Liberal Democrats’ manifesto pledges a Fair Deal (long read)

The Lib Dems have published their manifesto for the 4 July general election. Key policies are more money for the NHS and adult social care, fairer treatment of carers and WASPI women. Among other policies are increased insulation, net zero homes and increased defence and international development spending. Free school meals will be extended, maternity and paternity leave extended and pay increased.

Of course, the Lib Dems are not going to form the next government. But on current projections, the Lib Dems are likely to have sufficient MPs to influence government policy and secure at least some of the change this country desperately needs. We are within sight of two Lib Dem MPs representing Shropshire. Helen Morgan is well established local champion in North Shropshire. Matthew Green is polling well in South Shropshire. Alex Wagner is standing in Shrewsbury. I hope you will support them with your vote.

For a Fair Deal

Every vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote to elect a strong local champion who will fight for a fair deal for you and your community. A fair deal where everyone can afford a decent home somewhere safe and clean – with a comfortable retirement when the time comes. A fair deal where every child can go to a good school and have real opportunities to fulfil their potential. A fair deal where everyone can get the high-quality healthcare they need, when they need it and where they need it.

The Economy

Everyone deserves the chance to get on in life, be properly rewarded and realise their hopes for the future. Businesses and entrepreneurs should be supported to create jobs in every part of the UK. More details under other headings.

Jobs and Employment

We aim to make Britain one of the most attractive places in the world for businesses to invest. Only in partnership with responsible, sustainable businesses can we tackle the cost-of-living and climate crises, and create the wealth to invest in healthcare, education and other essential public services.

• Develop an industrial strategy and boost productivity.
• Bring down trade barriers.
• Invest in education and training and increase apprenticeships and career advice for young people.
• Use technology and new ways of working to help parents, carers and disabled people to enter the job market.
• Boost small businesses to create new local jobs.
• Replace business rates with a Commercial Landowner Levy to help high streets.
• Introduce a duty of care for the environment and human rights in business operations and supply chains.

Climate change

Climate change is an existential threat. Urgent action is needed to achieve net zero and avert catastrophe.

• Ten-year emergency upgrade programme for homes, starting with free insulation and heat pumps for those on low incomes
• All new homes to be zero-carbon.
• More incentives for households to install solar panels and a guaranteed fair price for electricity sold back into the grid.
• Invest in renewable power so that 90% of the UK’s electricity is generated from renewables by 2030.
• Appoint a Chief Secretary for Sustainability in the Treasury to ensure that the economy is sustainable, resource-efficient and zero-carbon.
• Establish a new Net Zero Delivery Authority.
• More powers and resources to local councils for local net zero strategies.
• National and local citizens’ assemblies to give people real involvement in the decisions needed to tackle climate change.

Health

Universal high-quality healthcare, free at the point of use and accessible wherever and whenever it’s needed is essential for both individual freedom and national prosperity.

• The right to see a GP within seven days, or within 24 hours if urgent.
• 8,000 more GPs.
• Guaranteed access to an NHS dentist for everyone needing urgent care.
• Establish mental health hubs for young people in every community and regular mental health check-ups.
• Guarantee all patients start treatment for cancer within 62 days from urgent referral.
• Help people have five more years of life in good health by investing in public health.

Care

Liberal Democrats want everyone to be able to live independently and with dignity and receive any care they need in their own home wherever possible.

• Free personal care based on need, not ability to pay.
• A social care workforce plan
• A Royal College of Care Workers
• A higher carer’s Minimum Wage.
• A cross-party commission to forge a long-term agreement on sustainable funding for social care.
• Paid carer’s leave and a statutory guarantee of regular respite breaks.
• A digital strategy to enable care users to live tech-enabled lives.
• Active ageing programmes and trips and falls assessments for over 75s.

Education

Education is the best investment we can make in our children’s potential and our country’s future.

• Mental health professional in every primary and secondary school, funded by increasing the Digital Services Tax on social media firms and other tech giants.
• Increase school and college funding per pupil above the rate of inflation every year.
• Invest in new school and college buildings and clearing the backlog of repairs.
• A ‘Tutoring Guarantee’ for every disadvantaged pupil who needs extra support.
• High-quality early years education.
• Give disadvantaged children aged three and four an extra five free hours a week.
• Triple the Early Years Pupil Premium to £1,000 a year.
• Reinstate university maintenance grants for disadvantaged students.
• Give all adults £5,000 to spend on education and training throughout their lives and aim to increase to £10,000.

Families, Children and Young People

Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the opportunity to flourish. Families come in all shapes and sizes and parents should have the support and flexibility to juggle work with parenting as they see fit.

