Our new government: what to expect

On 4 July, just over half of us in the UK cast a vote in the general election. Some hoped the Conservative government would continue to win over voters, but others were looking for change after 14 years of the same party. While it was the lowest turnout in a UK general election since universal suffrage according to a study from the Institute for Public Policy Research, the much-awaited final result was at the forefront of many people’s minds.

I think you know what happened next. Labour won by a landslide majority with 412 seats, an increase of 211 since the previous general election took place in 2019. The Conservatives suffered their biggest loss in history, and Rishi Sunak stepped down from his position as prime minister.

Replacing him, Keir Starmer took to the podium outside 10 Downing Street and said the new government “will carry the responsibility of your trust, as we rebuild our country.”      Labour secured 34 per cent more seats compared with the 2019 election, but Keir Starmer’s vote share in his own constituency decreased by 16 per cent.

The Liberal Democrats gained 64 seats bringing their total to 72, and winning the seats of former prime ministers Boris Johnson, David Cameron and Theresa May.

In addition, the Green Party saw an increase in seats, and the party’s co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay were both elected.

Nigel Farage’s party Reform UK gained 14 per cent of votes. Despite this, they won only five seats across the country.

Former prime minister Liz Truss lost her seat in South West Norfolk, along with Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) and Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset). Truss lost her seat to Labour by 630 votes, having previously held a majority of more than 30,000 and Mordaunt lost by 780 votes.

In Scotland, Labour’s vote share rose sharply. It jumped by 17 points as the party took 36 seats from the SNP.  The SNP’s share of the vote is down 15 points. They also lost four seats to the Liberal Democrats.

In Wales, the Conservatives now have no MPs, with Welsh secretary David TC Davies and his predecessors Alun Cairns, Stephen Crabb and Simon Hart all missing out. Labour won 27 seats in Wales (an increase of nine), Plaid Cymru four and the Lib Dems one.

As previously mentioned, this general election marked one of the lowest recent turnouts. The lowest of any constituency was in Manchester Rusholme with a 40 per cent turnout, where Afzal Khan held the seat for Labour.

Now that the waves of the Conservative party losing their hold on the government for more than half a decade have settled, what can we expect from this new government and what have they done so far?

We have highlighted some of Labour’s biggest promises that they made in their manifesto:

Education: ‘Modernise the curriculum’

Labour’s focus on education is to “drive up standards, modernise the school curriculum, reform assessment, and create higher-quality training and employment paths by empowering communities to develop the skills people need.”

Amid the teacher recruitment and retention crisis, Labour has pledged 6,500 new “expert” teachers.

Reforms will “build on the hard work of teachers who have brought their subjects alive with knowledge-rich syllabuses, to deliver a curriculum which is rich and broad, inclusive, and innovative.”

The Labour Party plans to support children to study a creative or vocational subject until they are 16, and “ensure accountability measures reflect this.”

They also mentioned the cost-of-living crisis and said that they will fund breakfast clubs in all primary schools.

Labour said they will provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, so “every young person has access to early support to address problems before they escalate.”

In the King’s Speech, it was announced that ministers “will seek to raise educational standards and break down barriers to opportunity.”

The story so far: The new education secretary Bridget Phillipson delivered a speech highlighting the essential role of international students to the UK’s success.

She said: “While this government is committed to managing migration carefully, international students will always be welcome in this country. The UK wouldn’t be the same without them.”

As well as this, the government launched a Curriculum and Assessment Review with the aim of driving “high and rising school standards” and setting “all young people up for life and work” in July.

The government said they launched it in an effort to provide a curriculum that delivers excellent foundations in reading, writing and maths, and ensures every young person gets the opportunity to develop creative, digital, and speaking and listening skills particularly prized by employers.

Skills England has also been launched by the prime minister and Phillipson to harness the talents of young people aged 16 and above.

It is planned to create a shared national ambition to boost the nation’s skills, transform opportunities and drive growth.

Phillipson appointed Richard Pennycook CBE, former chief executive of the Co-operative Group and lead non-executive director at the Department for Education, as the interim chair.

Between 2017 and 2022, skills shortages doubled to more than half a million and now account for 36 per cent of job vacancies.

Healthcare: ‘Treatment within local communities’

With the tagline “Build an NHS fit for the future”, Labour said they will cut NHS waiting times with 40,000 more appointments every week.      Labour’s reforms will shift the NHS away from a model geared towards late diagnosis and treatment to a model where more services are delivered in local communities, they said.

