Labour Conference 2022: Party would keep tax cuts for ‘working people’ but not those for top earners

Contents
Overview - Labour politically upbeat but economically alarmed
Growth Plan response – Labour would keep tax cuts for ‘working people’ but not those for top earners
Cost-of-living crisis – Labour offer focuses on funding of energy bill support
Corporate tax – Labour favour investment allowances over low rate
Economic credibility - Labour’s reputation recovering as party seeks to reassure
Property taxes – Labour would ‘scrap’ business rates, but unimpressed by SDLT cut
Tax reform and compliance – Labour promises reforms to make the tax system fairer and tackle corruption  
Employment and training – Labour promises enhanced workers’ rights and reform of apprenticeship levy
Welfare and family support – Labour plan universal credit reform
Other issues: energy, economy, Brexit, trade and green jobs

Labour politically upbeat but economically alarmed

The Labour Party met in Liverpool more united than the party has been since at least 2015. The mood was further boosted by opinion polls showing the party’s lead over the Conservatives growing.

The context for those polls was of course the previous week’s ‘mini-Budget’ statement by the Chancellor and the fallout from it, which included sterling falling to a record low, warnings over rising mortgage rates and unusually critical remarks from the IMF. This prompted party leader Keir Starmer to broaden the message of his keynote from the planned pitch of ‘fairness’ to a broader one based around economic competence. Economic responsibility, rather than policy radicalism, was what the party sought to project, drawing a contrast to the days when the party was led by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell was Shadow Chancellor. 

This caution on policy commitments extended to tax, with the party seeking to avoid hostages to fortune, offering instead broad themes such as fairness, environmentalism and competence. It was a good conference for the Labour Treasury Team – Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Shadow Chief Secretary Pat McFadden, Shadow tax minister James Murray, Shadow City minister Tulip Siddiq and Shadow Exchequer Secretary Abena Oppong-Asare – though this was measured primarily in steadiness and an absence of ‘gaffes’ rather than any eye-catching announcements.

The party sought to project itself as a government in waiting, a prospect taken seriously by the increased numbers of business attendees present (see below). However the flipside of this optimism was that many delegates and shadow ministers appeared genuinely alarmed at the thought of what kind of economy they would inherit (notwithstanding that no-one now expects an election before 2024).

Key conference people: Labour Leader Starmer, Shadow Chancellor Reeves and Deputy Leader Rayner

Labour would keep tax cuts for ‘working people’ but not those for top earners

Shadow ministers tore into the previous week’s mini-Budget, but would keep around half (by value) of the tax cuts announced by the Chancellor. Broadly party leaders sought to draw a distinction between tax cuts for ordinary people and those for big business and the wealthy.

Labour supports the Government’s decision to reverse the national insurance increase from the start of November, and to repeal the Health and Social Care Levy. The party had been calling for both of these actions, and had opposed the legislation introducing the two measures. After a brief period of apparent indecision the party also backed the decision to bring forward to next year the cut in the basic rate of income tax to 19p.

Party leader Sir Keir Starmer explained to the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “I’ve long made the argument that we should reduce the tax burden on working people. That’s why we opposed the National Insurance increase earlier this year, which of course the Government is now reversing.” At a CIOT/Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) fringe debate on tax and the cost-of-living, James Murray, Shadow Financial Secretary, said increasing NICs was misguided because it hit working people and businesses creating jobs.

However the party strongly opposes the scrapping of the 45 per cent additional rate of income tax, and has been explicit that it would reinstate it, spending the money raised from it on more NHS staff and free school breakfast clubs for all primary school pupils in England. Labour published figures showing how, between now and 2026-27, scrapping the 45p rate would cost £6 billion and benefit 600,000 people, each of whom would receive on average £10,000, with £1 billion going to the 2,500 people earning more than £3.5 million a year.

The other mini-Budget tax ‘cut’ Labour opposes is the Chancellor’s decision to keep corporation tax at 19% rather than increasing it to 25% as planned. However Rachel Reeves was less explicit here about whether a future Labour Government would reinstate the planned increase (see below).

