In just over a couple of weeks, Andy Burnham will head back to Westminster– this time as Prime Minister.

We have been vocal about our demands, and have listened to your feedback about the need to embrace the optimism of this moment, without getting complacent.

Last month, we called on Compass Members and our friends in the civil society space to combine and suggest a whole range of policies and ideas that this Government should undertake quickly to drag Britain out of the difficult political situation it finds itself in.

Today, we’re excited to launch ‘100 Ideas for 100 Days’.

Ideas are from Compass Members unless otherwise stated.

Note: Inclusion of a policy doesn’t necessarily equate to full endorsement of the policy from Compass or any individual/organisation named here.

Week 1: How Britain is governed (democratic reform, accountability, devolution, immigration, foreign policy & defence)

Democratic reform

1. Time-bound National Commission on PR
   
   The Government will immediately set up a time-bound National Commission to recommend to Parliament legislation to move to a proportional electoral system in time for the next General Election. Our current electoral system, never truly fit for democratic purpose, is now dangerously dysfunctional. With multiple parties in national play, Governments can get elected with big majorities on small percentages of the total vote, leading to instability and delusion (e.g. Starmer 2024 got fewer votes than Corbyn 2019). This is an emergency, and a broad-based National Commission involving people, experts and citizens is needed to change this in time for the next election.
2. Move electoral roll publication date
   Change the publication date of the electoral roll from 1 December to 1 April, so the annual register is done much closer to May local elections, boosting turnout by removing a de facto 6-month residence requirement.
3. Ban Lords members from Government
   Members of the House of Lords (or its replacement) should be prohibited from serving in the Government, creating a partial separation of Executive and Legislative functions, common in other countries’ constitutions, allowing the second chamber to focus purely on scrutiny.
4. Abolish photo ID for voting
   Abolishing photo ID would cost nothing and increase voter participation.
5. Limit election material
   Allow only a limited, standardised set of election materials (a pro forma with set spaces for photo, statement, record of achievement) so candidates can be compared equally. This would go further to incentivise candidates to door-knock and attend hustings, reduce costs, and level the playing field for independents.
6. Standing citizens’ assembly
   The new Government will establish a standing citizens’ assembly until the next general election to review and advise on how its missions-oriented approach is developing. This will produce an initial communication about its own agenda within 100 days for its 3-year operation.There is much evidence of distrust of Government and politicians, concerns about the over-centralisation of decision-making and excessive competitiveness in party political discourse. Adopting elements of deliberative democracy will illustrate how citizens can contribute to longer term and consensual policy making.
7. Ministers to meet organisers of major petitions
   At present, if a petition reaches 10,000 signatures, the government provides a written reply. This should be amended, so that a minister will meet petition organisers, to negotiate what the government will do in response. MPs from all Parties should be able to ask questions of all sides. When the petition reaches 100,000 signatures, the debate would include a report on the negotiations. Instead of 100,000 people travelling to London, walking round Westminster for an afternoon, and getting totally ignored, ministers would be obliged to meet with and discuss the concerns of the voters they are supposed to serve.
8. The Prime Minister will announce an immediate end to uncontrolled appointments to the House of Lords, improve independent oversight of appointments, and ensure the future House of Lords is no bigger than the House of Commons.
   Meg Russell – Professor of British and Comparative Politics, UCLCurrently there are no hard restrictions on appointments by the Prime Minister to the House of Lords. Unsustainable appointments over the last 25 years have seen the chamber’s size grow from roughly equal to the 650-member House of Commons to over 800 members. Prime Ministers have appointed disproportionately to their own side, causing their successors to play catch up, while fewer genuinely independent ‘Crossbench’ members are being appointed. This patronage system would look absurd in any other democracy, and helps bring UK politics into disrepute. Because the Prime Minister controls the system they can unilaterally announce an end to this practice. But to ensure future Prime Ministers don’t reverse the change, a more regulated system should be put into statute – with the Removal of Peerages Bill in the recent King’s speech providing a possible vehicle. The cross-party Lord Speaker’s Committee on the Size of the House of Lords has provided a potential blueprint, which would ensure a fair division of appointments between parties, improve independent oversight, and reduce the chamber’s size to no larger than the Commons. Acting immediately on this gross anomaly need in no way undermine commitment to larger-scale longer-term Lords reform in the future.
   
   Local Government & Devolution

9. Twin regional economic initiatives with disadvantaged neighbourhoods
   New/existing regional economic enterprises sited in flourishing areas should be twinned with disadvantaged neighbourhoods, using exchange visits and joint projects to reduce psychological and physical distance and channel business/social connections. →(References Gabriel Chanan, “From Gesture to Structure,” Radix, 2022.)
10. Review principles/extent of devolution
    Devolution’s powers for mayors/combined authorities have benefited communities and there is scope to do more, but per the principle of subsidiarity, devolution must extend to the most local level compatible with effective delivery, avoiding creating an unaccountable intermediate layer of government.
11. Improve scrutiny of combined authority mayors
    Governance arrangements for Combined Authority Mayors need improved scrutiny, transparency and accountability, rolling out the Greater London Authority model (Assemblies of 25–35 members, elected by PR) across England.
12. Restore secondary education to local authorities
    Consult on how to restore full responsibility for secondary education to local authorities. Academisation has disempowered local authorities, communities, teachers and parents, which is incompatible with the devolution of power sought elsewhere; consultation on unpicking this should begin soon.
13. ‘For Us, By Us’ leadership initiative
    To highlight examples of ‘everyday’ leadership within communities and cultivate an eco-system of support. The existing top-down leadership structure does not tap into the country’s wealth of talent and, by itself, cannot address complex social issues. For devolution to succeed, it must not simply replicate the Westminster model on a smaller scale. Over the next five years, the For Us, By Us initiative will launch pilot programs across the country. It will start with a 6-12 month internal phase dedicated to questioning leadership norms, building belief, and instilling confidence before expanding across the country.
14. Establish a Cross-Party Working Group to Implement the Constitutional Commission for Wales Recommendations
    Gwern Gwynfil, New Wales / Cymru Newydd; Gus Williams, New WalesTo rebuild trust with Welsh voters, the Westminster Government must treat Wales as an equal, respected partner in the Union. The path forward for Welsh governance relies on constructive intergovernmental collaboration, not reflexive partisan opposition to the Senedd administration. Friction and a lack of coordination between London and Cardiff have directly fuelled recent voter disillusionment.
    
    The Government should immediately announce a cross-party working group tasked with implementing the recommendations of the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales. Because these recommendations already enjoy broad, cross-party consensus, delivering them provides a ready-made platform to showcase a genuine commitment to progressive devolution and respectful intergovernmental working.
    
    By rising above party politics to focus on outcomes for Wales, Westminster can transform friction into genuine partnership. Implementing these consensus-backed reforms is the single best way to repair the constitutional relationship and win back disaffected voters.
15. Establish a Constitutional Precedent for Regular Prime Minister and First Minister Summits
    Gwern Gwynfil, New Wales / Cymru Newydd; Gus Williams, New WalesAt present, there is no formal requirement for the UK Prime Minister and the First Ministers of the devolved nations to meet, consult, or share information. To build a resilient and collaborative Union, this must change. Just as clear constitutional precedent governs regular audiences between the Prime Minister and the Monarch, a similar institutional standard should be established for intergovernmental engagement.
    
    Establishing mandatory, scheduled summits between the Prime Minister and First Ministers creates an enduring framework of mutual respect. Beyond top-level political leadership, regularising these meetings sets a clear operational expectation for deeper, day-to-day collaboration between Westminster departments and devolved civil services.
    
