Suggested motions

The following motions are suggested for submission to Labour Party Annual Conference 2023. The closing date for motions is 5pm on Thursday 21 September 2023. Motions must be 250 words or fewer, cover one subject only and not cover an organisational matter.

Public Ownership is necessary and popular

Conference notes:

That public ownership is popular with voters, with polling indicating these levels of support

• Energy – 66% (Survation, 2022)
• Water – 69% (Survation, 2022)
• Royal Mail – 68% (Survation, 2022)
• Railways – 67% (Survation, 2022)
• Buses – 65% (Survation, 2022)
• Social Care – 64% (Survation, 2020)
• NHS – 84% (YouGov, 2017)

Additionally, 61% of the public think local and central government should try to run services in-house first, before outsourcing (Survation, 2015,) 82% want schools to mostly be run in the public sector (Survation, 2020;) and 63% want utilities to mostly be run in the public sector (Survation, 2020.)

Conference believes:

• The crises caused by soaring energy bills and the scandal of raw sewage being dumped into rivers have highlighted the failures of privatisation in Britain.
• Private companies are making mega-profits from public services – these vast sums should instead be invested to improve services, to give their workers a pay increase and to lower costs for consumers.
• That the Tory corruption and outsourcing crises during the pandemic further illustrated the need for public ownership and democratic control.
• A clear commitment to extending public ownership of key utilities and public services can be a big vote winner for Labour.

Conference resolves:

• To oppose further Tory privatisation and outsourcing, including of the NHS, education and council services.
• To support public ownership of key services and utilities including energy, water, railways, buses, social care, the royal mail and the NHS.

Trade union and employment rights

Conference notes that the pursuit of neo-liberal economic doctrine in Britain for over 40 years has resulted in a massive transfer of wealth from working people to the 1%, the domestic and global elite.

A weapon used to facilitate this transfer has been a succession of anti-union laws since 1980 that have restricted unions’ rights to organise, to collective bargaining, and to strike. This has culminated with the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act, 2023.

It is collective bargaining that was the driver of greater income equality. Up until the end of the 1970s the gap between the wealthy and not so wealthy was the least that it’s ever been; with the advent of the anti-union laws in the 1980s that gap has been getting progressively wider.

An essential feature of collective bargaining is the right to strike; without such a right there is no bargaining as workers cannot exercise any countervailing power over the employer. The latest attack on union rights effectively outlaws the right to take meaningful strike action in six key sectors of the economy.

Therefore, conference reaffirms Labour’s commitments on rights at work as set out in the Green Paper Labour’s New Deal for Working People.

Conference endorses the wording “Labour is committed to repealing anti-trade union legislation which removes workers’ rights, including the Trade Union Act 2016 …” a pledge which must now include the 2023 Act.

Conference endorses the pledge to enact these commitments within 100 days of taking office.

Our right to protest

Conference notes:

1) on 6 May 2023, coronation day, under the powers of the 2023 Public Order Act, 64 people were arrested, including:

* 3 women’s safety volunteers

* 6 members of campaigning group Republic

* a monarchist bystander

* 13 Animal Rising activists attending a training course

* members of Just Stop Oil

and were held in custody for more than 12 hours, before being released without charge – the Metropolitan apologised for its actions;

2) intersectional discrimination impedes disadvantaged minorities, including BAME, GRT, LGTBI, disabled and women, to access their rights;

3) black people are six times more likely to be stopped than white people;

4) increasing authoritarianism of the state and militarisation of the police translate into increased police violence against demonstrators;

5) concerns that frontbench statements suggest a Labour government would not repeal the new Act.

Conference believes:

1) freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and the right to freedom of expression and protest are fundamental human rights;

2) the 2023 Public Order Act significantly undermines these rights, introducing new protest banning orders, among other new powers;

3) the draconian restrictions of the Act conflict with a democratic society and will likely be used against trade unions, climate activists, and other campaigning organisations pursuing progressive change;

4) the Labour movement was born out of resistance and has a proud history of protest.

Conference calls upon the next Labour government to defend the right to protest and repeal the Act within two years of taking office.

