Missions v priorities: how Starmer’s policy goals compare with Sunak’s | Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer announced the last of his five missions this week: removing barriers to opportunity. With the announcement, voters are now able to compare the Labour leader’s ideas with those of the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who laid out his own five priorities at the beginning of the year. So what does each man want to achieve? And can he do it?

Sunak’s five priorities

1. Halving inflation

Sunak has made his top priority dealing with the economic mess created in part by the botched mini-budget of his predecessor, Liz Truss, which sent interest rates soaring. The problem is, he has relatively few tools to achieve his goal.

• Detail: Sunak has promised to halve the rate of the consumer prices index, which was 10.7% when he spoke. Unlike with some of his other pledges, he put a timeline on it: by the end of the year. So if CPI is not below 5.35% by the end of December, he will have failed. 5/5

• Affordability: Sunak does not need to spend anything to bring down inflation, in fact he needs to do the opposite. To damp down demand in the economy, the prime minister must resist calls to cut taxes and to spend more government money. 5/5

• Impact: Almost nothing would have a more immediate impact on voters’ pockets than cutting inflation. Although if the government and the Bank of England overshoot and cut demand too much, they risk triggering a recession. 5/5

• Deliverability: Sunak may have thought he was being clever by promising something forecasters said would happen anyway. But with inflation proving unexpectedly stubborn at 8.7%, ministers are now admitting that the real power lies with the Bank. 1/5

2. Growing the economy

Along with cutting inflation, Sunak has promised to grow the economy. The problem is that these two priorities clash: more austere fiscal and monetary policies are likely to cut inflation; looser ones will help boost growth.

• Detail: Downing Street has clarified that this pledge will be met if gross domestic product is higher in the fourth quarter than the previous three months. So if there is 0.1% GDP growth in the final quarter of this year, he will have succeeded. 5/5

• Affordability: It all depends on how Sunak decides to meet this pledge. If he relies on supply-side reforms in the style of Truss, such as cutting regulations, it will not cost much. But many Tory MPs want him to go further and cut taxes. 4/5

• Impact: A growing economy would obviously bring a lot of benefits. But for the pledge to be met he needs only 0.1% growth, which many economists would describe as stagnation. 1/5

• Deliverability: The prime minister can increase public spending, cut taxes or reduce red tape to boost GDP. The problem is that using them also risks stoking inflation. In the last four quarters, GDP has risen 0.1% three times and fallen 0.1% once. 3/5

3. Cutting debt

The prime minister has been far less clear about what his final economic pledge means or when he expects to deliver it. Cutting debt usually means reducing it as a proportion of GDP, something not forecast to start happening until 2027-28.

• Detail: Presuming Sunak means cutting public sector net debt as a proportion of GDP, we at least know what he means. But we have no idea when he intends to do it, except for the fact that the government’s fiscal rules mean it must be forecast to fall by the end of a five-year period. 2/5

• Affordability: The conditions needed to cut public sector debt are similar to those needed to bring down inflation: Sunak needs to resist calls to spend more and to cut taxes. 5/5

• Impact: The Treasury argues that having lower debt puts the government in a stronger position to respond to sudden shocks. If the government borrows less it could also help reduce interest rates, which would in turn bring down costs for households. But cut spending too much and Sunak risks further damaging Britain’s already-struggling public services. 3/5

• Deliverability: Public sector net debt to GDP is forecast to grow every year for the next four years. Sunak has control over one half of the equation: how much the government borrows. But he does not have complete control over the other: how much the economy grows. 3/5

4. Reduce NHS waiting lists

Voters regard health as the second most important issue facing the country, behind only the economy. Waiting lists in England (health is a devolved issue) have been rising steadily since the pandemic.

