The 2024 manifestos
What every party promised on each count
Labour's pledges on road safety, air quality and preventative health, tracked against delivery — then where every party stands on the measures that save lives.
- Fix one million potholes a year
- Maintain and renew the road network
- Hit the Environment Act air quality targets
- Recruit 1,000 more GPs
- Smoke-free generation (Tobacco & Vapes Act)
- Ban junk food advertising to children
- Ban high-caffeine energy drinks to under-16s
- Dentistry rescue: 700,000 urgent appointments
- Opt-out smoking cessation in the NHS
- Shift from sickness to prevention
- Halve the healthy-life-expectancy gap
Where the parties divide
* On clean air zones and LTNs, Reform would scrap them outright; the Conservatives would roll them back — reverse ULEZ expansion and put new zones and 20mph limits to local referendums. On road and air, Labour set targets but took no clear position on these measures. On smoking, the Conservatives back the generational ban they introduced — only Reform would drop it.
Party positions: Reform UK, Our Contract with You (2024) · Conservative Manifesto 2024 (Backing Drivers) · Lib Dem Manifesto 2024 · Green Party Manifesto 2024 · Farage to repeal smoking ban (LBC) · Tice on obesity rules (GB News)
Before Labour
14 years of Conservative inaction on the same three issues
Three preventable causes of British death. Two consecutive governments. The standing record begins before 2024.
Conservative Manifesto 2019
Assessed Dec 2019 → Jul 2024
- Preventative healthPARTIAL
“We will invest in preventing disease as well as curing it. We will tackle the underlying causes of increases in NHS demand, for example via a long-term strategy for empowering people with lifestyle-related conditions such as obesity to live healthier lives, as well as tackling childhood obesity, heart disease and diabetes.”
Our NHS Prevention and Treatment Plan, p10–11 · manifesto
OHID created Oct 2021; anti-obesity ad/promo rules delayed multiple times to Oct 2025 and HFSS volume promo ban delayed to Oct 2023; no holistic lifestyle-conditions strategy delivered (IfG).
Source: instituteforgovernment.org.uk →
- Preventative healthPARTIAL
“We will continue to promote the uptake of vaccines via our national vaccination strategy.”
Our NHS Prevention and Treatment Plan, p11 · manifesto
Covid vaccine rollout delivered; routine childhood MMR coverage fell to 84.5% (2022-23), lowest in over a decade and below WHO 95% threshold; NHS vaccination strategy published Dec 2023.
Source: gov.uk →
- Preventative healthDELIVERED
“We will extend social prescribing and expand the new National Academy of Social Prescribing.”
Our NHS Prevention and Treatment Plan, p11 · manifesto
IfG verdict 'Completed': 1,427 link workers by Jun 2021 (up from 214 in Mar 2020); NASP received additional £5m Aug 2020.
Source: instituteforgovernment.org.uk →
- Preventative healthPARTIAL
“We will overhaul NHS screening and use new technology and mobile screening services to prevent ill health.”
Our NHS Prevention and Treatment Plan, p11 · manifesto
IfG verdict 'Underway': NHSX Digital Transformation of Screening (DToS) underway; new Cervical Screening Management System launched 2022; broader overhaul not delivered.
Source: instituteforgovernment.org.uk →
- Preventative healthNOT DELIVERED
“And we'll uphold our commitment to extend healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035.”
Our NHS Prevention and Treatment Plan, p11 · manifesto
ONS 2022-24: healthy life expectancy at birth fell to 60.9 yrs (men) and 61.3 yrs (women) — down 1.8 and 2.5 years since 2019-21. Health Foundation: at current trend the +5 yrs target would take 192 years.
Source: ons.gov.uk →
- Preventative healthDELIVERED
“50,000 more nurses, with students receiving a £5,000–£8,000 annual maintenance grant every year during their course to help with their cost of living.”
Our NHS People Plan, p10 · manifesto
DHSC reported 51,245 extra FTE nurses by Sep 2023 — target met ~6 months early; roughly half via overseas recruitment, learning-disability nurses fell 5.5%.
Source: gov.uk →
- Preventative healthNOT DELIVERED
“Our new funding will deliver 50 million extra general practice appointments a year, an increase of over 15 per cent.”
p10 · manifesto
IfG verdict 'At risk' (Nov 2021): 302m appointments in 12m to Oct 2021 — 8m fewer than pre-manifesto baseline; pledge never reached, target abandoned in practice.
Source: instituteforgovernment.org.uk →
- Preventative healthNOT DELIVERED
“We will build and fund 40 new hospitals over the next 10 years.”
p10 · manifesto
NAO Jul 2023: programme 'will not now deliver 40 new hospitals by 2030'. Only 1 of 40 (Dyson Cancer Centre, Bath) opened by Jul 2024; IPA rating 'red'.
