What’s In The Labour Manifesto And Is It Actually Possible?

The plan to end privatisation is not universally popular, with many pointing out the NHS currently relies on private providers. 

Dr Jennifer Dixon, of the independent charity Health Foundation, said the funding plans “provide a welcome recognition of the scale of the challenge facing the NHS”, but she added: “While stopping privatisation has become a hot topic in this election, it risks being a distraction from far bigger issues facing the NHS and patients.

“With waiting lists continuing to grow, the NHS relies on non-NHS providers to deliver patient care and does not have the staff or beds to absorb these services.” 

Education 

What Labour is proposing: Scrapping university tuition fees, reinstating maintenance grants, scrapping Ofsted and ending SATS tests at Key Stage 1 and 2, the running of schools to be returned to councils and headteachers rather than academy bosses, 30 hours of free childcare to all pre-school aged youngsters, and a Sure Start centre in every community.

The party plans to increase spending in England’s schools by £10.5bn by 2022/23 and promises to re-invest in technical training.

There is no pledge to abolish private schools, such as the prestigious Eton College, but the party would “close tax loopholes”, such as charitable status, used by such institutions. 

What the experts say: The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that Labour’s proposals would mean a 15% real terms increase in funding per pupil over the next three years. 

The charity Save The Children has strongly backed the childcare policy and has urged other parties to follow suit. 

Katie Till, senior government relations advisor, said: “Whichever government is elected into Number 10 in December must commit to solving the problem of upfront costs, before more families are pushed into debt and hardship.”

The pledge to scrap Ofsted is not new and has sparked lively debate.

The IFS has previously estimated that scrapping tuition fees will add around £11bn to the deficit, but the NUS and others claim the current loans system saddles students with crippling debts. 

The right-leaning, pro-free market think tank the IEA said free tuition, which is currently operated in Scotland, is “highly regressive” and “favours students from wealthy backgrounds far more than it helps the poorest students attending university”.  

Welfare And Employment 

What Labour is proposing: Scrapping Universal Credit, the two-child limit for benefits and the welfare cap, and introducing a “real living wage” of at least £10 an hour, ending zero hours contracts, strengthening trade union rights, and bringing in an immediate 5% boost in pay for public sector workers, with year-on-year above-inflation pay rises to follow. 

For women hit by the rise in the pension age to 66, the party will review the retirement age “for physically arduous and stressful occupations”. 

What the experts say: A number of independent disability and child poverty charities have welcomed the raft of changes to welfare and the bid to uplift wages. 

General secretary of the Labour-supporting Public and Commercial Services Union, Mark Serwotka, said: “A 5% pay rise would drastically improve the livelihoods of government workers and would be the least they deserve for dealing with the Brexit shambles, cuts and underfunding.” 

The right-leaning think tank the IEA said hiking the minimum wage could make young people more expensive to hire, adding it “could raise youth unemployment to levels comparable with those in continental Europe”. 

Nationalisation

What Labour is proposing: Bringing back rail, mail, water and energy into public ownership and delivering full-fibre broadband, via a publicly owned company, free to everyone. 

What the experts say: Labour said the programme would be “fiscally neutral” by international accounting standards when bonds are exchanged for company shares – but not everyone agrees. 

Water UK chief executive Michael Roberts said: “It’s incredible that Labour haven’t even bothered to set out a price for nationalisation. You can’t take over a major industry for free – one way or another, taxpayers and pensioners will have to fund the eye-watering, multi-billion pound cost.” 

Crime 

What Labour is proposing: Recruiting 22,000 more police officers, restoring legal advice aid, compensation for victims of the contaminated blood scandal, and protections for victims of so-called revenge porn. 

A national refuge fund to financially support rape crisis centres and a commissioner for violence against women and girls would be created, and the Domestic Abuse Bill will be reintroduced.

The cross-examination of domestic violence victims by their abusers will be outlawed.

Labour would also review the role and remit of the National Cyber Security Centre and the National Crime Agency.

What the experts say: Labour is planing to recruit 2,000 more additional police officers than Boris Johnson is proposing as it stands. 

The proposals to further support and protect women against violence were called for by numerous women’s charities. 

How Will It All Be Paid For? 

Taxes 

What Labour says: Pledges on day-to-day public sector spending, according to the party’s own figures, are estimated to cost up to £83bn. 

So, how will this be paid for? According to shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s “grey book”, that investment will come from tax hikes on the wealthy and big businesses.

Additional income tax paid by those earning more than £80,000 and a hit on those classified as “super-rich” – earners taking home more than £125,000 – would rake in £5.4bn and corporation tax changes, upping it from 19% to 26%, would raise almost £24bn.

Other incentives, such as reversing Tory tax cuts, hammering down on tax evasion, and imposing VAT on private schools, would bring that pot up to the required £83bn, according to Labour. 

The party is also proposing the £11bn windfall tax on oil companies. 

What the experts say: Paul Johnson, director of the IFS, said it was “quite doubtful” Labour would be able to raise around £80bn from tax rises.

He told Sky News: “Whether you can get this amount of money, either from businesses or from rich individuals, or from the other changes they’ve got, I think is quite doubtful.”

He said the numbers produced by Labour on how much it could squeeze out of higher earners were “optimistic but not absurdly optimistic”.

“Even if it gets you more money, that can be at the cost of people moving abroad or doing other things to reduce their tax payments,” he warned.

Borrowing

What Labour says: It proposes a “green transformation fund”, worth £250bn, to pay for its green “revolution”, much of which would be focused on transport and housing upgrades.  

A £150bn social transformation fund would pay towards upgrades for schools and hospitals. Half of the pot – £75bn – would pay for the proposed housebuilding boom.

The manifesto does not say how much bringing rail, mail and utilities into public ownership would cost, but it has previously said that acquiring BT Openreach, which is rolling out high-speed broadband across the UK, would cost £20bn.

McDonnell’s case for borrowing such large funds is that “future generations would never forgive” a failure to tackle the housing and climate crises. He also underlines that interest rates for borrowing are at an all-time low.

What the experts say: Critics point to a similar public borrowing scheme in Italy which caused bond rates to increase above accepted EU rates.

The IFS said McDonnell’s spending plans would bring the state’s financial outlay to a “level unprecedented since the very different era of the 1970s”.