Labour's Cost of Living Contract

Last week, Labour would have delivered a Queen’s speech to help Britain be better off 

Parliament should be making real progress to address the public’s discontent and chart a new direction for Britain. Labour’s Queen’s Speech would have included: 

 

• A Make Work Pay bill to reward hard work with a higher minimum wage.

 

• A Banking Bill that backs British business with a real British Investment Bank and new regional banks.

 

• A Consumers Bill to freeze energy bills until 2017 and reform the energy market

 

• A Housing Bill with long term reform to increase supply to 200,000 homes by 2020, and measures to end rip-off letting fees and make three year tenancies the norm.

 

• A Communities Bill to give people a say over pay day lenders and betting shops on their high streets.

 

• An Immigration Bill, to stop workers being undercut through enforcement of the minimum wage and banning recruitment agencies that only use overseas labour.

 

• An NHS Bill, to put a stop to its privatisation and improve access to GPs. 

 

To make that happen we need a different government, a Labour Government.

 

Labour will take immediate action to deal with David Cameron’s cost-of-living crisis:

 

• Freeze gas and electricity bills until 2017, as we reform the broken energy market to prevent customers being ripped off.

 

• Get the next generation into work, with expanded apprenticeships and a compulsory jobs guarantee for young people unemployed for a year or more – with a real paid job they’ll have to take or lose benefits.

 

• Introduce a lower 10p starting rate of tax to help make work pay and cut taxes for 24 million working people on middle and lower incomes – funded by a mansion tax on homes worth over £2 million.

 

• End the abuse of zero hour contracts and strengthen the minimum wage.

 

Labour will make big long-term changes so that hardworking people are better off

 

• Get 200,000 homes built a year by 2020, creating up to 230,000 construction jobs.

 

• Make work pay with 25 hours free childcare for three and four year olds with working parents paid for by an increase in the bank levy.

 

• Improve school standards, by guaranteeing that all teachers must be qualified, and transforming vocational education for the 50 per cent of young people who don’t go to university with gold-standard technical qualifications at age 18.

 

• Repeal David Cameron's NHS changes that put private profit before patient care – and we will give patients and the public a say when changes to local services are proposed.

 

Only Labour can make Britain better off, putting hardworking families first with a plan to tackle the cost-of-living crisis and earn our way to higher living standards for all.