The national insurance increase and care levy had been a dividing line between the parties since it was announced last year, with Labour, the SNP and the Lib Dems all against the increase from the start. Labour did not say explicitly how they would fill the gap in health and care funding created by scrapping the increase, but, pressed after the conference in a TV interview, Reeves said that the Chancellor had said the change wouldn’t affect the budget for health and social care: “They’re not reducing the money for health and social care, so there’s not a black hole there to be filled.” Labour’s previous formulation had been that they would target ‘those with the broadest shoulders’ (with capital gains tax implied as at least part of the solution).

Labour’s criticism of the mini-Budget was focused as much on the manner and impact of the announcements as it was on the proposals themselves. Starmer told LBC that “the IMF statement is very serious, and it shows just what a mess the Government has made of the economy. This is self-inflicted by the Government.”

Starmer said that the Government's plan to present a fiscal plan on 23 November was ‘far too long off’. (The Government has, of course, since brought this forward.) In a separate interview with the BBC, the Labour leader remarked that “unlike other situations where it may be a world event [or] an unexpected event that causes this sort of crisis, this is self-inflicted. This was made in Downing Street last Friday. And for what? For uncosted tax breaks for those earning hundreds of thousands of pounds.” In her keynote speech Rachel Reeves characterised the mini-Budget “a tax cut for the wealthiest one percent”.

Cost-of-living offer focuses on funding of energy bill support

The cost of living crisis continues to be the dominant domestic political issue of this year. Labour draws contrasts with the Conservatives over both the amount of help it would provide and how it would be paid for, including through an expanded windfall tax.

The biggest measure introduced by the new Government for the current fiscal year is its Energy Price Guarantee, announced on 8 September. Responding in the House of Commons Keir Starmer said he was pleased “that the principle of a price limit has been accepted, but under our plan there [would] be not a penny more on bills; under this plan, there will be a price rise.” Labour’s plan to freeze bills at pre-October levels was not especially highlighted at the conference, having been rendered somewhat out of date by passage of time. (There is no suggestion the party would cut energy bills back to pre-October levels.)

Labour’s focus now is on how the price guarantee will be paid for. Labour would like it to be largely paid for by an expanded windfall tax on oil and gas companies. At the CIOT/ IFS debate, James Murray said it was inexcusable for the Government to not look at extending the windfall tax. In her conference speech Rachel Reeves contrasted Labour’s proposal to the Government’s plan to “leave your children and your grandchildren to pick up the tab” (i.e. to pay for it through borrowing).

Starmer said in the House of Commons that the Treasury “estimates that energy producers could make £170 billion in unexpected windfall profits over the next two years.” Labour was quizzed about this by the BBC during the conference, and pointed to a Bloomberg article from August, which said the £170 billion came from an unpublished estimate made by the Treasury of how much the UK's energy producers could make over the next two years. But the Treasury has said it does not recognise Bloomberg's analysis. The latest figures from the North Sea Transition Authority show companies made around £21 billion in profits from extracting oil and gas in the North Sea in 2021 – but that was before the energy shock caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The BBC Fact-Check team concludes ‘there's considerable uncertainty over whether you could get to £170 billion over the next two years - even if you factor in excess profits - especially given the volatility of gas prices’.

In addition to supporting the reversal of the national insurance increase, and the bringing forward of the income tax basic rate cut (see above), Labour wants a higher minimum wage. Reeves told the conference that on day one of her Chancellorship, she would write to the Low Pay Commission, with a simple instruction: “that the minimum wage will be set at a level that reflects the real cost of living”. She was not clear how this would be determined. A Labour policy paper published during the conference (of which more later in this report) said it should be ‘at least £10 an hour’.

The TUC is clearer about what it wants to see. The union body is calling on ministers to raise the minimum wage to at least £10 an hour immediately. And it is asking the Government to work with unions and employers on sector-wide fair pay agreements to improve living standards. Unite the union claims British workers are at ‘breaking point’, with anger over the cost-of-living crisis reaching a level not seen since the poll tax riots of the 1990s.

At a Federation of Small Business (FSB) fringe event, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the cost-of-living crisis has been caused by years of low economic growth under the Conservatives and that tax cuts will not change this pattern. She said we need to build our economy ‘from the bottom up and the middle out’, in contrast to what she called the Conservatives’ ‘trickle down’ strategy. Asked by the CIOT at an IPPR event how the tax system can help alleviate the cost-of-living crisis, Seema Malhotra, Shadow Business Minister, suggested business rates reform was part of the answer (see below).

