What do Keir Starmer’s five missions reveal about how Labour would govern?

1. Starmer’s growth pledge relies on luck as much as policy

Keir Starmer’s pledge to get the UK’s growth rate to the highest sustained level in the G7 – the group of seven largest advanced economies in the world – by the end of Labour’s first term is extremely ambitious. This mission is slightly ill-defined – what, in particular, does “sustained” mean? But any reasonable interpretation of this implies doing something that the UK has rarely, if ever, achieved in the past four decades.

There is a lot of scope for improvement though. The UK’s output per worker is below all the other G7 countries, except Japan, and output per hour worked in the UK is lower than in France, Germany and the US. But transforming the UK’s growth performance is likely to take time and one term in office does not give Starmer long. Previous Institute for Government research has highlighted the types of ambitious policies – for example on skills and transport – that could deliver higher growth in regions outside London and the South East (which Starmer emphasised would be a particular focus of this mission). But most of those policies are likely to pay off over decades rather than a few years.

In short, it is welcome that Starmer has an ambitious aim for economic growth, but he will be relying on luck as much as effective policy if he is to achieve this mission in less than five years.  

Gemma Tetlow and Tom Pope

2. Clean energy provides Labour’s clearest signal of ambition 

A zero-carbon electricity system by 2030, five years before the government’s aim, is the most clearly defined of Labour’s targets. Meeting it would be very tough – not least given the huge task of upgrading the UK’s outdated grid. But it makes sense as a strong signal. A Labour government would simultaneously need to massively expand electricity supply to support shifts in home heating and transportation (the core of net zero, as Lord Turner has put it, is to electrify almost everything as quickly as possible). It would therefore need to ensure the zero-carbon power target did not come at the expense of how quickly it aims to replace the use of gas and oil in other areas.  

The mission’s wider framing – “create jobs, cut bills and boost energy security” – is closely aligned with what voters want. The party has already made its £28bn per year climate investment pledge, so the challenge now will be outlining a handful of policies that offer a clearer sense of how that money will be spent, and how it plans to actually deliver policies in tricky areas involving complex supply chains, like housing retrofit. 

Tom Sasse

3. NHS reform is a laudable goal but a Starmer government may find tight budgets restrict its aims

Given the state of the NHS, it is unsurprising that Keir Starmer included the health service in his five missions. When stripping away the language, Labour seems to be focusing on: NHS reform; investment in research and development (R&D), with the aim of improving preventative health measures; and addressing health inequalities. All of these are worthy objectives for a new government, though the party needs to provide more detail on what exactly each of these steps will involve before it is possible to properly evaluate them. 

There are, however, clues as to Labour’s intentions from other public announcements. On reform, Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, has previously discussed ending the GP partnership model and introducing some sort of self-referral process that would see patients bypass primary care entirely. 

An increase in R&D investment would require more capital spending, partly addressing one of the most underfunded parts of the NHS budget over the last 25 years. The extent of this investment and its source is still open-ended, however, and Labour should also consider the need for capital spending in other areas such as estates maintenance, IT infrastructure or diagnostic equipment.  

Streeting has often spoken about shifting to a preventative health approach, with the aim of reducing long-term demand for acute care. This again is a laudable goal, but is also one that might run into problems if Labour form a government. 

Once in power, Starmer will discover that acute care monopolises attention within the NHS – and the media. He will find it hard to divert a tight NHS budget to preventative care if ambulances are queuing outside hospitals. The benefits of preventative care are also difficult to quantify and tend to accrue over many decades, both characteristics that mean Labour will struggle to convince the Treasury to invest in the area, especially in a constrained fiscal environment. 

Stuart Hoddinott

There’s nothing in the education mission that anyone could object to – who would oppose breaking down barriers; raising standards; and preparing young people for work and life? But that’s the problem. Without any more detail it’s entirely anodyne. All we really know about Labour’s education policy is that they want to invest in childcare. It’s something shadow secretary of state Bridget Phillipson has talked about a lot, but we don’t even have any detail on this yet. 

As for schools, colleges and universities, it’s a black box with lot of competing arguments to be resolved. Teacher unions would argue that in order to raise standards you need to remove the pressures on schools associated with things like school inspection and publication of exam results. Others – me included – would argue this would cause standards to fall. Plenty of Labour members would argue for abolishing tuition fees as a key way to break down barriers; others would argue that this could make places for poorer students harder to come by as universities would be forced to ration places more. Does child poverty count as a barrier to education? Is there going to be any attempt to reduce that? 

Where do Labour stand on any of these issues? Hopefully the detailed “mission” will give us some clues.  

Sam Freedman