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IFoA Briefing: Liberal Democrat Manifesto Summary

This briefing summarises the key policy pledges in the Liberal Democrat Party’s manifesto released on 10 June 2024 relevant to the work of actuaries.

 

Overview

Titled ‘For a Fair Deal’, Sir Ed Davey pitched the Lib Dem Manifesto as “a manifesto to save the NHS”, which has “health and care at its heart”, according to his comments at the launch. The manifesto contains five headline measures:

  • A fair deal on the economy: Liberal Democrats will invest in renewable power and home insulation to drive a strong economic recovery, bring down energy bills and create clean, secure, well-paid new jobs.
  • A fair deal on public services: Liberal Democrats will give everyone a new right to see a GP within seven days, or 24 hours if it’s urgent, with the extra doctors needed to make it happen.
  • A fair deal on the environment: Liberal Democrats will hold big companies to account by giving them a duty to protect the environment, including banning water companies from dumping raw sewage into rivers, lakes and coastal areas.
  • A strong United Kingdom and a fair international order: Liberal Democrats will immediately fix our broken relationship with Europe, forge a new partnership built on cooperation, not confrontation, and move to conclude a new comprehensive agreement that removes as many barriers to trade as possible.
  • A truly fair democracy: Liberal Democrats will introduce proportional representation for electing MPs, and local councillors in England, and cap donations to political parties.

 

Financial Services / Economy

  • Regulating financial services to encourage climate-friendly investments, including requiring pension funds and managers to show that their portfolio investments are consistent with the Paris Agreement, and creating new powers for regulators to act if banks and other investors are not managing climate risks properly.
  • Introduce a national financial inclusion strategy and require both the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority to have regard to financial inclusion, such as protecting access to cash, especially in remote areas, supporting banking hubs, expanding access to bank accounts, delivering Sharia-compliant student finance and supporting vulnerable consumers.
  • Foster stability, certainty and confidence by managing the public finances responsibly to get the national debt falling as a share of the economy and ensure that day-to-day spending does not exceed the amount raised in taxes, while making the investments our country needs.
  • Protecting the independence of the Bank of England and keeping the inflation target of 2%.

 

Pensions and Welfare

  • Protecting the triple lock so that pensions always rise in line with inflation, wages or 2.5% – whichever is highest.
  • Ensure that women born in the 1950s are finally treated fairly and properly compensated.
  • Developing measures to end the gender pension gap in private pensions and ensure working-age carers can save properly for retirement.
  • Tackle child poverty by removing the two-child limit and the benefit cap.
  • Give unpaid carers the support they deserve by increasing Carer’s Allowance and expanding it to more carers
  • Raising the amount carers can earn and introducing an earnings taper to end the unfair cliff-edge.
  • Reducing the number of hours’ care per week required.
  • Extending it to carers in full-time education.
  • Establish an Independent Living Taskforce to help people live independently in their own homes
  • Fix the broken Statutory Sick Pay system, as set out in chapter 4.

 

Technology, Skills, Transport and Infrastructure

  • Create a clear, workable and well-resourced cross-sectoral regulatory framework for artificial intelligence that: Promotes innovation while creating certainty for AI users, developers and investors; Establishes transparency and accountability for AI systems in the public sector; Ensures the use of personal data and AI is unbiased, transparent and accurate, and respects the privacy of innocent people.
  • Invest in green infrastructure, innovation and skills to boost economic growth and create good jobs and prosperity in every nation and region of the UK, while tackling the climate crisis
  • Put tackling climate change at the heart of a new industrial strategy and requiring the National Infrastructure Commission to take fully into account the environmental implications of all national infrastructure decisions.
  • Empower consumers and ensure that everyone can enjoy the benefits of new technology, by setting a UK-wide target for digital literacy
  • Protect motorists from rip-offs, including unfair insurance and petrol prices
  • All new cars and small vans to be zero emission from 2030

 

Climate and Sustainability

  • Restoring the UK’s role as a global leader on climate change
  • Net zero by 2045, with emission reductions of at least 68% by 2030
  • Coordinating action across the UK by creating a Joint Climate Council of the Nations
  • Putting farming and our food system on an environmentally sustainable footing, and developing nature-based solutions, such as tree planting
  • Launching an emergency Home Energy Upgrade programme, with free insulation and heat pumps for low-income households and incentives for others
  • Accelerating the deployment of renewable power by supporting investment and innovation and building the energy storage and grid infrastructure required.
  • Ending fossil fuel subsidies, while ensuring a just transition for people working in the oil and gas industry
  • Holding businesses to account for their role in tackling climate change by introducing a general duty of care for the environment, and requiring all large companies listed on UK stock exchanges to set targets consistent with achieving the net zero goal, and to report on their progress.

 

Health and Social Care

  • Increased funding and more doctors and nurses
  • The right to see a GP or practice staff member within 7 days, or within 24 hours if they urgently need to
  • Guaranteed access to an NHS dentist for everyone needing urgent care
  • Guarantee that 100% of patients will start cancer treatment within 62 days from urgent referral
  • Establishing a ‘Health Creation Unit’ in the Cabinet Office to tackle health inequalities.
  • Introducing a new levy on tobacco company profits and halting vaping by children
  • Extending the soft drinks levy to juice-based and milk-based drinks that are high in added sugar
  • Creating a National Care Agency to set national minimum standards of social care. Ending the postcode lottery by providing predictable, consistent funding for free personal care
  • Trialling personal health and social care budgets so that individuals are in control of what care they receive.
  • Establishing an Independent Living Taskforce to help people live independently in their own homes.
  • Boosting the minimum wage for care workers by £2 an hour and creating clear career pathways
  • Increasing Carer’s Allowance and introducing paid carer’s leave

 

Rights and Equality

  • Improve diversity in the workplace and public life by:
    • requiring large employers to publish data on gender, ethnicity, disability, and LGBT+ employment levels, pay gaps and progression, and publish five-year aspirational diversity targets
    • extending the use of name-blind recruitment processes in the public sector and encouraging their use in the private sector
    • improving diversity in public appointments by setting ambitious targets and requiring progress reports to Parliament with explanations when targets are not met
    • providing additional support and advice to employers on neurodiversity in the workplace, and developing a cross-government strategy to tackle all aspects of discrimination faced by neurodiverse children and adults.

 

Further Information

Read the full manifesto. For more information on the IFoA’s general election work, please contact Charlie Wynne.