The Starmer story so far: What has Labor done in its first 100 days? | Work

Labor was frustrated by comments suggesting it had not achieved enough since winning the election, pointing to a series of decisions and laws it had pushed through. We look at what the new government has done in its first 100 days.

Business

One of Rachel Reeves’ first acts as chancellor was to stand in front of the House of Commons and accuse the previous government of leaving a £22 billion hole in this year’s national budget. Every year government spending deviates slightly from budget, but this was an unusually large amount due to both higher-than-expected costs of housing asylum seekers and collective bargaining in the public sector.

Reeves’ solution to this was to immediately stop various projects, including the road tunnel under Stonehenge and the A27 Arundel bypass. Boris Johnson’s promise to build 40 new hospitals has also come under scrutiny. Prime Minister Keir Starmer accused his predecessor of making the promise without providing the money.

energy

When Michael Gove was asked at the Tory conference to name the most effective Labor cabinet ministers to date, he named Ed Miliband, among others. The Energy Minister has returned with great activity to the position he last held 14 years ago.

On July 8, the first Monday after the election victory, Miliband announced that he would lift the previous government’s de facto ban on onshore wind energy. A day later, Reeves unveiled the National Wealth Fund, a £7.3 billion program designed to invest in green infrastructure such as clean steel and carbon capture.

Later that month, Miliband introduced a bill to create Great British Energy, a state-owned energy production company that the government has placed at the heart of its net zero strategy. The bill gives the company the authority to produce and distribute clean energy and spend money on energy efficiency programs.

Keir Starmer announced in his speech at the Labor conference that GBE would be based in Aberdeen.

transport

The first bill passed in the House of Commons under the Labor government was the Railway Nationalization Bill. The bill automatically brings rail networks back under public control once their existing franchise agreement expires, or sooner if they violate their contracts.

Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has also passed a bill to create a new company called Great British Railways to manage both the route and train services. However, some have questioned why rolling stock is not also brought under national control.

Last month Haigh reversed further privatization in the transport sector, allowing local authorities across England to run their own bus services again. The transport minister also said she wanted to make it simpler and easier for local leaders to carry out the franchising process.

Training

Labor has promised to introduce free breakfast clubs in every primary school in England, but progress has been slow. Reeves announced at the Labor conference that 750 English schools would be invited to take part in a pilot program.

Housing

Labor has promised to liberalize the planning system and shortly after taking government it began not only lifting restrictions on onshore wind but also reimposing population-based housing targets on local authorities.

The Conservatives had given local planners a number of loopholes to prevent these goals from being achieved. That measure had hampered new developments and pushed home building permits to their lowest level in 10 years, according to housebuilders.

Further reforms are planned, including making it easier for public bodies to issue compulsory purchase orders and making it easier to build on green spaces.

Meanwhile, Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook has unveiled a package of tenants’ reforms that passed second reading in Parliament this week, despite objections from the Conservatives. This package takes up some of the ambitions Gove originally held as housing secretary, including immediately ending no-fault evictions and requiring landlords to carry out timely repairs to properties.

But activists are unhappy that the Labor government has so far failed to pass a further protection package for leaseholders, which they fear will slip them down the government’s agenda. The government has promised to introduce a bill to restrict tenancy rights and strengthen tenants’ rights, but has not yet even implemented the measures passed in parliament under the last government.

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employment

Starmer promised his government would deliver a workers’ rights package in its first 100 days, a deadline that was just met when Angela Rayner, his deputy, published the workers’ rights bill on Thursday.

Their reforms include giving workers protection against unfair dismissal and the right to paternity leave from day one of their employment, rather than having to wait two years. The bill also bans employers from forcing workers to sign zero-hour contracts and bans them from firing employees only to rehire them at lower wages unless the company is at risk of bankruptcy.

While the bill was published in the first 100 days, it will take another two years to become law. Officials and ministers will spend this time advising companies and unions on the exact measures and how they will be monitored.

Some of the campaign promises did not make it into the bill. There will be no legal right for workers to switch off outside of their working hours and the government will now consult on introducing a single worker status. Unions have long advocated for a uniform worker status to replace the distinction between employees and self-employed people, including to counteract exploitation in the gig economy.

immigration

As promised, Labor ended the previous government’s Rwanda program, which had not sent a single asylum seeker to Rwanda but had already cost the government money. Scrapping saved more than £2 billion in two years.

Instead, Starmer and his home secretary Yvette Cooper have introduced a border protection command to focus on people smuggling gangs. However, the Prime Minister is still trying to sign repatriation deals with European countries, which could mean Britain having to accept migrants in return.

Since the election, almost 12,000 people have crossed the English Channel in small boats, slightly fewer than in the same period last year.

justice

A week after the election, Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood announced an early release program that would see some offenders who committed less serious crimes leave prison after serving 40% of their sentence. Mahmood blamed the prison crisis she inherited from the previous government, which had left prisons in England and Wales almost full.

The early release system was controversial, but its purpose was underscored later in the summer when unrest broke out in parts of the country. Speaking to journalists from Downing Street Garden after the riots subsided, the Prime Minister described the decisions he had to make during the riots.

“I shouldn’t be sitting in the Cobra room day after day with a list of prison locations across the country trying to figure out how we deal with disorder,” he said. “But that’s the position I was put in.”

Health

If Starmer is to show progress in any public service by the next election, it must be the NHS. His health minister, Wes Streeting, commissioned Ara Darzi, a former labor minister, to outline the scale of the challenge. Lord Darzi’s report, published last month, found that long delays to hospitals, GPs and mental health services led to thousands of unnecessary deaths.

Darzi proposed a number of changes, including a greater focus on prevention and requiring companies to pay “health levies” on things like alcohol and tobacco.