---
election_year: 2001
party_id: welsh-labour
party_name: Welsh Labour
party_leader: Rhodri Morgan
political_spectrum: centre-left
victory: true
government_outcome: majority
sections:
  - economy
  - taxation
  - health
  - education
  - housing
  - defence
  - foreign-policy
  - environment
  - transport
  - law-and-order
  - welfare
  - democracy-and-constitution
  - agriculture
  - energy
  - devolution
  - science-and-technology
  - local-government
---

# Welsh Labour Manifesto 2001

## Ambitions for Wales

Fulfilling Britain’s great potential
The Prime Minister sets out his vision for Britain’s future — 2

Building a better Wales
by Rhodri Morgan, First Minister of the National Assembly for Wales and Paul Murphy, Secretary of State for Wales — 7

1. Prosperity for all
How we expand our economy and raise our living standards — 8

2. World-class public services
How investment and reform will improve public services — 16

3. A modern welfare state
How we help people into work and provide security for those who can’t work — 24

4. Strong and safe communities
How we tackle crime and renew our society — 30

5. Britain strong in the world
How we make foreign policy work for Britain and the wider world — 36

The choices for Wales
A lot done, a lot to do, and a lot to lose — 42

25 steps to a better Wales
Our key steps for a second term — 43

The contract delivered
How Labour has fulfilled its first-term promises — 44

---

## Fulfilling Britain’s great potential

**This general election is in many ways even more important than the last. Since May 1997 we have laid the foundations of a Britain whose economy is stronger, where investment is now pouring into public services, where social division is being slowly healed and where influence abroad is being regained.**

But these are only the foundations of larger change. Now is the chance to build the future properly, to make our second term the basis for a radical programme of British renewal: to keep a firm grip on inflation, with low interest rates and sound public finances, and then to build the dynamic and productive economy of the future; to keep investment coming into public services and then make the reforms so we use the money well; to refashion the welfare state on the basis of rights and responsibilities, with people helped to help themselves, not just given handouts; to ensure all families are safer in their communities by tackling crime and its causes; and to give Britain back its leadership role in the world. We need the second term to do all this. That is the choice: to make progress or to dismantle the foundations laid. And with the state of today’s Conservatives, the choice is stark.

This choice will decide whether more people will be able to realise their aspirations for themselves and their children – to be able to rely on a stable economy where hard work is rewarded by rising living standards, to receive world-class education and healthcare, to enjoy a dignified old age, to feel safe and secure in a strong community, and to be proud to be British. Or whether we will be held back by the traditional British malaise of restricting life’s great opportunities and blessings to a minority. There is much still to be done, but we have come a long way in four years. Wales now has its own National Assembly, and Britain is stronger as a result. Britain stands more prosperous, more equal, more respected. Our country is on a new course.

My passion is to continue the modernisation of Britain, in favour of hard-working families, so that all our children, wherever they live, whatever their background, have an equal chance to benefit from the opportunities our country has to offer and to share in its wealth.

**The challenge for Britain**
I am honoured to be Prime Minister. And I have a confident belief in our country. We are not boastful. But we have real strengths. Great people. Strong values. Proud history.

The British people achieved magnificent things in the 20th century. But for too long, our strengths have been undermined by weaknesses of elitism and snobbery, vested interests and social division, complacency bred by harking back to the past. We achieved spurts of economic growth, but inflation would then get out of control. Our welfare state was founded to offer security, but its progress was stalled. We reached out to Europe, then drew back to become semi-detached.

It is as if a glass ceiling stopped us fulfilling our potential. In the 21st century we have the opportunity to break through the glass ceiling, because our historic strengths match the demands of the modern world.

We can use our openness and entrepreneurial flair to become a global centre in the knowledge economy. We can use our sense of fair play and mutual responsibility to be a dynamic, multiracial society held together by strong values.

We can use our historic and geographical position to link Europe and America and help the developing world. The key to tapping our strengths, to breaking through the glass ceiling, is contained in a simple idea that is hard to achieve, set out at the heart of our constitution as a party: the determination to put power, wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many, not the few.

I know as well as anyone that we have just begun; millions of hard-working families want, need and deserve more. That means more change in a second term, not less – to extend opportunity for all. We reject the quiet life. We must secure a mandate for change.

> **Ten goals for 2010**
> * Long-term economic stability
> * Rising living standards for all
> * Expanded higher education as we raise standards in secondary schools
> * A healthier nation with fast treatment, free at the point of use
> * Full employment
> * Opportunity for all children, security for all pensioners
> * A modern criminal justice system
> * Strong and accountable local government
> * British ideas leading a reformed and enlarged Europe
> * Global poverty and climate change tackled.

**Shifting the odds for hard-working families**
In 1997 we promised a start, not a revolution. We made five specific five-year pledges. Three of these have been completed early; all will be completed within five years, as promised.

Each pledge is matched by further achievement: the lowest inflation and unemployment for a generation, one million new jobs, over 2,000 extra nurses recruited in Wales, the best primary school test results ever, and recorded crime is down by 16 per cent here in Wales.

We also offered a ten-point contract to the British people. The results are at the back of this manifesto (see page 44). Not everything has gone right – it never does. But we are getting there, easing burdens and extending opportunities – by choice, not chance.

* **Economic instability wrecks the lives of hard-working families.** So we chose to put the public finances right. It meant tough decisions, opposed by the Conservatives. But today the economy is stable and growing, and interest rates are nearly half the level they averaged under the Conservatives.
* **Unemployment steals dignity.** So we chose to introduce a windfall tax on the excess profits of the privatised utilities, to help unemployed people back to work. That was opposed by the Conservatives, who are now pledged to abolish the New Deal. But today, youth unemployment is at its lowest level since 1975 and long-term unemployment at its lowest level since 1978.
* **Poor education is a cruel injustice.** So we chose to focus on the basics in primary schools. And today primary schools are achieving their best results ever.
* **A run-down health service causes insecurity.** So we chose to reform the NHS and inject new money. Waiting lists and times are now falling, the number of nurses and doctors is now rising. In Wales, we have devolved the running of health to allow decisions to be taken at a local level, and we have underpinned these reforms with record public investment.
* **Poverty denies basic rights.** So we chose to reform the welfare state to channel extra money to the poorest pensioners and poorest children. Today single pensioners can look forward to a minimum income of £100 a week, £154 for pensioner couples, and over one million children have been taken out of poverty.
* **The centralisation of power only helps the powerful.** So we chose to break the suffocating centralisation of British government. The UK has been strengthened. Today it is the Conservatives who threaten the stability of the UK with their proposals for two classes of MP. This manifesto sets out our vision for continued partnership between Labour at Westminster and Labour in the Welsh Assembly.
* **Isolation from Europe does not help anyone.** So we chose to engage constructively in Europe, not shout abuse from the sidelines. Today, Europe is moving in a direction that is good for Britain and good for Europe. We have led the way in policy for aid, development and international debt relief.

Of course, there are still big problems, but we are better off, better educated, better governed, better respected abroad. There has been another change too. A change of priorities and values.

We learnt in the 1980s that looking after number one was not enough; that without opportunity, responsibility was weak; and that an unfair society was a less prosperous one. The philosophy was wrong; it hurt millions of families and it left our country with lasting problems.

We have shown we are a reformed party, competent to govern. Now we offer more. More change and more rewards for Britain’s hard-working families: more prosperity, more opportunities, more security.

**Ambitions for Britain**
Stretching the family budget; finding time for children as well as work; holding on to mutual respect; staying healthy when there can be hazards even in the air we breathe. These are daily worries that confront people.

They are my concerns too. But, while there is always a market for people who say we are doomed, that all new ideas are bad ideas even as things improve, that we might as well curl up with our prejudices and shut the door on the world, I am an optimist. New Labour is ambitious for Britain’s future and is ready to lead.

**First, we will sustain economic stability and build deeper prosperity that reaches every part of the country.** Skills, infrastructure, the technological revolution – all are vital to raise British living standards faster. We will put as much energy into helping those adults without basic skills as we did in tackling long-term unemployment through the New Deal.

**Second, we seek to achieve a renaissance of status and quality for public services and their staff.** We will invest new resources to enable the Labour-led National Assembly to reform education and health services in Wales; we will seek to extend the very best in culture and sport to all.

**Third, we seek to modernise the welfare state.** The benefits system will be restructured around work; support for children and families through the tax and benefits system will be transformed; cash and services for pensioners will be radically improved.

**Fourth, we will strengthen our communities.** We will reform the criminal justice system at every level so that criminals are caught, punished and rehabilitated. And because we know that without tackling the causes of crime we will never tackle crime, we will empower local communities by combining resources with responsibility.

**Fifth, we will turn our inner confidence to strength abroad, in Europe and beyond, to tackle global problems** – above all, environmental degradation and the shame of global poverty. We will engage fully in Europe, help enlarge the European Union and make it more effective, and insist that the British people will have the final say on any proposal to join the Euro.

These ambitions are summarised in our ten goals for 2010. They will never be achieved by government alone. We know it is people who ultimately change the country. Our partnership with the voluntary sector has steadily strengthened since 1997, as we learn from its diversity. We work with the private sector, drawing on its vitality. Countries only prosper on the basis of partnership – between government, employers and their employees, and the voluntary sector. An active, enabling state, not a nanny state – doing things with people, not to them – is what Britain needs.

So, while the Conservatives will spend most of this election telling you what their government cannot do, this manifesto sets out what our government can do. We know the power and value of markets, but we also know their limits. Now is the time to renew our civic and social institutions to deliver better education, health, safety, transport and a better environment.

**Fighting for values, not just for election victory**
The Conservatives always look back. In economic policy they promise to repeat the mistakes of the 1980s – unaffordable tax cuts and spending cuts followed by ballooning deficits, rising interest rates and the old cycle of boom and bust.

In social policy their renewed commitment to cuts and privatisation, and to withdrawing the support helping to heal social division, is just a throwback to the 1980s.

In foreign policy they risk not just isolation but exit from the EU. Jobs, trade and investment depend on our membership of the European Union. The Conservative policy of opposing the enlargement of Europe in the Nice Treaty and their pledge to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership is dangerous and ill thought-out. Standing up for Britain means fighting for Britain’s interests in Europe, not leaving Europe which threatens our national interest. A vote for the Nationalists can only aid the Tories. On 8 June, Britain will either wake up to a Labour government or a Conservative government.

So the choice we face today is starker than in 1997. The Conservatives have swung further to the right. And in government, Labour’s agenda has become increasingly bold and ambitious. For many years the Conservatives have claimed to offer economic strength. Labour dominated social issues. Many people found their head telling them to vote Tory, and their heart telling them to vote Labour.

Today, head and heart are coming together. New Labour is proving that it is only by using the talents of all that we get a healthy economy; and that only by giving a stake to all can we become a healthy society.

We have made our choice: stability not boom and bust; investment not cuts; engagement not isolationism; the many not the few. A lot done and a lot more to do with new Labour; or a lot for you to lose under the Conservatives.

I deeply believe that for Britain the best is still to come. So I ask you to continue on this journey with us.

Together we can achieve so much more.

**Tony Blair**
Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party

---

## Building a better Wales

**Your vote at this general election will determine whether these policies can be delivered. This election presents a stark choice to the people of Wales. A Labour government, pledged to investment in public services, or a Tory government pledged to cuts. A Labour government which will work in partnership with the Labour-led Assembly or a Tory Party whose policies threaten the stability of the United Kingdom.**

History is being made in this general election for Britain and in particular for us in Wales. This is the first UK general election to be held following devolution and the establishment of the National Assembly. Devolution will only fulfil its true potential for Wales via a partnership between a Labour government at Westminster and a Labour-led Assembly administration in Cardiff. This manifesto embodies that spirit of partnership.

Many matters are the responsibility of the UK government: economic policy, pensions and benefits, defence, foreign policy, law and order, taxation, international development. Other public services are now the responsibility of the Assembly; health, education, economic development, local transport, the environment, agriculture, sports and culture are the Assembly’s agenda. The issues detailed in this manifesto are the policies of Labour in the National Assembly.

These policies are made in Wales, for Wales. They are based on the common values of the Labour Party across Britain. They are a vital part of this manifesto and they cannot be delivered without a re-elected Labour government managing the economy and public finances soundly, and working with the Welsh Assembly to deliver the people’s priorities. This enables the record growth of investment in public services to be continued.

A vote for a third party in this election increases the chance that a Tory government will be returned to power, with disastrous consequences for Wales.

We believe in a confident, outward-looking, modern Wales, with its own strong voice as part of the United Kingdom. We are united in rejecting nationalism which would isolate and bankrupt Wales. We also reject the narrow English nationalism of William Hague’s Tories. We believe that for Wales the best is still to come – a strong confident Wales, in a strong confident Britain.

**Rhodri Morgan**, First Minister of the National Assembly for Wales and **Paul Murphy**, Secretary of State for Wales

---

## 1 Prosperity for all

**Labour’s purpose is to help every family, not just a few, to raise their living standards and plan ahead with security. We have a ten-year vision: higher living standards, affordable mortgages and fairer taxes combined with much greater investment in vital public services.**

Economic stability is the foundation. We know the price of boom and bust; it was paid in the 1980s and 1990s by millions of hard-working families.

Our reforms since 1997 have helped cut interest rates to nearly half of what they averaged under the Conservatives, saving mortgage payers on average £1,200 a year. By 2010, we want Britain to break from decades of boom and bust, as we stick to clear rules for spending and borrowing. We will take no risks with economic policy, make no compromise on fiscal responsibility.

Stability comes first. But stability is not enough. We need to produce more, better, to higher value to raise our earning power and meet our ten-year goal of faster productivity growth than our main competitors.