    Relying on ad-hoc goodwill or partisan alignment has proven insufficient for effective governance. Codifying a requirement for regular consultation within the first 100 days will institutionalise progressive intergovernmental working, improve joint policy coordination, and demonstrate genuine respect for the devolution settlement across all four nations.
16. Establish a Joint UK-Wales Broadcasting Authority to Share Oversight and Map Devolution
    Gwern Gwynfil, New Wales / Cymru Newydd; Gus Williams, New WalesWith the upcoming BBC Charter review, ongoing public service broadcasting cuts, and rapid shifts in digital media, Wales needs a direct voice in shaping its broadcasting landscape. Decisions over funding, local representation, and Welsh-language content are currently centralised in London, creating a clear democratic deficit in how Welsh civic life is covered.
    
    The UK Government should work with the Welsh Government to establish a formal joint mechanism for broadcasting policy, scrutiny, and accountability. This would give Wales a direct seat at the table during Charter negotiations, safeguard funding for Welsh media platforms, and establish proper accountability to the Senedd.
    
    Delivering on this fulfils a core recommendation of the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales. Creating this joint authority demonstrates immediate respect for Welsh interests while establishing a practical, structured framework to prepare for the full, legislated devolution of broadcasting.

    Immigration

17. Positive immigration stance
    Labour’s adoption of Reform/Conservative-style immigration policy has been an abject failure, both morally and electorally. Calls for a principled, positive case for immigration and Britain’s responsibility to take a share of people displaced by climate change and war, while noting falling net migration and Brexit’s effect on EU vs non-EU migration patterns.
18. Let asylum seekers work
    Currently asylum seekers cannot work, ostensibly to deter people from coming; allowing work would benefit the exchequer, those working, community relations, and labour shortages, with no discernible downside.
19. Commit publicly to using inclusive not divisive policy language – in particular ‘social security’ not ‘welfare’ with reference to benefits and ‘irregular’ not ‘illegal’ to describe asylum-seekers arriving by unauthorised means
    Ruth Lister, Baroness Lister of Burtersett – Labour Peer
    ‘Language matters’ as the interim report of the Timms PIP review reminds us. A cost-free action would be to commit the government and its ministers publicly to inclusive rather than divisive language. Two examples: First, in its original meaning ‘welfare’ is of course a positive. But in its American meaning, used in relation to social security, it conjures up a miserable residual scheme for the stigmatised ‘other’. In contrast, social security conveys the aim of genuine financial security for all by social means. Second, too often asylum-seekers, with a legal right to seek asylum, who have travelled by unauthorised routes, are described as ‘illegal migrants’. This stokes public hostility. The more accurate term ‘irregular’ is less pejorative and does not convey the image of ‘breaking in’ used by the Right.
20. The new government should ally with Spain to form a new ‘coalition of the willing’ to forge multilateral co-operation over refugee and human rights policies.
    Francesca Klug – Visiting Professor, LSE Human Rights
    Asylum seekers and refugees have become chips in a crude political barter with the stakes ratcheting up with each new policy iteration. With immigration for work on the decline, the new government has the opportunity to reduce the salience of ‘small boats’ by turning down the volume of government-led hostility, ending dehumanising language and working with other states within Europe (with Spain as a co-leader), the Commonwealth and some countries in the wider world to forge a new ‘coalition of the willing’ committed to multilateral co-operation and shared responsibilities. A small working group should be established by Number 10 immediately, involving those who have experience of the system as officials or refugees, along with academics and policy makers who have already developed strategies to avoid dangerous journeys, share responsibilities between states and provide sanctuary to those who need it. The future of the Refugee Convention and the broader international human rights framework are at stake and this government has the opportunity to reform and rehabilitate them, which the last administration didn’t take.

    Political Accountability/Transparency

21. Take the Money Out of Politics
    Ban most private and corporate donations to political parties, replacing them with state funding based on votes or membership numbers (small nominal donations, like raffle tickets, still allowed). Public trust is collapsing because people believe policy is bought by wealthy donors. The current government can refer to the detailed proposal from Labour donor Dale Vince, would cost roughly £1 per taxpayer per year.
22. Sanctions for false political statements
    Legislation to introduce sanctions on politicians or candidates who deliberately or recklessly make false or misleading statements and don’t correct the record when challenged. Adam Price has pioneered similar legislation in the Senedd; Compassion in Politics, Unlock Democracy and others are championing it for Westminster.
23. Government to stop using X
    The government won’t use X as a platform for communicating. It is inconsistent with the values of the new government to use a platform associated with spreading misinformation and hateful content unchecked, especially one owned by a US national accused of interfering in UK elections and inciting racial hatred.
24. Transform the BBC into a mutual organisation, owned and controlled by every UK citizen
    Media Reform Coalition
    The BBC is the heart of the UK’s media system. Yet despite the BBC being publicly funded, the public have no control over how it works. Politicians have too much power to pressure the BBC, and it is struggling to compete against global streaming services and social media companies. Without radical reform, the BBC faces a bleak future of dwindling audiences and the loss of public trust.
    
    The Government should use the ongoing BBC Charter renewal process to transform the BBC into a new kind of democratic media institution: a public service mutual. A mutualised BBC will belong to all of us by right. We will all become BBC members — active and direct participants in its mission to inform, educate, entertain and connect. Every UK citizen would be granted guaranteed rights and powers over how the BBC operates, including the right to serve on randomly-selected representative citizen panels & power to allocate the BBC’s budget to ‘public commissioning’ of public service media content.
25. Political parties should publish their voting instructions (“the whip”) and the reasons behind them for every whipped vote in Parliament.
    mySociety
    The current whipping system has become part of a wider problem with how Westminster makes decisions. Too much influence over legislation sits with ministers, advisers and the whips, rather than drawing on the expertise and judgement of MPs. As a result, Parliament makes less use of the knowledge MPs bring from their policy specialisms and the communities they represent.
    
    Reforming the whip should be part of creating a more collaborative legislative process, while preserving the role of party discipline in delivering manifesto commitments. Parties should define the scope of the whip by publishing clear rules on when whipping is appropriate and what forms of discipline are and are not acceptable. They should co-produce the whip by giving parliamentary party working groups a greater role in developing policy positions before votes take place, ensuring MPs help shape the positions they are later expected to support. Finally, parties should publish their whipping instructions and the reasoning behind them, improving public understanding of how decisions are made.
    
    Together these reforms would make Parliament better at drawing on the expertise of MPs, while making party discipline more transparent, collaborative and accountable.
26. A once-in-a-lifetime initiative to regenerate local news by catalysing a high-quality independent news provider in every local community
    Jonathan Heawood, Public Interest News Foundation
    The United Kingdom no longer has a single public sphere. The digital revolution has splintered us into countless micro-publics, some of which have a stronger relationship with reality than others. The best way to tackle this is from the ground up – by getting behind the pioneers who are regenerating news at a local level. Community newsrooms; audience revenue models; live journalism; co-creational media – these innovations have the potential to sustain a vibrant new ecosystem of trusted and trustworthy local news, reorienting communities around a shared reality and a political debate based on facts not fantasies. But we can only unlock this potential with a strategic intervention, uniting government, philanthropy and social finance to catalyse these fragile initiatives and put them on the path to sustainability. All the devolution in the world will fail if we don’t have resilient local media to hold power to account and create a sense of place and purpose.

