Features
#GE2015: Most popular policies from Vote for Policies (Part one)
On Wednesday at 1800 we will publish the People’s Manifesto 2015. This will be based on the hundreds of thousands of you who have used the Vote for Policies survey to find which party’s policies most aligns your views and beliefs. To see 2010’s People’s Manifesto click here.
This is the state of play as of midday on Friday. Today we deal with the top five policy areas of Health/NHS, Education, Economy, Welfare and Immigration. Tomorrow we’ll look at the next five policy areas of Environment, Crime, Democracy, Europe and Foreign Policy/Defence.
Health/NHS, Labour
1. Invest an extra £2.5 billion to recruit 8,000 more GPs, 20,000 more nurses and 3,000 more midwives.
2. Guarantee GP appointments within 48 hours and cancer tests within one week.
3. Join up services from home to hospital, with a single point of contact for all who need it.
4. Give mental health the same priority as physical health, with a new right to access talking therapies.
5. Repeal the Government’s privatisation plans, cap profits and put the right values back at the heart of the NHS.
6. End time limited 15 minute social care visits and recruit 5,000 new homecare workers to support people in their home.
Education, Liberal Democrats
1. Invest every penny we can in education from cradle to college – nursery, school, apprenticeships and college – so all our children get the chance to live out their full potential.
2. Aim to make 20 hours of free childcare a week available for all parents with children aged from 2 to 4, and all working parents from the end of paid maternity leave (9 months) to 2 years by 2020.
3. Introduce a Parent Guarantee that all teachers in state funded schools will be fully qualified or working towards Qualified Teacher Status and a minimum curriculum entitlement with a slimmed down core national curriculum, which will be taught in all state funded schools. This will include a ‘curriculum for life’ including financial literacy, first aid and emergency lifesaving skills, citizenship and age appropriate sex and relationship education.
4. Rule out profitmaking schools, and only fund new mainstream schools in areas where school places are needed.
5. Extend free school meals to all children in primary education, as resources allow and after a full evaluation of free meals for infants, while ensuring that school food standards apply to all schools, including academies.
6. A two thirds discount bus pass for young people 1621 so they can afford to get to college and work.
7. Develop the skilled workforce needed to support growth with major expansions of high-quality and advanced apprenticeships, offering vocational education on par with academic qualification backed up with new sector led National Colleges.
8. Expect all universities to support the national goal of widening participation across the sector. This will include running summer schools and setting up mentoring programmes between students/alumni and school pupils.
Economy, Labour
1. Cut the deficit every year and balance the books as soon as possible in the next Parliament.
2. Reverse the 50p tax cut so that the top one per cent pay a little more to help get the deficit down.
3. Not increase the basic or higher rates of Income Tax, National Insurance or VAT.
4. Cut and then freeze business rates and maintain the most competitive corporate tax rates in the G7.
5. Abolish non domicile status.
6. Increase the National Minimum Wage to more than £8 an hour by October 2019 and introduce Make Work Pay contracts to provide tax rebates to firms becoming Living Wage employers.
7. Ban exploitative zero hours contracts.
8. Guarantee an apprenticeship for every school leaver who attains the grades and require any firm that gets a large government contract to offer apprenticeships.
Welfare, Labour
1. Extend free childcare from 15 to 25 hours for working parents of three and four year-olds, and ensure all primary schools guarantee access to wraparound childcare from 8am to 6pm.
2. Double paternity leave from two to four weeks and increase paternity pay by more than £100 a week.
3. Ensure at least 200,000 new homes a year are built by 2020, with first priority for local first time buyers.
4. Provide security for renters by guaranteeing three-year tenancies with a ceiling on excessive rent rises.
5. Introduce a compulsory jobs guarantee, paid for by a Bank Bonus Tax.
6. Abolish the Bedroom Tax.
7. Make it illegal for employers to undercut wages by exploiting workers.
Immigration, Labour
1. Recruit an additional 1,000 borders staff, paid for by a small charge on nonvisual visitors to the UK.
2. Introduce stronger controls to prevent those who have committed serious crimes coming to Britain, and to deport those who commit crimes while they are here.
3. Introduce full exit checks, so that we can count people in and out of the country.
4. Tighten the system to prevent abuse [of shortterm student visitor visas], whilst welcoming overseas university students who bring billions into Britain.
5. Keep the cap on workers from outside the EU.
6. Introduce a new law to stop employers undercutting wages by exploiting workers.
7. Ban recruitment agencies from hiring only from overseas and crack down on rogue agencies by extending the remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority where there is evidence of abuse.
8. Ensure migrants will not be able to claim benefits until they have lived here for at least two years.
You can still see which party’s policies most matches your own views by using the Vote for Policies survey here, or see your local Vote for Policies results here.
To see the how parties are doing by policy across the country take a look here.
To see the newly released Guide to Sustainable Democracy, click here.
Photo: Martin Bamford via Flickr
Further reading:
General election: attention given to sustainability in campaigns criticised