Libdem abriged manifesto 2019

Europe:

·         revoke Article 50 and stay in the EU (p11)

·         fight for a people’s vote with the option to stay in the EU

Budget:

·         Investing £130 billion in infrastructure

·         Raising £7 billion a year in additional revenue by putting 1p on Income Tax, with this money to be ring-fenced for spending on the NHS and social care.

·         Introducing a wellbeing budget and basing decisions for government spending on what will improve wellbeing as well as on economic

·         Introduce a capital £50 billion Regional Rebalancing program

·         a Just Transition Fund

·         champion investment in the Northern Powerhouse

·         Work with the major banks to fund the creation of a local banking sector dedicated to meeting the needs of local small and medium-sized businesses.

·         Expand the British Business Bank to perform a more central role in the economy, to ensure that viable small and medium-sized businesses have access to capital

·         increase borrowing P17)

·          For a new Green Investment Bank, using public money to attract private investment for zero-carbon priorities.

·         Increase national spending on research and development to three per cent of GDP

·         Introduce a compulsory levy on gambling companies

·         Spending 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income on aid:

·         spending two per cent of GDP on defense

Housing & Environment

·         New direct spending on housebuilding to help build 300,000 homes a year by 2024, including 100,000 social homes.

·         Provide an additional £12 billion over five years for green commitment

·         scrapping the rule which allows developers to convert offices and shops into residential properties without planning permission

·         insulate all Britain’s homes by 2030

·         Require all companies registered in the UK and listed on UK stock exchanges to set targets consistent with the Paris Agreement on climate change and to report on their implementation

·         Make finical institutions portfolio investments are consistent with the Paris Agreement, and creating new powers for regulators to act if banks and other investors are not managing climate risks properly

·         Establish a Department for Climate Change and Natural Resources

·         Create a statutory duty on all local authorities to produce a Zero Carbon Strategy

·         converting the rail network to ultra-low-emission technology (electric or hydrogen) by 2035

·         Ban fracking

·         providing free retrofits for low-income homes

·         Require all new homes and non-domestic buildings to be built to a zero-carbon standard

·         End support from UK Export Finance for fossil fuel-related activities

·         Banning non-recyclable single-use plastics

·         end plastic waste exports by 2030

·         Establishing a statutory waste recycling target of 70 per cent in England

·          Establish a £5 billion fund for food prevention and climate adaptation over the course of the parliament

Transport:

·         Pass a Clean Air Act, based on World Health Organization guidelines

·         Extend Ultra-Low Emission Zones to ten more towns and cities in England

·         ensure that all private hire vehicles and new buses licensed to operate in urban areas are ultra-low-emission or zero-emission vehicles by 2025 [2 billion to help]

·         Reduce the climate impact of flying by reforming the taxation of international flights to focus on those who fly the most, while reducing costs for those who take one or two international return fights per year

·         placing a moratorium on the development of new runways (net) in the UK

·         ensuring that all new cars are electric by 2030

·         introducing a zero-carbon fuels blending requirement for domestic fights

·         provide £4.5 billion to Restore bus routes and add new routes where there is local need;

·         Freeze rail fares for commuters and season ticket holders for a parliament

·         Extend Britain’s rail network

·         Convert the rail network to ultra-low-emission technology (electric or hydrogen) by 2035

·         Create a new Railways Agency to oversee the operations of the railway network

Business/Employment rights:

·         Reform building standards to ensure that all new homes built from 2022 have full connectivity to ultra-fast broadband

·         Priorities small and medium-sized businesses in the rollout of hyper-fast 21 broadband

·         Introduce a general duty of care for the environment

·         human rights for all organizations s to exercise due diligence in avoiding specified activities such as child labor or modern slavery, or specified products such as commodities produced with deforestation

·         all large companies have a formal statement of corporate purpose, including considerations such as employee welfare, environmental standards, community benefit and ethical practice

·         Require binding and public votes of shareholders on executive pay policies.

