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| Liberal Democrat Policy |
HEALTH
We believe in fairness with entitlements to healthcare guaranteed. We believe access to personal care should be based on need not the ability to pay. And we would make the NHS more accountable to the people it serves.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/health.aspx
EDUCATION AND SKILLS
School is one of the most important parts of a child's life. But the government expects one system to work for every child. They weigh down schools and teachers with paperwork and regulation, so there isn't time and space to think about the individual children and what they need. This is no way to teach the next generation.
We will provide a good education for every child. Extra cash will be delivered to the frontline so schools can cut class sizes and provide extra tuition to those pupils who need it most. New freedoms will be given to schools so that teachers can work without constant government meddling.
The Liberal Democrats will make sure every child gets a good start in life no matter what their background.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/education.aspx
THE ENVIRONMENT AND RURAL AFFAIRS
"The Liberal Democrats have received three green lights by offering the strongest set of policies on climate change, green taxation and green living."
How green are our parties, report by the Green Alliance 2007
All our policies have a green thread running through them. We believe achieving sustainability cannot be done by one government department alone. Damage to our environment damages personal health, impoverishes economies and weakens communities.
The Liberal Democrats are the only party with the vision, commitment and political drive to deliver positive change which will in turn safe guard the future of the environment and our rural affairs.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/environment.aspx
COMMUNITIES
It's time to put communities back together. We'll make it possible for local people to work together to run local services. That's how to deliver what people actually want. We'll stop interfering from central government and help communities protect local services like post offices and small shops. We will axe the unfair Council Tax and replace it with a local income tax.
Strong communities need good homes and the schools, shops, transport and community facilities to create a sustainable community not just a housing estate. We will provide enough homes - for people to rent as well as to buy - so everyone has a decent place to live and by demanding high environmental standards from all new homes we will cut family energy bills and cut our carbon footprint.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/your_community.aspx
JUSTICE AND CRIME
Crime is one of the biggest issues facing the country. It is far too high and too many people don't feel safe - in their own homes and in their town centres. The Liberal Democrats want to cut crime to make you safer.
For too long the debate about policing and criminal justice policy has been centred around what sounds tough rather than what works to cut crime. Labour and the Tories have become embroiled in a sentencing arms race in a bid to pander to tabloid newspaper editors and to exploit a politics of fear. As well as putting 10,000 more police officers on the beat by scrapping ID cards, the Liberal Democrats are committed to meaningful reform of the police service and to putting criminal justice policy on an evidence-based footing. These proposals were outlined in our Cutting Crime by Catching Criminals paper in September.
Labour's catastrophic mismanagement of the criminal justice system has led to prisons bursting at the seams; the creation of over 3,600 new criminal offences since 1997; and an unprecedented criminilisation of our children. Instead of using prison and sentencing as a proxy for real action on crime, the Liberal Democrats will use alternative measures that are proven to reduce re-offending. These include community justice panels, the nationwide use of restorative justice and rigorous community punishments as an alternative to short-term prison sentences. These ideas were outlined in our youth justice paper A Life Away from Crime in July.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/law_and_order.aspx
ECONOMY
People today are struggling with spiralling debts, rising food and energy bills and unaffordable mortgages. A decade of complacency by Gordon Brown has meant that with plummeting house prices, falling growth, rising inflation and rising unemployment, the outlook for the UK economy has not looked so bleak since the Tory recession of the 1990s.
We want to offer real help to the millions of families trying to makes ends meet, so we will get wasteful government spending under control and give the economy a boost by cutting taxes for people from the bottom up. We will also crack down on big business and the super rich who exploit tax loopholes and do not pay their fair share. We will strengthen the economy by requiring the Bank of England to take house prices into account when setting interest rates and we will effectively regulate the banking system to prevent irresponsible lending and business practices.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/economy.aspx
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