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What has Labour done in the first 100 days?
(432 Posts)A round-up - curtesy of the Guardian.
Economy
One of Rachel Reeves’s first actions as chancellor was to stand in front of the Commons and accuse the previous government of leaving a £22bn hole in this year’s public accounts. Every year, government spending diverges slightly from what was budgeted, but this was an unusually large amount, driven both by the higher-than-expected costs of housing asylum seekers and public sector pay deals.
Reeves’s solution to this was to put an immediate halt to various projects, including the road tunnel under Stonehenge and the A27 Arundel bypass. Boris Johnson’s promise to build 40 new hospitals has also been placed under review, with the prime minister, Keir Starmer, accusing his predecessor of making the promise without allocating the money.
Energy
When Michael Gove was asked at Tory conference to name the most effective Labour cabinet ministers so far, one of those he listed was Ed Miliband. The energy secretary has returned to a post he last held 14 years ago with a flurry of activity.
On 8 July, the first Monday after winning the election, Miliband announced he was removing the previous government’s de facto ban on onshore wind power. A day later, Reeves, unveiled the national wealth fund, a £7.3bn scheme designed to invest in green infrastructure such as clean steel and carbon capture.
Later that month, Miliband brought forward a bill to set up Great British Energy, a nationally owned energy production company that the government has put at the heart of its net zero strategy. The bill gives the company power to produce and distribute clean energy and spend money on energy efficiency schemes.
Keir Starmer announced in his Labour conference speech that GBE would be based in Aberdeen.
Transport
The first bill to pass the Commons under the Labour government was the rail nationalisation bill. The bill automatically brings rail networks back under public control once their existing franchise contract is over, or earlier if they breach their contracts.
The transport secretary, Louise Haigh, has also passed a bill to set up a new company called Great British Railways to manage both the track and the trains service. Some have questioned, however, why the rolling stock is not also being brought under national control.
Last month, Haigh reversed another piece of privatisation in the transport sector, allowing local authorities across England to run their own bus services once more. The transport secretary has also said she wants to make it simpler and easier for local leaders to conduct the franchising process.
Education
Labour has promised that it will introduce free breakfast clubs in every primary school in England, but it is starting slowly. Reeves announced at the Labour conference that 750 English schools would be invited to be part of a pilot programme.
Housing
Labour has promised to liberalise the planning regime and began soon after taking over government, not only overturning the restrictions on onshore wind power but also reimposing population-based housing targets on local authorities.
The Conservatives had given local planners a series of loopholes to avoid meeting those targets, in a move that housebuilders said had hampered new development, pushing housing approvals to a 10-year low.
Other reforms are planned, including making it easier for public bodies to issue compulsory purchasing orders and making it easier to build on green belt land.
Meanwhile, Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, has introduced a package of renters’ reforms, which passed their second reading in parliament this week, despite the objections of the Conservatives. That package picks up on some of the ambitions originally championed by Gove when he was housing secretary, including bringing an immediate end to no-fault evictions and forcing landlords to make timely repairs to properties.
Campaigners, however, are unhappy that the Labour government has so far not enacted another package of protections for leaseholders, whom they worry are slipping down the government’s agenda. The government has promised to bring in a bill to restrict leasehold and boost the rights of tenants, but has so far not even enacted the measures passed through parliament under the last government.
Employment
Starmer promised that his government would bring forward a package of workers’ rights in his first 100 days, a deadline which was just about met when Angela Rayner, his deputy, published the employment rights bill on Thursday.
Her reforms include giving workers protection from unfair dismissal and paternity leave rights from the first day of their employment, rather than having to wait two years. The bill also bans employers from forcing workers to sign zero-hours contracts and stops them firing staff only to hire them back on lower pay, unless the company is threatened with bankruptcy.
While the bill was published in the first 100 days it will take another two years for it to come into force. Officials and ministers will spend that time consulting businesses and trade unions about the exact measures involved and how to police them.
Some of the pre-election promises have not made it into the bill. There will be no statutory right for workers to switch off outside their working hours, and the government will now consult on having a single status of worker. Unions have long campaigned for a single worker status to replace the distinction between those who are employed and self-employed, in part to tackle exploitation in the gig economy.
