Tag Archives: policy paper “A Fairer Share For All”

Michael Berwick-Gooding

A Fairer Share for All – a missed opportunity

By Michael Berwick-Gooding | Wed 28th August 2019 - 1:30 pm

At our Conference next month we will be discussing the policy motion and paper A Fairer Share For All.

What I particularly like is the policy to have “a £50 billion capital Rebalancing Fund to address the historic investment disparities between our regions and nations”. (I proposed a motion on poverty last year and it included a Rebalancing Fund but it was rejected by Federal Conference Committee.) 

The policy paper is not radical enough. It does not call for the end of relative poverty in any timescale. Also it does not include all of our existing policies as set out in our 2017 manifesto, such as reversing the cuts to Employment and Support Allowance for those in the Work Related Activity Group; 

It is unclear about what it wants to increase the benefit levels by. Existing policy is to increase benefits by the CPI rate of inflation each year, but the policy paper only states we would consider this “if more needs to be done” (2.2.15 and 2.2.16). Other policies in this category are restoring the benefit level to its 2015 real value and increasing it by the increase in median earnings if higher than the CPI rate of inflation (2.2.16). 

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