With the countdown to the general election (currently on the 21st) on, these are crucial weeks for UK politics.
This week, the current election leaders, Labour and the Conservative Party, published their manifestos, setting out their plans for taxation, healthcare reform, housing, education and more if they came to power.
Here we look at the key policies in each party's manifesto, where each party stands on these key themes, and the different directions each party is taking.
To tax or not to tax, that is the question
This is the issue where the two parties differ most, with the Conservatives wanting to make big cuts to taxes and Labour wanting to raise them.
Conservative Party: Chancellor Rishi Sunak has promised to cut taxes by more than 17.2 billion pounds ($22 billion) after the tax burden reached its highest level as a share of the economy since World War Two, to be paid for by deep cuts in welfare spending and savings from a crackdown on tax evasion.
The tax cuts include cuts to national insurance contributions, which could cost the Treasury about 10 billion pounds ($12.8 billion) in lost revenue.
Labour: Unlike Sunak's plan, Labour's Keir Starmer wants to raise about 8.5 billion pounds ($10.9 billion) through tax hikes, including VAT and temporary increases, in addition to winding down tax cuts for non-resident individuals. The tax hikes would target different areas than those outlined by Sunak, and Starmer made it a point to make a clear distinction between the two.
Starmer wants to cap corporation tax at 25% and, relatedly, the party wants to close loopholes that allow private equity managers to pay a lower rate of capital gains tax on their investment income.
“There will be no increase in National Insurance contributions, basic rate of income tax, higher rate tax, additional rate of tax or VAT,” Starmer said in his manifesto launch on Thursday.
Children and Education
Conservative: The Conservative agenda aims to improve access to education, including introducing free schools for children with special needs, and Mr Sunak said he wants to increase school spending in “real terms per pupil”.
The party announced more subtle plans to raise the threshold at which families have to pay tax for childcare benefit. In their manifesto, the Conservatives said they were considering compulsory national service “to give all school-leaving students at 18 the choice of competitive placement either in the military or the civil service”.
Labour: Starmer also has a number of measures aimed at the education system and young people in the UK, one of which is to reform the education system by recruiting 6,500 new teachers, funded by tax cuts offered to private schools.
Separately, Labour also plans to help parents by lowering the voting age and providing free breakfasts for primary school children.
Housing and pensions
Conservative: The Conservatives have set out ways to encourage first-time home buyers and want to introduce the so-called triple lock plus system, which would ensure pensioners are exempt from council tax and receive tax-free deductions.
Labour: Labour has pledged to invest more pension money in British companies. To support this effort, the party would set up a 7.3 billion pound ($9.3 billion) sovereign wealth fund to attract private investment in addition to public investment.
Health is an asset
Conservative: The Conservatives plan to increase NHS spending above the rate of inflation to recruit more nurses and doctors. The party also plans to spend 2.4 billion pounds ($3 billion) on training medical professionals by the end of the next parliament, and wants to tackle “sick certificate culture” by providing more mental health services.
It is unclear how they plan to achieve this, but the Conservatives want to introduce artificial intelligence into hospital management to improve productivity in the NHS.
Labour: Starmer's plan is to drastically cut NHS waiting times and create 40,000 new appointment slots every week, an initiative he said on Thursday would be funded by stepped up policing of tax fraud and the “non-resident loophole”.
