The Liberal Democrats are one of three major national contenders in the 2019 General Election, with a chance that they may pick up a number of seats in the election, possibly even becoming a kingmaker alongside the SNP if a hung parliament is resultant, although with the BREXIT Party having stood down in Conservative seats, the Lib Dems may now struggle in a number of their Conservative target seats as the leave vote will be more solidified, the party also threatens to split the Labour vote in a number of seats, possibly allowing some inadvertent Conservative gains, which is why many voters have pledged to tactically vote to try and prevent this from happening. The party released its manifesto on 20th November and here I will outline some of its major pledges and promises.
Currently in the polls the Lib Dems are keeping a solid third place with anywhere from 11-19% with it averaging out at about 15%. They were originally quite a lot higher in the polls and a lot more of a threat to Labour, but they have seen a steady decline in their support, mostly going to Labour, since the election was called.
The party is one of three involved in a Remain Electoral Pact alongside the Green Party in England and Wales and Plaid Cymru in Wales as well as three Independent candidate pacts to try and tactically maximize remain supporting candidate seat gains in the election. The Lib Dems will stand aside in 9 seats in England and one in Wales for the Green Party, and will stand aside in another 7 seats in Wales for Plaid Cymru. But the Lib Dems will be free of the Greens in 40 seats in England and free of both the Greens and Plaid Cymru in 3 seats in Wales. So, in total, Lib Dems will stand aside in 20 seats in England and Wales and will be getting a cleaner run at 43 target seats & seats they want to hold.
The Lib Dems main targets seats are mostly focused in the South-West of England while in Wales, one of its target seats of holding is Brecon & Radnorshire which they took from the Conservatives in a by-election earlier this year.
All and all, the Liberal Democrats major promise is to immediately revoke article 50 and stop BREXIT from happening if they were to win a majority or if they are able to do it in some kind of remain coalition, otherwise instead they would default to trying to hold a 2nd referendum on EU membership if they do not have the numbers on revoke. Remaining in the EU is the parties signature promise and pledge. The Lib Dems have said remaining in the EU would provide a £50bn “Remain Bonus” which they would invest in schools as well as tackling in-work poverty and inequality. They also say that remaining in the EU is best for the economy and for cooperation, such as on tackling the climate crisis and cybercrime.
The Lib Dems also want to extend the right to vote in General, Local elections and to stand in them as candidates as well as voting in UK referendums to all EU citizens who have lived in the UK for at least 5-years.
Below I have split this blogpost into 4 main sectors, economy, business & infrastructure, education, environmental and health & Social Care and then a further section for other stuff, such as justice, electoral and anything else that doesn’t fit into the four other categories. Each section I will handpick their more major pledges and promises as mentioned, so there will of course be other stuff not mentioned here that can be found in their manifesto.
Economy, Business & Infrastructure
The Liberal Democrats have plans to pump billions of pounds of investment into infrastructure in the UK, which also includes local authorities having more of a say on how it is used, as well as it being used on infrastructure projects in the North and Midlands.
The Lib Dems have also pledged to work with major banks to fund creation of local banking sectors to help out local, small and medium sized businesses and giving them access to capital even when other commercial banking systems cannot provide it.
The Lib Dems have committed to converting railway networks to ultra-low-emissions technology by 2035 as well as keeping the major HS2, Crossrail 2 and other major strategic rail route projects going. They also commit to improving hyper-fast and fiber-optic broadband across the UK with a focus on rural areas.
And the Lib Dems have pledged new direct spending to build 300,000 new homes per year by 2024 which also include 100,000 new social homes. And a promise of capital investment in schools and hospitals.
On the economy the Liberal Democrats have a plan of boosting funding into research and innovation across the United Kingdom, including the increase of national spending on research and development by 3% of GDP and increasing the Strength in Places Fund to boost research and development outside of Oxford, Cambridge and London. The Lib Dems will use changes and improvements to the education system it implements to create a skilled workforce for this new growth.
They also want to continue support investment for UK digital start-ups and also supporting the growth of creative industries such as gaming.
With the expansion of technology the Lib Dems want to make sure it is used in an ethical manner and plans to introduce a Lovelace Code of Ethics that sets out rules on personal data and artificial intelligence, making sure it is unbiased, transparent/accurate and that privacy is respected, the power to call in products that break this set code, digital-focused courses teaching on ethics and the Code, highlighting companies who reach the highest ethical standards and convening citizen’s assemblies on the usage of algorithms in decision-making by the government.
