General election manifestos: Where do the main parties stand on key areas from NHS to immigration
With the July 4 general election nearly just days away, all major parties have released their manifestos setting out their vision for the country’s future.
The policies within these documents explain what each party would aim to achieve during their time in power, should they successfully secure a parliamentary majority.
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While it’s very unlikely any party but Labour or the Conservatives will form the new government in July, other parties’ manifestos offer an insight into the principles their members hold, and will hold the prevailing government to account on if they secure any MPs.
With each manifesto coming in at hundreds of pages, it can be hard to sift through to the important bits, so here’s a handy guide to where all the major parties stand on the key areas:
NHS
Conservatives
Increase NHS spending above inflation every year
Long-term workforce plan: 92,000 new nurses, 28,000 more doctors by the end of next parliament
Investing £8.6bn into social care system, reaching a funding settlement with local authorities
Sticking to 2019 plan of 40 new hospitals by 2030 (despite concerns from the National Audit Office)
Expand Pharmacy First, build or modernise 250 GPs, build 50 more Community Diagnostic Centres
Labour
Reduce waiting time for non-urgent treatment to no longer than 18 weeks from referral
40,000 more appointments a week by incentivising out-of-hours working and shared waiting lists between practices
Use ‘spare capacity’ in the private sector to reduce waiting times (in the short-term)
8,500 more mental health staff
Double the number of CT and MRI scanners for cancer prevention
Introduce Neighbourhood Health Service and give pharmacists independent prescribing rights
Lib Dems
Give patients the right to see a GP within 7 days, or 24 hours if urgent
Recruit 8,000 new GPs
Bring in mental health hubs for young people, with check-ups offered at key points in life
Cancer treatment to be guaranteed no more than 62 days after referral
Give pharmacists independent prescribing rights
Support carers with wages at least £2 above the minimum, and free personal care for adults
Greens
Steadily reduce waiting lists and grant rapid access to a GP (same day if urgent)
Guaranteed access to an NHS dentist
Boost NHS staff pay immediately
Restrict the role of commercial companies in the NHS
Move towards a legal and regulated drug market
Make mental health and equal priority to physical health: guaranteed free therapy within 28 days
Reform
No tax on frontline NHS staff for first three years
Use independent healthcare capacity to supplement NHS services
20 per cent tax relief on all private healthcare and insurance
NHS patients to receive voucher for private treatment if they can’t see a GP within three days
Set up an ‘excess deaths and vaccine harms’ Covid inquiry
Tax and economy
Conservatives
Another 2p cut to national insurance (halving it to 6p from 12p at the start of the year)
No increase to personal taxes like income tax or VAT
Maintain corporation tax at 25 per cent and back businesses to trade and invest in the UK
Reduce borrowing and debt
Abolish main rate of national insurance for self-employed workers
Labour
No increases to taxes like income tax, VAT or national insurance
Implement new strict fiscal rules guided by ‘securonomics,’ strengthen the role of the OBR
Create ‘sustained economic growth’ by being the party of ‘wealth creation’
Close non-dom tax loopholes and tackle tax avoidance
Introduce VAT and business rates to private schools
Windfall tax on oil and gas giants
Lib Dems
Cut income tax by increasing the tax-free personal allowance (frozen since 2022)
Reform capital gains tax to make it ‘fairer’ by introducing three rates, similar to income tax, and raising allowance
Reverse Conservative ‘tax cuts’ for big banks
Implement a one-off windfall tax on ‘super-profits’ of oil and gas companies
Protect the independence of the Bank of England and OBR
Fix ‘broken relationship’ with Europe to improve trade opportunities
Greens
No increase to basic rate of income tax during cost of living crisis
75 per cent windfall tax on banks
Introduce a ‘wealth tax’: assets over £10 million taxed at 1 per cent; assets over £1 billion at 2 per cent
Reform capital gains by bringing rates in line with income tax, scrap the upper limit of national insurance tax
Invest £40bn into the “green economic transformation,” through combined revenue-raising measures
Only party backing full nationalisation of public utilities
Reform
Lift income tax allowance to £20k (and higher rate to £70k)
Lower fuel duty by 20p per litre
Reduce stamp duty to 0 per cent below £750k (up from the current £250k)
Bring corporation tax down to 15 per cent within three years
Immigration
Conservative
Get Rwanda scheme off the ground as soon as possible
Introduce a legal cap on migration
Increase visa fees
Cut migration by half and then reduce every year of next parliament
Labour
Reduce migration by training more UK workers to fill employment gaps
Ban employers from recruiting from overseas as default
Abolish the non-dom status immediately (curbing transitional measures)
Bring in 1,000 more staff dedicated to returning asylum seekers with rejected applications
Cancel the Rwanda policy
Lib Dems
Scrap the Rwanda scheme, and provide a safe, legal route for refugees
Create a dedicated unit to decide on asylum cases within three months
Give asylum seekers right to work if no decision is made on their case in three months
Give full settled status to all EU citizens in the UK with pre-settled status
Greens
Replace Home Office with Department of Migration
Scrap minimum income requirement for spouses of migrants with work visas
End all detention of migrants
All asylum seekers to work while their case is being decided
Reform
All migrants who arrive illegally from safe countries are barred from claiming asylum
Small boat migrants who cross Channel are sent back to France
Required five years residency before benefits can be claimed
Asylum seekers to be processed from safe countries offshore
20 per cent national insurance for international workers
Education
Labour
Recruit 6,500 new teachers
Create 100,000 new nursery places and 3,000 primary school-based nurseries
Help such as training or apprenticeships for all 18-21 year olds looking for work
Free primary school breakfast clubs for all children
Conservatives
30 hours free childcare from nine months old (from September 2025)
Child benefit threshold for single-income households raises to £120,000
Schools to ban mobile phones
End ‘rip-off’ degrees and fund 100,000 more apprenticeships instead
60,000 more school places and 15 new free schools
Lib Dems
Dedicated mental health professional in every primary and secondary school
Increase school and college funding per pupil above inflation every year
Introduce a ‘tutoring guarantee’ for every disadvantaged pupil needing support
All adults given £5,000 to spend on education or training throughout their lives, rising to £10k when possible
Triple pupil premium to £1000 a year
Greens
Additional £8bn funding for schools
Abolish university tuition fees
Scrap OFSTED
End ‘high stakes’ testing in schools to reduce pupil stress
Reform
Ban ‘transgender ideology’ in all schools
No VAT on private school fees
Scrap interest on student loans
Cut funding to universities that ‘undermine free speech’
Environment
Conservatives
Ban bonuses for water company bosses if the company breaks the law
Create a new national park
Increase the UK’s offshore wind capacity threefold
Cut the cost of net zero and aim for goal of 2050
Labour
Create Great British Energy – a publicly-owned clean power company
Ban bonuses for bosses of failing water companies
Make five million homes energy efficient
Create 650,000 new energy jobs by 2030
Ban fracking
Lib Dems
Water companies made public and bonuses for bosses banned
Introduce a 16 per cent sewage tax on water company profits
Double the size of Protected Area Network by 2050
All new homes to be zero carbon
Plant 60 million trees a year
Greens
Bring in a carbon tax on businesses of £120 per tonne emitted (rising to £500 p/t over ten years)
70 per cent of UK electricity to come from wind by 2030
Ban cage farming and badger culling
Bring energy sources into community ownership, allowing excess to be sold
Remove oil and gas subsidies
Reform
Scrap VAT on energy bills
Scrap environmental levies
Speed up North Sea oil and gas licences
Scrap HS2 and ULEZ