    Foreign Policy & Defence

27. The new government should announce an embargo on all trade, military and economic support for the state of Israel.The actions of the government of Israel in pursuing a genocide in Gaza and facilitating displacement of civilians in the West Bank has ignored international rules and norms and gone way beyond any acceptable limits. The UK – ideally in concert with other governments – should announce the cessation of all support (military and economic) for the Israeli regime and introduce a trade embargo until a government is in place in Israel that can show it is able and willing to observe international law and acceptable moral standards. The Labour Government under Starmer has lost swathes of votes because of its continuing support for Israel and failure to condemn repeated atrocities and because it continues to conflate support for Palestinian rights with anti-semitism.
28. Interview/prosecute war-crime combatants
    Where someone comes to the UK who may have served in a militia/military known to breach international law (citing Chinese security forces re: the Uyghurs, Russians in Ukraine, the US “double-tapping” of fishing boats, the IDF in Gaza/West Bank/Lebanon), the UK should interview them, use war-crimes monitoring info, and prosecute where complicit in genocide or crimes against humanity.
29. Radical reboot of “aid”
    Labour’s amplification of earlier Tory cuts to the development budget is short sighted, self defeating and immoral. As well as increasing spend, we need a fundamental rethink of what we consider “aid”, as currently much “aid” money comes back to the global north, benefitting wealthy countries, NGOs and institutions. This buys short-term UK-attributable results, but does not build national or regional capacity and autonomy for reducing poverty, protecting the environment or improving health and education. Amidst the recent swingeing cuts, IFIs have been protected; carrying on their evangelical agenda of privatisation and neoliberalism. The focus on short term UK-attributable “results” that accompanied the 0.7% target – a Tory model, created to appease the right-wing anti-aid lobby – serves to ensure ongoing aid dependency. Abolition of DFID and FCDO encouraging departure of those with expertise and integrity, has resulted in FCDO being fundamentally unfit for purpose. A radical new mandate and structure is needed to genuinely assist governments and institutions to deliver their plans for improved human and environmental outcomes.
30. The Government should set up a Department for Information to propagandise liberal democratic values abroad and counter disinformation operations in the UK.
    Jamie Gaskarth – Professor of Foreign Affairs and International Relations, Open University / Chatham House & Rory Cormac – Professor of International Relations, University of Nottingham
    
    Britain is operating in a hostile world of geostrategic competition and the information space is a key domain in which this contest plays out.
    
    The UK government’s approach to information operations is almost entirely reactive. Its focus is on countering disinformation via exposure, sanctions and shutting down or disrupting production once revealed. Responses are also dispersed across Whitehall, with multiple agencies and departments operating separate initiatives. The current system is not fit for purpose given the threat picture.
    
    In this hostile world, information needs to be put on a war footing. Following the example of the Ministry of Information in the Second World War, the Defending Democracy Taskforce should be upgraded to a Department for Information, headed by a political figure with expertise in political opinion/communication and reporting to the Prime Minister.
    
    Its aim should be to undermine the spread of authoritarianism by truthfully, and vigorously propagandizing the benefits of liberal democracy (where prudent). Using the same principles, it should also go on the counteroffensive to disrupt hostile authoritarian activity in a holistic and strategic manner, rather than merely exposing and/or disrupting specific operations retrospectively.
    
    The Department would be lean; drafting in expertise from Whitehall, academia, NGOs and the creative industries.
31. The new government will convene a conference of likeminded middle powers to discuss how policies of mutual aid can restore the sovereignty and strengthen the resilience of the world’s democracies.
    Peter Harris – Associate Professor of Political Science, Colorado State University
    There is an appetite for cooperation among the world’s middle and smaller powers. Past models of international cooperation have failed to deliver. Dependence on the US for security, for example, is no longer viable. Interdependence in the form of deep economic integration also has stark limitations. What both models have in common is that they involve the exchange of national sovereignty for some sort of desired benefit. The next government will reject that trade off and pursue a mutual-aid approach to foreign policy that restores the national sovereignty, military capacity, and democratic resilience of small and middle powers. Mutual aid represents a bold new approach to international affairs, strengthening democracy at home and abroad. To advance this agenda, the government will convene a conference of middle powers to lay plans for a cooperative global agenda.
32. The new government will update the 2010 Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Act to ensure that private creditors take part in international debt relief initiatives.
    Debt Justice UK
    External debt payments by lower-income countries are at the highest level for 30 years. The G20 has created a debt relief scheme in response, the Common Framework. However, this has led to no or too little debt relief for the four countries which have applied. Private creditors have threatened legal action in UK courts to demand much higher payments than public creditors, in contravention of the principles of the Common Framework.
    
    90% of lower-income country debt contracts to private creditors are governed by English law. The government should update 2010 legislation ensuring private creditors participate in debt relief to include the current G20 Common Framework. Legislation would prevent creditors from suing while debt restructuring negotiations are taking place, as exists in corporate law. This is an essential step to getting G20 governments such as China to agree to strengthen the Common Framework during the UK’s G20 presidency in 2027.
33. Russia-style sanctions on Israeli settlements and those involved with facilitating their continued existence and those credibly accused of war crimes in Gaza.
    The Muslim Vote
    There are voters who have decided to never vote Labour again due to their failure to respond to the genocide in Gaza and even complicity in weapons, diplomatic cover and intelligence sharing. Having progressive voters unwilling to vote Labour in the 2029 election might be as fatal to keeping a government of the far-right out as being unwilling to vote war-crime complicit Democrats helped create a 6 million vote drop between Biden and Harris that allowed for Trump to win. Burnham’s apology is step one. What’s required are Russia-style sanctions at scale on Israeli settlements and those credibly accused of war crimes in Gaza. It is the price of getting a second hearing for many and is essential to removing the moral stench of complicity in war crimes that is hovering around Labour. It has to come early or it will be accused of being too late and the politico-moral damage will shift to this government and ossify and it has to be at scale or it will be easily ignored.Tax
34. Tax billionaires and multinationals
    Introduce progressive taxes redistributing wealth from the top 0.1% and wealthy corporations downwards, acknowledging the manifesto commitment not to raise taxes cannot be met while maintaining a welfare state and the NHS.
35. Wealth Tax (2%)
    Our country’s economy is in ruins with underfunded public services and indebted councils. A wealth tax of 2% on every £1m of an individual’s wealth would transform the country.
36. National Commission on Basic Income
    The government should establish a National Commission to look at how Basic Income Initiatives can become part of the welfare system, citing food producers and creative artists as groups lacking guaranteed income despite their contribution to national culture and food security.
37. Wealth tax funding UBI
    A new wealth tax of 5–10% on wealth greater than £10 million, with proceeds funding Universal Basic Income for citizens in need (wealthy individuals exempt/can decline).
38. Land Value Tax
    Introduce a land value tax that returns some of the profits from increases in land/property values arising from public investment in surrounding areas, which currently accrue to private landowners. Would help offset reductions in income tax and other regressive taxes.
39. Restrict concentrated land ownership
    Restrict how much land any individual, group or business (local or foreign) can own — currently unrestricted in the UK, with under 1% of the population owning over half of 60 million acres. Cites 22 other European countries with such restrictions, and proposes conditions on land purchase (residency, agricultural skills, 10 years’ UK residency) for societal benefits including food security and preventing land speculation.
40. Income tax transparency
    Income tax should cease to be a purely private transaction between individual and state. PAYE employees have tax fully disclosed by employers, but the self-employed can under-declare. Proposes publishing tax payments (like Land Registry property transactions), searchable for a small fee, as some Scandinavian countries already do.
41. Purchase tax on second homes
    Introduce a 100% tax on the purchase price of second homes, given record second-home ownership while working people struggle for housing. Income raised to fund state-owned affordable housing.
42. Cap ISA savings
    Cap the amount of savings that can be held in ISAs at £50–60,000. ISAs, designed to encourage saving, have evolved into a tax avoidance scheme for the well-off; above this “nest egg” cap, savings become investments and should be taxed as such.
43. “Pensions Sacrifice” OBE
    Allow rich, well-off pensioners to opt out of their state pension for 3+ years in return for a “Pensions Sacrifice” OBE, as a reward for donating funds to education or another popular cause.
44. Stamping out tax havens
    Businesses and individuals wishing to sell goods/services to people in Britain could be licensed, similar to bank licensing, with conditions such as not using tax havens required for licence renewal — also a potential revenue source.
45. The new government will establish a Royal Commission and second Beveridge Report to develop a radical overhaul of the entire welfare system for the 21st century, so it provides secure work as well as benefits.
    Our welfare system was designed in a different era and is no longer fit for purpose, and needs a radical overhaul to make it fit for 21st century challenges. This will include a long-term plan to support more disabled and long-term sick people into employment, provide incentives for employers to recruit and accommodate them, expand tailored training and apprenticeships, and guarantee access to suitable work through a reformed public employment service.
46. Launch a full independent review of Council Tax and Stamp Duty within the first 100 days, with the aim of replacing both with a fairer property tax based on current values, protecting those who cannot pay, cutting bills for most households, and unlocking a more mobile housing market.
    Andrew Dixon – FairerShare
    Council Tax and Stamp Duty are two of Britain’s most unfair and economically damaging taxes. Council Tax is still based on 1991 property values, while Stamp Duty penalises people for moving, downsizing, upsizing or relocating for work.
    