At the CIOT/IFS event, Paul Johnson, Director of the IFS, expressed concern about the lack of an exit strategy from caps on household energy bills. Johnson also pointed out that tax can only do so much for the cost-of-living problem because so many people earn below the income tax threshold.

At an IPPR event, George Dibb, head of the think tank’s Centre for Economic Justice, said tax reform can help shoulder some of the burden of cost-of-living crisis, suggesting upping capital gains tax could target people who are making money. Where reductions in tax are judged to be necessary, they should be narrowly targeted to avoid them being overly costly, supporting unproductive (or rentier) firms, and reduce 'dead-weight' costs where public funds support expense that would have happened anyway, he added.

Corporate tax – Labour favour investment allowances over low rate

Labour made clear that ditching the corporation tax increase would not have been its policy, had it been in government, but the party has not made the same commitment to reverse it that it has with abolition of the 45p rate.

In her keynote speech to the conference Rachel Reeves told delegates: “when I talk to businesses, they don’t tell me that their priority is corporation tax”, going on to say “they tell me about the need for properly targeted investment allowances, the need for workers equipped with the right skills, the need for certainty and a sense of direction from government, and yes – the need for a sensible working relationship with our European neighbours.” Keir Starmer put it similarly: “Business leaders aren’t knocking on my door saying they want to rip up employee rights. They don’t tell me the problems they face will be solved by corporation tax cuts. They want fair taxes, high skills and the long-term confidence to invest.” At the CIOT/IFS debate James Murray said the Government should look at incentivising investment from businesses rather than focusing on corporation tax so much.

Justifying Labour’s position, in his platform speech Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said George Osborne’s cuts to corporation tax had not increased business investment. Reynolds expanded upon this at a fringe meeting, saying that other countries have higher corporation tax than the UK and attract more investment. “For us, we don’t accept the Government’s position in terms of what they have said around what was in that mini-Budget,” he explained. “We don’t accept the Government’s case that the headline rate of corporation tax alone is the key driver of business investment because it hasn’t been and won’t.” More evocatively, Shadow Levelling Up Secretary Lisa Nandy accused the Conservatives of: “Slashing taxes for big corporations so the rest of us can grind for a living in an Amazon warehouse.”

Reeves told the FSB fringe meeting that the party will move forward on tax reform with three key pillars determining their approach: tax fairness, tax efficiency, and shifting the burden of business tax. She reiterated that Labour would look to investment allowances and to improve the Apprenticeship Levy which she said is a ‘nightmare’ for business now. The UK has an ‘overcomplicated’ tax system, she lamented. (NB. The party proposes to turn the Apprenticeship Levy into a Growth and Skills Levy (see below).)

Not much was said at the conference about the Government’s plans for investment zones, but Reeves had dismissed them in her response to the Chancellor’s statement the week before, calling them ‘nothing new’. She continued: “Every time that they have been tried, all that they have done is move growth around the country; they have not created it. The best way out of the high-tax, low-growth spiral that the Conservatives have created is to get the economy firing on all cylinders in all parts of the country.” This will be a tricky area for Labour to make capital out of as Labour mayors and councils are likely to want to gain the benefits of the zones for their areas.

Labour used the conference fringe to reiterate its view that the Government must back the global minimum rate of corporation tax or risk undermining a global deal to tackle tax avoidance. Rachel Reeves believes this ‘global pact’ will bring in billions of pounds in extra tax benefitting Britain, while stopping huge multinationals and online giants from undercutting our businesses. Labour’s enthusiasm contrasts with a perception that PM Liz Truss and her government are cool on the idea.

At last year’s conference Labour announced a proposal to raise the Digital Services Tax from 2 to 12 per cent to fund a support scheme for struggling businesses. James Murray referred to this proposal at a fringe meeting, suggesting it remains policy.

At a Finance and Leasing Association roundtable on reform of the capital allowances regime, representatives from the leasing sector, tax specialists and the wider business sector explored how the tax regime favours some forms of financing over others and, in particular, the case for reforming the CA regime to allow businesses to benefit from expenditure on leased or rented assets.

In other business tax news:

• At an SME4Labour fringe event a parliamentary candidate floated the idea of offering a ‘discount’ on corporation tax to companies that pay the living wage.
• Also on the fringe, former MP Kitty Ussher, now of the Institute of Directors, said that businesses leaders pay attention to corporate tax rates and a party which promises higher corporate taxes at an election will struggle to get a hearing on other policies.
• There was not much talk about an online sales tax this year, perhaps in recognition that this would add to the cost of living.

