Labour would give local government new powers to drive growth
Two years ago, I went to Labour Party conference and said that we had a mountain to climb to win the next General Election.
We had lost our entire Labour base in every nation and region of the UK, and it wasn’t clear whether there was a route back for some of the voters that we’d lost, in the places that we love.
The transformation at our recent conference was stark.
In the past couple of years, we’ve proven that we are fit to govern. In Liverpool, we showed that we are ready to govern, and that we have a plan, a vision and a strategy to get this country working again.
We are now at the top of the mountain looking outwards.
There is, after Prime Minister Liz Truss’s and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s shameful mini-Budget, a clear and fundamental ideological divide in British politics.
While we agree on the urgent need to grow the economy after 12 years of stagnation, that is where the consensus ends.
Truss and Kwarteng want growth by the few, for the few. We say it takes a nation.
“It is only by backing all people and all places that we can rebuild Britain”
Their plans are not only deeply regressive but won’t deliver growth. They have been tried before and failed.
We know that it is only by backing all people and all places that we can rebuild Britain.
That is why I set out plans in Liverpool for a great rebalancing of power to spread wealth, security and opportunity across the whole country.
The next Labour government will empower our brilliant leaders in local government with new powers to drive growth in their own areas.
And we will hand power back to people so communities can take ownership of land and assets – the football clubs, historic buildings and pubs that make a place home.
Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer unveiled Great British Energy – a new, publicly owned clean generation company – that will create jobs, cut energy bills and deliver energy independence for our country.
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a National Wealth Fund that will build British industry, investing in homegrown projects, from battery factories to renewable-ready ports.
And we unveiled proposals to boost home ownership, strengthen rights for private renters, and rebuild our social housing stock.
Britain cannot go on trying to power a modern economy using only a handful of people, in a handful of places, in one small corner of the country. It is like flying a jet on only one engine.
We can only grow the economy by giving all people and all places the opportunity to contribute, and a stake in the future.
When people have a stake in the outcome, they work harder, try longer, think more creatively and do more.
The real wealth creators are the women and men who work in our shops, who drive our buses, who deliver our mail, who care for our families and who teach our children.
They are the foundation of our economy. They are our great untapped asset. Labour will tilt the balance of power back in their favour.
That’s what we laid out in Liverpool. There is still a long way to go and we will never be complacent, but it’s now clear that Labour isn’t just an opposition to this Tory Government. We are a serious alternative.