We must make Britain the best place to do business in Europe – a dynamic economy, founded on skills and knowledge, developing the talent of all our people, and contributing to sustainable development. That means investment by private and public sectors in infrastructure and skills, and the right competitive framework to support enterprise, small and large, manufacturing and services.

Every extra trained, employed worker contributes to a fairer society, as well as a more prosperous one. With social failure, from school drop-outs to crime, comes economic failure. Fairness and enterprise go together. It is up to government to do everything it can to help ensure that no individual and no community is left behind.

> **Our ten-year goals**
> * Fiscal rules consistently met, low inflation, and interest rates as low as possible, as we deliver long-term economic stability.
> * Faster productivity growth than our main competitors, as we achieve rising living standards for all.
> 
> **Our next steps**
> * Basic skills for 750,000 people
> * Free local bus journeys for pensioners and people with disabilities in Wales from 2002
> * A £300 million five-year plan for integrated transport in Wales
> * Raise the minimum wage to £4.20
> * £1,000 tax cut – the Children’s Tax Credit – for parents of newborn children

#### The fundamentals: Better off with Labour
The foundation of opportunity and prosperity is economic stability. We know the risks of promises that cannot be paid for: the Conservatives led Britain into two deep recessions, double-digit inflation, record unemployment, 15 per cent interest rates, and a doubling of the national debt.

Choice, not chance, has turned things round. Independence for the Bank of England and long-term fiscal rules have given the UK the most stable and transparent economic framework in Europe. Britain now has the best combination of low interest rates, low inflation and low unemployment since the 1960s. We are saving nearly £9 billion this year from debt and unemployment, so 84p of every extra pound of public spending goes on national priorities, compared to 58p under the Conservatives.

So we will pursue a balanced approach on the economy with stability the foundation, more investment not less and, as affordable, targeted tax cuts on our priorities.

Our aim is to put more wealth in the hands of more people. That is why we will keep mortgage rates as low as possible, ensure competition keeps down household bills, support savings and share ownership, and create a new Child Trust Fund for every child at birth to invest for when they reach adulthood.

There are no guarantees in an integrated world economy. But we showed during the Asian economic crisis how to steer a course of stability in turbulent times. We will continue to work at international level to minimise global economic turbulence and to protect Britain if it occurs.

**Tax and spending**
Fiscal responsibility and monetary stability are the foundation of our future plans. New Labour’s inflation target is 2.5 per cent. We will continue to meet our fiscal rules: over the economic cycle we will borrow only to invest and keep net debt at a stable and prudent level.

We are pledged in partnership with the Welsh Assembly for the next three years to raise health and education spending to record levels. Labour will double net public investment.

Tax policy will be governed by the health of the public finances, the requirement for public investment, and the needs of families, business and the environment.

We have rewarded work through the new 10p starting rate of tax and the Working Families Tax Credit. The basic rate of tax has been cut to 22p. We will support families through the new Children’s Tax Credit, set at up to £1,000 a year for new parents – the first recognition of the costs of children in the tax system for 20 years. On average, UK households have benefited by £590 a year from personal tax and benefit measures introduced since 1997. Living standards have risen by ten per cent over the Parliament for a single earner family on average earnings. To help those who work and save we will extend the 10p tax band. We will continue to tackle tax avoidance. We will not raise the basic or top rates of income tax in the next Parliament.

We renew our pledge not to extend VAT to food, children’s clothes, books, newspapers and public transport fares.

**Labour rewards work**
Labour believes that if you work hard you should be able to support a family. We will guarantee a minimum family income of £225 for a 35-hour week; in the next Parliament an Employment Tax Credit will reward the work of people on low incomes, whether or not they have children (see ‘A modern welfare state’).

The first-ever National Minimum Wage for Britain, bitterly opposed at every stage by the Conservatives, has been a success of our first term. It fulfils, after 100 years, a founding ambition of the Labour Party. Up to 1.5 million people, have been helped, the majority of them women, and 100,000 of them in Wales; jobs have not been lost. The Low Pay Commission, which we will make permanent, has made clear recommendations for the future. New Labour will raise the minimum wage to £4.10 this October, and we are committed, subject to economic conditions, to raising it to £4.20 in October 2002.

**Labour rewards saving**
Nine million people invested in Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs) in their first year. To encourage more saving we will maintain the £7,000 contribution limit for the next Parliament. We will also help pensioners: the Pension Credit will match private saving with government funds, and pensioners will no longer be penalised because of their thrift (see ‘A modern welfare state’).

To boost the savings habit, we will create a new Savings Gateway for people on lower incomes where their savings will be matched by the government.

#### The productivity challenge: Staying better off
To raise living standards, our ambition is to raise our productivity faster than our competitors, and ensure our goods and services are competitive in world markets. Labour has four priorities.

**1 Investment in skills and innovation.**
*Skills*
We are passionate about giving every child the chance of a decent education. But we are equally determined to offer learning opportunities to adults. Our ambition is for everyone to have the opportunity to train, in a partnership of employers, employees and government, each giving time and/or money to raise standards of skills in the UK. Our first priority is to help the estimated seven million adults who lack basic literacy and numeracy skills, with 750,000 people achieving basic skill levels by 2004. We will:
* ensure that jobseekers get the benefit of a basic skills test, as well as incentives and obligations to take courses to tackle literacy and/or numeracy problems
* extend Individual Learning Accounts, with a pledge in Wales to open 50,000 by April 2002
* dramatically improve the quality and quantity of prison education
* tackle the financial barriers that prevent adults studying in further education.

Basic skills are the start; updating skills is something for all of us. We have created Education Learning Wales (ELWa) through the Learning and Skills Act to co-ordinate 16 to 19 and adult education and training in Wales. Further education colleges have a critical role to play in the future. We will help drive up standards, by reforms to ensure specialist adult provision to meet local skills needs. The world-first University for Industry now offers over 400 skills courses. A £27 million Basic Skills Strategy for Wales will focus on the skills needed by all, whatever their age or location.

We need a step-change in workplace learning – particularly in small and medium-sized firms. We are determined to develop a three-way partnership to bring this about. Current arrangements have secured increased participation, but not enough. Unions and employers have a key role but we also need to motivate individual employees. Where both sides of industry in a sector agree, we will help set up a statutory framework for training. We will boost the efforts of trade unions to raise skill levels by giving statutory backing to union learning representatives, and supporting the Union Learning Fund.

Government has a wide-ranging role to play, and is examining the development of a training tax credit. We will look to business and unions to come forward with proposals on how they can contribute to meeting the nation’s training goals.

*Innovation*
Science and technology are the basis of new products and industries, both vital to productivity growth. Since 1997 extra investment of £1.5 billion over three years has given science a fresh start, and a new stream of university funding has helped create new links between scientific breakthroughs and new products.

But we need to invest more to be at the cutting edge of science – in biotechnology and genome research. We propose an R&D tax credit to promote business investment in research. We will work for a European patent system by the end of this year to simplify the process of bringing ideas to market. The £235 billion a year, and growing, global market for green technology gives real opportunity to British industry to benefit from a shift to low-carbon technologies.

We will continue to encourage the best scientists to work in the UK, as well as making the most of our science base in universities (see ‘World-class public services’).

**2 Supporting British business**
Government cannot make a business successful. But government must create the right framework to help business achieve healthy long-term growth.

Since 1997, corporation tax rates have been cut to their lowest levels ever. Companies no longer face a perverse incentive to pay out dividends rather than invest for the future. Reform of capital gains tax has given the entrepreneur or investor new incentives for investment.

We support vital investment through the tax system, with allowances for high-tech as well as small business investment. The Myners report has identified weaknesses in our venture capital market, undermining long-term investment and economic dynamism. We will act on its recommendations, including the abolition of the Minimum Funding Requirement and reforms to pension fund management, and review progress in two years. In Wales the Labour-led National Assembly has already set up Finance Wales to assist with venture capital.

When people have worked hard, they want their money to go as far as possible. Competition policy has already helped cut cash-machine charges and new car prices. We will extend our fair and robust competition regime by giving more independence to the competition authorities. We will toughen the laws on rogue traders, unfair terms in contracts, and loan sharks.

In the labour market, minimum standards for people at work offer dignity and self-esteem. Regulation should be introduced, where it is necessary, in a light-touch way. We will cut back the red tape associated with regulation, examine opportunities to put time limits on regulations, deregulate by secondary legislation, and offer help to small firms.

Over 150,000 small businesses have been set up in the UK since 1997. The Labour-led National Assembly, via the Welsh Development Agency, is increasing the emphasis on supporting and nurturing home-grown small and medium-sized businesses, particularly those with growth potential. We are committed to reforming the tax treatment of small business, including VAT, and to seeking to reduce payroll burdens. Small business will also benefit from extending the 10p tax band. We will reform the bankruptcy laws to ensure second chances for people who go bankrupt through no fault of their own and provide funds for new start-ups. We will also promote the development of entrepreneurship in the school curriculum.

We will modernise company law to promote transparency, reduce burdens on small business and promote long-term economic success. We welcome the recommendations of the Co-operative Commission, which also covered the significant mutual sector, and will examine them with a view to strengthening these important parts of our economy.

**3 Modernising our infrastructure for the Information Age**
*Digital nation*
The infrastructure of the future includes fast, efficient and affordable communication – telecommunications, the internet and broadcasting. That requires the best competitive environment, effective regulation, and continued public and private investment in the technologies of the future.

A ‘digital divide’ would hurt business as well as individuals: universal access is vital to effective markets. We will put all government services on-line by 2005, to improve access to services and spur business on-line. We will work to ensure that broadband, which allows fast internet access, is accessible in all parts of the country.

We have the best TV in the world. The next challenge is to open up the opportunities of learning and enjoyment offered by digital TV and the internet to every household. We are committed to making the switchover from analogue to digital signals as soon as conditions for access and cost have been met.

The governance of this fast-changing industry is out of date. We will merge the five separate regulators into one, to create the world’s most competitive and advanced regulatory system. We believe in the value and necessity of public service broadcasting, have committed to major funding increases for the BBC, and support a publicly-owned Channel 4 and S4C. Ofcom will ensure a level playing field, benefiting consumers in terms of choice, price and quality, in particular through promoting competition.

*Transport*
A strong economy needs good transport. Yet our inheritance was massive under-investment, with British Rail broken into over 100 privatised pieces and bus services in decline.

Labour’s priority is to improve and expand railway and road travel. Our ten-year Transport Plan, supported by all the key players, matches large resources with major reform.

Local transport provision is devolved in Wales. We will expand the transport network in a way which helps the economy and access to job opportunities without adversely affecting the environment.
* Rail: Passenger numbers have risen by 17 per cent since 1997 and freight has increased by 22 per cent. But recent crises have proved the need for urgent investment and strong regulation. With Labour, £60 billion will be spent on upgrading the rail network, with the majority of rolling stock replaced. Around 500 new carriages are already in use, with another 3,000 ordered. We plan to expand capacity to boost passenger levels by 50 per cent, and freight by more. Safer train protection systems are now being installed and will be extended following Lord Cullen’s report into rail safety.
The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) has been set up to provide strong, strategic direction. Train companies will get longer franchises in return for higher investment and improved services. The SRA will lead the expansion of the network, using public-private partnerships (PPPs). Railtrack is being reformed to focus on the operation of existing track and signalling. The Rail Regulator, with strengthened powers, will ensure the delivery of higher standards, increased safety and increased investment by the company.
We will work towards a single rail franchise for Wales and the borders as announced by the Strategic Rail Authority.
* Roads: The Labour-led Welsh Assembly will invest in roads where this boosts sustainable economic regeneration, improves the quality of urban and rural communities, and helps to tackle congestion. But environmentally damaging road schemes have been scrapped; all new roads must now be strictly appraised for maximum benefits and minimum environmental damage. Our trunk roads are the safest in Europe, and we aim to reduce serious road casualties by a further 40 per cent over ten years.
We have given local authorities the freedom to choose to use charges to reduce traffic – but we insist they put the money into better transport services. New road safety schemes will help cut the number of child road deaths and serious injuries by 50 per cent by 2010.
Road tax is being cut on smaller, cleaner cars and duty reduced on greener fuels. Tax incentives are creating a cleaner lorry fleet while the road haulage industry will benefit from steep reductions in Vehicle Excise Duty to among the lowest in Europe. We will also ensure that hauliers from overseas pay their fair share towards the cost of our roads. Smarter driving will be encouraged by new highway communications technology. We are also working with the motor industry to develop safer and more fuel-efficient vehicles.
* Buses: Buses are vital to local journeys. Pensioners and people with disabilities in Wales are already entitled to a free bus pass for concessionary local bus travel. From 2002, local bus journeys will be free for the same groups.

*Integrated transport*
Good transport systems offer choice across transport modes. A phone and internet system for Wales (PTI Cymru) will supply comprehensive information to help to plan journeys and offer tickets for door-to-door journeys on public transport. This innovation will put access to all transport modes at people’s fingertips.

We will develop a National Framework for Cycling in Wales, drawing together long distance and local initiatives, and continue to develop urban and rural footpaths.

