Conservative Manifesto

By David Cameron

Over the last five years, we have put our country back on the right track. Five years ago, Britain was on the brink. As the outgoing Labour Treasury Minister put it with brutal candour, ‘there is no money’.

Since then, we have turned things around. Britain is now one of the fastest growing major economies in the world. We are getting our national finances back under control. We have halved our deficit as a share of our economy. More people are in work than ever before. Britain is back on its feet, strong and growing stronger every day.

This has not happened by accident. It is the result of difficult decisions and of patiently working through our long-term economic plan. Above all, it is the product of a supreme national effort, in which everyone has made sacrifices and everyone has played their part.

It is a profound Conservative belief that our country is made great not through the action of government alone, but through the flair, the ingenuity and hard work of the British people – and so it has proved the last five years.

We can be proud of what we have achieved so far together, and especially proud that as we have taken hard decisions on public spending, we have protected the National Health Service, with 9,500 more doctors and 6,900 more nurses, and ensured generous rises in the State Pension.

Our friends and competitors overseas look at Britain, and they see a country that is putting its own house in order, a country on the rise. They see a country that believes in itself. But our national recovery remains a work in progress. It is fragile, and with the wrong decisions, it could easily be reversed.

So the central questions at this election are these: how do we maintain our economic recovery, upon which our ambitions for our country depend? And how do we make sure that the recovery benefits every one of our citizens, at every stage of their lives?

This Manifesto sets out our plan to do just that. It is a plan for a better future – for you, for your family. It is a plan for every stage of your life. For your new-born baby, there will be the world's best medical care. For your child, there will be a place at an excellent school. As you look for your first job, we are building a healthy economy that provides a good career for you with a decent income. As you look for that first home, we will make sure the Government is there to help. As you raise your family, we will help you with childcare. And as you grow older, we will ensure that you have dignity in retirement. Throughout, we will make sure that if you or your family fall ill, you will always be able to depend on our cherished National Health Service to give you the care you need.

And in an increasingly dangerous and uncertain world, we will fulfil the most basic duty of government – to defend our country and keep it safe.

But all of these things depend on a strong and growing economy. So as you consider how to vote, I hope you will ask this: which party is best placed to keep our economy strong? The team which has delivered the growing economy we have today, which created more jobs since 2010 than the rest of the European Union put together; or the party which left behind a ruined economy just five short years ago?

Now is a time to build on the progress we have made, not to put it all at risk. This Manifesto is our plan of action – our plan to take our amazing country forward. Above all, it is a plan for you.

I hope you will give it your support, so that together, we can see through the task we have begun.

A strong economy to help you and your family

Your job, your home, the mortgage you pay, the school your children go to, your local hospital, your pension – all these things depend on a strong economy. So we will carry on working through our long-term economic plan. We will:

  • Keep our economy secure by running a surplus so that we start paying down our debts
  • Increase the tax-free Personal Allowance to £12,500 and the 40p Income Tax threshold to £50,000
  • Commit to no increases in VAT, National Insurance contributions or Income Tax
  • Crack down on tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance and ensure those who can afford to pay the most do
  • Rebalance our economy, build a Northern Powerhouse and back elected metro mayors
  • Pursue our ambition to become the most prosperous major economy in the world by the 2030s.

Better roads, trains and modern communications

You depend on infrastructure at every stage of your life: to go to school, to go to work, to enable businesses to grow and create jobs for your children and grandchildren. We have a plan of action that will improve our roads, railways, airports and internet connections. We will:

  • Invest in infrastructure to attract businesses and good jobs across the whole of the UK
  • Make your life easier, with more and faster trains, more roads and cycle routes
  • Keep commuter rail fares frozen in real terms for the whole of the next Parliament
  • Roll out universal broadband and better mobile phone connections, to ensure everyone is part of the digital economy.

Jobs for all

Whatever stage of life you are at – whether you’re looking for your first job out of school, or coming to the end of your career – we will work to help you enjoy the satisfaction and rewards of a decent job. We will:

  • Help businesses to create two million new jobs, so we achieve full employment
  • Give businesses the most competitive taxes of any major economy
  • Back small firms with a major business rates review
  • Support three million new apprenticeships, so young people acquire the skills to succeed.

