The policy platform being put to Conference is radical and transformative

In just a few weeks, Annual Conference will be asked to agree Labour’s policy platform for the general election. A radical and transformative offer that will change our country for the better.

It has been the shared aspiration of Party members that we write our manifesto together from the grassroots up, and that is what we are doing. The words agreed by the National Policy Forum in July were the result of hundreds of thousands of people from around the UK having their say.

But our policy platform isn’t just about shared contribution, it is about our shared values.

At the start of the NPF in Milton Keynes in July I set representatives a challenge. That during all their meetings and negotiations over the weekend, they should remember one thing: the spirit of 1945. When our manifesto then was drafted, our country faced real economic hardship. But we didn’t let that restrict our ambition for the country, and we haven’t done now either.

The policies going forward to Annual Conference offer a radical challenge to established orthodoxies. They need to, because the basic deal at the heart of our society has broken down. That fair work should get fair reward. That you should expect your children to have more opportunities than you, not fewer.

We should all be proud of policies like a pledge to raise the minimum wage by more than average earnings, because one in five working people in our country is in poverty. We should be proud of our planned freeze on energy prices until 2017 because the broken energy market has let prices soar. We should go to the doorstep with confidence in our plan to provide more security to renters with three-year tenancies and predictable rents, because everyone deserves the chance to be able to plan for their future.

The NPF agreed this document with remarkable consensus. I think that shows our unity of purpose as a Party going in to this election. It shows a Labour Party with big ideas for reform, but real fiscal responsibility and an understanding that in the next Parliament we will have less money to spend, not more.

Over the last couple of weeks, the policy document agreed by the NPF will have come through the letterbox of conference delegates, and is available to read online on membersnet here. At conference I will recommend our policy platform with pride. I hope you’ll vote for it with pride too.