Thursday, 18 Apr 2024

General election Labour manifesto pledges to increase public sector pay by 5%

Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to increase public sector pay by 5% if Labour wins the election.

The party’s manifesto, launched in Birmingham today, says all public sector workers would get a pay rise of 5% – an average of £1,643 – from April 2020.

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After 2020, Labour promised to deliver “year-on-year above-inflation pay rises…to reward and retain the people who do so much for us all”.

The manifesto was fully-costed, as was the Liberal Democrats launched earlier this week.

It says Labour would raise an additional £82.9 billion through a variety of taxes, including increasing income tax for the richest 5%, raising corporation tax, extending stamp duty reserve tax for financial transactions.

Money would also be raised by “tackling” tax avoidance and evasion, having an efficiency review of tax reliefs and expenditures, reversing inheritance tax cuts, imposing VAT on private school fees, scrapping the Married Persons Allowance and introducing a 200% second home tax.

Leader Mr Corbyn pitched his manifesto as “Labour is on your side”, as he said the “attacks” from the rich and powerful prove Labour is “for the many not the few”.

He said: “The billionaires and the super rich, the tax dodgers, the bad bosses and the big polluters – they own the Conservative Party.

“But they don’t own us. They don’t own the Labour Party. The people own the Labour Party. That’s why the billionaires attack us.”

Other top pledges listed in the manifesto:

  • Scrapping universal credit
  • Scrapping tuition fees
  • Extra 5,000 firefighters
  • More council houses being built and rent caps
  • Free dental check-ups
  • Free bus travel for under-25s
  • Free full-fibre broadband
  • Free TV licences for over-75s
  • Nationalisation of Royal Mail, energy, water, rail, bus networks and parts of BT
  • Raise corporation tax to 26% from April 2022 (from the current 19%)
  • Upgrade almost all homes to highest energy efficiency standards

There are several pledges on the environment within the manifesto, including building 7,000 new offshore wind turbines, 2,000 new onshore wind turbines, enough solar panels to cover 22,000 football pitches and new nuclear power “needed for energy security”.

Labour said it will introduce a “windfall tax” on oil companies to help cover costs of renewable energy, but did not say what the tax would be.

Analysis from Sky News’ political correspondent Tom Rayner:

“The manifesto might run to 105 pages, and the costing document to 40 more, but the clear message Jeremy Corbyn wanted to get across was boiled down to a five word phrase: “Labour is on your side”.

“He argued the Conservatives were ‘owned’ by the very same ‘vested interests’ that a Labour government was intent on challenging through their radical manifesto.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that Labour believe the way to get beyond the issue of Brexit is to recast the result of the referendum of 2016 as a howl of outrage demanding fundamental change.

“Behind the ‘Campaign for real change’ tagline is an implicit argument that the changes a Labour government would bring through its £82 billion plan would be bigger than Brexit.”

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