Annual Conference
Annual Conference is the sovereign policy-making body of the Labour Party and the work of the National Policy Forum (NPF) is submitted to conference for agreement. The debates at conference are based around policy commission reports and documents.

In addition, topical issues are debated through Contemporary Issues and cover policy issues not covered by the work of the NPF.

National Policy Forum (NPF)
The NPF is one of the key institutions of the Partnership in Power process. It is made up of 194 representatives from all the major stakeholder groups in the party and is responsible for overseeing the policy development work in the party – drawing together the policy consultation documents and overseeing the consultation process to ensure maximum participation by all stakeholders.  Each of the sections of the NPF has its own method of electing NPF representatives.

The NPF meets regularly to discuss in detail documents produced by the policy commissions. It submits various types of documents to conference: consultative, final policy documents, annual reports on the work of the policy commissions and annexes on contemporary issues.

NPF representatives by division:
Constituency Labour parties      55
Regions      22
Trade unions      30
MPs      9
MEPs      6
Peers      2
Government       8
Socialist societies      3
Labour Students      1
Cooperative Party      3
Welsh, Scottish and
Northern Ireland Policy Forums      9
BAME Labour      4
Local government      9
National Executive Committee      33
TOTAL      194

Party members can contact their CLP NPF representatives here

Joint Policy Committee (JPC)
Strategic oversight of policy development is undertaken by the Joint Policy Committee (JPC). Chaired by the Prime Minister, the JPC is made up of members of government, the National Executive Committee (NEC) and the NPF. It provides a link with all sections of the party, steering the NPF’s work and setting priorities and debates.


Policy commissions
Our six policy commissions are responsible for considering policy submissions from all sections of the party and have a responsibility to ensure engagement on topical issues as well as building and maintaining year-round dialogue between the party and government.

For more details see our policy commission pages here.

Party members can keep up to date on the work of the NPF and the policy commissions via ‘Dialogue – The Partnership in Power Newsletter’. New issues are produced periodically and emailed to every CLP for them to circulate to members. Past issues are available to members online here.