NB a pdf version of this report is available here.

 Before the next full NEC meeting on Tuesday 25 March, here is a round-up of recent activities – as always, comments and questions are welcome.

National Women’s Committee, 4 March 2025

The meeting paid tribute to Anneliese Dodds for her work as minister for women and equalities, and welcomed equalities minister Seema Malhotra.  Seema briefed the committee on forthcoming bills on conversion practices and on race and disability, and reported on making work pay, addressing gender pay gaps, employment rights, acknowledging the hurt caused to LGBTQ+ veterans, defining spiking as a specific offence, and new domestic abuse protection orders.

I asked for updates on work agreed at the previous meeting, including publicising Labour’s achievements, regular women’s newsletters, and a toolkit for engaging women in the national policy forum consultation.

We then had an interesting presentation on the forthcoming local and mayoral elections.  Many voters do not understand who is in charge of what, and blame Labour borough councils for problems which actually lie with Conservative-run counties.   National issues, especially the cost of living, also influence voting intentions.  So campaigning has to include explaining what councils and councillors can and cannot do, and presenting Labour positively at every level, taking on Reform as well as the Greens and the Tories.

Work continues on encouraging more women to stand as councillors, but with current levels of online and offline abuse it is not surprising that many are deterred.  All roleholders including whips and group leaders had a duty to recognise the difficulties and support their women comrades.

There was some good news about the 2025 national women’s conference on Saturday 27 September 2025.  We have the big auditorium, with access issues now sorted, so there should be room for visitors, and people at the back will be able to see the stage.  As last year, visitors’ applications will open after 27 June, the deadline for delegates, Suggestions were invited for speakers, breakout sessions, training workshops and Friday evening events.  However there was again no time to discuss a possible two-day standalone women’s conference in spring 2026.  There are arguments for and against and they need to be openly debated and resolved, or yet again we will reach November when it will be too late to do anything other than bolt it onto the front end of annual conference.

Equalities Committee, 4 March 2025

This meeting also paid tribute to Anneliese Dodds and heard an update from Seema Malhotra.

The committee were presented with equalities monitoring statistics for council candidates, though these were partial because applicants do not have to provide the information and there are technical and legal issues about deriving it from party IT systems.  It was pointed out that gender is known and used for implement all-women shortlists and balance within Labour groups.  Hopefully we can get a fuller picture in future.

Under stakeholder reports, representatives of the Jewish Labour Movement and LGBT Labour gave updates on recent activities.  Committee members were asked to suggest ideas for future meetings.

Complaints and Disciplinary Sub-Committee, 11 March 2025

The committee received reports on complaints and disciplinary cases handled since the beginning of the year.  As usual summaries will be posted here

There were too few new cases to draw general conclusions.  It was hoped that outstanding appeals to the NCC (national constitutional committee) and the ICB (independent complaints board) would be resolved in March and April, along with the situation of 16 members who have been suspended for more than 18 months.  Members asked for the average time between receiving a complaint and its conclusion, and this would be looked at.  Staff have made real progress in clearing the various backlogs, but I am still concerned when some members wait ten months between submitting evidence and hearing back from the NEC panel, particularly when the panel refers the case to the NCC and they then join another queue.

Organisation Committee, 11 March 2025

The committee received updates on local government selections, with candidates now chosen for most seats up for election in May, and on campaign improvement boards.  An update on CLPs which are suspended and / or in special measures would come to the next meeting in July.

I asked again for guidance on hybrid meetings at local level, including secret ballots, as I can’t find anything on the website.  In the meantime CLPs and branches are using their initiative, which is fine unless someone complains.  I’ve also been assured that the panel established to work with socialist societies will be convened soon to consider new applications, including from the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform.

National Policy Forum – Then and Now

Most of the policy commissions have now met and will publish consultation papers by 31 March, with a closing date of 8 June 2025.  This will allow CLPs a month to discuss them after the local elections.

However I am concerned at the changed role of the national policy forum since Labour last entered government in 1997.  The political background has similarities:  1997 saw tensions around spending limits and welfare, with MPs rebelling over cuts to lone-parent benefit.  Partnership in Power was designed to support the relationship between the party in the country and the party in government, and in 1998 the newly established NPF produced three wide-ranging documents in its first year:  one on health, one on crime and justice, and one on welfare reform, including pensions and benefits, specifically to address issues which members and voters cared about.  Tony Blair recognised that success did not simply mean keeping enough MPs in line:  the arguments had to be explained and won among the wider movement.  These papers were discussed by the full NPF, meeting in person, before circulation.  And members were keen to engage – more than 200 signed up for one of the first regional forums in Oxford.

This time commissions have been told to focus on narrow topics within the 2024 manifesto programme.  I am on the Breaking Down Barriers commission, and our task is to raise the proportion of school-ready five-year-olds from 67% to 75% by 2028.  The commission’s remit includes education, work and pensions, equalities, and culture, media and sport, but there will be no formal consultation over child poverty, where the two-child limit and the benefit cap penalise children in larger families, nor on winter fuel payment, where the pension credit threshold of £11,500 is far too low, nor on disability support including personal independence payments designed to give disabled people an equal chance in life, nor the bedroom tax, nor the funding crisis in higher education.  And as education is a devolved issue, Scotland and Wales have their own systems and some material will not be relevant.

Looking Ahead

I have been advised that NPF members can raise other issues through dialogue with ministers in commission meetings.  Breaking Down Barriers has met once, for an hour.  Bridget Phillipson ran through impressive progress on breakfast clubs, Ofsted reforms, apprenticeships, reducing the cost of school uniforms and ensuring that all teachers were qualified.  No ministers were present from the DWP or DCMS so questions understandably focused on education.  We asked for an update on the child poverty strategy at our next meeting, and there are some interesting statistics in the paper on the government’s approach here: since 2010/2011 the proportion of children in poverty living in households where at least one adult works has risen from 58% to 69%.  The proportion of poor children who live in larger families has risen from 34% to 50%, the proportion where someone is disabled has risen from 31% to 43%, and the proportion in ethnic minority families has gone up from 25% to 35%.  Tackling these without money will be challenging.

But the original purpose of the NPF was to involve all members in conversation across the spectrum of government activity, especially on contentious matters and tough decisions. The full NPF met at least once a year and allowed all members to contribute to all papers, rather than working in commission silos.  That dwindled over time, with no meetings at all between 2018 and 2021.  I appreciate that funds are tight and NPF meetings are expensive, but it might be possible to work creatively online.  And at the moment NPF representatives cannot contact CLPs and CLPs cannot contact us because of data protection issues.  There must be ways to overcome barriers to communication and re-establish a collective identity.

I don’t know what topics other commissions have been given, but I recommend looking at the documents and also setting up discussions on policies which matter most to members and above all to voters.  Because if we, the activists, are not convinced that the government is doing the right thing, we will not be able to convince anyone else.  Submissions on any subject can be sent to policyforum@labour.org.uk and, from 31 March 2025, posted on the website where others can see and comment on them.  Please use this to tell us your priorities, and please copy me in.