support. There is also extensive to meet demand. evidence that early years 3. Phase in subsidised provision education has a major impact on top of free-hour entitlements, on child development, and that to ensure that everyone has access time in a formal education setting to affordable childcare, no matter for young children can improve their working pattern. performance at GCSE and beyond. 4. Transition to a ualified, Labour would seek to roll out graduate-led workforce, by educational provision for early increasing staff wages and enhancing years children as part of a National training opportunities. This will Education Service that is truly benefit staff, who are among our cradle-to-grave. worst-paid workers, Labour introduced free childcare and improve child development. hours for parents, which were fully funded and resourced.

CHAPTER 03 TOWARDS A NATIONAL EDUCATION SERVICE 35 5. Extend the 30 free hours to all two- year-olds, and move towards making some childcare available for one- year-olds and extending maternity pay to 12 months.

Sure Start, and the support it gives to vulnerable and hard-to-reach parents, was one of the great achievements of the previous Labour government, but under the Conservatives 1,200 Sure Start centres have been lost. Labour will halt the closures and increase the amount of money available for Sure Start.

36 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW 1. Investment – we will make sure SCHOOLS schools are properly resourced by reversing the Conservatives’ cuts Conservative cuts are starving and ensuring that all schools have schools of the funding they the resources they need. We will need to deliver a first class introduce a fairer funding formula education. Crippling underfunding that leaves no school worse off, is driving up class sizes and while redressing the historical forcing schools to cut corners. underfunding of certain schools. A narrow curriculum and a culture Labour will also invest in new school of assessment is driving away buildings, including the phased teachers, creating a recruitment removal of asbestos from existing and retention crisis. schools. Labour will not waste money on 2. Quality – we will drive up standards inefficient free schools and the across the board, learning from Conservatives’ grammar schools examples of best practice, such as vanity project. Labour does not want Labour’s London Challenge, a return to secondary moderns. We to encourage co-operation and will also oppose any attempt to force strong leadership across schools. We schools to become academies. and trust in teachers and support Labour’s schools policy will be built staff professionalism to refocus their on the following four foundations: workload on what happens in the classroom.

CHAPTER 03 TOWARDS A NATIONAL EDUCATION SERVICE 37 3. Accountability – Labour will ensure education systems use more that all schools are democratically continuous assessment, which accountable, including appropriate avoids ‘teaching for the test’. controls to see that they serve We will tackle the teacher recruitment the public interest and their local and retention crisis by ending communities. We will require the public-sector pay cap, giving joined-up admissions policies across teachers more direct involvement in local schools to enable councils to the curriculum, and tackling rising fulfil their responsibilities on child workloads by reducing monitoring places, and bureaucracy. to simplify the admissions process for parents and to ensure that no We will also consult on introducing child slips through the net. teacher sabbaticals and placements with industry to encourage 4. Inclusion – Every child is unique, and interaction between education a Labour-led education and industry and introduce broad system will enable each to find experiences into the classroom. their learning path through a wide choice of courses and We will reintroduce the Schools ualifications. e will invest in Support Staff Negotiating Body and measures to close the attainment national pay settlements for teachers. gap between children from different We will put £150 million back into backgrounds. supporting our children in schools To give all children the best start in by scrapping the Conservatives’ life, we will reduce class sizes to less nonsensical plans for schools than 30 for all five-, si-, and seven- to pay the apprenticeship levy. year-olds, and seek to extend that We will extend schools-based as resources allow. counselling to all schools to improve To aid attainment, we will introduce children’s mental health, at a cost free school meals for all primary of £90 million per year. school children, paid for by removing And we will deliver a strategy for the VAT exemption on private children with special educational school fees. needs and disabilities (SEND) based We will abandon plans to reintroduce on inclusivity, and embed SEND baseline assessments and launch more substantially into training for a commission to look into curriculum teachers and non-teaching staff, so and assessment, starting by that staff, children and their parents reviewing Key Stage 1 and 2 SATs. are properly supported. The world’s most successful

38 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW SKILLS

At a time when technology is changing demand for different inds of skills, and evolving patterns of work mean that people are more likely to pursue several careers during their working lives, it is crucial that our education system enables people to upskill and retrain Our skills and training sector over their lifetimes. As part of our has been held back by repeated dynamic industrial strategy, lifelong reorganisation, which deprives training will deliver productivity and providers, learners and employers growth to the whole economy while of the consistency they need to transforming the lives of individuals assess quality. Labour would and communities. abandon Conservative plans to once To ensure that we deliver for every again reinvent the wheel by building part of the UK, we will devolve new technical colleges, redirecting responsibility for skills, wherever there the money to increase teacher is an appetite, to city regions numbers in the FE sector. or devolved administrations. We share the broad aims of the Sainsbury Review but would ensure vocational routes incorporate the Further and Adult Education service sector as well as traditional Despite claiming to be committed to manufacturing, working in tandem delivering high-quality training, the with our broad industrial strategy Conservatives have ruthlessly cut to deliver for the whole economy. funding for FE colleges – our main We will improve careers advice provider of adult and vocational and open up a range of routes education – and reduced entitlements through, and back into, education, for adult learners. This has led to striking a balance between classroom diminishing numbers of courses and and on-the-job training, to ensure students, and plunged the sector students gain both technical and into crisis. soft skills. Labour would introduce free, lifelong To implement the Sainsbury education in Further Education (FE) recommendations, we would correct colleges, enabling everyone to upskill historic neglect of the FE sector by or retrain at any point in life.

CHAPTER 03 TOWARDS A NATIONAL EDUCATION SERVICE 39 giving the sector the investment – in • Increase capital investment to teachers and facilities – it deserves to equip colleges to deliver T-levels become a world-leading provider of and an official pre-apprenticeship adult and vocational education. trainee programme.

ore specifically, we would

Bring funding for 16 to18-year-olds Apprenticeships in line with Key Stage 4 baselines, Employer-led training is the most while ensuring that the budget is effective way of meeting our distributed fairly between colleges growing skills gap. Labour supports and school sixth forms the apprenticeship levy, but will • Restore the Education take steps to ensure that every Maintenance Allowance for apprenticeship is of a high quality. 16 to 18-year-olds from lower Labour will: and middle income backgrounds • Maintain the apprenticeship levy • Replace Advanced Learner Loans while taking measures to ensure and upfront course fees with direct high quality by requiring the funding, making FE courses free at Institute for Apprenticeships and the point of use, including English Technical Education to report on for Speakers of Other Languages an annual basis to the Secretary (ESOL) courses. of State on quality outcomes of • Drive up quality and consistency in completed apprenticeships to the FE sector by: ensure they deliver skilled workers for employers and real jobs for • Encouraging co-operation and apprentices at the end of their leadership across colleges training. And we will work with and sixth forms, improving the devolved administrations to curriculum breadth and quality improve the operation of the levy • Setting a target, backed up by • Set a target to double the number funding, for all teaching staff of completed apprenticeships at to have a teaching ualification NVQ level 3 by 2022 within five years. ive employers more eibility in • In recognition of the role played by how the levy is deployed, including private-sector providers, we would allowing the levy to be used for extend support for training to pre-apprenticeship programmes teachers in the private sector

40 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW CHAPTER 03 TOWARDS A NATIONAL EDUCATION SERVICE 41 • Guarantee trade union representation in the governance structures of the Institute of Apprenticeships

• Protect the £440 million funding for apprenticeships for small-and medium-sized employers who don’t pay the levy

• Set targets to increase apprenticeships for people with disabilities, care leavers and veterans, and ensure broad representation of women, B, LBT and people with disabilities in all kinds of apprenticeships

• Consult on introducing incentives for large employers to over-train numbers of apprentices to fill skills gaps in the supply chain and the wider sector

• Reverse cuts to Unionlearn

• Set up a commission on Lifelong Learning tasked with integrating further and higher education.

42 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW Labour will reintroduce maintenance HIGHER grants for university students, and we EDUCATION will abolish university tuition fees. University tuition is free in many Labour believes education should northern European countries, and be free, and we will restore this under a Labour government it will principle. o one should be put off be free here too. educating themselves for lack of money or through fear of debt.

There is a real fear that students are being priced out of university education. Last year saw the steepest fall in university applications for 30 years.

Since the Conservatives came to power, university tuition fees have been trebled to over £9,000 a year, and maintenance grants have been abolished and replaced with loans.

The average student now graduates from university, and starts their working life, with debts of £44,000.

CHAPTER 03 TOWARDS A NATIONAL EDUCATION SERVICE 43 44 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW CHAPTER 04 A FAIR DEAL AT WORK

FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW 45 So we will review the rules on union A FAIR DEAL recognition so that more workers AT WORK have the security of a union. At the same time as strengthening Work should provide people workers’ rights, we will make work with security and fulfilment. more fulfilling by using public But for too many people wor investment to upgrade our economy is insecure and does not mae and create high-quality jobs. While ends meet. the Conservatives stand back and allow insecure work to spread, The Conservatives boast about the Labour will act to guarantee good recovery of employment, but our jobs and businesses. labour market is failing. Real-terms pay is still lower than before the crash, and jobs are increasingly low skilled and insecure.

A Labour government will invest in enforcement through a new Ministry of Labour, and empower workers and their trade unions – because we are stronger when we stand together.

46 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW entitlement so that workers RIGHTS AT WORK in Britain get the same proper breaks as in other countries. he net Labour government will bring in a 20-point plan for security 7. Raise the Minimum Wage to the and equality at work: level of the Living Wage (expected to be at least £10 per hour by 1. Give all workers equal rights from 2020) – for all workers aged 18 day one, whether part-time or or over, so that work pays. full-time, temporary or permanent – so that working conditions are 8. End the Public Sector Pay Cap – not driven down. because public sector workers deserve a pay rise after years of 2. Ban zero hours contracts – so that falling wages. every worker gets a guaranteed number of hours each week. 9. Amend the takeover code to ensure every takeover proposal 3. Legislate to ensure that any has a clear plan in place to employer wishing to recruit labour protect workers and pensioners – from abroad does not undercut because workers shouldn’t suffer workers at home – because when a company is sold. it causes divisions when one workforce is used against another. 10. Roll out maximum pay ratios of 20:1 in the public sector and 4. Repeal the Trade Union Act in companies bidding for public and roll out sectoral collective contracts – because it cannot bargaining – because the most be right that wages at the top effective way to maintain good keep rising while everyone rights at work is collectively else’s stagnates. through a union.

