The General Election is taking place on 4th July 2024. Your voice matters. You can make yourself heard by writing to your local MP and using your vote (if you’re aged 18+).
To help you understand what the political parties are promising, we’ve summarised what each is saying in their Manifesto, in key areas including Education and Young People, Mental Health, the Creative sector and Equality, to give you a snapshot view.
Pie Factory Music is a politically neutral non-profit organisation. We have sourced the information directly from each Manifesto and the BBC’s manifesto comparison tool to provide this neutral summary.
You can read each Manifesto by clicking the links below:
Conservatives Manifesto
Labour Manifesto
Liberal Democrats Manifesto
Green Party Manifesto
Reform UK Manifesto
Workers Party Manifesto
Education and Young People
Conservatives
Protect day-to-day school spending in real terms per pupil
Ban mobile phone use during school and ensure parents can see what is being taught, especially in areas such as sex education.
Replace A-levels and T-levels with an Advanced British Standard giving 16 to 19-year-olds a broader education.
Deliver 100,000 more high-skilled apprenticeships a year by closing the poorest performing university courses.
Provide 60,000 more places for children with Special Educational Needs, and a further 15 new free schools for SEN pupils.
To provide young people with a secure future:
Introduce mandatory National Service for 18-year-olds – either taking on a role serving the community or securing a military placement.
Fund 100,000 high-quality apprenticeships for young people, paid for by curbing the number of poor-quality university degrees that leave young people worse off.
Labour
Recruit 6,500 more teachers in key subjects.
Provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, so every young person has access to early support to address problems before they escalate.
Improve maths teaching across nurseries and primary schools.
Review the curriculum to make it broader and give children more opportunities to study music, sport and the arts.
Turn further education colleges into Technical Excellence Colleges and improve apprenticeships to boost skills.
Fund free breakfast clubs in every primary school, accessible to all children.
Young Futures Hubs, which will make sure every community has an open-access hub for children and young people with drop-in mental health support.
Liberal Democrats
Increase school and college funding per pupil.
Invest in new school buildings and clearing the backlog of repairs.
Put a dedicated, qualified mental health professional in every school.
Extend free school meals to another 900,000 children living in low-income households, and aim to extend further to every child in primary school.
Invest in high-quality early years education.
Reinstate maintenance grants to cover living costs for disadvantaged students.
Boost apprenticeship numbers by replacing the existing apprenticeship levy with a skills and training levy.
Introduce a ‘Tutoring Guarantee’ for every disadvantaged pupil who needs extra support.
Create new Lifelong Skills Grants, giving all adults £5,000 to spend on education and training throughout their lives.
Appoint a Cabinet Minister for Children and Young People.
Expand opportunities for young people to study, teach and volunteer abroad by returning to the Erasmus Plus programme as an associated country.
Giving 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote.
Green Party
Increase school funding by £8bn, including £2bn to increase pay for teachers.
Put a trained and paid counsellor in every school and sixth-form college.
Free school meals for all children and free breakfast clubs for children up to Year 6 (age 10-11).
End “high-stakes” testing for primary and secondary schools and abolish Ofsted.
Invest £5bn in Special Educational Needs provision in mainstream schools.
Adequate support in the school system for neurodivergent children and children with special educational needs.
Scrap university tuition fees and bring back maintenance grants.
Votes for 16-year-olds and residence-based voting rights.
Increase minimum wage to £15 an hour, whatever age.
Equal employment rights for all workers from their first day of employment, including those working in the ‘gig economy’ and on zero-hours contracts.
A move to a four-day working week.
Reform UK
Introduce a Patriotic Curriculum in Primary and Secondary Schools.
Double the number of Pupil Referral Units to keep more disruptive students outside of schools.
Scrap interest payments on student loans and extend the repayment period to 45 years.
Make universities offer two-year degree courses.
Cut funding for universities that allow political bias or undermine free speech.
Workers Party of Britain
Offer free breakfasts and lunches during term time for all schoolnchildren.
Review the national curriculum.
Return day-to-day control of education to local authorities.
Replace Ofsted with a system to supervise and coach staff.
Scrap university tuition fees, place the university sector under greater scrutiny and guarantee full academic freedom.
