Regulation in the UK political parties’ election manifestos, 2024
The manifestos for the UK’s political parties have now been published. The Institute of Regulation has reviewed them, summarising here some proposals with regulatory implications. The words used in this document come from the manifestos themselves. Members of the Institute should go to the source material for more detail than is provided in this summary.
We have reviewed the manifestos of the parties fielding candidates across Britain – Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green and Reform. We also review proposals from the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru. We will review the regulatory proposals from the political parties only standing in Northern Ireland after the election.
All manifestos reference regulation or regulatory issues. In some cases, specific regulators are named for strengthening or reform, and some new regulators are proposed for creation, including a new football regulator by both the Conservative and Labour parties, and a body to enforce employment rights by both the Labour and the Liberal Democrat parties. The Green party proposes to abolish Ofsted, and the Reform party wishes to ‘scrap unnecessary quangos’ and stop Natural England from taking regulatory action against farmers. Plaid Cymru wishes to better regulate bus services and NHS managers; the SNP proposes to devolve powers of energy regulation and secure a hydrogen regulatory agreement. Many other proposals have regulatory implications; only some of the more significant ones are listed here.
We hope this summary, albeit partial, conveys key points from each party’s proposals in relation to regulatory issues in the UK.
The Institute of Regulation will host a quarterly forum, 12 – 13.00hrs on Thursday 18 July, ‘The post-election regulatory landscape’, all Institute of Regulation members are welcome to attend, further details and registration are available here.
Institute of Regulation
June 2024
Conservative Party: https://manifesto.conservatives.com/
Proposals which specifically mention regulators or regulation include:
Reduce the burden of regulation, freeing up businesses to thrive and innovate, balanced with proportionate protections for consumers and working people. We will transform the UK regulatory landscape, making sure regulators deliver the best outcomes for business, consumers and the environment.
Remove EU laws from our statute book so that by July 2026, we will have repealed or reformed over half of the entire stock of EU law we inherited. Our Smarter Regulation approach has already saved 50 million hours of administrative time for business, saving them an estimated £1 billion.
Bring quango spending under control.
Maintain the highest standards of consumer protection and prudential regulation to ensure there can never be a repeat of the banking crisis.
Support the life sciences sector, embracing the opportunities of Brexit to pursue nimble and agile regulation, supported by a well-equipped MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulation Authority).
Halve the time for new nuclear reactors to be approved, by allowing regulators to assess projects while designs are being finalised, improving join-up with overseas regulators assessing the same technology and speeding up planning and environmental approvals.
Maintain our energy price cap, protecting millions of households from being overcharged by their supplier, and ensuring the [energy] regulator has the necessary powers to continue protecting consumers.
Courses that have excessive drop-out rates or leave students worse off than had they not gone to university will be prevented from recruiting students by the universities regulator, protecting students from being mis-sold and the taxpayer from having to pay.
Back Ofsted to provide clear judgements to parents on the quality and safety of schools.
Introduce laws to ensure fans never face the threat of clubs in England joining breakaway closed-shop competitions and giving them more of a voice through the Independent Football Regulator.
Ensure public arms-length bodies are responsive to those they serve, improving the accountability of Natural England and the Environment Agency, giving them clearer objectives so they take balanced decisions and factor in the impact on the rural economy.
Work with the regulator [Ofwat] to further hold water companies to account, including banning executive bonuses if a company has committed a serious criminal breach, building on legislation for unlimited fines.
Reform the ‘Price Review’ regulatory process for water companies to consider a more localised catchment-based and outcome-focussed approach, that better utilises nature-based solutions and further strengthens sanctions for water companies that fail to deliver for the public, coasts and rivers.
Improve standards in councils by making their performance more transparent through the Office for Local Government.
Among their other proposals, some have significant regulatory implications:
Oppose state regulation and control of the press, including any attempt to bring forward Leveson 2 or re-open the Royal Charter on self-regulation of the press.
Support domestic flights including through Public Service Obligations, protecting vital routes within the UK, including to islands and remote areas.
Promote digital invoicing and improving enforcement of the Prompt Payment Code to support small businesses with cashflow, building on the Small Business Commissioner with powers to tackle unfavourable payment practices.
Reform EU red tape to better protect nature while enabling the building of new homes, new prisons and new energy schemes, and reforming the EU’s environmental impact assessment regime to speed up local and national infrastructure planning systems.
