The general election will be held sometime in the next 14 months. The party conferences have already taken on the feel of an election campaign. Next, it will be the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer's turn to speak over the heads of the delegates in the hall to address potential voters.

For all of us waiting for clarity on Labour’s programme for the election this ought to be the moment when the detail is discussed and agreed by party members at conference and Labour’s plans for power crystallise into policy commitments.

So far, we have been told what not to expect. The phrase ‘uncosted’ has been used extensively by Rachel Reeves the Shadow Chancellor and others to avoid making policy commitments.

They shocked even the most cynical commentators by dropping an important pledge to tackle poverty by abolishing the two-child limit on universal credit and thereby ending the horrendous rape clause for women claiming for a third child.

Obviously, that decision was not taken by Labour Party members, most of whom would have been horrified. So how is the general election programme drawn up if not by the members?

The Labour Party has a National Policy Forum that takes three or four years to consider policies to influence the next election manifesto and it will be discussed and adopted at this conference.

But the actual manifesto is drawn up much closer to the election in what is called a Clause V meeting chaired by the party leader. Keir Starmer will turn up at that meeting with a draft manifesto and it will be a struggle for alternative policies to be taken on board even if they have been adopted overwhelmingly at previous conferences and were included in the National Policy Forum report.

So, despite the pages of documents, the well thought-out speeches and the many votes at conference, the actual manifesto is in the hands of the leader and not decided by the membership.

What we have learned about Starmer as leader is than he can shrug off previous commitments without a second thought. Even though he won the leadership election in 2020 on a programme of 10 pledges, he hasn’t felt obliged to stand by them and most have been dropped one by one over the past three years.

Pledge number 8 was for radical devolution of power, wealth and opportunity. A federal system of devolved powers – including through regional investment banks and control over regional industrial strategy. Abolition of the House of Lords – replace it with an elected chamber of the regions and nations.

If this pledge goes the way of six out of the seven preceding pledges including common ownership of mail, rail, water and energy then it must have a big question mark beside it.

The document going before the conference in Liverpool has taken on board some of the ideas of Gordon Brown’s Commission on the UK’s Future. At the launch of the report last December, Starmer made a pledge that not only would it be in the manifesto but also that it would be a first-term commitment.

The Policy Forum document states in quite high-flown language that, “Labour is offering change for the whole United Kingdom, and will deliver a new status and louder, prouder voices for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and ensure the regions of England have the right powers and resources to drive growth and champion their areas, in a reformed United Kingdom.”

But will it mean very much in practice?

Proposals include that there will be Scottish representation on national bodies and agencies that will ensure that Scotland’s needs are properly considered. There is an obvious case that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should have reserved places on bodies such as the Competition and Markets Authority which make important decisions affecting the Scottish economy, although recent Tory government legislation has failed to include this.

There is also a proposal that the Scottish Parliament should be able to enter into agreements with international bodies on devolved matters. This would not go so far as to give Scotland a seat at the table during trade negotiations but would permit Scotland to have separate arrangements to enter into agreements with other countries on devolved matters.

A third proposal is to grant members of the Scottish Parliament the same privileges and protections as MPs. This would mean that parliamentary privilege would apply if an MSP named someone in the Scottish Parliament that could be slanderous if said anywhere else. This may be a small change, but one that perhaps could have been used at various times in the past few years.

What is missing from possible new powers is one that has been called for by both the TUC and the STUC and was included in Labour’s manifesto for the Scottish Parliament elections in 2021, is the devolution of Employment Law. The demand is for a minimum floor of employment rights that can be enhanced by the Scottish Parliament but not reduced.

The proposals on the economy are extremely limited, as would be expected from the Labour leadership which clings to a neoliberal financial perspective and would not want to see a more radical Scotland showing that other routes to economic growth are possible. Again, it ignores the Scottish Labour’s call for more borrowing powers for Scotland.

So here in Scotland there are a number of issues of concern. Firstly, who makes policy for Scottish Labour? The Scottish party’s own commitments have been sidelined in the final report of the UK National Policy Forum. If Scottish Labour has any hope of rebuilding support in Scotland it must be on the basis that it makes its own policies and is not overridden by the UK party.

There is a danger that Keir Starmer is making policies that he thinks will appeal to English voters, or more precisely English Tory voters. Unfortunately, in the process, he is in danger of alienating voters who are looking for a change from the Tories, not just a change of faces, but a change of policies.

If he hopes to win seats from the SNP, he will have to have a better offer. The current polling shows Labour and SNP neck and neck with each receiving 35% support at a general election. But the polls also show that voters remain split down the middle on independence. If Scottish Labour cannot offer an alternative vision for Scotland based on a fair distribution of wealth and power, it will struggle to regain support.

The second concern that voters may have is whether they can trust the Labour leader in London to stick to his pledges. He and his team may call themselves ‘pragmatic’ but to others it looks like he lacks principles that should underpin his politics. If that is the case, then nothing agreed at this conference can be relied upon to be delivered.

Pauline Bryan, a Scottish writer and socialist campaigner, was nominated for a life peerage by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn