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As we step into Christmas and the New Year, the Vuelio Political Team have been thinking and writing about the key developments that pervaded UK policy and politics in 2024. Here is our overview…

Treating the NHS

Helen Stott, Policy Researcher

Wes Streeting’s first act as Health Secretary was to make a speech declaring the NHS ‘broken’ and to commission Lord Darzi to conduct an investigation into its current state. Darzi’s review was published a few months later and, perhaps unsurprisingly, he laid the blame for the NHS’s decline squarely at the fault of previous Conservative governments. Darzi claims that although the health service is still suffering the effects of COVID-19, it was severely weakened going into the pandemic as a result of years of underfunding. He was also critical of the reforms introduced by former Health Secretary Andrew Lansley in 2012.

Having diagnosed the problem, the Government is now tasked with delivering the treatment. Prior to the election, Labour made it clear that their plans for the health service would rely on three key shifts; firstly a shift away from hospitals and to delivering more care in community settings such as general practice, local pharmacies, and community mental health services. Moving ‘downstream’ is crucial to Labour’s second goal, which is to shift towards a more ‘preventative’ model. The argument is that as the UK faces an aging population with more complex health needs, the only way to stop health costs from spiralling out of control is to get better at early intervention or even preventing ill health from occurring in the first place. This ties in with the Government’s public health ambitions, and their intentions to introduce stricter regulations on junk food. Finally, the first two goals will be underpinned by a shift towards digital, with an ambition to properly digitise the NHS and create electronic patient records, which will allow for proper coordination between different parts of the health and social care system.

The Government is currently in the process of consulting on their 10 Year Health Plan which is due to be published in spring 2025. There are still big questions about how much extra funding the NHS can expect to receive in order to deliver the plan, and about what the Government’s ambition to create a National Care Service will entail.

Planning reform goes top of the priority list

Ellie Farrow, Junior Policy Researcher

Last week, the Government published an 82-page National Planning Policy Framework report outlining its plan to ‘overhaul planning rules’ in order to fix the so-called housing crisis and enable the building of 1.5 million new homes by the end of the next Parliament. The revised framework reintroduces mandatory targets for councils, prioritises brownfield sites, introduces ‘golden rules’ for development on the green belt, and offers additional funding to local authorities’ to aid this transition.

Following this, the ONS released figures showing that the economy had shrunk in October; notably the figures revealed zero growth in the services sector, with manufacturing and construction declining at a pace of 0.6% and 0.4% respectively. This perhaps comes as no surprise to some who have repeatedly expressed concerns for the labour shortages in the sector, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has consistently argued that there is a growing gap between the demand for infrastructure development and the available workforce.

In addition to these concerns, under the new plans, councils in England will no longer have the power to contest developments. Instead, planning is to be centralised – or ‘regionalised’ – leading to a disempowerment of local planning offices and committees. These changes, however, came just days before the Government’s much-anticipated English Devolution White Paper. As of this week, the Government has published their English Devolution White Paper which promises to deliver a ‘permanent shift of power away from Whitehall and into the hands of those who know their communities best’. Whether this tallies with centralising planning laws is yet to be seen.

The devolution ‘revolution’

Jennifer Prescott, Political Services Team Lead

In the first week after Labour’s election victory, Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner met with England’s 12 metro mayors to confirm their longstanding intention to expand devolution, promising to ‘deliver the most ambitious programme of devolution this country has ever seen’. The devolution agenda is the first of Labour’s five missions to kickstart economic growth and has been set out in their English Devolution White Paper, published on 16 December. The paper pledges a ‘devolution by default’ approach and outlines its ambition to establish ‘strategic authorities’ (of 500,000 or more residents) covering the whole of the country, meaning that borough and district councils will be abolished. Chair of the District Councils’ Network Sam Chapman-Allen called the move the ‘opposite of devolution, taking powers away from local communities’. Similarly, one council leader in Sussex – an area that has recently submitted an expression of interest in devolved power – called it a ‘death knell for local democracy’. However, the Government’s intention behind the plan to favour larger, combined authorities is to give cities and regions ‘a bigger voice’.

Mayoral strategic authorities will receive consolidated funding pots for housing and planning, transport, skills, and employment support, with the Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, North East, South Yorkshire, West Midlands, and West Yorkshire combined authorities being the first. While the Local Government Association welcomes the transfer of powers and money to local leaders, it said it ‘cannot distract from the severe funding pressures that are pushing local services to the brink’. Given the proximity, it’s unclear how pivotal yesterday’s Local Government Finance Settlement will be for the viability of local authorities.

