KEIR Starmer has denied his latest set of pledges are “confusing” for the public – after outlining a number of other lists of promises and missions in the past.
The Prime Minister has set out six new “milestones” which set out targets for the Government to achieve over the next five years.
But Starmer has faced claims it represents a “reset” for the Government after a rocky start in power, which has already seen his chief of staff and a Cabinet minister fired five months on from the election.
The Prime Minister has also previously set out five “missions” for his government and six “first steps” for Government.
The current “plan for change” is a revised set of promises which Starmer insisted “doubles-down” on the existing “missions”.
They are:
- Higher disposable income per person
- 1.5 million new homes in England
- 92% of patients in England waiting 18 weeks or less for elective treatment
- 13,000 new police officers
- Getting 75% of five-year-olds in England “ready to learn” when they start school
- 95% clean power by 2030
Asked after the speech whether voters could be forgiven for finding the various iterations of Labour’s plan for change “confusing”, Starmer insisted he had “reiterated” the previous five missions.
He said: “We set out the milestones so that people can measure are we making proper progress on our missions, back to what we said two years ago and what will it feel like for me?”
The Prime Minister added that the new “milestones” were “something for the public to use to hold us to account on what we say we can achieve on the missions in the first five years”.
The pledge to achieve 95% clean power by 2030 has watered-down a manifesto commitment from Labour to achieve “zero carbon” electricity by that year.
Starmer insisted the pledge was “exactly what it was in the election,” however the manifesto did not mention the 95% figure.
The Prime Minister said: “The mission hasn’t changed from the day I launched it nearly two years ago. In terms of where we need to get to on clean energy by 2030, it’s exactly the same as it always was.
“There’s always going to be a mix but that is the pledge that we made two years ago.”