Immigration
As promised, Labour has ended the previous government’s Rwanda scheme, which had not sent a single asylum seeker to Rwanda but was already costing the government money. Scrapping it saved more than £2bn over two years.
In its place, Starmer and his home secretary, Yvette Cooper, have introduced a border security command to focus on people-smuggling gangs. However, the prime minister is still trying to sign returns agreements with European countries, agreements that might mean Britain having to accept migrants in return.
Since the election, nearly 12,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats, slightly fewer than in the same period last year.
Justice
A week after the election, the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, announced an early release scheme that would see some offenders who had committed less serious crimes leave prison after serving 40% of their sentence. Mahmood blamed the prisons crisis she inherited from the previous government, which had left jails in England and Wales almost entirely full.
The early release scheme was controversial, but its purpose was underlined later in the summer as riots engulfed parts of the country. Speaking to journalists from the Downing Street garden after the riots had subsided, the prime minister described the decisions he had had to make while they were unfolding.
“I shouldn’t be sitting in the Cobra room with a list of prison places across the country on a day-by-day basis, trying to work out how we deal with disorder,” he said. “But that’s the position I was put in.”
Health
If Starmer is to show progress in one public service by the time he goes into the next election, it will have to be the NHS. His health secretary, Wes Streeting, commissioned Ara Darzi, a former Labour minister, to outline the scale of the challenge. Lord Darzi’s report, which was published last month, found that long delays for hospital, GP and mental health services were leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths.
Darzi suggested a range of changes, including focusing more on prevention and making companies pay “health levies” for things such as alcohol and tobacco.
I’m so pleased that carers are getting a better deal. Stopping sanctions is a start, but they need much better allowances. It’s not an easy role, and prevents people from being able to earn money in their regular job, plus it saves the state the cost of the care.
So many of the things that need to be done urgently are a mopping up exercise following inaction by the previous governments. Apart from the energy initiatives, every one posted this morning has seen people stuck and disadvantaged due to ineffective systems.
Just read that Angela Rayner plus others have sent a memo to Starmer about spending cuts in the budget. Obviously haven’t seen it yet…. Not all happy in the new regime.
What do you actually mean by "unable to read"? The vast majority of children leave school able to read, but to various levels. I expect all of them have the required reading level to operate a till or do plastering.
Whilst true growstuff I’m sure I read recently that half of the people in prisons are illiterate.
Ronib I’ve also just read that this is common practice in the run up to a budget. Conservative MPs did it. Apparently MPs & cabinet members send memos / letters to the PM putting in ‘a pitch’ for their pet project / department etc.
Well, if it’s always happened, why haven’t we heard about it before, I hear you ask.
Mm, now let me think about that … we only hear what the media wants us to hear!
LizzieDrip
Ronib I’ve also just read that this is common practice in the run up to a budget. Conservative MPs did it. Apparently MPs & cabinet members send memos / letters to the PM putting in ‘a pitch’ for their pet project / department etc.
Well, if it’s always happened, why haven’t we heard about it before, I hear you ask.
Mm, now let me think about that … we only hear what the media wants us to hear!
Yes exactly so. This is absolutely normal. Every minister is duty bound to defend their departments against cuts etc and argue for maximum funding.
That is their raisin d’etre
FriedGreenTomatoes2
^What do you actually mean by "unable to read"? The vast majority of children leave school able to read, but to various levels. I expect all of them have the required reading level to operate a till or do plastering.^
Whilst true growstuff I’m sure I read recently that half of the people in prisons are illiterate.
There used to be jobs that didn't need literacy. People who delivered post within buildings, or came round with tea trolleys, or operated lifts in department stores, routine work on production lines, that sort of thing. I'm not saying that everyone who did them was illiterate, but there was no need to be able to read to a high level in order to get a job. A cursory glance at FB pages with a lot of older people as members (eg local history groups remembering towns as they were) show that many are no more than functionally literate, but found work for most or all of their adult lives.
