Intro to UK's Political Parties

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Labour rules out a no-deal Brexit, and we will end the scandal of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money being wasted on no-deal preparations.

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Labour will secure a new Brexit deal – one that protects jobs, rights and the environment, avoids a hard border in Northern Ireland and protects the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process. We will also ensure that there is no change in the status or sovereignty of Gibraltar.

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Once we have secured this new deal we will put it to a legally binding referendum alongside the option of remaining in the EU. This will take place within the first six months of a Labour government.

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Within five years, all 2, 3 and 4-yearolds will be entitled to 30 hours of free preschool education per week and access to additional hours at affordable, subsidised rates staggered with incomes.

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Labour’s funding settlement will ensure pupils are taught by a qualified teacher, that every school is open for a full five days a week, and maximum class sizes of 30 for all primary school children. We will also fund more non-contact time for teachers to prepare and plan.

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Labour will end the ‘high stakes’ testing culture of schools by scrapping Key Stage 1 and 2 SATs and baseline assessments, and refocusing assessment on supporting pupil progress.

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We will replace Ofsted and transfer responsibility for inspections to a new body, designed to drive school improvement.

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Labour will end the failed free-market experiment in higher education, abolish tuition fees and bring back maintenance grants.

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A Labour government will invest in the NHS to give patients the modern, wellresourced services they need. We will increase expenditure across the health sector by an average 4.3% a year.

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Labour will end and reverse privatisation in the NHS in the next Parliament. We will repeal the Health and Social Care Act and reinstate the responsibilities of the Secretary of State to provide a comprehensive and universal healthcare system.

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We will uphold the principle of comprehensive healthcare by providing free annual NHS dental check-ups.

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We will guarantee universal healthcare by ensuring women’s and children’s health services are comprehensive, by protecting the rights of EU workers, other migrants and refugees and by ensuring all our services are made accessible to BAME, LGBT+ and disabled patients. We will end mixed-sex wards.

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A Labour government will provide an additional £1.6 billion a year to ensure new standards for mental health are enshrined in the NHS constitution ensuring access to treatments is on a par with that for physical health conditions.

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We’ll ask those who earn more than £80,000 a year to pay a little more income tax, while freezing National Insurance and income tax rates for everyone else.

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We will launch the biggest ever crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion and reform the inefficient system of tax reliefs.

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We will repair the damage the Tories have done to our social fabric, with a £150 billion Social Transformation Fund to replace, upgrade and expand our schools, hospitals, care homes and council houses.

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We will further help small businesses by increasing the amount that can be transferred to non-levy-paying employers to 50% and introducing an online matching service to help levy-paying businesses find smaller businesses to transfer their funds to.

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We will launch a Climate Apprenticeship programme to enable employers to develop the skills needed to lead the world in clean technology.

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Where councils take control of their buses, Labour will introduce free bus travel for under-25s.

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We will increase and expand local services, reinstating the 3,000 routes that have been cut, particularly hitting rural communities.

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Labour will deliver improvements for rail passengers by bringing our railways back into public ownership, using options including franchise expiry.

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By improving public transport, Labour will help people to become less reliant on their cars, for our better health, for a cleaner environment and to improve quality of life in our towns and cities.

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Any expansion of airports must pass our tests on air quality, noise pollution, climate change obligations and countrywide benefits.

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We will deliver nearly 90% of electricity and 50% of heat from renewable and low-carbon sources by 2030.

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We will trial and expand tidal energy and invest to reduce the costs of renewable and low-carbon hydrogen
production.

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We will upgrade almost all of the UK’s 27 million homes to the highest energy-efficiency standards, reducing the average household energy bill by £417 per household per year by 2030 and eliminating fuel poverty.

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We will introduce a windfall tax on oil companies, so that the companies that knowingly damaged our climate will help cover the costs.

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We will develop the recommendations of our ‘30 by 2030’ report to put the UK on track for a net-zero-carbon energy system within the 2030s – and go faster if credible pathways can be found.

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In England, we will introduce an animal welfare commissioner, prohibit the sale of snares and glue traps, end the badger cull and ban the keeping of primates as pets.

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A Liberal Democrat government will stop Brexit – and aim to build a brighter future for the UK by keeping us at the heart of the European Union.

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Use the Remain Bonus of £50 billion to invest in public services and tackle inequality.

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Triple the Early Years Pupil Premium (to £1,000) to give extra help to disadvantaged children who are at risk of falling behind from the very beginning of their education.

