Public prioritise fixing the NHS most of Keir Starmer’s 5 key missions for government

• Some signs public more positive that Labour will deliver key missions – though not a majority
• King’s Speech seen to reflect positive change – but public split on whether package can be delivered competently, within spending plans

New Ipsos polling, taking 17th-18th July 2024, explores the public’s response to the recent King’s Speech and how confident the public are that Keir Starmer’s government can deliver on the 5 key missions.

Starmer’s missions 

• When asked which of the 5 missions are most important to them 69% say ‘building an NHS fit for the future’ and 35% say ‘making Britain’s streets safe’.  Similar picture to when question was last asked in September 2023.
• Improving the NHS is even more important to those voting Labour in 2024 (77%).

• There are signs in the data of the public being more positive about Labour delivering on these missions than before they entered government. 
• Britons are net positive that Labour will do a good rather than bad job on each of the 5 missions – especially ‘building an NHS fit for the future’ (+22) and ‘breaking down the barriers to opportunity at every stage for every child’ (+21).

The King’s Speech

The public were asked whether they supported or opposed a range of policies either included in the King’s Speech or in Labour’s recent manifesto. Most policies were strongly or somewhat supported in principle by a majority of the public with 8 in 10 or more supporting policies to:

• Delivering an extra 40,000 NHS appointments every week, during evening and weekends (86%)
• Introducing measure to improve the safety and security of public venues to help keep the British public safe from terrorism (83%)
• Strengthening the powers of the water regulator to address water quality, ban bonuses when appropriate and to make bosses of water companies liable for lawbreaking (83%)
• A new Victims, Courts and Public Protection Bill will introduce new rules requiring offenders to attend sentencing hearings and to strip parental rights from child sex offenders (80%)

• The policies that were most likely to be ‘strongly supported’ were 
  • Delivering an extra 40,000 NHS appointments every week, during evening and weekends (59%) and 
  • Strengthening the powers of the water regulator to address water quality, ban bonuses when appropriate and to make bosses of water companies liable for lawbreaking (55%).

The overall package of policies tested is seen as positive change by 73% of the public and negative change by just 8%. This is more positive feedback than the 63% that thought Labour’s manifesto reflected positive change before the election (though Labour’s manifesto outperformed other parties on this measure). 

However, there are some doubts in the public that the full package of policies is deliverable. Whilst 40% are confident that Labour’s policies are affordable within their tax and spending plans, 49% are not confident. Similarly, whilst almost half (46%) are confident these policies will be delivered competently by the Labour Party in government – 43% are not. However, although split it is notable that the public are now slightly more positive that these plans can be delivered competently. The net score for this measure now stands at +3 whereas before the election they were net negative that Labour’s manifesto could be delivered competently (-7. 42% confident, 49% not confident).

Ipsos Director of Politics Keiran Pedley said of the findings:

These findings support other research from Ipsos suggesting that Keir Starmer is enjoying something of a honeymoon period as Prime Minister, with the public more confident his government will deliver on key missions than before Labour entered office and the package of policies set out in the King’s Speech and Labour manifesto seen to represent positive change by a clear majority. However, the public are split on whether Labour can deliver. This suggests there could be a political dividend in over delivering against expectations but also political peril if Labour are seen not to deliver to acceptable levels.

Technical note
Ipsos interviewed a representative sample of 1,001 adults aged 18-75 across Great Britain. Polling was conducted online between 17th-18th July 2024. Data are weighted to match the profile of the population. All polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error.