International links are also vital. Plans for aviation and airports over the next 30 years will be produced next year. In Wales we are working with the private sector to provide a new rail link to Cardiff International Airport. Merchant ships are returning to the British flag. We will complete the high-speed Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

*The Post Office and postal services*
We are committed to high-quality, universal postal services, and a dynamic Post Office which can thrive in a world of technological change and increased competitive pressure. Labour is working with the banks to offer a new universal banking service. This will allow all benefit and pension recipients to receive their payments in full, at no charge, at the Post Office after the switch to automated credit transfer in 2003. We also intend the local post office to become an invaluable resource for access to government information. There will be increased incentives for people to take over and modernise post offices. Business customers, representing by far the majority of the Post Office’s turnover, want a full range of express, parcels and logistics services. We have given the Post Office greater commercial freedom in the public sector. It needs to be able to gain an advantage in the new postal market and become a leading force in domestic and international postal services through alliances and joint ventures. We want to help the Post Office keep up with the best in a fast-changing market.

*Energy*
Labour is committed to a secure, diverse and sustainable supply of energy at competitive prices. We have brought full competition to the gas and electricity markets. Coal and nuclear energy currently play important roles in ensuring diversity in our sources of electricity generation.

We are putting an obligation on electricity companies to deliver ten per cent of the UK’s electricity from renewable sources by 2010, with a doubling of combined heat and power. We will consider setting further targets for renewables, with particular focus on off-shore wind, solar and bio-mass technologies, supported by a £100 million fund. It will back up the Climate Change Levy which includes agreements to improve efficiency in energy-intensive sectors, and the new Carbon Trust which will recycle £100 million to accelerate the take-up of cost-effective, low-carbon technologies.

We will support research into clean coal technology and investigate its commercial possibilities. We will double the expenditure on energy efficiency. Fuel poverty blights lives: our aim is that by 2010 no vulnerable household in the UK need risk ill health due to a cold home. In Wales, the coverage of the new Home Energy Efficiency Scheme Wales will be extended to 38,000 needy households by 2003. £33 million will be available under the scheme up to 2004.

BNFL is an important employer and major exporter. The government insists it maintains the highest health, safety and environmental standards. We are examining the scope for turning the company into a public-private partnership.

#### No one left behind: Helping everyone become better off
Britain is better off than in 1997 but our ambition is to widen the winners’ circle so more people share in the benefits of economic growth. In ‘A modern welfare state’, we set out the route to full employment.

**Fair and flexible work**
We are proud of our commitment to combine a dynamic economy with fair standards in the workplace. Labour has put right historic wrongs. Every employee now has the right to four weeks’ paid holiday; trade unions have a right to recognition where a majority of the workforce want it; part-time workers have proper rights. Our objective has been to promote fairness that is consistent with the competitive position of British business; that will continue to be our position.

We have reformed the labour market to build a durable and fair basis for constructive employee relations. As we learn from the reforms in the light of experience, we will keep their effectiveness under review.

We want to strengthen partnership at work, which can foster employee commitment and help at a time of industrial change. We have established the Partnership Fund and want to expand it. Information and consultation needs to be appropriate to national traditions, with timely discussion of problems. When large-scale redundancies are being considered, there is an especially strong case for consultation. The government is reviewing the effectiveness of the UK’s current arrangements for information and consultation – works councils in larger firms operating across Europe – as well as consultation on large-scale redundancies. We will implement the findings of our review in this area. We support conciliation at the workplace to avoid resorting to litigation. We will examine reforms that promote efficiency and fairness.

Women still suffer an 18 per cent pay gap compared to men. We are committed to tackling the causes of this inequality. We will work with employers and employees to develop effective proposals, building on good practice and sound business, in the private and public sector.

We will develop career services for all. Careers Wales, a single all-age advice and guidance service for the whole of Wales, is drawing together the careers service, local Adult Guidance Networks and guidance from Education Business Links. We aim for a ten per cent cut in death and major injuries at work by 2010, and will clarify responsibility, improve enforcement and toughen penalties for offences. We are also committed to working with managers and employees to reduce the problems of bullying and violence in the workplace. As a major employer, our ambition is to improve the quality of work for our employees – helping recruitment and retention.

**Prosperity for Wales**
In Wales, we have strengthened the Welsh Development Agency (WDA) by merging it with the Development Board for Rural Wales and the Land Authority for Wales.

The Welsh Development Agency is committed to helping businesses in Wales to expand, and to encouraging inward investment and job creation. The focus is on positioning the country at the leading edge of innovation and technology, for example through close links with universities.

Labour’s Job Transition Service (JTS) will provide an intensive and personalised response to large-scale redundancies, helping people secure work or acquire new skills. The JTS will focus its work on new Employment Action Plans drawn up by local economic partners.

**Urban Wales**
We are ambitious for Wales’ urban and valley areas: we want to make them better places to live and better places to set up a business.

Labour is offering £1 billion of tax cuts over the next five years to increase capital investment in urban areas, for new businesses and for new housing. Labour in Wales is overhauling the planning system, creating a strategic framework as a basis for sustainable development.

We will promote the most efficient use of land and strike the right balance of support for environmental protection, integrated transport and economic growth.

**Housing**
Lower interest rates enable more people to own their own homes. Labour will make it easier for people buying and selling homes through a new sellers’ pack, through grants for low-income homeowners and help for key workers in high-cost areas. We will honour our commitment to tackle homelessness. We will continue to promote housing choice, with reforms to leasehold and commonhold law, a licensing scheme for houses in multiple occupation, and new powers for council tenants. We will develop a modern basis for land registration to make conveyancing faster and cheaper. We will also examine the ways in which tenants can be helped to gain an equity stake in the value of their home.

Labour is committed to investment to reduce the backlog of sub-standard housing dramatically. We will continue to support voluntary transfers of housing stock when proposed by local authorities and supported by tenants.

**4 Europe and the wider world**
Labour will be engaged and influential, fighting for the British national interest, as we set out in ‘Britain strong in the world’. We will support British Trade International, which gives business direct access to UK posts abroad, in partnership with Wales Trade International which is run by the National Assembly, and maintain the UK’s position as the location of choice within Europe for multinational business.

Labour’s position on the single currency was set out by the Chancellor in October 1997 and reiterated by the Prime Minister in February 1999. We have made it clear that provided the economic conditions are met membership of a successful Euro would bring benefits to Britain in terms of jobs, investment and trade. So in principle we are in favour of joining a successful single currency. But in practice the five economic tests we have set out must be met before the government would recommend entry to the single currency. An assessment of the tests will be carried out early in the next Parliament. If the government and Parliament recommend entry, the British people will have the final say in a referendum.

So the choice is between a Conservative Party which will deny the people of Britain the chance to join even if it is in our national interest to do so, and the Labour Party which says that if it is in our national economic interest, the decision should be made by the British people in a referendum.

#### Rural Britain
The recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease has caused strain and distress in rural areas. Labour’s priorities have been clear: to eradicate the disease as quickly and effectively as possible, to compensate those directly affected, and to protect the wider economy. As the number of new cases falls significantly, and the clean-up of infected areas gathers pace, we are committed to helping the most affected regions with a recovery plan which includes advice on sustainable restocking, organic conversion, and early retirement and outgoer schemes. We will conduct a scientific review of how to prevent disease outbreaks from occurring in the future and will introduce tough rules to back this up. But we must also learn some of the wider lessons.

**Agriculture and fishing**
Since the Second World War the economy of rural areas has undergone massive change. About two per cent of the workforce is now employed in agriculture. The industry is particularly important because of the links with food production, our landscape and our environment. Labour’s aim is to promote economic renewal combined with a sustainable future for farming, strengthened communities and sustainable land use.

Short-term pressures need to be met. Since the early 1990s, sectors of farming have been hard hit by BSE, the weakness of the Euro and falling world commodity prices. Across Britain, Labour has provided £1.35 billion in short-term relief for farmers, including aid for diversification, farm business advice, better marketing, small slaughterhouses and restructuring of the industry. We have minimised many regulatory burdens and improved the way that food safety, environmental and animal health regulations are implemented.

But British agriculture will only thrive in the longer term through a further, radical reorientation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), away from distorting Europe-wide production subsidies towards more national responsibility for domestic farming, environmental and rural development priorities. CAP reform is now more possible; Labour’s engagement with the EU gives us the best chance of making it happen.

We have begun the process of change with our farming strategy and our seven-year £3 billion Rural Development Plans for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Labour will expand this programme so farming can become more diverse and responsive to consumers, and produce in a way that sustains and improves the environment. We have already increased payments for organic conversion.

We have set up an independent, open and consumer-focused Food Standards Agency to ensure that all food meets the highest standards. We will argue for the extension of food labelling, to give consumers more choice. Genetically modified (GM) foods and crops have caused concern despite stringent safety checks. There should be high standards of safety – regulation must be strict, to protect the environment and promote public health and consumer choice – but we must use science to establish the facts, the opportunities and the risks before taking final decisions in an open way.

It is also important to reform the Common Fisheries Policy to preserve fish stocks for the future. In the short term, Labour is providing more than £60 million in structural funds over the next three years to help the industry, including a new decommissioning scheme while also tackling the problem of ‘quota-hoppers’.

**Economic renewal**
The economic hub of a rural area is often a thriving market town. We are incorporating our market towns initiative into a new Community Regeneration Strategy for Wales with around £2.5 million of funding from the Welsh Development Agency in addition to other National Assembly and European funding. Rate relief in Wales will be extended to pubs, garages, pharmacies and childcare facilities, as well as to farmers who diversify part of their activity into other enterprises.

Tourism is a vital, growing industry for Britain, with 1.8 million employees and links to the museums, arts and heritage that people want to enjoy. We will support well-targeted promotion and high-quality information via the internet. In Wales we are working with the Wales Tourist Board to help secure long-term prosperity and sustainable growth for the tourism industry to increase its contribution to a more diverse Welsh economy. The Labour-led National Assembly has allocated over £20 million towards implementing the National Tourism Strategy for Wales, a 30 per cent increase over the previous year.

**Rural life**
We are committed to providing more affordable housing in rural communities throughout Wales and have made an additional £1.5 million available to increase the amount of Social Housing Grant that local authorities target at rural Homebuy by up to 100 per cent.

A £30 million police programme will help cut rural crime. We have allocated an extra £5.25 million in the first year of the Assembly and pledged £250,000 a year for community transport schemes in rural areas. The Post Office is now obliged to prevent closure of rural post offices, except in unavoidable circumstances, with £270 million to help achieve this and recruit sub-postmasters.

Labour is determined to protect Britain’s landscapes and wildlife. Planning, transport and energy policy all make a difference. We have also designated the first new national parks since 1948, and brought consensus to a large increase in access to open countryside. We will press ahead with an £8 billion programme for water companies to clean up rivers and minimise damage from waste. The dangers of coastal and inland flooding are now widely appreciated, and we are committed to investment in preventative solutions, including more sensitive use of agricultural land. We have increased the number of protected nature sites. We have also initiated important steps to improve animal welfare in Britain and argued successfully for higher welfare standards for battery hens and pigs across the EU.

**Leadership for the future**
Labour is committed to supporting our countryside and the people who live and work in it. We are committed to creating a new Whitehall department to lead renewal in rural areas – a Department for Rural Affairs.

Independent and wide-ranging views are essential to the development of strategic and long-term policy. We will set up an independent commission to advise on how we create a sustainable, competitive and diverse farming and food sector within a thriving rural economy which advances environmental health and animal welfare goals. The commission’s work will complement the work of the Farming Futures Group and the Rural Partnership.

**Coalfield communities**
We have set aside £4 billion to compensate those men, and the widows who nursed them, who suffered from lung disease and vibration white finger after working in Britain’s mining industry. In Wales the problems of ill health among ex-miners are particularly acute. Labour has shown its support for ex-miners by introducing a compensation scheme to help those who have suffered after years working underground. We will ensure that compensation due is paid quickly.

**Britain led the first industrial revolution. Other countries got ahead in the second industrial revolution. Now our ambition is for Britain to succeed in the third industrial revolution – enhancing knowledge, speeding up communication and developing the talents of all the British people.**

> **How Labour makes you better off:**
> * by saving money on your mortgage, through economic stability and low interest rates
> * by targeted tax cuts for families and pensioners
> * by improving living standards, through action to tackle Britain’s productivity gap
> * by investing in skills and training and a revitalised infrastructure
> * by offering a minimum wage of £4.20 and an Employment Tax Credit

---

## 2 World-class public services

**The whole country depends on high-quality public services. We have a ten-year vision for Britain’s public services: record improvement to match record investment, so they deliver high standards to all the people, all the time, wherever they live.**

Since 1997 there has been investment with reform. Thanks to committed public servants, we have shown rapid progress is possible and begun to break the fatalism that says public services are always second class. Now is the time to move forward. Economic stability makes possible more investment as well as a successful partnership between the Labour government and the Labour-led National Assembly for Wales. Labour will put education and healthcare first. We promise reform to match. We will increase the quality and diversity of public services and meet the challenge of rising expectations.

In education, we will push standards higher in secondary schools and sustain the continuous improvement in primary schools already achieved. Every school will have a clear mission, with new opportunities for children. By 2010 we want a majority of Britain’s young people entering higher education.

Under the Labour-led administration in Cardiff there will be at least 1,000 extra nurses in Wales over the next three years. Our ten-year goal is a healthier nation, with fast, high-quality treatment, meeting rising expectations and demographic and technological challenges. Doctors and nurses will be in the driving seat of reform.

The job of government is also about ensuring that the enjoyment, excitement and inspiration of arts and sport come alive for everyone. In all our public services, the key is to devolve and decentralise power to give freedom to frontline staff who perform well, but to change things where there are problems. Services need to be highly responsive to users’ demands. Where the quality is not improving enough, alternative providers may be brought in. Where private sector providers can support public endeavour, we should consider their use. A ‘spirit of enterprise’ should apply as much to public service as to business.