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Reverse cuts to school funding, allowing schools to employ an extra 20,000 teachers and reduce class sizes, restoring them to 2015 levels per pupil with an emergency cash injection.

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Introduce a ‘curriculum for life’, in all state-funded schools. This will include Personal, Social and Health Education, financial literacy, environmental awareness, first aid and emergency lifesaving skills, mental health education, citizenship and age-appropriate Relationships and Sex Education (RSE). Teaching about sexual consent, LGBT+ relationships, and issues surrounding explicit images and content will be included in RSE.

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Reduce unnecessary stress on pupils and teachers and end ‘teaching to the test’, by scrapping existing mandatory SATs and replacing them with a formal, moderated teacher assessment at the end of each phase and some lighter-touch testing.

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Require universities to make mental health services accessible to their students, and introduce a Student Mental Health Charter through legislation.

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Raise £7 billion a year in additional revenue by putting 1p on Income Tax, with this money to be ringfenced for spending on the NHS and social care.

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Reform the Health and Social Care Act as recommended by the NHS, to make the NHS work in a more efficient and joined-up way, and to end the automatic tendering of services

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Transform mental health by treating it with the same urgency as physical health.

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Also use £10 billion of our capital fund to make necessary investments in equipment, hospitals, community, ambulance and mental health services buildings, to bring them into the 21st century.

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Increase access to a broader range and number of clinically effective talking therapies so that hundreds of thousands more people can receive this support, with equal access for older people, BAME and LGBT+ patients, and people with autism or learning disabilities.

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Enabling an adaptable, future-focused workforce – empowering individuals through new Skills Wallets worth £10,000 for every individual.

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Introducing a wellbeing budget and basing decisions for government spending on what will improve wellbeing as well as on economic and fiscal indicators.

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Give local authorities and regions the power to make decisions about their areas.

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£5 billion of initial capital for a new Green Investment Bank, using public money

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to attract private investment for zero-carbon priorities.

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Capital investment in schools and hospitals to support capacity increases and modernisation.

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Increase national spending on research and development to three per cent of GDP. We will publish a roadmap to achieve this ambition by the earliest date possible, via an interim target of 2.4 per cent of GDP by no later than 2027.

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Investing £130 billion in infrastructure – upgrading our transport and energy systems, building schools, hospitals and homes, empowering all regions and nations of the UK and developing the climate-friendly infrastructure of the future.

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Signifcant investment in public transport, including converting the rail network to ultra-low-emission technology (electric or hydrogen) by 2035, and a continued commitment to HS2, Crossrail 2 and other major new strategic rail routes.

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A programme of installing hyper-fast, fibre-optic broadband across the UK – with a particular focus on connecting rural areas.

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New direct spending on housebuilding to help build 300,000 homes a year by
2024, including 100,000 social homes.

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An emergency programme to insulate all Britain’s homes by 2030, cutting emissions and fuel bills and ending fuel poverty.

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Investing in renewable power so that at least 80 per cent of UK electricity is generated from renewables by 2030 – and banning fracking for good.

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Protecting nature and the countryside, tackling biodiversity loss and planting 60 million trees a year to absorb carbon, protect wildlife and improve health.

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Investing in public transport, electrifying Britain’s railways and ensuring that all new cars are electric by 2030.

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Accelerate the deployment of renewable power, providing more funding, removing the Conservatives’ restrictions on solar and wind and building more interconnectors to guarantee security of supply; we aim to reach at least 80% renewable electricity in the UK by 2030.

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Will start putting our deal through Parliament before Christmas and we will leave the European Union in January.

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Keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.

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Negotiate a trade agreement next year, and not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.

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Introduce an Australian-style pointsbased immigration system.

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Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment.

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We want to attract the best talent into teaching and recognise the great work they do, so we’re raising teachers’ starting salaries to £30,000 – among the most competitive in the graduate labour market.

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We will also deliver more school places for children with complex Special Educational Needs.

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We will intervene in schools where there is entrenched underperformance.

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We will continueto ensure that parents can choose the schools that best suit their children and best prepare them for the future. And we will continue to build more free schools.

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We also will continue to explore ways to tackle the problem of grade inflation and low quality courses, and improve the application and offer system for undergraduate students.

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Between 2018 and 2023, we will have raised funding for the NHS by 29 percent. By the end of the Parliament, that will be more than £650 million extra a week.

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We will build and fund 40 new hospitals over the next 10 years. This is on top of the 20 hospital upgrades announced in the summer.

