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Funding
Universal public services, collectively provided through general taxation and free at the point of use for all, are how we guarantee the right to a good life.
Public services do more than make sure everyone has the basics. They create shared experiences and strengthen social bonds. They make our lives richer and more fulfilling.
A decade of Tory cuts has pushed our public services to breaking point. Labour offers real change – we will make Britain’s public services the best and most extensive in the world.
We will pay for this by creating a fairer taxation system, asking for a little more from those with the broadest shoulders, and making sure that everyone pays what they owe.
We will reverse some of the Tories’ cuts to corporation tax while keeping rates lower than in 2010.
We’ll ask those who earn more than £80,000 a year to pay a little more income tax, while freezing National Insurance and income tax rates for everyone else.
We will end the unfairness that sees income from wealth taxed at lower rates than income from work. VAT is a regressive tax that hits the poorest hardest and we guarantee no increases in VAT.
We will launch the biggest ever crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion and reform the inefficient system of tax reliefs.
Public services must also be accountable. Labour will end the current presumption in favour of outsourcing public services and introduce a presumption in favour of insourcing. And we will stop the public getting ripped off by taking back all PFI contracts over time.
When services are procured from the private sector, companies will be assessed against best practice public service criteria, including provisions for collective bargaining, fair wage clauses, adherence to environmental standards, effective equalities policies, full tax compliance and application of pay ratios. In the public sector, we will enforce maximum pay ratios of 20:1.
We will repair the damage the Tories have done to our social fabric, with a £150 billion Social Transformation
Fund to replace, upgrade and expand our schools, hospitals, care homes and council houses. Public buildings will be modernised to ensure a reduction in their carbon footprint.
Our most valuable assets are the dedicated people who work in our public services, but under this government their pay has been cut in real terms. Labour will restore public sector pay to at least pre-financial crisis levels (in real terms), by delivering year-on-year above-inflation pay rises, starting with a 5% increase, to reward and retain the people who do so much for us all.
NHS and Social Care
The National Health Service is one of Labour’s proudest achievements. The right to free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare, universal and comprehensive in scope, is socialism in action.
A decade of Tory health cuts and privatisations has pushed our greatest institution to the brink. Our hospitals are crumbling, equipment is outdated, IT systems are inadequate and community facilities are neglected.
There are 100,000 staff vacancies in NHS England, including a shortage of 43,000 nurses. There are 15,000 fewer hospital beds. Every winter, bed occupancy rates exceed dangerous levels. Patients now wait far too long to see their GP, for an ambulance or for treatment.
Our immediate task is to repair our health services. Our urgent priority is to end NHS privatisation.
Our mission is to create the conditions to prevent illness and enable people to live longer, healthier lives.
A Labour government will invest in the NHS to give patients the modern, well- resourced services they need. We will increase expenditure across the health sector by an average 4.3% a year. This investment enables us to end patient charges, guarantee the standards of healthcare patients are entitled to receive from NHS England, invest in education for the health workforce and restore public health grants.
Our investments mean we deliver the standards of care enshrined in the NHS. We will stabilise our overstretched A&E departments. We will improve stroke, heart disease and cancer survival rates by providing earlier diagnosis and improved screening rates. We will call a moratorium on bed cuts.
Every penny spent on privatisation and outsourcing is a penny less spent on patient care. Labour will end and reverse privatisation in the NHS in the next Parliament. We will repeal the Health and Social Care Act and reinstate the responsibilities of the Secretary of State to provide a comprehensive and universal healthcare system. We will end the requirement on health authorities to put services out to competitive tender.
We will ensure services are delivered in-house and also bring subsidiary companies back in-house. We will halt the fire sale of NHS land and assets.
We will publish an infrastructure plan to return NHS England to the international average level of capital investment and to ensure future decisions are transparent and balanced fairly between every region. We will complete the confirmed hospital rebuilds and invest more in primary care settings, modern AI, cyber technology and state-of-the-art medical equipment, including more MRI and CT scanners.
We will ensure data protection for NHS and patient information, a highly valuable publicly funded resource that can be used for better diagnosis of conditions and for ground-breaking research. We will ensure NHS data is not exploited by international technology and pharmaceutical corporations.
We will uphold the principle of comprehensive healthcare by providing free annual NHS dental check-ups.
We will guarantee universal healthcare by ensuring women’s and children’s health services are comprehensive, by protecting the rights of EU workers, other migrants and refugees and by ensuring all our services are made accessible to BAME, LGBT+ and disabled patients. We will end mixed-sex wards.
We will ensure our NHS becomes a net- zero-carbon service with an NHS Forest of one million trees, more efficient heating and insulation systems, greater reliance on renewable energy, including more solar panelling and a transition to electric paramedic vehicles, NHS fleet cars and hybrid ambulances.
