Westminster blog

Having gutted Labour’s manifesto yesterday it’s now time to do the same for the Tories. Cameron’s speech was supposed take place at 11am but it’s now likely to be after 11.30am. Cam has been preceded by Hague, Osborne, Gove, Lansley, Spelman, (PPC) Shaun Bailey, Baroness Warsi – presumably an attempt to prove he is not a one-man band.

Here is our list – to be edited as more emerges. So far the answer to the question is no: there doesn’t seem to anything new. Not sure that matters though.

Public sector co-ops. Giving public sector workers “ownership” of the services they deliver. (Tessa Jowell is making the same claims for Labour)

Banks. We will reform the regulation and structure of the banking system to ensure lower levels of leverage, less dependence on unstable wholesale funding, and greater availability of credit for small and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). (familiar)

Corporation tax: reduce corporation tax from 28p to 25p and for smaller companies to 20p. (announced by Osborne in March)

Deficit/ratings agencies. Emergency budget within 50 days of election. We will safeguard Britain’s credit rating, aided by new Office for Budget Responsibility (this was a more credible claim a month ago)

“Work for yourself”. A new programme giving the unemployed access to business mentors and loans.

Sack your MP. Tories would give power of “recall” to let electors throw out MPs. Parliamentary Privilege Act to stop MPs evading prosecution. (old – from 2009)

Run your own school. Based on Swedish model (existing policy – check out John Humphries on this morning’s Today programme making William Hague squirm).

Getting disabled people into Parliament. New £1m fund to help people with disabilities become MPs or councillors (old)

Own your own home. Raising stamp duty threshold to £250,000 permanently for first-time buyers (old from 2008).

Social tenants. “Foot in the ladder” programme to offer an equity stake to good social tenants (old).

Veto council tax rises. Local referendums on any issue if 5 per cent of locals sign up. Also able to veto council tax rises (old).

Vote for your police. Giving people democratic control over policing priorities by letting them elect commissioners (old - the police hate it).

Save your local pub or post office. “Community right to buy scheme” to protect community assets threatened with closure. Including post offices and pubs. (old - and is this really going to work?)

Reform governance of football clubs to enable co-op model to be established by supporters (new? is this a rip-off of Labour’s manifesto pledge?)

See how government spends your money. Central government job vacancies to be published online. All major contracts of £25k-plus to be published on line. In local government all items and contracts over £500 to be published. (old)

Green.

1] “Vote blue go green” was a “promise of a different world,” William Hague says (11.20am). Then why have the Tories back-pedalled on controversial green taxes? Asked by my colleague Jean Eaglesham what’s happened to these, Cameron claims (12.20pm) that a Tory government would ‘raise the share of overall taxation taken by green taxes‘. But neither he nor Osborne can find the relevant bit of the document. (12.30pm; I’ve just found it on page 31: ‘any additional revenues from new green taxes that are principally designed as an environmental measure to change behaviour are used to reduce the burden of taxation elsewhere‘).

2] Specific pledges include a ‘Green Deal’, giving every home up to £6,500 worth of energy improvement measures (old).

Tax. Reversing most of Labour’s one per cent planned rise in national insurance from April 2011. (old)

Apprenticeships. Plans to create 400,000 extra training places, including 200,000 apprenticeships (old).

Deficit. Eliminating the bulk of the deficit over the life of the next parliament. (yes, but how exactly?). “We cannot continue with the old debt-fuelled economic model of the past,” says George Osborne. (11.25am). (yes, but how exactly?)

Cost of borrowing. Keeping interest rates ‘lower for longer’ (isn’t that the job of the Bank of England’s MPC?).

Fuel duty stabiliser: Would mitigate the impact of high oil prices, by using money levied from taxes on energy firms to temporarily lower fuel duty. (Tories have advocated this before but it seems new as concrete policy)

Crossrail. “We support Crossrail” (but will it happen?)

Austerity measures. Stop paying tax credits to better-off families with incomes over £50,000; cut government contributions to Child Trust Funds for all but the poorest third of families and families with disabled children; cap public sector pensions above £50,000; cut ministers’ pay by 5 per cent, followed by
a five year freeze; and reduce the number of MPs by 10 per cent; freeze on new IT spending; restrictions on public sector recruitment. (old)

Consumer protection. New Consumer Protection Agency which will cap excessive borrowing rates on credit cards. (old). But also a pledge to protect anyone losing their home for unsecured debts lower than £25,000 (could be new, as Faisal Islam suggests. nope – it’s from 2008, sorry).

Pensioners. A promise to protect the winter fuel payment; free bus passes; free TV licences; disability living allowance and attendance allowance; and the pension credit. (old)