The Government will shortly set out its Devolution Priority Programme aiming to deliver inaugural mayoral elections in May 2026. Discussions have been had with places including Cheshire and Warrington, and Norfolk and Suffolk, and places on the Priority Programme will be confirmed in January.

The post-16 education and skills landscape

Michael Kane, Policy Researcher

A 2023 report by the Education Committee demonstrated the complex nature of the post-16 education and skills landscape – significantly, this simply reiterated the same point that had been made before by the Independent Panel on Technical Education in 2016 and the Wolf Review in 2011. 2024 saw the continuation of this complexity. At the start of the year, then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was pursuing his plans for an ‘Advanced British Standard’, a plan to, in essence, combine A Levels and T Levels, see every student study ‘some form of maths and English to age 18’, and defund alternative qualifications such as BTECs.

Labour’s election complicated matters: Sunak’s Advanced British Standard was scrapped and derided as unfunded by the Chancellor, and less than month into Government, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson announced a ‘short review of post-16 qualification reforms at level 3 and below’. The culmination of this review in December saw the Government largely renege on the previous Government’s plans for widespread defunding as they announced that 70% of courses previously earmarked for defunding would stay. Considering the importance of getting post-16 qualifications right for addressing ameliorating skills gaps and productivity levels in the UK economy, the Government may choose to buck the trend of complexity and give the education sector certainty in 2025. With this in mind, the Government’s manifesto promise to publish a long-term strategy for post-16 education is one to look out for.

Clean energy by 2030, not 2035

Laura Fitzgerald, Policy Researcher

Labour’s election brought with it promises of change for the UK’s energy landscape. Both in the lead-up to – and post – election, Labour have been vocal in Labour’s ambitions to make the UK a ‘clean energy superpower’ and target of clean power by 2030. This target, five years earlier than their Conservative predecessors, will be no small feat, but one that the Government insists is achievable. Last week saw Labour publish its Clean Power 2030 Action Plan detailing the steps to build a clean energy system, and one that benefits both the consumer and environment alike. It includes reforms to the grid connection and renewable auction processes, and pledges to ‘unlock billions of investment’ a year.

Energy UK’s CEO Dhara Vyas welcomed the changes to accelerate the planning process and enable the development of critical infrastructure, as did Friends of the Earth who said that the plan will be instrumental in creating green jobs, lowering bills and protecting the planet. The plan is not without its sceptics however. The Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho, who has largely defended the net-zero scepticism of the previous Government, expressed concerns about whether a clean energy system would lower household energy bills. Speaking in an interview with Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, Nick Robinson also shared some public concern that a clean energy system may lead to blackouts with renewable energy sources often subject to some variability. With 2030 just under four years away, both sides can agree that the scale of the task is significant and will require bold action if the clean energy target is to be met.

2025 and beyond

Given the holistic nature of policy, the key developments that pervaded 2024 will likely feed into 2025. With this in mind, if we are to comprehend the issues that may grasp the machinery of Government in 2025, we have to understand – were they were conclusively grasped before?

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The Conservative leadership candidates have all given their pitch to the party hoping to succeed Rishi Sunak. The last time Conservative members chose their leader, they went for Liz Truss. This time the choice will not be as consequential for the country, as they will be taking the position of Leader of the Opposition, rather than Prime Minister.

While not being as significant to the country, it is of vital importance to the party as they are at somewhat of a crossroads in terms of their long and storied history. They are coming off a historic defeat at the General Election and now have only 121 MPs. Labour is attempting to blame the previous Government for everything they can. The Liberal Democrats and Reform both enjoyed significant electoral success against the party at the election as well. Whoever is chosen has a big task on their hands.

Tugendhat
Emerging from a sea of foam fingers and Tom Tugendtote bags, Shadow Security Minister Tom Tugendhat was the first of the candidates to take to the main hall stage at this year’s Conservative Party Conference and give his leadership pitch. In a nod to his background as a former soldier, Tugendhat’s speech was largely values-driven, emphasising the importance of integrity towards – and service to – both the party and country alike. While his decorated military experience precedes him, Tugendhat certainly has the least government experience of the four leadership hopefuls. With less than two years serving as Security Minister under former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Tugendhat played to his time in the military, saying that this showed him what true leadership is, and he promised to ‘lead with conviction and [to] act decisively’. He also justified his comparatively shorter time in management around the cabinet table claiming that he is ‘not here to manage, but to lead.’

