By Helen Johnson, Brian O’Flynn and Claire Wilde
Labour launched its election manifesto this week with pledges including lower net migration, two million more NHS appointments, and hiring 6,500 more teachers.
But do they really represent the “change” Labour promises?
FactCheck takes a look.
What is Labour’s net migration plan?
Labour has promised to “reduce net migration” in its election manifesto – that’s the number of people arriving in the UK legally, minus those leaving.
The manifesto says that under the Conservatives, the “economy has become overly dependent on workers from abroad to fill skills shortages,” with net migration reaching “record highs” as a result, saying Labour will therefore “reduce net migration”.
The manifesto says the party will reform the points-based immigration system “with appropriate restrictions on visas, and by linking immigration and skills policy,” adding that it will “not tolerate employers or recruitment agencies abusing the visa system”.
But net migration figures – including visa grants – are due to reduce in numbers anyway.
The Office for Budget Responsibility’s latest analysis forecasts that net migration will fall by several hundred thousand in the coming years, saying “we expect significantly reduced immigration levels”.
The latest net migration figures were 685,000 for 2023, down 10 per cent from record levels of 764,000 in 2022, as FactCheck has previously reported.
And the visa grant rate for this year has already started to fall significantly. Latest data shows that visa applications across key routes including “Skilled Worker”, “Health & Care”, and “Study” visas fell by 25 per cent in the first four months of 2024, compared with the same period last year.
This means a Labour government, if elected, would almost certainly preside over a lower net migration rate in the next few years – even if it’s done little to bring this about.
We put this to Labour but haven’t received a reply on this point. We’ll update this article if we get one.
‘Two million more appointments’
Labour has pledged an additional two million NHS appointments per year – or 40,000 a week. (This only covers England as healthcare is devolved.)
The party says it will achieve this by incentivising doctors to work evenings and weekends.
By NHS appointments, we understand that Labour means NHS hospital outpatient appointments. That’s when you go to the hospital for an appointment but don’t stay overnight. We understand GP appointments are not included.
In context, there were around 125 million NHS outpatient appointments last year. So two million appointments represents less than 2 per cent of that total.
With a growing and ageing population, and increasing rates of ill health, we need more and more NHS appointments every year just to keep pace with demand.
Labour told FactCheck that the extra two million appointments a year “will be additional over and above the current operationally planned activity” in the NHS.
We understand means that Labour plans to increase appointments every year to keep up with demand – while also adding another two million appointments on top of this, with the aim of clearing the waiting list backlog.
Current NHS workforce plans expect there to be just over 2 per cent annual growth in demand for hospital care throughout the coming years.
For example, this would mean that an extra 2.6 million outpatient appointments were likely needed in the year 2023/24 in order to meet demand. Though we can’t be sure until the actual figures are published.
But Labour will not commit to a definite target for the overall number of outpatient appointments it plans to deliver in its first year. This means it may be difficult to evaluate in the future whether Labour has actually met its own pledge.
Experts have raised questions about how feasible the pledge is – as it would require already stretched doctors to work more hours to deliver it.
Experts have also pointed out that in order to meet the pledge, NHS productivity would have to remain high – but this isn’t guaranteed.
Labour told us it “will reform the NHS to get more out of it for what we put in”, and that it will “double the number of NHS scanners with AI-enabled scanners that are more productive, which would also allow the NHS to do more diagnostic appointments”.
‘An additional 6,500 new expert teachers’
Labour’s manifesto promises to “recruit an additional 6,500 new expert teachers” (again, this is an England-only policy as education is devolved).
Since the last general election, the government has hired almost 15,000 more state school teachers in total.
In the academic year 2019-20, there were 453,820 “full time equivalent” teachers, and the latest data shows this has increased to 468,693.
On that basis, Labour’s promise is to deliver half the increase in teacher numbers that the Conservatives managed in this parliament.
We put this to Labour but haven’t received a reply on this point. We’ll update this article if we get one.
Labour’s shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh told Channel 4 News this week that she “completely reject[s] any idea” that Labour’s manifesto is “cautious”.
She said it “includes major changes that will really impact people’s lives”.
(Image credit:Stuart Wallace/Shutterstock)
