The following two posts are the most important of the lot this election campaign : What are we voting for in May? Or, more accurately, what might be on the table during negotiations in the event of a hung parliament?
Now that the manifestos from the six main parties standing in Wales have been released, it's worth summarising their policy proposals (in alphabetical order by party). I've also included their latest party election broadcast. I'm not going to pass comment on each manifesto, I'll leave you to make your own mind up.
I've split each manifesto into chunks broadly covering non-devolved areas : the economy & tax, energy & the environment, welfare/social justice, criminal justice, defence, foreign affairs & Europe, immigration, constitutional reform.
This was originally a single post, but I had to split it to make it readable. Today I look at the Conservatives, Greens and Labour. Tomorrow it's the turn of the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and UKIP.
Conservatives : A brighter, more secure future (pdf)
Economy & Tax : Eliminate the deficit through £30billion of cuts over the next two years, and start running a budget surplus. No increases in national insurance, income tax, corporation tax or VAT. Increase personal tax allowance to £12,500 by 2019 and higher-rate income tax threshold to £50,000 per year. Will enable married couples to transfer up to £1,060 of their personal tax allowance to the other partner. Will raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1million. Remain committed to High Speed 2 (see also : Will High Speed 2 benefit Wales?). Larger fines for tax avoidance by companies. A real-terms fare freeze on rail ticket prices for the rest of the next parliament. Will freeze the BBC licence fee pending renewal of its royal charter. Will cut £10billion in government waste.
Energy & Environment : Will create "blue belts" to protect marine habitats. Will ban the use of wild animals in circuses. Will ensure every home has a smart energy meter by 2020. Will insulate 1 million homes over the next five years. Will end public subsidies for onshore wind farms. Support a science-led approach to GM crops. Will give UK Parliament a free vote to repeal the Hunting Act 2004 (see also Life, Ethics & Independence X - Hunting).
Welfare : Will lower the cap of welfare spending to £23,000 per household and freeze working-age benefits between 2016-2018. Will continue the roll-out of universal credit. Will introduce benefits sanctions for people with drug and alcohol problems who refuse treatment that would enable them to return to work. Will introduce a 40% turnout threshold in strike ballots for them to be valid and lift a ban on hiring agency staff to cover strikes. Will require companies employing more than 250 people to publish the difference between men and women's pay. Give employees a right to three days of volunteering leave per year on full pay. Will introduce a single-tier pension from 2016 and maintain all current pensioner benefits.
Criminal Justice : Will extend the use of police-led prosecutions and allow police forces to retain more of the assets they seize from criminals. Will encourage police diversity through fast-track schemes for graduates. Will create a blanket ban on "legal highs" and introduce sobriety orders across EnglandandWales. Will close older prisons and replace them with modern facilities. Will introduce a Victims Law. Will enable a wider range of lenient sentences to be formally challenged.
Defence : Will not reduce the size of the army below 82,000 troops; will expand the reserves to 35,000. Will commit to spending £160billion on new military equipment over the next decade. Will continue to meet NATO's target of 2% of GDP spending on defence. Will retain Trident nuclear missiles and four nuclear submarines (see also : Rust in Peace...Trident?).
Foreign Affairs : Will offer a straight "in or out" referendum on UK's membership of the EU in 2017. Rule out any further integration with the eurozone. Want to enable national parliaments to block EU legislation. Will work for peace in Syria and Iraq as well as develop a strategy to defeat ISIS. Support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Push for EU-India and EU-China trade deals. Will continue to meet the 0.7% of GDP spending on international aid.
Immigration : Will keep pledge to reduce immigration to tens of thousands per year. Maintain cap on skilled immigration from outside the EU at 20,700 per year. Will negotiate with the EU so immigrants will have to live and work for a certain length of time in the UK before claiming benefits, as well as stronger powers to deport criminals. Will insist that free movement from new EU members cannot apply until their economies have converged with the EU average. Will introduce a Controlled Migration Fund for public services in areas experiencing higher than average immigration levels. Every customer-facing public sector worker should speak English.
