Conservative Policies

Conservative Party Manifesto: “Clear Plan, Bold Action, Secure Future”

Launched against the iconic backdrop of Silverstone race track on 11 June, Rishi Sunak outlined the Conservative Party’s vision for the future, unveiling their priority promises for voters in their manifesto. With the strapline of 'taking bold action to guarantee a more secure future for you, your family, and our country', Sunak promised to steer the nation towards economic prosperity and social unity. But what does it actually say, and what might this mean for the recruitment industry?

Key policy headlines

Commitment to scrap the national insurance for the self-employed.

Ensuring 30 hours of free childcare a week.

100,000 new Apprenticeships for young people.

For a fuller list of policies, click here.

The Economy, Transport and Infrastructure

The Conservative Party say that they remain dedicated to supporting business as the ‘engine of future investment, growth, and opportunity’. Central to their economic strategy is a tax system that attempts to encourage business investment. One of their key commitments is around maintaining the current corporation tax rate. The Party also promises to abolish the main rate of National Insurance for the self-employed by the next Parliament, with the intention of supporting entrepreneurs and businesses.

The Conservatives say they aim to make 'the UK the best place to start or grow a business', supported by a £4.3 billion business rates package over five years and simplified public sector procurement. On the simplification of public sector procurement processes, we would like to see these reviewed every two years, and for any future government to collaborate with the REC to design markets for temporary public service work that drive true value for the taxpayer and service users.

They also plan to make it easier to hire apprentices, raise the VAT registration threshold to £90,000, and implement a ten-point plan to aid SMEs through changes to business rates, VAT, access to finance, and reducing reporting requirements. Also, the manifesto sets out that they will maintain tax incentives, promote prompt payment, and support female entrepreneurs.

As part of their plans to ensure companies pay what they owe, the Tories have pledged to crackdown on tax avoidance - which they believe will gain "an extra £6 billion a year from tackling tax avoidance and evasion" by the end of the next Parliament. From REC perspective, we must make sure that this includes the proper regulation of umbrella companies.

On the infrastructure front, the Conservatives outlined their plan to ‘prioritise’ transport projects in the North and Midlands. This includes reallocating the previous HS2 budget on £4.7 billion for local transport needs, £8.3 billion for road improvements, and an additional £8.55 billion for city regions. Key projects set out in the manifesto involve the Northern Powerhouse Rail, the Midlands Rail Hub, new bus routes, and rail upgrades in the Southwest and North Wales.

We would have liked to have seen plans for an Industrial Strategy, a key commitment announced in our ‘Dynamic labour markets for growth’, which would provide the strategic focus on infrastructural development, aligned with a proper workforce plan. The remit of the strategy should span across transport, welfare, immigration, skills and health services - and this joined-up approach of this was not present in the manifesto.

Jobs and Welfare

The Conservatives laid out their “bold action” on welfare reforms to make the system more ‘sustainable, aiming to help more people return to work and save taxpayers £12 billion' annually.

They note that rising economic inactivity due to ill health "has increased to 2.8 million people” and led to an “unsustainable rate” of growth in benefit claims, costing £69 billion a year. Their reforms, as set out in the manifesto, will include targeted disability benefits, revamped PIP assessments, and enhanced mental health support. They are also planning to revise work capability assessments and “overhaul the fit note process so that people are not being signed off sick as a default.”

As we have said before, addressing welfare concerns must be a part of a comprehensive workforce plan, alongside investments in the NHS and mental health services. Tougher sanctions regimes should be accompanied by enhanced employment support to create more job opportunities. Public-private partnerships, like the Restart scheme, can be evaluated and expanded to achieve these goals, with the recruitment industry ready to collaborate with policymakers on effective programmes that empower more people to work.

Skills

Alongside the policy commitment to increase the number of apprenticeships by 100k, the Conservatives have pledged to deliver the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE), which provides adults with the support they need to "train, retrain and upskill flexibly throughout their working lives". From September 2025, adults will be eligible to apply for loans to cover qualifications. This investment in the LLE will also be supported by the Conservative's ambition to expand other adult skills programmes, such as Skills Bootcamps. It's promising to see these commitments towards the skills system, as we know firsthand from our members, that skills initiatives, like skills bootcamps have proven to be successful for finding new talent, reskilling existing employees, introducing people to potentially new sectors, and helping businesses invest in their people. This has been particularly evident in the driving sector. The key success in the implementation of Skills bootcamps is when they are co-designed in partnership with employers. However, these announcements fail to address the appetite across the recruitment industry for Apprenticeship Levy reform, and for our members to be able to capitalise on their Levy contributions.

Health and Social Care

On the healthcare front, there was no mention of the central role of contingent and temporary staffing - whose contributions are essential to overstretched wards, acute labour shortages across the NHS and patient care. Instead, there was a commitment "to invest in and modernise the NHS", aiming to address staffing shortages and improve working conditions. By the end of the next Parliament, they plan to significantly increase numbers of medical professionals (recruiting 92,000 more nurses and 28,000 more doctors), alongside boosting training places for other clinicians. Additionally, they pledge to support a sustainable social care system and implement reforms to cap social care costs from October 2025. They also want to improve access to NHS services with plans to train more staff in rural and coastal communities and expand patients' rights to choose their healthcare provider.

Immigration

The Conservative's plan for immigration was as heavily anticipated given their recent policies aimed at reducing net migration levels. Their plan includes adjusting skills and family income requirements annually with inflation to prevent the undercutting of UK workers. Accompanying this, they will increase the Immigration Health Surcharge. Additionally, they aim to increase all visa fees and remove the student discount on the Immigration Health Surcharge.

Furthermore, they propose introducing "a binding, legal cap on migration" for work and family visas, annually set to balance costs and benefits. This cap will "decrease each year and must not be breached". Parliament will have an annual vote on the cap to provide transparency and control over immigration numbers. We advocate for an evidenced-based immigration policy that supports a labour market in transition.

There is plenty on the table for consideration in the Conservatives' manifesto, from a ‘modernised tax system for businesses’ to plans to ‘turbocharge growth’ and expand skills provision to alleviate acute labour and skills shortages. However, the manifesto failed to address the need for an overarching Industrial Strategy - the REC has stressed the need for an Industrial Strategy that goes hand in hand with considering our workforce. It must make skills policy more suited to the needs of our economy – but it must also go beyond skills. Production and job design, investment and infrastructure such as transport, childcare and the immigration system all matter to building an economy that can grow at the pace we need it to. As always, the REC will work with the next government to achieve a genuinely sustainable labour market that will unlock growth.