Every new (and old) policy announced in speeches at Labour conference 2021

LabourList has put together guides to every rule change passed at Labour conference 2021 and every policy motion passed. But when a conference approves a policy motion, it does not necessarily go into the next manifesto. That’s why we’ve also put together this list of policies that were announced by Labour’s frontbench via speeches at conference. Some are new, most have already been unveiled before: all are listed here.

Angela Rayner (Shadow Secretary for the Future of Work)

• Fair pay agreements. “A Labour government will bring together representatives of workers and employers to negotiate pay and conditions in every sector. Collective bargaining in every sector will end the free market free-for-all that encourages undercutting, exploitation and a race to the bottom.”
• Give all workers rights from day one in their jobs: sick pay, holiday pay, parental leave and protection against unfair dismissal.
• Create one, single worker status, banning bogus self-employment.
• Ban zero-hour contracts and ensure all contracts come with minimum hours and reflect normal working life, requiring notice of shift changes and pay.
• End fire and rehire. “Labour will end the scandalous practice of fire and rehire once and for all.”
• Introduce a new right to flexible working as the default, protections for those with caring responsibilities and a right to switch off.
• Increase statutory sick pay and make it universal.
• Put mental health and safety on a legal par with physical health and safety, and make sure the laws are enforced by a new, empowered watchdog.
• Sign into law the new deal for working people within the first 100 days of coming to office.
• Set up an integrity and ethics commission to “stamp out the Tory sleaze”.

Read Angela Rayner’s full speech here.

Anneliese Dodds (Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary)

• Introduce a Race Equality Act. “A Labour government that would introduce a Race Equality Act to tackle structural racial inequality at source.”
• Reform the Gender Recognition Act. “A Labour government that acknowledges that trans rights are human rights and that would reform the Gender Recognition Act to enable a process for self-identification while continuing to support the 2010 Equalities Act.”

Read Anneliese Dodds’ full speech here.

Ed Miliband (Shadow Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary)

• A ten-year commitment for the steel industry to go green, “investing up to £3bn, in collaboration with business, over the coming decade”.
• Help fund investment in gigafactories. “Not just subsidy but public equity stakes taken by government to ensures a people’s dividend from the green transition.”
• Require every major business to tell us their carbon footprint and how it is consistent with net zero.

Read Ed Miliband’s full speech here.

Jo Stevens (Shadow Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary)

• A healthy living index to ensure that every government decision improves wellbeing, “just as the Office for Budget Responsibility tracks government spending”.
• Legislation that “forces a proper duty of care on social media companies” and introduces “criminal penalties for senior tech executives who repeatedly breach the new law”.

Read Jo Stevens’ full speech here.

Lucy Powell (Shadow Housing Secretary)

• A new Building Works Agency to assess, fix, fund, certify all tall buildings and pursue those responsible for costs. Legislation to ensure leaseholders won’t pay the costs.
• A “massive increase in council and social homes, fit for all ages”.
• End “the huge net loss in council houses resulting from Right to Buy and its huge discount”.
• End rough sleeping.
• End no-fault evictions.
• Make housing a human right.
• Give local authorities “new powers to buy and develop land for housing, and revitalise town centres, by reforming arcane compensation rules”.
• Set a new definition of affordable linked to local wages.
• Close loopholes “that let developers wriggle out of commitments”.
• Give first time buyers first dibs on new developments.
• End the practise of foreign hedge funds “purchasing swathes of new homes, off plan”.

Read Lucy Powell’s full speech here.

Jim McMahon (Shadow Transport Secretary)

• End transport deserts by offering affordable and reliable services for rural communities.

Read Jim McMahon’s full speech here.

Jonathan Reynolds (Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary)

• Scrap the five-week wait for Universal Credit.
• End the benefit cap.
• End the two-child limit.
• Replace Universal Credit “with a better system”, including a change to the taper rate so “people keep more of the money they earn” and assessments “focused on what people need to succeed rather than one that treats them with suspicion”.

Read Jonathan Reynolds’ full speech here.

John Healey (Shadow Defence Secretary)

• Boost the current £20m government spend on veterans’ mental health by £35m, with a special fund to support mental health care for British veterans and the Afghan personnel now in the UK.
• Give “the highest priority to security in Europe, North Atlantic and Artic, pursuing new defence cooperation with European NATO neighbours”.
• Lead moves in the UN to negotiate new multilateral arms controls and rules of conflict for space, cyber and AI.
• Freeze Tory cuts to the army, then review and reverse the numbers if needed.

Read John Healey’s full speech here.