• Detail: The NHS provides a simple figure for the number of people who are waiting for treatment in England, which was 7.4 million as of April. But Downing Street has not said when it expects to hit the target. Worse, as waiting lists continue to increase, No 10 argues that the number of people waiting longer than 18 months is falling. But this was not the promise Sunak made. 3/5

• Affordability: Sunak has announced an extra £2.4bn over the next five years to pay for his NHS workforce plan, which aims to fill more than 100,000 vacancies. Spending like this will help bring down waiting lists, but it will take time to have an effect. 2/5

• Impact: Waiting lists are only one measure of the performance of the health service, but they have a huge impact on people’s lives, and are often a sign of how well it is performing in other areas too. 4/5

• Deliverability: Since Sunak announced his pledge, the number of people waiting for treatment in England has gone up from 7.2 million to 7.4 million. The last time that figure came down was during the pandemic, when millions of people decided not to seek treatment at all for fear of overwhelming hospitals. 2/5

5. Stop the boats

Small boat crossings have plagued Sunak’s premiership so far. The UK’s asylum processing system has all but ground to a halt, and yet people continue to cross the Channel in small and often dangerous vessels to seek refuge in the UK.

• Detail: The wording of this pledge has always been ambiguous. At one point in his speech at the beginning of the year, the PM talked about passing new laws to stop the boats, while at others he talked of stopping them altogether. 2/5

• Affordability: Sunak intends to stop the small boats with legislation that allows ministers to remove asylum seekers to Rwanda and cap the number who can come through safe and legal routes. The government said last month that each flight to Rwanda would cost £169,000, making the system cheaper only if it brought about a drastic fall in the number of asylum seekers arriving. 4/5

• Impact: Reducing the number of small boat crossings would help ease the burden on the asylum system and therefore the number of people living indefinitely in hotels – something that has irritated some of those in the communities nearby. 2/5

• Deliverability: While the crossings continue – 3,823 people made the journey in June – the government’s legislation has been heavily amended in the House of Lords and its Rwanda plan has been struck down by the court of appeal. 2/5

Starmer’s five missions

1. Secure the highest sustained growth in the G7

Starmer focuses more on growth than curbing inflation, though his definition of “sustained growth” means incomes growing faster than costs.

• Detail: Labour says it aims to have higher per-capita GDP growth than any other G7 country in consecutive years by the end of the parliament. The party also wants to narrow the gap between the median British family and their French and German counterparts in the same period. 4/5

• Affordability: Like Sunak, Starmer has promised to have public sector spending falling as a proportion of GDP by the end of the parliament, as well as eliminating the current account deficit by the same time. But he will borrow to spend £28bn on the green prosperity plan by the second half of the parliament. 3/5

• Impact: In the last quarter, the UK grew at the second slowest rate in the G7, ahead only of Germany. From the end of 2019 until the end of March this year, the country’s growth was lower than any other G7 country. Putting the country at the top of that league table would be quite a turnaround. 4/5

• Deliverability: Delivering higher growth than any other G7 country will be especially difficult given that Starmer is ruling out any major changes to the UK’s trading relationship with the EU. 2/5

2. Make Britain a clean energy superpower

Starmer’s growth plan is intrinsically tied to his green energy plan, given that the £28bn green prosperity plan is the only thing Labour has identified as being worth borrowing to spend on.

• Detail: Labour has promised to spend £28bn on green schemes by the second half of the parliament. By 2030, the party promises to have built a zero-carbon electricity system, as well as to have cut £1,400 off the annual household energy bill. 4/5

• Affordability: This is the one area of Labour’s plans for which it has allocated funds from borrowing. The Conservatives accuse the party of planning to spend recklessly, though Starmer argues that capital investment of this sort will make bills cheaper for the government and individuals in the long run. 2/5

• Impact: Labour’s targets are ambitious, but not that far off some of those already set by the government, which has said that 95% of the country’s electricity will come from clean power by 2030. The party says its green investment will support 50,000 jobs in the green energy industry by 2030. 4/5

• Deliverability: Most of this will not be easy. Even finding the projects to spend £28bn on could prove difficult. In the first quarter of 2023, fossil fuels accounted for more than a third of UK electricity production. There are some easy steps for Labour to take, however, including overturning the effective ban on onshore wind. 2/5

3. Build an NHS fit for the future

Starmer says the NHS is “not on its knees, but on its face”. Yet his solutions are a series of individual fixes, such as training more GPs and using the private sector more, rather than a major reorganisation, such as creating a new national care service for social care, which some have called for.

