“You voted for all these things, and it is now this government – this people's government – it is now our solemn duty to deliver on each and every one of those commitments.”

Those were the words of Boris Johnson the morning after the Conservative Party’s landslide election win in December 2019. Standing at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in central London, Johnson promised a range of policies on everything from schools to net zero, and vowed to “rise to the challenge and to the level of expectations”.

Johnson’s biggest election pledge was to leave the EU. But alongside ‘Get Brexit Done’, he also promised to Get 40 New Hospitals Done, and made a host of other commitments to improve healthcare, reduce inequality and improve the UK’s infrastructure.

As we approach a 2024 general election in the UK, it is Rishi Sunak, not Boris Johnson, who will be held accountable for any broken promises.

Will the Tories have lived up to their manifesto commitments? We look at some key promises that remain unfulfilled.

Build and fund 40 new hospitals over the next 10 years

The government is likely to fail on this manifesto pledge – even after cutting back its target from 40 to 32 hospitals. A report from the Public Accounts Committee in November found “extreme concerns” over the “lack of progress” and said it was “highly likely” that the pledge won’t be met.

A report from the National Audit Office (NAO) also found that project delays and an aim to complete hospitals at the lowest possible cost were hindering the process. The NAO found that, of the 32 projects announced in 2020, only 11 qualified as “whole new hospitals”. Other definitions of “new hospital” used by the Department for Health and Social Care included “major new buildings at existing sites” and “major refurbishments of existing buildings”.

Target of 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s

The Tories’ 2019 manifesto pledged that the party would “continue” its work towards building 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s. In practice, this likely referred to England only, as housing is devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

In the years 2021-22 and 2022-23, England gained just under 235,000 new homes a year. That figure (called “net additional dwellings”) includes actual new builds (the majority of the total), converting offices and other commercial buildings into homes, and splitting existing houses into multiple flats.

In May 2022, former housing minister Robert Jenrick said: “The government will miss [its] 300,000-homes-a-year manifesto pledge by a country mile.” And last year, the cross-party Levelling Up, Housing and Communities committee said it was “difficult” to see how the government would hit the target of 300,000 after scrapping mandatory housebuilding targets for local councils.

The original pledge was a curious one as the government itself is not primarily responsible for building: that duty largely falls to private developers, local authorities and housing associations. Instead, central government can incentivise new homes being built, and punish councils for failing to greenlight enough applications.

The Tory Party is fighting a war on two fronts when it comes to housebuilding that dates back at least as far as the early 1990s. The wealthier Tory constituencies that form the bedrock of the party’s electoral support are typically resistant to development and want neighbours and councils to have more power to say no to new homes, but the party has taken up to a fifth of its funding from property businesses who want regulation as lax as possible.

What’s more, the difference between homes that are designated for social rent (which directly help bring down housing wait lists) and those that are intended for private sale (which largely don’t) is enormous. Political parties of all colours usually steer clear of talking about social housebuilding, which allows them instead to trumpet the much larger figures of overall housing supply without addressing issues such as landlordism, empty homes, gentrification and homelessness.

In reality, just 9,561 additional social homes were built in England last year. In 2021/22, so many social homes were demolished or sold that England saw a net loss of 14,000 – despite waiting lists topping a million.

Reduce health inequality

Multiple reports have found health inequality is rising in the UK, in part due to the pandemic, and in part due to the chronic underfunding of the NHS.

A 2022 study by the Institute for Public Policy Research found people in the UK were getting “sicker and poorer” and that there was a huge and increasing regional divide in health and wealth.

And a 2020 review by the Institute of Health Equity found that ten years on from a landmark study in health in the UK, “health inequalities have widened overall, and the amount of time people spend in poor health has increased since 2010”. It also found that life expectancies were worse in deprived areas with mortality rates rising for men and women aged 45 to 49.

End rough sleeping

The Tories promised to end the “blight of rough sleeping” by the next election with Johnson claiming he would “work tirelessly” to do so.

They haven’t. Rough sleeping has been rising again since 2021 and is on track to reach 2017 levels. Many of the key policies hoping to tackle this type of homelessness are still in pilot stages.

Ban no-fault evictions

Although the Renters Reform Bill is currently going through Parliament, even if it did become legislation before the next general election, it is unclear when these ‘no-fault’ section 21 evictions will be banned. This is the most common form of eviction.

A report from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) said the ban on section 21 evictions would not be introduced until reforms to the court system have taken place – which could take years.

Reach net zero by 2050

A 2023 progress report from the Climate Change Committee raised concerns about the target, saying there is a “hesitation to commit fully to the key pledges”.

Green Alliance analysis last year found that “the UK remains off track to meet its net zero climate commitment by 2050”.

Sunak has U-tuned on multiple green policies, such as the delay in banning petrol vehicles. He instead unveiled a ‘Plan for Drivers’, saying: “The clamp down on drivers is an attack on the day to day lives of most people across the UK who rely on cars to get to work or see their families.” The plan repeated a conspiracy theory about so-called 15-minute neighbourhoods that the government itself had previously debunked.