5. Guarantee trade unions a right to access workplaces – so that unions can speak to members and potential members.

6. Propose four new public holidays – bringing our country together to mark our four national patron saints’ days. These will be additional to statutory holiday

CHAPTER 04 A FAIR DEAL AT WORK 47 11. Ban unpaid internships – because only awarding public contracts to it’s not fair for some to get a leg companies which recognise trade up when others can’t afford to. unions.

12. Enforce all workers’ rights to trade 20. Introduce a civil enforcement union representation at work – system to ensure compliance so that all workers can be with gender pay auditing – so supported when negotiating that all workers have fair access with their employer. to employment and promotion opportunities and are treated 13. Abolish employment tribunal fairly at work. fees – so that people have access to justice. A Labour government will ensure Britain abides by the global Labour 14. Double paid paternity leave to standards of the ILO conventions. four weeks and increase paternity pay – because fathers are parents All workers should be able to work too and deserve to spend more in a safe environment and return to time with their new babies. their families at the end of the day. Labour will enforce regulations that 15. Strengthen protections for save lives. women against unfair redundancy – because no one should be As well as legislating against zero penalised for having children. hours contracts, there are many more workers on short hours 16. Hold a public inquiry into contracts (some only guaranteed blacklisting – to ensure that a few hours per week), but who blacklisting truly becomes and regularly work far more. We will remains a thing of the past. strengthen the law so that those who 17. Give equalities reps statutory work regular hours for more than 12 rights – so they have time weeks will have a right to a regular to protect workers from contract, reecting those hours. discrimination. We will also scrap the changes 18. Reinstate protection against brought in by the Conservatives in third party harassment – because 2014 to TUPE, which weakened the everyone deserves to be safe protections for workers transferring at work. between contractors, and we will abolish the loophole to the agency 19. Use public spending power to workers regulations known as the drive up standards, including Swedish derogation.

48 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW CHAPTER 04 A FAIR DEAL AT WORK 49 We will consult with employers and trade unions on legislating for statutory bereavement leave, for time off work after the loss of close family members. We will also consult on toughening the law against assaulting workers who have to enforce laws such as age-related sales or ticketing arrangements, and who face regular abuse.

Labour will maintain the ACAS Early Conciliation System to try to solve workplace issues efficiently, and we will protect the current compromise on Sunday trading hours.

Labour will also legislate to permit secure online and workplace balloting for industrial action votes and internal union elections.

Workers in Britain are among the easiest and cheapest to make redundant, meaning when multinational companies are taking decisions to downsize that British workers are at a disadvantage. We will consult with trade unions and industry on reviewing redundancy arrangements to bring workers in Britain more into line with their European counterparts.

Stagnating incomes have forced many to take on more debt. Labour will introduce a version of Scotland’s Debt Arrangement Scheme to give breathing space to households struggling with high debts.

50 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW • Giving employment agencies and SELF-EMPLOYED end-users joint responsibility for ensuring that the rights of agency WORKERS workers are enforced.

elf-employment can bring many • Rolling out sectoral collective benefits, freedoms and eibilities bargaining and strengthening to people – and is a vital and often trade union rights, because entrepreneurial sector of our empowering people to claim economy. their own rights in the workplace is the most effective means of But there is also mounting evidence enforcement. that workers are being forced into self-employment by unscrupulous We would also extend the rights of employers to avoid costs and their employees to all workers, including duties to workers. Labour will clamp shared parental pay, making a down on bogus self-employment by: substantial and immediate difference to the quality of life of people in • Shifting the burden of proof, so insecure work. But there are real that the law assumes a worker is concerns that rapid changes to the an employee unless the employer world of work are rendering existing can prove otherwise. employment categories outdated. Imposing punitive fines on Labour recognises that the law employers not meeting their often struggles to keep up with responsibilities, helping to deter the ever-changing new forms of others from doing the same. employment and work, so we will • Involving trade unions in set up a dedicated commission enforcement, e.g. by giving them to modernise the law around a seat on the executive board of employment status. New statutory the new Ministry of Labour. definitions of employment status would reduce the need for litigation • Giving the Ministry of Labour and improve compliance. the resources to enforce all workers’ rights. The commission will be led by legal and academic experts with • Banning payroll companies, representation from industry and sometimes known as umbrella trade unions. companies, which create a false structure to limit employers’ tax liabilities and limit workers’ rights.

CHAPTER 04 A FAIR DEAL AT WORK 51 52 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW CHAPTER 05 SOCIAL SECURITY

FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW 53 Over 2.5 million women born in SOCIAL SECURITY the 1950s have had their state pension age changed without fair After seven years of rising poverty notification. These women deserve and inequality, Labour will rebuild both recognition for the injustice and transform our social security they have suffered and some kind system. Like the NHS, our social of compensation for their losses. security system is there for all of us in our time of need, providing Alongside our commitment to security and dignity in retirement extend Pension Credit to hundreds and the basics in life should we of thousands of the most vulnerable become sick or disabled, or fall women, Labour is exploring options on hard times. for further transitional protections, to ensure that all these women have DIGNITY FOR security and dignity in older age. This must never happen again. PENSIONERS Labour will legislate so that accrued rights to the basic state pension Labour will always be on the side cannot be changed, but future of pensioners and help ensure benefits can. security and dignity for older The pension age is due to rise to people in retirement. 66 by the end of 2020. Labour As the Conservatives abandon rejects the Conservatives’ proposal to their commitments to older people, increase the state pension age even Labour will guarantee the state further. We will commission a new pension ‘triple lock’ throughout the review of the pension age, specifically next Parliament. It will rise by at least tasked with developing a eible 2.5 per cent a year or be increased to retirement policy to reect both keep pace with ination or earnings, the contributions made by people, whichever is higher. the wide variations in life expectancy, and the arduous conditions of The Winter Fuel Allowance and free some work. bus passes will also be guaranteed as universal benefits. e’ll restore confidence in the workplace pension system and We will protect the pensions of UK put people rather than profit at citizens living overseas in the EU or its centre. Labour will end rip-off further afield.

54 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW hidden fees and charges, and enable the development of large efficient pensions funds, which will mean more cash for scheme members and lower costs for employers.

A Labour government will commit to an immediate review of the mineworkers’ pension scheme and British Coal superannuation scheme surplus, sharing arrangements between government and scheme beneficiaries.

CHAPTER 05 SOCIAL SECURITY 55 in working families, we will DIGNITY FOR commit to tackle child poverty THOSE WHO with a new Child Poverty Strategy. The Tories have completely failed on CANNOT WORK their promise of making work pay and on tackling the barriers to work faced Poverty in Britain is rising due to by people with disabilities. the Conservatives’ attempts to Labour supports a social model of balance the books on the backs disability. People may have a condition of the poorest. They have slashed or an impairment but they are disabled social security over the last seven by society. We need to remove years, leaving more people in the barriers in society that restrict poverty, subject to a punitive opportunities and choices sanctions regime, and reliant for people with disabilities. on food banks. We will build on the previous Labour Labour will act immediately to end the government’s commitment to people worst excesses of the Conservative with disabilities in 2009 as signatories government’s changes. We will: to the UN Convention on the Rights • Scrap the punitive sanctions regime of Persons with Disabilities, and incorporate it into UK law. • Scrap the Bedroom Tax Labour will repeal the following cuts in einstate Housing Benefit social security support to people with for under-21s disabilities through a new Social Security • Scrap cuts to Bereavement Support Bill published in our first year in office. Payment. We will:

The cuts to work allowances in • Increase Employment and Support Universal Credit (UC), and the decision Allowance (ESA) by £30 per week to limit tax credit and UC payments for those in the work-related activity to the first two children in a family, group, and repeal cuts in the UC are an attack on low-income families limited capacity for work element. and will increase child poverty. Labour • Increase Carer’s Allowance by £11 to will reform and redesign UC, ending the level of Jobseekers’ Allowance. six-week delays in payment and the ‘rape clause’. • Implement the court decision on Personal Independence Payment With nearly four million children (PIP) so that there is real parity of currently living in poverty, the majority

56 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW esteem between those with physical We will change the culture of the and mental-health conditions. social security system, from one that demonises people not in work to one • Scrap the Work Capability and that is supportive and enabling. Personal Independence Payment assessments and replace them with As well as scrapping the Conservatives’ a personalised, holistic assessment punitive sanctions regime, we will process that provides each individual change how obcentre Plus staff are with a tailored plan, building on their performance-managed. strengths and addressing barriers. Labour will strengthen access to justice Labour will end the privatisation of for people with disabilities by enhancing assessments. the 2010 Equality Act, enabling • End the pointless stress of discrimination at work to be challenged. reassessments for people with We will ensure that under the Istanbul severe long-term conditions. Convention, disability hate crime and violence against women with disabilities • Commission a report into expanding is reported annually, with national the Access to Work programme. actions plans to address these issues.