> **Our ten-year goals**
> * More than 50 per cent of young people entering higher education, as we raise standards in secondary schools.
> * Life expectancy up, death rates from major and long-term illnesses down in Wales to match the best in Europe, as we modernise the NHS
> 
> **Our next steps**
> * Smaller class sizes in Welsh primary schools together with new money to drive up standards in the early years of secondary school
> * Invest £290 million in school buildings in Wales in the next three years
> * Reduce patient waiting times year on year in Wales
> * More health service workers – more than 1,000 extra nurses in Wales over the next three years
> * Free access to national museums and galleries throughout Britain

#### Education: Labour’s number one priority
Labour’s ambition for public services is simple: we want excellent services for all. Our challenge is to reverse decades of denigration and under-investment. The citizen – the patient, the pupil, their needs and aspirations – must be central. We will work with frontline staff to deliver a revival of our public services every bit as profound as the changes to the private sector in the 1980s.

In our first term, national action was vital – to tackle crises of funding and quality. Government must take national responsibility for investment and for setting a clear national framework. Now we need to move on, empowering frontline staff. Each service needs the right structure and incentives at local level – decentralisation of power with strong incentives to high performance. Frontline staff are advocates for citizens and ambassadors for their services. Motivated by an ethos of service, they must be supported to carry through change.

Education remains Labour’s top priority. Excellence for the many, not just the few, is our driving passion. Our goal is to develop education to harness the individual talents of every pupil. In Wales, most of the responsibility for delivering education is devolved to the National Assembly. But crucially, it can only deliver rising school standards with the record investment produced by a Labour government at Westminster.

Since 1997 rising standards have been achieved through major new investment and significant reforms. Many teachers are set to receive a £2,000 pay rise above the usual annual increase and schools are benefiting from extra resources as a result of Labour’s sound management of public finances.

The Welsh inspection body ESTYN has reported on rising standards in primary schools and secondary schools year on year. Pupils in Key Stages 1 and 2 have achieved the best-ever results in their National Curriculum tests. Secondary school pupils and students have once again beaten previous best records of success in GCSE and Advanced level examinations. Our task now is to focus on 11- to 14-year-olds in secondary education, to push standards even higher while continuing to enrich opportunities and provision across the board.

**Investment**
Money alone cannot guarantee a good education, but extra investment is indispensable to achieving our ambitions. In partnership with the Labour-led Assembly, we pledge a further step-change in investment in return for a further step-change in standards.

In 1997 Labour promised to increase the share of Britain’s national income devoted to education. Over the Parliament we have increased it from 4.7 per cent to 5 per cent and we are pledged to raise this figure to 5.3 per cent by 2003-04. Investment in buildings and equipment is a top priority in Wales. By September 2002 every school in Wales will be linked to the internet. During the next Parliament, in partnership with the Welsh Assembly, we will again increase the share of national income for education.

**Under-fives**
All parents must receive the support they need to give their children a good start in life, so that every child starts school ready to learn. There is now a free nursery place for every four-year-old and the Sure Start programme is providing special help for the most disadvantaged communities.

We will continue to expand under-five provision. We will provide a nursery place for every three-year-old in Wales whose parents want it by 2003. We will improve nursery education and childcare for working parents (see ‘A modern welfare state’). £25 million has been allocated to the first three years of Sure Start projects in Wales with an additional £30 million for the period 2002-04. These projects, led by voluntary organisations, are being set up to support parents and improve children’s early development.

**Primary schools**
Primary school teachers have achieved excellent results. In 1997 too few 11-year-olds were up to standard in English, Welsh and Maths tests. The figures are now 74 per cent for English, 67 per cent for Welsh and 69 per cent for maths, a significant improvement and well on the way to meeting our targets of 80 to 85 per cent by 2004.

But Labour will not be satisfied until every child leaves primary school with the basic skills they need.

Primary education without the basics is a betrayal; but every parent rightly wants far more. We will provide primary pupils with wider opportunities in a broad curriculum.

**Secondary schools**
Transforming secondary education is the critical challenge of the next decade. We reject a return to the 11-plus. The principles of inclusion and equality of opportunity remain central to our commitment to liberate the potential of every child. But on their own they are not enough to guarantee high standards.

Standards have risen in the past four years. But the challenge ahead is immense. Too many pupils fall back and become disillusioned in the first two years of secondary school and levels of drop-out remain too high. In future every school must have:

*The right leadership*
Labour in Wales will improve training for headteachers and their leadership teams, with innovative programmes for serving and aspiring heads and senior teachers.

*The right curriculum*
In Wales, we are proud of our distinctively Welsh Curriculum (Y Cwricwlwm Cymreig), and the right of Welsh children to know about their own history, geography, language and culture. Wales is proud to be a bilingual country, and Welsh Labour is committed to excellence in education through both the Welsh and English languages. The Labour-led National Assembly is providing £2.5 million per year to support training in raising standards in literacy and numeracy. Resources have been provided to all LEAs in Wales to run summer literacy and numeracy schemes. In particular, we will target specific areas of deprivation identified under the Communities First initiative.

We have recently launched a Basic Skills Strategy for Wales, designed to drive up standards in literacy and numeracy in families with young children, and for those moving into further education and employment. We will aim to provide all pupils in Wales with a broader curriculum including more opportunities to learn musical instruments and foreign languages. We are committed to providing extra opportunities for out-of-school hours learning, and to the introduction of measures to drive up standards for 11- to 14-year-olds. Our ambition is the development of quality and choice after age 14, catering for every pupil, including new vocational pathways for those who want them and an apprenticeship place for every young person who can meet the standard for one.

We will establish parity of esteem between academic and vocational qualifications at post-16, and pilot a new qualification, the Welsh Bac, to offer a broad achievement for all young people, as well as greater study in depth. In addition, our extending entitlement policy has put Wales at the forefront of developing informal education, advice and guidance for young people.

*A mission to achieve*
We want every secondary school to develop its own distinct ethos and mission. The Labour-led Assembly is pledged to a policy of ‘excellence for all’ in secondary education. Labour in Wales will explore opportunities to identify the potential for building on particular strengths in our comprehensive schools.

*Better infrastructure*
The Labour government’s sound management of the economy and public finances means that more resources are available to the Labour-led Assembly to invest in our schools. £300 million will be invested in school buildings over the next three years to start to make further progress on tackling the backlog of disrepair left by the Tories. Information technology has enormous potential to raise standards, and we will continue to improve access for pupils and teachers alike. We will pioneer a complete digital curriculum, to ensure materials are available to pupils in schools and at home. In the next two years we will invest £24 million in new computer learning centres in Wales, using schools to give greater access to community learning.

*The right support*
Good schools also depend on parents and the local community. We will continue to ensure that head teachers have the powers they need to tackle disruption and unacceptable behaviour in schools. Where there is underperformance in schools, it will be remedied.

We will ensure better training and support for school governors. Schools should be used more effectively as assets for the whole community, including for childcare and community learning. To help create a better environment for learning, all infant school classes will have been cut to 30 or under by September 2001, and free school milk has been restored to Key Stage 1 pupils in Wales.

*Teachers*
Nothing in education is more important than having good teachers. We have made teaching a far more attractive career, through better pay, better incentives to train, including training grants, and more recognition and improved support. The General Teaching Council for Wales has been established and the Labour-led Assembly will work closely with the new National College for School Leadership.

We want teaching to be a career of choice for the best graduates and attractive to people making career changes. We will continue to invest more in the profession and improve conditions for teachers. High status, better salaries and proper professional support are all essential. We will:
* invest in rapid promotion and rewards for classroom excellence
* boost recruitment and retention packages for teachers
* create new routes into teaching, including ‘train-to-teach’ courses accredited as part of undergraduate degrees
* further improve in-service training opportunities for teachers.

*Further and higher education*
With Labour, post-16 education is being transformed in Wales. A new national council for education and training – Education Learning Wales (ELWa) has been established to focus further education on the needs of the learner. Schools, colleges and workplaces will be able to work together to deliver the ambition of Wales as a learning country. The role of the further education colleges working locally with schools and businesses will be key in this process.

Higher education brings on average 20 per cent higher earnings and a 50 per cent lower chance of unemployment. It is time for a historic commitment to open higher education to half of all young people before they are 30, combined with increased investment to maintain academic standards. Access and excellence are the twin ambitions of our higher education policy. Labour in Wales is committed to a well-funded strategic higher education sector.

In 1997 we inherited a system where the number of qualified people able to go to university was capped. Today, the numbers are rising and universities have the funds to expand, with new two-year foundation degrees already under way in Wales to offer students the option of a vocationally relevant, high-quality qualification as a way into skilled work or further study. Over the next three years we will continue to expand student numbers, taking us towards our 50 per cent target.

We will maintain university entry standards while intensifying efforts to extend to able young people from all backgrounds the huge advantages which a university education confers. Wales has the best record of access in the UK. In 1998-99, 91 per cent of young first-degree students in higher education in Wales were from state schools or colleges. We will work to maintain and extend this record.

We will not introduce ‘top-up’ fees and have legislated to prevent them. Since 1997, we have increased university funding by more than £1 billion a year – and invested considerably more in research. Our new system of university finance ensures that 50 per cent of students pay no tuition fees at all, that no parents pay more than under the old system, and that students only start to pay back loans when they are earning more than £10,000 a year. We will ensure that the funding system continues to promote access and excellence.

The Conservatives’ claims to support a £100 billion ‘endowment’ of universities are completely unfunded. Their policies to turn student support upside down threaten higher costs for students and less revenue for universities.

We will strengthen research and teaching excellence. It is vital that our world-leading universities are able to compete with the best internationally. We will also support world-class research and the development of public-private partnerships. We are determined to ensure that our universities have the freedom and incentives to meet our ambitions for them. Reforms to the inspection system for teaching will slash red tape for higher-performing departments.

#### Health: Quality services from a growing NHS
For over 50 years the National Health Service has been part and parcel of what it means to be British. If you fall ill, the NHS is there. Its foundations – tax-based funding and care according to need – remain as valid today as ever.

The NHS employs 70,000 dedicated people in Wales with an additional 10,000 working for (but not employed by) the NHS in the primary care field. In Wales the delivery of healthcare is a devolved matter. The National Assembly has published its own plan for the NHS in Wales, which can only be achieved with the continuation of the investment announced by the Labour government in Westminster. Reform will be driven through Local Health Groups as power and resources are decentralised to frontline staff.

In 1997 waiting lists were rising, hospital building had ground to a halt, and the number of nurses working in the NHS had fallen. Today, waiting lists and waiting times in Wales are falling, and there are more than 2,000 extra nurses working for patients. NHS Direct, the 24-hour bilingual nurse helpline, is available across Wales. Eye tests for people who are 60 and over are now free, resulting in a 32 per cent increase in the number of people taking the tests in Wales, and additional free tests are available to high-risk groups.

But there is a lot more to do. We are committed to investment and reform. With Labour in just four years the NHS will have grown by a third. Spending on the health service in Wales will rise by over £1 billion in the next three years: the biggest sustained increase in its history. Provided that as a country we maintain economic stability, we will, if re-elected, be able to sustain significant funding increases throughout the next Parliament. So over time we will bring UK health spending up to the EU average.

**The fundamentals of care**
That money will help us get the basics right. By 2004 there will be at least 380 more doctors and 1,000 more nurses working for NHS Wales. An executive board member in each NHS Trust in Wales will have responsibility for cleanliness and hygiene in hospitals. There will be extra support and training for ward sisters, giving them accountability for the cleanliness of their wards and the food served to patients, to improve basic standards across the NHS in Wales. There will be 425 extra beds commissioned throughout Wales by May 2003, and we will build ten new hospitals in Wales within the next ten years. Capital expenditure in Wales will rise to £108 million in the NHS in the next financial year 2002-03 including more than £8 million for cancer equipment from the New Opportunities Fund. We will seek to sustain this level of investment in future years.

**Improving health**
Our job is not just to improve the nation’s health service. It is to improve the nation’s health. Deaths from cancer and heart disease are too high. There has been a growing health gap between rich and poor. Beyond other commitments to combat child poverty and poor housing, we will tackle the long-standing causes of ill health and health inequality by:

* Making the fight against cancer, heart disease and mental ill health the top priorities for investment and reform. In the first year, this will include dedicated funding for cancer, cardiac and mental health services of more than £17 million. In the same year, we will spend more than £20 million on capital projects to improve and modernise buildings and provide the latest equipment for these purposes. By the end of 2001, cancer patients will have an appointment with a consultant within ten days of the hospital receiving an urgent referral from their GP. The proposals in the NHS Wales Plan, made possible by increased funding for the health service, will enable 255 extra consultants to be funded by 2004.
* Setting out tough targets to close the health gap to cut deaths in poorer communities and among those people with poorer children.
* New emphasis on prevention with more screening services including for conditions such as sickle cell disease.
* Using the Health Inequalities Fund for Wales to tackle our problems of cardiac heart disease.
* In Wales we will develop our innovative fruit tuck shop schemes and breakfast clubs to boost child nutrition, as well as restoring free school milk for primary school children.

We remain committed to our Bill – blocked by the Tories – to ban tobacco advertising and sponsorship.

**Reforming the NHS**
The NHS has to earn the confidence of each new generation. It has to change the way it works if it is to meet today’s challenges and provide fast and modern services. In future access for patients to a member of the primary care team will be available within 24 hours. We will work to reduce waiting times in Wales for elective treatment. Major conditions like cancer and heart disease will have priority, with all patients treated according to clinical urgency.