    A new government should launch a full independent review within its first 100 days, with a clear remit to examine how both taxes could be replaced by a fairer property tax based on current values. The review should consider distributional impacts, valuation methods, local government funding, renters, devolution, regional growth and transition protections.
    
    Reform could cut bills for most households, shift liability from renters to property owners, reduce arrears and court action, and remove one of the biggest barriers facing younger buyers and growing families.
    
    Abolishing Stamp Duty would improve mobility, support labour-market flexibility and help people move to homes that suit their needs.
    
    A fairer property tax settlement could also strengthen devolution by giving places a more rational and transparent tax base, while supporting growth beyond London and the South East. Any reform must include caps on annual increases, deferrals for asset-rich but cash-poor households, and safeguards so no one is forced out of their home.
47. The new government will commission an independent review of how to make broad-based wealth creation a central feature of the UK economy, recommending the legal, tax and financial reforms needed to enable more working people, in every postcode, to build a meaningful stake in the growth they help create.
    James de le Vingne – Employee Ownership Association
    The UK needs to rebuild an economy in which more people can build meaningful wealth from the growth they help to create. Yet many of the tools currently available were designed for a different economic age. They tend to separate wages from ownership, reward from participation, and business growth from the communities and workforces that sustain it.
    
    The tools we need may not yet be in the toolbox.
    
    The proposal is for the new government to commission an independent review of broad-based wealth creation, with a clear mandate to design the next generation of legal, tax and financial mechanisms. Like the Nuttall Review, it should combine serious policy analysis with practical recommendations capable of changing business behaviour and creating a new market.
    
    The review should examine how more working people can build a meaningful stake in the businesses they help to grow, drawing on employee equity, profit participation, individual capital accounts, trust-based structures and existing share schemes—but without assuming that today’s models are sufficient.
    
    The goal is not to promote one ownership structure or make minor adjustments to outdated instruments. It is to design new, scalable tools that strengthen productivity, support business succession and ensure that good growth creates lasting wealth for people and communities in every postcode.
48. The UK government supports the development of a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation
    Polly Truscott – Amnesty International UK
    It is estimated that countries are losing US$492 billion in tax a year to multinational corporations and wealthy individuals using tax havens. The UK itself loses US$45 billion a year (£33.4 billion) as a result of this tax abuse. The development of a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (UNTC) offers new hope for global tax cooperation, climate financing and sustainable development, through building a just, equitable, and democratic global tax system that can prevent abuse, enable more public funds for essential goods and services, and support sustainable development. It is a crucial opportunity for the UK to raise billions in revenue and reinstate its role and responsibility as a global leader in tackling international tax abuse.
49. All multinationals operating in the UK should publicly disclose – on a country-by-country basis – the revenue they generate, the profits they make and the taxes that they pay.
    Paul Monaghan, Fair Tax Foundation
    At present, the vast majority of multinational enterprises operating in the UK refuse to disclose how much corporation tax they pay here or in any other country. This opaque reporting means we have no way of telling whether or not they are paying their fair share of taxes. What is needed is public country-by-country reporting (pCbCR).
    
    Greater transparency helps deter multinationals from shifting their profits to tax havens. Since the introduction of similar tax transparency requirements for the European banking sector, evidence suggests that the number of subsidiaries of European banks in tax havens declined significantly and their effective tax rates increased.
    
    In 2016, under all-party pressure from Parliament, the UK government agreed that pCbCR was merited, but the power has never been implemented. Since then, the EU and Australia have advanced pCbCR. Even the US has recently advanced a rudimentary form. The UK should catch up and advance new state of the art financial disclosure standards that encompass all MNCs, such as Amazon and Apple, that already prepare and share this information with tax authorities (ie, those with revenue of €750m and above, and where there is no added burden for business).
50. The new government will support the structural reform of social investment. It will support the creation of a Social Purpose REIT or RIF. This will utilise existing financial models for which there is already legislation, but with a twist to use income from commercial funders to build a deposit for the social organisations who will lease from the vehicle. This overcomes the key barrier to their ultimate ownership allowing social organisations to acquire the assets needed in their communities. This will work across any asset class from Housing to energy to social care infrastructure. Any asset with a revenue stream and the ability for the social / community owners to raise a mortgage and acquire once a deposit is created. The vehicle receives both the deposit and mortgage funds to repeat until communities and social enterprises own many more of the assets used in their communities.
    Andrew Croft – Expert Impact
    A key barrier to community ownership and Social Enterprise ownership of assets used to enrich the lives of their beneficiaries and communities is deposits for the users of the assets. Many are forced to lease from “impact” investors which take the money from the community and keep the organisations poor and in rental. Where ownership = cost of capital and rent = cost of capital + cost of landlords equity + cost of landlords margin, these are not good scenarios. Worse where landlords are the operators, such as children’s care requiring 30% margins on looked after children, these are not good outcomes for local authorities, central government or society as a whole. Least of all the children who we seek to look after. The above delivers a solution to this issue using infrastructure that already exists and requires only modification in its governing documents / prospectus.
51. At least one-third worker directors on company boards, like the majority of OECD countries.
    Ewan McGaughey – Professor of Law, King’s College London
    The UK is in the minority of poorer OECD countries without any law that requires worker directors on large company boards. For instance, Denmark requires that in all companies with over 35 staff, at least a third of the company board should be elected by workers. We have worker directors in Oxford University since 1854, Cambridge since 1856, and in multiple other universities, schools, pension funds, and institutions like NHS Foundation trusts. But we haven’t applied this consistently in the public or private sector, despite multiple calls from across the political spectrum. Worker directors will (1) make collective bargaining work better, especially as it’s rolled out across sectors, by making UK management less adversarial (2) raise worker pay by an estimated 1.6% on average (Jaeger, Noy, Schoefer 2021), (3) increase innovation, productivity and job satisfaction (Adams, Deakin et al 2019). Together with a full roll-out of the New Deal for Working People, it is the single most important change we could make to democratise the economy.
52. The Bank of England’s inflation target needs to be extended to property prices.
    Stewart Lansley – Visiting Fellow at the School of Policy Studies, University of Bristol
    Recent decades have seen a damaging surge in the prices of physical assets, especially property. In the last 20 years, the ratio of the average UK house price to average income has over doubled from 4:1 to 9:1. Until the late 1990s that ratio had been largely steady.
    
    Asset inflation is a form of ‘passive accumulation’ or what the 19th century thinker John Stuart Mill called ‘getting rich while asleep’. It enriches owners at the cost of non-owners. It is the main reason why private wealth has never trickled very far beyond the top half of the population.
    
    Runaway inflation misallocates resources away from productive activity, and has been an important driver of today’s economic slowdown. Windfall gains for owners come at a significant cost to others, stifle social mobility, and aggravate regional imbalances.
    
    Property price inflation has been inflamed by financial de-regulation through the withdrawal of control over bank lending practices in the mid-1980s, excessive financial liquidity, and poor oversight of financial institutions.
    
