GE2019: Labour Party manifesto breakdown

We pull out the key policies from the Labour Party manifesto, examining what they have to say on education, culture, young people and Brexit.

GE2019: Labour Party manifesto breakdown

We pull out the key policies from the Labour Party manifesto, examining what they have to say on education, culture, young people and Brexit.

We have pulled out policies on Brexit, education, culture and young people and detailed them below, along with the page numbers so you can check them for yourself and read additional context. 

These are just a few of many policies that Labour are putting forward, and we encourage you to read the full manifesto to get a complete picture of what they are offering. You should also read the manifestos of the other parties. We have done the same breakdown and you can find links to all of them here.

If you haven’t already, please register to vote. The deadline to do so is 11:59pm on 26 November (17:00 if you’re registering for a postal vote). If you are looking for an explainer on the process of voting, we have a detailed guide here

This article is purely informative, and simply breaks down what the manifesto says. 

There will be no opinion provided.


Labour Party manifesto: It's time for real change

Brexit

  • Rule out a no-deal Brexit and stop the no-deal preparations (p.89)
  • In three months they will secure a new Brexit deal that includes: a UK-wide customs union, close alignment with the single market, dynamic alignment on worker and consumer rights and environmental protection, continued participation in EU agencies and funding programmes, clear commitments on security arrangements (p.90)
  • Provide legal protection for citizens’ rights and honour the Good Friday Agreement (p.90)
  • Present their deal, along with an option to remain, in a legally binding referendum within six months of government (p.90)
  • Scrap current Brexit legislation and replace it with new legislation that ensures support for farmers, the fishing industry, and the environment (p.91)
  • If the UK decides to stay in the EU, Labour will push for reform, and focus on tackling the Climate Emergency, tax evasion and ending austerity and inequality (pp.91-92)

Education

Early years

  • Reverse cuts to Sure Start, and create Sure Start Plus, with the aim to provide a universal service for all communities that is focused on the under-2s (p.38)
  • Increase paid maternity leave to 12 months (p.38)
  • Within 5 years have all 2,3 and 4-year-olds be entitled to 30 hours of preschool education, and make additional hours available at subsidised rates based on income
  • Extend childcare provision for 1-year-olds to ensure that childcare provisions accommodate working patterns of parents (p.38)
  • Transition to a qualified, graduate-led workforce, while allowing current early year workers to train on the job to gain those qualifications (p.38)
  • Increase funding, and give the funding directly to providers (p.38)
  • Recruit 15,000 additional early years staff including SEN co-ordinators and introduce a national pay scale (p.38)
  • Long-term funding to nursery schools (p.38)

Schools

  • Fix schools that have fallen into disrepair (p.38)
  • Ensure that pupils are taught be a qualified teacher (p.39)
  • Ensure every school is open for a full five days a week, and maximum class sizes of 30 for all primary school children (p.39)
  • Fund more non-contact time for teachers to prepare and plan (p.39)
  • Provide the necessary funding for children with SEN and disabilities (p.39)
  • Scrap SATs and baseline assessments, and instead focus assessments on supporting pupil progress (p.39)
  • Introduce an annual £160 million ‘Arts Pupil Premium’ to fund arts education for every primary school children (p.39, p.54)
  • Ensure the curriculum covers subjects such as black history, the Holocaust, the Climate and the environmental emergency (p.39)
  • Bring free schools and academies back under the control of local communities (p.39)
  • Transfer budgets and day-to-day decisions back to schools, with accountable governing bodies of elected representatives (p.39)
  • Move the responsibility of education delivery and support for young people – including admissions, school places and opening new schools – to local authorities (p.39)
  • Oversight and coordination will be carried out by the regional offices of the National Education Service (p.40)
  • All schools will be subject to a common rulebook, set out in legislation (p.40)
  • Replace OFSTED and transfer responsibility for inspections to a new body, focused on school improvement (p.40)
  • New teacher supply service to curtain funds going to private supply teacher agencies (p.40)
  • End off-rolling, by making schools accountable for the outcomes of pupils on their roll, preventing schools letting pupils drop out of the system
  • Regulate all education providers and reform alternative provision (p.40)
  • ‘Poverty-proof’ schools with free school meals for primary school children, encouraging breakfast clubs and tackling the cost of school uniforms (p.40)
  • Close tax loopholes used by private schools, and look to integrate private schools into a comprehensive education system (p.40)
  • Mandatory LGBT+ inclusive relationships and sex education (p.69)