Constitutional Reform : Will implement the St David's Day Agreement, and introduce a "funding floor" for the Welsh budget after an income tax referendum. Will reduce the number of MPs to 600 and enact the previous boundary reforms (which will reduce the number of Welsh MPs from 40 to 30). Don't support an elected House of Lords. Will allow British citizens living abroad to vote. Will introduce "English votes for English laws". Will scrap the Human Rights Act, replacing it with a Bill of Rights, meaning the UK will withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Greens : For the Common Good (pdf)
The Economy & Tax : Increase minimum wage to £10 per hour by 2020. Phase in a 35-hour working week. Ban zero-hour contracts. Introduce a pay ratio of 10:1 between the highest and lowest earners. Introduce a financial transaction tax (aka. Robin Hood tax).Reduce VAT on housing renovation to 5%. End mortgage interest rate relief. Raise corporation tax for larger firms to 30%. Introduce a "wealth tax" of 2% on the top 1% wealthiest people, raising £25billion. Abolish employees national insurance upper threshold, raising £28billion.Gradually increase spending on scientific research from 0.5% to 1% of GDP. Will abolish the TV licence and fund the BBC via direct taxation. Opposes High Speed 2. Would reduce public transport fares by 10% over the next parliament.
Energy & Environment : Invest £35billion over the next parliament in renewable energy. Provide free retrofit home insulation, with the aim of taking 2 million people out of fuel poverty. Introduce carbon taxes to encourage investment in energy efficiency. Set a target to produce 42 GW of community energy by 2020. Introduce a Forest Protection Bill, prohibit use of pesticides near homes and schools, support a moratorium at EU-level on the use of GM food and animal feed, encourage less meat eating. Ban exotic and primate pets and ban the use of animals in circuses. Take action against sports that "cause suffering to animals". Opposes nuclear energy.
Welfare : In the long-term, introduce a Basic Income for all citizens. Raise carers allowance by 50%, costing £1.2billion. Increase disability benefits budget by £1billion a year. Pay "Citizen's Pension" of £180 per week to a single pensioners and £310 to couples. Bring housing benefit back in line with market rates, costing £2.3billion. Halt implementation of universal credit. Raise child benefit to £20.70 for the first child and £13.40 for each additional child. Introduce anonymous CVs to prevent discrimination against minority and women job applicants. Enforce penalties against companies that still implement unequal pay. Require 40% of company board members to be women.
Criminal Justice : Would abolish Police & Crime Commissioners. Opposes privatisation of probation services and would operate a "smaller prison system". Would grant prisoners the right to vote. Would treat drug addiction as a health issue. Will raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14. Will restore legal aid, costing £700million. Will reduce the drunk-driving limit to "as close to zero as practicable". Drivers will be presumed liable for injuries to pedestrians and cyclists.
Defence : Develop policies based on environmental defence and disaster relief. Introduce a strict licensing regime for arms traders. Opposes mass surveillance of the population. Will oppose any military interventions that lack moral, legal or democratic mandate. Opposes Trident nuclear missile replacement. Would work to prohibit use of automated weapons systems (i.e drones, see also Life, Ethics & Independence IX - Robots & Cyborgs) and depleted uranium.
Foreign Affairs : Work to negotiate settlement between Russia and Ukraine. Will call for suspension of EU-Israeli Association Agreement. Urge all Commonwealth member states to end criminalisation of LGBTs. Would not join the euro. Supports holding an in-out EU referendum, and would campaign to remain in the EU. Opposes the EU-US free trade deal (TTIP). Would increase foreign aid budget from 0.7% of GDP to 1%.
