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Liberal Democrats Policies - Coggle Diagram
Liberal Democrats Policies
Welfare
GPs
8000 More
But there are concerns highlighted by Conservative Party whether they will be fully qualified GPs [takes 7 years to qualify], or will they still be still in training? there were 50,000 GPs in 2014, 15, 16 - only 38,000 in 2024
number of GPs has fallen over the last decade
Cancer Treatment
Objective is for cancer patients to receive treatment within 62 days [2 months] of application - this is the 62 day standard and is already enforced - but is often missed - they want to ensure that 85% of urgent referrals do receive treatment within this time period.
Public Spending
they would spend an extra 27Bn a year by 2029
they claim they would receive an extra 5Bn from capital tax gain reform
they would gain 5bn annually by raising levies on banks
A new aviation duty would penalise frequent fliers more heavily
they Claim they would gain 7Bn by clamping down on tax evasion, by a 1bn investment in HMRC
Scrap the Rwanda Scheme
Lib Dem would abolish the current salary threshold for migrant workers and replace it with a “merit-based” system
Lib Dem vowed to abandon the Rwanda scheme and "provide safe and legal routes" for asylum seekers.
They would also end the recently introduced ban on foreign care workers bringing dependents to the UK and reverse the increase in income thresholds for family visas
Reach net zero by 2045
they vowed to place resolving the climate crisis at the centre of all our policies, yet it was set third in their manifesto priority, after the economy and business and jobs.
“put tackling climate change at the heart of a new industrial strategy”.
Labour and Conservative aim to achieve net zero by 2050
their policies propose accelerating the deployment of solar and wind power so 90% of energy will be generated by renewables by 2030.
Free insulation and heat pumps for those on low incomes with a “rooftop solar revolution” with more incentives for householders to put in solar panels and a new Net Zero Delivery Authority to coordinate climate action - but there are no estimates of costs for these policies.
Reform Child Allowance
Scrap two-child limit and reform Carer’s Allowance
They also plan to reduce the waiting time for the first Universal Credit payment from five weeks to five days.
They plan to remove the two-child limit - the limit on the total amount of benefit one household can claim.
Annual benefit levels reviewed. To ensure that benefit levels are sufficient for people to afford basic items, such as food and bills.
he Lib Dems would scrap or reform a range of welfare policies that anti-poverty campaigners have repeatedly said are increasing family hardship, going further than either the Conservatives or Labour have done so far.
Reform Carer's Allowance and increase the benefit by £20 a week, expand its eligibility and increase how much people can earn before losing the benefit. There has been criticism recently of the government prosecuting people who've inadvertently claimed Carer's Allowance despite not being eligible; the Lib Dems would introduce an amnesty for many of those cases.
Triple the early years pupil premium
Giving better chances to disadvantaged pupils and students Lib Dem promise on education. Which includes a tutoring guarantee for children from low-income families who need extra help, and tripling the early years pupil premium - to £1,000.
Promise to increase school and college funding for each pupil above inflation every year, following 14 years of stagnation [but will [prove expensive]. The young person's premium would target disadvantaged 16 - 18-year-olds.
Universities funding will be reviewed. Tuition fees in England became toxic for the party after it broke a promise and voted through increased fees of £9,000. For students in low income families, lim dems promise to bring back "maintenance grants", previously scrapped for loans in 2016 [conservative]. tThis is extra public spending.
The Courts Efficiency
Create a more efficient and supportive justice system. The Lib Dems would increase funding and introduce reforms to ensure the courts are properly staffed and more time-efficient with cases. The party promises to cut sentencing time by 50% from when the offence was committed.
Support victims of domestic abuse. Manifesto section on crime pledges to end prison overcrowding which challenges criminal justice. no details of how it will be achieved or the cost, could be validly considered impractical.
Give 16-year-olds the vote and bring in proportional representation
believe will increase participation and engagement in younger people. this value is shared by labour.
16-17 year olds in Scotland can vote in local elections and those for national parliaments.
Proportional Representation Dilemma: smaller parties feel that the number of MPs never accurately reflects their share of the electorate across the country under the current system. so reform to the system of proportional representation will be likely in their policies.
But, they already tried in the coalition government, with a referudni in 2011 and the new voting system was rejected by the public who did not see it as an issue needing fixing.
Relationship with the EU "fix the broken relationship"
Pledge to rejoin single market, and a longer term objective of rejoining the EU.
This is directly opposed to the conservative and labour who rule out rejoining the single market, the customs union and the EU.
this directly translates to their attempts at appealing to voters who have Brexit regrets, and seek repaired relations with Brussels.
Overseas Lim Dem prospectus is similar in policy, who use this subject matter to distinguish themselves from the tories and labour.
they seek to restore spending to 0.7% of national income.
return armed service personnel to more than 100,000
Reduce arms sales to countries with poor human rights records
seize frozen Russian assets in London, most already done under conservative as sanctions in response to the Ukraine war.
Proscribe the IRG [iranian revolutionary guard corps]
ISSUE: these pledges are very expensive and is currently unclear where the. money would come from, perhaps from public spending reforms and policies?