Labour Party’s manifesto – top 20 pledges
Labour Party’s manifesto – top 20 pledges
Gordon Brown launched the Labour Party’s General Election manifesto today – here are the top 20 points it pledges.
:: Secure the recovery by supporting the economy and halving the deficit by 2014 through growth, honest taxes and cuts to lower priority spending.
:: Will not raise basic, higher and new top rates of tax in the next Parliament.
:: No extension of VAT on food, children’s clothes, books, newspapers and public transport fares.
:: Realise stakes in publicly-controlled banks, introduce a global levy and reform banking rules.
:: Make UK Finance for Growth, bringing £4 billion together to provide capital for growing businesses.
:: Up to 70,000 advanced apprenticeships a year and Skills Accounts for workers to upgrade their skills.
:: Make one million skilled jobs and modernise infrastructure with high speed rail, a green investment bank and broadband access for all.
:: No stamp duty for first-time buyers on all house buys below £250,000 for two years, paid for by a 5% rate on homes worth more than £1 million.
:: Require a super-majority of two-thirds of shareholders in corporate takeovers.
:: Job or training place for young people out of work for six months but benefits cut at ten months if they refuse a place. Guarantee of work for anyone unemployed for more than two years.
:: National Minimum Wage to rise in line with average earnings.
:: Ensure excellence is spread across public services with 1,000 schools to become part of high standard accredited schools groups, every hospital a Foundation Trust and underperforming police forces or borough commanders replaced or taken over.
:: Right to recall MPs, referendum on the alternative vote for the Commons, referendum on a democratic second chamber, free vote in Parliament on reducing the voting age to 16.
:: Help for parents to balance work and family life, with a “Father’s Month” of flexible paid leave.
:: A new Toddler Tax Credit of £4 a week from 2012 to all parents of young children.
:: National Care Service to ensure free care in the home for those with the greatest care needs, cap on the costs of residential care.
:: Re-establish the link between the Basic State Pension and earnings from 2012.
:: An expansion of free nursery places for two-year-olds and 15 hours a week of flexible, free nursery education for three and four-year-olds.
:: Give parents the power to bring in new school leadership teams, through mergers and takeovers, with up to 1,000 secondary schools part of an accredited schools group by 2015.
:: Every young person guaranteed education or training until 18, with 75% going on to higher education, or completing an advanced apprenticeship or technician level training, by the age of 30.
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Clegg vows to curb ‘unfair’ charges
Clegg vows to curb ‘unfair’ charges
The Liberal Democrats are to pledge to stop banks charging excessive penalties for customers going over their overdraft limit.
The party’s manifesto for consumers will also contain measures to limit charges for bouncing a cheque and cap the interest rates on credit cards.
Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats will vow to curb ‘unfair’ bank charges
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said banks should not be allowed to “profiteer” from people making small mistakes. The go follows a legal victory for the banks last year which prevented the Office of Honest Trading investigating their overdraft charges.
Launching the policy Mr Clegg said the banks had a “moral obligation” to repay the money.
He said: “A Liberal Democrat government will legislate to ensure that no bank can charge its customers unfairly for going over their limit or bouncing a cheque.
“Banks should, of course, be able to pass on the costs they incur in dealing with these problems. But they should not be able to profiteer from customers making small mistakes. We will outlaw unfair charges from now on.
“Bank bosses should look to their consciences and give back the money they took from their customers in unfair charges. It can’t be right that someone who buys just a few items can end up being charged hundreds of pounds in unfair fees. I believe bank bosses have a moral obligation to pay that money back.
“If they had a shred of moral decency, they would never have imposed these charges and they would never have refused to pay them back.
“Together Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC and RBS have given out more than £7 billion in bonuses in the last year alone. How can they refuse to return a few hundred pounds they wrongly took from people struggling to make ends meet from week to week?”
Mr Clegg will be back on the road, launching his party’s campaign in Wales with a visit to Cardiff. He will then head to Birmingham and Leeds before ending the day in his Sheffield constituency.
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Rivals pressure Tories over tax
Rivals pressure Tories over tax
Rival economic policies continued to dominate pre-election political clashes after some of the country’s leading businessmen endorsed Conservative plans to halt plotted National Insurance rises.
Tory leader David Cameron hailed a letter of support from the bosses of several household name firms and the backing of major business organisations as a “significant moment” in the campaign.
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson and Chancellor Alistair Darling
But Labour suggested the plans could only be afforded if VAT was raised after the election instead, publishing a dossier setting out £22 billion worth of Tory policy promises it said were uncosted.
Mr Cameron’s party claims it can pay to halt the bulk of NI increases for employers and staff due to come into force in April next year by cutting £6 billion of “waste” from Whitehall budgets.
Senior cabinet ministers ridiculed such efficiency savings as “illusory” – and angered some of the businessmen involved by accusing them of being fooled by “flimsy advice” and a Tory “deception”.
Several hit back, insisting the plotted hike would be a “tax on jobs” that would hurt the economic recovery and accused Business Secretary Lord Mandelson of being “patronising” in his criticism.
Their stance was backed by business groups including the British Chambers of Commerce, British Retail Consortium and Confederation of British Industry who said the plot to axe some of the NI rise deserved “some credit”.
Hailing their intervention, Mr Cameron said: “They are saying there is no threat to the recovery from cutting waste in 2010 but there is a threat to the recovery from putting up National Insurance contributions.”
But Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said: “Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne are peddling a deception on businesses up and down the country and on the British people, and it’s one that they are aware of. The truth is that this is a cynical deception.”
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg branded the Tories “the party of amusing money and sums which don’t add up”.
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