The policy agreement for the new Government is full of Liberal Democrat policies. It is a real chance to put into action the ideas that we have campaigned for.

A Fair Start for Children

Fairer taxes and Economic Reform

• A substantial increase in the personal allowance from April 2011 with a longer term policy objective of further increasing the personal allowance to £10,000, making further real terms steps each year towards this objective
• Reform of the banking system, ensuring a flow of lending to businesses and a Banking Levy. An independent commission on separating retail and investment banking.
• Capital Gains Tax reform

Fair Politics

• Fixed-term parliaments and a referendum on electoral reform for the House of Commons.
• A power of recall, allowing voters to force a by-election where an MP was found to have engaged in serious wrongdoing.
• A wholly or mainly elected House of Lords on the basis of proportional representation.
• Giving Parliament control of its own agenda so that all bills are properly debated.
• Enacting the Calman Commission proposals and a referendum on further Welsh devolution.
• A statutory register of lobbyists.
• A limit on political donations and reform of party funding in order to remove big money from politics.
• Radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups.

A fair and sustainable future

• Establish a smart electricity grid and the roll-out of smart meters.
• Establish feed-in tariff systems in electricity
• A huge increase in energy from waste through anaerobic digestion.
• The creation of a green investment bank.
• The provision of home energy improvement paid for by the savings from lower energy bills.
• Retention of energy performance certificates when HIPs are scrapped.
• Measures to encourage marine energy.
• The establishment of an emissions performance standard that will prevent coal-fired power stations being built unless they are equipped with sufficient CCS to meet the emissions performance standard.
• Establish a high-speed rail network.
• Cancel the third runway at Heathrow and refuse additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted.
• Replace the Air Passenger Duty with a ‘per plane’ duty.
• The provision of a floor price for carbon, as well as efforts to persuade the EU to move towards full auctioning of ETS permits.
• Make the import or possession of illegal timber a criminal offence.
• Promote green spaces and wildlife corridors in order to halt the loss of habitats and restore biodiversity.
• Reduce central government carbon emissions by 10 per cent within 12 months.
• Increase the target for energy from renewable sources.

Pensions

• Restoration of the earnings link for the basic state pension from April 2011 with a “triple guarantee” that pensions are raised by the higher of earnings, prices or 2.5%.
• Phase out the default retirement age and end the rules requiring compulsory annuitisation at 75.
• Implement the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman’s recommendation to make fair and transparent payments to Equitable Life policyholders.

Civil Liberties

• Scrap the ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the ContactPoint Database.
• Outlaw the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.
• Extend the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.
• Adopt the Scottish approach to stopping retention of innocent people’s DNA on the DNA database.
• Defend trial by jury.
• Restore rights to non-violent protest.
• A review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech.
• Safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.
• Further regulation of CCTV.
• Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason.
• A new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.
• End the detention of children for immigration purposes.