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We will deliver 50,000 more nurses, with students receiving a £5,000-£8,000 annual maintenance grant every year during their course to help with their cost of living – and they won’t have to pay it back.

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Our new funding will deliver 50 million extra general practice appointments a year, an increase of over 15 percent.

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We promise not to raise the rates of income tax, National Insurance or VAT.

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We not only want to freeze taxes, but to cut them too. We will raise the National Insurance threshold to £9,500 next year.

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We will establish a new £1 billion fund to help create more high quality, affordable childcare, including before and after school and during the school holidays.

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We will keep our existing energy cap and introduce new measures to lower bills.

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We will continue the roll-out of Universal Credit, which combines multiple benefits into one while building a clearer pathway from welfare into work.

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We will invest in the Midlands Rail Hub, strengthening rail links including those between Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham, Coventry, Derby, Hereford and Worcester.

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We will invest £100 billion in additional infrastructure spending – on roads, rail and other responsible, productive investment which will repair and refurbish the fabric of our country and generate greater growth in the long run.

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We will give city regions the funding to upgrade their bus, tram and train services to make them as good as London’s.

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We will require that a minimum service operates during transport strikes.

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We will make a £28.8 billion investment in strategic and local
roads. We will invest £1 billion in completing a fast-charging network to ensure that everyone is within 30 miles of a rapid electric vehicle charging station.

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We will amend planning rules so that the infrastructure – roads, schools, GP surgeries – comes before people move into new homes. And our new £10 billion Single Housing Infrastructure Fund will help deliver it faster.

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We will set up a new independent Office For Environmental Protection and introduce our own legal targets, including for air quality.

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We will invest in nature, helping us to reach our Net Zero target with a £640 million new Nature for Climate fund.

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Building on our support for creating a Great Northumberland Forest, we will reach an additional 75,000 acres of trees a year by the end of the next Parliament, as well as restoring our peatland.

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We will increase penalties for fly-tipping, make those on community sentences clean up their parks and streets, and introduce a deposit return scheme to incentivise people to recycle plastic and glass.

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We will introduce extended producer responsibility, so that producers pay the full costs of dealing with the waste they produce, and boost domestic recycling.

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We will ban the export of plastic waste to non-OECD countries, consulting with industry, NGOs and local councils on the date by which this should be achieved.

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Proudly pro-European party and are unequivocally campaigning for Britain to Remain in the EU.

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Want to build on the positive changes secured by Green MEPs in Europe so far, to further rebalance power within the EU in favour of citizens and national self-determination, and away from corporate dominance.

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Has an outlined plan for how to transform the existing relationship with the EU, instead of ending it.

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Relieve the financial squeeze on schools after years of education cuts, by increasing funding by at least £4 billion per year.

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Focus funding to reduce class sizes down to under 20 in the long term, to help teachers focus on individual pupil needs and create a pleasant learning environment.

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Free schools from centrally imposed testing regimes, OFSTED inspections, rigid national curriculum and league tables.

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Replace OFSTED with a collaborative system of assessing and supporting schools locally, to improve standards and be accountable to the communities in which they serve.

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Fully fund every higher education student and scrap undergraduate tuition fees. Write off existing debt for former students who studied under the £9k tuition fee regime.

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Increase funding for the NHS by at least £6 billion per year each year, until 2030 (a 4.5% increase on the 2018/2019 NHS Budget), and a further £1 billion a year in nursing higher education, allowing for nursing bursaries to be reinstated.

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Roll back privatisation of the NHS, through repealing the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and abolishing the internal market.

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Replace private sector involvement in the NHS with community leadership.

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Provide stronger powers to Health and Wellbeing boards to represent the interest of the public in the NHS.

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Focus funding to enable major improvements to mental health care to truly put it on an equal footing with physical health care, and ensure that everyone who needs it can access evidence-based mental health therapies within 28 days.

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Ensure that tailored and specific provision is readily available for the particular needs of Lesbian, Gay
Bisexual, Trans, Intersex, Queer and Asexual (LGBTIQA+) and Black Minority Ethnic (BME) communities, children and adolescents, and older people.

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Merge Employees National Insurance, Capital Gains Tax, Inheritance Tax, Dividend Tax and Income Tax into a single Consolidated Income Tax. This closing of loopholes will bring in an estimated £20 billion extra per year into the public purse. It will mean that all income is treated the same way for tax purposes

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Replace the Income Tax threshold with Universal Basic Income.

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End the double taxation of pension funds, which are currently subject to Corporation Tax and then Income Tax when paid out to individual pensioners.

