Series: How to turn manifesto promises into tangible results

The 2024 Labour manifesto was certainly not light on policy. More than 350 pledges state ambitions from digitising the ‘red book’ record of children’s health to larger, flagship reforms around workers’ rights and clean energy. Now in office, its task is to turn these promises into workable policies that deliver results on the ground. This is no small task.

Even in benign economic circumstances, governments, of all stripes have struggled to turn promises into effective policies: Labour’s current task is made much harder by its difficult fiscal inheritance. In this series, the IfG’s policy making team draw on a range of past examples from the roll-out of the electricity 'supergrid’ in the 1950s to the introduction of the National Minimum Wage in 1997 – to offer insights into how the new government can turn its key manifesto pledges into tangible results for the public.