• Detail: The Labour leader has clear targets to hit, such as reducing the number of deaths from strokes and heart disease by a quarter within 10 years. But some of Labour’s solutions are less defined, including what role it expects the private sector to play in freeing up capacity. 3/5

• Affordability: Labour has promised small amounts of money for certain things, such as using some of the funds raised by axing non-dom tax status to train 15,000 new doctors. But any extra money to run the NHS will have to be paid for either by new taxes or be taken from elsewhere in the government budget. 3/5

• Impact: Even simple improvements such as stopping patients having to call at 8am to see a GP on the same day would have a major impact on people’s lives. But experts say the health service faces bigger problems, not least major shortfalls in capital spending. 4/5

• Deliverability: Some of what Labour promises should be achievable, such as training more clinicians or making it easier for patients to be referred to specialist services. But some doubt the party is doing enough to have the impact on health outcomes it has promised. 3/5

4. Make Britain’s streets safe

Starmer should be on solid ground when it comes to crime and justice, given his former role as director of public prosecutions. This is also one area where the picture is already improving: the Office for National Statistics’ crime survey shows crime has been falling in the UK since 1995. But certain crimes are on the rise, including robbery and knife crime, and trust in police is falling.

• Detail: Labour has four pledges: to halve knife crime, to halve violence against women and girls, to raise confidence in every police force to its highest level ever, and to increase the proportion of crimes solved, all within a decade. Measuring them may be harder. On violence against women and girls, for example, the party says it will work with experts to determine the best statistic to use. 4/5

• Affordability: Labour’s targets are clear. How much they will cost is less so. The party promises, for example, to recruit 13,000 new neighbourhood police officers and community support officers, but does not say where the money to do that will come from. 2/5

• Impact: Crime is not in the top five voters’ priorities, perhaps reflecting the long-term decline in crime rates. But improvements, such as in the detection rate, which has been falling since 2014, are likely to have a major impact on whether people feel the justice system is working. 2/5

• Deliverability: Without some estimate of how much money the measures will cost, or how they will be paid for, it is difficult to say how easy they will be to achieve. Some are likely to prove difficult, such as forcing through Louise Casey’s recommendations for cleaning up the Metropolitan police. 2/5

5. Break down barriers to opportunity

Starmer said on Thursday that this mission was the one that resonated most strongly with him on a personal level. Encompassing everything from childcare to careers advice, this is also one of the broadest.

• Detail: Labour says it will increase the percentage of children achieving a “good level of development” by the end of reception from 72% now to 90% by 2030. It also wants to reverse the decline in the number of 18-year-olds who go on to further education, apprenticeships or employment. 4/5

• Affordability: Labour will end tax breaks for private schools, which it says will raise £1.6bn. The party will then spend £350m of that on recruiting 6,500 new teachers, and a further £56m on giving £2,400 to each new teacher who stays in post for two years. But the party has not said how much it will spend on other pledges, such as the promise to increase childcare capacity, which could prove expensive. 3/5

• Impact: If Labour can reduce the degree to which someone’s income depends on that of their parents down to levels close to that of Scandinavian countries, it could have a major impact on British society. But there are significant structural problems, such as expanding childcare availability and retaining more teachers, which some argue will not be solved without considerable extra money. 3/5

• Deliverability: Many of the specifics are achievable, such as ending tax breaks to private schools and using the money to recruit and retain new teachers. But some doubt whether this will have sufficient impact to change outcomes at schools, given that many teachers are leaving the profession due to consistent below-inflation pay rises, something Labour has so far refused to promise to reverse. 3/5