What did Labour promise for women in their 2024 manifesto?

Many of you read my blog post on the run up to the 2024 election – How do the manifestos of the 5 biggest political parties impact women?

Well, I was thrilled on Friday when we found out that 14 years of Tory rule had ended and we had a Labour Government again. Finally! It’s been a long time coming.

So I thought I would refer to my manifesto post and pull out what Labour promised they would be do if elected that particularly impacts women so that we can ensure that we hold them to account.

Representation matters – record numbers of female MPs

Firstly, I think it’s important to note that following the results on Friday, we now have 264 female MPs in the UK parliament. This marks a record high of over 40% female MPs.

In addition to this, exactly 50% of the newly appointed cabinet are women. Including Angela Rayner as Deputy PM and Rachel Reeves as Chancellor of the Exchequer as two of the most senior posts.

Of course we can have female politicians who do not further the interests of women or make good leaders, in the same way that we can and do have terrible male politicians. However, in general women bring their lived experience of being women to their roles in leadership and politics. I choose to be hopeful that more women in Government will lead to more funding for women’s priorities and further feminist progress.

What are the main parties offering women in the 2019 election?

Labour’s Manifesto promises that impact women

It goes without saying that all of the Labour manifesto impacts women, however there are some issues that impact women in particular. Here is what is in the Labour party manifesto that especially impacts women.

Employment and the Gender Pay Gap

Ban zero hours contracts; end fire and rehire; and introduce basic rights from day one to parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal.
Make sure the minimum wage is a genuine living wage.
Enact the socio-economic duty in the Equality Act 2010
Take action to reduce the gender pay gap, building on the legacy of Barbara Castle’s Equal Pay Act.
Establish a Fair Pay Agreement in adult social care.

Male violence against women and girls

Landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.
Use every government tool available to target perpetrators and address the root causes of abuse and violence.
Specialist rape and sexual offences teams in every police force. The most prolific and harmful perpetrators will be relentlessly targeted, using tactics normally reserved for terrorists and organised crime.
Fast-track rape cases, with specialist courts at every Crown Court location in England and Wales.
Introduce domestic abuse experts in 999 control rooms so that victims can talk directly to a specialist and ensure there is a legal advocate in every police force area to advise victims from the moment of report to trial.
Ensure schools address misogyny and teach young people about healthy relationships and consent.
Ensure police forces have the powers they need to track and tackle the problem.
Strengthen the use of Stalking Protection Orders and give women the right to know the identity of online stalkers.
Introduce a new criminal offence for spiking to help police better respond to this crime.
Strengthen the rights and protections available to women in co-habiting couples, as well as for whistleblowers in the workplace, including on sexual harassment.
Reform the justice system to put the needs of victims first.
Introduce mandatory professional standards for the police on vetting, checks and misconduct for individual officers; and stronger training on violence against women and girls. Anyone with a history of violence against women and girls will be barred from the service and they will introduce automatic suspensions if officers are investigated for domestic abuse and sexual offences.
Introduce new legal safeguards around strip-searching children and young people.
Review sentencing (particularly around crimes against women and girls) to ensure it is brought up to date.
Labour recognises an increase in extreme misogynistic content online driving a culture of violence against women so Labour will build on the Online Safety Act.

Pregnancy/maternity/paternity

Strengthen rights to equal pay and protections from maternity and menopause discrimination and sexual harassment.
Ensure that trusts failing on maternity care are robustly supported into rapid improvement.
Train thousands more midwives as part of the NHS Workforce Plan and set an explicit target to close the Black and Asian maternal mortality gap.
Digitise the Red Book record of children’s health, improving support for new families. Will enable vaccinations for babies and children as part of health visits.

Childcare/schools

Free breakfast clubs in every primary school.
Limit the number of branded items of uniform and PE kit that schools can require
Open an additional 3,000 nurseries through upgrading space in primary schools, to deliver the extension of government funded hours.
Review the parental leave system, so it best supports working families, within their first year in government.
Recruit an additional 6,500 new expert teachers. Labour will reinstate the School Support Staff Negotiating Body, which will help address the acute recruitment and retention crisis in support roles.
Provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school.
Plan for Young Futures Hubs, which will make sure every community has an open-access hub for children and young people with drop-in mental health support.

Conclusion

I have not had the time to also pull out other intersectional equality issues like race/disability/sexual identity etc which are obviously also extremely important so I would urge you to read the manifesto for the issues that matter to you so you can monitor the new Government’s progress.

They are off to a good start so let’s hope they deliver their promises!

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