News

Policy update from CE National – 14th June

Jul 9, 2024

ELECTION UPDATE

The Liberal Democrats, Conservatives, Greens and Labour Party published their election manifestoes this week. The Reform Party is due to publish its manifesto on Monday (17 June), at which point all the main parties will have set out their pitches to the electorate.

See below for a summary of the manifestos published this week:

Liberal Democrats – ‘For a Fair Deal’

Launched at an event in North London on Monday, the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto focused on boosting the NHS and social care. Other headline commitments include plans to increase public spending by almost £27bn a year, reforming capital gains tax, scrapping the Rwanda scheme and the two-child benefit cap, reforming the Carers’ Allowance and introducing proportional representation.

Other headline commitments from the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto include plans to:

Make homes warmer and cheaper to heat with a ten-year emergency upgrade programme, starting with free insulation and heat pumps for those on low incomes, and ensure that all new homes are zero-carbon.
Immediately require all new homes and non-domestic buildings to be built to a zero-carbon standard, including being fitted with solar panels, and progressively increase standards as technology improves.
Drive a rooftop solar revolution by expanding incentives for households to install solar panels, including a guaranteed fair price for electricity sold back into the grid.
Put the construction sector on a sustainable footing by investing in skills, training and new technologies such as modern methods of construction.
Fix the skills and recruitment crisis by investing in education and training, including increasing the availability of apprenticeships and career advice for young people.
Increase building of new homes to 380,000 a year across the UK, including 150,000 social homes a year, through new garden cities and community-led development of cities and towns.
Require the National Infrastructure Commission to take fully into account the environmental implications of all national infrastructure decisions.

The Conservative Party – ‘Clear Plan, Bold Action, Secure Future’

The Prime Minister launched the Conservative Party’s election manifesto at Silverstone racing track on Tuesday, hoping for a fresh start after a rocky start to the campaign. Promises of further tax cuts were at the centre of the Conservatives’ manifesto, including a pledge to cut the National Insurance paid (NI) paid by employees by a further 2p by April 2027. The Prime Minister also pledged to reduce the main rate of NI paid by the self-employed, abolishing it completely by April 2029 – and the manifesto contained the party’s pledge to abolish NI completely when it is “affordable to do so”.

Other headline commitments from the governing Conservatives’ manifesto include plans to:

Deliver 1.6 million homes in England in the next Parliament, with measures such as:
- Renewing the Affordable Homes Programme that will deliver homes of all tenures and focus on regenerating and improving housing estates.
- Abolishing the legacy EU ‘nutrient neutrality’ rules to immediately unlock the building of 100,000 new homes with local consent, with developers required in law to pay a one-off mitigation fee so there is no net additional pollution.
- Delivering a record number of homes each year on brownfield land in urban areas.
Pass a Renters Reform Bill that will deliver fairness in the rental market for landlords and renters alike. Deliver the court reforms necessary to fully abolish Section 21 and strengthen other grounds for landlords to evict private tenants guilty of anti-social behaviour.
Invest £1.1 billion into the Green Industries Growth Accelerator to support British manufacturing capabilities, boost supply chains and ensure our energy transition is made in Britain.
Ensure that green levies on household bills are lower. The cost of renewables such as wind and solar has fallen dramatically. The Conservatives will ensure the annual policy costs and levies on household energy bills are lower in each year of the next Parliament than they were in 2023.
Continue backing Investment Zones across the country, giving areas £160 million to catalyse local growth and investment.
Introduce reforms to outdated EU red tape to better protect nature while enabling the building of new homes, new prisons and new energy schemes. Along with the reforms to the EU’s bureaucratic environmental impact assessment regime that we have already started, these changes will speed up local and national infrastructure planning systems.

The Green Party – ‘Real Hope, Real Change’

The Green Party launched their election manifesto at Sussex County Cricket Ground on Wednesday, hoping their pitch would encourage disaffected Labour supporters to lend them their vote. The manifesto included commitments to investing £50bn in health and social care to “defend and restore the NHS”, overhaul the tax system “to make it fairer”, invest £30bn over five years in insulating homes and to bring water companies, railways and the ‘big five’ retail energy companies into public ownership.

