Labour

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, speaking at the launch of The Labour Party Manifesto 2017 in Bradford, said:

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It’s a pleasure to be in Bradford today to launch Labour’s manifesto, “For the many not the few”.

I’m pleased to be here in Bradford University where that great Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson was the first Chancellor. Harold Wilson had a vision for Britain and created the institutions to match, like the Open University.

Today we set out vision to transform Britain for the 21^st century.

This manifesto is the first draft of a better future for the people of our country. A blueprint of what Britain could be and a pledge of the difference a Labour government can make.

Like thousands of other Labour party members, I’ve been making that case to people across the country over the last few weeks.  As this campaign has continued, for an election called by a Prime Minister with scant regard for her own solemn pledges, opinion has started to move towards Labour.

There is no great secret as to the reason.

People want a country run for the many not the few.

That is because for the last seven years our people have lived through the opposite; a Britain run for the rich, the elite and the vested interest

They have benefitted from tax cuts and bumper salaries while millions have struggled.

Whatever your age or situation, people are under pressure, struggling to make ends meet.

Our manifesto is for you.

Parents worrying about the prospects for their children and anxious about the growing needs of their own elderly parents.

Young people struggling to find a secure job and despairing of ever getting a home of their own.

Children growing up in poverty.

Students leaving college burdened with debt.

Workers who have gone years without a real pay rise coping with stretched family budgets.

Labour’s mission, over the next five years, is to change all that.

Our manifesto spells out how. With a programme that is radical and responsible.

A programme that will reverse our national priorities to put the interests of the many first.

Will change our country while managing within our means.

And will lead us through Brexit while putting the preservation of jobs first.

Let me highlight just a few of our key pledges, and believe it or not, you haven’t read them all already.

We are ruling out rises on VAT and National Insurance and on income tax for all but the richest 5% of high earners.

Labour will boost the wages of 5.7 million people earning less than the living wage to £10 an hour by 2020.

Labour will end the cuts in the National Health Service to deliver safe staffing levels and reduce waiting lists.

Labour will scrap tuition fees, lifting the debt cloud from hundreds of thousands of young people.

Labour will move towards universal childcare expanding free provision for 2, 3 and 4 year olds in the next Parliament.

Labour is guaranteeing the triple lock to protect pensioners’ incomes.

And we will build over a million new homes, at least half for social rent.

Labour makes no apology for offering new protections to people at work, including ending the scandal of zero-hour contracts.

Or for finding the resources to hire 10,000 new police officers and 3,000 new firefighters.

And we will do the smaller things that still make a real difference – like ending hospital car parking charges or introducing four extra bank holidays a year.

But we in Labour recognise that solving these problems requires a thriving economy.  One that gets our economy working again, and rises to the challenges of Brexit for jobs and investment.

For seven years the Conservatives have been holding Britain back.

Low investment, low wages, low growth.

Labour will move Britain forward with ambitious plans to unlock the country’s potential.

Labour will set up a National Investment Bank and regional development banks to finance growth and good jobs in all parts of the UK through major capital projects.

Labour will invest in our young people through a National Education Service focussed on childcare, schools and skills, giving them the capacity to make a productive contribution to tomorrow’s economy.

Labour will take our railways back into public ownership, to put the passenger first.

We will take back control of our country’s water by bringing it into regional public ownership.

And we will take a public stake in the energy sector to help keep fuel prices down and ensure a balanced and green energy policy for the future.

The Tories now want to scare us into accepting more of the same.

Only Labour has a plan ambitious enough to unleash the country’s potential. 

And only Labour has a plan to make Brexit work for ordinary people.  We are clear:  The choice is now a Labour Brexit that puts jobs first, or a Tory Brexit that will be geared to the interests of the City, and will risk making Britain a low-wage tax haven.

As we leave the European Union, because that is what the people have voted for, only Labour will negotiate a deal that preserves jobs and access to the single market, preserves rights and does not plunge our country into a race to the bottom.

All this is costed, as the documents accompanying our manifesto make clear.  Our revenue-raising plans ensure we can embark on this ambitious programme without jeopardising our national finances.

We are asking the better-off and the big corporations to pay a little bit more – and, of course, to stop dodging their tax obligations in the first place.

And in the longer term we look to a faster rate of growth, driven by increased private and public investment, to keep our accounts in shape.

This is a programme of hope.

The Tory campaign, by contrast, is built on one word: Fear

What would another 5 years of Conservative government mean for Britain?

Just look back at the last seven:

More children in poverty.

Fewer young couples able to buy their first home.

More people queuing at food banks.

Fewer police on the beat … fewer firefighters too.

More people are in work but they’re not getting the pay or the hours to make ends meet.

More young people are in debt.

Will the Tories change their spots?  Don’t bank on it.

Their record says they wont.

Theresa May will disagree of course.

So I say to her today:  Prime Minister, come out of hiding and let’s have that debate on television so millions can make up their minds.

What are you afraid of?  It’s not too late

Let’s debate our two manifestos

Have the argument

I am confident that once the British people get the chance to study the issues

Look at the promises

They will decide that Britain has been held back by the Tories.

