All the important thing Liberal Democrat manifesto pledges – unpicking Brexit deal to tax

The Liberal Democrats have pledged to take the UK back into the EU’s single market in their General Election manifesto.

Sir Ed Davey unveiled the party’s pledges to voters today, including a tax raid on Britain’s wealthiest to fund major reforms to the NHS, care and other public services. The 116-page manifesto, which has the slogan “For A Fair Deal”, is the first blueprint to be published as the political parties vie for votes.

Polls suggest the Lib Dems are on the verge of a comeback that could see the party win over 50 seats for the first time since 2010. Their campaign has been dominated by newspaper-friendly stunts from Sir Ed, but behind-the-scenes, Lib Dem strategists are gunning for Tory voters in true blue seats. However their pledges on Europe and tax – appealing to their core vote – could set them back in some areas.

The manifesto has been published online but we’ve filleted it for all the best bits. Here’s what you need to know.

NHS

• Give everyone the right to see a GP within seven days, or within 24 hours it’s urgent. The party has vowed to fund 8,000 more GPs to deliver on this commitment, half by boosting recruitment and half from retaining more experienced GPs. Everyone over 70 – or with a long-term health condition -will be given a named GP. Pharmacists given more prescribing rights.
• Guarantee access to an NHS dentist for everyone needing urgent care. Dentists would be brought back into the NHS by fixing the “broken” dental contract. New emergency scheme for free NHS check ups for those already eligible such a children, new mothers and those on low incomes.
• Improve early access to mental health services by establishing mental health hubs for young people in every community, and experts in schools. Regular mental health check-ups at key points in people’s lives when they are most vulnerable to mental ill-health.
• Boost cancer survival rates with a guarantee for 100% of patients to start treatment for cancer within 62 days from urgent referral.
• Invest in public health with grants for communities hit by worst inequalities. Ban single use vapes, restrict junk food ads, extend soft drinks levy to juice-based and milk-based drinks.

Care

• Free personal care based on the model introduced in Scotland in 2002
• Create a social care workforce plan, including boosting the minimum wage for carers by £2.
• Set up a cross-party commission on sustainable funding for social care.
• Give unpaid carers a fair deal including paid carer’s leave and a statutory guarantee of regular respite breaks.

Brexit and foreign affairs

• Fix the UK’s broken relationship with Europe with an aim to seek to join the Single Market.

• Stand with the people of Ukraine and provide them with the support they need to battle against Russia.

• Return aid spending to 0.7% of national income and re-establishing an independent international development department.

• Call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and recognise an independent Palestinian state immediately.

Economy and tax

• Reform capital gains tax to close loopholes “exploited by the super wealthy”.

• Reversing Tory tax cuts for the big banks, restoring Bank Surcharge and Bank Levy revenues to 2016 levels in real terms.

• Increasing the Digital Services Tax on social media firms and other tech giants from 2% to 6%.

• Introducing a 4% tax on the share buyback schemes of FTSE-100 listed companies, to incentivise productive investment, job creation and economic growth.

• Help cut energy bills through an emergency Home Energy Upgrade programme, tackling rising food prices through a National Food Strategy
• Invest in green infrastructure, innovation and skills to boost economic growth and create good jobs and prosperity in every nation and region of the UK, while tackling the climate crisis.

• Priority for tax cuts, when the public finances allow, will be to cut income tax by raising the tax-free personal allowance

Crime

• Restoring proper community policing, where officers are visible, trusted and focused on preventing and solving crimes – especially rape and other violent crime.
• Creating a new statutory guarantee that all burglaries will be attended by the police and properly investigated.
• Tackle the backlog of court cases
• Improving rehabilitation in prisons and strengthening the supervision of offenders in the community.
• Help for survivors of violence against women and girls, including mandatory training for police and prosecutors in understanding the impact of trauma

Immigration

• End the Hostile Environment and invest instead in officers, training and technology to tackle smuggling, trafficking and modern slavery.
• Transfer policy-making over work visas and overseas students out of the Home Office and into other departments.
• Scrap the Conservatives’ Illegal Migration Act and their Rwanda scheme, uphold the Refugee Convention, and provide safe and legal routes to sanctuary for refugees
• Tackle the asylum backlog by establishing a dedicated unit to improve the speed and quality of asylum decision-making
• Lift the ban on asylum seekers working if they have been waiting for a decision for more than three months, enabling them to support themselves, integrate in their communities and contribute to the economy.
• Work closely with Europol and the French authorities to stop people smuggling

Education and childcare

• Put a dedicated, qualified mental health professional in every school funded by increasing the Digital Services Tax on social media firms and other tech giants.
• Increase per pupil funding above the rate of inflation every year, and invest in new buildings and clearing the backlog of repairs
• Bring in a ‘Tutoring Guarantee’ for every disadvantaged pupil who needs extra support.
• Invest in high-quality early years education by giving disadvantaged children aged three and four an extra five free hours a week and tripling the Early Years Pupil Premium to £1,000 a year.
• Reinstate maintenance grants for disadvantaged students going to university.
• Create new Lifelong Skills Grants, giving all adults £5,000 to spend on education and training throughout their lives, and aim to increase them to £10,000 in the future when the public finances allow.
• Extend free school meals to all children in poverty, with an ambition to extend them to all primary school children when the public finances allow.
• Appoint a Cabinet Minister for Children and Young People.
• Double Statutory Maternity and Shared Parental Pay to £350 a week and with an extra use-it-or-lose-it month for fathers and partners, paid at 90% of earnings.
• Make all parental pay and leave day-one rights, and extend them to self-employed parents.
• Bring back Erasmus Plus programme to let young people study and volunteer abroad

Welfare and pensions

• Remove the two-child limit and the benefit cap.
• Set a target of ending deep poverty within a decade, with an independent commission to recommend further annual increases in Universal Credit
• Protecting the pensions triple lock
• Compensation for WASPI women, those born in the 1950s who were unfairly impacted by state pension increases.

Transport

• Make it cheaper and easier for drivers to switch to electric vehicles with more charging points, reintroducing the plug-in car grant, and restoring the requirement that every new car and small van sold from 2030 is zero-emission.
• Freeze rail fares and simplify ticketing on public transport
• Extend the electrification of Britain’s rail network, improve stations, greatly improve disabled access, reopen smaller stations and deliver Northern Powerhouse rail.
• Boost bus services by giving local authorities more powers to franchise services and simplifying funding
• New cycling and walking networks with a new nationwide active travel strategy
• Give more of the roads budget to local councils to maintain existing roads, pavements and cycleways, including repairing potholes.

Housing

• Building 380,000 new homes a year, including 150,000 social homes a year, through new garden cities and community-led development of cities and towns.
• A fair deal for renters by immediately banning no-fault evictions, making three-year tenancies the default, and creating a national register of licensed landlords.
• Local authorities to be given powers to end Right to Buy in their areas.
• Ending rough sleeping within the next Parliament and immediately axing the Vagrancy Act.
• Abolishing residential leaseholds and capping ground rents to a nominal fee

• Local authorities to increase council tax by up to 500 per cent on second homes.

Democracy

• Introducing proportional representation by the Single Transferable Vote for electing MPs, and local councillors in England.
• Scrapping voter ID scheme and giving 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote.
• Finally hold Government Ministers to account for corruption and sleaze by enshrining the Ministerial Code in legislation.
• Reform the House of Lords with a proper democratic mandate.
• Transfer greater powers away from Westminster and introduce a written constitution for a federal United Kingdom
• Take big money out of politics by capping donations to political parties.