These days, people who can't write clearly would struggle to get work, as so much has changed and very routine jobs don't exist now. Email has replaced the need for someone to take a memo from one floor to another, robots can do routine factory work, and self-service tills/home delivery and user-operated lifts are the norm these days. Those examples are just the tip of the iceberg.
If people can't find honest work of course it is more likely that they will turn to crime - we all need money to live. Ways need to be found to give everyone a role in society, as things are only going to get worse as more things are automated and digitised, and more people are excluded.
Doodledog according to Bridget Phillipson on the news today, the opposite seems to be happening. More and more nurseries are opening up attached to primary schools because it’s not possible for families to survive on one income. Mothers with very young children can’t afford to stay at home for the early years. So jobs need to be out there?
I happen to think that this is a mistake.
How is that the opposite of the fact that more jobs require literacy than use to be the case?
used to be. . .
Doodledog I was referring to your last paragraph. Obviously there must be jobs available for all new mothers so that they can dump their babies with strangers as according to the dictat of our new government. Jobs - any job I thought Phillipson implied as no family can live on one income . Someone must be profiteering in 2024 and it’s not young professionals with families.
dump their babies with strangers as according to the dictat of our new government
This statement is wrong however you look at it, although I take it that is is your opinion and not fact ronib
You have an odd take on the modern world ronib. You do know that maternity leave is now a year, don’t you? And that most women want to return to work? Why don’t you blame the last government for what you see as an injustice, Labour haven’t even done anything about this yet?
Whitewavemark2
*dump their babies with strangers as according to the dictat of our new government*
This statement is wrong however you look at it, although I take it that is is your opinion and not fact ronib
I am not going to respond to that, as it is a very blatant attempt top be hurtful and offensive. The thing is, comments like that only hit the mark when they come from someone who is not usually setting out to deliver low blows, so it didn't work.
In case it is not clear, the above post references ronib's post, not WWM's
If people can't find honest work of course it is more likely that they will turn to crime - we all need money to live
Why didn't I think of that? Honestly, I could have got the kids involved too as there were no nurseries, breakfast or after-school clubs etc in the olden days so I sat at home all day looking after them.
A missed opportunity.
Well, both my GSs went to nursery after my DDs maternity leave. DD did not need the money, but she is a professional whose valuable skills contribute to our country.
Both GSs have grown up to be model citizens who are now in their turn contributing their skills to the U.K. There is absolutely nothing in their character which are empathetic, emotionally intelligent and very bright that could possibly be criticised as a result of not spending full time with their parent in their formative years.
That was to ronib as well😊😊
Rather depressingly, scientists are finding that nature rather than nurture actually have by far and away the biggest influence on a child’s outcome. So the nursery v home nurture has little affect either way.
I was a bit puzzled.
We looked after a couple of DGC and another one went to a nursery as it would have been logistically impossible.
It's what to do with them when they are older, started school but parents' working hours are not compatible with school hours? A senior school near here finishes at 2.30pm!
The reasons for the plans to increase nursery provision are twofold - its not all about childcare for those who need or want to return to work, but it strongly stated its to help early years children with the same sort of aims as SureStart - educational and social opportunities that not all families are able to provide.
Something we've discussed a lot on GN and generally accepted as very important.
Wyllow3
The reasons for the plans to increase nursery provision are twofold - its not all about childcare for those who need or want to return to work, but it strongly stated its to help early years children with the same sort of aims as SureStart - educational and social opportunities that not all families are able to provide.
Something we've discussed a lot on GN and generally accepted as very important.
Yes
It is good that there is choice now.
However, I either parent thinks it is important to stay at home with their children in the early years, I don't think they should be guilt-tripped into going to work if they can possibly afford not to.
Allira
I was a bit puzzled.
We looked after a couple of DGC and another one went to a nursery as it would have been logistically impossible.
It's what to do with them when they are older, started school but parents' working hours are not compatible with school hours? A senior school near here finishes at 2.30pm!
The sensible and pragmatic plan would be to have wrap around care as I understand it, so schools would ultimately provide post school care and holiday clubs too.
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