All imported food and drink products must comply with the UK’s high standards.
Ban mobile phones in the school day on a statutory footing.
Reduce the number of NHS managers by 5,500, releasing £550m for frontline services and simplifying and streamlining oversight and accountability.
Introduce the Tobacco and Vapes Bill and legislating to restrict the advertising of products high in fat, salt and sugar.
Introduce a licensing scheme and age limits for non-surgical cosmetic procedures, ensuring services are administered by suitably qualified and trained professionals.
License police officers for specialist roles, and ensuring officers are vetted during their service and those who fail can be sacked.
Ensure councils have powers to manage the uncontrolled growth of holiday lets, giving them greater planning powers to prevent unauthorised development by travellers, and speeding up the use and enforcement of powers to remove illegal traveller sites.
Labour Party: https://labour.org.uk/change/
Proposals which specifically mention regulators or regulation include:
Create a new Regulatory Innovation Office, bringing together existing functions across government, to help regulators deal with the development of new technologies, update regulation, speed up approval timelines, and co-ordinate issues that span existing boundaries.
Ensure the safe development and use of AI models by introducing binding regulation on the few companies developing the most powerful AI models.
Strengthen the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), with every fiscal event making changes to taxation or spending subject to an independent forecast.
Create a new railway passenger watchdog, focused on driving up standards.
Strengthen the collective voice of workers, including through trade unions, and create a Single Enforcement Body to ensure employment rights are upheld.
Ensure a tougher system of energy regulation that puts consumers first and attracts investment, working with the regulator to reduce standing charges, and strengthening the regulator to hold companies to account for wrongdoing, require higher standards of performance, and ensure there is automatic customer compensation for failure.
Give His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire & Rescue Services new powers to intervene with failing forces, introducing mandatory professional standards on vetting, checks and misconduct for individual officers, and stronger training on racism and violence against women and girls.
Support accountability and school inspection, enhancing the inspection regime by replacing a single headline grade with a report card system telling parents how schools are performing, and bringing Multi-Academy Trusts into inspection.
Integrate further and higher education and ensure high-quality teaching by strengthening regulation, improving access to universities and raising teaching standards.
Reform football governance to protect football clubs and give fans a greater say by establishing an independent football regulator to ensure financial sustainability of football clubs in England.
Task regulators with assessing the role that social care workers can play in basic health treatment and monitoring in local communities.
Reform gambling regulation, strengthening protections, to recognises the evolution of the sector since 2005.
Establish a new independent Ethics and Integrity Commission, with an independent Chair, to ensure probity in government, and give the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests the power to start investigations into misconduct.
Strengthen regulation to protect the countryside, tourism industry, and people’s health, putting failing water companies under special measures, giving regulators powers to block bonuses to executives who pollute waterways and bring criminal charges against persistent law breakers, with automatic fines for wrongdoing and independent monitoring.
Introduce protections for victims of crime and persistent antisocial behaviour, by increasing the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner.
Overhaul the regulation of the private rented sector, abolishing Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions, empowering renters to challenge unreasonable rent increases, and raising standards of private rented homes.
Improve building safety, including through regulation, to prevent a repeat of the Grenfell fire.
Ban new leasehold flats and ensure commonhold is the default tenure, tackling unregulated, unaffordable ground rent charges and unfair maintenance costs.
Put the Armed Forces Covenant into law and establish an independent Armed Forces Commissioner to improve service life.
Among their other proposals, some have significant regulatory implications:
Appoint a Covid Corruption Commissioner to recoup public money lost in pandemic-related fraud and from contracts not delivered
Modernise and strengthen HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and change the law to tackle tax avoidance, increase registration and reporting requirements, and invest in new technology and build capacity within HMRC.
We will create a new National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, bringing together existing bodies, to set strategic infrastructure priorities and oversee the design, scope, and delivery of projects.
Double onshore wind, triple solar power, and quadruple offshore wind by 2030, investing in carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and marine energy, and ensure the institutional framework for policy making reflects commitments to net zero and carbon budgets, requiring the Bank of England to give due consideration to climate change.
Enact the socio-economic duty in the Equality Act 2010 and pass a Race Equality Act to ensure equal pay for Black, Asian and other ethnic minority people.
Give people performance information on local health services, and notifications of vaccinations and health checks.