Further and higher education

  • Reintroduce Education Maintenance Allowance (p.41)
  • Everyone will get free lifelong entitlement to training up to Level 3, as well as six years training at Levels 4-6, with maintenance grants for disadvantaged learners (p.41)
  • Additional entitlements for workers in industries significantly affected by industrial transition (p.41)
  • Give employers a role in co-designing and co-producing qualifications to ensure the skill needs are being met (p.41)
  • Restore funding for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and expand the Union Learning Fund to give workers the right to accrue paid time off for education and training (p.41)
  • Reform existing careers advice to cover the entire National Education Service (p.41)
  • and privatisation of further and adult education, incorporating it into a single national system of regulation (p.41)
  • Abolish tuition fees, and bring back maintenance grants (p.41)
  • Ensure all public higher education institutes have adequate funding for teaching and research (p.41)
  • Reverse the decline of part-time learning (p.41)
  • End the casualisation of staff (p.41)
  • Transform the Office for Students from market regulator to a body of the National Education Service that operates in the public interest (p.41)
  • Introduce post-qualification admissions in higher education, and ensure contextual admissions are used across the system (p.41)

Culture

  • Bring Royal Mail back into public ownership, stop Crown Post Offices closures, and create a publicly owned Post Bank to ensure that all communities have access to easy, face-to-face banking (p.50)
  • Business Development Agency will be based in the Post Bank offering support and advice on launching, managing and growing a business (p.50)
  • Pubs will be listed as an Asset of Community Value so  communities have the first chance to buy pubs at risk of closure (p.50)
  • Reintroduction of library standards, and update all libraries to offer Wi-Fi and computers (p.50)
  • Free full-fibre broadband by 2030, paid for through the taxation of multinationals including tech giants (p.53)
  • Invest in towns and communities with a £1 billion Cultural Capital Fund to transform libraries, museums and galleries across the country (p.54)
  • Make the distribution of National Lottery funds more transparent (p.54)
  • Maintain free entry to museums (p.54)
  • Building on the success of the UK City of Culture, introduce a Town of Culture competition (p.54)
  • Ensure creative jobs are accessible for everyone, and promote diversity in the industry (p.54)
  • Review the copyright framework to ensure fair remuneration for artists and content creators (p.54)
  • Protect free TV licences for over-75s (p.54)
  • Address the findings of the second stage of the Leveson Inquiry (p.54)
  • Ensure Ofcom is able to oversee a plurality of media ownership and put in place clearer rules on who is fit and proper to own TV and radio stations (p.54)
  • Establish an inquiry into ‘fake news’ and on a legal right of public interest defence for journalists (p.55)
  • Examine the state of football, including governance and regulation, funding, and its ownership rules (p.55). Additionally, they will legislate for accredited football supporters’ trusts to be able to appoint and remove at least two club directors and purchase shares when clubs change hands (p.55). There will also be safe standing in stadiums, and ensure that a proportion of the Premier League’s television rights income is spent on grassroots football facilities (p.55)
  • ICC Cricket World Cup to be broadcast free-to-air (p.55)
  • Ratify the Istanbul convention and the ILO Convention on Violence and Harassment at Work (p.65)

Young people

  • Build a properly funded and professionally staffed National Youth Service, and guarantee that every young person has access to local youth work (p.51)
  • Invest in a youth justice system where schools, local authorities, health authorities and youth services work together to divert young people away from pathways towards crime (p.43)
  • A comprehensive review of the care system, including considering a central register of foster parents and regulation of semi-supported housing (p.51)
  • Rebuild early intervention services and replace the Troubled Families programme with a Stronger Families programme to reduce the risk of children going into care (p.51)
  • Protect and build on Staying Put for over-18s in care and the Adoption Support Fund (p.51)
  • Protect children online by imposing fines on companies that fail to address online abuse (pp.53-54)
  • £845 million to be spent on children and adolescent mental health services (p.34)
  • Establish a network of open-access mental health hubs to enable more children to access mental health, and recruit almost 3,500 qualified counsellors for schools (p.34)
  • Extend the sugar tax to milk drinks, ban fast-food restaurants near schools and enforce stricter rules around advertising of junk food and levels of salt in food (p.34)
  • Tackle homelessness, and specifically address the needs of LGBT+ young people who make up a disproportionate number of currently homeless people (p.69)
  • 150,000 council and social homes, with 100,000 of these being built by councils for social rent (p.78) and redefine affordable housing to be tied to local incomes (p.78)
  • Help to Buy will be reformed to focus on first-time buyers on ordinary income, and local people get first dibs on new homes built in their area (p.79)
  • Capping rent increases to inflation, with new open-ended tenancies, and minimum property standards enforced through nationwide licensing (p.79)
  • Ensure street designs enable freedom for physically active outdoor play, and introduce measures to ensure zones around schools have safe, cleaner air (p.20)
  • Give effect to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (p.73)

Read more

If you want to read the full Labour manifesto, you can download it here

We have also pulled out the same policies from the other main parties, and you can find links to them all here.

Header Image Credit: Jeremy Corbyn // Flickr

Author

Tom Inniss

Tom Inniss Voice Team

Tom is the Editor of Voice. He is a politics graduate and holds a masters in journalism, with particular interest in youth political engagement and technology. He is also a mentor to our Voice Contributors, and champions our festivals programme, including the reporter team at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

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