CHAPTER 05 SOCIAL SECURITY 57 58 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW CHAPTER 06 SECURE HOMES FOR ALL

FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW 59 of homes. e will overhaul the SECURE HOMES Homes and Communities gency to be Labour’s housing delivery body, FOR ALL and give councils new powers to build the homes local communities need. Home is at the heart of all of our lives. It’s the foundation on which e will prioritise brownfield sites and we raise our families, the bedrock protect the green belt. e will start for our dreams and aspirations. work on a new generation of New But for too many people, the Towns to build the homes we need housing pressures they face are and avoid urban sprawl. getting worse not better. Britain e will make the building of new has a housing crisis – a crisis of homes, including council homes, supply and a crisis of affordability. a priority through our National After seven years of failure, the Transformation und, as part of Conservatives have no plan to a joined-up industrial and skills fi the housing crisis. Since 2010, strategy that ensures a vibrant housebuilding has fallen to its lowest construction sector with a skilled level since the 120s, rough sleeping workforce and rights at work. has risen every year, rents have risen Labour will not only build more, faster than incomes, there are almost we will build better. e will insulate 200,000 fewer home-owners, and more homes to help people manage new affordable housebuilding the cost of energy bills, to reduce is at a 24-year low. preventable winter deaths, and to It doesn’t have to be like this. Labour meet our climate change targets. will invest to build over a million e will consult on new rules on new homes. By the end of the net minimum space standards to prevent Parliament we will be building at rabbit hutch’ properties and on new least 100,000 council and housing modern standards for building ero association homes a year for carbon homes’. genuinely affordable rent or sale. e will ensure that local plans Labour will establish a new address the need for older people’s Department for Housing to focus housing, ensuring that choice and on tackling the crisis and to ensure downsiing options are readily housing is about homes for the many, available. not investment opportunities for the e will keep the Land egistry in public few. Labour’s new housing ministry hands, where it belongs, and make will be tasked with improving the ownership of land more transparent. number, standards and affordability

60 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW in their area to give them confidence HOME that new homes will be available to OWNERSHIP them and their families. After seven years of failure under The number of home-owning the Conservatives, Labour will build households has fallen by 900,000 the new homes first-time buyers for the under-45s since 2010. need just as Labour councils have been doing right across the country, Labour will back first-time buyers building an average of nearly to buy that special first home. The 1,000 more new homes than number of affordable homes to buy Conservative councils. has plummeted by two-thirds under the Conservatives, so we will build e will back those who own their thousands more low-cost homes homes, including home-owners who reserved for first-time buyers. e own their home as leaseholders and will guarantee Help to Buy funding who are currently unprotected from until 2027 to give long-term certainty rises in ground rent’ from developers to both first-time buyers and the or management companies. Labour housebuilding industry. e will also government will give leaseholders give local people buying their first security from rip-off ground rents home first dibs’ on new homes built and end the routine use of leasehold houses in new developments.

CHAPTER 06 SC HS LL 61 e will reverse the cruel decision PRIVATE RENTERS to abolish housing benefit for 18 to 21- year-olds, which risks We will end insecurity for private putting even more vulnerable renters by introducing controls on young people on our streets. rent rises, more secure tenancies, landlord licensing and new consumer rights for renters.

Soaring rents are a real problem leading to more families living in temporary accommodation, more people sleeping rough, and many not having enough money to save up for a deposit or for a rainy day.

Labour will make new three-year tenancies the norm, with an ination cap on rent rises. iven the particular pressures in London we will look at giving the ayor the power to give renters in London additional security. e will legislate to ban letting agency fees for tenants.

e will also empower tenants to call time on bad landlords by giving renters new consumer rights. enters are spending .6 billion a year on homes that the government classes as non-decent’. round a uarter of this is paid by housing benefit. Labour government would introduce new legal minimum standards to ensure properties are fit for human habitation’ and empower tenants to take action if their rented homes are sub-standard.

62 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW Labour will scrap the punitive COUNCIL AND bedroom ta, which has caused many people to be evicted from SOCIAL TENANTS their home and their community.

Under the Conservatives, ore council homes have been affordable housebuilding has sold off under the Conservatives and fallen to a 24-year low. Labour only one in five have been replaced, will build the genuinely affordable despite long housing waiting lists. homes to rent and buy that the Labour will suspend the right-to-buy country needs. policy to protect affordable homes for local people, with councils only e will remove government able to resume sales if they can prove restrictions that stop councils they have a plan to replace homes building homes and begin the sold like-for-like. biggest council building programme for at least 30 years. e will ditch the Conservatives’ ban on long-term council tenancies to give council tenants security in their homes. e want more people to have a secure tenancy in a home built to high standards.

CHAPTER 06 SC HS LL 63 HOMELESSNESS

Homelessness is not inevitable in a country as decent and well off as ours. However, since 2010 the number of people sleeping rough in shop doorways and on park benches has more than doubled. This shames us all. There can be no excuses – it must end. Full stop.

ore families are living in temporary accommodation, meaning 120,000 children spent last Christmas without a home to call their own.

This growing homelessness shames the Conservatives. The spiralling rise in street homelessness results directly from decisions made by the Conservatives on pay, housing, mental health and social security.

Labour will set out a new national plan to end rough sleeping within the net Parliament, starting by making available 4,000 additional homes reserved for people with a history of rough sleeping. e will also take action to tackle the root causes of homelessness, including safeguarding homeless hostels and other supported housing from crude Conservative cuts to housing benefit.

64 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW CHAPTER 07 HEALTHCARE FOR ALL

FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW 65 Labour will focus resources NHS on services to provide care closer to home and deliver a truly In the aftermath of war and 21st century health system. national bankruptcy, it was a We will work towards a new model Labour government that found of community care that takes into the resources to create a National account not only primary care but Health Service – our proudest also social care and mental health. achievement, providing universal We will increase funding to GP healthcare for all on the basis of services to ensure patients can access need, free at the point of use. the care they need. And we will halt Labour will invest in our NHS, pharmacy cuts and review provision to give patients the modern, to ensure all patients have access well-resourced services they need to pharmacy services, particularly in for the 21st century. Labour will deprived or remote communities. ensure that NHS patients get the Labour will tackle the growing world-class quality of care they need problem of rationing of services and that staff are able to deliver the and medicines across England, standards that patients expect. taking action to address ‘postcode We will guarantee and uphold lotteries’ and making sure that the the standards of service to which quality of care you receive does not patients are legally entitled depend on which part of the country under the NHS constitution. you live in. We will ensure all NHS By guaranteeing access to treatment patients get fast access to the most within 18 weeks, we will take one effective new drugs and treatments, million people off NHS waiting lists and insist on value-for-money by the end of the next Parliament. agreements with pharmaceutical We will guarantee that patients can companies. be seen in A&E within four hours. To make sure that autistic people By properly resourcing the NHS, are able to access the whole of Labour will stop the routine breach their community and to put an end of safe levels of bed occupancy, and to social isolation, Labour will set we will end mixed-sex wards. We the ambition to make our country will deliver the Cancer Strategy for autism-friendly. We will ensure that England in full by 2020, helping 2.5 everyone with a long-term condition, million people living with cancer. And, such as those with diabetes, will have by properly resourcing ambulance the right to a specialised care plan, services, we will end the scandal of and access to condition-management slowing ambulance-response times. education. We will ensure high-

66 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW quality, personalised care for people e will take action to significantly approaching the end of their life, reduce infant deaths and to ensure wherever and whenever they need it. all families who lose a baby receive appropriate bereavement support. Labour will ensure that NHS England completes the trial programme Labour will invest in children’s to provide PrEP (pre-exposure health, bringing in a new government prophylaxis) as quickly as possible, ambition for our children to be and fully roll out the treatment to the healthiest in the world. We will high-risk groups to help reduce fight health ineualities to break HIV infection. the scandalous link between child ill-health and poverty. We will Labour will fund free parking in introduce a new Index of Child NHS ngland for patients, staff and Health to measure progress against visitors – by increasing the tax on international standards, and report private medical insurance premiums. annually against four key indicators: obesity, dental health, under-fives and mental health. We will set up a new Public health £250 million Children’s Health Fund For our health and care services to be to support our ambitions. As part of a sustainable in the long term, we need preventative healthcare drive, Labour a renewed commitment to keeping will increase the number of health people fit and well. Labour will focus visitors and school nurses. our efforts on children’s health, We will publish a new childhood protecting the wellbeing of the obesity strategy within the first 100 nation for the decades to come. days, with proposals on advertising

CHAPTER 07 HEALTHCARE FOR ALL 67 and food labelling. We will make a NHS staff concerted effort to address poor To guarantee the best possible childhood oral health in England. services for patients, Labour Labour will implement the Soft Drinks will invest in our health and care Industry Levy, commonly known as workforce. A Labour government the ‘sugar tax’. will step in with a long-term We will implement a strategy for workforce plan for our health service the children of alcoholics based that gives staff the support they need on recommendations drawn up to do the best for their patients. by independent experts. Labour will scrap the NHS pay cap, Labour will implement a Tobacco put pay decisions back into the hands Control Plan, focusing on issues of of the independent pay review body mental health and young smokers. and give our NHS workers the pay they deserve. Labour will protect Loneliness is an increasing problem patients and legislate to ensure for our society, and as Jo Cox put safe staffing levels in the NHS. it, “young or old, loneliness doesn’t discriminate”. A Labour government Labour’s long-term ambition is for will create a more equal society our health system to have the best for the many by working with trained staff in the world, ready to communities, civil society and deal with whatever they have to face business to reduce loneliness. in the years to come. Labour will re-introduce bursaries and funding Labour will address historic public- for health-related degrees. Labour health injustices. We will hold a public will support doctors to deliver the enquiry into contaminated blood. best care possible by investing in the We will also hold a public inquiry training, education and development into medicines, including Valproate, of doctors throughout their careers. medical devices and medical products licensing and regulation. Labour will immediately guarantee the rights of staff working in our A Labour government would health and care services. Labour maintain our commitment to improve will support NHS whistleblowers to sexual-health services, especially HIV make sure health service staff are services which will include reducing able to speak up in support of the the rates of undiagnosed and late- best possible standards for patients. diagnosed HIV, ending the stigma Labour will make it an aggravated of HIV in society, and promoting criminal offence to attack NHS staff. the increased availability of testing and treatment.

68 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW NHS funding We will introduce a new legal duty on the Secretary of State and on NHS Labour will commit to over England to ensure that excess private £30 billion in extra funding over the profits are not made out of the NHS next Parliament through increasing at the expense of patient care. income tax for the highest 5 per cent of earners and by increasing tax on private medical insurance, and we will free up resources by halving the fees paid to management consultants.

Labour will boost capital funding for the NHS, to ensure that patients are cared for in buildings and using euipment that are fit for the 21st century. And we will introduce a new ffice for Budget esponsibility for Health to oversee health spending and scrutinise how it is spent.