Echoing the sentiment of the conference’s slogan ‘Review and Rebuild’, Tugendhat’s speech stressed the need to rebuild the party and restore the trust of the British people. He also vowed to rebuild CCHQ, and turn the Conservatives back into a ‘campaign-winning machine.’ Global security is a priority for Tugendhat. He values Britain’s position on the global stage and said the Conservatives have long been a party to fight for freedom, ‘united’ against threats the UK has faced. Migration, healthcare, the economy, and energy were also key areas of focus in his speech. He pledged to introduce an effective deterrent for migration, including a legal cap at 100,000, while on health and energy he vowed to strip excessive regulations in the health system and never to allow the UK to be dependent on ‘tyrants’ for energy.

This week also saw the Shadow Security Minister hit out at rival Robert Jenrick who used footage of one of Tugendhat’s former comrades in a campaign video. Jenrick published the video to make the case that the UK needs to withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), claiming it forces the SAS into ‘killing rather than capturing terrorists’. The video contained footage of British soldiers in combat, one of whom Tugendhat knew from his time in Afghanistan, and who has since passed away. Tugendhat took to BBC Newsnight to express his anger at Jenrick’s comments, stating that it shows a ‘fundamental lack of awareness of military operations’ and urging Jenrick to ‘pull [the video] down’. He also said that it was ‘particularly upsetting’ that his friend had been used in vain, unable to have the opportunity to defend himself. Tugendhat’s own stance on ECHR is somewhat reminiscent of David Cameron pre-Brexit referendum in that he suggested ‘[opting] out of the bits you can, reform the bits that aren’t working, and if that doesn’t work, be prepared to leave’.

While Tugendhat is popular among the public, with a recent poll placing him in the lead among The Independent readership, his prospects at Wednesday’s third ballot may not yield such positive results. According to a recent YouGov poll, Tugendhat is trailing behind, with only 16% of Conservative party members believing he is fit for the top job.

Cleverly
James Cleverly is widely viewed as being the candidate who benefitted the most from his speech at conference. He went into the conference as a bit of an outsider without much momentum and his leadership rivals were capturing far more of the media attention. He called on the party to be ‘normal’ and attempted to provide party members with a sense of motivation going forward. He even began his speech asking what the point of the party is and went on to speak on how the party has no right to power. He focused heavily on his upbringing and life, going through his upbringing in Lewisham, his time in the Reserves, his career in business, and his wife’s battle with cancer. Cleverly succeeded where some have criticised Tugendhat, in explaining who he is and what his background is and not taking for granted people know who he is.

The sense of trying to motivate a defeated party can be seen through Cleverly listing the Conservatives’ achievements over the years and squarely saying that if he is leader there will be no deals with Reform.

Another key part of Cleverly’s speech was his experience and what he had done, which was well received. However on 3 October the Foreign Office released a joint statement on the Chagos Archipelago, whereby sovereignty was given to Mauritius over the islands. Cleverly criticised this announcement which could be seen to have been a bit of a misstep as he was the Foreign Secretary when the negotiations began. This was roundly pointed out across social media and has been picked up by his leadership rivals. This has hurt Cleverly’s credibility just as his stock was beginning to rise, as he is seemingly criticising a policy that he initiated.

Jenrick
Bobby J had perhaps the most turbulent week of all the leadership contenders. He came into the conference as the frontrunner but a campaign video on the ECHR has caused him big problems. In a video where Jenrick was making the case for the UK to leave the ECHR, he made the claim that British special forces are killing rather than capturing terrorists due to the convention. When he was challenged on the remarks Jenrick stood by his claim, saying he did not want the convention to get in the way of national security. Jenrick cited an article by former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace in which he wrote “because of international treaties such as the European Convention on Human Rights defence secretaries are being forced to choose between killing individuals, generally by drone, or leaving them to continue plotting”. This led to the first real blue on blue attacks of the leadership campaign, with both James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat expressing concern with Jenrick’s claim.

Jenrick played to the audience both in terms of location and their politics. He proudly declared his Midlands roots and revealed that one of his daughters’ middle names is Thatcher, as she was born in the year Margaret Thatcher died and he respects ‘strong women’. Jenrick made a slight mistake when he claimed that in 1974 the Conservative Party decided to be led by Margaret Thatcher, as Thatcher actually became leader of the Conservative Party in 1975.

Jenrick has in the last few weeks closed the gap between himself and the members’ favourite Kemi Badenoch. He has the most support among MPs, and if the members move with him, it would be fair to consider him in pole position.