We will introduce mandatory standards for NHS in-patient food and will provide free hospital parking for patients, staff and visitors.
As medical technologies advance, we will live with a wider array of chronic conditions. Health and care must become more joined-up, more accessible, more personal and more preventative.
We will stop Tory plans to further entrench the private sector delivery of health care under the cover of integration plans set out in the NHS Long Term Plan. Instead we will join up, integrate and co-ordinate care through public bodies.
A Labour government will develop a planned model of joined-up community care, enabling people to live longer lives in better health in their own homes. We will ensure the voices of local people and NHS staff are heard in future developments of the health system.
We will allocate a greater proportion of overall funding to close-to-home health services and build interdisciplinary, patient-focused services across primary care, mental health and social care. We will ensure patients in deprived and remote communities will have better access to primary care services. We will also ensure those living with long-term conditions can access the care they need.
To support our transition to community health care services, we will expand GP training places to provide resources for 27 million more appointments each year and ensure community pharmacy is supported.
A Labour government will provide an additional £1.6 billion a year to ensure new standards for mental health are enshrined in the NHS constitution ensuring access to treatments is on a par with that for physical health conditions.
Our mental health hospitals are not fit for purpose. Over 1,000 people with mental health problems face hospital stays in old, dormitory-style hospital wards, while less than one in four A&E departments have the facilities to deal with people experiencing a mental health crisis. We will invest £2 billion to modernise hospital facilities and end the use of inappropriate, out-of-area placements.
The legislation for detaining people with learning disabilities and mental illnesses is outdated. We will implement in full the recommendations set out in the independent review of the Mental Health Act, so that people are given choice, autonomy and the treatment they need.
We will invest more in eating disorders services and ensure NICE guidelines on eating disorders are implemented.
We will improve access to psychological therapies to ensure they deliver the quality care patients deserve. We will ensure provision of 24/7 crisis services.
Only one in four children and young people are able to receive help from a mental health professional. Our £845 million plan for Healthy Young Minds will more than double the annual spending on children and adolescent mental health services.
We will establish a network of open- access mental health hubs to enable more children to access mental health and recruit almost 3,500 qualified counsellors to guarantee every child access to school counsellors.
Life expectancy is stalling and infant mortality rates are increasing, especially among those living in our most deprived communities.
A Labour government will target a reduction in health inequalities with a comprehensive children’s health strategy. We will introduce a Future Generations Well-being Act, enshrining health aims in all policies and a new duty for NHS agencies to collaborate with directors of public health.
We will invest more than £1 billion in public health and recruit 4,500 more health visitors and school nurses. We will increase mandated health visits, ensure new mothers can have access to breastfeeding support and introduce mental health assessments in a maternal health check six weeks after birth.
We will invest in children’s oral health, tackle childhood obesity and extend the sugar tax to milk drinks. We will ban fast-food restaurants near schools and enforce stricter rules around the advertising of junk food and levels of salt in food. We will take actions to significantly reduce infant deaths and ensure families who lose a baby receive appropriate bereavement support as well as protections at work.
The re-emergence of measles is an indictment. We will urgently put in place a vaccination action plan to regain our measles-free status in WHO listings.
We will fully fund sexual health services and roll out PrEP medication.
We will address drug-related deaths, alcohol-related health problems and the adverse impacts of gambling as matters of public health, treated accordingly in expanded addiction- support services. Alcoholic drinks will be labelled with clear health warnings. We will review the evidence on minimum pricing.
We will implement a Tobacco Control Plan and fund smoking cessation services.Bold text
A Labour government will end the crisis in our health and care services, plan for the future and guarantee real-terms pay rises every year.
Agenda for Change terms and conditions will be put into law alongside safe staffing limits for all staff. We will invest, train and develop NHS staff throughout their careers.
We will introduce a training bursary for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals. We will remove the obstacles to ethical international recruitment.
A Labour government will review the tax and pension changes implemented by the Tory government to ensure that the workforce is fairly rewarded and that services are not adversely affected.
We will provide mental health support for staff and create a working environment within the NHS that is safe, flexible and free from harassment, bullying or violence.
Under a Labour government the NHS will be at the forefront of the development of genomics and cell therapies so that patients can benefit from new treatments for cancer and dementia, whilst ensuring the UK continues to lead in medical developments.
The Orkambi cystic fibrosis drug is just the latest example of patients held to ransom by corporations charging extortionate prices for life-saving drugs.
We will establish a generic drug company. If fair prices are rejected for patented drugs we will use the Patents Act provisions, compulsory licences and research exemptions to secure access to generic versions, and we will aim to increase the number of pharmaceutical jobs in the UK.
We will play an active role in the medical innovation model, ensuring rewards and incentives match the areas of greatest health need.
We will ensure that all parts of the NHS, the treatment of patients, the employment of staff and medicine pricing are all fully excluded and protected from any international trade deals.
