Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer during his ‘plan for change’ speech in Buckinghamshire, England,
5 min read
Keir Starmer has set out the Government’s “plan for change” which he said would allow the country to judge Labour on whether it has delivered its promises.
Speaking in Buckinghamshire on Thursday, five months after winning the July General Election, the Prime Minister set out six milestones for this Parliament.
While government sources deny that the speech was a reset, Starmer has been under pressure to set out a clearer sense of the Labour Government’s vision for the country.
“Today, we publish new milestones, measurable milestones that will also give the British people the power to hold our feet to the fire, because that accountability is part of how we shift the focus in Westminster towards long-term change,” Starmer said.
In his speech, which was introduced by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, Starmer announced a pledge to deliver 150 “major infrastructure projects” to “triple the number of decisions on national infrastructure compared with the last parliament”.
He said this would send “a very clear message to the NIMBYs, the regulators, the blockers, the bureaucrats, the alliance of naysayers, the people who say no, Britain can’t do this”.
Starmer said that there is “no investment in public services without difficult decisions”.
However, he said he would not “subsidise” his milestones through “ever-rising taxes on British people”.
Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves have faced some negative reaction to their decision in the October Budget to raise taxes like employer National Insurance contributions.
The Prime Minister said the Labour administration faces “an almighty challenge to hit these milestones by the end of this Parliament” and said they were “starting from ground zero”.
He added: “I don’t think there’s a swamp to be drained here. But I do think that too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline.”
Raise household disposable income
The Prime Minister pledged to raise real household disposable income by 2029 and bring “higher living standards in every region of the country”, so working people “have more money in their pocket”.
The Office for Budget Responsibility earlier this year set out that real household disposable income per person–a measure of living standards–will grow by an average of just over 0.5 per cent a year over the course of the Parliament.
Labour previously pledged to “secure the highest sustained growth in the G7” and Starmer insisted that this was still a target.
Help more children be “school-ready”
Starmer pledged to raise the proportion of children deemed “school-ready” at age five from 67.7 per cent to 75 per cent by 2028.
The framework used to judge if children have a “good level of development” was introduced in September 2021 and results have been improving year on year.
There have been concerns raised over “school readiness” since the pandemic, with school leaders warning that children were arriving in reception without “basic life skills”.
Starmer said today: “It’s a scandal, an affront to the British value of equal respect, if we do not give every child, whatever their background, a fair chance to succeed.”
And Starmer added there are children in reception “who aren’t starting to read and are “struggling to speak”.
13,000 more neighbourhood police
Starmer pledged to recruit an extra 13,000 police officers, special constables and Police Community Support Officers and put “more police on the beat”.
Starmer also promised that every neighbourhood will have a named, contactable police officer in their community, dealing with local issues.
The promise will be backed by £100m of government funding in 2025-26.
Starmer said that “nobody should feel insecure” and the pledge would be a “relief for millions of people scared to walk their own streets”.
Build 1.5m homes
Starmer reaffirmed Labour’s manifesto commitment to rebuild 1.5m new homes over the course of the Parliament.
He said it is important that “the security I enjoyed when I was growing up, the base camp aspiration of home ownership, doesn’t move further and further away from working-class families like mine”.
“We’ll take our planning system a blockage in our economy that is so big it obscures an entire future, stops this country building roads, grid connections, laboratories, train lines, warehouses, wind farms, power stations…a choke hold on the growth our country needs, suffocating the aspiration of working families,” he added.
Starmer said that the Government will “streamline the approval process in the forthcoming planning and infrastructure bill”.
Alongside the target, Starmer also pledged 150 “major infrastructure projects” to “triple the number of decisions on national infrastructure compared with the last parliament”.
He said the UK had “long freeloaded off the British genius of the past” by failing to build for the future. “We haven’t built a reservoir for over 30 years. Even the projects we do approve are fought tooth and nail, nail and tooth,” the Prime Minister said.
Bring down NHS waiting lists
Starmer said, “even the NHS is losing the trust of the British public…unable to provide timely care and dignity Britain relies on, a precious contract between the state and people”.
He reiterated the promise to treat 92 per cent of NHS patients within 18 weeks of referral.
He said he was determined to get the NHS “back on its feet” so that “dignity and care” can be restored to millions.
The Government is set to publish its 10-Year Health Plan for the NHS in spring 2025.
Clean power by 2030
Starmer also pledged clean power by 2030 and accelerating to net zero.
He said that “homegrown British energy” would make the country “more secure”, “so never again can a tyrant like Putin attack the living standards of working people”.
There are questions, however, over whether Labour policy in this area has been watered down. A document published to accompany the speech ministers would achieve 95 per cent clean power by 2030, seemingly down on a previous pledge of 100 per cent.
The PM said the target was “exactly the same as it always was”.
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