Pledge
“The government will deliver a milestone of higher living standards in every part of the United Kingdom by the end of the Parliament”
Our verdict
Since Labour took office GDP per head has increased, while RHDI per head has decreased.
Are living standards improving in every part of the UK?
Appears off track 
What does the pledge mean?
As part of a series of “milestones” set out in its “Plan For Change” launched on 5 December 2024, the government pledged to deliver “higher living standards in every part of the United Kingdom by the end of the Parliament”.
It said it will measure “headline progress” against this pledge through “higher Real Household Disposable Income per person and GDP per capita” by the end of the parliament, and that it will also track GDP per capita at a regional level.
Real Household Disposable Income (RHDI) per person is a commonly used measure of living standards—it has risen in every parliamentary term since records began in 1950, but saw the weakest overall growth during the previous parliament.
GDP per capita refers to the size of a country’s economy divided by its population. According to the Resolution Foundation, the UK’s GDP per capita has risen in every parliamentary term since 1955 except for the 2005-2010 and 2019-2024 parliaments (which coincided with the financial crisis and the pandemic respectively, both of which significantly impacted the UK economy). GDP per capita growth across all regions of the UK, however, has only been achieved “in three of the last six parliaments”.
The government has only specified that these measures must be higher at the end of the current parliament (set to be the 2029/2030 financial year)—it has not set a numerical target.
This pledge was published on 5 December 2024, however based on documents published alongside its Spring Statement in 2025, it appears to be measuring progress between Q3 2024 and Q2 2029. We’ve asked the government in March 2025 and again in March 2026 to confirm the exact baseline figure against which this commitment will be measured, but at the time of writing have not received clarity. As such, we will use Q3 2024 (Labour’s first quarter in government) as the baseline.
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What progress has been made?
We’re rating this pledge as “appears off track” as although GDP per head has increased since Labour took office, RHDI per head has decreased.
RHDI per head is estimated to have decreased by 0.8% in Q3 2025, compared to the previous quarter, after no change in Q2 2025 and a decrease of 0.9% in Q1 2025 (the first quarter after Labour made the pledge). It increased by 1.1% in Q4 2024 and by 2% in Q3 2024.
Regional GDP per capita data is published with a two-year lag, so we don’t expect to have relevant data for this measure for some time.