GK Strategy is pleased to share its ‘Health Policy Spotlight’ report which sets out some of the key health policy trends to watch out for in 2025 as we look ahead to the government’s eagerly anticipated 10-Year Health Plan.
The report can be accessed here: Health Policy Spotlight – GK Strategy – March 2025
GK is delighted to present its ‘Westminster in 2025’ report which sets out the key policy shifts and political risks we are expecting to see over the coming 12 months.
The report can be accessed here: Westminster in 2025 – Policy Shifts and Political Risks
Around two million adults and children are currently stuck on NHS waiting lists seeking mental health support. NHS England estimates the cost of untreated mental health to the UK economy to be £117.9 billion every year, taking into account those who are unfit to work because of their condition. Previous administrations have attempted to address this issue, in particular former Prime Minister Theresa May’s commissioning of the Wessely Review, but seemingly little substantive progress has taken place.
In opposition, Labour’s journey to office set off to a questionable start on mental health. The Party’s dedicated shadow mental health minister Rosena Allin-Khan resigned in September 2023 citing Starmer’s decision to remove the mental health portfolio from the shadow cabinet.
Since then, the Party has made no secret of its intention to overhaul what has been described as a mental health system in crisis. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer vowed in his Party’s manifesto to reform and modernise the outdated Mental Health Act 1983, recruit 8,500 new mental health staff, and place mental health professionals in schools. Seven months on from Labour’s landslide general election victory, how can progress be described?
In the King’s Speech, the government brought forward the Mental Health Bill which seeks to address unnecessary detentions for people with a learning disability or autism and end the use of criminal justice cells to detain those who need care under the Mental Health Act. Ministers have said that the Bill, which is currently being scrutinised in the House of Lords, will ensure that all patients have a care and treatment plan tailored to their needs.
In addition, the autumn budget committed £26 million of investment in new mental health crisis centres to help ease pressure on A&E departments. This is due to the increase in patients presenting in hospitals because of a lack of accessible mental health services.
While these initial measures are targeted at the most severe and urgent cases of poor mental health, the government’s wider ambition for mental health looks to incorporate its overarching focus on health prevention. The government’s 10-year health plan, due to be published in spring 2025, will be underpinned by “treatment to prevention” as a core pillar. It is also likely to contain further details on how mental health prevention will be included within this shift towards preventative care.
There is evident cross-party support for improving mental health services, and parties of all colours recognise the devastating impact that maintaining the status quo will have, both on individuals and wider society.
The Liberal Democrat-chaired Health and Social Care Select Committee announced in December 2024 the launch of a new inquiry into community mental health services. This is likely to reveal further improvements required in the system which will help shape the government’s approach to reform.
It is vital that providers and businesses engage with the committee’s inquiry which will be vital in shaping the development of policy in this area. The government must get mental health care right if it hopes to see any pressure on the NHS reduced or make a dent in the ever-growing list of workers signed off due to long-term sickness.
Angela Rayner has unveiled two flagship pieces of policy that will shake up planning policy and the local government architecture to get growth going. Senior Associate Sam Tankard takes a look at what impact this might have for businesses that operate in this sector.
Housing, planning and the local government system have long been identified by Keir Starmer’s Labour party as major constrictions on growth, and he has talked before about taking a “bulldozer” to the planning system. His Chancellor Rachel Reeves has also cited the desire to get Britain building as a key, and relatively low cost, lever to unlocking growth. Over the last week, we’ve seen the culmination of this with Angela Rayner, arguably one of the most powerful cabinet ministers, presenting her two-step solution to injecting impetus into councils and the wider built environment.
Backing the builders
The updated National Planning Policy Framework was published on 12 December and is seen as the key to unlocking 1.5 million new homes. The most significant change is to mandatory housing targets which will see many councils, particularly leafier constituencies and suburbs, deliver as many as 5 times the number of new homes per year than they currently are under Local Plans, as she calls on councils to all do their bit to meet their housing need, as the question is shifted to “where the homes and local services people expect are built, not whether they are built at all.”
The Government sees prioritising low quality “grey belt” as key to this housing mission and is supporting these new changes with £100m for extra planning officers to speed up and deal with bottlenecks in the system.
Tackling the blockers
The structure of councils has been long overdue a refresh and given how many of this Labour parliamentary party come from local authority backgrounds, it is no surprise to see a Labour Government bring forward a “devolution revolution”.
The English Devolution White Paper – which will form the basis of the English Devolution Bill in 2025 – proposes more powers for combined Authority Mayors who will receive new integrated funding settlements covering housing, growth, retrofit, transport and skills and employment as the Government wants to empower local leaders and shed Whitehall control. However, Rayner will still have increased call in powers if significant projects are not making necessary progress.
It is also clear the Government hopes this will deal with some of the inefficiencies in the way councils deliver public services and procure contract support, which will be welcome to businesses who support local authorities. As such, many two-tier council areas will be replaced by unitary authorities, where boundaries are hindering ability to deliver public services.
Growth unlocked?
Rayner will hope that these reforms will address the bureaucracy that Whitehall and local government process has burdened on public service and housing delivery, and help unlock the investment desperately needed across huge swathes of the built environment. If successful therefore, businesses operating at this intersection of housing and councils should take confidence that healthy opportunities are on the horizon. The next challenge will be where will all these builders and engineers come from…
GK Adviser Noureen Ahmed considers Labour’s approach to the early years sector and why it is so important for providers to engage with the government.
Earlier this month, the Prime Minister Keir Starmer outlined his ‘Plan for Change’ in which he set out the six metrics he would like to hit by the next election. This was an important moment for Starmer to demonstrate to voters that his government means business after a turbulent five months in office. Starmer’s education metric, to ensure 75 per cent of five-year-olds are school-ready, falls under the government’s mission to break down the barriers to opportunity. This is one of five missions Starmer set out prior to the election in which he promised to bolster opportunity for all through improvements to the education system.