That the few have prevailed over the many for too long.

And that they will decide it is now time for Labour.

Our country will only work for the many not the few if opportunity is in the hands of the many. So our manifesto is a plan for everyone to have a fair chance to get on in life, because our country will only succeed when everyone succeeds.

Thank you.

View the Labour Party manifesto here>

Download Funding Britain’s Future here>

The Tories are today claiming that they will ‘continue increasing the National Living Wage’. However, hidden in the small print of their press release they let it slip that they are planning to water down the existing National Living Wage.

This change would leave the average full-time worker on the National Living Wage £2,283 worse off by 2020.

Earlier in the Parliament, George Osborne announced that the Tories’ so-called National Living Wage (NLW) was to hit £9 per hour by 2020. To get here the Tories promised that it would reach the level equivalent to “over 60 per cent of median hourly earnings” by 2020.

Today, they’ve broken this promise and changed their commitment to increasing the National Living Wage only “in line with median incomes”.

This means that the National Living Wage will be £8.20 in 2020 as opposed to the promise of £9 per hour under Osborne.

In contrast, Labour is committed to a Real Living Wage of £10 per hour by 2020.

Ian Lavery, Labour’s National Campaign Co-ordinator, commenting, said: 

“Theresa May is taking working people for fools.

“This morning she claimed she was standing up for working people, but hidden in the small print of her announcement is a cut to working people’s incomes.

“The Tories cynical ploy to pull the wool over voter’s eyes won’t work.

“Today’s ridiculous claims are yet more evidence that this election is a choice between a Tory party that fails working people and a Labour Party that will stand up for working people and deliver a better, fairer Britain.”

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Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, speaking at the Royal College of Nursing Annual Conference, said: 

I want to say thank you.

Thank you to the nurses gathered here today.

And thank you to everyone in the nursing profession.

And to all National Health Service staff across Britain.

Our National Health Service, of which we are so proud, would be nothing without you.

Our politicians owe you a duty.

A duty to ensure you can work with dignity.

A duty to ensure you are not held back from providing the best possible standard of service to all your patients.

That is what Labour offers.

And let me make it clear today – Labour is ready to step in and save the NHS from cuts and privatisation.

Every day our General Election team is reminded of the central importance of this.

At our headquarters in London, the walls are decorated with the original poster from the 1940s saying ‘Labour’s health service covers everyone – Tories voted against it.’

Nothing embodies our campaign theme – ‘for the many not the few’ – better than the NHS.

Universal, life-long health care, free at the point of need.

However it is being dismantled by stealth.

Over the past seven years, our NHS has been driven into crisis.

A&E departments are struggling to cope. Waiting lists are soaring and, as we saw last week, Tory cuts have exposed patient services to cyberattacks.

I would like to pay tribute to how all NHS staff have responded to this terrible cyber-attack. The stress you must have faced trying to keep patients safe must have been intense, this was just another example of the extraordinary lengths you go to every day to keep our country healthy.

And we know our NHS is under threat from privatisation, brought in by the Health & Social Care Act. The Tories are forcing through NHS privatisation on a huge scale – £13 billion of taxpayers’ money was handed over last year to private companies to profit from NHS services.

Nye Bevan once said of the NHS:

“It will last only as long as there’s folk with faith left to fight for it.”

Be in no doubt that there are those folk.

I am one of them.

And in hospitals, health centres, and communities all across the land there are thousands of us.

People for whom working for the NHS is a privilege and a pleasure.

Like so many in public service everywhere.

People believe in the founding principles of the NHS.

A service like no other.

Not a service which checks your bank balance before it checks your blood pressure.

A service for the many not the few.

But Britain is not being run for the many, for the majority.

Across our country people are being held back.

If you’re a student nurse without a bursary, doing a second job to make ends meet; you’re being held back.

If you worry about your children because they can’t get together the deposit for a home or afford the rent; then you are being held back.

If you manage a ward and can’t free up beds because of the cuts in social care; the Government is holding you back – stopping you from doing properly the job you were trained to do.

In Britain – the sixth richest country in the world – this cannot be right.

It cannot be right that trained nurses are leaving the profession for other jobs.

It cannot be right that tax giveaways for the rich and big business have been put before funding for the NHS, Social Care and fair treatment of NHS staff.

The RCN has found that nursing shortages have doubled in just four years.

We could have 40,000 fewer nurses than we need by 2026.

Your pay has fallen 14 per cent in real terms since 2010, but you don’t work any fewer hours.

That is the Tories’ record.

I wish there could be a public debate on this record with Teresa May.

Did you hear her on a radio phone in last week?

A doctor from Leeds called Romena told her that she was considering quitting after 12 years of service – because of ‘crippling frontline staff shortages which have worsened as a result of the government’s failure to invest properly in the NHS’.

Romena asked why Jeremy Hunt was reappointed since he’d demoralised the entire workforce.

Theresa May simply dodged the questions.

She doesn’t want to recognise the truth.

Or the real scale of the crisis.

Theresa May isn’t listening and doesn’t care.

She herself called the Tories the nasty party.

