Our verdict
It’s unclear how achievement on this pledge will be measured, and it’s too soon to reliably assess progress. We don’t expect to have complete Office for National Statistics regional productivity data that covers Labour’s first full year in government until 2027.
In its 2024 election manifesto the Labour party talked about seeing productivity grow “in every part of the country”, but it’s not clear exactly how this will be assessed.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) produces information on productivity growth in the UK. The two standard measures for this are output per worker and output per hour worked, which is the ONS’s preferred measure of productivity. It publishes ‘flash estimates’ for the UK’s productivity every quarter, which may be revised later. These productivity estimates aren’t broken down by region, and the ONS said productivity is “a long-term measure, so it is more robust to compare against the quarter a year ago, instead of quarter-on-quarter”.
Once a year, the ONS publishes regional productivity data. However, there’s a delay on this data—for example in 2024, data for 2022 was published, and in 2025 the data for 2023 will be published. This regional data looks at output per hour worked, and includes data on productivity growth for ‘subregions’ as well as local authorities.
The pledge doesn’t make clear if the government will be looking at regional, subregional or local authority data. We’ve asked the government—most recently in March 2025—what data it will use to track the pledge, and for a specific definition of what it means by “every part of the country”, and will update this page if we receive these details.
A Treasury spokesperson told Full Fact in November 2024: “The government has established the Growth Mission to deliver growth across the country, with regular mission boards chaired by the Chancellor making the decisions required to deliver. The government will set out metrics for the growth mission in due course.”
In the meantime, the ONS regional productivity figures appear to be the best measure, despite the lag in the data, and because the data for the regions covers “every part of the country”. While headline productivity figures for the country as a whole could demonstrate growth, it’s possible at the same time that individual regions of the UK could see a decline.
The pledge doesn’t specify a timescale, so we’ll look at productivity for the duration of this parliament.
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It’s too soon to say. The ONS releases data for regional productivity growth once a year. However, as we’ve mentioned this data is backdated, meaning we don’t expect to get data that tracks regional productivity for the year 2024 until 2026. Data for this year would reflect six months of a Conservative government and six months of a Labour government, so we won’t get data for Labour’s first full year in office (2025) until 2027.
Although we don’t yet have any regional data, some national data may also be relevant, though it is provisional and subject to revision.
So far, the ONS has published two ‘productivity flash estimates’ covering the Labour government’s time in office. Across the UK its estimate for Q3 2024 (July to September) was that output per hour worked (the ONS’s preferred measure) decreased by 2.3% compared to the same quarter in 2023, while in Q4 2024 estimated output per hour worked decreased by 0.8% compared to Q4 2023.
However, the ONS said it recommended “users place less weight on the quarter-on-year metric” for Q4 2024 as it has been affected by “low response rates” in the Labour Force Survey (LFS), the source it uses for its estimates. The ONS’s productivity flash estimates don’t include any regional breakdowns, but the fact they suggest there was a fall in productivity nationally suggests there must have been a fall in at least one region too.
The same ONS national data showed output per worker decreased by 0.2% in Q3 2024 and by 0.1% in Q4 2024, compared to the same quarters in 2023.
An alternative measure is also produced by the ONS, using Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (an estimate of employees on HMRC’s PAYE scheme) in combination with the LFS estimates of the self-employed, as PAYE figures do not include the self-employed or those who are employed and not on the PAYE scheme.
By this measure, the ONS estimates that in Q4 2024 output per worker increased by 1%, compared to the same quarter in 2023, while output per hour increased by 0.3% over the same time period.
As we develop this Government Tracker we’re keen to hear your feedback. We’ll be keeping the Tracker up to date and adding more pledges in the coming months.
Progress displayed publicly—so every single person in this country can judge our performance on actions, not words.
Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister – 24 September 2024