There are pledges to foster growth and start-ups for the self-employed and small, medium sized businesses, which includes introducing a start-up allowance, mentoring support for fast-growing businesses seeking to scale up, and offering forms of monetary support to self-employed.
Further on businesses, the Lib Dems aim to give employees more rights within them, by introducing rules for companies with more than 250 employees, that promotes a right of fair pay, right to request shares to be held in trust for the benefit of employees, having at least one employee representative on business boards with the same duties and responsibilities as other directors and requirement of binding and public votes on executive pay.
They also want to build further on worker rights by setting a genuine living wage by independent review and implementing it across central government agencies and encouraging public sector employers to do the same, establish a new Workers Protection Enforcement Authority to protect employees in precarious work. They also want to modernize worker rights in the “gig economy” such as a dependent contractor employment status for rights on minimum earnings levels, sick pay and holiday entitlement. Making tax fairer for them and reviewing rules on pensions.
The Lib Dems have a number of changes they want to make to tax, with the main ones being restoring corporation tax to 20% (up from its current 17%) and keep the rate stable with predictable future path. Simplifying Capital Gains tax and business taxes, ending retrospective tax changes like the loan charge and scrapping Marriage Tax Allowance. The Lib Dems have also pledged a crackdown on tax avoidance that includes introducing a General Anti-Avoidance Rule, setting targets for HM Revenue & Customs to close the tax gap, hiring more staff, reforming place of establishment, improving digital sales tax and building on OECD proposals to give multinationals a level of tax more closer with sales in every country they operate in. They also want to abolish the Bedroom Tax.
A focus on wellbeing will be made by the Lib Dems instead of it being fully focused on GDP and other economic prospects, this would include introducing a wellbeing budget and appointing a Minister for Wellbeing who would oversee the effects of policy on wellbeing and giving an annual speech. Wellbeing improvement would focus on improving jobs, schools, mental health services, other health services, community services, environment and support for those at-risk, such as vulnerable children, the homeless and trafficked, as well as focus on upbringing of children and welfare support.
When it comes to welfare, the Lib Dems plan to invest £6bn a year into the benefits system and having the wait for first benefits reduced from 5 weeks to 5 days. The two-child limit and benefits cap would be removed. The Lib Dems also want to reform Universal Credit to be more supportive of the self-employed.
Education
The Lib Dems plan to boost and introduce changes to the education system to support its investment and support of research, technology and innovation as well as training on green changes to aspects of life to tackle climate change, bringing in a large and skilled workforce to support UK business growth, with reform also promised to immigration rules. Changes include introducing a 2-year visa to students who have graduated, allowing them to enter into the workforce, and the Lib Dems will make a major expansion of high-quality apprenticeships.
One of the Lib Dems signature policies is to introduce a Skills Wallet for adults in the UK to use £10,000, given to them in instalments at certain ages, to spend on approved work training and education courses to boost career and future work prospects and bring them into the new technological working age.
When it comes to schools the Lib Dems plan to reverse cuts and also have a goal of hiring 20,000 extra school-teachers, raise the teachers starting salary to £30,000 and increase teachers’ salary by at least 3% per year and clearing a backlog of needed repairs in schools and colleges. They also want to scrap mandatory SATs, replacing them with teacher assessments and other lighter tests and replace school league tables with a broader set of indicators and reducing class sizes back to 2015 levels per pupil.
Lib Dems also want to introduce a “curriculum for life” in all state-funded schools that includes lessons on Personal, Social and Health education, financial literacy, environmental awareness, first aid and other lifesaving skills for emergencies, mental health, citizenship and age-appropriate lessons on sex and relationship education that includes learning about sexual consent, LGBT+ relationships and issues involving around explicit images and content.
They also plan to extend free school meals to all pupils in primary school. They also want to extend free meals to all students in secondary school whose parents get Universal Credit. The Lib Dems would also promote school breakfast clubs. On mental health, the Lib Dems want to train all teaching staff to recognize it in pupils and students and have it so schools can provide immediate access to support and counselling, as well as that, there would be a specific person in schools who is responsible for mental health.
