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| Liberal Democrats Election 2010 |
The
Liberal Democrats' Election Manifesto 2010 is available here. The Party's four priorities are fair taxes, a fair future, a fair chance for every child and a fair deal by clearning up politics. The
Liberal Democrats have published a briefing paper, A Fair Deal for Older People, a policy paper on health care and a briefing paper on People with Disabilities.
Proposals in the manifesto include:
- Replacing the council tax with local income tax based on people's ability to pay (England).
- Increase the income tax threshold to £10,000, saving most pensioners around £100 a year.
- Integrating health and social care to create a seamless service, ending bureaucratic barriers and saving money to allow people to stay in their homes for longer rather than going into hospital or longterm residential care (England).
- Making the NHS work better by extending best practice on improving hospital discharge, maximising the number of day case operations, reducing delays prior to operations, and where possible moving consultations into the community.
- Using the money for Labour’s Personal Care At Home policy to provide guaranteed respite care for the one million carers who work the longest hours. We will establish an independent commission, with cross-party support, to develop proposals for long-term care of the elderly (England).
- Prioritising dementia research within the health research and development budget, improving access to counselling for people with mental health problems (England).
- Ensuring that local GPs are directly involved in providing out-ofhours care.
- Scrapping compulsory retirement ages.
- Extend the right to request fl exible working to all employees, making it easier for grandparents, for example, to take a caring role.
- Giving people control over their pension by scrapping the rule that compels you to buy an annuity when you reach age 75.
- Immediately restoring the link between the basic state pension and earnings. We will uprate the state pension annually by whichever is the higher of growth in earnings, growth in prices or 2.5 per cent.
- In the long term, aim to bring in a Citizen’s Pension that will be paid to all UK citizens who are long-term residents, set at the level of the Pension Credit, though this can only be done when resources allow.
- Reforming Winter Fuel Payments to extend them to all severely disabled people, paid for by delaying age-related Winter Fuel Payments until people reach 65. We will continue to pay Winter Fuel Payments to all current recipients of Pension Credit.
- Begin a national programme to insulate many more homes paid for by the savings from lower energy bills.
- Improve access to banking for all with a PostBank, revenues from which will also help to secure the future of the Post Office.
- Bring in stop-on-request for night buses. You should be able to ask the driver to let you off between stops, so you’re as close to home as possible.
- Give councils greater powers to regulate bus services according to community needs so that local people get a real say over routes and fares.
This page will be amended as more information becomes available. |
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Links
to facts and figures about the UK ageing population:
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