The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has resolved to Build Back Better as the Country looks to the future following a challenging year.
Speaking at the Virtual Conservative Party Conference the Prime Minister outlined his plans for recovery following the COVID challenges – this includes: building a green economy; building more houses; building more hospitals; transforming the provision of skills; and building infrastructure to level up across the country.
To achieve this the Government has outlined the following measures:
• Delivering on its promises to the NHS – more hospitals, more doctors, more nurses. The government is pressing on with its plan for 48 new hospitals. Eight are already underway, and with 40 more between now and 2030. The Government is pushing on with recruiting the 50,000 more nurses – there are 14,000 more nurses now then in 2010– and yet the Government will go further.
• Doubling funding for scientific research – creating jobs backing British science. We have all seen the frantic global scrabble for vaccines, for therapies – and so now the Government is doubling funding for all types of revolutionary scientific breakthroughs, with a national Advanced Research and Projects Agency.
• Fixing the injustice of care home funding – delivering on the manifesto pledge, and working towards a long-term solution for social care. COVID has shone a spotlight on the difficulties of that sector in all parts of the UK – and to build back better the Government has promised to respond, caring for the carers as they care for us.
• Fighting crime and delivering 20,000 new police officers – The Government is fulfilling its manifesto commitment to put another 20,000 officers out on the street –already recruiting almost 5,000. The Government is also backing the police, and protecting the public, by changing the law to stop the early release of serious sexual and violent offenders, and stopping the whole criminal justice system from being hamstrung by overly-litigious human rights lawyers.
• Investing massively in schools – the Government is delivering on its promise to raise per pupil funding, to £4,000 per head in primary school and £,5000 per head in secondary school, as well as a £30,000 starting salary for teachers. In addition to the Government is transforming skills with a Lifetime Skills Guarantee, offering every adult four years of funded post-18 education, This will break down the barrier between Further Education and Higher Education, so that it is just as easy to get the funding you need for a training course in engineering or IT as for a degree in politics or economics. We are
• Focusing on a Green Industrial Revolution by: become the world leader in low cost clean power generation; investing £160m in ports and factories across the country, to manufacture the next generation of turbines; levelling up by upgrading infrastructure in such places as Teesside and Humber and Scotland and Wales; and continuing to work towards net zero carbon emissions by 2050
• Tackling the housing crisis by: giving young first time buyers the chance to take out a long-term fixed rate mortgage, and making it faster and easier to build beautiful new homes without destroying the green belt or desecrating the countryside.
North Swindon MP Justin Tomlinson said: “This is a positive and ambitious plan, which delivers on our key manifesto commitments whilst also aiding our post-COVID recovery. While we are tackling the current challenges posed by COVID, it is important to have a clear plan for the future, and recovery, of the Country.”
