The Conservatives record in government

The reality of the Conservatives in power

The Conservatives have been in power since 2010 and over that 13 years so much has changed. Unite wanted to take a look at their record and assess the impact of their political decisions. This page and the associated document highlights the impact of the Conservatives and their record in government. 

The Conservatives' record on:  Jobs

• The TUC says UK workers are suffering the longest and harshest pay squeeze in modern history. 
• In 2022 there were approximately 1.03 million people on zero hours contracts in the United Kingdom, compared with 919,000 in the previous year. Since 2000 there has been a net increase of over 807,000 people on this type of employment contract - Statista
• Workers in the UK are £11,000 worse off a year after 15 years of “almost completely unprecedented” wage stagnation - The Guardian and Resolution Foundation

The Conservatives' record on: Housing

• In 2000, a home cost 4 x average salary.
• In 2021, a home cost 8 x average salary.
• In 1990, 28,000 social homes were built.
• In 2020, less than 7,000 social homes were built.
  Source: Shelter
• Average rents across London increased by 38% in the past 10 years. - Bricks and Logic
• Average monthly rental payments were now 40% higher than they were 10 years ago, while typical mortgage payments for the same properties were up 13%. - Business Matters Magazine 
• Renters have, on average, faced £2,820 a year increase in rental costs over the last five years. - Your Mortgage

The Conservatives' record on: Transport

• Spending on subsidies for bus and rail routes – where they are required to support ‘socially necessary’ routes, a definition open to interpretation – fell by 48% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2019/20
• Spending on concessionary bus fares – a statutory duty that local authorities cannot ration – fell by 14% - Institute for Government
• More than one in four bus services in England have been cut in the last decade.
• Almost 5,000 bus routes have been axed since 2012, with the north-west and east of England the two regions worst affected - Guardian.
• In the last decade rail fares have increased by 30% - Paying More for Less campaign

The Conservatives' record on: Health

• Over a decade of pay cuts, the pandemic and two top down reorganisations have left health workers' morale in tatters
• The NHS has been chronically underfunded over the last decade with the worst funding settlements in its history
• NHS waiting list to start elective care is at record levels in England - exceeding 7.4m. That has risen by nearly half a million in five months and is the highest since records began (August 2007) - The Guardian.
• The NHS spent nearly £11bn on private sector providers in 2021-22
• Nearly five million patients each month in England wait more than a fortnight for a GP appointment - BBC News
• The NHS is suffering from the worse staffing crisis in its history with nearly 112,000 full time equivalent staff vacancies including over 40,000 nurses - King’s Fund June 2023.

The Conservatives' record on: Energy

• Weekly road fuel prices have almost doubled since 2016. - The Guardian
• National Energy Action (NEA) has calculated that 6.7 million people are currently living in fuel poverty - The Big Issue
• A Unite Investigates report reveals that companies made £45 billion profit from the UK domestic energy system in 2022. If that money had been kept in public hands, it could have been used to save each household £1,800 on their energy bills.

The Conservatives' record on: Education

• The Trade Union Learning Fund was scrapped in 2021 removing support for trade union education. - Times Educational Supplement
• School spending per pupil in England fell by 9% in real terms between 2009–10 and 2019–20, the largest cut in over 40 years. - The IFS
• Around 10,000, (45 per cent) of schools are now academies following extensive growth over the past 11 years. - Surveyors to Education
• The 2011 cut to Educational Maintenance Allowance saw up to £30 a week taken away from 603,000 students from the poorest socio-economic groups. - Parliament publication
• The Government forecasts the value of outstanding student loans to be around £460 billion (2021/22 prices) by the mid-2040s. - Parliament publication
• The rent university students pay for halls of residence has risen by 60% over the past decade. - The Guardian
  
  

The Conservatives' record on: Social Security

• £14bn has been taken out of the welfare system since 2010/11. - New Economics
• For out-of-work families with two children, benefits will cover less than half their costs this year – (48% for a couple, 49% for a lone parent) compared to more than 60% in 2012. - Child Poverty Action Group
• Working families have also lost out, with a £460 reduction compared to if the 2010 benefits system was in place. - New Economics
• In 2016, the Welfare Reform and Work Act abolished the Child Poverty Act, including the targets to reduce poverty - Child Poverty Action Group
• The North East of England has seen the most dramatic rise in child poverty in the past six years, having risen by almost half from 26% to 38%. It has now overtaken London to have the highest child poverty rate (after housing costs) in the UK. - Action for Children
• Between 2013 and 2022, the basic rate of unemployment benefits has lost value, leaving it at a 35-year low in real terms. - Joseph Rowntree Foundation
• Between 2008/09 and 2020/21, the number of foodbank users increased in every year, from just under 26,000 to more than 2.56 million. - Statista
• In 2022/23 approximately 2.99 million people used a foodbank in the United Kingdom. - Statista
• 4.2 million children (or 29% of children) in the UK are living in poverty. - Action for Children

The Conservatives' record on: Local Authorities

• The UK government reduced grants to local authorities by £18.6bn (in 2019/20 prices) between 2009/10 and 2019/20, a 63% reduction in real terms. -  Tribune
• Public spending cuts have closed almost 800 libraries in the past decade – a fifth of the UK's total. - Tribune
• Spending on libraries in 2009 was at £1 billion, but by 2019 this had declined by a quarter. - Tribune
• In 2018, the BBC reported that almost 700 local authority-run facilities (toilets) in the UK had closed since 2010—one in eight. - Tribune
• Freedom of Information requests to UK councils revealed 65 pools had closed, either temporarily or permanently, in the three years to March 2022. - BBC News
• Between 2009/10 and 2019/20, local authority spending on waste collection fell by 17% in real terms. - Institute for Government
• Official figures show that 1,342 children’s centres have closed over the last decade. - Parliament publication
• Local authority spending on youth services in England experienced a £1.1 billion cut in a decade – The Big Issue

The Conservatives' record on: Inequalities

• The number of households unable to afford a decent standard of living will have increased to 11.1m (39%) - New Economics
• 43% of families in the lowest wealth decile reported that they would run out of money within a week if they lost their main income source. - Financial Fairness
• Women are more likely to be poor, and have been hit harder by cuts to social security and provision of public services over the past decade. - Womens' Budget Group
• Disabled people were already facing on average an extra £583 in costs per month. Even prior to Covid-19, over a third of disabled workers were having to cut back on food and heating. - TUC (2019) Disability employment and pay gaps 2019
• On average BAEM - Black & Asian Ethnic Minority households are 1.6 times more affected by the cost of living than their white counterparts. - New Economics
• LGBT+ support services have been cut and closed increasing inequality and isolation
• The richest 50 families in the UK have more wealth than the bottom half of the UK population (33.5 million people) - Greenwich University report [PDF]
• When the first rich list was compiled in 1989, a rich person had 6,000 times the average person. Today it is 18,000 times. - Greenwich University report [PDF]

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