Labour will halt and review the NHS ‘Sustainability and Transformation Plans’, which are looking at closing health services across England, and ask local people to participate in the redrawing of plans with a focus on patient need rather than available finances. e will create a new uality, safety and excellence regulator – to be called ‘NHS Excellence’.

The next Labour government will reverse privatisation of our NHS and return our health service into expert public control. Labour will repeal the Health and Social Care Act that puts profits before patients, and make the NHS the preferred provider. We will reinstate the powers of the Secretary of State for Health to have overall responsibility for the NHS.

CHAPTER 07 HEALTHCARE FOR ALL 69 70 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW the first year. This will be enough TOWARDS for providers to pay a real living wage without cutting the quality A NATIONAL of care they provide. It will allow implementation of the principles CARE SERVICE of the Ethical Care Charter, already adopted in 28 council areas, ending Our social care sector is in crisis, 15-minute care visits and providing with severe consequences for the care workers with paid travel time, uality of care, public finances, access to training and an option to personal assets, pressures on choose regular hours. unpaid carers of family and friends, and delays to discharging Labour will also increase the Carer’s patients from hospitals. Allowance for unpaid full-time carers to align the benefit with rates of the Care services have been slowly but Jobseeker’s Allowance. relentlessly privatised. In recent years, one in ten people reaching Short-term funding solutions the age of 65 have faced lifetime care will not address the fundamental costs of over £100,000, with some long-term challenges of our homeowners paying the entire value ageing demographics, nor meet of their homes. the growing demands arising from late-life illnesses. The Conservatives’ cuts have led to £4.6 billion lost from social care The National Care Service will be budgets, despite rising demand. built alongside the NHS, with a Around 1.2 million older people shared requirement for single have care needs that are going commissioning, partnership unmet. Care in the community has arrangements, pooled budgets become a cover for unseen neglect. and joint working arrangements. We will build capacity to move In our first term, Labour will lay quickly towards a joined-up service the foundations of a National Care that will signpost users to all the Service for England. appropriate services at the gateway ur first urgent task will be to through which they arrive. address the immediate funding In its first years, our service will crisis. We will increase the social care require an additional £3 billion of budgets by a further £8 billion over public funds every year, enough to the lifetime of the next Parliament, place a maximum limit on lifetime including an additional £1 billion for

CHAPTER 07 HEALTHCARE FOR ALL 71 personal contributions to care costs, raise the asset threshold below which people are entitled to state support, and provide free end of life care. There are different ways the necessary monies can be raised. We will seek consensus on a cross-party basis about how it should be funded, with options including wealth taxes, an employer care contribution or a new social care levy.

Improving the quality of social care is a vital part of providing dignity in older age and independence and support for people who are vulnerable or have a disability or a mental health condition.

Labour will build a new National Care Service. We will also set out the funding alternatives clearly and honestly, seeking to implement change through consensus. Providing dignity and care in old age should transcend party politics and campaign slogans.

72 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW of mental health funding goes to MENTAL HEALTH services for children and young people. In recent years, referrals Mental ill-health is the biggest to Child and Adolescent Mental unaddressed health challenge of Health Services have increased by our age. Around one in four people two-thirds, and the number of young in the UK will experience a mental people presenting to A&E units with health problem each year. psychiatric conditions has doubled. Yet, since 2010 mental health funding Suicide is now the most common has been cut, the number of mental cause of death for boys aged health nurses has fallen by 6,600 and between five and 1. remaining mental health budgets Labour will invest in early have been raided to plug holes intervention by increasing the elsewhere in the NHS. proportion of mental health Labour will work to reverse the budgets spent on support for damage done to mental health children and young people. services under this Tory government, We will ensure that access to a which is particularly hitting services counselling service is available for for LGBT and BAME communities. all children in secondary schools.

In order to protect services, we will Giving mental health the same ring-fence mental health budgets and priority as physical health means ensure funding reaches the frontline. not only ensuring access to services, but also making improvements, We will end the scandal of children to those services. Choice is important being treated on adult mental health in a modern NHS, and patients wards and stop people being sent who receive their therapy of choice across the country, away from their have better outcomes. Labour will support networks, to secure the therefore ask the National Institute treatment they need by bringing for Health and Care Excellence forward the ending of out-of-area (NICE) to evaluate the potential placements to 2019. for increasing the range of evidence- Labour will also bring an end to based psychological therapies the neglect of children’s mental on offer. health. Half of people with mental health problems as adults present with symptoms by the age of 14. Yet, across England only 8 per cent

CHAPTER 07 HEALTHCARE FOR ALL 73 74 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW CHAPTER 08 SAFER COMMUNITIES

FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW 75 We will support the police in the POLICE performance of their duties. We will provide officers, police community AND CRIME support officers and civilian staff with the equipment and people they need Last year, there were an estimated to provide effective policing services, 6.1 million incidents of crime including from the growing threat of experienced by adults in England cybercrime. We will work with them and Wales. Almost every police to ensure that our communities are force in the country recorded an safer, for all of us. increase in crime, with worrying rises in some of the most violent We will champion community policing offences, including gun and nife policies and incentivise good policing crime and homicide. practice, working with Police and Crime Commissioners throughout On Theresa May’s watch, police the country on strategies to prevent numbers have been cut by 20,000. crime. We will also work to eliminate Cuts to the police force endanger institutional biases against BAME communities and endanger police communities, that mean you are still officers too. Labour’s approach to far more likely to be stopped and policing crime will be different. searched as a black or Asian man.

76 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW Labour will recruit 10,000 more police the resources and the powers they officers to work on community beats, need to protect our country and equivalent to at least one more for keep us all safe. We will also ensure every neighbourhood in the country. that such powers do not weaken our individual rights or civil liberties. We will ensure appropriate support is provided to victims of crime and When – as they sometimes will – introduce legislation for minimum these aims collide, the exercise of standard entitlements to service from investigatory powers must always criminal justice agencies. be both proportionate and necessary. e will reintroduce effective judicial The level of violence against oversight over how and when they women and girls is not acceptable. are used, when the circumstances Labour will emphasise the safety demand that our collective security of women and girls by appointing outweighs an individual freedom. a commissioner to set new standards for tackling domestic and sexual Labour will review the Prevent violence. We will establish a National programme with a view to assessing Refuge Fund and ensure stability both its effectiveness and its potential for rape crisis centres. We will make to alienate minority communities. age-appropriate sex and relationship In doing so, we will address the education a compulsory part of the government’s failure to take any curriculum so young people can learn effective new measures against about respectful relationships. a growing problem of extreme We will strengthen the law, banning or violent radicalisation. the use of community resolutions as a response to domestic violence.

Labour will continue to enforce effective measures to prevent all forms of abuse, including female genital mutilation.

Security and counter-terrorism

Labour will maintain the cross-border security co-operation agreements with our intelligence partners in Europe and beyond. We will always provide our security agencies with

CHAPTER 08 SAFER COMMUNITIES 77 teachers, medical staff and other BORDER public sector workers into unpaid immigration officers, forcing SECURITY them to provide information to the authorities. Border security is vital in preventing serious crimes The Conservatives promised and including child abduction, people failed to deliver 100 per cent eit tracing, smuggling of drugs checks at the borders. Labour will and guns, terrorism and modern recruit 500 more border guards to day slavery. add to our safeguards and controls.

Contrary to the Conservative government’s rhetoric, they have not taken control of our borders or strengthened our national security. Instead, they have suppressed the independent inspector’s reports highlighting weaknesses in our borders and cut the Border Force by thousands of personnel. They want to turn private sector landlords,

78 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW Labour will recruit 3,000 new FIRE AND firefighters, review staffing levels, and consult on national minimum RESCUE SERVICES standards for the service. We will reinstate separate governance Labour will halt cuts to the arrangements for Fire and Fire Service. The Conservatives Police Services. have cut , firefighter obs and closed doens of fire stations. We will give the Fire and Rescue As a result, response times have Services a statutory duty to co- got slower and lives have been put ordinate and respond to oods. at ris.

CHAPTER 08 SAFER COMMUNITIES 79 rights, by the delays arising from JUSTICE overcrowded courts and by the costs of fees. e all need access to the ustice system to protect us from those Eligibility for legal aid has been who would deny us our rights. withdrawn across a whole range Labour will set out to mae Britain of areas. This has had disturbing a fair society with liberties for all, consequences for the delivery governed by the rule of law, and in of justice. which the law is enforced equally. Democracy is founded upon the The Conservatives threaten our rule of law and judicial independence. Human Rights Act and may withdraw We will also review the judicial us from the European Convention of appointments process, to ensure a Human ights. Labour will retain the judiciary that is more representative Human Rights Act. of our society.

Justice is all too often denied. Labour will immediately Too many ordinary people know re-establish early advice entitlements this. There are football fans, trade in the Family Courts. The shameful unionists, environmental activists consequences of withdrawal have and people living with disabilities included a requirement for victims whose personal experiences of domestic abuse to pay doctors for provide first-hand testimony. certification of their injuries. Labour’s plans will remove that requirement. Labour will hold public inuiries At the same time, we will legislate into historic injustices. We will to prohibit the cross examination of open inquiries into Orgreave and victims of domestic violence by their blacklisting. We will release all abuser in certain circumstances. papers relating to the Shrewsbury 24 trials and the 37 Cammell Laird We will reintroduce funding for the shipyard workers. preparation of judicial review cases. Judicial review is an important way Justice today has become the of holding government to account. preserve of the rich. Budget cuts There are sufficient safeguards to mean that thousands are deprived discourage unmeritorious cases. of fair resolutions. Justice is eroded by the poor decisions of privatised We will review the legal aid means assessments, by the withdrawal of tests, including the capital test for legal aid, by the removal of appeal those on income-related benefits.

80 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW Labour will consider the Labour will not prohibit the courts reinstatement of other legal aid from raising monies to provide entitlements after receiving the final services, but we will introduce a recommendations of the Access to ratio to establish the maximum ustice Commission led by Lord Bach. difference between actual costs and charges levied. The justice system can be bewildering and intimidating. There are many Labour will continue to etend improvements that can be made both the use of technology in our court to the law and to the court processes. service where it enhances access to justice, timely dispute resolution and Labour will introduce a no-fault efficient administration. divorce procedure.

