Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, has revealed six commitments that he says will form the first steps taken by a Labour government. Starmer was hesitant to use the word "pledge," but the six statements have inevitably led to comparisons with the pledge card issued by Tony Blair in 1997, according to the British newspaper "The Guardian." The newspaper considered that compared to the promises made by the Labour Party before those elections, the steps outlined by Starmer were generally vague, and it is likely to be difficult to measure their success.
The six commitments are as follows:
1. Achieving economic stability:
The Labour Party has an ambitious policy regarding the economy: achieving the highest sustainable growth in the G7. Interestingly, this commitment was not featured on the promotional poster for Starmer's event last Thursday. Instead, the party prioritizes "economic stability" cautiously and vaguely – a commitment that highlights the fluctuations resulting from Liz Truss's tenure in Downing Street. However, assessing its success will be much more challenging.
Labour leaders are debating whether the party should prioritize economic stability if it comes to power or push for growth, possibly through increased spending and tax cuts. The inclusion of economic stability in the pledge card reveals Starmer's leaning, according to the newspaper.
2. Reducing waiting times in the National Health Service (NHS):
Reducing waiting times in the NHS may seem like a vague promise, but it refers to 14 different goals that the healthcare service currently lacks, and in some cases has not achieved at all. This includes ensuring ambulance response to the most severe incidents within seven minutes, compared to the current average of eight minutes. The Labour Party also promises that 95% of people visiting the emergency department will be assessed, treated, or discharged from the hospital within four hours – significantly higher than the current figure of 74%. Another commitment states that 96% of cancer patients will wait a month or less before the doctor decides they need treatment and start treatment. Currently, this applies to only 91% of patients.
3. Launching a new border security command:
When launching his mission last year, Starmer received some criticism for not including a task related to immigration. Since then, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has sought to put this issue at the heart of his speech to voters before the elections by relaunching the government's plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. The Labour Party has promised to cancel the Rwanda plan and use the savings to fund a new border security command, including hundreds of additional special investigators, intelligence agents, and cross-border police officers. The Labour Party aims to focus on prosecuting human traffickers who help bring migrants across the Channel, rather than focusing on deporting those who arrive here. Unlike Sunak's promise to completely stop small boat crossings, Starmer only promises to form a border command. He did not mention how its success should be judged.
4. Establishing Great British Energy company:
The original promise made by Starmer to spend £28 billion annually on green investment has been reduced to less than £15 billion. Most of this money will be spent on establishing a green energy company called "Great British Energy," which allies of Shadow Energy Minister Ed Miliband say was the most important part of the original promise. The Labour Party has pledged to establish the company in Scotland within its first 100 days in power, with a focus on investing in clean energy plans. Its primary focus will be on cutting-edge technologies that private sector investors may consider risky and community energy plans that they may find too small. Establishing the company will be the easy part. The Labour Party also promises that the country will have carbon-free electricity by 2030, which will be much more challenging and costly to achieve.
5. Cracking down on anti-social behavior:
The Labour Party has a measurable goal regarding addressing crime – halving serious violent crimes and raising confidence in the police to their highest levels. However, this is not the commitment featured on posters nationwide. Instead, the party decided to prioritize a more vague crackdown campaign against anti-social behavior. The Labour Party has promised a range of measures, including "Respect Orders" for adults who repeatedly commit anti-social behavior, introducing youth mentors and mental health specialists in schools, and new penalties for those who engage in anti-social behavior.
It is likely that addressing anti-social behavior is much easier than solving some of the more entrenched issues in the criminal justice system, as the capacity of prisons and courts is almost non-existent and cannot be improved except through large amounts of additional funds.
The commitment to education by Starmer is the only commitment with an actual number attached to it. The party has promised to hire an additional 6,500 teachers, and will pay for them using funds generated by increasing taxes on private schools.
The Labour Party did not mention the speed of hiring the additional teachers. If they intend to do so in the first year of government, this is a significant goal, but not unprecedented.
Hiring more teachers may be difficult in the short term if wages do not rise across the sector, something the Labour Party may hesitate to allow due to financial constraints in the public sector.