More than its corporation tax plans, Labour is keener to talk about its proposals for reform of business rates (see below), and for expanding the windfall tax (see above).

Labour’s economic reputation recovering as party seeks to reassure

Hopeful Labour figures see this as the week when the mantle of economic trust may have shifted to the party, partly because of its successful projection of a message of economic reassurance but mostly because of the fallout from the Government’s mini-Budget.

In her keynote speech to the conference Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves characterised the Chancellor and the Prime Minister as “two desperate gamblers in a casino, chasing a losing run… They’ve lost credibility they’re losing confidence, they’re out of control.” She accused the Government of breaking its own fiscal rules for the tenth time in 12 years. By contrast, she promised: “Labour will not waver in our commitment to fiscal responsibility. That is why I set out the fiscal rules for the next Labour government a year ago. Every policy that Labour announces – and every line in our manifesto – will be carefully costed and fully funded.”

Labour is also proposing to rule out borrowing to fund any day-to-day spending, unless the Office for Budget Responsibility declares the UK is in a “crisis”.

Recent opinion polls show some success for Labour in overcoming the lasting damage inflicted by the 2007-8 crash – and perhaps also the perceived recklessness of the Corbyn-McDonnell years – on its economic reputation. A pollster from Opinium told a fringe meeting on the first day of the conference that in the last poll before Starmer took over as Labour leader in 2020, the party trailed the Conservatives by 39% when voters were asked which party was best placed to run the economy; in the most recent poll, Labour has a 6% lead. However, he added, the Conservatives still led on the question about who is best placed to make voters and the country wealthier.

A survey by Ipsos conducted during the conference found 40 per cent trusted Labour ‘a great deal’ or a ‘fair amount’ on the economy overall. This compared with 33 per cent who said they trusted the Conservatives. The poll found 38 per cent trusted Labour on taxes and public spending, compared with 32 per cent for the Government.

How much does this matter? Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Pat McFadden is in no doubt it is crucial. Before voters even look at our party’s policies two tests need to be satisfied, he opined: Can they trust with you with the nation’s finances? And can they trust you with defence of the realm? McFadden said that, in the mini-Budget, Kwasi Kwarteng “took all those lectures the Tories have given Labour about debt and deficit and he torched them.” But Labour still need to earn public trust, he added.

There are signs that business is taking Labour more seriously than it has for some years. The Labour conference this year had its highest business attendance since 2010, the year the party lost power. In Liverpool there were 600 attendees at one business reception on Tuesday night alone. Labour said it raised over £200,000 from corporate sponsorship arrangements at conference, reports the Financial Times. Throughout the conference, roundtables were held with industry leaders on topics ranging from the future of health technology to boosting exports to supporting scientific innovation.

Property taxes – Labour would ‘scrap’ business rates, but unimpressed by SDLT cut

Labour do not support the cut to stamp duty land tax (SDLT), believing the change offers poor value-for-money. However they are keen to trumpet their plans to ‘abolish’ business rates.

At an IPPR / Bright Blue fringe event at the conference, Shadow Housing Secretary Lisa Nandy, criticised the Government’s changes to SDLT, saying the supply of homes should be the priority instead. Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves did not mention the change in her conference speech but had criticised it in her response to the Chancellor’s statement in the Commons, saying changes like this had been tried before: “The last time the Government did it, a third of the people who benefited were buying a second or third home, or a buy-to-let property. Is that really the best use of taxpayers’ money, when borrowing and debt are already so high?” “Instead of letting stamp duty go up and down like a yo-yo, we need to get building,” she continued. “We need to target support at first-time buyers and tackle the issue of homes being sold to overseas investors.”

While not much was said about SDLT, debates over business rates were prominent during conference, driven by sectors which feel particularly hard done by such as retail and hospitality, and Labour MPs who support them. In her conference speech, Reeves described the ‘unfair, outdated system of business rates’ as ‘the biggest tax problem facing British businesses’, arguing it ‘punishes high street businesses to the advantage of online giants’. She told delegates that Labour will abolish business rates and replace them with a ‘fairer system’ which means that businesses would get revaluation discounts straight away, rather than waiting years for their money back.