Labour government will consult on establishing an environmental tribunal with simplified procedures to hear challenges to unlawful government decisions, like those made on the air quality strategy, without engaging in prohibitively expensive processes.

CHAPTER 08 SAFER COMMUNITIES 81 rehabilitation revolution, and PRISONS AND then just gave up. Their proposal now is to lock up more and more PROBATION individuals, ignoring the evidence that our prisons are too often SERVICE dumping grounds for people who need treatment more than they need Labour is tough on crime and punishment. Labour will insist on tough on the causes of crime, but personal rehabilitation plans for we won’t mae the lives of worers all prisoners. in the criminal ustice system tougher. rison ocers, probation Prison should always be a last resort ocers and other worers need – the state’s most severe sanction for the resources to do their obs serious offences. It should never be safely, effectively and successfully. a substitute for failing mental health services, or the withdrawal of funding Our prisons are overcrowded. from drug treatment centres. We will Staffing levels are too low. The review the provision of mental health situation is dangerous and violence services in prisons. against prison officers is rising. iots and disturbances in our prisons are nder a Labour government, increasing. Prison escapes cause there will be no new private prisons distress to people living near prisons. and no public sector prisons will be privatised. Labour government will publish annual reports on prisoner-staff Labour’s innovative models of youth ratios, with a view to maintaining justice successfully turned round safety and ending overcrowding. the lives of many young people, steering them away from crime e will recruit 3,000 more prison and towards more constructive officers and review the training and ways. In government, we will again professional development available. continue to innovate and incentivise e will publish prison officer to local authorities, police forces prisoner ratios for all prisons. Our and probation services to engage proposal to lift the public sector effectively with young people at pay cap will help to increase the risk of drifting into anti-social or recruitment and retention of both criminal behaviours. We will embed prison officers and probation officers. restorative justice practices across e-offending rates are too high. all youth offending institutions. The Conservatives talked of a

82 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW The part-privatisation of probation services has already failed.

Labour will review the role of Community Rehabilitation Companies.

The Conservatives bulldozed changes to the probation service through despite warnings that they had not been tested and were founded on a weak evidence base.

CHAPTER 08 SAFER COMMUNITIES 83 84 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW CHAPTER 09 LEADING RICHER LIVES

FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW 85 under-resourced and disempowered, LOCAL with democratic planning authorities unable to stand up to big developers. COMMUNITIES As a result, planning decisions have become too inuenced by narrow Councils deliver vital local economic considerations, with services to our communities, developers’ profit taking precedence but their budgets have been over community priorities. slashed by Conservative cuts. This has led to a deterioration of A Labour government will properly local services, from bin collection resource and bolster planning to road repair, and the loss of authorities with fuller powers to important community assets put people and communities at the such as libraries, youth centres heart of planning. We will update and women’s refuges. compulsory purchase powers to make them more effective as a tool Labour believes in devolving power to drive regeneration and unlock to local communities but that requires planned development. the necessary funding follows. You cannot empower local Under the Conservatives, nearly government if you impoverish it. £400 million has been cut from youth services and over 600 youth centres A Labour government will give local have closed. Labour will end the cuts government extra funding next year. to youth services. We will initiate a review into reforming council tax and business We will continue to support all rates and consider new options training routes for social workers, such as a land value tax, to ensure including initial social work training local government has sustainable provided within or accredited by a funding for the long term. higher education institution. We will also prevent the private sector and Labour is the party of devolution subsidiaries of private companies and we believe in handing back power from running child protection to communities. We will devolve services. We will deliver earlier powers over economic development, protection to victims of abuse by complete with the necessary funding. strengthening mandatory reporting, It is through the planning system and guaranteeing allegations will be that communities can shape the reported and action taken to make kinds of high streets, homes and children safe. amenities that they want. But under the Conservatives, planning has been

86 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW And we will refocus social care to work of commercial fostering agencies, with families in local communities to as well as commissioning a review prevent children becoming at risk of on establishing a national going into care. fostering service.

The government is currently We will extend Staying Put failing to develop a strategy for arrangements to support all the wholesale improvement of children and young people in the care system that delivers for residential and other forms of all, not just those children being care until they are 21. considered for adoption. We will We will enshrine the European promote the care and educational Convention on the Rights of achievement of our most vulnerable the Child into domestic law. children and increase support for children in kinship and foster care, Labour will fund child burial fees for and their families. It is important bereaved parents, ensuring that they that other forms of care, such as are scrapped in all council areas. We kinship care and fostering, are not recognise that some councils have marginalised, as this will not result already made this humane move. in the step-change we need to see Libraries are vital social assets, valued in outcomes for looked after children. by communities across the country. Labour will support further regulation

CHAPTER 09 LEADING RICHER LIVES 87 We will ensure libraries are preserved We will give members of the for future generations and updated Local Government Pension Scheme with wi-fi and computers to meet full trustee status to help control modern needs. We will reintroduce investments, and reduce fees library standards so that government and charges. can assess and guide councils in This Conservative government has delivering the best possible service. taken rural communities for granted, Labour will end the closure of with chronic underinvestment in Crown Post ffice branches, which transport, broadband and public play a major role in serving their services, including the closure of local communities. We will also set up schools, post offices and libraries. a commission to establish a Post Rural infrastructure and industry has Bank, owned by the Post ffice and been neglected. Labour will invest in providing a full range of banking broadband, housing and transport services in every community. to create jobs and ensure that the Labour will give communities more nation’s prosperity is felt beyond power to shape their town centres, our large towns and cities. by strengthening powers to protect Labour’s national investment post offices, community pharmacies, plans include coastal protections, high street banks, sports clubs, better ood management and the pubs and independent shops, broadband and 4G extensions that and promote measures to decrease will underpin the future success high-street vacancies. of rural small businesses. We will set up a national review of Rural councils deliver public services local pubs to examine the causes for differently, and this needs to be their large-scale demise, as well as reected in funding allocation establishing a joint taskforce that mechanisms. We will consider will consider future sustainability. these differences in our re-evaluation We will reduce the maximum stake of the business rate schemes. on Fixed Odds Betting Terminals e will introduce a rural-proofing’ from £100 to £2. Labour will also process so that all our laws, policies legislate to increase the delay and programmes consider their between spins to reduce the impact on rural communities. addictive nature of the games.

88 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW Labour will support tourism at the We will reinstate the Agricultural heart of government. The tourism Wages Board to underpin industry represents 9.6 per cent employment standards and wages. of UK employment, 4.9 per cent of We will make utility companies return export and 9 per cent of GDP, but its roads to a condition no worse than importance is too often forgotten. when they started digging. Labour will ensure that tourism becomes a national priority again. We will reinstate the cross-Whitehall ministerial group on tourism, and ensure that government ministers across departments understand how their roles fit into the national tourism agenda.

The Conservatives have failed to provide a clear, ambitious or sustainable vision for the future of the farming, food and fishing industries.

We will expand the role of the Groceries Code Adjudicator to ensure suppliers and consumers get a fair deal.

e will reconfigure funds for farming and fishing to support smaller traders, local economies, community benefits and sustainable practices.

We will allow EU workers employed across farming, fishing and food manufacturing to remain in the UK, and reinstate the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme.

CHAPTER 09 LEADING RICHER LIVES 89 Railways Act 1993 under which the TRANSPORT Conservatives privatised our railways.

Labour will invest in a modern, In public ownership, we will deliver integrated, accessible and real improvements for passengers sustainable transport system by capping fares, introducing free that is reliable and affordable. wi-fi across the network, ensuring safe staffing levels, ending the Our transport systems illustrate expansion of driver only operations, the abject failure of Tory policies: and introducing legal duties to relentless deregulation, privatisation improve accessibility for people and fragmentation. with disabilities. They say we get choice and Across the country we will enable efficiency but the reality of their councils to provide first-class bus transport privatisations has been services by extending the powers to that services are less reliable, safety re-regulate local bus services to all is compromised, fares have risen, areas that want them, and we will ticketing has become complicated support the creation of municipal bus and air quality has worsened. companies that are publicly run for On our railways, we pay some passengers not profit. of the highest fares in Europe Under the Conservatives, bus fares for increasingly unreliable and have risen and services have been overcrowded services. cut. Labour will introduce regulations The beneficiaries of public funding to designate and protect routes of siphoned off through transport critical community value, including privatisations have been the those that serve local schools, earnings of directors, dividends hospitals and isolated settlements in for shareholders and the coffers rural areas. of overseas governments. A publicly owned railway system can Labour will prioritise public service be the backbone of our plans for over private profit. nd we will start integrated transport. It will be built by bringing our railways back into on the platform of Network Rail, public ownership, as franchises which we will retain whole, working expire or, in other cases, with with the devolved administrations. franchise reviews or break clauses. We will ensure new rolling stock is We will introduce a Public Ownership publicly owned and will encourage of the Railways Bill to repeal the expansion of public freight services

90 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW in a publicly owned railway that will leave our roads freer of traffic and our air cleaner. We will facilitate British procurements, including steel, whenever possible.

A Labour government will invest to regenerate the local and regional economies across the whole country, so that every area gets its fair share of transport investment.

A Labour government will complete the HS2 high-speed rail line from London through Birmingham to Leeds and Manchester and then To prepare for global new trade into Scotland, consulting with arrangements, we will study the communities affected about the feasibility of port development optimal route. We will link HS2 across the UK. with other rail investments, such as We will invest in Scotland, Crossrail of the North (tying together Wales and Northern Ireland our great Northern cities) and on to too, working with devolved the Durham Freight Centre. We will administrations through the UK build a new Brighton Main Line for National Infrastructure Commission the South East. and its devolved counterparts. In London, to ensure our capital Our plans will encourage and continues to prosper, we will build enable people to get out of their Crossrail 2. cars, for better health and a cleaner To harness the economic potential environment. of new technologies and science, Labour will position the UK at the we will complete the Science Vale forefront of the development, transport arc that runs from Oxford manufacture and use of ultra low to Cambridge through Milton Keynes. emission vehicles, supporting the nd we will deliver rail electrification creation of clean modes of transport and expansion across the whole through investment in low emission country, including in Wales and the vehicles. South West. We will also consult e will retrofit thousands of diesel with local communities to re-open buses in areas with the most severe air branch lines. quality problems to Euro 6 standards.