Liberal Democrat Party: https://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto
Proposals which specifically mention regulators or regulation include:
Introduce a national financial inclusion strategy and require the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority to have regard to financial inclusion … especially in remote areas, supporting banking hubs, expanding access to bank accounts, delivering Sharia-compliant student finance and supporting vulnerable consumers.
Protect fans from being exploited by ticket touts by implementing the Competition and Markets Authority’s recommendations.
Strengthen the Groceries Code Adjudicator to protect consumers from unfair price rises and support producers.
Strengthen the powers of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration.
Make the role of the Adviser on Ministers’ Interests truly independent by empowering them to initiate their own investigations, determine breaches and publish their report; and putting the role on a statutory basis and giving Parliament the power to appoint them.
Strengthen and expand the lobbying register, bringing reporting standards for the List of Ministers’ Interests in line with the House of Commons Register of Members’ Interests, so that publication takes place more frequently.
Protect and strengthen the independence of the Electoral Commission.
Mandate the provision of televised leaders’ debates in general elections, based on rules produced by Ofcom.
Establish a powerful new Worker Protection Enforcement Authority unifying responsibilities currently spread across three agencies – including enforcing the minimum wage, tackling modern slavery and protecting agency workers.
Establish a new Railway Agency: a public body to join up the industry, putting commuters first, holding train companies to account, and bringing in wholesale reform of the broken fare system.
Create a well-resourced cross-sectoral regulatory framework for artificial intelligence that promotes innovation while creating certainty for AI users, developers and investors; establishes transparency and accountability for AI systems in the public sector; ensures the use of personal data and AI is unbiased, transparent and accurate, and respects people’s privacy.
Negotiate the UK’s participation in the Trade and Technology Council … so we can play a leading role in global AI regulation, and work with international partners in agreeing common standards for AI risk and impact assessment, testing, monitoring and audit.
Regulate financial services to encourage climate-friendly investments, including requiring pension funds and managers to show that their portfolio investments are consistent with the Paris Agreement, and creating new powers for regulators to act if banks and other investors are not managing climate risks properly.
Support independent, Leveson-compliant regulation to ensure privacy, quality, diversity and choice in both print and online media…
Among their other proposals, some have significant regulatory implications:
Ensure the UK has the highest possible standards of environmental, health, labour and consumer protection,
Require the National Infrastructure Commission to take fully into account the environmental implications of all national infrastructure decisions.
Make it cheaper and easier to switch to electric vehicles, restoring the requirement that every new car and small van sold from 2030 is zero-emission, investing in active travel and public transport, electrifying Britain’s railways, and reducing the climate impact of flying, as set out in chapter 16.
Require all new homes and non-domestic buildings to be built to a zero-carbon standard, including being fitted with solar panels, and progressively increasing standards as technology improves.
Mandate all water companies to publish accessible real-time data on any sewage they dump.
Ensure that no animal product that would be illegal to produce in the UK can be sold here, including foie gras and food produced with antibiotic growth promoters.
Match the EU’s stricter rules on preventative use of antibiotics and introducing a comprehensive plan to tackle antimicrobial resistance in farm animals.
Give local authorities new powers to control second homes and short-term lets in their areas, as set out in chapter 15.
Combat the harms caused by problem gambling by: introducing the planned compulsory levy on gambling companies to fund research, prevention and treatment; and restricting gambling advertising.
Introduce a Digital Bill of Rights to protect everyone’s rights online, including the rights to privacy, free expression, and participation without being subjected to harassment and abuse.
Green Party: https://greenparty.org.uk/about/our-manifesto/
Proposals which specifically mention regulators or regulation include:
End high-stakes testing at primary and secondary schools and abolish Ofsted.
Create a new Commission on Animal Protection.
Among their other proposals, some have significant regulatory implications:
Ensure all new homes meet Passivhaus or equivalent standards and house builders include solar panels and heat pumps on all new homes.
Introduce rent controls so local authorities can control rents if the rental market is unaffordable for local people
Cancel recent fossil fuel licences and stopping all new fossil fuel extraction projects in the UK.
Remove all oil and gas subsidies.
Take water companies back into public ownership.
Change the law so that no single individual or company can own more than 20% of any media market.
Reform Party: https://www.reformparty.uk/our-contract-with-you
Proposals which specifically mention regulators or regulation include:
Reform the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) so that the police complaints system works for the law-abiding public.
Scrap all Diversity, Equality and Inclusion roles and regulations in policing.