We will give patients more choice. We have restored the right of family doctors to refer patients to the hospital right for them. Now we will redesign the system around patients’ needs. Same day tests and diagnosis will become the norm. By extending the use of NHS Direct and increasing the numbers of dentists, patients will get easier access to NHS dentistry wherever they live. We will use spare capacity in private sector hospitals where necessary, treating NHS patients free of charge, if high standards and value for money are guaranteed. It would be totally unacceptable to force people to pay for their operations. That is why we reject the approach of the Conservatives, which would lead to this outcome.

By modernising maternity services, and giving women greater choice over childbirth, we will ensure that women receive the highest quality maternity care. There will be tough new and higher standards for care of children, the elderly and people with conditions like diabetes, kidney failure, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.

We will further tackle the ‘lottery of care’ as we direct Local Health Groups and Trusts to fund drugs and treatments recommended by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. Genetic services will be extended in the NHS so that more patients enjoy the benefit of the latest advances in testing and treatment; but we will ban by law human cloning and implement a moratorium on the use of genetic tests for insurance, following a recommendation of the Human Genetics Commission. We will continue to examine demographic and technological challenges as they affect the NHS.

Patients will have more say. We will give every citizen a personal smartcard containing key medical records. Older people, people with disabilities and their carers will be able to decide which services they want with the choice of having cash given to them directly by local councils; and nursing care will be made free. Patients and staff will be represented on Trust Boards in Wales and have more information on the quality of local services.

**Power devolved**
To achieve this vision, there will be clear national standards but greater decentralisation to frontline services and to the staff who run them. By 2004, all local care will be organised by Local Health Groups run by local partnerships. With more power for Local Health Groups we will abolish health authorities in Wales and the National Assembly will take over responsibility for the strategic direction of the NHS in Wales. We will give a new right of involvement in non-executive appointments to Trust Boards to patients and staff. Community Health Councils will be reformed in Wales to strengthen their role as patient watchdogs.

**NHS staff**
None of these ambitions will be possible without major investment in the skill, working conditions and working practices of all NHS staff, and especially nurses. Pressure will be relieved through expanded staff numbers, reformed working practices and investment in training.

Every NHS employer will offer more flexible working hours for staff, and especially nurses. Childcare provision will be improved. The pay system will be reformed to make it fairer. There will be new contracts for GPs and hospital consultants, coupled to extra money. We will examine the case for a public-private partnership with a commercial mortgage lender to make home ownership more affordable for nurses and other NHS staff.

Staff at all levels will get more help with training. Healthcare assistants, porters, cooks and cleaners in Wales will be offered an Individual Learning Account by April 2004 to develop their careers. We will examine the potential for sabbaticals to help GPs, senior nurses and consultants update their skills.

There will be new systems to learn from when things go wrong, a core education curriculum for all health professionals, and reforms to strengthen professional self-regulation.

This is a vision worth fighting for. It will take time to achieve but these are the most comprehensive plans ever put before the British people to improve the state of the nation’s health and our health service.

Labour in Wales is particularly proud of the part it played in the creation of the NHS. In a partnership between the Labour government providing record investment for public services, and the Labour-led Assembly reforming the NHS in Wales, we aim to build an NHS true to the founding principles of Aneurin Bevan but modernised to face today’s challenges; an NHS of which the people of Wales can once again be proud.

#### Culture and sport
Government can be about lifting the human spirit – the thrill of scientific discovery at the National Museum, the emotion of theatre, the tension of inter-school rugby. The arts and sports are key to our quality of life. They matter for their own sake. And millions make their living out of their creativity. Government can and must make sure the opportunities are there. But for the last 20 years, under-investment, misplaced priorities, and lack of organisation have held back access and excellence.

Since 1997, this has begun to change. We have started to invest and to reform the system. Investment in theatre develops the film and television stars of tomorrow; investment in sport will produce the Olympic and Paralympic medal winners of 2012.

Culture and sport should not be seen as peripheral issues; they are vital to our identity and enjoyment as a country. We are pledged to the investment necessary to expand access and excellence together in culture and sport, building on excellence in film and broadcasting.

**Sport**
The performance of British athletes at the Sydney Olympics and Paralympics thrilled everyone.

Labour is committed to a radical extension of sporting opportunities and facilities. Sport is a good health policy, a good crime reduction policy, a good way of building communities.

The Labour-led Welsh Assembly has established a PE and Schools Sport Action Group. We will examine its findings with a view to increasing access to sports for all children in Wales. We have stopped the enforced sale of playing fields and, thanks to the New Deal, there will be up to 2,000 sports assistants across Britain to help sports co-ordinators deliver sport activity in our schools. We will maintain the elite funding we put in place for individual athletics, with a first-class athletics stadium for the World Athletics Championships in 2005.

We are committed to selling the Tote to a Racing Trust to allow it to compete commercially, with all long-term profits invested in the sport.

We are committed to supporting the amateur sports clubs to which 5.6 million people now belong.

The House of Commons elected in 1997 made clear its wish to ban fox-hunting. The House of Lords took a different view and reform has been blocked. Such issues are rightly a matter for a free vote and we will give the new House of Commons an early opportunity to express its view. We will then enable Parliament to reach a conclusion on this issue. If the issue continues to be blocked we will look at how the disagreement can be resolved. We have no intention whatsoever of placing restrictions on the sports of angling and shooting.

**Arts**
Each year 30 million people enjoy arts activities. These activities are critical to national life, with huge importance for the creative and tourism industries. Yet the Conservatives introduced charges for our national museums and galleries, cut the arts budget and reduced support for arts education.

Since 1997, that has changed. National museums in Wales are now free for everyone. An increase of £4 million by 2003-04 has been awarded to the Arts Council for Wales ensuring support for the existing eight theatres for young people, to train and commission scriptwriters and put on new productions. We have invested in our orchestras, and are investing an extra £10 million a year in developing our regional museums and galleries. We have maintained our commitment to the nation’s heritage and to its historic buildings, and will continue our drive to put architectural quality at the heart of design of new public buildings.

Education is the bedrock of an artistic society. We have created the Music Development Fund in Wales with £8 million of funding, and we will ensure that all children who want to have the opportunity to learn music. Community arts will be included as part of the Communities First initiative in Wales, to offer children in disadvantaged areas the chance to develop artistic and creative talents. We will build on the pilot projects. We have made the largest-ever investment in computerising libraries; all will be online by 2002 with guaranteed standards to meet the needs of users.

From 2002, Culture On-line will offer children and adults alike tailored access to museums and cultural activity over the internet. Public money devoted to the arts should be spent on excellent art, not bureaucracy. The Arts Council for Wales is undergoing substantial reform, creating a simpler structure, working in partnership with key organisations cutting bureaucratic costs further, and delivering a better service to individual artists and arts organisations. We will ensure that our arts funding system backs excellence, giving artists and arts organisations the long-term stability they need to become world leaders.

**Creative industries**
The creative industries are a vital engine of our economy, providing jobs for over one million people. The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts has been set up to back our most talented young people across Britain. Creative entrepreneurs need seed funding, cheap accommodation near other similar companies, and advice on how to develop their talent into a business. To meet those needs, we now plan to provide start-up advice, services and funding for new businesses.

**Lottery**
Under the Conservatives, Lottery money was concentrated on large capital projects. Many communities missed out on their fair share.

The number of Lottery grants to community groups has trebled with Labour. Yet there are still communities which have received a disproportionately small share of Lottery funding. We will ensure a fairer deal for these communities.

Labour has reshaped the Lottery to match people’s priorities. Money goes for revenue as well as capital. The New Opportunities Fund (NOF) directs help to education, health and the environment – after-school clubs, vital cancer-beating equipment, local green spaces.

We backed going ahead with the Dome as an opportunity to showcase British talent and give people a good day out in the millennium year. Despite the enjoyment of more than six million visitors, the Dome did not fulfil expectations and we have learned the lessons, good and bad, from it. But the development of the Dome has been the catalyst for unlocking the value of the North Greenwich peninsula and regenerating local communities. In Wales, we backed the building of the Millennium Stadium and National Botanic Gardens with support from the National Lottery. These projects have brought great economic benefit already and help to enhance the image of Wales in Britain and beyond.

**We need a revolution in the status, standards and focus of our public services. Labour is prepared to make the investment in staff and services – and we are ready to match investment with reform.**

> **How Labour helps young people:**
> * by raising standards and investing more in education, from nursery schools to adult learning
> * by giving the majority of young adults the opportunity to study in higher education
> * by tackling youth unemployment, with the New Deal made permanent
> * by opportunities to train as you work, through modern apprenticeships and the right to time off to study
> * by expanding sports facilities in schools and in the community
> * by cleaning up the environment, with support for green technologies and global action to tackle climate change

## 3 A modern welfare state

**As society changes, so the welfare state must change. We have a ten-year vision for an active welfare state: to promote work for those who can, security for those who cannot, and rewards for those who save, volunteer, learn or train.**

Since 1997, we have cut the costs of unemployment, saving £4 billion last year alone. As a result, we have been able to spend more on tackling poverty and raising family support within a social security budget that has grown, in Labour’s first term, at the lowest rate since 1948.

Employment is not just the foundation of affordable welfare; it is the best anti-poverty, anti-crime and pro-family policy yet invented. After years of mass unemployment, full employment is now on the agenda. Our ten-year goal is to sustain a higher percentage of people in work than ever before. With more than one million more people in work than in 1997, and a million vacancies in the economy, we need to extend the New Deal, not abolish it as the Conservatives propose.

We judge our society by how we treat our young and the old. In Wales, 50,000 children have been taken out of poverty in this Parliament; our ten-year goal is to halve child poverty, ending it in a generation. We will transform support for children to achieve it.

For those in retirement, security depends on partnership between state and funded provision. We promise that within two years no pensioner need live on less than £100 per week, increased annually in line with earnings growth. On top of that, we will reward pensioners who save.

Government cannot achieve social inclusion for people, but it can help them achieve it for themselves, by transferring power and opportunity to local communities. That is our promise.

> **Our ten-year goals**
> * Sustain a higher percentage of people in work than ever before, as we seek full employment in Wales.
> * Child poverty halved and pensioner poverty tackled, as we extend opportunity for all children and security for all pensioners.
> 
> **Our next steps**
> * An ‘Employment First’ interview for everyone coming on to benefits
> * Expanded support for children through tax and benefit reform
> * Extend and increase paid maternity leave and introduce paid paternity leave
> * New Pension Credit for lower- and middle-income pensioners and the Winter Fuel Payment retained
> * £83 million ‘Communities First’ initiative in Wales for the 100 most deprived communities

#### Full employment Labour’s goal
With Labour, the welfare state helps people into work, makes work pay, supports them at work, and demands responsibilities in return.

Our ambition is full employment for Wales – good for the economy and good for social justice.

The New Deal has already helped to cut long-term youth unemployment by 75 per cent – 280,000 young people have been helped into work. Long-term unemployment is down by over 60 per cent. The claimant count is the lowest for 25 years.

But too many people are still denied the opportunity to work. A million people remain unemployed; 100,000 lone parents have come off income support since 1997, but our target is to raise the current 50 per cent employment rate to 70 per cent.

Many people with disabilities who are out of work say they would like to work. Older people, with a wealth of talent and experience, are a resource we cannot afford to waste.

Labour has ended the days of low-grade job schemes. The New Deal leads to real jobs, a lower benefits bill and higher tax receipts. We now need to build on its success, extending it to more people across the country.

We also need to ensure that the barriers to work are pulled down, by delivering on our obligation to tackle discrimination so that all people can make the most of their talents.

**Making the New Deal a permanent deal**
The benefits system we inherited was fragmented, complex and contradictory. We are putting in place clear, consistent rules: those who can work should be in work or in contact with the labour market. As unemployment falls, we need further reform to help people into work.

Labour will introduce a new principle of ‘Employment First’, with rights and responsibilities balanced at every stage. The contract is simple: quality opportunities for real responsibility. ‘Something for something’ is the foundation.

Labour is pledged to create a new Working Age Agency, Job Centre Plus, merging the old Employment Service and Benefits Agency, and focusing on the key skill needs of areas of the country and sectors of the economy. Whoever you are, wherever you live, you will get the opportunities suited to your needs – from one office, one adviser, one system.

The New Deals for young people and older workers will focus on numeracy, literacy, IT skills and presentation. Where people are homeless, or suffer drug or mental health problems, we will offer specialist support. More than 140,000 adults aged over 25 have been unemployed for over 18 months. Labour will deliver more intensive and flexible help, with increased responsibilities for claimants.

We will offer greater flexibility to personal advisers and encourage greater engagement of employers, with IT training for all New Dealers. Employment Zones include funding for results, and public-private partnership. On the basis of the evidence we will consider their extension to new areas and new claimant groups. We will build on the Action Teams for Jobs model which is targeting 40 of the most severely disadvantaged areas, tackle the employment gap for ethnic minorities, and devote £45 million to provide stepping stones into employment for the hardest to employ.

All lone parents will be invited to employment interviews to help them seek employment opportunities. We will build on the lessons of the Choices programme, which offers help with learning, work and childcare. Partners of unemployed people with children, like those without children, will also be asked to interviews to discuss their options.

Parents need good-quality and affordable childcare if they are to have real choice about work. Wales has a National Childcare Strategy – covering cost, provision and quality. Across Britain we have already created over 300,000 extra childcare places. Our vision is ambitious: safe and reliable childcare nationwide, allowing all parents to combine home and work confident in the childcare they have chosen. We will help with the costs of childcare, through the Childcare Tax Credit, and will look to extend it to people looking after children with disabilities and to shift-workers. We will support the commitment of community and voluntary groups to build up a diverse range of childcare – including neighbourhood nurseries and informal care (see ‘World-class public services’).

