Labour Party Conference 2022 Recap: Plans, Pledges & Policy

people seated at a key conference

A LOT is going on in politics, it’s hard to keep up with what matters!

So we will keep this straight to the point, shall we?

In this article you will find a summary of:

  • keynote speeches delivered & by who
  • outline of pledges, plans and promises announced
  • links to further information
  • links to watch the conference

Background
The labour party recently held their Annual Labour Conference in Liverpool between Sunday 25th – Wednesday 28th September 2022 where crucial issues such as Racism, the Economy, Energy Crisis, Housing, NHS and more were debated and addressed in various keynote speeches.

The general elections could happen as soon as next year, so we will see the various political parties state their pledges, plans and promises of action they will take if chosen to form our next government.

Under each keynote speech, we have provided bullet-points of the pledges, promises and plans outlined. Right- let’s recap!

Angela Rayner | the Deputy Leader

During the opening and closing keynote speeches delivered by Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party outlined the vision is to ‘grow a fairer, greener economy’. Angela also stated on the following topics:

Activism

  • Angela will defend the right to strike and vowed to withdraw anti-worker and anti-trade union laws brought forward by the conservative government

Business & Economy

  • Announced ‘Value for Money Guarantee’ which is to pledge the vest value for the public on every penny of taxpayers money
  • Declared the 5 – point National Procurement Plan
    • Reward businesses which pay their taxes, workers and provide space for new jobs, skills and the high street to prosper
    • Provide opportunities for young people in their home towns
    • Advance green growth by partnering with businesses
    • Small enterprises get a fair chance at winning contracts
    • Retract public funds from providers who failed to deliver and reinvest into local ethical enterprises
    • Promised transparency of government contracts with establishing a public dashboard
    • Announced ‘Labour’s fair work standard,’ an initiative for public sectors to guarantee fair conditions, job security, wellbeing, decent training, rights at work and union access and to establish a gold standard to highlight the best employers
    • Pledged new legislation to protect self-employed with the ‘right to written contract and timely payment by law’

Other Key Mentions

  • States they will publish the receipts from the current Conservative government’s spending
  • Restore public trust in the public office; release potential and improve the state of politics
  • Spending public funds towards making Britain perform for the working people by investing in local communities and talent

Anneliese Dodds | Shadow Women’s and Equalities Minister

Focussed on social inequality issues such as LGBTQ, Black and Minority Ethnic rights, Equal pay, Disability and Women’s rights. Anneliese’s speech included:

Across All

  • Work to eliminate gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps
  • Will bring forth family-friendly rights
  • Measurement of activities, evaluate budget and be accountable
  • Standardising the law for all forms of hate crime to be considered as aggravated offences

Women’s Rights

  • Make misogyny a hate crime
  • Establish a minimum sentence for rape and stalking
  • Guarantee specialist rape units in all police force areas

LGBT

  • Modernising the Gender Recognition Act
  • Keeping the Equality Act including its provision for single-sex exemptions
  • Forbidding all forms of conversion therapy

Disability Rights

  • Stopping disability assessments

Racial Inequality

  • Establishing a Race Equality Act
  • Implementing all the Lammy Review recommendations
  • Ensuring the curriculum demonstrates the country’s diverse history and society

Anneliese also addressed the changes within the Labour party tackling inequality issues by introducing:

  • A new code of conduct against Islamophobia, Anti-black racism & Afrophobia
  • A new independent complaints process currently in force and claimed to be the most vigorous complaints process of any political party
  • Mandatory training against bias for staff and recruitment transformation
  • The Stronger Together report, addressing the big challenges our country is facing and Labours plan to address these issues

Ed Miliband | Shadow Climate Change and Net Zero Secretary

  • Pledged by 2030, a labour government will make our country the first to achieve zero carbon power
  • Promised a £60million investment for local authorities to deliver clean sources of electric energy over a decade

Rachel Reeves | Shadow Chancellor

Covering issues such as the Economy & Plans for Public spending, Rachel’s speech included:

Advancing the Economy

  • Announced the ‘Green prosperity plan’ which includes investing in solar, wind, tidal, hydrogen and nuclear power to address the energy crisis
  • Pledged to start a National Wealth Fund, which enables taxpayers to get a return on investment from investing in new industries such as electric battery factories and offshore wind driving
  • Align the minimum wage to reflect the real cost of living
  • Eradicate business rates and replace with a new system which reevaluates discounts immediately, rather than years later
  • Launched Labour’s modern industrial strategy with a mission to buy, make and sell more in Britain

Health & Wellbeing

  • Guaranteed mental health treatment access within a month
  • Pledged to double the number of district nurses qualifying every year
  • Train over 5,000 health visitors
  • Generate an additional 10,000 nursing and midwife placements yearly
  • Plans to do Britain’s largest expansion of medical school places to provide more doctors