Housing

Conference notes:

• Britain’s housing crisis denies millions of people their right to a decent home. Labour in government must resolve this with a new generation of council housing, liberating those living in the poor quality and expensive private rental sector. Abolishing Right to Buy, as in Wales and Scotland, will stop the loss of desperately needed homes, and rent revenue for councils. It has the added advantage of being a cost-free policy.
• The shocking death of Awaab Ishak and the growing numbers living in unsafe homes highlights the urgency of improving quality, standards and enforcement across tenures. Retrofitting all existing homes, including non-carbon heating, is necessary for improving living conditions as well as tackling climate change.

This conference determines that Labour commits to:

• Fund 150,000 social rent homes a year, including at least 100,000 Housing Revenue Account (HRA) council homes with secure tenancies;
• End “affordable rent” and fixed term tenancies;
• Fund the retrofitting of all council housing;
• Invest in Direct Labour Organisations to create well paid, unionised jobs and apprenticeships to deliver this;
• Abolish right to buy;
• Review council housing debt to address the under-funding of HRAs;
• Reintroduce rent controls;
• Compulsory registration and regulation of private rental homes, with high energy efficiency and quality standards;
• License landlords and agents, and increase funding for councils to regulate the sector;
• Empower councils to restrict, license and tax holiday homes and AirBnBs;
• Properly regulate temporary and supported accommodation.

Oppose the Tories’ benefit reforms

Conference notes that there are plans in the Government’s new white paper on benefit reforms to scrap the work capability assessment (WCA), and to tighten the benefits sanctions regime.

Under the new plans, disabled people who cannot work would only be able to qualify for a new health element of universal credit if they also receive any element of Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

Consequently, disabled people would be exposed to potential bad practice, including decisions made on little medical experience.

Furthermore, there are people who are ill and unfit for work but do not qualify for PIP and therefore would be ineligible for the universal credit health element under the new system. This measure will potentially affect people with mental health issues or with an addiction.

Moreover, sanctions for Universal Credit claimants will be applied “more rigorously”, with the introduction of a more “intensive” conditionality regime – whereby claimants have to do work-related activities to receive the full allowance. Universal Credit claimants must also work at least 18 hours a week, below which they’ll need to meet regularly with a work coach. (This is three hours greater than the current requirement, and now applies to people individually, not couples.)

Conference calls on the Party, including the Parliamentary Labour Party, to campaign vigorously against these white paper proposals.

Conference agrees that the next Labour government will repeal this law with backdated compensation to those adversely affected by this pernicious change in a vital benefit.

Supporting arguments

These reforms will create additional anxiety and stress for many disabled people who get regularly assessed for PIP who will now be in even greater fear of losing it because if they lose their PIP, they then lose the health component of universal credit.

This anxiety is unsurprising since 50 per cent of PIP claims are initially rejected. Although 75% of rejections are later reversed on appeal, this is often after a harrowing and stressful experience.

The linking of PIP, an extra costs benefit, with access to a higher rate of universal credit is very problematic. Taking away the WCA and replacing it with PIP does not make any sense because PIP is a completely different system and for a different purpose.

Furthermore, what is proposed is to completely remove the protection of no work conditionality, with instead a system geared to driving disabled and ill claimants into seeking and applying for jobs.

This conditionality would be enforced by a benefit sanctions regime.

The scrapping of the work capability assessment (WCA) will drag sick and disabled people into this brutal system where people can lose all their benefits/income at the whim of an unqualified job coach or an artificial intelligence computer programme.

The DWP treats claimants far harsher than the criminal justice system, where if you are convicted and fined your income and ability to pay is taken into account.

How can this be a compassionate and fair welfare system when it fails to provide a safety net for sick and disabled people?

High military spending limits action on public sector and pay

Conference notes:

1. the IMF forecasts the UK will be the worst performing economy of all G20 countries in 2023, shrinking by 0.3%
2. the UK has experienced the highest inflation rate for almost 40 years and the longest pay squeeze for 200 years
3. the OBR anticipates that real pay will fall by a further 1% in 2023, not reaching its 2008 level until 2026
4. the Chancellor’s Spring Statement increased the MoD budget by £5 billion in the next two years, with a total increase of £11bn over the next 5 years
5. UK military spending is the highest of all West European countries, and the fourth highest in the world as a percentage of GDP
6. at the next general election the new government will confront a damaged economy, reduced living standards, weakened public services, and inaction on climate change

Conference believes:

1. an in-coming Labour government must prioritise tackling these issues
2. the UK’s disproportionately high military budget is depriving public services of vital resources
3. none of the problems facing Britain can be resolved by nuclear weapons or war

Conference therefore agrees that a Labour government will return the defence budget to its previous level of 2% of GDP, or below that, to help facilitate different financial choices to:

• increase investment and promote growth
• improve public services
• provide an emergency support package to off-set the cost-of-living crisis, and
• take effective action to tackle climate change.