• Extend free school meals to all children in poverty and to all primary school children when the public finances allow.
• A Cabinet Minister for Children and Young People.
• Double Statutory Maternity and Shared Parental Pay to £350 a week and an extra use-it-or-lose-it month for fathers and partners, paid at 90% of earnings.
• Expand opportunities for young people to study, teach and volunteer abroad by returning to the Erasmus Plus programme as an associated country.

Pensions and Safety Net

Liberal Democrats believe that no one should fear for their future, struggle to put food on the table, or worry about heating their home.

• Tackle child poverty by removing the two-child limit and the benefit cap.
• End deep poverty within a decade.
• Independent commission to advise on increases in Universal Credit to cover living costs.
• Protect the triple lock. Pensions will always rise in line with inflation, wages or 2.5% – whichever is highest.
• Ensure that women born in the 1950s (WASPI) are finally compensated.
• Increase Carer’s Allowance, expand it to more carers and stop pursuing old overpayments.

Crime and Policing

Liberal Democrats will prevent crime and build communities where people can truly feel safe:

• Proper community policing, with trusted officers focused on preventing and solving crimes – especially rape and other violent crime.
• Statutory guarantee that police will be attend burglaries and investigate.
• Invest in the criminal justice system to tackle the backlog of court cases and ensure swift justice.
• Break the cycle of reoffending by improving rehabilitation in prisons and strengthen the supervision of offenders in the community.
• Ensure survivors of violence against women and girls are properly supported in the criminal justice process.

Natural Environment

Protecting our precious natural environment lies at the heart of the Liberal Democrat approach. Everyone should be able to enjoy open green spaces, clean blue rivers and the beauty of Britain’s coast.

• End the sewage scandal by transforming water companies into public benefit companies.
• Ban bonuses for water bosses until discharges and leaks end.
• Replace Ofwat with a tough new regulator, the Clean Water Authority, with new powers to prevent sewage dumps.
• Set meaningful and binding targets to stop the decline of our natural environment and ‘double nature’ by 2050
• Double the size of the Protected Area Network, the most important wildlife habitat, the abundance of species and woodland cover by 2050.
• Plant at least 60 million trees a year.
• Pass a Clean Air Act enforced by a new Air Quality Agency.
• Strengthen the Office for Environmental Protection.
• More funding for the Environment Agency and Natural England.

Food and Farming

Liberal Democrats will stand up for British farmers and ensure everyone can get affordable, healthy and nutritious food, produced to high welfare and environmental standards.

• Introduce a National Food Strategy.
• Accelerate rollout of Environmental Land Management schemes, with an extra £1 billion a year to support profitable, sustainable and nature-friendly farming.
• Maintain high health, environmental and animal welfare standards in food production and guarantee that all future trade deals will meet them.
• Negotiate comprehensive veterinary and plant health agreements with our European neighbours.
• Support farmers properly in restoring woodland, peatland and waterways, creating new natural flood protections and managing land to encourage species recovery and carbon storage, while producing food for the table.

Housing

Government housebuilding targets are regularly missed and the shortage of affordable and social housing is at crisis point. Newly built homes are often energy inefficient and environmentally unfriendly. Homelessness remains shamefully high.

• Increase building of new homes to 380,000 a year, including 150,000 social homes a year, through new garden cities and community-led development of cities and towns.

• Ban no-fault evictions, make three-year tenancies the default and create a national register of licensed landlords.
• Give local authorities, including National Park Authorities, the powers to end Right to Buy.
• Ending rough sleeping within the next Parliament and immediately scrap the Vagrancy Act.
• Abolish residential leaseholds and cap ground rents to a nominal fee.

Communities and Local Government

The Conservatives have forced councils to do more and more with less and less.

• Tackle the funding crisis facing local authorities, including with multi-year settlements, boost the supply of social housing and forge a long-term, cross-party agreement on social care.
• Give communities more control over the number of second homes and short-term lets in their areas.
• Ensure local authorities have the powers and resources they need to tackle the climate and nature emergencies.
• Ensure that gigabit broadband is available to every home and business, including in rural and remote communities.
• End the top-down reorganisation of councils and the imposition of elected mayors.
• Tackle the alarming rise of antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Transport

By investing in electric vehicles and clean public transport, as well as encouraging walking and cycling, Liberal Democrats will boost the economy, protect the environment and improve public health.