Many older workers now want to continue in work full or part-time. Yet one in three people between 50 and state pension age is not working. To help them we will build on the New Deal 50+. To help bridge the divide between work and retirement, we will examine ways to ensure that people will be able to draw on their occupational pension and continue to work part-time for the same employer, phasing their retirement without compromising their pension. We are exploring how to facilitate the transition from work to positive voluntary activity.

Our ambition of full employment is part of a deal: if you put in a fair day’s work, the government will ensure you are able to support yourself and your family. The minimum wage is the foundation. But we offer a guarantee of take-home pay too. For people with families, we promise to match your effort with support through the tax system. For those on low incomes without children, we will create an Employment Tax Credit to boost their earnings, tackle poverty and improve work incentives.

**People with disabilities**
Our ambition is to enable people with disabilities to play a full part in the community. The Disability Rights Commission ensures full civil rights for people with disabilities; we have legislated so those with special needs or disabilities have equal access to education. We are now committed to extending basic rights and opportunities as indicated in our response to the Disability Rights Taskforce.

The New Deal for Disabled People pioneers new ways of helping people with disabilities into jobs. The opportunity to work is vital to civil rights; we are testing how best to offer help with rehabilitation and job retention. We will invest an additional £40 million to help people with disabilities into work, to ensure that it is worthwhile to try out a job and stay in work if they have high care costs, and to improve assessment for equipment and services as people move in and out of work. In Wales, there will be free local bus travel for people with disabilities as part of an initiative by the Labour-led National Assembly.

We will not use disability benefits to disguise unemployment – the Tory approach in the 1980s. The number of people getting Incapacity Benefit (IB) has fallen by 11 per cent since 1997 but too many people are written off when they could, with support, work.

We will help break down the barriers that keep people with disabilities out of work. We will continue to modernise the operation of the benefits system so that if people can work, we help them to do so and stop them slipping from lack of work to inability to work. Around 18 million working days are lost each year due to work-related illness – at a cost of over £17 billion. Many people on Industrial Injuries Benefit are helped into work by combining support with effective services, and we want to help as many of the rest as possible. But if people cannot work, society has a duty to provide security for them.

For people unable to take up paid work, we are committed to offer security. We have increased support for children with parents on income support by 80 per cent in real terms since 1997. There is now a minimum income guarantee of £142 per week for people with disabilities under 60. Incapacity Benefit has been extended to people disabled from a young age. Disability Living Allowance has been extended to three and four-year-olds. We will continue to keep the system under review.

**Housing benefit**
Although the number of people claiming housing benefit is currently falling, it remains the main way in which accommodation is made affordable. Our first priority has been to work with local authorities to drive up administrative standards and tackle fraud and error. But we must continue to reform it. So we will simplify housing benefit and its administration, distinguishing between people of working age and pensioners, reforming provision for private tenants and examining the case for longer awards. We will spread best practice in administration. In the longer term, we will build on our restructuring of rents to ensure that for people of working age, housing benefit as well as the Working Families Tax Credit strengthens work incentives.

#### Children and families
Strong and stable family life offers the best possible start for children. And marriage provides a strong foundation for stable relationships. The government supports marriage. But it has to do more than that. It must support families, above all, families with children. Our vision of the tax and benefits system for families and children is to provide help for all families; to give most help at the time families need it most; and to give more help to those families most in need.

The Conservatives stacked the tax system against families; over four million children lived in poverty; one in five children were growing up in households without work; the average income of households with children had fallen to 30 per cent below the level for those without children.

Labour has started to turn this round. We have raised Child Benefit for the first child by over a quarter. The Working Families Tax Credit has meant a tax cut averaging £31 per week for 1.1 million families. In 2001-02, an average of nearly £500 above 1997-98 levels will be invested in every child in Britain. Personal tax and benefit changes have made families with children an average of £1,000 a year better off.

We are pledged to go further – to eradicate child poverty in a generation and to halve it by 2010. In the next Parliament we will make major changes. The Children’s Tax Credit – the family tax cut – is worth up to £520 a year for five million families, with half a million families removed from paying tax altogether. It is paid until one parent earns more than £40,000 per year.

From 2003, the Integrated Child Credit will bring together all existing income-related payments for children, providing most help to the neediest children, building on the foundation of universal Child Benefit. With the new system of child support, every family will receive at least £15 per week, and those most in need £50 per week – over £2,500 per year. For the first time Britain will have a seamless system of child support whether parents are in or out of work, paid to the main carer.

Our aim is to make the goal of ending child poverty in Britain a political litmus test for any political party running for office. The task for the next Parliament is to help another million children out of poverty.

**Assets**
Our active welfare state has so far been based on work, finance and services. It is now time to add a fourth pillar to the welfare state – a programme to extend to all children the advantages that come from reaching adulthood backed by a financial nest-egg.

Nearly a third of individuals have no financial savings or assets at all. People without assets are much more likely to have lower earnings and higher unemployment, and are less likely to start a business, or enter higher education.

The government already encourages people to save for a rainy day, and save for a pension. We are determined to extend the savings habit to more people. But we are pledged also to use saving to promote opportunity for the next generation.

All newly-born children will have an interest-bearing Child Trust Fund set up in their name with an initial endowment from the government, with more for poorer children. The endowment will be locked until the child reaches adulthood. We will provide incentives for extended family and friends, as well as parents, to contribute to the fund. All the next generation will have the backing of a real financial asset to invest in learning, training, buying a home and/or setting up a business.

**Caring for children**
A safe childhood is not just about financial security. It is also about care for children, especially the 58,000 children in care. Society is failing these children: 70 per cent leave school without any GCSEs and too many have been abused while in care.

Labour legislated to create a Children’s Commissioner for Wales as promised in our Welsh Assembly manifesto in 1999 and recommended by the Waterhouse report on child abuse in North Wales. The Criminal Records Bureau will help stop paedophiles and others who are a danger to children from working with them. From next year all children’s homes will, for the first time, be subject to independent spot checks. The level of educational attainment of children in care will be significantly increased. Every child leaving care will be guaranteed access to a job, training or education.

For many children in care, adoption offers the best chance of success in life. We will make adoption faster and fairer. Children who need new families will be placed within 12 months by 2004. We aim to ensure that at least 1,000 more children a year are adopted, with improved post-adoption support for parents.

**Family-friendly working**
For the majority of parents, time is precious. Many employers offer excellent schemes for family-friendly working. But we want to go further – with government funding to help parents devote more time to their children early in life. We want government to promote choice, because without our help, many people are denied the choices that should be theirs. A flexible labour market must work to the benefit of both employers and employees.

Statutory maternity leave is currently 18 weeks; we propose to increase it to six months. Statutory maternity pay is paid at a flat rate of £60 a week; we propose to increase it to £100 per week, as big an increase in the next two years as in the past 40 years. Fathers currently have no legal right to paid time off on the birth of a child; we propose to introduce it for two weeks, also paid at £100 per week. We need to do more to help parents balance work and family. Many parents, especially mothers, want to work reduced hours when they do go back to work. We will work with business and employees to combine flexible working with the needs of business.

**Child Support Agency**
Some families break up. Government’s role is to ensure that both parents retain responsibility for the financial support of their children where they are able to do so. We have always supported the principle underlying the work of the Child Support Agency (CSA), but its introduction was bungled by the Conservatives. That is why we have already legislated to reform the CSA and these improvements will come on stream from 2002. A simple system will ensure a better deal for children, that fathers pay a fair share, that mothers benefit from their doing so, and that tougher action is taken against parents who do not comply.

#### Pensions and pensioners
In 1997, Labour made a clear commitment to ensure that pensioners share fairly in the rising prosperity of the nation. At this general election, we repeat our commitment to pensioners – we honour your lifetime of work by ensuring that you share fairly in the nation’s rising prosperity, and we commit to tackling pensioner poverty. We will build a secure system on the foundation of the basic state pension.

As a result of Labour’s policies this Parliament, spending on pensioners will be £4.5 billion a year more in real terms than in 1997. Of this, £2 billion is going to the poorest third of pensioners.

Our first priority was to help those on lowest incomes: we have lifted the incomes of the 1.7 million poorest pensioners by at least £800 a year, and for some couples by up to £1,400. Pensioner households are on average £11 per week better off than they were in 1997; and over three million pensioner households benefit from free TV licences for the over-75s.

The pensioners’ tax allowance means six out of ten pensioners pay no tax. We have halved the rate of tax they pay on savings income. We have pledged to extend tax allowances further so that by 2003 no pensioner pays tax until their income reaches £127 per week.

We now need to go further. With Labour, the weekly basic state pension will rise by 2003 to £77 a week for a single pensioner and £123 a week for a pensioner couple. We guarantee that the Minimum Income Guarantee will be uprated each year in line with earnings throughout the next Parliament. In 2003 this will mean no single pensioner will have an income below £100 per week and no pensioner couple an income below £154 per week. Labour introduced the Winter Fuel Payment. Its level is set each year. Last winter, it was raised to £200. For next winter, it will also be £200.

We will also do more to reward pensioners who have saved. Pensioners who work and save will find, for the first time ever, the government rewarding their saving. Pensioner couples with an income up to £200 per week and single pensioners with income up to £135 per week will be rewarded for saving – the government adding up to 60p for each £1 of savings income up to a maximum of £23. In the process, we will abolish the weekly means-test for pensioners, along with the unfair test of savings, which penalises pensioners who have modest savings and whose thrift should be recognised.

It is also vital to have in place long-term pension reform. We support a fair balance of public and private provision. Occupational and personal pensions, properly regulated, will continue to offer security for middle and high earners. We will continue discussions on annuity reform to ensure tax rules do not unnecessarily restrict the development of annuity products and markets. For low to middle-income earners, stakeholder pensions cap costs, guarantee value for money, offer flexibility and drive down fees across the board. And for the lowest paid and carers, full-time parents and people with disabilities, the state second pension will top up their pension contributions to give a decent pension in retirement to 18 million people.

Today’s pensioners have much to give to society. Pensioners also need simple, accessible services that treat them with dignity and promote independence. The Labour-led National Assembly for Wales is developing a wide strategy for older people to promote seamless and responsive health and social care for the elderly.

**Carers**
Not only are the large majority of people who require care older, but the majority of carers are older people. Labour will tackle the problems faced by people requiring care, and the problems of carers themselves.

The National Carers Strategy for Wales is the first step, with information, support and care for carers, and £21 million of funding from the National Assembly over the next three years to fund the strategy and enable local authorities to provide new services for carers. Across Britain, Labour will spend £500 million over the next three years providing financial support for 300,000 carers through the benefits system. More is being done for carers in terms of Income Support; carers will be better able to combine work and care; and 75,000 more carers each year are now able to take a break from their caring responsibilities. We are proud that with Labour, care by qualified nurses will be made free to all, wherever it is received. More than 150,000 older people will receive rehabilitation and convalescence care through growing investment in the NHS and social services that the Conservatives refuse to match. We want to see carers with the choice of the cash and services appropriate to their service to their relatives and the community. The Carers and Disabled Children’s Act gives carers a right to an independent assessment of their needs. We will examine the development of a fund to help local authorities develop tailored care packages to back up the results of these assessments.

> **How Labour helps pensioners:**
> * by boosting the basic state pension for a single pensioner to £77 each week and to £123 for couples in 2003
> * by retaining the Winter Fuel Payment and free TV licences for over-75s
> * by rewarding those who save with the Pension Credit
> * by raising the Minimum Income Guarantee to £100 each week (£154 for couples) in 2003
> * by tackling discrimination against the over-50s in healthcare and in the workplace
> * by boosting police numbers and cutting overall crime, and crimes like burglary that affect senior citizens the most

#### Social inclusion
Social exclusion, affecting around ten per cent of the population living in fewer than 1,000 of the most deprived wards in Britain, damages lives and wrecks communities. Before 1997, social exclusion was ignored. Now we have a new approach – improving the quality of mainstream services, preventing people falling between the cracks, and re-integrating them into society if things go wrong. In partnership with the National Assembly, we will target priorities to tackle social exclusion.

**Homelessness**
The number of people living on the streets across Britain is down by one third since 1997. Labour in Wales will increase the availability of accommodation to eliminate any need for rough sleeping by 2003.

**Teenage pregnancy**
Rates are falling, yet Britain has the highest rates in Europe. Labour’s strategy in the National Assembly tackles the causes of teenage pregnancy, targets those at greatest risk, and ensures that if they do have children, teenagers get access to training, education or work.

**Truancy and exclusion**
This is the primary gateway to a life of crime. Labour in Wales has set a programme for reducing truancy and exclusion. The police are conducting truancy sweeps; parents are now subject to fines of up to £2,500; funds are being targeted at pupils at risk.

**16- to 18-year-olds**
Nearly ten per cent of 16- to 18-year-olds are not in education, training or work. The new Careers Wales service will provide clear advice on the transition to work and linked to the Labour-led Assembly’s innovative Extending Entitlement policy will provide an integrated service for all young people.

**Neighbourhood renewal**
Over the next three years Labour in Wales is pledged to provide £83 million of investment in deprived communities. Labour is pledged to create a new tax credit for community investment to create £1 billion of investment for Britain’s deprived communities.

#### A popular welfare state
Labour’s objective is to get the right benefit to the right people at the right time. We want those who are entitled to benefits to take up their rights to claim them. Fraud undermines confidence in the welfare system, so we are committed to reduce it.

We have been prepared to be tough – preventing fraud by tightening gateways, sharpening sanctions on fraudsters, and now with ‘two-strikes-and-you’re-out’. We have saved £1 billion in fraud and error over the course of the Parliament by tightening up the way we administer Income Support. The introduction of Automated Credit Transfer will save a further £100 million per year.

