Sam Bailey: How Labour is failing to deliver on their promises

Sam Bailey is a research analyst at the Adam Smith Institute.

Given it has been over a year since the last King’s Speech, it is worth asking the obvious question: has anything really changed?

When Labour swept to power, they promised a return to grown-up politics, a sense of normality restored. Their landslide victory was carried by a simple but powerful promise: change.

And, following 14 years of Conservative government, that word clearly struck a chord with the public’s imagination. But after the latest set of U-turns, it seems ever increasingly difficult to point to what that change actually has been.

All too often in politics, bold pledges are made with great fanfare, only to disappear into the noise once the election is over. That comes as quite a contrast to the private sector, where you’re actually held accountable for your respective success or failure.

We thought it was time the government was held to a similar standard. So we took a look, one year on, at whether Labour is actually delivering on the promises it made.

Let’s start with growth. Labour pledged to deliver average annual GDP growth of 2.5 per cent by 2029; a worthy goal. But since last July, monthly growth has averaged just 0.09 per cent. To hit the target, we’d need to be growing at more than double that rate.

Employment isn’t looking much better. Despite bold promises to boost work and productivity, the employment rate remains stuck at 75 per cent, well below the target of 80 per cent by the end of the decade.

Of course, this won’t be helped by the recent U-turns on welfare reform. Today over 10 per cent of the working age population are on long-term sickness of disability benefits, far higher than the norm of around 2 per cent in the 1990s. For a party that said it would “make work pay,” this should be a wake-up call.

And then there’s housebuilding, a crisis that’s dogged government after government. Labour committed to building 1.5 million new homes by 2029 – and this boost in development was central to their plan to get Britain. But since July 2024, only 142,800 homes have been completed; to meet their own target, they’d need to nearly double that pace.

To be fair to the new government, there is one set of these promises that they have just about managed to achieve: spending an ever greater sum of tax payers money.

They are on track to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP, and NHS day‑to‑day budget by £22.6 billion.

But this is hardly something to celebrate. If the additional spending comes from a growing economy, it can be sustained. But if it comes from borrowing or hiking taxes – as it currently is set to do – it is a very different story.

The Government now finds itself in an exceptionally difficult position. They have committed to levels of spending not seen since the second world war, all while promising to not raise taxes on working people.

One of these has to give.

The truth is that only the Chancellor knows what the autumn budget will contain. But with public debt already at eye-watering levels and the government quickly approaching their spending limits, the borrowing option is running out of road. If things continue as they are, it is hard to imagine a scenario that doesn’t involve higher taxes on everyday working people.

This should serve as a call to action for the Conservative Party. After a bruising few years, there’s no shortage of soul-searching on the centre-right. But if Conservatives want to rebuild trust, it has to start with a renewed focus on economic growth, fiscal discipline, and – most importantly – being honest with the public about what we can and can’t afford to do.

The government can’t spend its way to prosperity, nor can it continue to borrow indefinitely without consequence. If the Conservative Party is serious about winning the next general election, it needs a credible plan to deliver the levels of economic growth which this country desperately needs. That means cutting red tape, reducing the tax burden, and delivering a welfare system that encourages work rather than dependency.

Without this, the country is set to continue on its current trajectory of managed decline.