CHAPTER 09 LEADING RICHER LIVES 91 We will reform the legislation Labour recognises the need for governing taxi and private hire additional airport capacity in the services, introducing national South East. We welcome the work standards to guarantee safety and done by the Airports Commission, accessibility, updating regulations and we will guarantee that any to keep pace with technological airport expansion adheres to our change and ensuring a level playing tests that require noise issues to field between operators. be addressed, air quality to be protected, the UK’s climate change We will invite the National obligations met and growth across Infrastructure Commission to the country supported. recommend the next stages for developing and upgrading the We will continue working with our National Cycle Network. e reaffirm neighbours through the European the commitments in the Cycling and Union’s Highways of the Sea Walking Investment Strategy. programme and by negotiating to retain membership of the Common We will continue to upgrade our Aviation Area and Open Skies highways and improve roadworks at arrangements. known bottlenecks. The A1 North, the Severn Bridge and the A30 provide essential connections and require our urgent consideration. We will work with the Welsh Government to scrap the tolls on the Severn Bridge.

After seven years of stalled progress, Labour will reset the UK’s road safety vision and ambitiously strive for a transport network with zero deaths, reintroducing road-safety targets, setting out bold measures that will continuously improve safety standards.

We will refocus the roads building and maintenance programmes, connecting our communities, feeding public transport hubs and realising untapped economic potential.

92 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW resilience, invest in rural and coastal ENVIRONMENT communities, and guarantee the protection and advancement of Investing in our environment environmental quality standards. is investing in our future. We will defend and extend existing The Conservatives’ threatened environmental protections. We bonfire of red tape’ is a threat to will champion sustainable farming, our environmental protections and food and fishing by investing in to the quality of our lives. Their and promoting skills, technology, record on combating climate change market access and innovation. and environmental damage has been one of inaction and broken promises. The Conservatives broke their promise to be the greenest The balance needs resetting: our government ever. They have air is killing us, our farms face an allowed fracking in national parks, uncertain future, our fish stocks evaded their responsibilities on air are collapsing, our oceans are used uality and cut the funding for ood as dumping grounds, and our forests, defences. The future of our farming, green belt, national parks, Areas food and fishing industries hangs of Outstanding Natural Beauty and in the balance, to be used as leverage Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Brexit negotiations. are all under threat.

Only a Labour government will Labour will introduce a new Clean prioritise a sustainable, long-term Air Act to deal with the Conservative future for our farming, fishing and legacy of illegal air quality. We will food industries, fund robust ood safeguard habitats and species in the

CHAPTER 09 LEADING RICHER LIVES 93 ‘blue belts’ of the seas and oceans surrounding our island. We will ANIMAL WELFARE set guiding targets for plastic bottle Animals in our food chain need deposit schemes, working with welfare standards. Domestic food manufacturers and retailers animals require stronger protection to reduce waste. We will protect our from cruelty. Wild animals bees by prohibiting neonicotinoids need a sustainable ecosystem. as soon as our EU relationship allows us to do so. We will work Labour’s vision is for the UK to lead with farmers and foresters to plant the world with high animal welfare a million trees of native species to standards in the wild, in farming and promote biodiversity and better for domestic animals. Labour will ood management. nlike the increase the maximum sentence Conservatives who attempted to for those convicted of committing privatise our forests, Labour will animal cruelty. keep them in public hands. We will promote cruelty-free Our stewardship of the environment animal husbandry and consult on needs to be founded on sound ways to ensure better enforcement principles and based on scientific of agreed standards. assessments. We will establish We will prohibit the third-party sale a science innovation fund, working of puppies, introduce and enforce with farmers and fisheries, that will a total ban on ivory trading, and include support for our small scale support the ban on wild animals fishing eet. in circuses.

We will cease the badger cull, which spreads bovine TB.

Labour ended fox hunting, deer hunting and hare coursing. Only a Labour government will maintain the bans.

94 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW their services, and others starting CULTURE to charge entry fees. The Cultural Capital Fund will have a particular FOR ALL focus on projects that could increase museums’ and galleries’ income Britain’s creative industries are and viability. the envy of the world, a source of national pride, a driver of inward Labour will end cuts to local authority investment and tourism, and a budgets to support the provision of symbol of the kind of country libraries, museums and galleries. we are now and aspire to be in We will take steps to widen the reach the future. As Britain leaves the of the Government Art Collection so EU, we will put our world-class that more people can enjoy it. creative sector at the heart of our We will continue to mark the ongoing negotiations and future industrial centenary of the First World War, strategy. We need to do more to and the sacrifice of all those who died open up the arts and creative during it. Labour remains committed industries to everyone. to honouring the role of all who We will introduce a £1 billion Cultural have served our country, including Capital Fund to upgrade our existing the Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Jewish cultural and creative infrastructure soldiers who fought for Britain. to be ready for the digital age and Our thriving creative sector, from invest in creative clusters across the the games industry to fashion, country, based on a similar model needs a strong pipeline of skilled to enterprise zones. Administered talent to sustain its growth. by the Arts Council, the fund will be available over a five-year Labour will introduce an arts pupil period. It will be among the biggest premium to every primary school arts infrastructure funds ever, in England – a £160 million annual transforming the country’s cultural per year boost for schools to invest landscape. in projects that will support cultural activities for schools over the longer Labour will maintain free entry to term. We will put creativity back at museums and invest in our museums the heart of the curriculum, reviewing and heritage sector. Conservative the EBacc performance measure cuts to the Arts Council and local to make sure arts are not sidelined authorities have created a very from secondary education. tough financial climate for museums, with some closing or reducing Labour will launch a creative careers advice campaign in schools to

CHAPTER 09 LEADING RICHER LIVES 95 demonstrate the range of careers And we will introduce an ‘agent and opportunities available, and of change’ principle in planning the skills required in the creative law, to ensure that new housing industries, from the tech sector to developments can coexist with theatre production. existing music venues.

Being a performer is a great career. We all need to work harder to keep But too often the culture of low or children safe online. Labour will no pay means it isn’t an option for ensure that tech companies are those without well-off families to obliged to take measures that further support them. We will work with protect children and tackle online trade unions and employers to agree abuse. We will ensure that young sector-specific advice and guidelines people understand and are able on pay and employment standards to easily remove any content they that will make the sector more shared on the internet before they accessible to all. turned 18.

e will improve diversity on and off- screen, working with the film industry and public service and commercial broadcasters to find rapid solutions to improve diversity.

We recognise the serious concern about the ‘value gap’ between producers of creative content and the digital services that profit from its use, and we will work with all sides to review the way that innovators and artists are rewarded for their work in the digital age.

Music venues play a vital role in supporting the music industry’s infrastructure and ensuring a healthy music industry continues in Britain. Labour will review extending the £1,000 pub relief business rates scheme to small music venues.

96 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW To protect democracy and media MEDIA freedom, we will take steps to ensure that Ofcom is better able to The BBC is a national asset which safeguard a healthy plurality of media we should all be proud of. Unlike ownership and to put in place clearer the Conservatives, Labour will rules on who is fit and proper to own always support it and uphold or run TV and radio stations. its independence. We will ensure the BBC and public service broadcasting has a healthy future. Labour is committed to keeping Channel 4 in public ownership and will guarantee the future of Welsh-language broadcaster S4C.

Victims of phone hacking have been let down by a Conservative government that promised them justice, but failed to follow through. We will implement the recommendations of part one of the Leveson Inquiry and commence part two which will look into the corporate governance failures that allowed the hacking scandal to occur.

Local newspapers and broadcasting in Britain are an important part of our democracy and culture. We are concerned about closures of local media outlets and the reductions in number of local journalists. Labour will hold a national review local media and into the ownership of national media to ensure plurality.

CHAPTER 09 LEADING RICHER LIVES 97 98 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW The broken ticketing market in the SPORT UK means tickets sell out instantly and are put up at vastly inated Sport must be run in the interests prices on ticket-tout websites. Labour of those who participate in it and will enforce anti-bot legislation and love it, not just for a privileged few. implement the recommendations of We will give football supporters the Waterson Review to ensure fair the opportunity to have a greater opportunities for fans to buy tickets. say in how their clubs are run. We will legislate for accredited supporters trusts to be able to appoint and remove at least two club directors and to purchase shares when clubs change hands. We will review fan participation in sports governance more widely.

Sporting events must be open and accessible to all. We will push sports authorities to make rapid improvements on access provision for fans with disabilities.

Labour will ensure the Premier League delivers on its promise to invest 5 per cent of its television rights income into the grassroots game to help the next generation of players and coaches, and to improve facilities and pitches. The Premier League has so far failed to do so, despite lucrative new domestic and international TV deals.

CHAPTER 09 LEADING RICHER LIVES 99 100 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW CHAPTER 10 EXTENDING DEMOCRACY

FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW 101 This is about where power and EXTENDING sovereignty lies – in politics, the economy, the justice system, and in DEMOCRACY our communities.

As we change our The Convention will look at extending constitutional relationship with democracy locally, regionally and Europe, we must also adjust nationally, considering the option our own arrangements. Just as of a more federalised country. many felt that power was too Our fundamental belief is that centralised and unaccountable the Second Chamber should be in Brussels, so many feel that democratically elected. In the about Westminster. interim period, we will seek to A Labour government will establish a end the hereditary principle and Constitutional Convention to examine reduce the size of the current House and advise on reforming of the way of Lords as part of a wider package Britain works at a fundamental level. of constitutional reform to address the growing democratic deficit We will consult on its form across Britain. and terms of reference and invite recommendations on We will extend the Freedom of extending democracy. Information Act to private companies that run public services.

102 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW We will reduce the voting age to 16. At 16, you are eligible to pay tax, get ENGLAND married or even join the army. We need a relationship You deserve a vote. of equals with devolved We will safeguard our democracy administrations. Labour will by repealing the Lobbying Act, create a role for a Minister which has gagged charities, and for England, who will sit introduce a tougher statutory under the Secretary of State register of lobbyists. for Communities and Local Government, and will work with the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

e will restore regional offices to increase contact between central and local government on the ground.