We will progress clinically appropriate prescription of medical cannabis.
We will abolish prescription charges in England.
Social care funding cuts have left 1.5 million older people without the care they need.
Almost £8 billion has been lost from social care budgets since 2010. This is having a profound impact on unpaid carers in this country, with 2.6 million carers quitting their jobs to provide care to family members. The current care system is at risk of collapse.
A Labour government will build a comprehensive National Care Service for England. We will provide community-based, person-centred support, underpinned by the principles of ethical care and independent living. We will provide free personal care, beginning with investments to ensure that older people have their personal care needs met, with the ambition to extend this provision to all working-age adults.
We will develop eligibility criteria that ensures our service works for everyone, including people with complex conditions like dementia. We will ensure no one ever again needs to face catastrophic care costs of more than £100,000 for the care they need in old age, which we will underscore with a lifetime cap on personal contributions to care costs.
We will also invest in other social care packages to reverse the damage done by Conservative cuts and provide additional care packages to support both older people and working-age adults living independently in their own homes.
Our investments in social care services will enable us to more than double the number of people receiving publicly funded care packages, improve the standard of care provided to them and remove the distinction between health and care needs.
The provision of additional care packages also means we can support autistic people and people with learning disabilities to move out from inappropriate inpatient hospital settings and provide support in their own homes Our National Care Service will work in partnership with the NHS, ensuring care is delivered for people, not for profit.
Contracts for providing care will not be awarded to organisations that do not pay their fair share of taxes and do not meet our high standards of quality care. Our focus will be on the ethical delivery of care that ensures growing public sector provision and providers who meet standards of transparency, compliance and profit capping.
Nearly one and a half million people work in the care sector, but there are over 100,000 vacancies. Labour will invest to end the social care crisis, end 15-minute care visits and provide care workers with paid travel time, access to training and an option to choose regular hours. We will increase the Carer’s Allowance for unpaid full-time carers.
National Education Service
Education makes our economy stronger, our society richer and our people more fulfilled. Whether it is businesses finding people with the right skills, a tech start-up making our economy more dynamic or more people in better paid work and able to contribute to public services, we all benefit from an educated society.
But education isn’t just vital to our economy – it lets people develop their talents, overcomes injustices and inequalities and helps us understand each other and form social bonds.
The Conservatives have starved our education system of funding, transferring costs onto students, staff and communities. They have lost sight of its value.
From cutting budgets of schools, disproportionately in deprived areas, to closing Sure Start centres and underfunding support for those with special educational needs and disabilities, Conservative policy has meant those in most need have lost out.
That’s why our National Education Service will be at the heart of Labour’s plan for real change. It will provide free education for everyone throughout their lives and will nurture every child and adult to find a path that’s right for them, by promoting all types of learning, skill and knowledge – technical, vocational, academic and creative.
Early years education is vital to children’s development. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds start falling behind their peers before they even start school. Early years education also helps parents – usually mothers – by providing a bridge between maternity/parental leave and school.
But the current system falls far short of what is needed. One thousand Sure Start centres have closed since 2010, while the Tories’ so-called free childcare offer is desperately underfunded and excludes many of the most disadvantaged children.
We will reverse cuts to Sure Start and create a new service, Sure Start Plus, with enough centres to provide a genuinely universal service, available in all communities, focused on the under-2s.
Labour will radically reform early years provision, with a two-term vision to make high-quality early years education available for every child. We will also extend paid maternity leave to 12 months.
Within five years, all 2, 3 and 4-year- olds will be entitled to 30 hours of free preschool education per week and access to additional hours at affordable, subsidised rates staggered with incomes. Labour will also work to extend childcare provision for 1-year-olds and to ensure that childcare provision accommodates the working patterns of all parents.
We will improve child development by transitioning to a qualified, graduate- led workforce. We value the experience of current early years workers, and will offer free training to the workforce to attain these qualifications on the job.
Achieving this vision will require significant investment. We will increase funding and end the fragmentation of the current system by funding providers directly, making things simpler and more sustainable for both parents and providers.
We will recruit nearly 150,000 additional early years staff, including Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators, and introduce a national pay scale, driving up pay for the overwhelmingly female workforce.
Maintained nursery schools provide a proven, high-quality service but they are under threat from Tory cuts. We will provide sustainable, long-term funding to secure their future.
Labour will make sure schools are properly resourced with increased long- term funding, while introducing a fairer funding formula that leaves no child worse off. We will invest to upgrade schools that have fallen into disrepair.
Labour’s funding settlement will ensure pupils are taught by a qualified teacher, that every school is open for a full five days a week, and maximum class sizes of 30 for all primary school children. We will also fund more non-contact time for teachers to prepare and plan.
Schools have faced years of budget cuts, leaving headteachers forced to beg parents for money for basic equipment. Despite promising to reverse their own cuts, the Tories latest funding announcement leaves 83% of schools still facing cuts next year.
