The manifesto’s key policy proposals, field by field:

Business & finance

- Talking of ‘activist’ inward investment mechanisms, the manifesto emphasises the role of government
intervention in creating jobs growth. A new UK Finance for Growth fund would combine public cash with
private funds to provide equity to growing businesses; and a regional growth fund would be established
by each of the regional development agencies, with regional ministers given a greater role.
- Increase capital allowances for key sectors such as manufacturing, and introduce tax breaks for revenue
derived from patents.
- Reform regulations to encourage greater private sector investment in national infrastructure. Create a
Green Investment Bank, capitalised using the revenue from asset sales, to invest in low-carbon
infrastructure projects.
- Create a new Council for Financial Stability to monitor and help address future market bubbles at an
earlier stage. The manifesto promises that ‘there will be no return to the excesses of the past’.
- Compel banks to create ‘living wills’ requiring them to hold more capital in reserve in case of financial problems. Partially state-owned banks would be required to meet lending targets, while the government would break up the banks it effectively owns and sell its shares. The government would work towards international agreement on greater bank regulation.

Constitutional reform

- Hold a referendum on far-reaching constitutional reform in October 2011, including the adoption of the
alternative vote system – under which second preferences are counted until one candidate has an absolute majority – for parliamentary elections, and a gradual move towards a fully-elected House of Lords, elected on a proportional representation list system that allocates seats to parties based on their share of the national vote.
- Legislate for fixed-term parliaments, a move that would provide greater planning certainty for the civil
service.
- Create an all-party commission to chart a course to a written constitution.
- Give the public a new right to petition the House of Commons to trigger debates on issues of public
concern.
- Review parliamentary boundaries and examine the rules for constructing parliamentary constituencies.
- Give city regions more powers over transport, skills and economic development, along with greater borrowing flexibilities.
- Grant more tax-raising powers to the Scottish Parliament.

Public services

- Reform health, education and policing to give the public a greater say in their management – in
particular, by giving the public powers to trigger the replacement of underperforming local providers with management teams from neighbouring areas.
- In education, compel councils to secure takeovers of poor schools, expand good schools or undertake new
provision where parents are dissatisfied with the choice of schools in their area. Parents at individual schools would be able to trigger a ballot on whether to bring in a new leadership team from elsewhere.
- Turn all hospitals into foundation trusts, which have greater freedoms from central government control.
Replace the management team at failing hospitals, and allow staff – particularly nurses – to bid to run their own services in the not-for-profit sector.
- In policing, introduce more online crime maps and ‘report cards’ to allow the public to monitor
performance; replace the management of poor-performing forces by bringing in a new senior management team from a neighbouring force.
- Introduce more ‘mutualism’ – essentially, public involvement – in the management of local public
services. Labour would make it easier for co-operatives and mutual societies to run local services, including children’s centres, rail franchises, English Heritage operations, and even professional football clubs.

Transport, domestic issues and defence

- Build a North-South high-speed rail line, electrify existing main diesel train lines, and push forward
London’s Crossrail project.
- Pursue the ID cards scheme and the national identity database: home secretary Alan Johnson recently
said that little money would be saved by scrapping the scheme.
- Replace the Trident missile defence system: Quentin Davies, the defence procurement minister, recently
told Barrow workers that orders for four new submarines would be placed if Labour is re- elected. The party is also committed to building two new aircraft carriers at Rosyth, Scotland.

Last updated 751 days ago by Civil Service Live