Comment Jeremy’s insight into the next Labour grand plan
JEREMY Corbyn looks likely to be confirmed as Labour leader once the result of the contest is announced on Saturday.
And one thing Labour’s leadership election has achieved is to give us an insight into what he actually plans to do if he becomes Prime Minister.
During his first year or so in office, Mr Corbyn was remarkably quiet about what he hoped to achieve.
There was plenty of talk about opposing austerity and campaigning for peace, but very little detail about what that meant in practice.
This all changed, once the leadership election got underway.
Mr Corbyn’s team set out a range of detailed policies. And if you put them all together, you have what looks like the makings of a general election manifesto.
One caveat is that even if Mr Corbyn wins the latest leadership ballot, which looks almost certain, that doesn’t mean his proposals automatically become party policy.
But you’d usually expect a party’s manifesto to reflect the policies set out by its leader to a great extent.
We don’t know when the next election will be. It could be next year, or it may not be until 2020.
But this is what Labour’s general election manifesto could look like, based on Mr Corbyn’s leadership campaign pledges: Investment
Labour will invest £500 billion in infrastructure, manufacturing and new industries backed up by a publicly-owned National Investment Bank and a network of regional banks. This will create a high-skilled, hi-tech, low-carbon economy that ends austerity and leaves no one and nowhere left behind. NHS
Labour will “renationalise” the NHS by ending the practice of paying private sector health firms to provide services.
For example, some NHS patients currently receive operations paid for by the NHS but carried out by private sector firms, but in future all work would be done by the NHS itself. Labour will also stop signing PFI contracts.
These involve private firms building new facilities such as hospitals and then leasing them to the NHS at a profit. And bursaries will be restored to nurses. Workers’ rights
Unions will gain the right to negotiate across whole sectors rather than with individual employers. It means a union could negotiate salary scales with a number of firms in the same industry at once.
Companies with 250 or more employees will be required to take part in collective bargaining with unions. Employee representatives will have a right to sit on executive remuneration committees, giving them a say in the pay of top managers. Constitutional reform
There will be a “radical devolution” of power to local councils.
Councils offering contracts to private firms can be forced to hold a local referendum, giving residents the chance to veto the deal.
The House of Lords will be replaced with an elected chamber. Education
A new National Education Service will ensure that education is “open to all throughout a person’s life” and student university fees will be phased out. Quality apprenticeships and adult skills training will be available to everyone. The Education
Railways will be bought back into public management, ending the policy of selling franchises to run services to the private sector. This will save money, allowing rail fares to be cut by ten per cent. Councils will have the power to run their own publicly run municipal bus companies. There will be more than £500 million every year to invest in increasing bus routes and capacity. Housing
Labour will build a million new homes in five years, including at least half a million council houses.
The “right to buy” policy allowing people to buy their own social housing property will be scrapped, and a new “tenants rights charter” will allow private tenants to demand three-year contracts, and ban excessive rent increases. Arts
Funding for the arts will increase so that it reaches the European average. Dance and drama will become part of the National Curriculum, so that every child takes these subjects. Energy
Labour will help create more than 200 “local energy companies” over five years, drastically cutting the power in the marketplace of the big energy companies.
Public, not-for-profit companies and co-ops will become “the centrepiece of a new energy economics”.