Source: nao.org.uk →
- Air qualityDELIVERED
“We will set up a new independent Office For Environmental Protection and introduce our own legal targets, including for air quality.”
Stewards of our environment, p43 · manifesto
OEP became an independent legal body Nov 2021 (Environment Act). PM2.5 long-term and population-exposure targets set Jan 2023. OEP 2024 verdict: government 'largely off track' to meet the targets.
Source: theoep.org.uk →
- Air qualityPARTIAL
“We will support clean transport to ensure clean air, as well as setting strict new laws on air quality. We will consult on the earliest date by which we can phase out the sale of new conventional petrol and diesel cars.”
Fight climate change and protect the environment, p55 · manifesto
Environment Act air quality powers enacted Nov 2021 (IfG 'Completed'). 2030 phase-out date set Nov 2020, then Sunak pushed it back to 2035 in Sep 2023.
Source: instituteforgovernment.org.uk →
- Air qualityDELIVERED
“It is for Heathrow to demonstrate that it can meet its air quality and noise obligations, that the project can be financed and built and that the business case is realistic. The scheme will receive no new public money.”
On the Heathrow third runway, p28 · manifesto
No public money advanced. Court of Appeal ruled the scheme unlawful on climate grounds (Feb 2020), overturned by Supreme Court Dec 2020; scheme remained stalled to 2024.
Source: theguardian.com →
- Road safetyPARTIAL
“We will launch the biggest ever pothole-filling programme as part of our National Infrastructure Strategy — and our major investment in roads will ensure new potholes are much less likely to appear in the future.”
A transport revolution, p28 · manifesto
IfG 'On track' Nov 2021: £2.5bn Potholes Fund plus £8bn 2021 Spending Review. But RAC/AIA found local road condition no better by 2024; £8.3bn pothole boost re-announced in the 2024 manifesto.
Source: instituteforgovernment.org.uk →
- Road safetyPARTIAL
“We will support commuter cycling routes, so that more people can cycle safely to work and more families can go out together. We will create a new £350 million Cycling Infrastructure Fund with mandatory design standards for new routes. We will extend Bikeability — cycling proficiency training — to every child. And we will work with the NHS to promote cycling for healthier living.”
A transport revolution, p28 · manifesto
Bikeability extended to every child Feb 2020 (IfG 'Completed'). £350m Fund subsumed into a £2bn active travel package; active travel budget cut ~£200m in Mar 2023 and DfT capital spend on cycling/walking fell after 2022.
Source: instituteforgovernment.org.uk →
Conservative Manifesto 2024
Not implemented — election lost 4 July 2024.
- Preventative healthNOT IMPLEMENTED
“We will bring forward our landmark Tobacco and Vapes Bill in our first King's Speech. We will continue to tackle childhood and adult obesity and will legislate to restrict the advertising of products high in fat, salt and sugar.”
Our plan to deliver better health and social care, p41 · manifesto
Sunak's Tobacco and Vapes Bill fell at dissolution May 2024; Labour reintroduced a similar bill Nov 2024.
- Preventative healthNOT IMPLEMENTED
“We will roll out new digital health checks to 250,000 more people every year, helping to prevent hundreds of strokes and heart attacks. We will take forward the NHS Vaccination Strategy.”
p41 · manifesto
- Preventative healthNOT IMPLEMENTED
“Our Dental Recovery Plan will unlock 2.5 million more NHS dental appointments, through a patient premium to encourage dentists to take on new NHS patients.”
p40 · manifesto
- Road safetyNOT IMPLEMENTED
“Stop road pricing. A Conservative Government will not introduce pay per mile road pricing and will ban Mayors and local councils from doing so. Reverse Labour's unfair ULEZ expansion in London. … Rule out top-down blanket Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and 20mph zones.”
Backing Drivers Bill, p57 · manifesto
- Road safetyNOT IMPLEMENTED
“We remain steadfastly committed to road safety and, to that end, will maintain our pledge to build no new smart motorways and invest in improving the safety of existing ones.”
p57 · manifesto
Your move — write to your MP
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Write to your MP.
A letter to your MP on any of the three counts, pre-filled with the evidence above. Anonymous by default — your name is never published.
Letter preview · updates as you choose an issue
Dear your MP, I am writing about the 704 preventable road deaths in Britain so far in 2026 — and the 1,602 that will happen by year end if nothing changes. The UK rate is now 50% above Norway's. Labour's 2024 manifesto promised to keep our roads "safe", but no road safety strategy has been published, scoped, or budgeted in 558 days under Heidi Alexander. Labour also dropped its 2019 Vision Zero commitment from the 2024 manifesto. I am asking you to press the government to publish a comprehensive road safety strategy with statutory targets, matching the standards of Norway and Sweden. Yours sincerely, [your name]