    The Bank of England has a remit on containing consumer price inflation. The Treasury should now extend that goal to house prices. The aim, to gradually lower the ratio of average house prices to income over a decade, and then maintain that ratio.
53. A ten-year plan to rebuild Britain’s depleted commonly-owned asset base.
    Stewart Lansley – Visiting Fellow at the School of Policy Studies, University of Bristol
    Since the early 1980s, the share of national assets that are commonly owned has fallen, through privatisation, from around 30% to 10%. This decline has been one of the key drivers of higher inequality. By removing one of the levers of democratic economic control it has transferred power from government to increasingly overseas-based big corporations. It has thus been an important force behind the over-empowerment of private capital.
    
    Britain needs a ten-year, three-pronged plan to rebuild the communally owned asset base. The first prong would be a process of de-privatisation and the encouragement of new forms of public, communal and mutual ownership. A second prong would involve the taking of state equity stakes across parts of the private economy. These could be part of a new deal with those businesses enjoying significant public subsidies and tax breaks. Such stakes would establish the principle that subsidies to big business should come with conditions. Placed in the National Wealth Fund, they would provide a significant stimulus to today’s inadequate investment programmes.
    
    In a third prong, modest special shares should be taken in privatised utilities and those companies providing key services. This would revive the golden shares originally taken in the first phase of privatisation, and reinstate greater democratic control, including over private equity owned companies, in vital areas of the economy.
54. Raise Capital Gains Tax on residential investment properties, restoring a surcharge relative to other assets, to curb speculative buy-to-let demand, fund tenure shift, and give government a lever to manage the pace of landlord exit.
    Beth Stratford – Honorary Research Fellow, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose
    Recent research shows the vast majority of housing landlords are earning supernormal returns, compared to other businesses and investment opportunities in the economy, with capital gains making up 58-69% of their total post-tax returns. Landlords have accumulated over £400 billion in real property wealth since 1990. There is already a strong case for equalising CGT rates with income tax, but we propose setting the CGT rate for residential investment property above the income-tax equivalent, to restore the surcharge that applied to residential assets compared to other assets 2016-2024. This would better share out unearned gains that have accrued over the last three decades, rebalance investment incentives away from speculative property purchases, easing competition facing first-time buyers, and generate additional revenue to support the expansion of the social rented sector.
    
    Crucially, by setting CGT on residential investment properties above the rate on other assets, the government also creates fiscal space to use it as a lever to support managed tenure shift. First, if rent controls lead to a disorderly withdrawal of landlords, the government could signal its intention to lower the rate in future, slowing exit to a manageable pace. Second, if this lower rate is reserved specifically for properties registered on the new private rented sector database for a minimum period it would also create an incentive for second home-owners and short-term lets to convert their properties into long-term lets well ahead of any intended sale – expanding the supply of rental housing. Third, a higher rate creates fiscal space for a preferential reduced rate where landlords sell directly to first time buyers, registered providers or housing cooperatives rather than on the open market.
    
    Finally, the higher rate of CGT could be combined with the introduction of an investment allowance – a mechanism that compensates investors for some or all of the risk-free opportunity cost of capital – which could be made available for landlords to offset against their tax bills annually rather than only at the point of disposal. This would ease cash flow pressures on landlords. (This must sit alongside the broader CGT base reforms proposed elsewhere — the removal of uplift at death and deemed disposal on departure — to prevent landlords claiming annual relief against a tax bill that never materialises.)
    
    Any hike in CGT should be introduced without prior announcement, to avoid triggering pre-emptive sales and evictions.
55. The costs of opening and closing a company need to be increased, with the monies raised pumped back into Companies House to tackle the UK’s company register, which has become an international factory for fraudsters, tax dodgers and organised crime
    Paul Monaghan, Fair Tax Foundation
    The UK’s company register was an international laughing stock for many years, with the likes of ‘Adolf Tooth Fairy Hitler’ appearing as a company director. There are likely many tens of thousands of illicit enterprises still registered in the UK, perhaps hundreds of thousands.
    
    It was anticipated that changes agreed in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act of 2023 would improve matters substantially, and we would see a substantial reduction in the number of “businesses” that were on the UK company register, which is the most bloated in the world. However, it has continued to grow and grow. At end March 2026, 5.5m companies are registered in the UK, up from 5.1mn in 2023.
    
    The cost of establishing a company is still too small at c.£100, which means Companies House continues to be starved of the resources it needs to police the millions of companies on the UK register. Companies House has c.2,400 employees, but 815,000 new companies were established in 2025-26 alone. The cost of establishment should be brought closer to the EU average and increased to at least £250, with the proceeds being funnelled into extra resourcing for Companies House to identify wrongdoers quickly.
56. The new government will introduce a Workers’ Buy-out Law to spread worker ownership across the economyA Workers’ Buy-out Law would give employees the first right to buy and run struggling businesses as cooperatives, preventing business closures, which harm workers and local economies. The government would provide financial support and expert advice to help workers transition to cooperative ownership, alongside a target to grow employee-owned businesses.

    Technology

57. NHS computer system interoperability
    NHS computer systems should be improved to allow hospital doctors to communicate quickly and effectively with GPs. They are currently monstrously inefficient.
58. The new government will end its reliance on social media platforms that fail to tackle disinformation, hate and abuse, while introducing stronger democratic regulation of digital platforms.These regulations will improve transparency, hold platforms accountable for harmful content, and ensure digital spaces support healthy democratic debate rather than division. Governments should not lend their credibility to platforms that profit from division while undermining democratic debate. If social media companies want access to official government communications and the legitimacy that brings, they should be expected to meet clear standards of transparency, accountability and public safety.
59. The UK government should hold social media companies accountable for preventing the spread of misinformation driving racial violence by introducing mandatory human rights due diligence legislation on social media companies.
    Ilyas Nagdee, Amnesty International UK
    For the third summer in a row, race riots have taken place in the UK, with misinformation, disinformation and incitement of violence is at risk of becoming a regular feature in the lives of racialised communities. Lack of regulation for social media platforms allow posts including material that is inflammatory, discriminatory, or harmful– as this tends to sustain user attention and generate the most interaction. In the case of X, as long as a tweet drives engagement, the algorithm appears to have no mechanism for assessing the potential for causing harm – at least not until enough users themselves report it. Content that is discriminatory or perpetuates hateful narratives can achieve maximum visibility in the crucial early hours of high-risk contexts, well before any manual content moderation or user reporting can be effective. In the Southport case, the outrage-fuelled claims about a “Muslim asylum seeker” attacker were already trending across X and racking up millions of impressions long before officials could effectively intervene. The government should introduce mandatory human rights due diligence legislation which requires social media companies to proactively identify and address risks their services pose to public safety and human rights, especially in high-risk contexts.
60. The new government will use the proposed social media ban for under-16s to establish a new product safety standard for digital services, allowing access only to platforms that can demonstrate compliance with children’s rights, Safety by Design requirements and meaningful transparency obligations.
    Colette Collins-Walsh – 5Rights
    The proposed social media ban for under-16s should be seen as the beginning of a broader transformation of the digital environment, not the end of the conversation. While restricting children’s access to services that pose unacceptable risks may be necessary, the underlying problem is not social media alone. Harmful design features, opaque algorithms and weak safety standards are found across many digital products and services used by children.
    
    The Government should use the implementation of the ban to reset expectations across the technology sector. Rather than creating a permanent prohibition, it should establish a clear pathway for services to demonstrate that they are safe for children. Access should be contingent on meeting robust product safety standards, creating incentives for companies to improve their products rather than simply limiting children’s participation online.
    
    To qualify, services should be required to demonstrate full compliance with existing regulation, including the Online Safety Act and the Children’s Code, implement recognised Safety by Design standards, and publish regular transparency reports on risks to children, including the prevalence of harmful content, reports of abuse and the effectiveness of their safety interventions.
    