Labour will be guided by public opinion when determining whether to include directly elected mayors in future devolution deals.

CHAPTER 10 EXTENDING DEMOCRACY 103 We will set up an inquiry into SCOTLAND blacklisting and will urge the Scottish Government to hold an inquiry into Labour opposes a second the actions of Scottish police during Scottish independence the miners’ strike. referendum. It is unwanted and unnecessary, and we will campaign tirelessly to ensure Scotland remains part of the UK. Independence would lead to turbo-charged austerity for Scottish families.

The Scottish Parliament will receive a huge funding increase from our policies, and massive numbers of Scots will benefit from our plans in areas reserved to Westminster.

We will establish a Scottish Investment Bank, with £20 billion of funds available to local projects and Scotland’s small businesses, creating work and stimulating the economy.

104 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW We will bring forward legislation to WALES make the devolution settlement more sustainable as set out by the Welsh We are proud of the Labour government in its Alternative achievements of the Welsh Wales Bill, including the devolution Labour government and of policing. its record of delivery. In government, we will work in partnership to stand up for the people of Wales and protect public services.

We need long-term reform of how the UK allocates public expenditure to ensure that it reects the needs of different parts of our country and that no nation or region of the UK is unfairly disadvantaged.

We will build on the Development Bank of Wales using more than £10 billion from Labour’s new National Investment Bank.

CHAPTER 10 EXTENDING DEMOCRACY 105 NORTHERN IRELAND

The peace we have today in Northern Ireland is due to the courageous endeavours of those on all sides who have been brave enough to build it.

The Good Friday Agreement, which Labour helped to negotiate, is one of the greatest achievements of Labour in office.

We will continue to fully support the principles and structures inherent within the Good Friday Agreement and we remain committed to working with all sides to deliver real peace and greater prosperity to Northern Ireland.

106 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW CHAPTER 11 A MORE EQUAL SOCIETY

FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW 107 Devastating cuts to the Equality A MORE EQUAL and Human Rights Commission by the Conservatives reveal their real SOCIETY attitude, beyond the rhetoric, to issues of equality and discrimination. The Labour Party is the party These cuts have been made amid of equality and seeks to build a the rise in hate crime recorded by society and world free from all the police in the last year. A Labour forms of racism, anti-Semitism government will enhance the powers and Islamophobia. Labour has and functions of this commission, a strong record on progressing making it truly independent, to women’s rights and freedoms ensure it can support ordinary that we can be proud of. working people to effectively Labour brought in the Equal Pay challenge any discrimination they Act, the Sex Discrimination Act, may face. A Labour government will the Equality Act, the Minimum reinstate the public sector equality Wage and introduced Sure Start. duties and seek to extend them to Every progressive piece of equality the private sector, ensuring legislation has been delivered all citiens benefit from this by Labour. Labour legislation.

Under the Conservatives, progress is being rolled back for women, people with disabilities, LGBT people and BAME communities. Cuts to public services and social security are landing disproportionately on women and ethnic minorities, with 86 per cent of the money raised from the Tories’ tax and social security changes coming from women’s pockets.

It was a Labour government that enshrined the rights and freedoms contained in the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law, marking the birth of the Human Rights Act.

108 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW Labour will continue to ensure WOMEN a woman’s right to choose a safe, legal abortion – and we will work The advances for women in with the Assembly to extend that Britain and around the world right to women in Northern Ireland. have been fought and won by determined women working Violence against women and girls together for real change, often continues to be a global epidemic, in the face of resistance and affecting an estimated one in three even abuse. women worldwide. In the UK, on average two women are killed by Labour has a proud record on their current or a former partner progressing women’s rights and every week. Under the Conservatives, freedoms. We brought in the Equal over a third of all local authority Pay Act, the Sex Discrimination Act, funding to domestic and sexual the Equality Act, the Minimum Wage violence services was already cut and introduced Sure Start. Ours will by 2012. be a government for women, with a cabinet of at least 50 per cent Labour will appoint a new women, which fights ineuality and commissioner to enforce misogyny in every part of society. minimum standards in tackling domestic and sexual violence. A Labour government will gender A Violence Against Women audit all policy and legislation Commissioner would also provide for its impact on women before stable central funding for women’s implementation.

CHAPTER 11 A MORE EQUAL SOCIETY 109 refuges and rape crisis centres and encourage sharing of best practice between local authorities.

Maternity discrimination under the Conservatives is out of control, almost doubling in the past ten years. Many mothers are reluctant to raise complaints about discrimination and unfair treatment. Unlawful maternity and pregnancy discrimination is now more common in Britain’s workplaces than ever before, with 54,000 pregnant women and new mothers forced out of their jobs in 2015. Labour will reverse the unfair employment tribunal fees which literally price people out of justice. Labour will also extend the time period for applying for maternity discrimination to the employment tribunal from three to six months.

Labour will work with the Health and Safety Executive to make mandatory a workplace risk assessment for pregnant women so necessary adaptions can be made, and review support for women who have miscarriages.

110 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW Labour will bring the law on LGBT LGBT EQUALITY hate crimes into line with hate crimes based on race and faith, by making Labour has a proud record them aggravated offences. of championing the fight for LGBT equality. We abolished To tackle bullying of LGBT young Section 28, equalised the people, Labour will ensure that all age of consent, created civil teachers receive initial and ongoing partnerships, and it was only training on the issues students face through Labour votes that and how to address them. And we equal marriage became law. will ensure that the new guidance However, there is still a long for relationships and sex education way to go on issues such as is LGBT inclusive. education, equal access to Likewise, we will ensure all public services, levels of LGBT frontline health and social care hate crime, and mental and professionals receive ongoing physical wellbeing. training to understand and meet A Labour government will reform the needs of LGBT patients and the Gender Recognition Act and the service users. Labour will ensure Equality Act 2010 to ensure they that NHS England completes the protect Trans people by changing the trial programme to provide PrEP as protected characteristic of ‘gender quickly as possible, and fully roll out assignment’ to ‘gender identity’ and the treatment to high-risk groups to remove other outdated language help reduce HIV infection. such as ‘transsexual’.

CHAPTER 11 A MORE EQUAL SOCIETY 111 already acting on recommendations, DIVERSE including reform of internal disciplinary procedures to make them COMMUNITIES firmer and fairer, and epansion of training to tackle anti-Semitism. On Now more than ever, we need a matter of such importance, Labour to celebrate the profound urges all democratic political parties and enriching transformation to do the same. brought by the diversity of people in this country, with We will end racism and discrimination all their different eperiences, against Gypsy, Roma and Traveller talents and contributions. communities, and protect the right to lead a nomadic way of life. Today Black and Asian-owned businesses are an important and Black and sian workers still suffer growing feature of our economy a massive pay gap. By introducing and society. These businesses are equal pay audit requirements on important not just because of their large employers, Labour will close financial contribution they have also this pay gap. By making the Minimum helped transform particular sectors Wage a real Living Wage, we will of the economy. benefit ethnic minority workers who are more likely to be on low pay. The Labour Party is the party of equality. We seek to build a society We will implement the Parker Review free from all forms of racism, anti- recommendations to increase ethnic Semitism and Islamophobia. diversity on the boards of Britain’s largest companies. We should all be deeply troubled by the rise in racially aggravated attacks and race hate crime in the past year. Anti-Semitic incidents are also on the rise once more and we are committed to combatting this trend with adequate resources and firm political will.

Commissioning a report on our own party was an unprecedented step in British politics, demonstrating a commitment to tackling prejudice wherever it is found. Labour is

112 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW legislate to make terminal illness a PEOPLE WITH protected characteristic under the DISABILITIES Equality Act. Autism covers a wide range of Over the last seven years conditions that reect neurological people with disabilities differences among people. e will have been failed by the work with employers, trade unions Conservative government. and public services to improve awareness of neurodiversity in People with disabilities have been the workplace and in society. vilified with divisive rhetoric like ‘scroungers’ and ‘shirkers’. In this Labour will give British Sign climate, recorded disability hate Language full recognition as crime has increased. a recognised language.

Last year the UN published a report concluding that the Conservative government had committed “grave, systematic violations of the rights of persons with disabilities”.

Currently 4.2 million People with disabilities live in poverty in Britain, and the disability employment gap remains stubbornly high.

Labour believes in the social model of disability – that it is society which disables people, and it is our job to remove those barriers. The previous Labour government signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). The next Labour government will sign the UNCRPD into UK law.

Labour will act to tackle discrimination, remove barriers and ensure social security delivers dignity and empowerment, not isolation and stigma. Labour will

CHAPTER 11 A MORE EQUAL SOCIETY 113 114 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW CHAPTER 12 A GLOBAL BRITAIN

FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW 115 A GLOBAL BRITAIN

Labour will take all necessary measures to protect the security of our citizens and country. We will put conict resolution and human rights at the heart of foreign policy, commit to working through the UN, end support for unilateral why our response to these challenges aggressive wars of intervention must be different. e cannot seek and bac effective action to to solve the world’s problems on alleviate the refugee crisis. our own, but instead must exhaust Unlike the Conservatives, Labour diplomatic solutions alongside believes Britain’s foreign policy international, regional and local should be guided by the values partners within the framework of of peace, universal rights and international law. international law. Today, these values This will require a modern are being tested. As we leave the and inclusive strategy, uniting European Union, keeping Britain the interwoven foreign policy global is one of our country’s most instruments of diplomacy, urgent tasks. defence and development. We face the most complex, interwoven security and development challenges of our time; ongoing wars across the Middle East, unprecedented numbers of refugees, global terrorism, climate change, the threat of nuclear conict, a devastating food crisis across East Africa and beyond, an erratic US administration and a more combative government in Russia.

The lessons of the past, including those from the Chilcot Inquiry, show

116 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW DIPLOMACY

Labour recognises that, in leaving the EU, Britain will face both challenges and opportunities. We are deeply ambitious for our country’s future and will draw on our international networks to make Britain a champion of multilateral engagement. We will invest in the UK’s diplomatic services, rebuilding some of the key capabilities lost as a result of Tory cuts.