The Lib Dems also want to set up an independent body to make decisions on changes to the curriculum to take it out of politician’s hands and prevent unnecessary and politically motivated changes that can disrupt student learning and put pressure on teachers.
They also want to replace Ofsted with Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools, with a greater focus on the wellbeing of both students and teachers and inspections set for schools every 3-years. Lib Dems also want independent schools subject to the same inspection regime.
There are also plans to oppose any future expansion of grammar schools and devolving all capital funding for school spaces to local authorities.
For Higher Education the Lib Dems want to invest £1bn into it and would help poorer families remain in education by introducing a Young People’s Premium, eligibility based the same as the Pupil Premium, but with a portion of the money being paid directly to 16-18-year-olds as well as reinstating maintenance grants for the poorest students.
Environmental
The Lib Dems have pledged that the National Infrastructure Commission will take into account the climate and environmental concerns of all national infrastructure decisions. They also want to use £5bn of initial capital to set up a Green Investment Bank which uses public money to attract private investment for zero-carbon priorities.
As a whole the Lib Dems have set a goal to insulate all Britain’s homes by 2030 cutting emissions as well as fuel bills with a goal of ending fuel poverty by 2025 (the Lib Dems have also pledged that all new homes will also have solar panels), all new homes and non-domestic buildings to be net-zero carbon by 2021 with them rising to a more ambitious standard by 2025, have at least 80% of the UK’s electricity produced by renewables by 2030 which includes investment in tidal and wave power, ensuring all new cars and small vans are electric by 2030 and a ban on fracking. The Lib Dems 10-year emergency programme aims to cut out emissions from the remaining hard-to-treat sectors, giving the country net zero carbon emissions by 2045.
The party will also be looking to introduce more sustainable and environment friendly public transport, buses, trains etc and will also promote more healthier walking and cycling, including building more cycling paths/lanes and also introducing more alternative transport systems, such as trams.
The Lib Dems would ban non-recyclable single-use plastics and replace them with affordable alternatives, with an aim to end plastic waste exports by 2030. The Lib Dems would also extend food and drink bottle and container deposit return schemes, working alongside devolved administrations.
The Lib Dems plan would require all companies in the UK and listed on UK Stock Exchanges to set-out plans and targets consistent with the Paris Climate Accord on climate change, reporting back on their implementation. They would establish a Department for Climate Change and Natural Resources and appoint a cabinet-level Chief Secretary for Sustainability in the Treasury, this department and position would coordinate government-wide action to make the economy sustainable, resource-efficient and zero-carbon as well as holding government agencies to account. An Office of Environmental Protection that would be independent of government would also be founded, which would hold powers and resources to enforce compliance with climate and environmental targets.
Lib Dems would also establish UK and Local Citizen’s Climate Assemblies to help engage the public in tackling climate change.
The party has set an aim to plant 60 million trees per year and will also invest in large-scale restoration of peatlands, heathland, native woodlands, saltmarshes, wetlands and coastal waters. They will also invest £5bn into flood prevention and climate adaptation to improve flood defences and introduce high standards for flood resilience for buildings and infrastructure in flood-prone areas.
Health & Social Care
A big pledge from the Lib Dems is to make childcare free for working parents for children 9 to 24-months and children aged two to four years-old, covering 35 hours a week for 48 weeks a year. They also want to invest £1bn a year into Children Centres to boost early support of families, child health, development and life chance and they have said they will triple the Early Years Pupil Premium to £1,000 to improve early learning.
The Lib Dems plan to raise £7bn a year by putting 1p on Income Tax with the money being spent on the NHS and social care. They would also use £10bn of their capital fund to make needed investments in equipment, hospitals, community, ambulance and mental health services buildings. The Lib Dems in the longer term would commission a Health & Care Tax that is offset by other tax reductions, bringing together spending in both services into a collective budget, setting out a transparent view on people’s payslips, what the government is spending it on in health and social care. The Lib Dems also want to make medication prescriptions for those with chronic mental health conditions free on the NHS.
The Lib Dems plan to end the GP shortfall by 2025 by training and retaining more staff as well as attracting talent from other countries and having people come in from the EU again and also making better appropriate use of all NHS staff, and would have phone and video appointments if clinically suitable.
