Over the last two weeks, political parties have been releasing manifestos, and at Teach the Future we reviewed each of the main party manifestos as they came out. But what is a manifesto and what do we think about them?
What is a manifesto?
A manifesto is usually a long document that a political party shares with the public in the run up to the general election, telling voters what they’ll do if their party were to form the next government. They’ll make a series of promises on a number of topics, such as immigration and healthcare, and campaign on these pledges in hustings, debates and on the doorstep to try and convince people to lend them their vote. The TTF team have been working hard to analyse and review these manifestos based on their coverage of our four asks, and here’s what we found!
What is included in the manifestos?
Visit Instagram to view our individual posts on each party manifesto.
There have been lots of positive policies proposed by most parties, including:
- The Liberal Democrats promise to provide skills training to help with the transition to net zero - whilst this doesn’t specify green skills, it’s a start!
- We were impressed by the Labour Party's plans to create Great British Energy, a publicly owned energy company that would make the UK fully powered by clean energy by 2030.
- The Greens have pledged climate and biodiversity education for every child and a £2.5bn annual investment into combatting the RAAC crisis and the SNP have committed to a RAAC Remediation fund - both of these policies work hand in hand with our Fund the Future project!
- In Wales, Plaid Cymru have promised a Welsh Green New Deal, which could set the ball rolling for a UK-wide Green New deal;
- And the Conservatives have pledged to continue work to reach net zero by 2050, and whilst this is good, we were hoping for 2030.
What is missing in the manifestos?
Saying this, unfortunately we did find that a lot was missed in this year's manifestos.
- No party have provided plans on helping educators tackle and teach the climate crisis in the classroom, and given that 70% of teachers don’t feel adequately trained to teach on climate change, this is disappointing.
- Both Plaid Cymru and the Greens made no specific mention of the decarbonisation of school buildings.
- Labour and the Liberal Democrats showed no clear intent to reform the education system around the climate and ecological crisis, despite multiple MPs from both parties showing support for our Climate Education Bill, including Labour Leader Keir Starmer and Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper. The Labour party have committed to launch an expert-led review of curriculum and assessment, working with school staff, parents and employers but have crucially missed the inclusion of youth voice.
- The Conservatives let us down with no focus on green skills in their manifesto and no mention of school rebuilds and decarbonisation of education facilities, alongside the SNP.
- Whilst we were able to find positives and negatives for most party’s manifestos, we did really struggle with Reform UK’s ‘Contract to the People.’ Some of their policies include; scrapping all net zero targets, fast tracking North Sea oil and gas licences and for the history and social science curriculum to be reviewed and audited for a ‘patriotic curriculum.’ We didn’t find any pledges that align with our asks.
Overall, it's clear that this general election is a key moment in our fight for climate education and for climate justice as a whole. Regardless of what party forms the next government, TTF will continue to work for integrated, solutions-centred climate education, and I hope you will join us in the weeks and months ahead!
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