Supporting arguments

• The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) World Economic Outlook: A Rocky Recovery, 11 April 2023, predicts the UK is set to be one of the worst performing major economies in the world in 2023, It forecasts that UK economic performance will be the worst of all G20 economies, including sanctions-torn Russia, and expects the UK economy to shrink by 0.3%, compared to United States and Euro-area growth of 1.6% and 0.8% respectively in 2023.
• The G20 comprises 19 countries – Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, UK, and USA – plus the European Union. Together members represent approx 85% of global GDP, over 75% of the global trade, and approx. two-thirds of world population.
• Is it any wonder that Britain is experiencing the biggest strike wave in decades? Senior TUC Economist Geoff Tily reports, that the UK is undergoing the longest pay squeeze for over 200 years. Real wages recovered faster during the Great Depression and after the Second World War. See 17-year wage squeeze the worst in two hundred years, 11 May 2016, and Budget 2023 – was that it?, 15 March 2023.
• The Office of Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) Economic and fiscal outlook, 15 March 2023, concurs with the IMP, predicting a 0.2% decline in the UK economy in 2023. It anticipates that real pay will fall by a further 1% in 2023; not reaching its 2008 level until 2026.
• In his speech to the House of Commons on 15 March 2023, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced ‘a £5 billion package of funding for the Ministry of Defence, an additional £2 billion next year and £3bn the year after…I confirm that we’ll add a total of £11bn to our defence budget over the next 5 years, and it will be nearly 2.25% of GDP by 2025. We were the first large European country to commit 2% of GDP for defence and we will now raise that to 2.5% as soon as fiscal and economic circumstances allow.’
• This commitment came on top of last year’s Autumn Statement which provided for a rise from 2% to 2.2% in the military budget. Unlike some other government department allocations, the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) budget is inflation-proofed.
• SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Trends in World Military Expenditure 2022 bases it’s calculations on 2021 figures. Given the UK’s commitment to Aukus, the Ukraine war, and other military developments since them, these figures are likely to have increased.

Justice for Palestine

Conference welcomes the Party’s commitment to the recognition of Palestine.

Conference recognises the increasingly violent reality facing Palestinians. This has been highlighted by the settler violence encouraged by the openly far-right elements in the Israeli Government and the renewed threat of the annexation of much of the West Bank, illegal under international law. This is an ongoing process aimed at eliminating any prospects of Palestinian self-determination.

Conference believes that Palestine should be a core component of a new Labour Government’s ethical foreign policy, which should be based on the principle of the universal application of international law.

Conference believes that a future Labour Government should make clear to Israel that there will be consequences for ongoing breaches of international law including effective measures such as sanctions for breaches of international law, no arms trade, encouraging divestment from complicit firms and the boycott of goods and services that support and profit from the illegal military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

To underpin this the Labour Party should support the investigations of the International Criminal court into alleged war crimes and commit to rescinding the Tory Government’s trade agreement with Israel which fails to provide for the existence of a Palestinian state.

Public ownership of water

Conference believes that water is a fundamental human need and a natural monopoly. The argument that competition among privatised suppliers acts to lower prices to the consumer does not apply to water. It should be managed as a public asset.

It notes that:

• Since privatisation, senior executives and shareholders have pocketed over £70bn in dividends;
• The nine main water and sewerage companies have run up net debts of over £50 billion, while overseeing a lack of investment;
• Private water companies paid out £1.4 billion in dividends last year;
• Party conference, including both unions and members, has consistently backed public ownership of water as does a majority of voters – including Conservative voters;
• Foreign water companies, international banks and other investment funds – some of them based in tax haven – have bought into the UK water industry because they have been able to extract large scale profits from it;
• Taking water public ownership would create a revenue-generating asset that can fund investment in water. The Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) at the University of Greenwich estimates the upfront cost of renationalising water at £14.7 billion, but that it would be cost-neutral in accounting terms because the Government would swap bonds for shares.