Scrapping business rates and replacing them with ‘a system that will incentivise investment and level the playing field between high street businesses and global giants’ is a key part of Labour’s ‘Plan for Economic Growth’. Labour have said they would ‘review the option of a land value tax on commercial landlords’ as an alternative to business rates. This seems likely to be where the party ends up. It would not be surprising if it ended up looking similar to the Lib Dem policy of a Commercial Landowner Levy.

A land value tax (LVT) – even one restricted to commercial landlords – would be a rare victory for activists on (largely) the left of the party, were it to be adopted by Labour. A packed room at a Labour Land Campaign fringe event showed the continuing popularity of such a tax among activists. In its ‘full fat’ form it would see the value of every piece of land in this country assessed, and a tax fixed on the basis of that value. This would not mean any more overall taxation, because the introduction of LVT would permit other taxes to be reduced or, in some cases, abolished altogether, say its advocates. The Mayor of North of Tyne Jamie Driscoll was a speaker at the event. He said the idea of funding new transport infrastructure by capturing land value uplift resulting from the investment has finally been put into practice on a project to reinstate passenger rail services over a freight-only line in Northumberland. Katy Clark MSP said the Scottish Government has the devolved power to do something about land ownership and LVT but is unwilling to take on ‘vested’ interests.

More broadly on housing, Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Lisa Nandy, said a Labour government would rebuild the social housing stock and bring homes back into the ownership of local councils and communities. For private renters she promised “a powerful new renters charter and a new decent homes standard – written into law.”

Labour promises reforms to make the tax system fairer and tackle corruption  

Keir Starmer confirmed during the conference that Labour is looking at how different forms of income are taxed, but he rejected suggestions that he wanted to impose a wealth tax. Labour proposes to scrap ‘non dom’ status and says it would make tackling ‘dirty money’ a priority.

Keir Starmer was asked in a radio interview during the conference whether he would implement a wealth tax. He replied: “We are looking at how we tax fairly. On wealth, I am looking at whether and how we tax all different forms of income. Some people obviously earn their income through a wage, other people earn it through stocks and shares and dividends and we are looking at what is a fair way to tax all income wherever it comes from.” Told that it sounded like a ‘wealth tax’, Sir Keir said: “No, it is not really a wealth tax. It is looking at different forms of income, it is stocks and shares and dividends.”

The Mayor of North of Tyne Jamie Driscoll expressed a wish for some kind of wealth tax at a fringe event, but acknowledged that it was unlikely to make it into Labour’s manifesto because it risked scaring some of the electorate. This follows expressions of support for wealth taxes among some Labour backbenchers.

Labour announced back in April that it would replace ‘non-dom’ taxpayer status (which allows UK residents whose permanent home (domicile) is abroad not to pay UK tax on overseas income) with a shorter-term scheme for temporary residents. At a CAGE Research Centre fringe event at the conference, Shadow Financial Secretary James Murray made the case for this policy, saying non-dom status is an ‘egregious’ example of tax system unfairness. He said the current regime discourages growth because it puts non-doms off bringing their money to the UK. But he did not provide any detail on what Labour’s proposal will be, saying it is under review. He would say only that it would be a ‘modern system’ motivated by ‘fairness’.

At the same event Nimesh Shah, CEO of Blick Rothenberg, suggested that facets of the nom-dom regime are ‘fine’ given their longevity, but it is a disincentive for such people to bring their money into the country. Rushanara Ali MP, who sits on the Treasury Committee, said the non-doms regime unfairly benefits those wealthy enough to hire good accountants or tax advisers. We need more transparency in tax, in general, she said, adding that the tax regime must be simplified to, in part, help people who wish to invest in the UK to navigate the tax system. CAGE’s Arun Advani said the current non-dom regime is broken, unfair, expensive and inefficient.

The party also proposes changes to the treatment of private equity bonuses, paid as carried interest. But there was no new light shed on this at the conference.

Two fringe meetings at the conference looked at how ‘dirty money’ could be combated. At one supported by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Corruption and Responsible Tax Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy emphasised that concern about dirty money is not just about Russian despots. Global wealth washing through London with inappropriate taxation and inappropriate scrutiny is a longstanding problem and Labour in government will sort it out, he said. He went on to say we urgently need reform of Companies House because it is far too easy to set up a dummy company. He saw this issue as part of standing up for democratic values and the global rule of law.