    This approach shifts the focus from restricting children to improving digital products. It rewards responsible innovation, creates a level playing field for companies investing in safer services, and positions the UK as a global leader in child-centred digital regulation.
61. Activate OfCom to institute an Online Dispute Service – give us the protections on platforms that we deserve as consumers
    Thomas Barlow – Impress
    If we want a quick win that will change how the information environment operates and enables us to have democratically renewing conversations instead fueling an outrage economy online then we need to provide platform users as protections.
    
    And the first and easiest method is to treat them as consumers – which they are – and to enable them to make formal complaints outside of the platform to an independent body.
    
    They can complain about hate speech, incitement to violence, and all the other crimes which are illegal but which are facilitated on the platform.
    
    And all this takes is a simple process started by OfCom.

62. Bicycle lights
    Require new bicycles to have lights built in from new, as unlit bikes at night are a safety hazard and LED/battery technology makes this only a minor manufacturing inconvenience.

    Sustainability, Climate & Environment

63. Recognise the Global Climate and Nature Emergency
    The new government should recognise the Global Climate and Nature Emergency as the central challenge and prioritise global justice-based climate action. The Climate Change Committee’s latest report finds the UK falling behind its targets. A political coalition is needed to promote behaviour change and counter climate deniers on the right. At a global level, the UK — as the world’s oldest polluter — needs to lead on climate finance and reparations for historical injustice.
64. Solar on roofs, not fields The new government will announce plans for solar array installation atop factory buildings, over surface car parks, etc., rather than fields and meadows, addressing criticism from farmers and rural-space advocates.
65. Prosecute illegal waste dumping
    The government should track down and prosecute those involved in illegal, industrial-scale dumping of waste, which causes misery to local people and environmental damage.
66. Decouple electricity from gas prices
    Gas currently sets the price for all electricity, even though most generation is zero-marginal-cost wind and solar — a market design flaw costing billions. The new government should look at Dale Vince’s Green Britain Foundation “pay-as-bid” fix, which warns against reform that “looks bold but changes little”.
67. Emergency decarbonisation action
    The scale of the climate crisis and risk of AMOC collapse mean emergency action is needed to reach Net Zero by 2040: a ban on new gas boiler installation, mandatory solar PV/heat pumps on new builds, phase-out of petrol/diesel cars (accelerated via mandatory 50mph speed inhibitors on fossil-fuelled cars), and acceleration of action on industry and aviation.
68. The new government will announce legislation to give the public a right of responsible access to England’s countryside, ending centuries of exclusion from nature.
    Guy Shrubsole, Right to Roam campaign
    Access to nature is vital for everyone’s mental and physical health. Yet in England, the public is barred from accessing vast swathes of countryside by archaic laws of trespass. We have a right to roam over only 8% of England; three-quarters of woods in England have no known public access, and 96% of rivers have no clear right to paddle or swim. Almost a fifth of constituencies in England have no right to roam at all, an injustice that demands correction. For over a century, people have fought for the right to be in nature: from the Mancunians who led the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass, to Labour’s creation of the first National Parks and the passing of the Countryside & Rights of Way Act. But this is unfinished business. It’s time England learned from Scotland’s approach, and created a right of responsible access to our countryside. Passing a Bill to do this would make people happier and healthier, save the NHS money, and be hugely popular: YouGov polling shows that 69% of the public support this policy – in exactly equal numbers across rural and urban voters. And a politics that puts ‘place first’ is fundamentally about love of land.

69. Require local authorities to create and consult on Local Adaptation & Resilience Plans
    To prepare communities for the impacts of climate change. While reducing emissions remains essential, we must also adapt to changes already underway by strengthening infrastructure, protecting food security, and building local resilience. Effective adaptation must be shaped by communities and tailored to local needs.

    Housing

70. Foreign property ownershipStop property ownership by non-UK residents. The UK is the only European nation to allow foreign ownership of residential property without living in it — distorting housing availability, enabling money laundering, and incentivising luxury developments out of reach for ordinary citizens.
71. Triple lock for renters Introduce a “triple lock for renters”, restricting rent rises to RPI, wage growth, or 6% — whichever is lowest — mirroring the pensions triple lock in reverse. Currently even under the Renters Rights Act, tenants must go to tribunal to challenge unfair rises.
72. Rent caps and Airbnb regulation Address unaffordability and shortage of rented accommodation through strict Airbnb regulation. Airbnb removes rental properties from the market (because they’re more profitable to landlords) and often creates anti-social behaviour.
73. New-build housing standards New houses should have solar panels and heat pumps, be well ventilated, and designed to work for households (adequate storage, no washing machines under the stairs), with adequate green space and street trees. Developers currently only care about profit; building control must be done by LAs with adequate regulation. 
74. The Government will address the unaffordable cost of private renting by introducing a cap on rent increases in and between tenancies.
    Renters’ Reform CoalitionThe soaring cost of rent is unsustainable, stifling economic growth and driving renters into poverty. 45% of UK households renting privately have unaffordable rents, and average rent increases have outstripped wage growth in 11 of the past 15 years in England.
    
    Unregulated rent rises are harmful for the economy by significantly reducing renters’ disposable income and consumer spending. At the same time as swallowing wage growth, rising private rents have inflated the Government’s welfare bill through higher Local Housing Allowance payments that end up being transferred directly to landlords.
    
    A limit on the amount landlords can increase rents by presents an opportunity to reduce cost of living pressures without the need for direct public welfare spending. The Government should urgently introduce measures to cap rent increases between and within tenancies to bring housing affordability into the centre of its strategy to address the cost of living.
    
    75% of the public supports rent controls as a clear measure to improve the material circumstances of their lives. Rent caps would make a tangible difference to the cost of living, drive economic growth, and deliver a better deal for taxpayers.
75. The government will create a world-leading personalised grants programme that gives people the resources to overcome the cost of living crisis that have pushed so many into homelessness, reducing reliance on expensive temporary accommodation through a more effective and dignified approach.
    Nell Davies-Small – Greater ChangeMore than 300,000 people across the UK are experiencing homelessness, with many more at risk of homelessness due to rising living costs. Councils across England spend £2.8 billion a year on temporary accommodation, with London boroughs alone spending almost £5 million every day. The new government will only end rough sleeping by preventing homelessness, helping people secure homes in a financially sustainable way. Investing £20 million in a national personalised budgets pilot would help more than 14,000 people overcome the financial barriers preventing them securing homes, while testing a more effective, sustainable approach to ending homelessness.
    
    Evidence from Greater Change, having supported over 3,000 people, shows personalised budgets delivered through trusted support workers help people move into and sustain stable housing. Last year, 85% of people supported remained in stable accommodation after 12 months. An average investment of £1,400 generates more than £41,000 in annual savings to the public purse.
    
    With established delivery infrastructure and strong evidence of impact, the model is ready to scale. A regional personalised budgets test bed would provide a delivery framework for wider implementation, enabling personalised budgets to become a core part of the government’s approach to preventing homelessness.
76. End the freezing of the local housing allowance and return it to a permanent level that covers at least the cheapest 30 per cent of local rents, as originally intended.
    Ruth Lister, Baroness Lister of Burtersett – Labour PeerThe local housing allowance (LHA) has been frozen since April 2024 and was frozen for a number of years before that. According to a coalition of nine voluntary organisations (including Citizens Advice and Crisis) the result is that the LHA now covers the rent on fewer than two per cent of privately advertised homes in Great Britain. The coalition argues that this is contributing to the number of children in temporary accommodation and is trapping them there. And it is driving people into homelessness, as well as worsening child poverty and children’s ill health. Research suggests that freezing LHA is a false economy, shifting savings from central government into costs to local government. De-freezing the LHA would represent one step towards meeting the Prime Minister’s goal of ending rough sleeping, alongside measures to increase the supply of affordable housing. It would also strengthen the child poverty strategy.
77. Introduce property-linked rent controls – starting with a freeze or “triple lock” – to protect tenants from unaffordable rent rises while cutting the housing benefit bill and triggering long overdue boost to homeownership and the social rented sector
    Beth Stratford – Honorary Research Fellow, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose
    Private renters in the lowest income quintile now spend 63% of their income on rent. New housebuilding alone cannot fix this: even hitting the government’s 1.5 million homes target would cut the rent-to-income ratio by just one percentage point. To provide rapid relief to households most at risk during the cost of living crisis, we propose introducing rent regulation – initially a freeze or a ‘triple lock’ capping increases at the lower of inflation, wage growth or 2.5% – with controls applied to properties rather than tenancies, to avoid the perverse incentives created by within-tenancy-only models. Longer term, caps could be refined by property quality, location and size.
    
