The Labour Party held its 2016 Party Conference in Liverpool, from 25-28 September. The party also used the opportunity to announce that Jeremy Corbyn had once again been elected to the leadership of the party, with 61,8 per cent of the vote – an increased majority.

A number of key speeches have been published online, including:

• Leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn – in which he focused on a programme of “Socialism for the 20th Century”, including increased taxes for businesses and allowing councils to borrow to increase housing supply
• Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell – in which he commited to creating a new Tax Enforcement Unit at HMRC, doubling the number of staff investigating wealthy tax avoiders; shifting the tax burden away from those who earn wages and salaries, to those who hold wealth; and writing an actual Living Wage (upwards of £10/hour) into law
• Shadow Housing Minister, Teresa Pearce – in which she announced that Labour would get rid of Tory “Pay to stay” proposals and suspend “Right to buy” in times of housing shortage
• Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Rachael Maskell – in which she reaffirmed Labour’s commitment to the Circular Economy

A number of events of potential interest also took place at the fringe, including sessions from the Charities Aid Foundation on the role of charities in rebuilding Britain and from ACEVO on whether modern charities are elitist.

The Co-operative Party and Fair Tax Mark also collaborated, hosting an event assessing how the Labour Party could lead on the Fair Tax agenda. Panellists – including Paul Monaghan, Director of Fair Tax Mark, and Meg Hillier MP (Lab/Co-op, Hackney South and Shoreditch) – spoke on the development of the Fair Tax Mark certification and efforts to tackle corporate tax avoidance. They highlighted HMRC’s current inability to deal with the “obfuscation” of tax advisers promoting avoidance and evasion, and the “new economic narrative” of local accountability for global companies. The Fair Tax Mark would be expected to act in the same way as the Fair Trade Mark had already done, promoting businesses that met the higher standard expected of them by the public. Meg Hillier also suggested that a global label would help tackle the global nature of the tax avoidance problem.