The Tories, Labour and Liberal Democrats have all launched their general election manifestos as they bid to win over voters ahead of polling day on 4 July.
The three parties have made a series of pledges in key areas, including the economy, the NHS, migration, education, defence and housing.
Rishi Sunak has put a £17billion package of tax cuts at the heart of his offer to British voters, with the Conservative manifesto also promising to halve migration.
He said his party were offering ‘lower immigration, lower taxes and protected pensions’ as part of a ‘secure future’.
There were no surprise new policy announcements in Labour’s manifesto, with Sir Keir Starmer promising a ‘serious plan for the future of our country’.
He warned there would be ‘no quick fix’ to 14 years of Tory ‘chaos’, but vowed Labour would be the ‘party of wealth creation’.
The Liberal Democrats unveiled a £9.4billion a year package for the NHS and social care as the centrepiece of their manifesto.
Party leader Sir Ed Davey urged voters to ‘Take A Chance’ on him, as the Abba classic played at their manifesto launch.
Here are the key pledges from each party’s manifesto:
TORIES
Rishi Sunak has put a £17billion package of tax cuts at the heart of his offer to British voters, with the Conservative manifesto also promising to halve migration
The PM said his party were offering ‘lower immigration, lower taxes and protected pensions’ in their manifesto
Economy:
The Conservatives are offering a further 2p cut to national insurance to build on successive 2p cuts at the Autumn Statement and Spring Budget.
The main rate of national insurance for the self-employed would be abolished by the end of the next Parliament under the Tories.
They are promising no increases to income tax, national insurance or VAT, and want to scrap capital gains tax for landlords who sell properties to their tenants.
Pensioners will be protected from having to pay tax on their state pensions under a ‘triple lock-plus’.
Migration:
Mr Sunak has set out an ambition to ‘halve’ migration, with an annual legal cap on the number of work and family visas issued.
The Tories have reiterated their pledge to begin deportation flights to Rwanda as part of the PM’s bid to ‘stop the boats’
But they have not committed to reassessing the UK’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights, as some Conservatives wanted.
NHS:
The Tories plan to boost community medical care by expanding the Pharmacy First programme.
They will build 100 new GP surgeries and modernise 150 more, which will be in part paid for reducing the number of NHS managers to pre-pandemic levels.
The Conservatives are promising, by the end of the next Parliament, there will be 92,000 more nurses and 28,000 more doctors in the NHS.
Education:
The Conservatives have pledged to boost apprenticeships numbers, creating a further 100,000 by 2029.
At the same time they have taken aim at ‘rip off’ degrees which offer poor value to students, and say scrapping these will help pay for their apprenticeship programme.
They will require schools to ban the use of mobile phones during the school day, and want to introduce mandatory National Service for all school leavers at age 18.
A new English baccalaureate, known as the Advanced British Standard, will replace A Levels and T Levels.
Gender:
The Tories will make clear that ‘sex means biological sex’ in the Equality Act, as they look to protect female-only spaces and stop trans women from competing in women’s sports.
Housing:
The Conservatives will deliver 1.6 million new homes if elected by speeding up planning on brownfield land in inner cities and ‘scrapping defective EU laws’.
In an offer to first-time house buyers, the Conservatives have said they will abolish stamp duty up to the value of £425,000 and launch a ‘new and improved’ Help to Buy scheme.
Crime:
The Tories have pledged to get 8,000 more ‘bobbies on the beat’, with a focus on community policing.
They are also promising tougher sentences for the most serious crimes.
Defence:
The Conservatives have pledged to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP in 2030.
LABOUR
Sir Keir Starmer warned there would be ‘no quick fix’ to 14 years of Tory ‘chaos’, but vowed Labour would be the ‘party of wealth creation’
There were no surprise new policy announcements in Labour’s manifesto, with Sir Keir promising a ‘serious plan for the future of our country’
Economy:
Labour will create a national wealth fund to ‘support growth’ and promised to cap corporation tax at its current rate of 25 per cent.