Badenoch
The gifts available at Kemi Badenoch’s party conference tent were slightly different from her opponents. No t-shirts or hats, but Kemi apples, anyone? Perhaps a symbol of a healthy Britain, perhaps a symbol that a fresh start is coming, either way Badenoch has certainly been the apple of the Conservative party members’ eye for most of the leadership contest. A recent YouGov poll has revealed that the Shadow Housing Secretary is the hot favourite among members and this has largely been the case since the race began. That being said, her popularity has waned in recent days following her controversial remarks regarding maternity pay. Speaking with Times Radio, former Business Secretary Badenoch claimed that statutory maternity pay places an ‘excessive’ burden on business and has ‘gone too far.’ The comment has since come under fire, leading Badenoch to later defend herself on X, insisting that ‘of course [she believes] in maternity pay!’. A poll conducted amid the backlash over the remarks found that only 7% of the British public think maternity pay is too much, so it begs the question, is it Badenoch who has gone ‘too far?’ Badenoch has pitched herself as somewhat of a fighter, saying ‘if you swing at me, I will swing back’, something that some members may admire, which others may find concerning. Her dismissal of identity politics will likely have gone down well with members however. When asked about how she would feel to be the first black leader, she responded, ‘I am somebody who wants the colour of skin to be no more significant than the colour of our hair or the colour of our eyes’.

Badenoch’s speech at conference reflected her worldview and outlined her values. She spoke of the importance of trust, freedom of speech, and the bravery to do the right thing. Contrary to Labour’s steadfast drive towards clean energy, Badenoch is herself a net zero sceptic. She said the net zero strategy is damaging to the economy and criticised the commitment towards the transition to net zero. The latter half of her speech focused on the key tenets of her leadership. She pledged to ‘rewrite the rules of game’, developing a comprehensive plan to reform the British state and economy. She said this will include a review of the UK’s international agreements, the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act, judicial review, the Treasury, the Bank of England, the Civil Service and the NHS. She closed her speech with the unveiling of her ‘Renewal 2030’ plan. For Badenoch, 2030, potentially the Conservatives’ first year back in office, would be an opportunity to build growth in the UK, centred around personal responsibility, family, sovereignty and capitalism.

For what could have been a ‘doom and gloom’ party conference following a bruising election defeat, there was certainly an air of optimism among the leadership candidates. The four contenders all believe that they have what it takes to rebuild the country and lead the Conservative party to victory at the next election. What differs however is their approach to doing so. A Badenoch or Jenrick victory may see Labour confronted with challenges on their net zero policy, whilst a Tugendhat or Cleverly victory may see greater emphasis on global security and foreign policy.

With Tugendhat likely to be the next candidate eliminated from the race, it remains to be seen where his share of the votes will go. Will they be distributed to Cleverly, after his impressive performance at conference, and similar left-leaning stance? Or will Badenoch and Jenrick hold strong at the top? It’s up to the members to decide.

For regular updates on what is happening in UK politics and public affairs, sign up to our weekly Point of Order newsletter, going out every Friday morning.

Written by Michael Kane and Helen Stott on the Vuelio Political Team, reporting from 2024’s UK Party Conferences. 

While the attention of the political media may have been on the movements within the main conference hall during the Labour Party Conference – with senior members of the Cabinet and the Prime Minister all giving significant speeches and numerous key motions passing through – the Vuelio Political Team was focused primarily on key fringe events.

While often derided as expensive for the organisers and ineffectual in terms of outcomes, such a narrow view misrepresents their value in the policy development process. After all, now Minister for School Standards, Catherine McKinnell, started the formation of Labour’s policy on Ofsted last year when she condemned their inspection system for being both ‘ineffective’ and ‘dreaded’ in a fringe event last year. This preceded Labour’s proposed ban of single word judgments in their manifesto, and this was confirmed by the Department for Education earlier this month.

With that in mind, what fringe events this year proved particularly intriguing in terms of policy?

‘Speaking up for opportunity’ by the Oracy Commission

Geoff Barton, Chair of the Oracy Commission, noted in his remarks that this Labour conference marks nearly 50 years on from the Bullock Report, which considered the teaching of English in schools. However, its recommendations were largely sidelined as the Thatcher Government chose to focus its curriculum on employability. Preceding this conversation around oracy, we have seen numerous different national curriculums in England with revisions coming in 1989, 1995, 2000, and 2014. This comes at a crossroads for schools following Labour’s announcement of a curriculum review, which recently opened a call to evidence. Debates surrounding the curriculum usually come within the perceived dichotomy between more creative and arts-based subjects against more empirically positivist STEM subjects.

