Introduction

We have 3 options:

• Housing
• Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG)
• Electoral reform

Your Executive Committee favours housing since:

Labour Housing (LH) has a model motion about this vital issue that stands a chance of getting to conference. We have been campaigning on this for our elections and it is a live issue in rural areas that would be a winning issue for Labour as LH says. If we support this motion to conference we will try to amend it to be explicit about problems in rural areas of low pay and of second homes & short term holiday lets.

We sent a motion on proportional representation and voting at 16 yrs in 2021 which was part of the push that showed a majority of CLPs support for electoral reform, but was unsuccessful. In 2022 a PR motion passed at conference with union support. The party’s National Policy Commission report now available supports exploring PR and has a definite commitment to 16+ voting.

We sent a motion on VAWG in 2022 and there was a debate on this issue but our motion wasn’t part of it since we didn’t have a delegate at conference to speak for it. This year we could resend it, but we could send it to the women’s conference – if it is included in a motion there it will automatically progress to national conference agenda.

Housing

A winning issue In a rich country like Britain, it is a major scandal that many people are dying because of poor housing conditions, such as damp and mould, or have no home at all. Many people cannot afford to heat their homes or pay an excessive proportion of their income on rent. Others fear poor fire-safety, live with dangerous cladding, or suffer under the feudal system that is leasehold. We know that only Labour can fix Britain’s broken housing system. Labour already has the policies to do this, and our Shadow Front Bench is working with leaders across all sectors to ensure that the essential human right to decent and genuinely affordable housing can become a reality for all. We need now to ensure every voter knows that transforming Britain’s housing will be a priority for the next Labour Government, especially as it underpins other priorities such as good health and social care, affordable living costs and achieving net zero.

Annual Conference agrees that the Labour Party will make housing a winning issue at local and national levels by:

• Showing how things will be different under a Labour Government
• Showing how we would develop an equitable, genuinely affordable, accountable, human and sustainable housing system
• Regularly promoting Labour’s policies for tackling housing failings that affect all tenures and ages, throughout the country, including recognising the significant challenges, especially for rural areas, of second homes, short term holiday lets and low wages.

[suggested amendment underlined]

VAWG – original 2022 motion with updating amendments underlined:

Annual Conference recognises the urgent need for political leadership at all levels to tackle violence against women and girls in the UK, by making this a priority for policy, public investment, action strategies and campaigning. Labour already has the policies to take meaningful action on this issue, and our Shadow Front Bench is working with organisations across all sectors to make this a reality.

Therefore all Labour candidates in all elections in the UK from October 2023 will make a public commitment to this work and fight for the public resources for change to happen.

Electoral reform – original motion with updating amendments underlined:

Annual Conference calls for

• the Labour Party to reject First Past the Post, the voting system currently used for General Elections, and to support the introduction of a form of Proportional Representation in which all votes count equally and seats match votes, and to commit to repeal any legislation overturning previously established PR voting systems in mayoral and other UK elections
• the Justice and Home Affairs Policy Commission of the National Policy Forum to consult the party membership specifically about their views on forms of Proportional Representation in the next cycle of policy documents.
• the Labour Party to set out how it will modernise the UK’s voting system in time to offer concrete alternatives in our next manifesto to First Past the Post and other limitations of our current system, including:
  • how a Labour Government will select a new, proportional voting system for general elections
  • a commitment to extending the franchise to young people over 16 years old