·         Extend the scope of the existing ‘public interest’ test when considering approvals for takeovers of large or strategically significant companies by overseas-based owners

·         UK-listed companies and all private companies with more than 250 employees to have at least one employee representative on their boards with the same legal duties and responsibilities as other directors

·         Require all government agencies and contractors and companies with more than 250 employees to sign up to the prompt payment code, making it enforceable

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Tax & Employment:

·         Restore Corporation Tax to 20 per cent

·         taxing capital gains and salaries through a single allowance

·         Commercial Landowner Levy based solely on the land value of commercial sites

·         Scrap the Marriage Tax Allowance

·         claim R&D tax credits against the cost of purchasing datasets and cloud computing,

·         pay [our new]Living Wage in all central government departments and their agencies

·         offering parental leave and pay to the self-employed

·         Establish a powerful new Worker Protection Enforcement Authority to protect those in precarious work

·         Establish a powerful new Worker Protection Enforcement Authority to protect those in precarious work

·         Setting a 20 per cent higher minimum wage for people on zero-hour contracts

·         Increase statutory paternity leave from the current two weeks up to six weeks

Crime & Immigration

·         save EU freedom of movement

·         Abolish the income requirement for spouse and partner visas

·         resettling 10,000 vulnerable refugees each year and an additional 10,000 unaccompanied refugee children from elsewhere in Europe

·         Move asylum policymaking from the Home Office to the Department for International Development

·         Introduce stronger penalties for animal cruelty offences

·         Ban the sale of real fur

·         ban on caged hens

·          Invest £1 billion to restore community policing

·         Divert people arrested for possession of drugs for personal use into treatment, and imposing civil penalties rather than imprisonment.

·         ending prison sentences for the possession of drugs for personal use

·         introducing a legal, regulated market for cannabis

·         a new two-year visa for students to work after graduation

·         enabling industry bodies to sponsor work visas

·         Improving the Digital Sales Tax to ensure tech giants pay their fair share

·         Provide a £500m ring-fenced youth services fund to local authorities

·         two per cent pay-rise for police officers

·         Create a new Online Crime Agency

·         Giving local authorities the duty and funding to provide accommodation and support for survivors of abuse

·         Establishing a national rape crisis helpline

·         Replace Police and Crime Commissioners with accountable Police Boards made up of local councilors

·         recruiting 2,000 more prison officers

·         introducing a presumption against short prison

·         ending indefinite detention for suspected illegal immigrants  - introduce a 28-day time limit on detention

·         scrapping the current hostile environment

·         Giving asylum seekers the right to work three months after they have applied

·         invest £500 million to restore Legal Aid

·         Immediately halt the use of facial recognition surveillance by the police

·         close seven of the UK’s nine detention centers

·         Provide free basic English lessons to refugees and asylum seekers

·         Provide public health services, including maternity services, to people from the moment they arrive in the UK

Heath & Social care:

Universal access to addiction treatment [possible just for alcoholics]

Also use £10 billion of our capital fund to fund care and hospitals

Commission the development of a dedicated, progressive Health and Care Tax

The intention is to bring together spending on NHS and social care into a collective budget

Make prescriptions for people with chronic mental health conditions available for free on the NHS

Ensure that no one in mental crisis is turned away

Fully introduce Sir Stephen Bubb’s ‘Time for Change’ report recommendations & implement Transforming Care closure program

Establish a Student Mental Health Charter which will require all universities and colleges to ensure a good level of mental health provisions

Develop a scheme to reward employers who invest in the mental wellbeing of their employees, piloting reduced business rates for employers who support employees’ mental wellbeing and provide mental health first aid training to staff.

End the GP shortfall by 2025

Target extra help for nursing students, starting with bursaries for specialties where shortages are most acute

Introduce a statutory guarantee of regular respite breaks for unpaid careers

Raise the amount people can earn before losing their Career’s Allowance from £123 to £150 a week

Restricting the marketing of junk food to children

Guarantee that every child who is eligible for free school meals has access to at least an hour a day of free activities to improve their health and wellbeing

Reduce smoking rates by introducing a new levy on tobacco companies

Introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol

Childcare/ Education

·         New Skills Wallets worth £10,000 for every individual.

