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POLICY BRIEF SPECIAL Labour Party Conference 2017 – Day One MAIN THEME - PROTECTING COMMUNITIES Andrew Gwynne, Shadow Secretary for Communities and Local Government announced a radical plan to deliver a renaissance of local government. As he announced a future Labour Government would introduce a bill to restore faith in local services he pointed to Labour Councils in North Tyneside, Islington, Stockport, and elsewhere, which he said had shown that local services can be delivered better and more efficiently in-house. He empathised with the difficult decisions that councillors have had to make over the past seven years and claimed that the government had attempted to devolve the blame for their cuts away from Whitehall - to local councillors in town halls. Labour he said had promised to put council funding on a sustainable footing and Councils would be £1.5bn better off under a Labour Government next year. Mr Gwynne who is also Labour’s General Election campaign chief argued that Labour needed a sensible approach to free movement from the EU, but warned that rows over Brexit would be divisive. Whilst it would be very difficult for the Conservatives to govern without a new election if Mrs May is ousted, Labour had a job to do to regain the trust of some of its traditional voters on issues like immigration, he said. Labour will have a reasonable approach to managing migration, Dianne Abbot, Shadow Home Secretary, told the conference – she said that Prevent was a tainted brand and that “trampling on our civil liberties will do the terrorists’ work for them”. Ms Abbott claimed that austerity had undermined policing and community safety, pointing to rising levels of homicide, knife and gun crime and to spiraling levels of overwork and stress for the police. “Labour in government will work to make communities safe”, she promised. On Grenfell Tower, Ms Abbott said the blaze symbolised the Conservatives’ failure and that the failure “goes further than the borough council”. She described events at Grenfell as a direct consequence of deregulation of fire standards and inspection, privatisation and outsourcing. KEY PLEDGES Put council funding on sustainable basis and introduce a Bill to give councils greater powers to deliver services themselves, extend transparency and Freedom of Information rules and introduce a “Fair Wage” clause. Plymouth City Council has already committed to pay all staff the Living Wage and is encouraging other local employers in the city to do likewise. End indefinite immigration detention and review the Prevent anti-extremist strategy. The Prevent duty places a responsibility on key agencies in the city to have due regard to preventing people being drawn into extremism and terrorism. The Plymouth Prevent Partnership aims to support local communities and institutions to challenge and reject the message of extremism. The Government is boosting its total spending on counter-terrorism by 30 per cent, from £11.7 billion to £15.1 billion. Reverse funding cuts and recruit 10,000 new Police officers and 3,000 additional firefighters. During 2015-2016 the Police and Crime Commissioner worked with local MP’s to highlight that Devon and Cornwall Police was being unfairly funded. Over 9,000 people signed a petition saying that the Police in this region needed more money to run. That’s it from day one. John McDonnell, Emily Thornberry and Kier Stammer are among the scheduled speakers today. V0.1 OFFICIAL: SENSITIVE .

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