Labour’s new bureaucratic nightmare, in full and in its own words

The sheer extent of the Labour Party’s plans to increase the size of the state, take over our economy, and regulate our lives, should they form the next government, hasn’t yet been fully absorbed by many people. Following the publication of its manifesto last week, most of the focus in the press has been on the cost of its spending plans.

Its most headline-grabbing structural reforms, such as the plans to re-nationalisation key industries, have been well publicised, and even appreciated by many. However, presented in this summarised fashion, Labour’s plans appear coherent. They also seem to have a limit. If the economy can somehow absorb the shock of very significant tax rises, and, let’s face it, there is no perfect form of ownership for vast natural monopolies such as the railways, we will all go on as before.

However, the true nature of Labour’s boundless and incoherent vision for the state can only be grasped by reading the manifesto in full. Where Tony Blair once tried to give the impression of focus by narrowing his message (“education, education, education”) the current Labour team has come up with a vast, sprawling offer. Mention a sector, an issue, a human condition, and Labour want to fix it.

Here below, directly quoted from the Labour Party manifesto, are all the new commissions, boards and agencies that it proposes to create. My emphasis in bold. Page numbers given:

1. Labour will create a Sustainable Investment Board to bring together the Chancellor, Business Secretary and Bank of England Governor to oversee, co-ordinate and bring forward… investment [to tackle climate change] — involving trade unions and business. p13
2. We will create a National Investment Bank, backed up by a network of Regional Development Banks, to provide £250 billion of lending for enterprise, infrastructure and innovation over 10 years. p13
3. A new UK National Energy Agency will own and maintain the national grid infrastructure and oversee the delivery of our decarbonisation targets. p16
4. 14 new Regional Energy Agencies will replace the existing district network operators and hold statutory responsibility for decarbonising electricity and heat and reducing fuel poverty. p16
5. The supply arms of the Big Six energy companies will be brought into public ownership where they will continue to supply households with energy while helping them to reduce their energy demands. p16
6. We will establish a Foundation Industries Sector Council to provide a clean and long-term future for our existing heavy industries like steel and glass and fund R&D into newer technologies like hydrogen and carbon capture and storage. Labour will support our steel through… building three new steel recycling plants and upgrading existing production sites. p17
7. We will ensure the UK’s automotive sector isn’t left behind by the electric revolution by investing in three new gigafactories and four metal reprocessing plants. p17
8. We’ll also take on the global plastics crisis by investing in a new plastics remanufacturing industry creating thousands of jobs, ending exports of plastic waste and reducing our contribution to ocean pollution. p17
9. We will establish a new environmental tribunal to ensure that administrative decisions are consistent with environmental and nature-recovery obligations. p23
10. We will invest in more county farms to replace those lost. p23
11. We will establish a National Food Commission and review the Allotments Act. p24
12. In England, we will introduce an animal welfare commissioner, prohibit the sale of snares and glue traps, end the badger cull and ban the keeping of primates as pets. p25
13. A Labour government will build a comprehensive National Care Service for England. p36
14. A new teacher supply service will tackle the waste of funds going to private supply teacher agencies. p40
15. We will bring back the School Support Staff Negotiating Body and national pay settlements for teachers. p40
16. A Labour government will establish a Royal Commission to develop a public health approach to substance misuse,  focusing on harm reduction rather than criminalisation. p44
17. We will champion a joined-up approach, fostering close working relationships between criminal justice agencies with education authorities, health services and others by establishing violence-reduction units and ensuring vulnerable people get the support they need by boosting public health, mental health and early years services. p46
18. We will recruit hundreds of new community lawyers, promote public legal education and build an expanded network of law centres. p47
19. [We will] appoint a Commissioner for Violence against Women and Girls. p47
20. We will stop Crown Post Office closures and bring Royal Mail back into public ownership at the earliest opportunity, reuniting it with the Post Office and creating a publicly owned Post Bank run through the post office network. p50
21. A Business Development Agency will be based in the Post Bank, providing free support and advice. p50
22. We will give a new Co-operative Development Agency a mission to double the size of the co-operative sector. p51
23. Labour will build a properly funded, professionally staffed National Youth Service, and will guarantee every young person has access to local, high-quality youth work. p51
24. We will establish British Broadband, with two arms: British Digital Infrastructure(BDI) and the British Broadband Service(BBS). We will bring the broadband-relevant parts of BT into public ownership, with a jobs guarantee for all workers in existing broadband infrastructure and retail broadband work. p53
25. We will commission an independent review into discrimination in sport. p55
26. We will give working people a voice at the Cabinet table by establishing a Ministry for Employment Rights. p60
27. [We will set up] a Royal Commission to bring health (including mental health) and safety legislation up to date. p62
28. [We will set up] an independent Working Time Commission to advise on raising minimum holiday entitlements and reducing maximum weekly working time. p63
29. Labour will also introduce a new, unified Workers’ Protection Agency to enforce workplace rights, including the Real Living Wage. It will be given extensive powers to inspect workplaces and bring prosecutions and civil proceedings on workers’ behalf. p63
30. We will… introduce new Labour Courts with a stronger role for people with industrial experience on panels. p63
31. We will tackle regulatory capture and streamline regulation by creating a new Business Commission, responsive to parliamentary select committees. p64
32. Labour will replace the Social Mobility Commission with a Social Justice Commission, based in the Treasury, with wide-ranging powers to hold us, and future governments, to account. p64
33. Labour will create a new Department for Women and Equalities, with a full-time Secretary of State, responsible for ensuring all our policies and laws are equality-impact assessed. p65
34. We will establish a modernised National Women’s Commission as an independent advisory body to contribute to a Labour government. p65
35. [We will] seek to end the politics of hate and commission an independent review into the threat of far-right extremism and how to tackle it. p67
36. [We will] sreate an Emancipation Educational Trust to educate around migration and colonialism, and to address the legacy of slavery and teach how it interrupted a rich and powerful black history which is also British history. p67
37. Labour will… replace the DWP on day one with a Department for Social Security, which will be there to help and support people, not punish and police them. p72
38. We will establish an independent Pensions’ Commission, modelled on the Low Pay Commission, to recommend target levels for workplace pensions. p75
39. Labour will create a new Department for Housing, make Homes England a more accountable national housing agency and put councils in the driving seat. We will set out a strategy for a flourishing construction sector with a skilled workforce and full rights at work. p78
40. Labour will set up a new English Sovereign Land Trust, with powers to buy land more cheaply for low-cost housing. p78
41. The renewal of our Parliament will be subject to recommendations made by a UK-wide Constitutional Convention, led by a citizens’ assembly. This Convention will answer crucial questions on how power is distributed in the UK today. p81
42. We will re-establish regional Government Offices to make central government more attuned to our English regions. p82
43. As part of our Green Industrial Revolution, we will create a Climate Change Sustainability Committee [within the Ministry of Defence] to review the feasibility of increasing the use of sustainable energy in defence, and publish a strategy to accelerate the safe and sustainable recycling of our old nuclear submarines. p102
44. A new Unit for Public Services within DfID, which will include increasing direct budgetary support to governments so they can build sustainable services for their citizens. p104
45. Implement a gender transformative approach across all our international work, including tripling funding for grassroots women’s organisations and establishing an independent ombudsman to tackle abuse in the development sector. p104
46. Undertake a root-and-branch reform of CDC Group plc (DfID’s principal vehicle for encouraging private sector investment in developing countries), transforming it into a green development bank mandated to fight poverty, inequality and climate change. p105