Keir Starmer has promised to prioritise a “Take Back Control Bill” in the first year of a new Labour government to devolve powers away from Westminster and to local communities.
The Labour leader, giving his New Year speech in east London, said that “take back control” had been the successful slogan from the pro-Brexit campaign group Vote Leave in the 2016 EU referendum.
“We will embrace the Take Back Control message,” he said. “But we’ll turn it from a slogan to a solution, from a catchphrase into change.”
The party would “spread control” out of Westminster, Starmer added.
“We will . . . devolve new powers over employment support, transport, energy, climate change, housing, culture, childcare provision and how councils run their finances,” he said.
Some of the devolution policies were recommended in the recent constitutional review by former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown, commissioned by Starmer.
The new bill would be part of a broader attempt to reset British politics and the UK economy to create “a decade of national renewal”, Starmer said.
The Labour leader also promised tougher targets on green energy — with all electricity low-carbon by 2030 — and an increase in the numbers of doctors and nurses in the NHS.
But he promised to govern with strict fiscal rules, saying he would not reach for the “cheque book” to solve the country’s problems.
“We won’t be able to spend our way out of their mess,” Starmer said. “It’s not as simple as that.”
Starmer was speaking on Thursday morning at the Here East campus in Stratford, where Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak gave his own New Year speech on Wednesday.