Other notable commitments from the Green Party’s manifesto include plans to:

Create a ‘Our Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price’ Charter to protect valuable green space for communities, reduce climate emissions, tackle fuel poverty and provide “genuinely affordable” housing. The Charter would:
- Require local authorities to spread small developments across their areas.
- Require all new developments to be accompanied by the extra investment needed in local health, transport and other services.
- Ensure that all new homes meet Passivhaus or equivalent standards and house builders include solar panels and heat pumps on all new homes, where appropriate.
Launch a local authority-led, street-by-street retrofit programme the insulate the UK’s homes, provide clean heat and start to adapt the UK’s buildings to more extreme conditions. This would require investment of:
- £29bn over the next five years to insulate homes to an EPC B standard or above as part of a ten-year programme.
- £4bn over the next five years to insulate other buildings to a high standard.
- £9bn over the next five years for low-carbon heating systems (e.g. heat pumps) for homes and other buildings.
Accelerate clean energy investment and delivery, creating a zero-carbon electricity supply and security of supply over short and long periods of low generation, with sufficient electricity for all cars and vans to be electric, for all homes and buildings to stop using fossil fuels, and for most industry to transition to clean energy. To do this, Green MPs will push for:
- Wind to provide around 70% of the UK’s electricity by 2030.
- Delivery of 80GW of offshore wind, 53 GW of onshore wind, and 100 GW of solar by 2035.
- Investment in energy storage capacity and more efficient electricity distribution.
- Communities to own their own energy sources, ensuring they can use any profit from selling excess energy to reduce their bills or benefit their communities.
Phase out fossil fuels by:
- Cancelling recent fossil fuel licences such as for Rosebank and stopping all new fossil fuel extraction projects in the UK.
- Removing all oil and gas subsidies.
- Introducing a carbon tax on all fossil fuel imports and domestic extraction, based on greenhouse gas emissions produced when fuel is burned.

The Labour Party – ‘Change’

Yesterday, Sir Keir Starmer launched his party’s election manifesto at the Co-op headquarters in Manchester. Vowing to “turn the page forever” on held-back potential, he put wealth creation and economic growth at the heart of Labour’s manifesto. Labour has pledged to establish an Industrial Strategy Council on a statutory footing, to provide expert advice on long-term economic growth, comprised of representatives “from all nations and regions, business and trade unions”, and immediately reform the National Policy Planning Framework, making it easier to build laboratories, digital infrastructure, and gigafactories.

Labour’s other pledges include:

Creating a new National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, bringing together existing bodies, to set strategic infrastructure priorities and oversee the design, scope, and delivery of projects.
Improvements to rail connectivity in the north of England, fixing five million potholes over the next five years and better preparing communities for extreme weather events. Bring the railways into public ownership.
Ensuring a UK industrial strategy supports the development of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector and establishes a National Data Library.
Introducing new Energy Independence Act to establish the framework for Labour’s energy and climate policies. Reaching clean energy by 2030, with net zero to follow
Creating a new publicly owned company, Great British Energy, which will partner with industry and trade unions to deliver clean power by co-investing in leading technologies, supporting capital-intensive projects, and deploying local energy production.
Bring Hinkley Point C to completion, as well as increasing rollout of small modular reactors (SMR).
Fracking will be banned and no new coal licenses will be issued, but oil and gas operations in the North Sea will continue.
Nearly £5bn of investment in gigafactories, carbon capture and green hydrogen
Implementing the Warm Homes Plan to offer grants and low interest loans to support investment in insulation and other improvements such as solar panels, batteries and low carbon heating to cut bills.
Ensuring homes in the private rented sector meet minimum energy efficiency standards by 2030.
A £6.6bn Warm Homes Plan that will help install energy efficiency upgrades in 5m homes to cut bills
Creating a new Clean Power Alliance, bringing together a coalition of countries at the cutting edge of climate action.
Delivering 1.5m new homes in England over the next five years
Immediately update the National Policy Planning Framework to restore mandatory housing targets
Fast-tracking approval of urban brownfield sites and prioritising the release of lower quality ‘grey belt’ land
“Implement solutions” to homes affected by nutrient neutrality- without weakening environmental protections
Introduce a permanent, comprehensive mortgage guarantee scheme for first time buyers
Immediately abolish Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions