Well, we have certainly entered a new era for British politics and I am delighted to see that Liberal Democrat policies will shape Britain for good.
The new Government has pledged to enact key Liberal Democrat promises:
- Fairer taxes, with an increase in the income tax threshold to benefit those on lower and middle incomes
- A fairer start for children, securing extra funding for smaller class sizes and one-to-one tuition
- A fairer politics, with the chance to sack your MP, an elected House of Lords, a limit on donations and a register of lobbyists
- A fair and sustainable economy, with a bank levy, a green investment bank, and robust action to tackle unacceptable bonuses
I campaigned in the election for key Liberal Democrat policies, for fairer taxes, a new economy, a fair start for children and a new politics and as my party enters Government we are already seeing those promises realised.
The Liberal Democrats in Government will ensure the pledges I made to the people of Mitcham and Morden can become a reality.
We have an amazing opportunity for a new kind of Government, working together and delivering policies we have been campaigning on for years.
The coalition agreement between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives included agreement on the following:
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.
