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. 

Although the pledge was published on 5 December 2024, we don’t know for sure what the government is taking as its starting point. We’ve asked the government to confirm the exact baseline figures it will compare against and will update this page if we hear back.

What progress has been made?

For now we’ve rated this pledge as “Wait and see”, as it’s too early to know how disposable income and regional GDP per capita has changed since Labour made this pledge.

The data we do have shows there’s been no improvement to disposable income or GDP per capita since Labour took office, however.

RHDI per head saw no growth in the third quarter of 2024 compared to the previous quarter.

Data for overall GDP per capita shows that in the first three months of Labour’s time in office it decreased by 0.1% compared to the previous quarter. 

Regional GDP per capita data covering this period has not yet been published.