Commit to apprenticeships and to free and affordable vocational education.
A right to free tuition first degree that could be taken at any time during one’s life.
Financially support vocational education, apprenticeships and trades education.
Free breakfasts and lunches during term time for all school children.
Mental health
Conservatives
Expand coverage of Mental Health Support Teams from 50% to 100% of schools and colleges in England by 2030.
Open early support hubs for those aged 11-25 in every local community by 2030.
Increase the planned expansion of NHS Talking Therapies by 50%, supporting people with anxiety, stress and depression.
Labour
Recruit 8,500 more mental health staff.
Young Futures hubs will provide open access mental health services for children and young people in every community.
Liberal Democrats
Improve early access to mental health services, including walk-in hubs for children and young people.
Green party
Increase mental health funding to allow people to access evidence-based therapies within 28 days.
Reform UK
No reference to mental health in the manifesto.
Workers Party of Britain
Increase health service capacity and integrate this with greater social care provision, including support for mental health.
Improve mental health by giving working households greater security.
Creative sector
Conservatives
Will work with industry to deliver a dedicated flexible coordination service so that everyone who wants to work in the film, TV, gaming and music sectors can work on live productions whilst benefiting from at least 12 months of secure training.
Labour
Implement creative industries sector plan as part of = Industrial Strategy, creating good jobs and accelerating growth in film, music, gaming, and other creative sectors.
Launch a new National Music Education Network – a one-stop shop with information on courses and classes for parents, teachers and children.
Liberal Democrats
Promote creative skills, address the barriers to finance faced by small businesses, and support modern and flexible patent, copyright and licensing rules.
Negotiate free and simple short-term travel arrangements for UK artists to perform in the EU, and European artists to perform in the UK.
Establish creative enterprise zones to grow and regenerate the cultural output of areas across the UK.
Green Party
A £5bn investment to support community sports, arts and culture.
Keeping local sports facilities, museums, theatres, libraries and art galleries open and thriving.
An end to VAT on cultural activities, lowering the prices of everything from museum tickets to gigs in local pubs and making these more accessible.
Reform UK
No reference in the manifesto.
Workers Party
Arts spending will be on national and working-class culture.
Equality
Conservatives
Introduce primary legislation to clarify that the protected characteristic of sex in the Equality Act means biological sex.
Will pass legislation to ensure schools must follow our guidance for teachers on how best to support gender questioning students in schools and colleges.
Ambition to make the country the most accessible place in the world – Inclusive Britain plan, Disability Action Plan, British Sign Language Act, Down Syndrome Act.
Labour
Introduce Race Equality Act, focus on Women’s Equality, modernise gender recognition law.
Introduce the full right to equal pay for disabled people.
Protect LGBT+ and disabled people by making all existing strands of hate crime an aggravated offence.
Deliver a full trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices, while protecting the freedom for people to explore their sexual orientation and gender identity.
Liberal Democrats
Champion the Human Rights Act and resist any attempts to weaken or repeal it.
Develop and implement a comprehensive Race Equality Strategy to address deep inequalities, including in education, health, criminal justice and the economy.
Make misogyny a hate crime and give police and prosecutors the resources and training to prevent and prosecute all hate crimes.
Give everyone the right to flexible working and every disabled person the right to work from home if they want to.
Respect and defend the rights of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, including trans and non-binary people.
Green Party
Campaign to end violence against women and girls.
Campaign for the right of self-identification for trans and non-binary people.
Scrap the Prevent programme and tackle hate crime, misogyny, Islamophobia and antisemitism. Seek to restore trust and confidence in the police..
Readily available tailored provision to meet the needs of communities of colour, children and adolescents, older people and LGBTIQA+ communities.
Reform UK
Ban Transgender ideology from schools and insist schools have single-sex facilities.
Reaffirm British Sovereignty.
Replace the 2010 Equalities Act – scrap Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DE&I) rules.
Propose a Comprehensive Free Speech Bill.
Workers Party
Everyone will be encouraged throughout the educational system to ‘be their own person’.
We’re here
Talk to us if you need help writing to your MP or understanding the process of how to vote. Email us at info@piefactorymusic.com or chat with our youth workers in a session.