Labour is committed to clear targets for fraud reduction for each benefit, including a commitment to halve the rate of fraud and error in Income Support and Job Seeker’s Allowance by half by 2006, and to incorporate fraud prevention into the design of new policies on benefits and tax credits. We are also committed to data sharing between government agencies, and action to reduce to a minimum the number of ‘spare’ national insurance numbers, that are a gateway to fraud.

> **Our welfare state is underpinned by clear values – we help you to help yourself, we invest in children, we support our pensioners, we insist that no community be written off, and we minimise fraud and error. Our reforms will build a strong and inclusive society.**

---

## 4 Strong and safe communities

**We all know the sort of Britain we want to live in – a Britain where we can walk the streets safely and know our children are safe. We have a ten-year vision: a new social contract where everyone has a stake based on equal rights, where they pay their dues by exercising responsibility in return, and local communities shape their own futures.**

Recorded crime is down 16 per cent in Wales, and police numbers are rising. Our strategy is clear and consistent – tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.

Our ten-year goal of reducing crime depends on reform of the criminal justice system at every level, from the police to courts to prison – to put crime reduction centre-stage. And because crime is changing, crime-fighting has to change too – to tackle repeat-offending, drug-related and organised crime. We are investing to raise police numbers to their highest level ever. Offenders must know they will be supervised in or out of prison until they can prove they have gone straight.

Safe communities reclaim their streets; then they can shape their own affairs.

In the 19th century, local politics was the motor for economic and social change. Our purpose is simple: to create a Britain that is democratic, decentralised and diverse, with decisions always taken as close to the people as is consistent with efficiency and equity. Our ten-year goal is a new settlement with local government – over finance, structures and services.

> **Our ten-year goals**
> * Halve the burglary rate and double the chance of a persistent offender being caught and punished every time they commit a crime, as we modernise the criminal justice system.
> * Reformed local government with higher-quality services, as we decentralise power.
> 
> **Our next steps**
> * An extra 6,000 police recruits across England and Wales, raising police numbers to their highest-ever level
> * Double the amount of assets seized from drug traffickers and other major criminals
> * Increased sentences plus education and drug treatment for persistent offenders
> * A Bill of Rights for victims
> * New freedoms with new targets for local government

#### Responsibility from all
**Winning the battle against crime**
Recorded crime doubled under the Conservatives. The number of offenders caught, convicted and punished fell. The criminal justice system, especially for young offenders, was in disarray. Anti-social behaviour was unchecked. And investment was falling.

Since 1997 recorded crime is down 16 per cent. Domestic burglary is down 35 per cent and car crime down 29 per cent. Crime-fighting investment is up. We have reversed the declining trend in police numbers, reformed youth justice, and supported every community to prevent crime and anti-social behaviour. We have reduced the time from arrest to sentence for persistent young offenders in every police area in Wales, and are on track to meet our pledge to halve the time by May 2002.

But we are not satisfied. Drug-related crime is a menace. Recorded violent crime has risen, partly because more domestic and racial violence is being reported. And new crimes are being committed – fraud through the internet, human trafficking.

The only way to reduce crime is by being tough on crime and tough on its causes. Government can help families and communities prevent crime. But when people do commit crimes, we need an effective criminal justice system able to catch, punish and rehabilitate people.

**Supporting the police**
The foundation is our police force. Welsh police numbers have risen throughout this government and we are committed to funding an extra 240 police recruits.

Our investment in 2000-01 increased the number of recruits across England and Wales by an extra 3,000, boosting the number of officers in training by 77 per cent over the previous year. Now Labour pledges 6,000 extra recruits, raising police numbers to their highest-ever level by 2003-04. Labour’s pledge is that over the next three years annual funding for the police will rise by £1.6 billion, to £9.3 billion.

We also need to create a more effective police service. Basic Command Units are the heart of modern policing, and local commanders and senior detectives should be properly trained and rewarded. Strong leadership, modern equipment and specialist training and expertise are all essential. We will bring in new arrangements for the development and appointment of chief officers. We will introduce a new national core curriculum for officers at every level. We will ensure that specialist detective expertise is built up using outside experts where necessary.

Labour will ensure more people see more police in the community. We will discuss with the police how those on the frontline might be rewarded for their skills, experience and commitment. Working with the police, we will continue to modernise working practices to reduce paperwork and enhance flexibility. We will promote co-operation across force boundaries for common services like training. We are also committed to a new Independent Police Complaints Commission.

**Persistent offending**
About 100,000 persistent offenders, mostly young men, commit about half of all serious crimes. We need a new approach to catch, convict, punish and rehabilitate more of them:
* Youth Offending Teams will track up to 2,500 of the most persistent young offenders 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
* Every active offender will be on the DNA database by 2004.
* Persistent offending should lead to increased punishment. We will end the failed policy of repeat financial penalties; where offending continues firmer measures will be taken. We will invest over £200 million over three years to reduce re-offending by those in custody. Sentences will combine time in prison and time in the community, with proper supervision after release for ex-prisoners. In time, all offenders will have their own plan for return to lawful life, starting in custody with drug treatment or literacy training.
* New Review Courts will ensure that if offenders breach the conditions of their sentence, they will get extra community service, or more intensive supervision, or custody. Those who break their bail can expect to go straight into custody for the remainder of their remand period.
* To deal with the most dangerous offenders of all – those with a dangerous severe personality disorder – we will pass new legislation and create over 300 extra high-security prison and hospital places.

Our proposals are based on a simple principle: stay straight, or you will stay supervised or go back inside. The continued modernisation of the probation, parole and prison services, so every offender gets punishment designed to minimise reoffending, will carry this forward. We will build on our youth justice reforms to improve the standard of custodial accommodation and offending programmes for 18- to 20-year-old offenders.

**Crime in the community**
Broken windows, graffiti and litter all send a signal about lawlessness. Labour supports fines for anti-social behaviour and new powers to tackle unruly behaviour and kerb crawlers. We will tackle alcohol-related disorder, with an overhaul of licensing laws, greater flexibility over opening times, and tougher controls on rogue landlords. We will also streamline the system for removal of untaxed and abandoned cars.

Crime fighting now starts in every community thanks to new statutory Crime and Disorder Partnerships. Our Safer Communities Fund will target hundreds of neighbourhoods with the highest crime rates with extra crime-fighting investment. Domestic violence accounts for at least a quarter of all violent crime, so Labour is committed to expanding the safe hostel network.

Crime prevention requires that those most at risk of falling into crime – children excluded from school, teenagers leaving care – are given help and opportunity. That includes drugs education for every child at primary and secondary school, and youth inclusion schemes in high-crime areas. We will also take measures to tackle the problem of child pornography on the internet.

**Drugs**
One of the biggest contemporary drivers of crime is drugs. Access to effective treatment is essential. Prisoners are already subject to compulsory testing and offered treatment where necessary, which has led to a 50 per cent cut in the number testing positive. Drug Testing and Treatment Orders ensure people punished in the community stay drug-free.

By 2004 we are pledged to raising spending on drug treatment by 70 per cent. We will roll out drug testing to cover offenders at every stage of the system. People in prison for drug-related offences will have to kick the habit before they are free from supervision on the outside. Drug dealers will be required to register with the police after leaving prison.

We will simplify the law on extradition to target organised crime including drug traffickers. The Criminal Assets Recovery Agency will target their ill-gotten gains. We will follow the money trail, through bureaux de change to offshore accounts, to convict them, and remove their money and passports.

Our ambition is to mobilise every neighbourhood against drugs. We will therefore ensure that crime-fighting partnerships, covering every locality, get over £200 million over the next three years to fight crime and drugs.

**A modern criminal justice system**
The UK’s legal traditions are precious. But too much of our criminal law and the organisation of the courts is stuck in the past. Our ambition is to re-equip the criminal justice system to deliver justice for all – the victims, the public and the defendant. Our White Paper, *Criminal justice: the way ahead*, set out our initial views on reform. The Auld enquiry will also make major recommendations.

**Prosecution**
Despite an increase of 25 per cent since 1997, we have too few prosecutors. By 2004, Labour pledges 300 new prosecutors, including specialists in areas like serious and organised crime, paid on a level playing field with the defence. We will modernise and consolidate the whole criminal law system – to promote public confidence and to speed up criminal proceedings. Law reform is necessary to make provisions against corporate manslaughter.

**Courts**
The current system, split between magistrates and crown courts, needs reform. A unified system, including lower or intermediate tiers of court, offers simplicity and flexibility. Lay magistrates as well as professional judges both have their place in the system. We will remove the widely-abused right of defendants alone to dictate whether or not they should be tried in crown court. For specialist cases such as those involving domestic violence or fraud, there is a strong case for specialist courts and specialist judges. We will also develop late sitting, seven-day-a-week courts in high crime areas to ensure there is no delay in getting people through the criminal justice system. We have established a judicial commissioner to scrutinise the appointments process, and will take forward reform on the basis of experience.

**Rules of evidence**
Our rules of evidence fail to trust the good sense of judges and jurors. Recent case law has extended the admissibility of evidence of previous conduct. If there is any remaining doubt, we will consider legislation to reinforce the judgement. Pending the findings of the Auld report, we see a strong case for a new presumption that would allow evidence of previous convictions where relevant. Currently only the prosecution must disclose all expert evidence and names of all witnesses. In the light of the Auld report, we will consider whether the defence should do so too. In addition, witnesses should be able to refer to their original statements in the witness box, as well as offer evidence by video-link.

**Representation**
We have created the Community Legal Service and will extend it to 90 per cent of the population by April 2002. We will continue to pursue the principle of best value for the benefit of the taxpayer and criminal defendants in Criminal Defence Service. We will examine reforms of the Tribunal System in the light of the Leggatt review. We will subject restrictive practices in the legal professions to the closest scrutiny to ensure both professions and the courts serve the wider public interest.

**Victims have rights**
In 1997 victims were the forgotten people in legal battles. That has begun to change. We have more than doubled funding for Victim Support, taken powers to protect vulnerable witnesses in court, and prevented personal cross-examination by the defendant of rape victims. We now propose further action. First, victims will be given the legal right to have their views on the impact of the crime presented to the court and other criminal justice agencies before sentencing decisions. Second, prosecutors will be able to challenge defence pleas in mitigation of the crime. Third, we will legislate for a Victims’ Bill of Rights to give support, protection, and rights to information and compensation to victims.

#### Our diverse nation
Labour believes that Britain can be a model of a multicultural, multiracial society. We have made major legal change; now is the time to build the inclusive society in tune with British values.

Our commitment to protection for every citizen is expressed in the 1998 Human Rights Act. It ensures that British citizens are able to enforce rights in our own courts. Other legal change was necessary too. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act learns the legal lessons of the shocking death of Stephen Lawrence, and places a positive duty on all public bodies to promote equal opportunity. We abhor racism and shall continue to implement the recommendations of the Macpherson report, including the reform of the ‘double jeopardy’ law for murder. The repeal of section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act was grossly misrepresented as an attempt to use teaching to promote particular lifestyles. We will ensure that such teaching continues to be prohibited based on the provisions of the Learning and Skills Act, while removing discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.

The UK now has the most comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation in Europe. But an inclusive, tolerant, open society, where people rise on their merits, depends on culture and action as well as law.

We now need to reduce the barriers to services, opportunities, institutions that still hold people back. This applies in the public and private sectors. There are too few black and Asian staff in key public services and, in almost all organisations, far too few in middle and senior grades, which is why we now have targets for the diversity of central government and other public services.

Voluntary and community organisations are key to Labour’s vision for Britain. From large national charities to local community groups and faith-based institutions, these sectors are a vital and diverse part of national life. We have changed the tax rules to encourage individuals and businesses to give to charity, supported initiatives to increase volunteering, involved voluntary and community groups in the design and delivery of key government programmes like Sure Start, and helped charities build up their capacity to do their job even better.

Labour will build on its Compact with the voluntary sector, as we develop more far-reaching partnerships for the delivery of services and the renewal of our communities. We will also build on our financial incentives to volunteering, by developing an effective infrastructure to support voluntary work in every community in Britain. We welcome the contribution of churches and other faith-based organisations as partners of local and central government in community renewal. We will use a successor to the Lambeth Group to look at government’s interface with faith communities.

**Immigration**
People from abroad can make a positive contribution to British society. As our economy changes and expands, so our rules on immigration need to reflect the need to meet skills shortages. The Primary Purpose Rule which split families and did nothing to stop abuse has been ended. A right of appeal for family visitors has been introduced. Our immigration rules will remain clear, firm and fair, and help ensure that those who come and work here continue to make a major contribution to our economic and social life.

**Asylum**
It is right that people fleeing persecution are able to make a new life as hard-working citizens in a new country. Britain has a long record of providing a home for such people, and it is important that we maintain this position. But asylum should not be an alternative route to immigration.

The UK is ninth per head of population among European nations for asylum applications. The key is to hear cases swiftly as well as fairly. By cutting the decision time and increasing the processing of claims to over 10,000 a month, Labour has reduced the backlog we inherited. We have tightened controls against traffickers, and introduced a civil penalty for lorry drivers who bring in illegal immigrants. A national support system has been introduced to relieve pressure on local authorities. Asylum seekers and their dependants whose claims are rejected will be removed from Britain, with the aim of more than 30,000 removals in 2003-04. We will also help those granted refugee status to integrate into the local community, helping them off benefits and into work.

We support tough penalties for those who engage in the barbaric trade of human trafficking. We will bring forward proposals to ensure a common interpretation of the 1951 Convention across the EU and to improve the international response to regional crises.

