Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves today sets out how a wasted decade of low growth and spiralling inflation is holding back Britain – and how a Labour government will unleash the talents of workers and businesses to build a stronger economy in every part of Britain.

This is a plan, Reeves will say, based on an understanding that Britain’s real wealth and prosperity is found not just in the bank accounts of friends of the Conservative Party, but in the effort and talent of tens of millions of ordinary people.

Speaking to an audience in Bury, Greater Manchester, Reeves will set out the party’s five point plan for a Stronger Economy, setting out the vision on:

• An Industrial Britain: One fit for the 21^st century, with a strong local and regional voice, built on an ethos of cooperation across the public and private sectors, creating prosperity across our everyday economy and mobilising around the great challenges of our time.
• A Learning Britain: Ensuring no young person leaves education without the skills they need to thrive in a modern economy; and delivering on Labour’s plan to create new apprenticeship opportunities, which would have seen 100,000 more apprenticeships available to young people this year.
• An Investing Britain: Labour will ensure the jobs and industries are based in Britain through its’ £28 billion Climate Investment Pledge.
• An Innovative Britain: Labour will level up on R&D, directly supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs through a target to help create 100,000 new businesses over the next five years with a particular focus outside London and the South East. A Labour government will create the conditions for new, innovative businesses to start, grow and thrive; and support small and medium sized businesses to gain access to information, technology and investment so they are not frozen out.
• A Trading Britain: Labour’s plan to Buy, Make and Sell more in Britain will help us lead the pack globally and create the high paid, high skilled jobs of the future we need. The party will stand up for British businesses and British workers in the face of global giants, restore visa-free touring for musicians, secure veterinary agreements to relieve the challenges facing our food and drink industry at the border, and negotiate a deal to ensure mutual recognition of professional qualifications.

Reeves will drive home how failures on rising taxes, growth and squeezed living standards “sit squarely on the shoulders of the Conservatives…The Conservatives have become the party of high taxes because they are the party of low growth.”

Speaking at the Met in Bury, Reeves will say:

“We have a choice.  We can continue with the same approach. Or we can do things differently, with an approach based on bringing people together in a national endeavour, and on understanding that Britain’s real wealth is found, not in the bank accounts of friends of the Conservative Party but in the effort and talent of tens of millions of working people.

“Under Keir Starmer’s leadership Labour has changed, but so too have the Conservatives.

“The Conservatives once called themselves the party of business. But that’s a distant memory.

“And what’s left? A government offering not to unleash the talents of British people to empower the next generation of entrepreneurs, support British business and share opportunity widely, but instead with selling access to the corridors of power.

“A government of waste – wasted money, wasted talent and wasted potential.”

Reeves will also say:

“This calls for a new contract between government and the British people.

“That is what underpins Labour’s plan.

“A plan to break us out of this cycle of high taxes, high prices and low growth.

“A plan to get our economy firing on all cylinders in every part of the country and every sector of the economy.

“A plan that is proudly pro-worker and proudly pro-business. A plan for an industrial Britain. A learning Britain. An investing Britain, an innovative Britain, and a trading Britain.”