The Party also wants to support unpaid carers by introducing statutory guarantee of regular restpite breaks, have councils offer support regularly, providing a package of carer benefits that include free leisure centre access, free bus travel for your carers, as well as raising the amount that a carer can earn to £150 a week (from £123) before losing Carer’s Allowance and also reduce the amount of hours’ care per week to qualify for it.
On drugs, the Lib Dems want to remove imprisonment for those found to have drugs for personal use and instead divert them to treatment and civil penalties will be given to them. And legal and regulated market for cannabis would be introduced to tackle drug gangs, allowing cannabis to be sold through licensed outlets to those 18 and over. There would also be clinical trials for medicinal use of cannabis in the meantime.
Other (Electoral, Justice, immigration, equality, foreign affairs etc)
Housing
The Lib Dems want to introduce a new Rent to Own scheme, allowing tenants in social housing have rent payments give them an increasing stake in the property, eventually owning it outright in 30 years.
An ambitious plan has been set by the Lib Dems to end rough sleeping within 5 years, including exempting the homeless and those at risk of being homeless from the Shared Accomodation Rate, introduce “somewhere safe to stay” legal duty that ensures that everyone who is sleeping rough will be provided with emergency accommodation and an assessment of their needs and sufficient financial resources to councils to deal with homelessness.
Criminal Justice
When it comes to crime and justice, the Lib Dems want to invest £1bn into restoring community policing, which they say would be enough for two new police officers per ward and also want to fully fund an immediate two-percent pay rise for police officers, supporting future pay rises as well as recruitment and retention. They also want to provide £500m to local authorities to invest in youth services as well as improving youth worker training, to reduce crime among younger people.
The Lib Dems also want to create a new Online Crime Agency to tackle things such as personal fraud, revenge porn, as well as threats and incitement to violence on social media. Another pledge is to replace police and crime commissioners with Police Boards made up of local councillors.
The Lib Dems want to increase rehabilitation and recovery in prisons, starting by hiring 2,000 more prison officers to staff many prisons that are understaffed, and improve training, education and work opportunities in prisons. They also want to reduce the amount in prison by introducing a presumption against short prison sentences, ending prison sentences for those who possessed drugs for personal use and increasing tough community sentences and restorative justice.
The Lib Dems also have a goal of reducing the overrepresentation of blacks, Asians and other minorities in prison, which includes recording data on ethnicities in the justice system for analysis and scrutiny and introducing an explain or reform stance on ethnic disparities. The party also wants greater diversity in the justice system by ensuring services adopt targets for improving on diversity in their workforce, including reports on progress to parliament.
In an attempt to reduce re-offending, the Lib Dems want to ensure prison-leavers are supported with suitable accommodation, a bank account, employment, training and also being registered to a General Practitioner (GP). The party also want to change criminal record disclosure including not having to declare irrelevant old or minor convictions as well as removing questions on criminal convictions from initial application forms for all public-sector jobs.
They also want to stop the disproportionate use of Stop & Search and has a large focus on preventing domestic abuse that includes ratifying the Istanbul Convention into law which classifies domestic abuse as a human rights violation, as well as that they want to expand refuges and rape crisis centres, sustainable grant-funding for independent support services and establishing a rape crisis helpline among other things.
The Lib Dems want to establish a right for affordable and reasonable legal assistance, including investing £500m to restore Legal Aid.
Diversity & Equality
The Party when it comes to equality and diversity would make all hate crimes aggravated offences and would provide funding for protective security to places of worship, schools and community centres that are vulnerable to hate crime and terror attacks. They would also reform the Gender Recognitions Act to remove requirement for medical reports and to recognize non-binary gender. They would also introduce an X gender option on passports. They would also include sexual orientation and gender identity in the 2021 Census, including a question on LGBT+ status. Requirement for organizations to publish parental leave and pay policies, diversity in business leadership, including a push for at least 40% of board members to be women in FTSE 350 companies, as well as implementing recommendations from the Parker Review, to increase representation of minorities. Companies with 250+ employees would need to publish data on gender, black, Asian, minority and LGBT+ employment and pay gaps.
