General Election 2024: The parties' pledges

Here's what the main parties - Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Reform UK and the Green party - are promising voters ahead of the 2024 general election.

Funded hours

Conservatives:

• Continue with the roll out of the 30 hours for children from nine months to school age if they are from working households.

Labour:  

• The party would deliver the current promise of 30 hours for children from nine months to school age from working families.

Liberal Democrats:  

• When public finances allow, give disadvantaged two-year-olds an extra five free hours of early years education a week, as another step towards a universal, full-time entitlement for all two-to-four-year-olds.

Reform UK:  

• No mention of childcare/early years.

Green:

• Extend funded childcare to 35 hours per week.

Plaid Cymru

• The party's vision is for a national and free Welsh-medium early years education and childcare service, Meithrin Cymru, providing high-qualityprovision for children aged 12 months until they are eligible for full time education.

SNP:

• No additional promises of funded hours than what exists.

SEND

Conservatives:

• End the postcode lottery of support by delivering 60,000 more school places and a further 15 new free schools for children with SEND.

Labour:

• The party will improve inclusivity and expertise of SEND in schools.

Liberal Democrats:

• Set-up a national SEND body.
• End the postcode lottery of support.

Reform UK:

• No mention of SEND

Green:

• Make it mandatory for councils to provide free transport for 16–18-year-old pupils with SEND.

SNP

• No mention of SEND.

Education

Conservatives:

• An end to low-quality degrees

Labour: 

• Create over 3,000 school-based nurseries in schools by converting classrooms that aren’t being used due to low birth rates. The nurseries would be ran by schools and PVI providers.
• Free breakfast clubs in every primary school.
• High quality apprenticeships and specialist technical colleges.
• Recruit 6,500 new expert teachers in key subjects.
• Early language development in primary schools.
• Reform Ofsted.
• Charge VAT on private school fees.

Liberal Democrats:

• Tackle the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention.
• Reform Ofsted inspections and end single-word judgements.
• Tackle the crisis in special educational needs provision, and help to end the postcode lottery in provision.
• Elevate the minister for children to a cabinet position.

Reform UK:

• A patriotic curriculum in schools. Any teaching about a period or example of British or European imperialism or slavery must be paired with the teaching of a non-European occurrence of the same to ensure balance. History and social science curriculum to be reviewed and audited regularly to ensure balance. Our children must be taught about their heritage.
• Ban Transgender Ideology in schools.
• Universities must provide 2-Year undergraduate courses

Green:

• End all high-stakes, formal testing at primary and secondary schools.
• Abolish Ofsted.
• Invest £1.4bn per year for local authorities to spend on Sure Start centres.

Plaid Cymru:

• Make university free for all.

Business

Conservatives :

• A £4.3bn of business rates support for small businesses over the next five years.
• Keep the VAT threshold under review.

Labour:

• Replace the unfair system of business rates
• Tackle late payments
• Improve workplace rights

Liberal Democrats:

• Replace business rates with a new Commercial Landowner Levy that would be paid by the owner of the premises instead of the tenant.

Reform UK:

• big tax cuts for small businesses

Green:

• Introduce a maximum 10:1 pay ratios for all private and public-sector organisations.
• Deliver equal rights for all workers currently excluded from protections, including ‘gig economy’ workers and those on ‘zero hours’ contracts.

Child poverty

Conservatives:

• Increase the income threshold at which a household starts to lose their child benefits from £60,000 to £120,000. This would gradually be increased to £160,000. The manifesto claims around 700,000 families would benefit and it would save them nearly £1,500 on average.

Labour: 

• Focus on reducing child poverty. No specific mention of how this would be achieved.

Liberal Democrats:

• Remove the two-child limit and benefit cap.

Reform UK:

• No mention of child poverty.

Green:

• Increase Universal Credit and legacy benefits by £40 a week.
• Abolish the two-child benefit cap, lifting 250,000 children out of poverty.
• End the ‘bedroom tax’.

Plaid Cymru

• Increase child benefit by £20 per week

Wages and Taxation

Conservatives:

• Cut National insurance by a further 2p by April 2027.
• Abolish the main rate of National Insurance for the self-employed.

Labour:

• The party has promised not to raise taxes.
• Labour will make sure the minimum wage is a genuine living wage.

Liberal Democrats :

• Tax increases for big companies

Reform UK:

• Make Work Pay. Lift the Income Tax Start Point to £20,000 Per Year. This frees up to 7 million people from paying Income Tax and saves every worker almost £1,500 per year. Basic Tax rate stays at 20%. The higher rate should begin at £70,000.

Green:

• Elected Greens will push for a wealth tax. This will tax the wealth of individual taxpayers with assets above £10 million at 1 per cent and assets above £1billion at 2 per cent annually.
• Re-evaluation of Council Tax bands to reflect big changes in value since 1990s.

SNP

• Scrap zero-hour contracts.
• The party wants full devolution of tax powers.

Welfare

Conservatives:

• Provide a family hub in every local authority area.
• Get more working age people back into employment

Labour:

• Review Universal Credit so it makes work pay and tackles poverty.

Liberal Democrats:

• Reform the Child Maintenance Service
• Enhance statutory maternity and paternity pay.

Reform UK

•  Launch a special division of the Family Court for maintenance and defaults. Share parental care 50/50 where appropriate. Rights of access for grandparents.
• Motivate up to 2 million People Back to Work reforms to benefit support and training will help people back into work.
• Tax relief for businesses that undertake apprenticeships.
• Reform the Child Maintenance Service.
• The majority of mothers would choose to stay at home more if they could, says the party. Front-loading the Child Benefit system for children aged 1-4 would give parents the choice to spend more time with their children.

Green

• Restore the value of disability benefits with an immediate uplift of 5 per cent.

Plaid Cymru

• Increase child benefit by £20.

SNP

• Scrap the two-child cap.
• Scrap the bedroom tax.
• Increase paid maternity leave to a year.

Health

Conservatives:

• Dental recovery programme to unlock millions more NHS dental appointments.

Labour:

• Digitise the red book for parents .
• Supervised toothbrushing programme delivered in breakfast clubs.
• Ban the advertisement of junk food towards children.

Liberal Democrats:

• Introduce a national supervised toothbrushing programme for three to five-year-olds.

Reform UK

• An extra £17bn a year for the NHS.

Green:

• More NHS dentists
• Campaign for funding to allow community hubs and primary care to provide a roll-out of free dental nursing for children and those on low incomes.

Rights and equality

Conservatives:

• In the next Parliament the party will improve support for people who have guide or assistance dogs and explore bidding to host and deliver the 2031 Special Olympics World Summer Games.

Labour:

• Labour will take action to reduce the gender pay gap.
• Introduce a landmark Race Equality Act

Liberal Democrats :

• A new right to flexible working for everyone and every disabled person the right to work from home if they want to, unless there are significant business reasons why it is not possible.
• Improve diversity in the workplace.

Reform UK:

• Leave the European Convention on Human Rights -Commence reform of the Human Rights Act so that it puts the rights of law-abiding people first.

Green:

• Defend the Human Rights Act.
• Support continued direct access to ECHR rights in the domestic courts.
• Restore legal aid for public law cases so everybody can uphold their rights in court.

SNP

• Strengthen children’s rights by demanding the UK Government follows Scotland’s approach and incorporates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into law, to take a maximalist approach to the protection of children’s rights.

• Protect and enhance the rights of LGBTI community.