Rachel Reeves (Shadow Chancellor)

• Look at “every single tax break” and scrap it if “it doesn’t deliver for the taxpayer or for the economy”, including:
  • The tax break benefiting “private equity bosses who strip the assets of British businesses pay a lower rate of tax on their bonuses”.
  • Scrapping the charitable status enjoyed by private schools.
• For next year: freeze business rates, increase the threshold for small business rates relief and increase the Digital Services Tax to 12%.
• Scrap business rates.
• Create a new, independent Office for Value for Money.
• Putting an additional £28bn of capital investment into the UK’s green transition for each and every year of this decade.

Read Rachel Reeves’ full speech here.

Mark Drakeford (Welsh Labour leader and First Minister of Wales)

Read Mark Drakeford’s full speech here.

Steve Reed (Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary)

Read Steve Reed’s full speech here.

Louise Haigh (Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary)

Read Louise Haigh’s full speech here.

Anas Sarwar (Scottish Labour leader)

• An energy transition commission – led by former energy minister Brian Wilson, “to help create a greener, fairer and more prosperous future”.
• Increase winter fuel payments by £70 for the lowest income pensioners.

Read Anas Sarwar’s full speech here.

Kate Green (Shadow Education Secretary)

• Children’s Recovery Plan. (Plan in full here.)
  • Extend the school day for additional activities – breakfast clubs giving children the fuel to learn, art, sport, cooking, coding, book clubs.
  • Invest in training world-class teachers.
  • Give schools the resources to expand small group tutoring.
  • Support the early years sector, schools and colleges with an Education Recovery Premium, with additional learning support including for children with SEND, and engage with families around the SEND review.
  • Prioritise young people’s mental health with access to a professional mental health counsellor for every school.
• End tax breaks for private schools.
• Provide every young person with work experience and careers advice, and ensure every child has digital access.

Read Kate Green’s full speech here.

Wes Streeting (Shadow Child Poverty Secretary)

• A ‘ten by ten’ ambition – “to give every child a great childhood with every child enjoying ten great experiences by the age of ten”. (‘Ten by ten’ in full here.)

Read Wes Streeting’s full speech here.

Jonathan Ashworth (Shadow Health Secretary)

• End zero-hour contracts in social care.
• Pay care workers at least the living wage.
• Double current funding for dementia research.

Read Jonathan Ashworth’s full speech here.

Nick Thomas-Symonds (Shadow Home Secretary)

• Open neighbourhood ‘police hubs’ in every community.
• Launch a major recruitment drive for special constables.
• Create a new Child Exploitation Register for those drawing children into county lines drug gangs.
• Pass new laws to protect women and girls from domestic abuse, harassment, intimidation and violence.

Read Nick Thomas-Symonds’ full speech here.

David Lammy (Shadow Justice Secretary)

• Legislate to bring the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into domestic law.
• Fast-track rape and sexual assault cases in courts.
• Increase minimum sentences for rapists,
• Create a new offence for street harassment.
• Ensure victims of domestic abuse get the legal aid they need.
• Make misogyny a hate crime.
• Enshrine victims’ rights in law.
• Support the introduction of a new national pro bono service, with “binding pro bono targets to support those who can’t afford legal advice and are ineligible for legal aid”.
• Implement the Lammy Review. (Final report here.)
• Introduce targets to bring in more women and more ethnic minorities to the most senior positions in our courts.

Read David Lammy’s full speech here.

Keir Starmer (Labour leader)

Crime:

• Strengthen legal protections for victims of crime.
• Fast-track rape and serious sexual assault cases, and toughen sentences for rapists, stalkers and domestic abusers.

Health:

• Guarantee mental health support will be available in less than a month.
• Recruit staff so there are over 8,500 more mental health professionals supporting a million more people every year.
• Never allow spending on mental health to fall.
• Ensure every school has specialist support and every community has an open access mental health hub.

Education:

• Launch “the most ambitious school improvement plan in a generation”.
• Reinstate two weeks of compulsory work experience and guarantee that every young person gets to see a career’s adviser.

Economy:

• Change the priority duty of directors to make the long-term success of the company the main priority.
• Make Britain a world leader in science and R&D, setting a target to invest a minimum of 3% of GDP.

Climate:

• Bring forward a Green New Deal, including a Climate Investment Pledge “to put us back on track to cut the substantial majority of emissions this decade”.
• Fit out every home that needs it over the next decade, to make sure they are warm, well-insulated and cost less to heat, and create thousands of jobs in the process.
• Introduce a Clean Air Act.
• Meet a “net zero” test for everything Labour does in government “to ensure that the prosperity we enjoy does not come at the cost of the climate”.

Read Keir Starmer’s full speech here.