Election Selection: II

A brief summary of the Conservative's manifesto

With the election race coming to an end in just under two weeks, the five British parties have been busy taking part in live debates on the BBC and ITV, with a head-to-head between Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak kicking it off (not in style). They have also released their detailed manifestos, which, ultimately, could decide who the public are going to vote for and completely change the polls (according to one poll, Reform have now overtaken the Tories by one point). I will explore a few main points of each manifesto below and will publish them separately; here is the Conservative’s.

Economy

The Tories want to invest £36bn in local roads, rails and buses, including £8bn on fixing the large amount of potholes across the country, causing drivers in England a lot of problems and increase defence spending by 2.5%, something that other parties are cautious about.

On tax, they want to abolish the National Insurance for the self-employed entirely; cut tax for workers by taking another 2p off employee National Insurance so that they will have halved it from 12% at the beginning of this year to 6% by April 2027, a total tax cut of £1,350 for the average worker on £35,000; cut tax for the pensioners with the new Triple Lock Plus and end the unfairness in child benefits by moving to a household system.

They will invest a further £1.1 billion into the Green Industries Growth Accelerator to support British manufacturing capabilities, boost supply chains and ensure our energy transition is made in Britain; give households the choice of smart energy tariffs, which can save them £900 a year; invest £6 billion in energy efficiency over the next three years to make around a million homes warmer; and fund an energy efficiency voucher scheme, open to every household in England.

Housing 

Rishi Sunak claims he understands how difficult it is going to be for young people to buy and own a home in the future, therefore, he is aiming to build 1.6 million new homes in five years—100,000 more than Labour have promised. In addition, he wants to resurrect the Help to Buy scheme which would provide new buyers with an equity loan of up to 20% towards the cost of one of these new homes. Again, just like the opposition, this is not going to be cheap, and it is unclear where this money is coming from.

Education

The party wants to ensure that every child has the opportunity to go to a great school and will protect the day-to-day schools spending in real terms per pupil. They will pay teachers more money and increase salaries to make sure that behaviour in schools is improved and they are adamant on banning mobile phones during the school day.

They will champion excellence in classrooms: in primary schools, they will support teachers to use tried and tested techniques, including world-leading phonics programmes and mastery approaches to maths, enabling every child to master the basics before they start secondary school. They will mandate two hours of PE every week in primary and secondary schools and create more UK-wide sports competitions. 

They will introduce the Advanced British Standard, a new approach to 16-19 education which will build on the best of A Levels and T Levels and increase the amount of time a young person spends in a classroom to learn more subjects, including maths and English, to 18. 

Furthermore, they plan to build 60,000 more school places and 15 new free schools for children with special educational needs and expand strong academy trusts, whilst creating a legislation which allows parents to have the rights to see what their child is being taught. 

Immigration 

Immigration must be a huge priority for the party as this is what they are criticised for the most: millions of migrants have crossed the channel since 2010 and over 10,000 have entered already this year. They are the only party, save for Reform, with a plan to stop the boats and reduce illegal immigration.

They will crack down on organised immigration crime, including through the National Crime Agency and our intelligence services, to disrupt supply chains and tackle people smugglers; reform asylum rules, holding an international summit and working with other countries to reform international laws to make them fit for an age of mass migration, whilst also restricting visa access from countries that don’t work with us on our national priorities; return people with no right to be here to their own country; and end the ability of almost all international students and all care workers to bring dependants.

Care

Sunak, as we all know, comes from a (rich) family who worked in the NHS, so there was little doubt this would be another pivotal aspect of the manifesto. NHS waiting times have been very problematic recently, mostly due to the doctors’ and nurses’ strikes and a lack of investment, so their plan is to train more nurses and doctors, claiming there will be 92,000 more nurses and 28,000 more doctors than there were last year. 

They also want to bring health care closer to families, so they do not have to go through the trouble of waiting for an appointment: they will expand pharmacy first, including for menopause support, contraception and treatment for chest infections, freeing up 20 million GP appointments a year; build or modernise 250 GP surgeries, focused on areas of new housing growth; and build 50 more Community Diagnostic Centres, including in underserved areas, resulting in an additional 2.5 million checks a year.

In addition, they will invest in more and better facilities, continuing to deliver 40 new hospitals by 2030 and investing proportionately more in out-of-hospital services over time and they have a Dental Recovery Plan, which will unlock 2.5 million more NHS dental appointments. Further, they will improve mental health services and bring forward their tobacco smoking and vaping bill, which will try to prevent people from vaping and smoking.