In this fringe, the panellists avoided this binary perspective and instead recognised the role that oracy can play in all aspects of a young person’s education. Oli De Botton of The Careers and Enterprise Trust recognised the importance of oracy skills in helping young people in the transition secondary school, further education, higher education or employment – importantly, it is at these transition points that inequality in the education system may be cemented. Speaking to this point, Dr Nicky Platt, Deputy Director of the Education Development Trust, recognised the role oracy can play in reducing the ‘word gap’. In that sense, oracy can play a vital role in reducing the widening attainment gap across income and regional variables in England – that gap has been exemplified by the National Audit Office’s report in July.

Labour have committed to a ‘rich and broad’ curriculum, as per Education Secretary’s Bridget Phillipson’s speech to the Labour conference – however, the specific role oracy will play is yet to be determined.

‘Prevention-led public services: Can the government make its rhetoric a reality?’ by Institute for Government and The Health Foundation

This was yet another fringe event dedicated to the issue of moving to a preventative healthcare model and shifting resources away from primary and community care. There has been a growing consensus among politicians for almost 30 years that this is the right direction of travel – and yet the vision has failed to materialise. Over the past decade, population health has steadily declined, at the same time that hospitals and the acute sector are swallowing up a growing proportion of the NHS budget – leaving vital parts of the health service, like general practice and community services, woefully under resourced. Labour have made it clear that they will not be willing to let the spending taps flow freely, and that improvements to the health service will have to come from reform. The Department for Health is hoping that shifting resources to early intervention will ease pressure on hospitals in the long run and get the NHS back on its feet without spending significantly more money – but will this gamble pay off?

Dr Jennifer Dixon from the Health Foundation made the case for a rewriting of the rules regarding public spending in order to hardwire the prevention agenda into government. The Treasury can be too reluctant to invest in certain areas unless it can see an immediate return on investment, but preventative measures can often take longer to show their benefits. Similarly, Nick Davies from the Institute for Government argued for a ring fenced prevention budget and a cross-government strategy on prevention. Paul Kissack from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation was perhaps the most interesting contributor; he was somewhat sceptical of the ring fenced prevention budget idea, as he thought any technocratic fiddling would be pointless without wider investment to address the root cause of ill-health – poverty. Davies said uplifting universal credit would be the most effective lever to immediately lift people out of poverty, something JRF have been campaigning on for a few years. While there was enthusiastic agreement among the panellists, including Health Minister Andrew Gwynne, that lifting children out of poverty should be an urgent priority, the elephant in the room – namely, Labour’s refusal to lift the two child benefit cap – was left unaddressed.

‘How can higher education help to break down barriers to opportunity across regions’ by MillionPlus

The role of modern universities in the higher education sector and the economy in general has often been disputed, with the prior Government deriding the increasing number of people going to university and the existence of perceived ‘rip off degrees’. Preceding that, the Blair Government had committed to ensuring that at least 50% of young people attended university. This Labour Government has committed to resetting the relationship with universities and supporting ‘every person who meets the requirements and wants to go to university’ in their manifesto. This rhetorical inconsistency over the last few decades illustrates the challenges that modern universities have faced. With this in mind, this fringe event by MillionPlus looked to position these universities as central to Labour’s commitment to equalising educational opportunity and tackling regional inequalities.

Lord Khan, the Minister for Faith, Communities and Resettlement, who represents the first graduate of a modern university to serve in Government, noted that these universities are vital to addressing regional inequalities through generating regional growth. This point was substantiated by the Chair of MillionPlus, Professor Graham Baldwin, as he detailed that 68% of graduates of these modern universities stay in the local areas. To add to this, Nick Harrison of the Sutton Trust elucidated the positive impact that modern universities have on social mobility in their admissions policies – with three out of the top five of Sutton Trust’s social mobility rankings of universities being modern universities.

The role modern universities play in equalising access to higher education and tackling significant regional inequalities in the UK is clear. This is a vital issue for Labour to tackle given its significance. The ONS’ recent labour market statistics in September 2024 elucidated the regional divergence in England across levels of employment and economic activity and the expanding wealth gap between north-south of England, as shown by the IPPR. However, modern universities’ role in tackling these issues may be constrained given the crisis in higher education funding – an issue Labour has yet to propose a long term solution to.

What now?

Many of the speeches by the key members of the Labour Government at the conference focused on emphasising their central messages in an attempt to not rock the boat. However, these fringes provide a more revealing read into the future challenges the Government faces as they elucidate the myriad of social, economic and political challenges the UK faces. By that notion, they also potentially reveal the next steps the Government may take in substantive policy.

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