And now she’s trying to masquerade as someone who cares about working people.

She’s taking us for fools.

Theresa May and her Tory Government have failed to stand up for the hundreds of thousands of workers not being paid the minimum wage

She has failed to tackle zero hours’ contracts and employment agency malpractices.

She’s done nothing for the thousands of workers who have been unfairly treated but can’t afford to pursue a claim because of tribunal fees – introduced in the first place by the Tories.

They are still the nasty party.

And if they win this election, the people of Britain are in for some nasty surprises.

Imagine what would happen to the NHS if the Conservatives under Theresa May were to have another five years in power.

It would be unrecognisable: a national health service in name, cut back, broken up and plundered by private corporations.

Only Labour will put the NHS back on its feet. To move towards a National Social Care Service to give everyone the care and dignity they deserve and finally make parity of esteem for mental and physical health a reality.

Today we are pledging an extra £7.4 billion a year for the NHS throughout the next Parliament, including £2 billion annually to modernise buildings and IT systems.

This funding settlement will allow Labour to:

·         Guarantee access to treatment within 18 weeks, cutting one million from NHS waiting lists by the end of the Parliament. 

·         Ensure those needing A&E services are seen within four hours, helping another million people each year.

·         Deliver the Cancer Care Strategy for England in full by 2020, helping 2.5 million people living with cancer.

·         Create a new £500m Winter Pressures Fund to protect patients from the problems we saw earlier this year.

This is Labour’s New Deal for NHS Patients.

It will give NHS staff the support they need – and deserve – to give the best possible service to patients.

And we will guarantee that level of service.

We will ensure the standards the Tories have failed to deliver – and to which patients are legally entitled – are met under Labour.

But Labour also recognises that great services depend on retaining staff by rewarding them properly.

You go above and beyond every day, and your ballot result yesterday showed how angry and frustrated your members are after a 14 per cent cut in real pay under the Tories.

Labour will not put you in that position.

We will lift the public sector pay cap.

And hand back decisions on pay to an independent review body.

Labour wants nurses to be paid a decent wage.

And we will fund training. We will restore the bursaries for nurses – the vital funding that the Tories chose to end.

This election will define the future of the NHS as no other.

You can’t trust the Tories with our NHS. It’s too much of a risk to take.

Labour founded the NHS and we will restore it to good health.

This is central to our plan to transform Britain – our plan to create a fairer Britain for the many not the few.

We will set out our policies in full in our manifesto tomorrow.

The scale of our ambition will be clear – it will be inclusive, fair and costed.

We are going to transform Britain, together, for the better.

Only a few weeks remain to take that message to the people of Britain

To show how we will hand power back to you.

So that everyone in this country has a stake in their future

A future, a Britain, for the many, not the few.

John Healey, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, responding to Theresa May’s announcement that the Conservatives will build more affordable homes, said:

“This is political spin, with no substance. There’s no commitment on the number of new affordable homes or on new funding. 

“Under Theresa May and the Tories we’ve seen seven years of failure on housing, with the level of new affordable housebuilding now at a 24-year low. 

“The number of government funded social rented homes being built has fallen to fewer than 1,000 last year from almost 40,000 under Labour in 2009-10.

“Theresa May has been at every cabinet since 2010 and can’t sidestep her share of the blame for the Tory housing crisis. The number of home-owners has fallen by 200,000, homelessness has more than doubled and new affordable housebuilding is at a near-record low. 

“After seven years of failure, the Conservatives have no plan to fix the housing crisis. A Labour government will back first-time buyers and build the homes we need, including 100,000 genuinely affordable homes to rent and buy a year by the end of the next Parliament.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

 ·         Affordable housebuilding has fallen to a 24 year low: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/595369/Live_Table_1000.xlsx 

 ·         The number of government funded social rented homes started each year has fallen from almost 40,000 to fewer than 1,000: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/572767/Live_Table_1012.xlsx 

 ·         Home-ownership has fallen by 200,000 since 2010 after rising by a million under Labour: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/595786/2015-16_Section_1_Households_Annex_Tables.xlsx 

A Labour Government will protect the incomes of twelve million pensioners by legislating to keep the ‘triple lock’, Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, will say today.

Under the Conservatives’ watch 300,000 more pensioners are in poverty, yet the Conservative Party has failed to commit to the ‘triple lock’ on state pensions; a policy which protects pensioners’ standard of living by guaranteeing that their incomes rise to meet the cost of living.

A Labour Government will protect pensioners by legislating to guarantee the triple lock, and committing to keep the Winter Fuel Allowance and free bus passes.  

Meeting pensioners in Norwich on Saturday, Jeremy Corbyn will say:

“The Conservative’s failure to guarantee a decent standard of living for older people, Tory cuts to social care and their failure to protect the NHS are proof that the Tories’ are abandoning older people.

“With more pensioners in poverty under the Conservatives, it is clear that a Labour Government is necessary to provide a secure and dignified retirement for the many who have contributed all their lives.

“Labour will legislate to guarantee the triple lock on state pensions over the next parliament, and we’ll protect the Winter Fuel Allowance and free bus passes.”