What is the Labour Party offering voters?

BASW UK’s Public and Political Affairs Lead, Kerri Prince, attended Labour Party Conference last week and reports on the party's policy announcements.

I spent a few days in wet and windy Liverpool last week as thousands flocked to the Labour Party conference. Every year, the main political parties hold their own party conference which gives party members, journalists, campaigners, stakeholders, and lobbyists the chance to discuss policy and hear from the party leadership about what their plans are.

The next General Elections will likely not happen for another two years, but all eyes are on Keir Starmer and his team as he outlines his position, giving a bigger picture on what his pitch to the public will be when the next election arrives.

I attended several fringe events at the conference, including an event on the proposed Bill of Rights which is currently under review. We heard from representatives from Liberty and Amnesty International about what the Bill means in practice, and we also heard from a Labour Party spokesperson and Craig Mathieson (a former social worker who fought in the Supreme Court for the rights of his child, Cameron). The session was an important reminder about human rights not being an optional extra, and the importance of people having rights and routes to access justice. BASW UK has consistently opposed the proposed Bill of Rights and will continue to do so should the Bill return.

Party conferences are often used by political leaders to announce new policies, and the Labour Party focused on the following announcements during their conference:

• Reverse the scrapping of the 45p tax rate (this was before Liz Truss announced her u-turn) and use it fund NHS workforce expansion
• The creation of a ‘Great British Energy company’, which would be state-owned and focus on clean energy
• Introduce breakfast clubs for every primary school in England to help tackle the childcare crisis
• Introduce higher standard for patients and a new model of care, ensure fewer patients need to go to hospital, shifting resources to social care, GPs, care at home, and mental health services. This includes a pledge introduce better choice including face to face appointments and seeing the same doctor each appointment for those who want to. They also pledged to make it easier to book appointments so that the “days of waiting on the phone at 8am to book an appointment with your GP will be over”
• Building a National Care Service that requires provide providers to meet decent standards. Labour will require firms operating care services to pay their taxes.
• Care workers will be guaranteed fair pay, full rights at work and proper training

As part of BASW UK’s commitment to proactively engage with all the mainstream political parties, we will continue to work with politicians and decision-makers to ensure that the voice of social work is heard in policy creation.

The Conservatives are currently having their conference in Birmingham, and we will follow up with a piece on key announcements from their conference in next week’s bulletin.