U.K. Conservative Manifesto Launch: Boris Johnson’s Key Policies

(Bloomberg) --

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled his Conservative Party’s election manifesto on Sunday with a promise to end the “seemingly unending Brexit box-set drama.”

In a 40-minute speech, Johnson promised 50,000 new nurses and said the National Health Service will not be “on the table” in post-Brexit trade talks, lines that sought to neutralize attacks by the opposition Labour Party. He also pledged not to raise income tax, value-added tax or national insurance rates.

Even so, the policies are far less radical than those proposed by Labour, which published its manifesto on Thursday -- perhaps reflecting the Conservative Party’s already strong lead in the polls.

Read More: The Key Proposals in Labour’s Manifesto

Here’s a breakdown of the Conservatives’ key proposals:

Brexit, Trade

• Ratify Johnson’s divorce deal with the European Union before the Jan. 31 deadline; legislation would be introduced to Parliament before Christmas
• Once the U.K. has left, negotiate and ratify a free-trade agreement with the EU quickly enough to ensure there’s no need for an extension to the transition phase beyond its scheduled end in Dec. 2020.
• Aim to have 80% of U.K. trade covered by free-trade agreements within three years

Taxation, Spending

• Borrow more to invest in infrastructure under loosened fiscal rules, which would allow an increase of 13.8 billion pounds ($17.7 billion) in spending across all departments by 2021
• The rates of income tax, national insurance and VAT would not rise
• Raise the threshold for making National Insurance contributions from 8,628 pounds year to 9,500 in the government’s first budget, with a goal to raise it to 12,500 pounds at an unspecified future date
• Reduce the “overall burden” of business rates
• Increase the tax relief on buildings and research and development
• The party has shelved a planned cut in corporation tax

Labor

• Raise the minimum wage to 10.50 pounds an hour by 2024
• Establish a National Skills Fund, which would give individuals and small businesses the chance to receive vocational training
• Ensure workers have the right to request a more predictable contract

Environment

• Make the U.K. carbon neutral by 2050, including by planting an additional 75,000 acres of trees a year by 2023
• Spend 6.3 billion pounds on energy efficiency measures to cut fuel bills in millions of homes
• A ban on exporting plastic waste outside OECD countries to reduce ocean damage
• Set up a new independent Office For Environmental Protection and introduce new legal targets, including for air quality

Health Care

• Deliver 50,000 more nurses, some of whom will be newly-trained, some hired from abroad and some from staff retention. Also the reintroduction of bursaries for nurse training
• A 2.7 billion-pound investment to build 40 hospitals. This has been widely disputed by opposition parties and fact-checkers, who put the actual number of new hospitals at six over five years
• Commit 1 billion pounds per year in extra funding for local authorities to better deal with demands for social care
• No specific plan to resolve the U.K.’s social care crisis; aim to build a “cross-party consensus” on a new policy to ensure nobody needs to sell their home in order to afford it
• End hospital car park charges for some staff, patients and visitors

Education

• A 1 billion-pound investment to boost childcare provisions
• Extra 14 billion pounds funding for schools by 2023

Housing

• Build at least 1 million more homes by 2024
• Ban the sale of new leasehold homes
• Introduce a 3% surcharge for foreign buyers of homes in England
• Ban “no fault evictions,” where tenants are evicted before the end of their contract without a proper reason
• Lifetime rental deposits program, allowing payments to be transferred when tenants move house

Law, Policing

• Recruit 20,000 new police officers
• Increase stop-and-search powers for police
• Ensure those guilty of premeditated murder of a child are never eligible for release
• Add 10,000 prison places, with 2.75 billion pounds already committed to refurbishing existing prisons and building new ones

Transport

• New fund to reopen disused railway lines axed in the 1960s, beginning with northern England
• Invest 2 billion pounds to repair the U.K.’s roads

Immigration

• An Australian-style points-based visa system to prioritize skilled workers
• Immigrants from the EU will only be able to access unemployment, housing, and child benefits after five years

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Ritchie in London at gritchie10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Thomas Penny

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