At the same event the APPG’s chair, Dame Margaret Hodge, said that if Britain retains a reputation for dirty money it will chase away clean money. Her fellow MP Chris Bryant took aim at Companies House and criticised the UK’s failure to put a ‘proper register of beneficial ownership’ in place yet. We need them in overseas dependencies too, he added. Rachel Davies, who leads Transparency International’s advocacy team, said the Economic Crime Bill was a step forward, but in general not enough is being done to enforce laws. Panellists pointed a finger particularly at those in law, banking and accountancy whose lax practices enable corruption. They called for a more rigorous anti-money laundering regime.

The other event on this topic was staged by the Co-Operative Party and saw similar calls for action. Additionally James Murray spoke more broadly about tax reform. He said that Labour is currently doing work on tax reliefs. He said they need to be fair, they need to be value for money, and they need to contribute to economic growth. Asked about abolishing the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS), Murray wondered somewhat incredulously whether the Government thought the OTS’s job was complete. Asked about reform of employment taxes he used the now well-established Labour formula that they want ‘those with the broadest shoulders’ to pay higher taxes, rather than ordinary working people. He said the system should be ‘fairer across the board’. At a separate event Murray praised Social Investment Tax Relief, calling it a key part of Labour’s economic policy.

Labour promises enhanced workers’ rights and reform of apprenticeship levy

Labour made a number of employment announcements at the conference, including a plan to turn the apprenticeship levy into a ‘Growth and Skills Levy’ and a package of employment rights reforms it dubs a ‘New Deal for Working People’.

In his platform speech, Keir Starmer promised to “give employers new flexibility to invest in the world class training they need”. He didn’t elaborate in the speech but information released to the media indicated he was referring to a plan to turn the apprenticeship levy into a ‘Growth and Skills Levy’. Under this reform firms would be able to spend up to 50 per cent of their levy contributions, including current underspend, on non-apprenticeship training – including modular courses and functional skills courses to tackle key skills gaps. By reserving 50 per cent of the Growth and Skills Levy for apprenticeships, Labour aim to protect existing apprenticeship provision. Full details of the policy are set to be published in a report produced by Labour’s Council for Skills Advisers – led by former education secretary Lord Blunkett – in the near future.

On the first day of the conference Labour published a report, ‘Stronger Together: A Fairer, Greener Future’, which is a mix of, in some areas, policy proposals, and in others identification of priorities and statements of intent. The paper is a product of the policy review being carried out by former Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds. While the proposals range from reform of social care to tacking violence against women and girls, some of the most substantial are in the area of employment rights.

Under Labour’s New Deal for Working People, the party plans to make a series of key entitlements available to all workers from their first day of employment. This includes access to sick pay for everyone including the self-employed, a right to request flexible working from day one of employment and protection from dismissal. Labour plans to extend employer requirements on pay gap reporting. At present, employers in the private or voluntary sectors with 250 or more employees are required to publish data on their gender pay gap annually. Labour plans to extend this to outsourced workers and introduce reports on ethnicity and disability pay gaps. The plan also sets out an ambition to tackle ageism and harassment at work, and to ensure rights are enforced and upheld.

Other Labour plans include to better align skills policy with regional economic policy and local labour markets by devolving combining and various adult education skills funding streams to current and future combined authorities. They would establish a new expert body, Skills England, to oversee the national effort to meet the skills needs of the coming decade across all regions and ensure the party can deliver its Climate Investment Pledge.

Deputy Leader Angela Rayner revealed the party’s Fair Work Standard for the public sector, which will guarantee fair conditions, job security, well-being, proper training, rights at work, and union access. “We will also create a Fair Work gold standard to champion the very best of employers,” she said. Under the policy, self-employed workers would also be given the legal right to a written contract and timely payment.

Lisa Nandy said that within the first 100 days of a Labour government the party would end fire and rehire, repeal the 2016 ‘anti-trade union Act’ and raise wages for the lowest paid. She promised ‘a great rebalancing of power’, with wealth, security and opportunity spread across the whole country.

