According to party research, a price cap on branded school uniform items could save families around £300m each year, claiming that such an initiative would “save up to 5 times what the Government says their own plans will achieve.”

Their proposed official plan consists of limiting the amount of money uniform suppliers can ask parents to shell out for costly branded uniform items.

They claim the current proposal by the government to limit the amount items required for school uniforms “misses the mark and will do little to address the serious pressure on the pockets of school families facing an enduring cost of living crisis after a decade of the Conservatives turning up their noses at the thought of fixing the financial problems faced by families up and down the country.”

Munira Wilson, the Lib Dem’s education, children and families spokesperson stated: “Labour’s policy is a halfway house, tying school heads’ hands while still leaving families subject to huge price hikes for fewer school clothes.”

Earlier this year Labour introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that aims to help families save money on school uniforms and introduced a free breakfast club for state primary schools in England.

One of their recommendations was to ban schools from requiring parents to buy more than three branded items as part of the school uniform. The government made clear in the bill that the items should be of low cost but good, long-lasting quality.

Previously, Wilson tabled an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, changing the relevant section to instead read: “The appropriate authority of a relevant school may not require a pupil at the school to have to buy branded items of school uniform for use during a school year which cost more in total to purchase than a specified monetary amount, to be reviewed annually.”

The government claims these new measures to cap the amount of uniform required could collectively save families of primary school students a total of £21 million, while families of secondary school students could save £52 million.

The Lib Dem’s proposal is to have a “notional cap of £75 for branded items per primary school student, which could save families £98 million annually, while capping secondary school uniform costs at £120 could reduce costs by up to £238 million.”

Wilson said: “For years the Conservatives turned their noses up at the thought of fixing the extortionate bills laid at the doors of families as the cost of living rocketed up and up.” 

“The Government’s right to try and address this – but their current approach misses the mark. We need tangible urgent action to protect the pennies in people’s pockets. That’s why the Liberal Democrats are calling for a price cap on uniforms, to properly tackle costs for families as prices continue to spiral across the country.”

A Lib Dem FOI campaign found that there had been nearly 49,000 trolley waits of 24-hours or longer last year. The party claims that only 54 of the 141 NHS Trusts provided full data reports, so this figure is likely much higher.

This is up from only 689 in 2019 and have risen dramatically since the pandemic with 2,839 in 2021 jumping to 30,921 in 2022, 40,735 in 2023 and 48,830 last year.

Pensioners reportedly are impacted the most, with an increase 76-fold the 2019 total from around 441 to 33,000, meaning that the elderly account for almost 70 per cent of long trolley waits.

The FOIs also asked what the longest trolley wait each NHS Trust has recorded in the past year was.

One patient had to wait 235 hours, the equivalent of 10 and a half days before being admitted following a decision being made.

The same trust, the James Paget University Hospitals Trust, also had the longest trolley wait for someone aged 65 or over where one pensioner waited 139 hours or almost six days before being admitted.

Trolley waits are when patients must wait longer for an admission decision because there are no available beds in A&E. The royal College of Emergency Medicine found that patients are twice as likely to die within 30 days if they are made to stay in an emergency department for longer than 12 hours compared to those who are treated quicker.

The Liberal Democrats are calling for a new “Winterproofing NHS Taskforce” made up of experienced NHS “super-heads” who will go into struggling trusts to provide expert advice.

A similar scheme was previously implemented in schools where experienced head teachers were sent to struggling schools to improve pupil performance.

Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson, Helen Morgan MP said: “The least patients deserve is the dignity to be treated in an appropriate area. Not the ramshackled waiting rooms and corridors that far too many have to suffer through for hours. That is why the Government must ensure that this is the last winter crisis anyone will experience and end corridor care by the end of this Parliament.

“The Conservatives’ beyond shameful neglect brought us to this point but the Labour government’s approach of sitting on its hands and hoping it all gets better has not survived contact with reality. Corridor care has become normalised to the point that hospitals are now advertising for specialised nurses to treat patients in hallways.

“This cannot go on any longer. Liberal Democrats are calling for a new Winterproofing taskforce, alongside a team of experienced NHS heads who can go into failing NHS Trusts and bring them up to the standard patients deserve.”

The party want “a ringfenced fund of £1.5 billion over the next four years to build resilience in hospital wards, A&E departments, ambulance services and patient discharging.”

They report: “This would allow integrated care boards and NHS Trusts to plan their budgets more efficiently to prevent winter crises, instead of just receiving emergency funding from the government at the last minute.”