    Modelling shows a freeze from November 2022 would already be saving the average renting household £2,400 a year, while saving the government £2 billion annually in housing benefit. Landlord profit margins would remain 4.5 times bigger than average UK business margins even after a 20% rent cut. Rent controls also protect tenants from retrofit costs being passed on as higher rents, underpinning the government’s EPC agenda. Meanwhile, if rent controls triggered an increase in landlord exit this would create the opportunity for a publicly-backed acquisition programme to convert exiting homes to social rent. The policy has strong cross-party public support and could be legislated within this parliament.
78. Establish a national Public Housing Development Corporation (PHDC), within Homes England, to systematically acquire existing homes and assemble stalled land for social-rented housing at scale.
    Beth Stratford and Josh Ryan-Collins – UCL Institute for Innovation and Public PurposeNo public institution exists to systematically assemble land, enforce build-out, or acquire housing at scale — existing tools like the Affordable Homes Programme and Right to Buy receipts remain fragmented, treating acquisition as exceptional rather than routine. We propose a national PHDC, based within Homes England but delivered through regional and local bodies, combining two functions: acquiring existing stock (empty homes, ex-Right to Buy properties, and substandard private rentals coming to market) and assembling land more assertively, using compulsory purchase and ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ powers to unlock sites held back by land banking or slow build-out.
    
    Funding would draw on Homes England grants, retained Right to Buy receipts, Housing Revenue Account borrowing, and the National Housing Bank, with longer-term scaling via 40-50 year debt backed by rental income. Acquisition can expand social housing within months, directly cutting reliance on temporary accommodation, which costs £2.8 billion a year. Acquisition subsidies of £120,000-£150,000 per home break even within five to seven years, and converting empty homes can be around 20% cheaper than new-build. A £10 billion programme could convert ~62,000 homes to social or affordable rent.
79. The new government will implement a rent control to bring down the cost of renting.
    Joseph Rowntree FoundationOver the past 15–20 years, market rents have settled at a persistently high share of incomes, taking a third of household incomes on average. The share of private renters spending over 40% of income on rent is among the highest of any advanced economy. More homes will help long term, but won’t bring rents down soon enough for households struggling now.
    
    Government should introduce rent controls, capping in-tenancy increases at CPI and between-tenancy increases at CPI+2%, which would have made renting households an average £1,200 a year better off by 2030/31, had it started last April. Landlord tax reform (reinstating mortgage interest relief and applying NICs to rental income) offers a fiscally neutral way of easing the pressure on the minority of landlords who would be financially exposed to a rent control — ensuring no sharp shock to the availability of rental homes.
    
    Modelling suggests reinstating mortgage interest relief and applying NICs to rental income, alongside rent control, would leave fewer landlords making a loss by 2030 than current tax rules with no rent control. Savings would fund uprating Local Housing Allowance to the 30th percentile of local rents and deliver over £600 million in Housing Benefit savings.
80. The new government will introduce the Right to Housing Act: a transformative programme of rights and reform that will make housing a human right in law and set Britain on the path to ending the housing crisis.
    Jamie Burton KC (with Just Fair)“Housing should be a human right, enshrined in UK law.” — Andy Burnham (February 2026). The Right to Housing Act will turn that principle into reality. Drawing on successful approaches adopted in other advanced economies, including Canada, Spain and France, it will make housing a legally enforceable right and place government under a duty to ensure everyone has an adequate home. The Act will create GB Homes to build 100,000 council houses a year, strengthen councils’ powers to acquire land and property, enable rent controls where housing insecurity is acute, protect tenants from unfair eviction, and back good landlords while driving rogue operators out of the market. Backed by a national housing strategy, a Housing Commission and an independent Housing Advocate, it offers a comprehensive response to the housing crisis and the decisive action needed to end it.
81. Recognise the human right to housing in domestic law.
    Just FairHousing should be recognised as a legal right in the UK. At a time of record homelessness, soaring rents and growing numbers of children living in damp, overcrowded homes, our housing crisis is no longer simply a policy failure. It is a human rights failure.
    
    The UK recognised the right to adequate housing when it ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights fifty years ago, yet that right remains absent from domestic law. Incorporating it would not hand everyone a house overnight. It would provide a framework for better decision-making, requiring governments to consider whether policies improve access to safe, secure and affordable homes while strengthening accountability when they fail.
    
    This is also a rare political opportunity. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has consistently argued that housing should be recognised as a human right, describing it as Labour’s missing “sixth mission” and linking legal protection for housing to the legacy of Grenfell. His long-standing commitment creates the chance to translate principle into lasting reform.
    
    Governments and policies change, but rights endure. Embedding the right to adequate housing in UK law would help shift housing policy from crisis management to prevention, protect future progress, and ensure everyone can rely on the foundation of a safe, secure home.
82. Raise or Lower the council tax band of a property by 2 bands depending on its energy efficiency. We need more energy-efficient housing stock. Raising poorly insulated properties by a band, and very poorly insulated properties by two bands, whilst allowing well-insulated properties to drop a band and extremely well-insulated properties to drop two bands would focus attention and encourage a mass retrofit of the nation’s housing stock.
83. Abolish, via phasing out, the Right to Buy Council homes. Keep them in the public sector.  Right to Buy resulted in a drastic loss of public housing, huge increases in council house waiting lists, and the money received went to central government (not the councils which owned them in the first place). Many were bought by private landlords.
84. Ethical private landlord co-operatives Alongside expanding public housing and renters’ rights,  the new government could encourage (smaller) private landlords to organise themselves in ethical co-operatives.. By providing guidance, infrastructure, and tax incentives funded by levies on poor practice, smaller landlords could work together to provide affordable, fairer rental housing.

    Infrastructure & Transport

85. Neighbourhood public-service teams To overcome traditional fragmentation, short-termism and policy invisibility of community projects, public services at local level should build co-operative community work teams of front-line workers. These would include workers from health, housing, local economic development, police, fire and rescue, environment and volunteer organisations who work together to deliver three-year community development goals. Progress should be measured through stronger participation and community capacity, ensuring local initiatives are sustained rather than fragmented or overlooked.
86. Rebuild council Direct Labour Organisations The country needs new social housing, employment and training opportunities for NEETS and veterans, and community wealth building in every part of the UK. The private construction industry persistently fails to respond to this challenge, no matter which political party is in office. Developing Direct Labour Organisations in local authorities can deliver well-built, sustainable housing. With initial government support, these teams can provide sustainable housing and generate long-term returns that repay the investment through rental income.
87. Public transport / rail renationalisation Make public transport affordable both locally and nationally; bring railways back into public ownership. Scrap HS2, concentrate on cross-country integrated services in the North.
88. “Connected Britain” transport strategy An integrated national transport strategy connecting international airports, high-speed rail, regional rail, metros, buses and freight into one hub-and-spoke network per region, including direct high-speed/sleeper connections to mainland Europe via the Channel Tunnel without changing in London, aimed at boosting productivity and reducing regional inequality.
89. Burnham’s plans could streamline Whitehall by creating an Infrastructure Department, devolving local transport powers to mayors, and potentially abolishing the Department for Transport.
    Steve Bramall – DGA GroupAndy Burnham’s devolution and reindustrialisation agendas open up the opportunity for a streamlining and reorganisation of Whitehall.
    