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Abolish Council Tax and Business Rates, replacing them with an LVT. Ensure LVT is paid by landowners
regardless of whether or not they live on the land.

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Entrench the anti-avoidance principle in UK tax law and oblige banks to provide information about companies automatically to HMRC.

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Increase the rate of Corporation Tax to 24%, in line with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average.

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Empower local authorities to bring empty homes back into use and create a total of 100,000 new homes for social rent (council homes) a year, built to the Passivhaus or equivalent standard.

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Deploy heat networks to transport heat from the source of renewable heat to individual buildings in a district or neighbourhood.

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Spend £2.5 billion a year on new cycleways and footpaths, built using sustainable materials, such as woodchips and sawdust.

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Making travelling by public transport cheaper than travelling by car, by reducing the cost of travelling by train and bus.

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Electrifying all railway lines that connect cities, improving punctuality.

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Stop the building of new runways and all increased road capacity, saving thousands of acres of countryside every year and protecting people from the harm of increased air pollution and traffic danger.

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Ban advertising for flights, and introduce a Frequent Flyer Levy to reduce the impact of the 15% of people who take 70% of flights.

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Enable communities to develop their own renewable energy projects, so that the benefits of locally generated energy can stay local.

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Introduce new support and incentives to directly accelerate wind energy development, paving the way for wind to provide around 70% of the UK’s electricity by 2030

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Introduce new support for solar, geothermal, tidal, hydro and other renewable energies to provide much of the remainder of the UK’s energy supply by 2030.

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Work with the Crown Estate, which owns much of the UK’s coastline, to open up more coastal waters for offshore wind and marine energy.

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Remove subsidies to the oil and gas industries.

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Apply a Carbon Tax on all fossil fuel imports and domestic extraction, based on greenhouse gas emissions produced when fuel is burnt.

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Ban fracking, and other unconventional forms of fossil fuel extraction, now and forever.

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Promise to deliver a 'clean-break' Brexit

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Cut VAT on domestic fuel: EU rules stop us reducing our VAT rates. We will zero rate VAT on domestic fuel to reduce energy bills — saving an average £65 per household.

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Reduce import tariffs: 20% of UK food items are sourced from outside the EU. A Clean-Break Brexit will allow us to reduce tariffs to zero on certain foods, footwear and clothing.

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Invest in young people: scrap interest on student loans, which will improve the debt recovery rate, and introduce a new workable apprenticeship scheme.

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Abolish the target to push 50% of young people into Higher Education.

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Scrap the cumbersome Apprentice Levy — apprenticeships have collapsed. Improve tax incentives for employers to take on genuine apprentices.

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Invest in the NHS and Social Care: we need to keep investing in these essential and treasured public services - with more medical staff and less waste.

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There should be no privatisation of the NHS; where existing private initiatives have failed to deliver we will return them to public ownership.

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Abolish all politically imposed hospital targets that distort clinical priorities.

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Re-open the nursing and midwifery professions to recruitment without the degree requirement, alongside a new nursing qualification in social care.

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Introduce 24-hour GP surgeries to relieve the strain in A&E departments.

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Raise £200bn by: Scrapping HS2, Keeping the £13bn annual EU contribution, Recovering our £7bn from the EIB, Redirecting 50% of the foreign aid budget (£40bn over a five-year term).

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Abolish Inheritance Tax (IHT). This hated ‘grief’ tax raises less than 1% of total tax revenue. It is ‘double taxation’ on a lifetime’s assets, levied at a time of family distress.

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Free up small businesses, the most dynamic part of the economy, to do what they do best — creating new jobs. We will exempt from Corporation Tax those one million companies with profit before tax of under £50,000.

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Invest at least £50bn in local road and rail schemes in our development-starved regions.

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Invest in digital infrastructure: partner with service providers to offer free base level domestic broadband in deprived regions and free Wi-Fi on all public transport.

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Invest in the Environment: in addition to planting millions of trees to capture CO2 we will promote a global initiative at the UN.

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Recycle our own waste and make it illegal for it to be exported across the world to be burnt, buried or dumped at sea.

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In short, UKIP stands for: no more money to be paid to the EU, no more EU laws imposed upon us, no more jurisdiction over us by the European Court and no more open-border EU immigration.

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Brexit should mean that the UK not only leaves the EU Commission and Parliament but also that the whole United Kingdom leaves the Single Market and Customs Union. There must be no regulatory or customs border down the Irish Sea, which separates Northern Ireland from Great Britain.