Since the Second World War, Labour is strongly committed to Britain’s most important diplomatic reducing human suffering caused relationship has been with the by war. We will publish a strategy for US. But that special relationship protecting civilians in conict, setting is based on shared values. When out detailed plans for work on conict the current Trump administration prevention and resolution, post- chooses to ignore them, whether by conict peacebuilding, and justice discriminating on the basis of religion for the victims of war crimes. Labour or breaking its climate change has created a Minister for Peace and commitments, we will not be afraid Disarmament to lead this work. to disagree. Labour is committed to a From the Middle East to Africa, in comprehensive peace in the Middle recent years millions of people have East based on a two-state solution been killed, injured or displaced – a secure Israel alongside a secure through wars, terrorism and military and viable state of Palestine. There intervention. In Syria alone, more can be no military solution to this than 400,000 people have been killed. conict and all sides must avoid Labour will work tirelessly to end taking action that would make peace the conict and get the diplomatic harder to achieve. That means both process back on track, while fully an end to the blockade, occupation supporting international efforts to and settlements, and an end to investigate, prosecute and convict the rocket and terror attacks. Labour will perpetrators of war crimes. continue to press for an immediate

CHAPTER 12 A GLOBAL BRITAIN 117 return to meaningful negotiations and the rule of law. We will review leading to a diplomatic resolution. all training and equipment contracts A Labour government will with repressive regimes, to ensure immediately recognise the state that Britain never colludes in the of Palestine. mistreatment of civilians.

We will also urge negotiations We will always stand up for the rights, towards a political resolution in all interests and self-determination of other regions currently experiencing Britain’s overseas territories and conict, including ashmir, Libya, their citizens, whether protecting the Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia sovereignty of the Falkland Islands and Yemen, and give our strong against anyone who would seek to support to those countries already challenge it, or supporting the right working to end decades of division, of the Chagos islanders to return to including Colombia, Cyprus and the their homelands. Democratic Republic of Congo. We will reclaim Britain’s leading role in In other regions, including the orean tackling climate change, working hard Peninsula and the South China Sea, to preserve the Paris Agreement and rising tensions threaten global peace. deliver on international commitments Under a Labour government, Britain to reduce emissions while mitigating will work to reduce those tensions the impacts of climate change on through an insistence on multilateral developing countries. political dialogue. While strengthening our commitment From Afghanistan and Iraq to to the UN, we also acknowledge its the streets of European cities, shortcomings, particularly in light of Daesh continues to commit acts repeated abuses of the veto power by of indiscriminate barbarism. We some permanent members of the UN will take all lawful action necessary Security Council. We will work with to counter and confront this evil, our international partners to build and we will advocate a long-term support for UN reform and make multinational political strategy, led by its institutions more effective and regional actors, to tackle the spread responsive. We will appoint dedicated of extremism. global ambassadors for women’s rights, LGBT rights and religious In our discussions with different freedom to fight discrimination and governments, including China, promote equality globally. Egypt, the Gulf States, Myanmar, the Philippines, Russia and Turkey, we will urge respect for human rights

118 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW Exports, trade and investment play a vital role in creating jobs and growth in Britain, and Labour supports the considerable contribution that a responsible, world-leading defence and security industry makes to the economy. However, we also believe that strong export controls have a vital role to play in sustaining a legitimate trade in arms, while protecting jobs and D. Labour will therefore implement the Arms Trade Treaty to a consistently high standard, including ceasing arms exports to countries where there is concern that they will be used to violate international humanitarian law (IHL).

In particular, Labour will demand a comprehensive, independent, UN-led investigation into alleged violations of IHL in Yemen, including air strikes on civilians by the Saudi-led coalition. We will immediately suspend any further arms sales for use in the conict until that investigation is concluded.

Labour remains committed to an independent inquiry into Britain’s military role in the 1984 raid on the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

CHAPTER 12 A GLOBAL BRITAIN 119 with the EU on a range of operational DEFENCE missions to promote and support global and regional security. The primary duty of any government is to protect and The last Labour government defend its citizens. We live in a consistently spent above the NATO period of growing international benchmark of 2 per cent of GDP. tensions. A strong, viable and Conservative spending cuts have put sustainable defence and security Britain’s security at risk, shrinking policy must be strategic and the army to its smallest size since evidence led. the Napoleonic wars. The scrapping of Nimrod, HMS Ark Royal and the As previous incoming governments Harrier jump-jets have weakened have done, a Labour government will our defences and cost British order a complete strategic defence taxpayers millions. and security review when it comes into office, to assess the emerging Labour’s commitment to spending at threats facing Britain, including least 2 per cent of GDP on defence hybrid and cyber warfare. Cyber will guarantee that our Armed Forces security will form an integral part of have the necessary capabilities to our defence and security strategy fulfil the full range of obligations, and we will introduce a cyber-security and ensure our conventional forces charter for companies working with are versatile and able to deploy in a the Ministry of Defence. range of roles.

We will ensure that our armed Labour supports the renewal of forces are properly equipped the Trident nuclear deterrent. As a and resourced to respond to nuclear-armed power, our country wide-ranging security challenges. has a responsibility to fulfil our Labour will commit to effective N obligations under the Nuclear Non- peacekeeping, including support for Proliferation Treaty. Labour will lead a UN Emergency Peace Service. multilateral efforts with international partners and the UN to create a As the security threats and challenges nuclear-free world. we face are not bound by geographic borders, it is vital that as Britain The defence industry is world- leaves the EU, we maintain our close leading, and Labour will continue to relationship with our European support development and innovation partners. Alongside our commitment in this sector and to ensure that it can to NATO, we will continue to work continue to rely on a highly skilled

120 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW workforce. We are committed to a autonomy over their housing choices, procurement process that supports and review and improve the Forces the British steel industry and defence Help to Buy scheme. manufacturing industry, which in Personnel who are injured while turn provide good jobs throughout serving should have prompt access the supply chain. Labour will publish to support and compensation. We a Defence Industrial Strategy will resist any Conservative proposals White Paper, including a National to abolish the right to seek legal Shipbuilding Strategy to secure a redress against the MoD where long-term future for the industry, compensation claims cannot be workers and defence. otherwise settled. We have a duty to properly reward We are fully committed to supporting and remunerate our Armed Forces. our veterans. We will promote Under the Conservatives, our Armed greater awareness of the Armed Forces have been hit by rent rises, Forces Covenant, seek greater pay restraint, and changes to tax consistency in its implementation and benefits, putting real pressure by public authorities, and promote on service personnel and their increased participation in the families. We will ensure they get the Corporate Covenant. pay and living conditions that their service merits. We will also roll out a Homes Fit for Heroes programme that will insulate Dedicated service personnel are the homes of disabled veterans at the heart of our defence policy. for free. Labour will immediately examine recruitment and retention policies in order to stem the exodus seen under the Conservatives. We will publish new strategic equality objectives to ensure our personnel reect our diverse society.

We will drive up standards in Service Accommodation, and take action where private companies have failed to deliver. We will consult with service personnel, giving them greater

CHAPTER 12 A GLOBAL BRITAIN 121 resolution and of human rights, which DEVELOPMENT is why they will be at the heart of Labour’s foreign policy. Labour has a proud record on international development. The Conservatives have completely We will continue to spend failed to show any leadership on 0.7 per cent of gross national this issue. In the first 100 days of income on ocial development government, we will produce a assistance, and develop a targeted cross-departmental strategy to meet development agenda based on our international obligations on the the principles of redistribution, refugee crisis. social justice, women’s rights and The current global tax system is poverty reduction. deeply unjust. Africa’s economies Labour will take robust action to end alone lose more than £46 billion the self-regulation of Department annually through corruption and tax for International Development evasion – more than 10 times what private contractors, establishing and they receive in aid. Labour will act enforcing new rules to ensure aid is decisively on tax havens, introducing used to reduce poverty for the many, strict standards of transparency for not to increase profits for the few. crown dependencies and overseas territories, including a public We fully support the Sustainable register of owners, directors, major Development Goals (SDGs) agreed shareholders and beneficial owners globally to eradicate poverty and for all companies and trusts. protect the environment. Labour will develop a cross-government We will work in partnership with strategy for ensuring the SDGs are communities in the Global South implemented, and report annually to to develop long-term strategies Parliament on our performance. for strengthening economies and societies. We would reinstate the In the wake of Breit, to fulfil our Civil Society Challenge Fund to national obligations under the support trade unions, women’s SDGs, Labour will guarantee the associations and other civil society least developed countries continued organisations which are the most access to the market to protect effective forces in winning human vital export revenues. rights and workers’ rights. There are more refugees and displaced Jobs in global supply chains can people around the world than at any be of enormous importance to time since the Second World War. working people across the Global This is a failure of diplomacy, conict

122 FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW South, but human rights abuses and At least a billion people around exploitation of lower environmental the world cannot currently obtain standards and workers’ rights are the health services they need, and too common. Labour is committed to another 100 million are pushed ensuring respect for human rights, below the poverty line as a result workers’ rights and environmental of paying for their services. We will sustainability in the operations of establish a Centre for Universal British businesses around the world, Health Coverage, providing and we will work to tighten the rules global partnerships, support and governing corporate accountability encouragement to countries that for abuses in global supply chains. want UHC, helping them to generate the funding and systems required Labour will work with business to for its delivery. ensure the provisions of the Modern Slavery Act are fully respected, We will invest in new public-health including reporting on due diligence driven research and development in supply chains. We will extend to find effective and affordable the remit of the Groceries Code treatments for diseases in the Adjudicator beyond direct suppliers developing world, including fighting to ensure fair treatment for all those TB, malaria, HIV/AIDS and neglected producing goods for the ’s largest tropical diseases. supermarkets.

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9548_17 Promoted by Iain McNicol, General Secretary, the Labour Party, on behalf of the Labour Party, both at Southside, 105 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 6QT. Printed by Potts Print, Nelson Park, 6 Moorland Way, Cramlington, Northumberland, NE23 1WG.