Conference believes that water privatisation has been a disaster for both consumers and the environment and therefore calls for an incoming Labour government to make public ownership of water an urgent priority.

An NHS fit for the future

Conference celebrates:

– 75 years of Labour’s NHS, which despite repeated attacks, continues to provide equal, free access to health care.

– the continuing provision by the Welsh government of a planned, publicly provided and funded NHS.

Conference resolves a revitalised NHS will be a top priority for the Labour Government and confirms support for the 2022 Conference NHS Composite. Central to this is the elimination of the Tories’ corporate capture of NHS commissioning structures and service provision.

Conference notes the disastrous deterioration in our NHS during 13 years of Tory misrule, in particular the failure to match the spending increases of the last Labour Government and the passage of the 2022 Health and Care Act (HCA), which fragments the English NHS into 42 Integrated Care Systems modelled on US market provision. Labour will abolish the HCA.

Conference reaffirms Labour’s commitment to 100% direct employment of NHS workers and the complete elimination of outsourcing. This will enable trade unions to secure fair pay and conditions for their members, whose selfless work including during the pandemic has saved tens of thousands of lives.

The next Labour government will ban donations from private healthcare corporations, their lobbyists, or those invested in private healthcare corporations.

Conference resolves

– To repeal the Health and Care Act 2022 and to reverse and eliminate all aspects of integrated care systems at the earliest opportunity

– To fully renationalise and restore England’s universal, comprehensive, publicly provided NHS with funding levels in line with the last Labour Government.

Green Investment is needed for economic recovery

Conference notes that:

• the International Energy Agency stated in 2021 that new oil and gas exploration is incompatible with the Paris Agreement 1.5C limit, making new North Sea investment a stranded asset,
• workers currently employed in oil and gas, and their unions, have called for a just transition pathway to working in the renewable energy sector,
• the cost of living crisis, exacerbated by the Truss government, coincides with excess profits for fossil fuel companies and banks, and wealth gains for the top 10%; which could pay for green investment if taxed.
• borrowing for investment is the opposite of Trussonomics, because it brings a return and pays for itself
• without investment levels comparable to the US, EU and China, UK manufacturing will decline significantly.

Calls on the Party to:

• actively oppose new fossil fuel exploration
• develop a plan in the next 6 months, with the involvement of the relevant unions and TUC, for the most rapid possible transition from oil and gas to renewable energy in the North Sea; ready to start from day 1 of the next Labour government.
• develop Just Transition plans with the relevant unions in every sector, and local authorities in every area, to cut our energy bills, create jobs in insulation, public transport and renewable energy, transform the education system and develop the necessary skills
• set out a concrete electoral offer for green jobs and insulation in every constituency.

A Labour Government should repeal the Illegal Migration Bill

Conference notes:

• The Illegal Migration Bill outlaws the small boats carrying refugees across the Channel.
• The UN High Commission on Refugees says the bill is an effective ban on the right to asylum and contravenes the 1951 Refugee Convention.
• The government claims it is stopping illegal immigrants, but the majority of those claiming asylum have their claims upheld.
• Only a tiny proportion of the world’s refugees come to Britain. A record 103 million people were forcibly displaced around the world (2022), of whom 37 million were refugees or asylum seekers. Nearly 70% of refugees and others needing protection remained in countries bordering their land of origin.
• Polls show the economy and health are more important issues for the electorate, but the government is prioritising immigration.
• Fascist organisations like “Patriotic Alternative” have adopted Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s “invasion of the Southern coast” rhetoric as a slogan to mobilise and attack refugees.
• The strength of public support for refugees – and defence of Gary Lineker – when he opposed the bill.

Conference believes:

• This year £500 million was given to France to stop refugees from crossing Channel. This money should be invested in the NHS and improving living standards.
• The Illegal Migration Bill is another attempt to scapegoat and distract from the government’s policies making people worse off.
• A Labour Government should repeal the Illegal Migration Bill

Conference resolves to oppose the Tories’ racist campaign and support the right to asylum.