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A clean exit from the EU will include withdrawing post-Brexit from the EU Common Foreign, Security and Defence Policies (CFSP and CSDP) which will subjugate our armed forces to the EU military command and control architecture. We must not be subject to European Defence Funding (EDF), European Defence Agency (EDA), or Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO).

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Will waive the repayment of tuition fees for further and higher education in subjects vital to our national life: science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine subjects (STEMM) at university, dependent on graduates working in their fields in the UK during their student loan repayment period.

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Teacher training courses should be given a radical overhaul and re-focussed on training educators to use successful traditional teaching methods that focus on facts and excellence rather than post-modern, deconstructive and relativistic methods.

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Teachers must be able to concentrate on what is important by cutting down on bureaucratic assessments and appraisals. Education needs to re-focus on teaching children the basics.

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Would end political correctness in schools and introduce a specific Act to prevent damaging political propaganda being passed off as fact. Indoctrination of young minds is wrong. What we must give them is the desire and capacity to think freely for themselves.

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Will remove subjects from the statutory National Curriculum which seek to indoctrinate children with politically correct ideologies, specifically Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE), Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Citizenship. We will maintain parents’ right to remove their children from these lessons.

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Opposes the confusing and non-scientific gender ideology currently being introduced into schools and will repeal the law responsible for the implementation of ‘LGBT-inclusive’ Relationships Education in primary schools and RSE, due to be made compulsory from September 2020.

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The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) scandal (introduced by the Tories and expanded by Labour), is still draining much-needed funds out of our NHS. PFI contracts financed £11.8 billion to build hospitals in England but will cost £71 billion to pay back over 31 years. UKIP will renegotiate or terminate these contracts where possible.

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The NHS is a national health service and not an international health service. The NHS is open to widespread abuse by non-UK citizens. We will end ‘health tourism’ by foreign nationals. Any new arrivals/ migrants into the UK will be required to have private health insurance until they have paid NI for five years. Visitors to the UK will also be required to have private health insurance as part of the visa process unless specific reciprocal agreements are in place.

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Will encourage the recruitment of hospital doctors and GPs by waiving repayment of tuition fees while they work in the NHS, and we will reintroduce student bursaries for nursing and midwifery students.
There is no need for nursing to be a degree-only profession, however. We will reintroduce State Enrolled Nurses, and encourage more trainee nurses to enter the profession by this method. We will also take on more nurse associates and assistant practitioners via the existing apprenticeship scheme to help fill
existing vacancies.

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Will introduce practical policies to improve the delivery of mental health services and increase mental health funding as necessary. We also need to investigate the causes of increased mental health issues in order to tackle them at source.

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Is committed to lowering income tax, corporation tax and payroll taxes where feasible, which will allow individuals and companies to keep more of their own money.

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Will seek to balance the national budget by reducing the budget deficit to zero and thereafter paying off our national debt.

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Opposes price capping and price controls.
On leaving the EU, we will maintain payments administered by the EU to UK businesses, farms, universities, and research organisations. This is our money anyway, which is paid to Brussels and then given back.

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Will end Right to Buy, which has decimated the supply of council homes.

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Will end Help to Buy, which artificially raises house and rental prices.

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Will scrap HS2. At an estimated cost of £100 billion, this vanity project is not affordable.(5) HS2 will destroy people’s lives and will have a huge environmental impact.

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Will use some of the money saved from HS2 to invest in the existing railways to improve capacity and journey times. We will seek to re-open old branch lines closed in the Beeching cuts where economically feasible, and also to develop the metro systems of our conurbations.

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Will seek to restore some of the subsidised bus services that have had to end, leaving many rural communities with no public transport.

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Opposes the expansion of Heathrow Airport. The current Heath row plan will destroy many villages and listed buildings as well as add to pollution in the locality. Instead, UKIP supports a second runway at Gatwick Airport and will encourage investment in regional airports.

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Supports open, free-market competition between petrol, diesel and electric vehicles, but will end subsidies and vehicle tax exemptions for electric vehicles.

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Will scrap all road tolls. Tolling increases costs to business and the public. Road users arealready overtaxed and should not be paying twice to use our roads. We will also block any introduction of pay-as-you-go road pricing.

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It should be possible to build one million new houses on brownfield sites. We will offer grants to bring this land into use.

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We will end densification and specify a maximum housing density.

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UKIP will replace the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) with fresh national planning guidelines that will prioritise brownfield sites for new housing and genuinely protect the Green Belt and countryside, and give local authorities greater ability to refuse planning permission for inappropriate developments.