Cutting your taxes and building a fairer welfare system

Our goal is a country that not only rewards those who work hard and do the right thing, but gives everyone – no matter their background – the chance to fulfil their potential. Achieving this means seeing through our major reforms of tax and welfare. We will:

  • Cut income tax for 30 million people, taking everyone who earns less than £12,500 out of Income Tax altogether
  • Pass a new law so that nobody working 30 hours on the Minimum Wage pays Income Tax on what they earn
  • Back aspiration by raising the 40p tax threshold – so that no one earning less than £50,000 pays it
  • Cap overall welfare spending, lower the amount of benefits that any household can receive to £23,000 and continue to roll out Universal Credit, to make work pay
  • Bring in tax-free childcare to support parents back into work, and give working parents of 3 and 4-year-olds 30 hours of free childcare a week.

Controlled immigration that benefits Britain

Our plan to control immigration will put you, your family and the British people first. We will reduce the number of people coming to our country with tough new welfare conditions and robust enforcement. We will

  • Keep our ambition of delivering annual net migration in the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands
  • Control migration from the European Union, by reforming welfare rules
  • Clamp down on illegal immigration and abuse of the Minimum Wage
  • Enhance our border security and strengthen the enforcement of immigration rules
  • Develop a fund to ease pressure on local areas and public services.

Giving your child the best start in life

Your child deserves the best start in life. A good education is not a luxury; it should be a right for everyone. We will:

  • Ensure a good primary school place for your child, with zero tolerance for failure
  • Turn every failing and coasting secondary school into an academy and deliver free schools for parents and communities that want them
  • Help teachers to make Britain the best country in the world for developing maths, engineering, science and computing skills
  • Create 3 million new apprenticeships and make sure there is no cap on university places, so we have aspiration for all.

Protecting and improving our National Health Service

Our National Health Service must be there for you throughout your life. We will:

  • Continue to increase spending on the NHS, supported by a strong economy, so the NHS stays free for you to use
  • Spend at least an additional £8 billion by 2020 over and above inflation to fund and support the NHS’s own action plan for the next five years
  • Ensure you can see a GP and receive the hospital care you need, 7 days a week by 2020, with a guarantee that everyone over 75 will get a same-day appointment if they need one
  • Integrate health and social care, through our Better Care Fund
  • Lead the world in fighting cancer and finding a cure for dementia.

Enabling you to enjoy our heritage, creativity and sports

Wherever you live in the country, we want you to be able to enjoy the best our culture and sports have to offer. We will:

  • Keep our major national museums and galleries free to enter
  • Support school sport, build on our Olympic and Paralympic legacy, and deliver the Rugby and Cricket World Cups and the World Athletics Championships
  • Freeze the BBC licence fee, to save you money
  • Support our creative industries and defend a free media

Helping you build the Big Society

Building the Big Society is about involving the people, neighbourhoods, villages, towns and cities of Britain in the great task of improving our country – and giving young people the power and opportunity to play a real part in their community. We will:

  • Guarantee your child a place on National Citizen Service, so they can learn new skills and meet young people from different walks of life
  • Promote equal treatment and equal opportunity for all in a society proud of its tolerance and diversity
  • Give those who work for a big company and the public sector a new workplace entitlement to Volunteering Leave for three days a year, on full pay.

Making government work better for you

The government is the servant of the British people. Every pound spent must be scrutinised, and government run as efficiently and effectively as possible. We will:

  • Save you money by cutting government waste
  • Put more of the essential services you use online, to make them more convenient
  • Continue to make government more transparent, so you can hold us to account for how your money is being spent.

Helping you to buy a home of your own

The chance to own your own home should be available to everyone who works hard. We will:

  • Help to keep mortgage rates lower by continuing to work through our long-term economic plan
  • Build more homes that people can afford, including 200,000 new Starter Homes exclusively for first-time buyers under 40
  • Extend the Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme to 2020 to help more people onto and up the housing ladder, and introduce a new Help to Buy ISA to support people saving for a deposit
  • Give more people the chance to own their home by extending the Right to Buy to tenants of Housing Associations and create a Brownfield Fund to unlock homes on brownfield land
  • Ensure local people have more control over planning and protect the Green Belt.

