The Liberal Democrats for the
June 2001 Election published a comprehensive manifesto
which was based on Party policy and reflects our belief
in the need to have better public services, care for the
environment and reform on how our country is governed.
The following are some of the
areas which the Party will be campaigning for during this
Parliament:
Agriculture
Liberal Democrats will put life
back into our rural communities.
This means local shops and post
offices; better bus and train services; affordable homes
especially for our your people; and real jobs.
We’ll help farmers get
back on their feet after the terrible times they’ve
been through.
People who live in the
countryside shouldn’t be treated as second-class
citizens. They should expect to get the same rights and
benefits as everyone else.
Constitution
Our priorities are electoral
reform, a democratic House of Lords and freedom of
information.
We need a fairer voting system
in which every vote counts. We want members of the House
of Lords to be elected and to get rid of the last of the
hereditary peers.
We believe the public should
have a right of access to all official information unless
there is a clear public interest in withholding it.
The Freedom of Information Act
must be strengthened.
Crime
Liberal Democrats want to
create safer communities with fewer victims of crime.
That means funding 6,000 extra
police officers in our towns and villages.
It means a prison system which
works and a justice system which listens to the victims
and gives defendants a fair trial.
That way we’ll have a
safer, fairer society for everyone.
Education
Liberal Democrats are committed
to a service that delivers a quality education from the
cradle to the grave.
We ill reduce average class
sizes to 25 for all primary school children. We will
recruit teachers, retain them, and more importantly -
value them.
We will cut red tape to give
teachers more time in the classroom. We will scrap
university tuition fees and restore grants. For the
Liberal Democrats every child, every school, and every
student matters.
Environment
Only the Liberal Democrats will
put the environment genuinely at the heart of government,
including green thinking in every aspect of our policies.
We will tackle climate change,
making deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions and big
increases in renewable energy.
We will introduce a National
Recycling Programme to bring doorstep recycling to every
household. We will end the injustice of fuel poverty -
improving health as well as the environment. Liberal
Democrats offer a real chance for a sustainable and green
future.
Ethnic Minorities
The black and Asian communities
have the same concerns as others on education, health,
pensions and transport but they also have specific
concerns about racial attack, harassment and community
crime.
This is why we advocate not
only more police officers but specifically more police
officers from black and Asian communities.
We value the contribution of
minorities in this country because equality is at the
heart of Liberal Democrat policy.
Europe
Liberal Democrats are firm
supporters of Europe.
Our trade, environmental and
security interests are best served by cooperation with
our EU partners.
Nations working together will
always achieve more. But we want to reform Europe
We want a Europe where the
interests of people, not bureaucrats, come first.
That’s why we support a
constitution for Europe which would define and limit its
powers.
The Euro
The Liberal Democrats were the
first party to call for a referendum on the single
currency. This is an issue which the people of the UK
must decide.
Liberal Democrats will argue
that membership of the Euro, provided it is at a
competitive and sustainable rate of exchange, would offer
Britain considerable benefits.
It would secure jobs in
manufacturing, farming and tourism, which have all been
hit by the high point. At the same time, prices and
interest rates would be lower, saving typical mortgage
payers as much as £1,000 a year. Britain would have more
influence in Europe.
Families
Our two main concerns are
health and education. Nothing is more worrying for a
parent than a sick child, knowing they’d have to
wait in a queue for treatment.
Liberal Democrats will pay for
more nurses, more doctors, more hospital beds. Parents
want the best education for their children. You
can’t get that with large class sizes. The Labour
Government has let families down by penny-pinching public
services. The Liberal Democrats will make a real change
to health and education.
We’ll aim to make
affordable childcare far more available so that every
member of every family can fulfil their potential.
Health
Liberal Democrats will treat
people faster by providing more hospital beds, more
doctors and more nurses, and by paying doctors and nurses
better.
We’ll have a Health
Service not an ‘Illness Service’ with scanning,
screening, and testing for everyone. We’ll also give
all elderly people free personal care.
Why should they have to sell
their house just to be fed, washed and dressed?
What people want is a Health
Service that is the envy of the world.
Home affairs
Liberal Democrats are committed
to reducing crime and violence, to making our courts and
prisons work, and to defending people’s freedoms.
To prevent more crime and to
catch more criminals we need enough police in every
community to do the job.
That means funding 6,000 more
police - not just making up for the cuts under Labour and
the Tories. To prevent prisoners re-offending, our prison
system must prepare them properly for life and work in
the outside world.
Our courts must ensure that
victims are not just heard, but listened to.
International Development
The Liberal Democrats believe
in helping people help themselves, concentrating aid on
education so the help we give today benefits the children
of tomorrow.
We will help people work their
way out of poverty, through debt relief and fair trade.
We will also fight for
people’s basic human rights by cracking down on the
arms trade and tackling Aids, the number one killer in
the developing world.
Pensions
Liberal Democrats believe that
older people should have security, dignity and choice.
Security is a decent pension
without means-testing. We would put £5 extra on the
basic pension and more for older pensioners. Dignity
means not have to see everything you own to pay for the
care you need in old age.
Liberal Democrats will make
sure that care is free. Choice means you can stop work if
you want to or you can carry on if you want to - because
we believe that age shouldn’t matter.
The Regions
The Liberal Democrats will give
power back to local people.
For too long power has been
stripped from local councils. We’ll return that
power from Whitehall, back to our towns and cities.
We’ll bring in a fair
voting system - so every vote counts and everyone’s
voice is heard.
We’ll give real choice to
local voters about how local funds are spent - we know
that it is those who live with problems who are best
placed to find the solutions to them.
Trade and Industry
Liberal Democrats believe in
stronger protection for consumers, workers and the
environment - but within a competitive free enterprise
economy.
Rip off Britain is alive and
kicking. Cowboy builders are thriving, bank customers are
paying through the nose, workers are being shortchanged
by Labour.
Workers should never have to
hear over the radio that they’ve lost their jobs.
There must be proper consultation. We’re also a
green party and we believe that polluters should pay.
This needs regulation, but it must be business friendly
regulation without red tape.
Liberal Democrats want a
competitive Britain, but also a caring Britain.
Transport
Liberal Democrats will create a
safe reliable and affordable public transport system.
We’ll make it safe by
making Railtrack more accountable to the public.
We’ll make it reliable by integrating the different
forms of public transport and cutting congestion on our
roads.
And, we’ll make it
affordable by allowing local people to raise money to
develop their own transport solutions. After the months
of crisis. Liberal Democrats will get our country on the
move again.
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