    To deliver reindustrialisation, a new Department for Infrastructure should be established with a senior Cabinet minister in charge. The department would take on responsibility for all infrastructure from other departments (e.g Energy, Transport and Housing), charged with developing a properly co-ordinated pan-government approach to the infrastructure challenge. Executive Agencies responsible for infrastructure (e.g National Highways, Network Rail / Great British Railways) would report to this department.
    
    For devolution, especially if elected Mayors are to be given certain tax raising powers, some departmental functions simply don’t need to be carried out in Whitehall. Buses, for example, are essentially a local issue and policy for buses should be left to elected mayors. Similarly, elected mayors should have greater control over local rail issues.
    
    The combination of reindustrialisation and devolution also opens up the opportunity to reassess whether certain government departments are needed at all. The Department for Transport looks like a prime example. If its responsibility for infrastructure is transferred to a new Department for Infrastructure, and if elected mayors take on greater control of local bus and rail issues, there is also scope to assess whether its remaining functions can sensibly be transferred to other departments. Aviation, maritime and ports are, for example, essentially trade issues which could be taken on by the Department for Business sand Trade.

    Education 

90. Radical shift in the education system A letter (signed by 30 prominent educators) arguing hollowed-out, centralised national systems can’t deliver for local communities, and education is the starkest example. Criticises the Curriculum and Assessment Review for clinging to “Gove-era orthodoxy,” cites Alan Milburn’s report on students being set up to fail, teacher recruitment/retention/morale crises, unaccountable multi-academy trusts, FE/HE underfunding, a stagnant attainment gap, and low youth wellbeing (OECD). Calls for bold, systemic reform aligned with health, social services, welfare and economic policy alongside devolution. 
91. Mandatory literacy classes on citizenship All school and FE students to undertake mandatory literacy classes on democratic citizenship (politics, religion, media), with similar offerings for adults via CPD/U3A. Aims to counter polarisation and misinformation through small, face-to-face workshops in libraries, schools and colleges rather than large-scale fact-checking.
92. Open education facilities to communities A national programme to increase community participation in culture, arts, and sport should take a grassroots approach, investing in accessible local facilities. In the short term, the government could support the transformation of education-based facilities into vibrant, affordable community hubs.
93. The new government will introduce mandatory procurement standards for education technology, ensuring that digital tools used in schools meet minimum standards for safety, data protection, evidence of educational benefit and children’s rights.
    5Rights FoundationSchools are increasingly reliant on education technology, yet there is no consistent framework to ensure that the products they procure are safe, effective or designed in children’s best interests. Recent research from the LSE’s Digital Futures for Children Centre has highlighted significant gaps in transparency, accountability and safeguards in AI tools used in schools, while the Information Commissioner’s Office has found widespread shortcomings in data protection compliance across the edtech sector.
    
    At the same time, research from 5Rights’ Better EdTech Futures project found that teachers want more independent support to identify technologies that are both educationally effective and rights-respecting, rather than relying on vendors’ claims. Emerging evidence also suggests that the benefits of edtech depend on thoughtful design and implementation, not simply greater use of technology.
    
    The Government should establish mandatory procurement standards for education technology across schools and colleges in England. These should require suppliers to demonstrate compliance with data protection law, meet baseline standards for children’s rights and safety, provide independent evidence of educational effectiveness where claims are made, and offer transparency about how AI systems and children’s data are used. Public procurement should be used to shape the market, rewarding products that are safe, evidence-based and designed to support learning, while giving schools the confidence and guidance they need to make informed purchasing decisions.

    Health, social care & other public services

94. Realign adult social care with NHS Bed blocking is a huge problem, with many medically fit patients unable to leave hospital due to lack of affordable home support. Proposes an enquiry into old people’s home profits and a government pricing standard, and bringing adult social care back under the NHS.
95. Restart NHS shared care record funding (CIPHA) For 5 years, the NHS has used CIPHA, a shared care record/population health system connecting data from 2,000+ organisations for 17m patients and 150,000 staff, driving prevention programmes. Progress has paused because funding was redirected to the national Palantir programme; restarting it (at ~£1.50/patient) would generate big results in 12–18 months.
96. Public information campaign for NHS As a volunteer first responder, many people call ambulances when other services would be better suited. A public information campaign on wasted NHS money (e.g. missed GP appointments, ambulances for minor issues while heart attack/stroke patients aren’t reached in time) could help.
97. Constitution for Social Care A new Constitution for Social Care, alongside the NHS Constitution, delivering independent living and wellbeing via the same professional-political dynamic established for the NHS in 1948 (professionals identify need “unhindered” by politics; politicians provide resources) -> Social care has huge postcode variation in spending and outcomes, and the change requires only political will, not new legislation.
98. Assisted dying (“A good death”) All terminally ill people should be enabled to end their lives. People who are dying and have a settled wish to do so should be able to, rather than being kept alive against their wellbeing; legislation led by Kim Leadbeater in the last Parliament should be given government time to become law.
99. Maternity fund (Danish model) Modelled on Denmark’s “DA Barsel” fund: all companies pay a small quarterly sum per employee into a national fund, from which companies can claim maternity pay for staff, evening out the cost of hiring women across employers and reducing the burden on small companies.
100. The UK government should pass a Right to Food Bill
     Jen Clark – Amnesty InternationalMore than 14 million people across the UK are unable to afford or access nutritious meals and experience food insecurity. Food poverty has a profound impact on children, with evidence showing that hunger harms concentration, behaviour, attendance and long‑term educational attainment, entrenching inequalities from the earliest years. Amnesty has recommended that the UK adopt a Right to Food Bill which would: place a clear legal duty on government to ensure everyone can access sufficient, nutritious food; establish accountability mechanisms; and require ministers to act when affordability or availability deteriorates. We argue that food insecurity is not an inevitable outcome of economic pressures but a preventable human rights failure that demands statutory protection and urgent policy reform.
101. Now is the time for a new Gambling Act
     APPG for Gambling ReformThe gambling industry wants Britain to remember the honest bookie: the friendly counter, the weekend flutter, the local shop. That nostalgia disguises a billion-pound, 24-hour digital machine, carried in every pocket, embedded in sport and social media, fuelled by data, “free” offers and relentless advertising to extract maximum profit.
     
     This is modern UK gambling. An industry built around extraction has been allowed to police itself while law and regulation lag decades behind. The consequences are visible in debt, family breakdown, mental ill-health, pressure on public services and children growing up where betting is normalised before risk is understood.
     
     The answer is not prohibition. It is prevention. Reform means fair rules, redress, advertising controls, stronger consumer protections, action on harmful products and law fit for the digital age. It means restoring power to local communities, so they can resist saturation by adult gaming centres, and recognising gambling-related harm in the criminal justice system through early identification and proper support.
     
     Gambling today is capitalism at its worst: extractive, exploitative, constant and targeted. It creates too little local value and draws too much profit from vulnerability, addiction and loss. Britain cannot regulate this digital economy with analogue law. Now is the time for a new Gambling Act
102. The UK government should establish a statutory Social Security Commission
     Lucy Wake – Amnesty InternationalThe UK government should establish a statutory Social Security Commission
     
     Amnesty International’s evidence shows that social security and wage levels in the UK are insufficient to meet the real cost of living, leaving many people unable to afford essentials such as food, housing and energy. This shortfall undermines the right to an adequate standard of living and pushes people into poverty and insecurity, with particularly acute impacts on families with children and those already marginalised. A minimum social protection floor is essential to tackling the UK’s cost‑of‑living crisis, ensuring that no one falls below the income needed for a dignified life. To make this sustainable and evidence‑driven, Amnesty International is calling for a statutory Social Security Commission to provide independent scrutiny, set minimum adequacy benchmarks, and hold governments accountable for ensuring the system protects people’s rights rather than leaving them in hardship and ensure that everyone has enough to live with dignity.