Rishi Sunak’s determined Conservative Party manifesto plans in full

Rishi Sunak has unveiled his last desperate bid to stay in power with a swathe of promises around tax, immigration and housing.

Fresh from admitting the Tories have failed on a string of key measures in an excruciating BBC Panorama interview, the PM launched his General Election manifesto in Silverstone, Northamptonshire. The crisis-hit Conservative Party leader was forced to rule out standing down as anger persists over his D-Day snub.

In a pre-emptive strike, Labour accused ministers of cooking the figures and claimed Mr Sunak’s sums don’t add up. Shadow Paymaster General Jonathan Ashworth dismissed it as “the most expensive panic attack in history”.

The PM will be hoping to galvanise voters as he tries to overturn a massive Labour lead in the polls. The manifesto includes plans to shake up the welfare system, as well as a headline cut to National Insurance. Mr Sunak also vows to plough ahead with the Rwanda scheme – but the 76-page document doesn’t say how many people he wants to send there.

A long-awaited ban on conversion therapy has been scrapped, and the Tories make no promises to WASPI women affected by the state pension age scandal.

Here we look at some of the key promises and pledges.

Welfare

• Introduce “tougher sanctions” for those who refuse take “suitable jobs” after 12 months recieving benefits
• Reform disability benefits and overhaul the fit note process – “so that people are not being signed off sick as default”
• The high-income child benefit tax charge threshold will be raised to £120,000 – meaning higher earners will be able to keep more of their child benefit

Tax

• Cut national insurance again by a further 2p by 2027
• Main rate of national insurance for self-employed will be abolished by 2029
• No increases to VAT or national insurance – but more will pay a higher rate of tax due to Rishi Sunak’s freeze on tax thresholds until 2028
• Maintain the triple lock on pensions and increase the tax-free personal allowance over-65s
• Raise £6billion-a-year by 2029 by clamping down on tax avoidance

NHS

• Expand Pharmacy First scheme, allowing pharmacists to offer menopause support, contraception and treatment for chest infections, freeing up 20 million GP appointments a year
• Build or modernise 250 GP surgeries and 50 more Community Diagnostic Centres
• 92,000 more nurses and 28,000 more doctors in the NHS than in 2023.
• Promise to slash NHS bureaucracy, reducing the number of managers by 5,500
• Make the NHS App the single front door for NHS services
• Use AI to free up doctors’ and nurses’ time for frontline patient care
• Bring back Tobacco and Vapes Bill which will gradually outlaw smoking and restrict vape access
• Legislate to restrict advertising of food high in fat, salt and sugar and gather new evidence on the impact of ultra processed food
• New licensing scheme and age limits for non-surgical cosmetic procedures
• Dental Recovery Plan will unlock 2.5 million more NHS dental appointments
• Pledge to implement planned reforms to cap social care costs from October 2025. At the next Spending Review, the Tories promise to give local authorities a multi-year funding settlement to support social care
• The party will complete the implementation of the Cass Review into gender services for young people
• Compensation for those impacted by the infected blood scandal
• Expand coverage of Mental Health Support Teams from 50% to 100% of schools and colleges in England by 2030.

Immigration

• No commitment to leaving the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) – but hints this could be an option

• Introduce a binding, legal cap on migration – but no commitment on what this will be, with Parliament to vote on it

• ‘Regular rhythm’ of Rwanda flights to take off in July – although no commitment to how many
• Process all asylum claims within six months and end use of hotels – which cost £8million a day by last September
• Finally implement Illegal Migration Act to end ‘spurious’ legal challenges
• Hold international summit to reform global asylum laws

• Raise the Skilled Worker threshold and Family income requirement with inflation automatically – to make it harder to get visas

Crime

• Delivering 8,000 more police officers – with every police ward receiving an additional officer

• New Hotspot Policing to be rolled out – targeting places with the highest levels of crime

• Legislation to evict social tenants who disrupt their neighbours

• Introduce Martyn’s Law – forcing large venues to be prepared for terrorism threats

• Ban protests outside schools

• Improve police vetting and sack those who fail

Justice

• Expansion of community payback – such as removing graffiti to ease pressure on overcrowded prisons

• 25-year prison terms for domestic murders

• Review of homicide sentencing – to remove loopholes that allow killers to go free

• Creating a new aggravating factor for murders that happen in the context of ‘rough sex’

• New permanent Independent Public Advocate – for victims of large disasters like Grenfell and Hillsborough

• Restricting sex offenders from changing their names

Housing

• Build 1.6million homes in England by 2029 – the Tories failed to reach their pledge of 300,000 new homes a year
• Abolish no-fault evictions for renters – a promise included in the 2019 manifesto the Tories failed to deliver on
• First time buyers will pay no stamp duty on a property up to £425,000 – this was first introduced in 2022 but will now be made permanent
• The manifesto pledges to end rough sleeping – despite the numbers of people sleeping on the streets shooting up last year

Foreign Affairs

• Finalise free trade deal with India
• Campaign for all NATO members to spend 2.5% on GDP on defence
• Return to spending 0.7% of gross national income on international aid – but only ‘when fiscal circumstances allow’

• Appoint a Minister for British Citizens Overseas

The Environment/Net Zero

• Remain committed to Net Zero by 2050
• Treble the UK’s offshore wind capacity in five years
• Keep windfall tax on energy firms in place until 2028-29 – unless prices drop by then
• Scale up nuclear power – by approving two new fleets of Small Modular Reactors within 100 days
• Ensure green levies on households are lower every year than in 2023
• Force petrol retailers to share live information on their prices

• Deliver a new gigawatt power plant at Wylfa in North Wales

Defence

• Raise spending on defence to 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP)
• Pass the UK’s first ever Veterans’ Bill – to enshrine rights in law
• Spend at least £10billion on munitions production in the next decade
• Target to become the largest defence exporter in Europe by 2030

Education

• Ban mobile phones in schools put on a statutory footing – but schools will be able to decide how they do it.
• Protecting day-to-day schools spending in real terms per pupil.
• New teachers in priority areas and key STEM and technical subjects to receive bonuses of up to £30,000 tax-free over five years
• Scrap A-Levels and introduce the Advanced British Standard which merges A Levels and T Levels.
• Mandate two hours of PE every week in primary and secondary schools
• Legislate to create a register of children not in school
• Age limits on sex education and parents have a right to see what their child is being taught
• 60,000 more school places and a further 15 new free schools for children with special educational needs.
• Creating 100,000 more apprenticeships in England by end of next Parliament
• Scrap university courses in England with the worst outcomes for their students

Childcare

• Working parents will get 30 hours of free childcare from nine-months-old to when they start school from September 2025 Working parents of two-year-olds are now able to access 15 hours of free childcare,
• A Family Hub in every local authority in England.

Gender and conversion therapy

• Conversion therapy ban dropped – the manifesto says it is ‘complex’ and claimed the law already offers protections
• Bring in new laws to clarify that the protected characteristic of sex in the Equality Act means biological sex
• Guarantee gender identity is not taught in schools