#### Political renewal
Change comes from the bottom up as much as the top down. For the last 50 years, governments have failed to respect this basic truth. Local authorities are responsible for the effective delivery of over £90 billion worth of public services a year. The staff and councillors who work for the community often have the hardest jobs, and their expertise is a real resource when it comes to achieving reform. The best of local government is an inspiring example of what government can achieve.

Labour’s ambition is a partnership of mutual respect and mutual responsibility. We want to combine additional rights and resources with responsibility and reform, working with councillors and officers to develop the structures, services and finance to help local communities.

The job of local government is to provide the leadership to improve quality of life and to offer the citizen a seamless, one-stop service. We have worked with local government to establish clear targets for standards of service and to offer incentives for service improvement and innovation. Partnership with the voluntary and private sectors is key.

The foundation of effective service delivery is best value in every service. Year on year, local authorities and their staff will now work to achieve improvement in services, matching themselves against the best. Citizens need a voice; we will work with local government to ensure that citizens’ needs are the driving force in the procurement and delivery of local services. Electronic service delivery offers the prospect of greater convenience, access and quality, and we have set demanding targets for its use.

When public services are delivered in partnership with the private and voluntary sectors it should be on the basis of best value not worst labour standards.

The TUPE regulations protect the rights of any transferred employees. Newly-hired workers are protected by minimum standards at work. We will use a wide-ranging review of TUPE regulations to consider whether unfair disparities are being created between these two groups of workers.

Each local authority in Wales is signing a policy agreement in which it agrees its targets for improvement: targets on objectives for better education, health, social care and environmental quality. We consulted last year on a range of reforms aimed at enabling councils to deliver key local services on the basis of transparent, stable and adequate funding. These remain our aims. We will give new freedoms to local authorities to enable them to invest in local capital projects.

Labour believes that local quality of life issues – from litter to parks – are vital issues, not peripheral. We are piloting proposals for making communities safer, redesigning local areas to enhance safety and the quality of the local neighbourhood. Local authorities should have the incentive and means to improve the local environment by recycling local fines into a local environment fund.

Our ambition is the development of active, in-touch local government, serving the people. We support the introduction of elected mayors for our cities, which is why every local council now has the power to ballot citizens for a mayor.

**Devolution**
In Wales, we will build on the already successful legislative partnership with the Assembly, and continue to enact specific legislation for Wales where appropriate.

In England we are committed, as Regional Development Agencies take on more power, to enhance the scrutiny functions of Regional Chambers. For some English regions this degree of political representation will be sufficient. However, in other parts of England there may be a stronger sense of regional identity and desire for a regional political voice.

In 1997, we said that provision should be made for directly elected regional government to go ahead in regions where people decided in a referendum to support it, and where predominantly unitary local government is established. This remains our commitment today.

Devolution has strengthened the UK, preserving the Union on the basis of a fairer partnership. The nationalist lie has also been exposed: the UK is strong enough and flexible enough to devolve power while retaining the benefits of staying together.

The UK Parliament makes the essential financial allocations to all devolved bodies. English MPs make up 85 per cent of the UK Parliament, so there is no case for threatening the unity of the UK with an English Parliament, or the denial of voting rights to Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland’s MPs at Westminster.

**Northern Ireland**
We have made working for peace in Northern Ireland a priority. The Good Friday Agreement was overwhelmingly supported by the people of Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. While it has not brought a perfect peace, and while the peace process has not been smooth, it has made life immeasurably better.

Northern Ireland now has its own Assembly and Executive. They have produced their first programme for government and first Budget on a cross-community basis. The security situation has been transformed. People can walk again on the streets of Belfast, free from fear. Troops no longer patrol in the vast majority of the Province. And the number of murders has been drastically reduced.

We will build on these foundations to ensure that the Good Friday Agreement is implemented in full and the new institutions take root. We will establish a modern, responsive and fully accountable police service properly representative of the two main traditions in Northern Ireland and enjoying their trust and support. And we will bring about the key reforms in the civil and criminal justice system which secure the respect and trust of both traditions.

**Parliamentary reform**
The House of Commons is now more representative than ever before, yet only one in five MPs is a woman. Labour increased women’s representation five-fold in the 1997 Parliament through all-women shortlists. And in Wales, Labour has led the way in creating a democratic body with one of the best records for women’s representation in the world. Twenty-five of the 60 members of the National Assembly are women, with a majority in the Labour-led Cabinet. Of Labour’s 28 members of the Welsh Assembly, 16 are women. We are committed, through legislation, to allow each party to make positive moves to increase the representation of women.

Labour will continue to modernise the procedures of the House of Commons so it can effectively fulfil its functions of representation and scrutiny.

The government has introduced major innovations in the electoral systems used in the UK for the devolved administrations, the European Parliament, and the London Assembly. The Independent Commission on the Voting System made proposals for electoral reform at Westminster. We will review the experience of the new systems, and the Jenkins report, to assess whether changes might be made to the electoral system for the House of Commons. A referendum of the people remains the right way to agree any change for Westminster.

We are committed to completing House of Lords reform, including removal of the remaining hereditary peers, to make it more representative and democratic, while maintaining the House of Commons’ traditional primacy. We have given our support to the report and conclusions of the Wakeham Commission, and will seek to implement it in the most effective way possible. Labour supports modernisation of the House of Lords’ procedures to improve its effectiveness. We will put the independent Appointments Commission on a statutory footing.

**Whitehall**
Our civil service is world-renowned for its independence. Labour is committed to maintaining the political impartiality of the civil service. But it needs reform to make it more effective and more entrepreneurial. There have been important reforms in the first term. We want to take further radical steps to ensure the civil service has the skills base necessary to meet the challenges set out in this manifesto.

> **How Labour is tackling crime:**
> * by increasing police funding by 20 per cent over the next three years, and increasing police numbers further
> * by targeting investment in fighting crime in the highest-risk areas and tough targets to reduce car crimes, burglaries and robberies
> * by cracking down on local disorder and anti-social behaviour through local partnerships and measures to deal with the ‘yob culture’
> * by implementing our ten-year strategy to tackle drugs, including tougher punishments for dealers
> * by reforming the criminal justice system to deal with persistent offenders and ensuring the victims of crime have a greater say
> * by tackling the causes of crime through measures like the New Deal and action on truancy

> **Equal rights for all, proper enforcement of the law, and reformed structures of self-government: these are the foundations of a strong civic society. Labour offers opportunity with responsibility – the right combination for Britain in the 21st century.**

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## 5 Britain strong in the world

**Britain needs a government ready to stand up for our interests and values. We have a ten-year vision for British foreign policy: a leading player in Europe, our alliance with the United States strengthened, using our global connections to help Britain and tackle global problems.**

Unlike the Conservatives, we see Europe as an opportunity, not a threat. Because we participate fully, we are able to work with our partners to shape an EU agenda that advances our national interests. We will put democratically elected national governments clearly in the driving seat of EU policy. Our ten-year goal is to work with our partners for Europe to have the most competitive knowledge-based economies in the world. We hold to our promise: no membership of the single currency without the consent of the British people in a referendum.

Britain has some of the best armed forces in the world. With Labour, they are being developed to meet the challenges of the post-Cold War world.

Labour is committed to leading the development of a comprehensive agenda for poverty reduction and sustainable development. We want to mobilise the international community to deliver the International Development Targets, generate growth and equity in developing countries, and help them benefit from global economic integration.

We are convinced of the science of global warming. We pledge to meet tough national targets for environmental protection, and will work at international level to halt and reverse climate change.

We face a choice between an inward-looking chauvinism that leads to isolation, and a modern patriotism with Labour where the British national interest is pursued through international engagement.

> **Our ten-year goals**
> * Europe to have the most competitive knowledge-based economies in the world, as British ideas lead a reformed and enlarged Europe.
> * Delivering Kyoto and international development targets as we help tackle global poverty and climate change and global poverty.
> 
> **Our next steps**
> * Lead economic reform in Europe
> * Work for the re-start of world trade talks
> * Strong, effective and responsive armed forces
> * Raise international aid towards UN target
> * Be the first country to introduce greenhouse gas trading to cut pollution

#### Reform in Europe
Europe is changing. Economic reform is under way in the EU, with over two million new jobs created last year. Many new members are going to join the EU. Co-operation is being extended in defence and security policy. A new way of conducting EU business has been born – comparing best practice to share the benefits of diversity, to reduce over-reliance on centralised regulation.

We face a very simple question. Do we want to be part of the change, influencing its direction? Or do we want to opt out? We have spent 50 years on the margins; it is time to make the most of our membership.

We have seen the alternative. By 1997 Britain had retreated into itself: business was global, people travelled and worked around the world, our culture was open to new ideas, yet our government was closing itself off. And Britain got a worse deal. Because they were backward-looking and divided on Europe, the Conservatives were weak and ineffective in Europe; and because of their weakness in Europe, Britain lost influence around the world. We lost our say over decisions that affected our lives.

In the last four years we have seen the benefits of engagement. Our rebate has been protected and our contributions are falling to similar levels to those of France and Italy. The Labour model of defence co-operation – giving Europe the option to act where NATO chooses not to – has won through. Economic reform is now helping the European economy. The veto on crucial issues of national sovereignty like tax is safe. All this happened only because Labour had the strength to get involved, argue for its ideas and persuade others to follow us.

Labour believes that Europe brings benefits for Britain; and a Europe reformed by British ideas working with our MEPs, will be even better for Britain. Together with virtually all other European countries we do not support a United States of Europe. But we do believe that a Europe made up of nation states and offering a unique blend of intergovernmental co-operation where possible and integration where necessary, can be a major force for good – for its own members and in the wider world. We want to take Europe forward, to meet British needs.

**A Europe of prosperity**
Europe is a crucial market, accounting for more than half of our trade. Britain has secured a shift in economic policy in Europe, away from harmonisation of rules and towards a system based on dynamic markets allied to comparison and promotion of best practice.

The key priorities are: to deliver more choice and lower prices through liberalisation of financial services and utilities; to promote business development with a common EU patent and cuts in red tape; to develop our common research effort in frontier technologies like bioscience; cut delays and fares by establishing an integrated Air Traffic Control system for Europe; and to develop effective labour market policy to tackle unemployment in dialogue with the social partners.

We support efforts being made across the EU to reform welfare states, modernise social partnership and advance social inclusion.

EU state aid policy should bear down on aids that distort the single market while supporting economic modernisation. We will keep the veto on vital matters of national sovereignty, like tax and border controls.

Trade has been a vital source of prosperity for Europe’s citizens. Our vision is of an open European economy. That requires a genuine single market, in an open world trading system.

**A wider Europe**
New countries joining the EU will give Britain a bigger market and Europe a bigger voice. Membership will help guarantee the freedoms of the new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. Labour is pledged to do all it can to enable the first group of applicant countries to join in time to take part in the next European Parliamentary elections in 2004. It is vital we ratify the Treaty of Nice which is essential to enlargement; Labour in government will do so.

The Conservatives have said they will insist on trying to renegotiate Europe’s treaties at the first summit after the general election. No other country agrees with this. That means that a Conservative government would either have to back down in the face of opposition, or take Britain out of Europe altogether, with disastrous consequences for Britain. Our argument is that if Britain is stronger in Europe, it will be stronger in the rest of the world. We reject the view of those who say we must choose between Europe and the USA. We shall remain the USA’s firm ally and friend; but we are not going to turn our backs on Europe. USA and Europe account for ten per cent of world population but 60 per cent of global GDP; working together we can tackle many problems and spread the benefits of freedom, peace and prosperity.

**A Europe of the future**
The main sources of popular legitimacy in Europe remain national governments and parliaments. So national governments should be seen to be setting the agenda of the EU, with the European Council setting the EU’s priorities, a strong independent Commission ensuring that the European interest is heard and enforced, and an effective European Parliament improving draft legislation and holding the Commission to account. Labour wants the next Inter–Governmental Conference in 2004 to address public concerns about the way the EU works, spelling out in a clear statement of principles what should and should not be done at European level. Labour supports a stronger role for national parliaments in European affairs, for example, in a second chamber of the European Parliament, with a particular remit to oversee the division of competences. We will also insist that the Commission complete its internal reform programme.

#### Defence
Britain’s national security is based on the mutual support that comes from membership of NATO. That will not change. And although Britain has rarely been more secure from foreign invasion, there are new threats to our people from crime and terrorism; instability around the world can affect us directly; and we have a global responsibility to play our part in reducing international conflict, controlling the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and contributing to international peacekeeping and peacemaking operations.

To enable the EU to act where NATO chooses not to, the EU should improve its military capabilities for humanitarian, peacekeeping and crisis management tasks.

Our armed forces are the best in the world at fighting if they have to and keeping the peace where they can. Labour is committed to investing more in real terms in our armed services over the next three years, the first year-on-year real increase in funds for over a decade. An important part of that investment will be in better service accommodation. We are determined to recruit and retain the best people, from all walks of life and all backgrounds. We will also look after the interests of Britain’s veterans. We have doubled funding for research on Gulf War illnesses, and will continue this important work.

In 1997 Labour promised a Strategic Defence Review. Today, that review is admired around the world for its clarity, efficiency and foresight. We need more mobile and more flexible armed forces, with the ability to project force at distance and speed, to work closely with other nations and international bodies, and to fight and keep the peace. In Kosovo and Sierra Leone we have shown what this means in practice, and our servicemen and women have responded magnificently. We are determined to maximise resources for frontline use by disposing of surplus spares and promoting smart procurement and efficiency savings.

The European Defence Initiative is an important part of our defence policy. Europe spends two-thirds as much as the USA on defence, but gets only a fraction of its effectiveness. European nations need to modernise their armed forces for rapid and flexible deployment. