General Election 2024: What are the political parties saying about employment and the future of work?

This is a live article with political parties ordered alphabetically, and will be updated as new policies are announced. Latest update 18.6.24.

As we get ever closer to the General Election on July 4^th, we’ve reviewed the party manifestos to see what they have pledged and how it pertains to employment and the future of work.

Conservatives

Full manifesto

• Reform disability benefits so they are better targeted and reflect people’s genuine needs, while delivering a step change in mental health provision.
• Tighten up how the benefits system assesses capability for work.
• Overhaul the fit note process that people are not being signed off sick as a default.
• Introduce tougher sanctions rules so people who refuse to take up sustainable jobs after 12 months on benefits can have their cases closed and their benefits removed entirely.
• Accelerate the roll out of Universal Credit to ensure it always pays to work.
• Continue to clamp down on fraudsters.
• Reform the Child Maintenance Service to prevent non-compliance and new laws to help crack down on non-payment.

Green Party

Full manifesto

• Repeal of current anti-union legislation and its replacement with a positive Charter of Workers’ Rights, with the right to strike at its heart along with a legal obligation for all employers to recognise trade unions.
• A maximum 10:1 pay ratio for all private- and public-sector organisations.
• An increase in the minimum wage to £15 an hour, no matter your age, with the costs to small businesses offset by reducing their National Insurance payments.
• Equal employment rights for all workers from their first day of employment, including those working in the ‘gig economy’ and on zero-hours contracts. Gig employers that repeatedly break employment, data protection or tax law will be denied licences to operate.
• A move to a four-day working week.

Labour

Full manifesto

• A new partnership with business to boost growth everywhere
• A National Wealth Fund to invest in jobs
• A New Deal for Working People. More information available here.
• Establish Skills England to bring together business, training providers and unions with national and local government to ensure there is the highly trained workforce needed to deliver Labour’s Industrial Strategy
• Labour will also reform the Apprenticeships Levy with a flexible Growth and Skills Levy, with Skills England consulting on eligible courses to ensure qualification offer value for money
• Introduce a new Green Prosperity Plan, in partnership with business through our National Wealth Fund, will create 650,000 jobs across the country by 2030
• Bring Jobcentre Plus and the National Careers Service together to provide a national jobs and careers service
• In England, labour will replace the business rates system, to continue to raise revenues but in a fairer way
• Labour will cap corporation tax at the current level of 25%, the lowest in the G7
• Labour will commit to one major fiscal event a year, with due warning of tax and spending policies and will publish a roadmap for business taxation for the next parliament

Liberal Democrats

Full manifesto

• Develop an industrial strategy that will give businesses certainty and incentivise them to invest in new technologies to grow the economy, create good jobs and tackle the climate crisis.
• Unlock British businesses’ global potential by bringing down trade barriers and building stronger future relationships with close trading partners, including by fixing our broken relationship with Europe as set out in chapter 22.
• Fix the skills and recruitment crisis by investing in education and training, including increasing the availability of apprenticeships and career advice for young people.
• Boost productivity and empower more people to enter the job market – such as parents, carers and disabled people – by making the most of technology and new ways of working.
• Boost small businesses and empower them to create new local jobs, including by abolishing business rates and replacing them with a Commercial Landowner Levy to help high streets.
• Introduce a general duty of care for the environment and human rights in business operations and supply chains.

Reform UK

Full manifesto

• Lift the income tax starting threshold to £20K to save the lowest paid £1,500 per year
• National insurance rate will be raised to 20% for foreign workers
• Lift the minimum profit tax threshold to £100K, reduce the main Corporation Tax Rate from 25% to 20%, then 15% from year 3
• Tax relief for businesses that undertake apprenticeships

Information in this blog is taken directly from the respective party manifesto and all efforts made to reduce political bias for the reader.