Early years education has long been a priority for Labour, with Starmer’s education team having been incredibly vocal about the sector in opposition. Even though much of the initial focus has been on delivering the previous government’s early years reforms, notably the rollout of the extended childcare entitlement, the new government is clearly preparing the sector ahead of launching its own early years agenda, as laid out in Labour’s general election manifesto.
Whilst the spotlight on the sector has been welcomed, some immediate concerns have been expressed by sector leaders, including: whether the government’s schedule to roll out the final stage of its extended childcare entitlement to up to 30 hours go ahead as planned in September 2025, and if the government can deliver its additional pledges for the early years sector successfully over the course of this parliament.
The recruitment and retention crisis facing the early years sector is the biggest barrier impacting the delivery of the extended childcare entitlement. Difficulties attracting people to work in the early years sector, coupled with an exodus of staff, means it is unsurprising early years professionals are sceptical about whether the final rollout will go ahead as planned. The Department for Education’s (DfE’s) recent announcement that it will provide £75 million in grant funding to help childcare providers deliver the staff and places needed next year is positive and suggests that the government is determined to launch the final stage on time, despite these challenges.
There was also some welcome news at the October budget with the government announcing £15 million in investment to begin the delivery of 3,000 school-based nurseries by the end of this parliament. Schools currently have the opportunity to bid for up to £150,000 to either expand existing nurseries or open a new one, with the government hoping to open around 300 new or expanded nurseries by September 2025.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has reiterated government’s appetite to deliver more school-based nursery provision. Making use of unused classrooms in primary schools looks like a sensible policy approach. However, the government could find it difficult to meet the commitment’s short- and long-term targets. Getting enough schools on board with the scheme could prove difficult. Even though there may be capacity to utilise the free classroom spaces available, the infrastructure (both physical and logistical) needed to create and maintain nursery provision is very different to those needed for primary school pupils.
The Labour government is also realistic about the need for a model which includes both state-delivered provision via in-school nurseries and maintained nurseries and provision by the private voluntary and independent (PVI) sector in order to meet capacity demands. In regard to the latter, the government understands the importance of the PVI sector in delivering high-quality early years education and so will be keen to work with the sector to deliver much of its proposed in-school nursery provision.
Moreover, Ofsted has said it will work to support the government’s plans by making it easier for high-quality providers to set up and expand nurseries. The watchdog’s plan to streamline the registration process for providers as well review how it inspects and regulates multiple providers is laudable because it allows the sector the chance to continue meeting the demand for early years settings.
The government has made a big play that in total will see investment increase by over 30% compared to last year, all whilst happening amidst a bleak fiscal outlook. This political priority as the education secretary has acknowledged must be accompanied by reform to deliver a sustainable early education system. This will mean high quality providers demonstrating value for money and their ability to scale up provision. Those providers with a proven track record and an ambition for growth will find a receptive ear within DfE and No 10. With the next phase of rollout in 2025 and the comprehensive spending review in the spring setting out the funding for the remainder of this parliament, providers have no time to waste. They should prioritise engaging with government to position themselves as a partner in the next phase of reform, and to demonstrate the role they play in ensuring a successful delivery.
GK Strategy Adviser Rebecca McMahon reviews the GK Post-Election Breakfast Event.
The coming weeks and months will see the new Labour government pressing ahead with its agenda for government, and getting to grips with a number of difficult challenges facing the UK, from sluggish growth, to growing NHS waiting lists, to precarious local authority finances.
GK Strategy was delighted to host a panel discussion this week looking at how the government will tackle some of these issues, and how it will prioritise its time and resources to deliver on its ambitious policy pledges. GK was joined by former Minister and Health Select Committee Chair, Steve Brine, and Head of Research at Labour Together, Christabel Cooper, who shared their insights into the government’s approach, and some of the inevitable obstacles it will face in the coming months.
Both panelists agreed that while the list of public policy challenges inherited by Starmer and his team is by no means a short one, Labour ministers will now be deciding on areas where urgent action is most needed.
Reforming the UK’s planning system was identified as one of the priority areas for Starmer’s new administration. Our two panelists noted that the new Government’s ambition in this area has already been illustrated by repealing the de facto ban on onshore wind, re-introducing mandatory housing targets, and pledging to update the National Planning Policy Framework via consultation by the end of the Party’s first month in power.
As a policy area with implications for multiple sectors – including housebuilding, the green economy and major infrastructure– planning reform to unlock private investment will be at the core of the new Labour Government’s agenda. As Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves set out in her first speech following her appointment, its ultimate success will rely on “unlocking private investment that we so desperately need”.
Healthcare and the future of the NHS was another policy area which featured prominently. Steve Brine pointed out that under current spending plans, funding for the health service is projected to rise at a lower rate than during the austerity years. Meanwhile, the NHS Workforce Plan continues to be underfunded and the outcome of the Health Secretary’s talks with the junior doctors uncertain. He noted that while the Government will soon have to make difficult spending decisions, there would be an emphasis on creating an investor-friendly NHS to support Labour’s ambitions to “crowd in” private investment to improve efficiency and health outcomes.
There was a consensus that Labour’s perspective on the use of the private sector in supporting the delivery of public services is a pragmatic one. Labour’s ‘wide but shallow’ majority – achieving 64% of parliamentary seats on roughly 34% of the vote – means that the Party will need to reassure voters that it is making headway on its policy programme. Our panelists agreed that working with the private sector will be key to successfully demonstrating this.
Please do get in touch via rebecca.mcmahon@gkstrategy.com if you are interested in attending future events or would like to set up a call to discuss the year ahead in politics.