Scrap unnecessary quangos and commissions and cut government red tape and nanny state regulations.
Cut red tape from HMRC and the British Cattle Movement Service so farmers can farm and not fill forms.
Scrap climate-related farming subsidies. … Stop Natural England from taking action that damages farmers.
Scrap thousands of laws that hold back British business and damage productivity, including employment laws that make it riskier to hire people, including laws on state aid, competition, employment and the environment that are still based on EU regulations.
Review the Online Safety Bill, including so that social media giants that push baseless transgender ideology and divisive Critical Race theory should have no role in regulating free speech.
Have tighter regulation and new ownership model for Critical National Infrastructure as consumers have been ripped-off and failed by weak regulators.
Launch a Westminster Anti-Corruption Unit: a public watchdog to close the ‘revolving door’ between government and big business.
Among the other proposals, some have significant regulatory implications:
Scrap renewable energy subsidies and fast-track North Sea gas and oil licences
Ensure that allowing political bias or cancel culture in universities faces heavy financial penalties.
Protect children’s mental health through a potential social media ban for under 16s.
Replace the 2010 Equality Act which requires discrimination in the name of ‘positive action’ and has become a lawyer’s charter to print money, destroying meritocracy, spreading division and leading to exclusion for some in majority groups.
Scottish National Party: https://www.snp.org/manifesto/
Proposals which specifically mention regulators or regulation include:
Devolve to Scotland powers over energy regulation, pricing and production to ensure that natural energy resources best serve the needs of Scottish people.
Secure direct interconnection between Scotland and the continent to convey hydrogen, and a hydrogen regulatory agreement to unlock Scotland’s renewable potential.
Among their other proposals, some have significant regulatory implications:
Call for a statutory social tariff for energy, broadband and mobile charges for all who need one
Press for a significant cut in standing energy charges for all and removal of standing charges for anyone with a prepayment meter
Introduce a fair energy pricing and rebate scheme for Highland and Islands residents, offering financial relief and offsetting the higher per-unit costs of electricity.
Agree a veterinary agreement with the EU to ease exports and imports
Strengthen incentives to purchase cleaner vehicles.
Amend the definition of worker to strengthen protections for those with unfair contracts by creating a single status of “worker” for all but the genuinely self-employed.
Protect people, particularly children, by ensuring the Online Safety Act comes into force, and press the UK Government to ensure tech firms cannot escape their responsibilities for the content on their platforms through full enforcement of the Act and prompt strengthening of these laws when required.
Plaid Cymru: https://www.partyof.wales/manifesto
Proposals which specifically mention regulators or regulation include:
Create a regulatory body for Senior Health Managers, as medical staff are accountable to regulatory bodies, such as the GMC, but the same is not true of senior health managers. This would improve patient safety and empower staff by ensuring that every decision reflects the values of candour, honesty and integrity.
Devolve to Wales the responsibilities of Ofgem to regulate the design of whole-systems energy grids and markets which serve Wales, while aligning with emerging UK, European and global standards.
Scrap nitrate vulnerable zone regulations to help farmers with infrastructure costs.
Support a proportionate, sophisticated approach to water quality regulations for farmers utilising updated technical innovations.
Renationalise and regulate major bus services, and integrate bus and rail services, with bus routes determined by the needs of passengers, not what is commercially attractive.
Devolve broadcasting powers to Wales, including the power to regulate, oversee and secure accountability for broadcasting and communications within Wales
Improve transparency within the supply chain and strengthen the powers of the Groceries Adjudicator to more effectively tackle unfair supply chain practices.
Among their other proposals, some have significant regulatory implications:
Introduce a Business, Human Rights and Environment Bill to mandate private companies to conduct due diligence in their supply chains to prevent human rights abuses and environmental harms.
Review governance of the NHS in Wales, looking to strengthen oversight and accountability so that patients receive a better outcome.
Create of a national register of Barrett’s oesophagus in Wales.
Create a Victims Commissioner for Wales to represent victims of crime and stand up for their rights.
Create a Domestic Abuse Register to protect women and enable the early identification of abusive men.
Pass a Right to Adequate Housing Bill in Wales to introduce rent controls and other market interventions to make housing more affordable.
Request powers from the UK over the licensing of sewage in Wales.
Have stronger enforcement for the protection of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) in Wales, so that companies cannot dump waste on protected sites.