This includes utilising the NHS app more, which the party said will put “patients in control of their own health to better manage their medicine. Appointments and health needs.”

Labour also said they will use spare capacity in the independent sector to ensure patients are diagnosed and treated more quickly.

“The National Health Service needs to move to a Neighbourhood Health Service,” the party said, “with more care delivered in local communities to spot problems earlier. To achieve this, we must over time shift resources to primary care and community services.”  

The story so far: Wes Streeting was announced as health and social care secretary swiftly after Labour won the general election.

One of Streeting’s first appointments was to discuss how to make progress in ending the nearly two-year-old pay dispute for junior doctors. Later in July, the government and the British Medical Association (BMA) reached an agreement to put a new pay offer for junior doctors to members.

The offer is made up of a four per cent backdated pay rise for 2023 to 2024, on top of the existing increase worth an average of nine per cent for the last financial year.

However, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has cut funding for hospital projects to improve “economic stability.”

The New Hospitals Programme will be reset, with currently only six hospitals having started their main construction activity and fewer than half of the total 40 starting any kind of construction.

Environment: ‘Use the UK’s own resources’

Labour’s pledges in their manifesto include reaching zero-carbon power by 2030, relaunching the country’s ambition to be a climate leader on the global stage and rewriting the nation’s net-zero strategy. They criticised the previous government’s ban on new onshore wind, failure to build new nuclear power stations, and decision to scrap investment in home insulation.

In the ‘Change’ manifesto, the party said they will take advantage of the UK’s long coast- line, high winds, shallow waters, universities, and skilled offshore workforce combined with extensive technological and engineering capabilities.The manifesto also vows to overturn the ban on onshore wind in England, set councils binding deadlines to approve green energy projects and establish a “British jobs bonus” to incentivise firms to build their supply chains in UK.

The story so far: One of the biggest announcements from Labour is their commitment to Great British Energy (GBE) which the party said will bring enough power online by the end of the decade to power 20 million homes.

The plan is that the project will be backed with £8.3 billion of taxpayer money over the next five years to invest in green technology, as well as working with the King’s estate to attract between £30 billion and £60 billion of private investment.

The secretary of state for energy security and net zero, Ed Milliband, outlined his priorities for the department in a message to staff.

Miliband said: “Families and businesses across the country are still struggling with energy bills that are too high and are expected to rise again in the autumn.”

In the speech, he said his top priorities include boosting energy independence and cutting bills through clean power by 2030, upgrading Britain’s homes and cutting fuel poverty through our Warm Homes Plan, and standing up for consumers by reforming our energy system.

As COP29 approaches in November, it will be a real indication of what Labour will take real action on in terms of environmental policy.

Technology: ‘Use AI to its full capacity’

The theme of tech runs through a lot of the areas already covered, reflecting the planet’s quickly changing digital landscape.

Labour has pledged to create a Regulatory Innovation Office to help update current regulation, speed-up approval times, and help coordinate cross-cutting regulation.

The manifesto also pledged to support the development of the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, in particular by removing planning barriers to new data centres. 

In addition, it promised the creation of a national data library to “bring together existing research programmes and help deliver data-driven public services, whilst maintaining strong safeguards and ensuring all of the public benefit”.

Stating that Britain’s communication network was vital in the modern world, Labour also pledged to engage in a “renewed push” to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030, although they did not specify how. 

The story so far: Peter Kyle was appointed secretary of state for science, innovation and technology. 

Kyle has appointed tech entrepreneur and chair of Advanced Research And Invention Agency (ARIA) Matt Clifford to lead work to discover untapped AI opportunities. Clifford will deliver a new AI Opportunities Action Plan to identify ways to accelerate the use of AI to improve people’s lives by making services better and developing new products.  

The plan will explore how to build a UK AI sector that can scale and compete on the global stage, and will also set out how to boost take up of the technology across all parts of the economy, and consider the necessary infrastructure, talent, and data access required to drive adoption by the public and private sectors.

Local government: ‘Devolution revolution’

As well as these key sectors, local governments will see huge changes over the next few months. 

For example, deputy prime minister Angela Rayner pledged to kickstart a devolution revolution with the aim of transferring more powers out of Westminster into the hands of local people.

In a letter to local leaders, she urged regions without devolved power to “partner with the government to deliver the most ambitious programme of devolution this country has ever seen”.

As well as cutting funding to hospital projects, Reeves announced that they are scrapping the social care cap. Social Care charging reforms are set to save over £1 billion by the end of next year, but the cost to local governments is still not known.