• Rapidly roll out far more charging points, reintroduce the plug-in car grant and require every new car and small van sold from 2030 to be zero-emission.
• Freeze rail fares and simplify ticketing on public transport to ensure regular users are paying fair and affordable prices.
• Extend electrification of Britain’s rail network, improve stations and disabled access, reopen smaller stations and deliver Northern Powerhouse rail.
• Give local authorities more powers to franchise services and simplifying funding so that bus routes can be restored or new routes added, especially in rural areas.
• Transform how people travel by creating new cycling and walking networks with a new nationwide active travel strategy.
• Give more of the roads budget to local councils to maintain existing roads, pavements and cycleways, including repairing potholes.
• Invest in research and development to make the UK the world leader in zero-carbon flight and take steps to reduce demand for flying.

Culture, Media and Sport

We will support the creative and tourism industries across the UK so that businesses can thrive and people everywhere can enjoy the benefits of sports, music and the arts.

• Protect the BBC, S4C, BBC Alba and Channel 4 as independent, publicly owned, public service broadcasters.
• Promote creative skills, address the barriers to finance faced by small businesses and support modern patent, copyright and licensing rules.
• Negotiate free and simple short-term travel arrangements for UK artists to perform in the EU, and European artists to perform in the UK.
• Boost participation in sports and physical activity by investing in leisure centres, swimming pools and other grassroots facilities and supporting community sports clubs.

Immigration and Asylum

Fighting for a fair, effective immigration system that treats everyone with dignity and respect.

• End the Conservatives’ Hostile Environment and invest instead in officers, training and technology to tackle smuggling, trafficking and modern slavery.
• Transfer policymaking for work visas and overseas students from the Home Office to other departments.
• Scrap the Illegal Migration Act and Rwanda scheme, uphold the Refugee Convention and provide safe and legal routes to sanctuary for refugees.
• Tackle asylum backlog by establishing a dedicated unit and speeding up returns of those without a right to stay.
• Lift the ban on asylum seekers working if they have been waiting for a decision for more than three months.
• Work closely with Europol and the French authorities to stop the smuggling and trafficking gangs behind dangerous Channel crossings.

Rights and Equality

Champion the freedom, dignity and wellbeing of every individual and combat all forms of prejudice and discrimination.

• Resist any attempts to weaken or repeal the Human Rights Act.
• Comprehensive Race Equality Strategy to address inequalities, including in education, health, criminal justice and the economy.
• Make misogyny a hate crime.
• Give everyone a new right to flexible working and every disabled person the right to work from home unless there are significant business reasons why it is not possible.
• Respect and defend the rights of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, including trans and non-binary people.
• Ban all forms of conversion therapies and practices.
• Scrap draconian anti-protest laws and halt the use of live facial recognition surveillance by the police and private companies.

Political Reform

Repair the damage that has been done by the constant stream of sleaze.

• Introduce proportional representation by the Single Transferable Vote for electing MPs and local councillors in England.
• Scrap the voter ID scheme and give 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote.
• Hold government ministers to account for corruption and sleaze by enshrining the Ministerial Code in legislation.
• Reform the House of Lords to be democratic.
• Transfer greater powers away from Westminster and Whitehall.
• Introduce a written constitution for a federal United Kingdom with strong voices for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and oppose a second Scottish independence referendum and independence.
• Take big money out of politics by capping donations to political parties.

Defence

With war rage on our continent, it is time for the UK to lead within Europe on security, working closely with our democratic European allies so that we can support Ukraine, and each other, during peace and war.

• Reverse cuts to the Army, with a longer-term ambition of increasing regular troop numbers back to over 100,000.
• Maintain the UK’s support for NATO, increase defence spending in every year of the Parliament, with an ambition to spend at least 2.5% of GDP on defence.
• Secure a fair deal for service personnel and veterans.
• Maintain the UK’s nuclear deterrent with four submarines providing continuous at-sea deterrence, while pursuing multilateral global disarmament.
• Controlling arms exports to countries with poor human rights records.

International

Liberal Democrats are the only party that will fix the UK’s broken relationship with Europe.

• Fix the UK’s broken relationship with Europe, forge a new partnership built on cooperation, not confrontation.
• Work to counter the global rise in authoritarianism by championing the liberal, rules-based international order.
• Stand with the people of Ukraine and provide them with the support they need in the face of Putin’s illegal invasion.
• Return international development spending to 0.7% of national income and re-establish an international development department.
• Advocate an immediate bilateral ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict and promote a two-state solution based on 1967 borders.

Full manifesto.

How will this be funded?

These policies need funding. Money will be raised from:

• Tax on share buybacks: £1.4bn.
• Increased capital gains tax: £5.2bn.
• Triple the digital services tax: £2.1bn.
• Clamp down on tax avoidance: £6bn.
• Windfall tax on oil and gas profits: £2.1bn.
• Sewage tax on water company profits: £260m.
• Reform aviation tax: £3.6bn.
• Private jet flights: £380m.
• End loan charge:  £3.2bn.

Full finance statement.