Today we are launching our pre-manifesto. It sets out the direction of the policies which will take us into the next General Election.
For those who are increasingly attracted by a Liberal Democrat outlook and the stance we have adopted in this Parliament – this will underscore our vision for what we would do if elected to Government.
After the last election, it was clear to me that it was time for a fresh look at our approach to Government.
In 2001, the Liberal Democrats had been straight with people.
We said that the years of Conservative cuts in public services had to be reversed.
We said taxes would have to go up to pay for that.
Labour and the Conservatives disagreed.
But the Chancellor has since raised huge sums through stealth taxes, following the course we had predicted.
We shall continue to be straight with people. But with the money now going into the public services, that argument moves on.
Today, I believe that the Liberal Democrat priority – and the nation’s priority – is on delivery: how that money is being spent. The ‘penny on income tax’ had served us well, but it was time to update it.
It is our view that this overcentralised, bureaucratic, Labour administration is inefficient. It is not giving value for money to the taxpayers.
I believe that a Liberal Democrat Government, with its emphasis on de-centralised power – allowing those who do the job the freedom to operate effectively – would spend those taxes much better.
I started this major policy overhaul with the ‘Huhne commission’ – which looked at the public services. And I asked our spokesmen and policy teams to think boldly.
So this pre-manifesto is the outcome of three years of radical thinking and lively policy debate; and it sets out how a Liberal Democrat government would seek to improve the lives of everyone in Britain.
The values underpinning this document are freedom, fairness, trust.
Freedom is about giving people the opportunity to make choices for themselves.
Fairness is about equal access – a decent health service, a quality education.
And trust – which has become a by-word of this Parliament - is about the two way traffic between Government and citizens. It’s about telling the truth when it counts and trusting people to make decisions as locally as possible.
This pre-manifesto sets out ten key pledges to the electorate.
Some deal with the issues which top the list of people’s key concerns – again and again – putting patients first and freeing doctors and nurses from Whitehall meddling so they can get on with treating people; scrapping tuition and top up fees; 10,000 more police on our streets.
Others focus on the vulnerable in our society – putting investment into children’s early years and moving a million pensioners off bureaucratic and intrusive means-testing – giving them £25 more every week at 75 and providing free personal care for the elderly when they need it.
We will axe the hated council tax and introduce a local income tax based on ability to pay.
Working to restore trust will involve repairing the damage done to the
office of the Prime Minister by the war in Iraq.
And we will take environment seriously. You will find our plans for green action on every page of this document. .
Matthew Taylor will set out more detail about these proposals in a moment, but I want to make one final point.
Every one of these proposals is costed and they are all affordable.
Last year we showed how we would levy a 50% top rate of tax on every pound earned over £100,000. That would affect just 1% of our wealthiest tax payers and raise £4.7 billion which would pay for the abolition of top up and tuition fees, free personal care for the elderly and the transition from the hated council tax to a local income tax.
Our Treasury team has also identified £25 billion of savings that could be made over the course of a Parliament from current government spending which would be re-prioritised to pay for other changes without demanding more from the tax-payer.
Some of these ideas are already working for us. We’ve tried and tested them.
For the first time, we beat Labour into third place in national share of the vote in the local elections.
They worked for us to bring victory in the Brent East by-election;
And in Leicester South;
And they produced a 28% swing to us against the Government in Birmingham Hodge Hill.
They are working for us now in Hartlepool.
And look at our progress in the opinion polls. The latest shows us up 8 points up on the last general election.
British politics is more volatile than it’s been for two decades.
As this Labour government becomes unpopular, increasingly the challengers are not the Conservatives.
The challengers are the Liberal Democrats.
We have a clear agenda for change in Britain.
A clear agenda for delivery.
A clear agenda for freedom and fairness.
A clear agenda for restoring trust in Government.
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