Labour is not bound by policy passed at its annual conference – even if motions are passed unanimously. It is Labour’s national policy forum (NPF) and ‘Clause V’ meeting before an election that decides which parts of the party programme are included in the manifesto. But it is worth noting that on the conference floor, the ‘Workers’ Pay’ composite motion was backed by delegates. The motion, submitted by UNISON, calls on Labour to commit to pay rises ‘at least in line with inflation’, the introduction of a £15 per hour minimum wage and reform of the welfare system to ‘protect dignity and provide adequate income’. Delegates at last year’s conference also voted for a motion urging the party to raise the minimum wage to £15 per hour, but Labour has not adopted it as policy. The party committed in August to reform the national minimum wage to ensure that it is in line with living costs and to axe lower pay brackets for younger workers, but it has not offered an opinion on what level the wage should be set at.

Trade union Usdaw successfully moved a motion at the conference to tackle the issues workers face with the introduction of new technology and automation of workplaces. It calls on Labour to support the following changes to ensure that workers are supported at the heart of technology changes at work: employers required to consult, including Equality Impact Assessments; significant and long-term investment in skills funding; an independent National Skills Taskforce; fundamental overhaul of the Apprenticeship Levy; legal right to paid time off for retraining; collective rights strengthened and trade union recognition thresholds reduced; and strengthening protection against redundancy.

At a fringe meeting organised by SME4Labour, Kate Dearden, of the trade union ‘Community’, called for a ‘New Deal for the self-employed’, including: sick pay and paid parental leave for the self-employed; changes to Universal Credit and the pensions system so they work for the self-employed; a new Commissioner for the self-employed in government; and the redrawing of the definition of self-employment to be more inclusive. At the same event Christian Wakeford MP said the Government should focus on helping people start a business, saying that a lack of security of pay and welfare provision is the biggest problem that self-employed people face. Wakeford said Labour needs to have an ‘uncomfortable conversation’ about how much that will cost.

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said in his platform speech that policies such as fair pay agreements would be to the next Labour government what the national minimum wage was to the last one. He said: “And conference, I pledge to you now, there will never, ever be a scandal like P&O Ferries, under a Labour government. Good work, good wages. A fairer, greener future. That is what we can deliver.”

Labour plan universal credit reform

Labour propose to replace universal credit with a more generous system. The also promise they would deliver greater access to affordable childcare.

In his keynote speech, Jonathan Ashworth, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, said Labour would “reform, overhaul and replace the Tory Universal Credit system. We’ll treat people with dignity, not burden them with impossible debts, support children not punish them and we’ll reinstate a principle Labour has championed since the days of Barbara Castle but ditched by the Tories, the financial independence of women should be protected in our social security system too.”

Labour proposes to overhaul the universal credit system by allowing low-income workers to earn more without seeing their welfare payments cut, in a move potentially costing billions of pounds annually. Labour would like to improve what they say is the unfairness of the reduction in the universal credit taper rate (but will not say by how much). This year’s conference again highlighted that Labour believes cutting the taper rate is vital in tackling in-work poverty and the growing cost-of-living crisis faced by low-income families as benefits are reduced and food and energy costs rise.

Labour plans to reform the social security system with a focus on dignity, and to develop employment support services with local government, NHS trusts and the third sector (that is, charities and voluntary groups). Ashworth has stated that the Labour Party is willing to work with the government on auto-enrolment reforms if they are introduced in the next session of parliament but warned the party would vote against proposed changes to the charge cap without a ‘strong evidence base for change’.

The ‘Stronger Together’ policy report promises to extend statutory maternity leave and ‘make sure that families are able to take advantage of it’. Labour also promises to review the Shared Parental Leave system, with reforms to incentivise sharing of leave and tackle maternity and pregnancy discrimination. The party has not said how long statutory maternity and paternity leave would be extended by.

The paper also asserts that all families should have access to high quality, affordable childcare available within walking distance of their home, though it is short on how this would be delivered, beyond a central role for schools. The promise of free school breakfast clubs for all primary school pupils in England, at a cost of £365 million, was described by Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, as ‘first step on the road to a modern childcare system’. Funding for this would come from reinstatement of the 45p rate of income tax for the highest earners.

A think tank close to Labour, the New Economics Foundation (NEF), has recommended auto-enrolling everyone in the UK onto the universal credit system so that new payments start to be processed automatically as soon as anyone becomes eligible. NEF said this would mark a first step towards a Living Income for the UK, a new social security system that would guarantee everyone the minimum income they need to meet the challenges and opportunities of a fast-changing economy. NEF is in favour of a Weekly National Allowance that would replace the personal allowance of income tax with a weekly payment of £47.30 to all but the highest earners. It claims this would effectively reinvest billions spent on a regressive system of personal tax allowances into a redistributive approach to ensuring that everyone has a basic level of income.