It has committed to charging VAT on private school fees, abolishing the non-dom tax status, and closing ‘loopholes’ in the windfall tax on oil and gas companies.
In total, Labour plans to raise more than £7billion in revenue from tax.
Great British Energy, a state-owned clean power company, would be established to cut bills and boost security, funded by a windfall tax on oil and gas companies.
Migration:
Labour want to scrap the Rwanda scheme and use the savings to set up the Border Security Command, which would crack down on people smugglers.
A new returns enforcement unit will be established to fast-track the removal of asylum seekers, who do not have the right to be in the UK, to safe countries.
NHS:
Labour has pledged to cut waiting times with an extra 40,000 NHS appointments a week, using evenings and weekends to deliver this.
They have also promised to recruit an additional 8,500 new mental health staff and introduce a new ‘Fit For the Future’ fund to double the number of CT and MRI scanners to catch cancer earlier.
A dentistry rescue plan is focused on providing 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to areas in need.
Education:
Labour has set out plans to recruit 6,500 new teachers and create 3,000 new primary school-based nurseries.
It has also pledged to have free breakfast clubs at every primary school.
Gender:
The party are promising a full trans-inclusive ban on so-called ‘conversion therapy’, while ‘protecting the freedom for people to explore their sexual orientation and gender identity’.
Housing:
Labour has pledged to build 1.5million homes over the course of the next parliament, with an overhaul of planning rules and a ‘new generation of new towns’.
Crime:
Labour has pledged to ‘return law and order to our streets’ with a new neighbourhood policing guarantee.
This aims to restore patrols to town centres by recruiting thousands of new police officers, police and community support officers and special constables
Defence:
Labour has also pledged to boost defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP but not set a date for this to be achieved.
The party will support recognising a Palestinian state as part of a peace process in the Middle East.
LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey urged voters to ‘Take A Chance’ on him, as the Abba classic played at their manifesto launch
Economy:
The Lib Dems are pledging to put an extra £27billion into day-to-day public spending, which would be funded by hiking taxes for banks and the super-rich.
They want to create ‘long-term help with the cost of living’ by cutting energy bills through a home energy upgrade programme, and tackling rising food prices through a National Food Strategy.
The party want to eventually seek to rejoin the EU’s single market.
Migration:
The Lib Dems would scrap the Rwanda plan and ‘provide safe and legal routes to sanctuary’ for refugees, helping to prevent Channel crossings.
They would also lift the ban on asylum seekers working if they have been waiting for a decision for more than three months
NHS:
The party are promising everyone in England ‘the right to see a GP within seven days, or within 24 hours if they urgently need to’ and pledging 8,000 more GPs.
This is part of a £9.4billion package for the NHS and social care in England, paid for by hiking taxes for banks and closing finance loopholes used by the super-rich.
The Lib Dems also want to guarantee access to NHS dentistry for those in need of urgent care.
Education:
The Lib Dems plan to increase school and college funding per pupil ‘above the rate of inflation every year’.
The party wants to invest in new school and college buildings to end the ‘scandal’ of the crumbling schools estate.
Gender:
They have pledged to ‘respect and defend the rights of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, including trans and non-binary people’, and promised to ban all forms of conversion therapies and practices.
Housing:
The Lib Dems are promising to build 10 new garden cities as part of plans to build 380,000 new homes a year across the UK, including 150,000 social homes a year.
Some £6.2 billion would be spent towards meeting the social homes target.
Crime:
The Lib Dems want to create a new statutory guarantee that all burglaries will be attended by the police and properly investigated.
They would introduce a legal, regulated market for cannabis.
Defence:
The Lib Dems have outlined their ambition to increase regular troop numbers back to over 100,000.
They are also vowing to increase defence spending in every year of the Parliament, with ‘an ambition to spend at least 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence’.
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