·         Providing free, high-quality childcare for children of working parents from nine months

·         employing an extra 20,000 schoolteachers

·         scrapping mandatory SATs

·         tripling the Early Years Pupil Premium

·         Free  childcare for every child aged two to four and children aged between nine and 24 months where their parents or guardians are in work: 35 hours a week, 48 weeks a year.

·         Invest £1 billion a year in Children’s Centers

·         Replace Ofsted with a new HM Inspector of Schools

·         abolishing the English Baccalaureate

·         Create a level playing fled by requiring academies to undergo external inspection

·         Oppose any future expansion of grammar schools

·         Raise the starting salary for teachers to £30,000 and increase all teachers’ pay by at least three per cent per year throughout the parliament

·         Extend free school meals to all children in primary education

·         Free school lunches to all secondary school children whose families receive Universal Credit

·         Give schools a statutory duty to promote the wellbeing of their pupils as part of the inspection framework.

·         Require inclusive school uniform policies that are gender-neutral and flexible enough to suit different budgets

·         Invest an extra £1 billion in Further Education funding, including by refunding colleges for the VAT they pay.

·         Reinstate maintenance grants for the poorest students

Mic

·         Introducing a kite mark for companies that meet the highest ethical standards in their development of new technologies

·         maintain Channel 4 in public ownership

·         planting 60 million trees a year

·         Ban the use of credit cards for gambling.

·         Restrict gambling advertising.

·         Set up a £2 billion Rural Services Fund

·         Introduce an ‘X’ gender option on passports

·         recruiting STEM graduates to be armed forces engineers, providing ‘golden handshakes’ of up to £10,000

·         Maintain a minimum nuclear deterrent,

Welfare / social housing:

·         ending rough sleeping and bringing in a new legal right to food

·         Reducing the wait for the first welfare payment from five weeks to five days

·         removing the two-child limit and the benefits cap

·         Increase Local Housing Allowance in line with average rents in an area

·         Abolish the bedroom tax

·         End Work Capability Assessments and replace them with a new system that is run by local authorities and based on real-world tests

·         Retain the Triple Lock on the basic state pension

·         Devolve full control of Right to Buy to local councils

·         new Rent to Own model for social housing where rent payments give tenants an increasing stake in the property, owning it outright after 30 years

·         Allow local authorities to increase council tax by up to 500 per cent where homes are being bought as second homes

·         stamp duty surcharge on overseas residents purchasing 2^nd homes

·         provide government-backed tenancy deposit loans for all first-time renters under 30

·         mandatory land lord licensing

·         Introduce a ‘somewhere safe to stay’ legal duty to ensure that everyone who is at risk of sleeping rough is provided with emergency accommodation and an assessment of their needs

·         Scrap the Vagrancy Act

Government / Constitutional:

·         Creating a Department of Digital, Culture, Media, Sport and Tourism, with a designated Minister of State for Tourism

·         Giving the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation the power to ‘call in’ products that appear to breach this Code

·         Appoint a Minister for Wellbeing

·         Introduce wellbeing impact assessments for all government policies

·         Voting age set to 16

·         Introducing a written constitution for a federal United Kingdom

·         giving power to communities to hold local services to account and decide how their taxes are raised and spent

·         Mandate the provision of televised leaders’ debates in general elections, based on rules produced by Ofcom

·         introducing a policy of ‘presumption of denial’ for arms exports to countries listed as Human Rights Priority Countries

·         Legislate to ensure there is a parliamentary vote before engaging in military action

·         Officially recognize the independent state of Palestine

·         Liberal Democrats will extend these rights to all EU citizens ([vote, in referendums and general and EU elections and stand for office]) who have lived in the UK for five years or longer

·         legal requirement for councils to inform citizens of the steps they must take to be successfully registered and making the necessary changes to ensure that the UK has an automatic system of inclusion in elections

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