Twelve months on from the General Election on July 4, 2024, we have examined Keir Starmer’s record against key pledges made by Labour before it went into Government
Keir Starmer celebrates his first full year in No10 tomorrow, but has he delivered on the promises which won Labour a landslide victory?
Twelve months on from the General Election on July 4, 2024, we have examined the Government’s record against key pledges in the Labour manifesto.
Surveys show that the Government’s approval ratings have fallen more in the first year than any other since John Major’s in 1992/93. Opinion polls have even put Labour behind Reform UK, which has just five MPs.
The prime minister insists that Labour is on track to deliver its manifesto, here we show what the official data shows to some of the pledges in the manifesto and the “first steps to change”. Only the pledges that can be tested against publicly available data have been included.
READ MORE: Everything you missed from Keir Starmer’s big NHS plan – from phone app to jabs
NHS
During the 2024 general election, Keir Starmer revealed his “first steps for change” – six key promises alongside a picture of him with his shirt sleeves rolled up.
The first of those was to “deliver economic stability”, while the second was to “cut NHS waiting times”.
The health service had fallen into a state of permanent crisis under the Conservative government. Every month there were 10s of thousands of patients waiting in A&E for over 12 hours to be treated, while waiting lists repeatedly reached record highs.
So how are things 12 months on?
A&E waiting times
Back in June 2024, the last month of the Tory government, only 60.5% of attendances at Type 1 major A&Es in England waited less than four hours from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge.
That was up from 59.7% in May.
In May of this year – the latest for which figures are available – 61.2% of attendances at major A&Es were seen within four hours. A small improvement over the course of the year but still a long way short of the 79.1% in May of 2019 (the last May before the pandemic), and even further behind the 91.4% of May 2015 when the Conservative government came to power.
Waiting lists
NHS waiting lists have been steadily falling under the Labour government.
There were a total of 7.62 million on the waiting list when Keir Starmer came to power. That’s since fallen to 7.39 million.
The waiting list had reached as high as 7.76 million under the Tories in September 2023. That’s compared to 4.45 million just before the pandemic, and 3.37 million in May 2015 when the Conservative government came to power.
Verdict
NHS waiting times have fallen. However, whether they’ve fallen by enough for voters to feel the benefit is another matter. The government will no doubt be hoping to see more improvements before the next election.
VAT on private school fees
Labour’s pledge to put VAT on private school fees came into effect in January 2025.
There were a total of 582,477 pupils in private schools in England during the 2024/25 academic year, according to the Department for Education’s annual census.
That’s 11,000 fewer than a year earlier. That’s higher than the government’s prediction of 3,000 pupils in the first year.
The number of pupils attending private schools is now higher than before the pandemic though. A total of 576,857 attended independent schools in the 2019/20 academic year.
Private school pupils now make up 6.4% of the total school population, a slightly lower proportion than last year, when it was 6.5%.
This is the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic that independent school pupil numbers have fallen, however they had been steadily falling in the years leading up to the pandemic. The number of pupils in independent schools fell by 6,411 between 2017/18 and 2019/20 academic years.
Verdict
Pledge met
House building
Labour pledged to build 1.5 million new homes over the course of the parliament.
That works out at around 300,000 a year, or 25,000 a month.
The latest official house building data shows that a total of 86,000 new homes have begun to be built during the first three quarters of the Labour government, which covers from July 2024 to March 2025.
That works out at an average of 9,555 a month, less than half the rate required to meet the target.
The number of houses that have started to be built under the Labour government is much higher than in the same period of 2023/24 under the Conservatives.
Between July 2023 and March 2024, just 62,860 new homes were started.
Verdict
Some progress but improvement needed
Small boats
Another of Labour’s “first steps for change” was to launch a new Border Security Command with hundreds of new specialist investigators and use counter-terror powers to smash criminal boat gangs.
There’s no public data available for these staff numbers, or the number of gangs being “smashed”, but we can see how the number of people crossing the Channel has changed compared to previous years.
Data on small boat crossings suggests all is not going to plan, however.
There have been 19,982 arrivals by small boats as of July 2 this year. That’s more than at the same point of any of the previous seven years for which we have data.
By 26 June 2024, a total of 13,195 people had made the perilous journey across the Channel, which had been the previous record.
At the same point in 2023 the total was 11,278, and in 2022 it was 12,206.
Verdict
Needs improvement
Reduce backlog of rape cases
Labour said during the campaign that they would “fast-track rape cases, with specialist courts at every Crown Court location in England and Wales.”
Despite this though, the number of rape cases in the Crown Court backlog has continued to grow.
There were a total of 1,294 cases of rape in the Crown Court backlog in England and Wales before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country.
That shot up during lockdown, doubling to 2,580 cases by March 2022. It has only continued to rise ever since.
By the time Labour came to power there were 4,686 outstanding Crown Court cases in England and Wales. That has since increased to 5,486 cases at the end of March, the latest month for which figures are available.
It’s a similar story too for all offences, not just rape. There were a total of 40,903 cases in the Crown Court backlog in March 2020.
By the time Labour came to power there were 70,978 outstanding Crown Court cases, and a total of 76,957 as of March 2025.
Verdict
Needs improvement
2030 ban on petrol and diesel car sales
There were almost 1.3 million fully electric cars registered on UK roads at the end of December 2024. That’s almost 200,000 more than before the general election.
However, the number of electric cars on our roads has been steadily increasing for some time. Back in January 2022 there were just 441,200 on our roads, three times fewer than today.
The availability of public charging points could become an issue, with some parts of the country far better served than others.
There were a total of 193,098 public electric vehicle charging points across the UK in January, according to figures from the Department of Transport.
Just 49 public electric vehicle charging points in the whole of the East Hampshire local authority, which works out as 33 vehicles per charging point. That’s a higher rate than in any local authority in the UK. Meanwhile, Melton in Leicestershire has 29 per charging point, as do North Kesteven and St Albans.
Meanwhile, London has the most electric car-friendly infrastructure in the country. Three of the capital’s boroughs have more than one public charging point for every electric car registered there.
Hammersmith and Fulham has more public electric charging points than any local authority in the UK – 2,668 – which works out at 0.6 cars per charger. Southwark has 0.8 cars per charger, as does Hackney. Coventry is the most electric car-friendly council outside of the capital. The city’s 2,272 public charging points works out as 0.6 cars per charger, the joint lowest rate in the country.
Verdict
Making progress
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