Lisa Nandy | Shadow Levelling Up, Housing, Communities & Local Government Secretary

Looking into Housing and & Levelling up:

  • Pledged in the first 1oo days, labour will raise wages for lowest pays and end fire & rehire practices
  • Reinstate social housing to the largest form of tenure
  • Protect renters by making ‘decent home standards’ a legal requirement and introduce a renters charter

Steve Reed | Shadow Justice Secretary

Focussed on issues around Justice, Steve’s speech included:

  • Establishing a Hillsborough law for victims of considerable tragedy to have equal access to support as the authorities that failed them
  • Convicted abusers will sign a domestic violence register
  • Create specialist rape courts to address the current backlog of cases
  • A focus on reform by transforming our criminal system

Yvette Cooper | Shadow Home Secretary

Focussed on the nation’s safety and security, Yvette’s speech included:

  • Make child exploitation for crime illegal
  • Setting a new plan to support young people at risk
  • Announced a £360m programme to establish 13,000 additional police & PCSOs into community teams
  • Strengthen police standards by improving training, vetting and misconduct procedures including compulsory rules and safeguards on strip searching of children
  • Specialist support for victims including domestic abuse experts in 999 control rooms
  • Cancel the Rwanda plan and use the funds for a cross-border police unit to tackle people smuggling gangs

Lucy Powell | Shadow for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary

Focussed on Media, Sport & Digital, Lucy’s speech included:

  • Keeping Channel 4 publicly owned
  • Initiate a statutory, independent football regulator to protect clubs
  • Pledged for every home connected
  • Our country to lead on industrial 5G
  • Produce regulation to ‘open up’ data and empower small business
  • Upskill workforces and citizens to be a tech savvy society
  • Make our nation cyber resilience and secure against rogue states and actors

Jim McMahon | Shadow Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary

Focussed on the environment, Jim’s speech included:

  • Mandatory monitoring of all sewage outlets
  • Empower Environment Agency and provide more resources
  • Introduce a legal-target to end 90% of sewage discharges by 2030
  • Establish automatic fines for discharges
  • Systematic, rule-breaking water bosses will be held professionally and personally accountable, by removing company directors and penalise illegal activity

Keir Starmer | Leader of the Labour Party

Many of the pledges of promises come under the shadow secretary in which Keir Starmer references, however here is what else was covered in his speech:

  • Pledge to establish an office for value for money to ensure public spending aligned with national interest
  • To establish the publicly owned company ‘Great British Energy’ to take advantage of clean British power
  • Sets an aim for 70% home ownership
  • Pledged to ‘make Brexit work’ and control immigration using a points-based system

David Lammy | Shadow Foreign Secretary

David Lammy touched on the Windrush scandal and pledged the following:

  • A Labour government would introduce a ‘Green Dimension’ and push for climate action as the 4th pillar of the United Nations
  • To create international legislation on ecocide to criminalise widespread environmental destruction
  • Pledged Britain will not stock products of modern slavery and stop cotton exports from Xinjiang
  • Pledged no more cuts to International Aid, the British Council or the BBC World Service
  • Legislate a new legal right to consular assistance
  • Re-establish the commitment to spend 0.7% of income on aid

Wes Streeting | Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary

Focussed on Health & Social, Wes’s speech included:

  • Lower waiting times and higher standards for patients
  • Pledged a 10-year plan with NHS to move healthcare from hospitals and into the community
  • Recruit 8,500 mental health workers and provide support to schools and hospitals
  • Improve pay and standards for care workers to enable better care for older and disabled people as an initial step towards national care service
  • Guaranteed GP appointments within 2 days
  • Ability to self-refer to specialist services where appropriate

Rosena Allin-Khan | Shadow Mental Health Secretary

Rosena’s Mental Health focussed speech included:

  • Guaranteed funding for mental health
  • Establish mental health hubs for under 25’s without referral requirement  
  • A focus on prevention and early intervention

Bridget Phillipson | Shadow Education Secretary

Bridget’s speech around education included:

  • Eliminate private school tax breaks and invest the funds into school improvement programme
  • Recruit thousands of teachers
  • Build a modern careers advice and work experience system
  • Breakfast clubs for every primary school child in England
  • Restore higher income tax rate for highest earners
  • Creation of ‘Skills England’ to bring partnership between businesses, unions and training providers to improve the skillset of the country

Where can I catch-up on the conference myself?

The Labour Party uploaded recordings of the live conference to their Youtube Channel, click this link.

Well that’s all folks! We hope you found this blog useful, what’s your thoughts on these politics? Do you have confidence these pledged actions if fulfilled will address the issues in our society?

If you are interested in future actions, staying up-to-date with anti-racism movements, politics and economics, register your interest to be a IN.Society member here for when we launch our membership! 

Thanks for reading!

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