Taking Lib Dem policies into Government

The policy agreement for the new Government is full of Liberal Democrat policies. It is a real chance to put into action the ideas that we have campaigned for.

A Fair Start for Children

  • Introduce a Pupil Premium to give all children a fair start.

Fairer taxes and Economic Reform

  • A substantial increase in the personal allowance from April 2011 with a longer term policy objective of further increasing the personal allowance to £10,000, making further real terms steps each year towards this objective
  • Reform of the banking system, ensuring a flow of lending to businesses and a Banking Levy. An independent commission on separating retail and investment banking.
  • Capital Gains Tax reform

Fair Politics

  • Fixed-term parliaments and a referendum on electoral reform for the House of Commons.
  • A power of recall, allowing voters to force a by-election where an MP was found to have engaged in serious wrongdoing.
  • A wholly or mainly elected House of Lords on the basis of proportional representation.
  • Giving Parliament control of its own agenda so that all bills are properly debated.
  • Enacting the Calman Commission proposals and a referendum on further Welsh devolution.
  • A statutory register of lobbyists.
  • A limit on political donations and reform of party funding in order to remove big money from politics.
  • Radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups.

A fair and sustainable future

  • Establish a smart electricity grid and the roll-out of smart meters.
  • Establish feed-in tariff systems in electricity
  • A huge increase in energy from waste through anaerobic digestion.
  • The creation of a green investment bank.
  • The provision of home energy improvement paid for by the savings from lower energy bills.
  • Retention of energy performance certificates when HIPs are scrapped.
  • Measures to encourage marine energy.
  • The establishment of an emissions performance standard that will prevent coal-fired power stations being built unless they are equipped with sufficient CCS to meet the emissions performance standard.
  • Establish a high-speed rail network.
  • Cancel the third runway at Heathrow and refuse additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted.
  • Replace the Air Passenger Duty with a ‘per plane’ duty.
  • The provision of a floor price for carbon, as well as efforts to persuade the EU to move towards full auctioning of ETS permits.
  • Make the import or possession of illegal timber a criminal offence.
  • Promote green spaces and wildlife corridors in order to halt the loss of habitats and restore biodiversity.
  • Reduce central government carbon emissions by 10 per cent within 12 months.
  • Increase the target for energy from renewable sources.

Pensions

  • Restoration of the earnings link for the basic state pension from April 2011 with a “triple guarantee” that pensions are raised by the higher of earnings, prices or 2.5%.
  • Phase out the default retirement age and end the rules requiring compulsory annuitisation at 75.
  • Implement the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman’s recommendation to make fair and transparent payments to Equitable Life policyholders.

Civil Liberties

  • Scrap the ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the ContactPoint Database.
  • Outlaw the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.
  • Extend the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.
  • Adopt the Scottish approach to stopping retention of innocent people’s DNA on the DNA database.
  • Defend trial by jury.
  • Restore rights to non-violent protest.
  • A review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech.
  • Safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.
  • Further regulation of CCTV.
  • Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason.
  • A new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.
  • End the detention of children for immigration purposes.

For the full text of the Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition negotiations agreements, click here

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