Protecting and enhancing our natural environment

We set ourselves the goal of being the first generation to leave the natural environment of England in a better state than that in which we found it. This is a big ambition to which we remain committed. We will:

  • Put in place a new ‘Blue Belt’ to protect precious marine habitats
  • Invest in cleaner air and water for you and your family
  • Keep our forests in trust for the nation.

Guaranteeing you clean, affordable and secure energy supplies

Affordable, reliable energy is critical to our economy, to our national security, and to family budgets. We will:

  • Keep your bills as low as possible and promote competition in the energy market
  • Ensure your homes and businesses have energy supplies they can rely on
  • Help you insulate your home
  • Halt the spread of subsidised onshore wind farms
  • Meet our climate change commitments, cutting carbon emissions as cheaply as possible, to save you money.

Fighting crime and standing up for victims

Your local area should be a safe place to grow up, work, raise a family and retire. We will continue to cut crime and make your community safer. We will:

  • Finish the job of police reform, so you can have more confidence that your local policing team is working effectively
  • Toughen sentencing and reform the prison system, so dangerous criminals are kept off your streets
  • Support victims, so that the most vulnerable in our society get the support they deserve
  • Scrap the Human Rights Act and curtail the role of the European Court of Human Rights, so that foreign criminals can be more easily deported from Britain.

Preventing terrorism, countering extremism

Keeping you and your family safe is our overriding priority. The threat of extremism and terrorism remains serious, but with our tough, intelligent and comprehensive approach, we will confront and ultimately defeat it. We will:

  • Strengthen the ability of the police and intelligence agencies to disrupt terrorist plots, so the authorities have all the tools they need to prevent attacks
  • Deal with online radicalisation and propaganda, so we can reduce the risk of young people being drawn into extremism and terrorism
  • Tackle all forms of extremism, including non-violent extremism, so our values and our way of life are properly promoted and defended.

Dignity in your retirement

If you have worked hard during your life, saved, paid your taxes and done the right thing, you deserve dignity and security when you retire. We want Britain to be the best country in which to grow old. We will:

  • Take the family home out of Inheritance Tax for all but the richest by raising the effective threshold for married couples and civil partners to £1 million
  • Continue to increase the State Pension through our triple lock, so it rises by at least 2.5 per cent, inflation or earnings, whichever is highest
  • Reward saving by introducing a new single-tier pension give you the freedom to invest and spend your pension however you like – and let you pass it on to your loved ones tax-free
  • Protect pensioner benefits including the free bus pass, TV licences and Winter Fuel Payment
  • Ensure Britain has a strong economy, so we can continue to protect the NHS and make sure no-one is forced to sell their home to pay for care.

Stronger together: a Union for the 21st century

Wherever you live in the great nations of our United Kingdom, we are on your side. We will:

  • Give English MPs a veto over matters only affecting England, including on Income Tax
  • Honour in full our commitments to Scotland to devolve extensive new powers
  • Implement the agreed settlement for Wales, handing over more responsibility to the Welsh Assembly
  • Continue to build a Northern Ireland where politics works, the economy grows and society is strong.

Real change in our relationship with the European Union

For too long, your voice has been ignored on Europe. We will:

  • Give you a say over whether we should stay in or leave the EU, with an in-out referendum by the end of 2017
  • Commit to keeping the pound and staying out of the Eurozone
  • Reform the workings of the EU, which is too big, too bossy and too bureaucratic
  • Reclaim power from Brussels on your behalf and safeguard British interests in the Single Market
  • Back businesses to create jobs in Britain by completing ambitious trade deals and reducing red tape.

A Britain standing tall in the world

Everything we do around the world will be driven by a determination to protect your security and help you prosper. We will:

  • Ensure Britain is a major player on the world stage, using diplomacy to protect your interests, uphold British values and tackle threats to your security and prosperity
  • Help generate new trade, investment and job opportunities, to benefit you and your family
  • Maintain our world class Armed Forces so they continue to guarantee your security
  • Uphold our commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of gross national income on international development.

Together we have come so far. If we stick to our long-term plan, we can secure a better future for you and your family. So let us keep moving forward; and set our sights on making our great country greater still.