Wonderful Labour pledges, the winners

[SueEllen]

People are stupid as Labour's policy on benefits claimants will then be harder than the Tories to keep the benefit bill down. A personalised, holistic assessment can allow them to be so.

[DimPrawn]

Self-employed workers

Labour will give all workers equal rights from day one, regardless of their type of contract, ban zero-hours contracts, and shift the burden of proof so the law assumes a worker is an employee unless the employer can prove otherwise.



Politically-minded teens

Labour will reduce the voting age to 16.



Benefits claimants

Labour will scrap the benefits sanctions regime, scrap the Bedroom Tax, reinstate housing benefit for under 21s, and reform and redesign Universal Credit, including getting rid of the “rape clause”. (This is the government’s plan to stop child tax credits for a third child and demand evidence for an exception when the woman was raped.) It will replace the work capability and personal independence payment assessments with “a personalised, holistic assessment”.



Workers treated unfairly

Labour will repeal the Trade Unions Act and guarantee trade unions a right to access workplaces. It will demand protections for workers when a company is taken over, strengthen protections for women against unfair redundancy, and increase scrutiny on the gender pay gap. It will also scrap fees for employment tribunals, which were introduced by the Coalition government, and increase protection against discrimination and harassment.



Low-paid workers

Labour will encourage sectoral collective bargaining – where trade unions agree on a pay rise for a section of an industry – and raise the minimum wage to the level of the living wage (expected to be at least £10 an hour by 2020). It will end the cap on public sector pay rises, ban unpaid internships and require that government contractors have a 20:1 pay ratio between the highest paid and lowest paid workers. Labour will scrap the NHS pay cap.