Other issues: energy, economy, Brexit, trade and green jobs

Policy announcements at the conference included a new publicly owned energy company, a national wealth fund to invest in green infrastructure and a National Economic Council.

Keir Starmer used his leader’s speech to announce that Labour would launch Great British Energy, a publicly owned energy company run on clean UK power, in its first year in government. He said Great British Energy would be ‘a new company that takes advantage of the opportunities in clean British power and because it’s right for jobs, because it’s right for growth, because it’s right for energy independence from tyrants like [Vladimir] Putin’. Labour said the new company, akin to EDF in France or Sweden’s Vattenfall, would provide additional capacity, alongside the private sector, but that its goal would be to establish the UK as a clean energy superpower and guarantee long-term energy security.

Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves set out plans for new green infrastructure including ‘clean’ steel plants, battery factories and ‘renewable ready’ ports funded through a ‘national wealth fund’ amounting to £8 billion. Creating the wealth fund means that the state would retain a share in the renewable assets in which it invests. The party hopes that the initial capital provided by the Government for these projects will attract further private investment. Labour has stressed that the plans will benefit every region of the country. A total of £2 billion will, for example, be spent on eight new ‘gigafactories’ in the West Midlands, the North East, the North, West and the South West. According to the party’s plan, £3 billion will be spent on six new clean steel plants Cardiff, Rotherham, Sheffield, Port Talbot and Scunthorpe. £1 billion, to set up net-zero industrial clusters, will benefit Grangemouth and South Wales, as well as the Humber, Teesside, Merseyside, Southampton and the Peak District.

In her keynote speech, Reeves said the challenges of global instability, of pandemics, wars and climate crisis, demand that government works in partnership with business. Reeves said, if she were Chancellor now, she would bring together a ‘National Economic Council’ including industry and trade unions, so working people and businesses were at the heart of economic decision-making.

The unfinished business of Brexit continues to loom over UK politics but was only vaguely touched on at Labour conference. Ahead of the conference, Labour largely avoided debate about Brexit. In a speech earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK would ‘not go back into the EU’ under a Labour government and vowed to ‘make Brexit work’. Labour cannot win the next general election by pointing out the negatives of Brexit, the party's Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Kyle said during the conference. Kyle added: “we're not going to be rejoining the single market. But we do want to see how opportunities can be granted to those who have had them taken away”.

A couple of months ago, Keir Starmer set out Labour’s five-point plan to ‘Make Brexit Work’ and Rachel Reeves touched on these in her speech. The plan states that:

• Sorting out the Northern Ireland Protocol must be the starting point to make Brexit work,
• Unnecessary trade barriers should be torn done (although Labour does not support the return of freedom of movement),
• Labour would seek mutual recognition of professional qualifications,
• Labour would seek a new security pact with the EU to defend our borders, by allowing us to share data, intelligence and best practice,
• Labour would use green investment and a commitment to buy, make and sell in Britain to ensure we are best placed to compete on a global stage.

At a Policy Exchange fringe event on trade, Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade Nick Thomas-Symonds said Labour is a pro-trade party. Symonds attacked the Government’s ‘megaphone diplomacy’, contrasting it to Labour’s ‘pragmatic, constructive approach’, making progress painstakingly inch by inch which is how trade discussions work. This is how to sort out the NI Protocol, he said. Speaking at the same event Sally Jones of EY identified three particular things that need doing on trade: (1) export promotion needs to focus on key industries (including green tech), (2) we need to look at what overseas posts are doing to support trade, and (3) we need to look again at gov.uk which is ‘hopeless’.

In other news:

• Delegates passed a UNISON motion which calls on Labour to commit to ‘proper long-term funding’ for local government services and ensuring local government workers receive a pay rise each year at least in line with RPI
• Delegates passed a motion calling on the party to make a commitment to introduce a proportional representation electoral system for general elections
• At an IPPR event KPMG’s UK Head of Energy and Natural Resources at KPMG Simon Virley said carbon pricing is a good place to go for the UK to transition to green energy
  
  

By Hamant Verma, CIOT Senior External Relations Officer, with additional reporting by George Crozier, CIOT External Relations Manager