Schools are being subjected to intensified testing, inspection, league tables and competition. These aren’t improving pupil achievement or narrowing the attainment gap, but are contributing to a growing teacher recruitment and retention crisis.
The narrowing curriculum is denying many children access to modern languages, arts and music, or technical and engineering skills that will be essential in a world shaped by climate change.
The academies system is over-centralised, inefficient and undemocratic. Parents, communities and even teachers are shut out of decisions about schools and vulnerable children are being let down. And there is no evidence that academies deliver better results.
The Conservatives have failed a generation of children with special educational needs and disabilities, who have endured years of cuts and chaos. Labour will provide the necessary funding for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
Labour will end the ‘high stakes’ testing culture of schools by scrapping Key Stage 1 and 2 SATs and baseline assessments, and refocussing assessment on supporting pupil progress.
We will introduce an Arts Pupil Premium to fund arts education for every primary school child. We will review the curriculum to ensure that it enriches students and covers subjects such as black history and continues to teach issues like the Holocaust. Pupils will learn both the science of climate and environmental emergency, and the skills necessary to deal with them.
We will end the fragmentation and marketisation of our school system by bringing free schools and academies back under control of the people who know them best – parents, teachers and local communities.
Under our system:
- Budget and day-to-day decisions will be transferred back to schools, overseen by an accountable governing body with elected representatives
- Responsibility for delivery of education and support for young people will sit with local authorities, they will manage and have responsibility for school places, including the power to open schools
- Oversight and coordination, including of continuous, peer-to-peer school improvement modelled on the London Challenge, will be carried out by regional offices of the
- All schools will be subject to a common rulebook, set out in legislation
We will replace Ofsted and transfer responsibility for inspections to a new body, designed to drive school improvement.
A new teacher supply service will tackle the waste of funds going to private supply teacher agencies thanks to the government’s failure to recruit and retain experienced teachers.
We will take action to end ‘off-rolling’, removing the perverse incentives for schools to let pupils fall out of the system, by making schools accountable for the outcomes of pupils who leave their rolls.
We will properly regulate all education providers and reform alternative provision (AP) to ensure an excellent education is the right of every child, and improve the outcomes and life chances of some of the most vulnerable children in society.
We will ‘poverty-proof’ schools, introducing free school meals for all primary school children, encouraging breakfast clubs, and tackling the cost of school uniforms.
We will bring back the School Support Staff Negotiating Body and national pay settlements for teachers.
We will close the tax loopholes enjoyed by elite private schools and use that money to improve the lives of all children, and we will ask the Social Justice Commission to advise on integrating private schools and creating a comprehensive education system.
With automation and the Green Industrial Revolution bringing major changes to industry, it is more important than ever that people have the opportunity to retrain and upskill throughout their lives.
Under the Tories, adult education has undergone 10 years of managed decline. England already faces a shortage of people with higher-level technical qualifications, and demand for these skills will only grow as we create new green jobs.
Instead of investing in people to prepare them for the jobs of the future, the Conservatives have slashed funding and cut opportunities.
Labour will ensure fairness and sustainability in further education, aligning the base rate of per-pupil funding in post-16 education with Key Stage 4, providing dedicated capital funding to expand provision and bringing back the Education Maintenance Allowance as the Welsh Labour Government has done.
Labour will make lifelong learning a reality, giving everyone a free lifelong entitlement to:
- Training up to Level 3
- Six years training at Levels 4-6, with maintenance grants for disadvantaged
We will introduce additional entitlements for workers in industries that are significantly affected by industrial transition.
We will make sure training delivers the right skills by giving employers a role in co-design and co-production of qualifications.
We will restore funding for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses and restore and expand the Union Learning Fund, giving workers the right to accrue paid time off for education and training.
Labour will reform existing careers advice, working towards an integrated information, advice and guidance system that covers the entire NES.
We will reverse the fragmentation and privatisation of further and adult education, incorporating it into a single national system of regulation that functions for education as our NHS does for healthcare provision.
Under the Tories, universities are treated as private businesses, left at the mercy of market forces, while top salaries soar and students pay more for less. Tuition fees have trebled and maintenance grants have been scrapped, leaving the poorest graduates with an average debt of £57,000.
Labour will end the failed free-market experiment in higher education, abolish tuition fees and bring back maintenance grants. We will fundamentally rethink the assessment of research and teaching quality, and develop a new funding formula for higher education that:
- Ensures all public HE institutions have adequate funding for teaching and research.
- Widens access to higher education and reverses the decline of part-time learning.
- Ends the casualisation of staff.
We will transform the Office for Students from a market regulator to a body of the National Education Service, acting in the public interest.
We will introduce post-qualification admissions in higher education, and work with universities to ensure contextual admissions are used across the system.