Immigration
The Lib Dems want to decrease detention time for immigrants to a maximum of 28-days and also close 7 of the 9 detention centres in the UK. They would repeal the immigrant exemption from the Data Protection Act, they would also move policymaking on student visas and work permits out of the Home Office and into the Business and Education Departments and would also establish a non-political agency to process applications. Tier 2 Work Visas would be replaced with a merit-based system that is more flexible and would introduce a 2-year Student Visa to work in the UK after graduation.
When it comes to refugees and asylum seekers, the Lib Dems want to allow asylum seekers to be allowed to work in the UK for 3-months after applying for asylum. The Lib Dems have a goal of resettling 10,000 vulnerable refugees each year as well as a further 10,000 unaccompanied child refugees from across Europe over the next 10-years. The Lib Dems would also offer asylum to those fleeing violence due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. Would also move asylum policymaking from the Home Office to the Department for International Development and work to speed up decision-making. The party would also introduce free English lessons for refugee and asylum seekers.
Electoral System
The Lib Dems have an aim to make all votes count by replacing the First-Past-the-Post System (that allows candidates to win with a simple majority) to a proportional representation system (that gives seats to parties, taking into account all votes, rather than discarding votes of the 2nd or less placed parties, EU Parliament elections use a PR method for example). The PR system that the Lib Dems support is the Single Transferable Vote system, to be implemented for General and England Local elections (local elections in N.Ireland and Scotland already use this method). An STV system lets you vote for a preferred candidate and then give preferences for other candidates, so 2nd preference, 3rd preference etc, used to eliminate candidates until a candidate gets a 50% majority. Currently UK General Elections and England and Wales local elections use a Single non-transferable vote.
Note: In Wales, it will be up to the devolved assembly to introduce an STV system or another system for local elections. Just like it is in Scotland and N. Ireland.
The Lib Dems also want to allow 16 and 17-year old’s to vote in UK General Elections, England local elections and also national referendums. They also want to allow EU citizens who have lived in the UK for 5-years+ to stand and vote in UK General Elections, England local elections and national referendums. They also want to have authorities make people more informed on the steps of registering and also introduce an automatic system of inclusion in elections. And the Lib Dems want UK citizens living abroad to be able to vote in separate overseas constituencies, as well as allowing them to vote in UK referendums.
The Lib Dems would also scrap plans for voter ID introduction and also want to reform the House of Lords (upper house of the UK parliament) with a proper democratic mandate.
In other electoral related pledges, the Lib Dems want to cap donations to parties and introduce citizens’ assemblies to have the public engaged in finding solutions for things such as the climate crisis and the use of artificial intelligence and algorithms by the state.
For Scotland the Lib Dems oppose a 2nd independence referendum and Scottish independence itself. In England the Lib Dems support devolved governments for the implementation of things such as a Cornish Assembly or a Yorkshire Parliament.
Foreign Affairs
The Lib Dems have pledges to go against the rising tide of nationalist, authoritarian and isolationist trend across the world by supporting and promoting liberal ideals through organizations such as the EU, UN, Commonwealth and NATO, as well as promoting the climate emergency and helping to fight it. They would suspend providing firearm exports to countries with poor human rights records, such as Saudi Arabia. Would increase financial aid to countries experiencing refugee crisis. Work to introduce a Europe Magnitsky Act, to sanction corrupt individuals and human rights abusers.
The Lib Dems want to use armed intervention as a last resort and would have a parliamentary vote on any kind of armed intervention.
When it comes to Israel and Palestine, the Lib Dems support a two-state solution with independence for Palestine, while respecting Israel’s right for security.
And the party would reopen the British National Overseas Passport offer to the people of Hong Kong, allowing the right to abode for all holders.
The Lib Dems want to also work on abolishing the use of the death penalty worldwide and making a way forward for nuclear disarmament.
Costing
The Liberal Democrats have set out how they will pay for their manifesto promises and pledges in a 9-page summary.
They will fund their promises through the Remain Bonus that would be got from staying in the EU, raising Income Tax by 1p, returning corporate tax back to 20% and abolishing the separate Capital-Gains Tax-free allowance, reformation of air passenger duty, Cannabis duty and savings, funding that has been committed in the September spending review by the government, anti-tax-avoidance measures, increasing Digital Services Tax and abolishing the Marriage Tax Allowance.
The Lib Dems say that the above will provide the money they need to pay for their pledges and promises in their manifesto.
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