Immigration : Rejects caps on migration. Would make it easier for adult dependents of immigrants (i.e elderly parents) to move to the UK. Would end detention of LGBT asylum seekers. Would end restrictions on foreign students. Would allow legal aid to be used for certain types of asylum and immigration work. Would introduce affordable English and Welsh language lessons for anyone who wants them, costing £200million.
Constitutional Reform : Would support Welsh Assembly having same powers as the Scottish Parliament, and supports increasing the number of AMs. Neither supports nor opposes Welsh independence. Supports lowering the voting age to 16. Would work towards a written constitution with a Bill of Rights. Would introduce the proportional Additional Member System for UK Parliament elections (both Commons and Lords), with aspirations of equal male:female representation by 2025. Will repeal the Lobbying Act.
Labour : Britain can be better (pdf)
The Economy & Tax : Support further cuts. Will cut the deficit each year of the next parliament and generate a surplus "as soon as possible". Will introduce a 50p tax rate for those earning £150,000+ a year and will reintroduce a 10p basic rate of income tax. Will raise the minimum wage to over £8 per hour by October 2019 and ban zero hour contracts. Will introduce a "mansion tax" on properties worth £2million+. Support High Speed 2 but will work to keep costs down. Want competition rules to be changed to create two new high street "challenger banks". Will abolish "non dom" status.
Energy & The Environment : Will freeze energy prices until 2017. Will introduce a legal requirement for carbon to be removed from the UK energy market by 2030. Green Investment Bank will be given extra investment powers. Will introduce a robust regulatory regime for fracking and onshore oil drilling. Aim to make 200,000 low-income homes a year more energy efficient. Wants an ambitious climate change agreement in Paris this December.
Welfare : Will scrap the "bedroom tax". Will cap welfare spending in each spending review. Will abolish employment tribunal fees. Will increase paternity pay from £140 to £260 per week. Will test jobseekers' maths, English and IT skills within six weeks of them claiming benefits and make them take up training where applicable. Under-25s out of work for one year, or over-25s out of work for two years will be guaranteed a job – if they don't take the job they'll lose benefits. Will "pause and review" universal credit, but support the principles. Will keep the "triple lock" on pensions. Will end winter fuel allowances for the top 5% wealthiest pensioners.
Criminal Justice : Will abolish Police & Crime Commissioners, end subsidies for firearms licences and "mandate police forces work closer together" with the aim of safeguarding 10,000 police officers over the next three years. Police officers will need to be chartered and registered with the College of Policing. Will ban sale and distribution of "legal highs". Will introduce a Victims Law.
Defence : Security agencies "will have the powers they need" to disrupt and tackle terrorism. Will order an independent review into the security services' use of private data. Will develop a long-term multi-lateral strategy to defeat ISIS, Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda. Will create a register of veterans to ensure they receive help when leaving the armed forces. Will require companies to report cyber-attacks on national infrastructure. Committed to a minimum continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent.
Foreign Affairs & Europe : Opposes an in-out referendum on EU membership, but will work to reform the Common Agricultural Policy and the EU's spending on itself. Wants to ensure EU member states can have some control over migration between them and to strengthen the influence national legislatures have over EU policy. Committed to spending 0.7% of UK GDP on foreign aid.
Immigration : Will recruit an extra 1,000 border agency staff. Will tighten regulations on short-term student visas. Immigrants will be unable to claim welfare for two years from their arrival in the UK. Everyone who works in the public sector will need to speak English. Will ban recruitment agencies from recruiting only overseas. Will end immigration detention for pregnant women and victims of sexual abuse and human trafficking.
Constitutional Reform : Will extend the voting franchise to 16-17 year olds. Will repeal the Lobbying Act. Will replace the House of Lords with an elected "Senate of the Nations & Regions" and will consider introducing a committee stage for English MPs on legislation that only affects England. Will create a "reserved powers model" for Wales, giving Wales powers to develop a policing plan, over fracking, Assembly elections, transport and energy (unspecified). Supports "fair funding" for Wales.
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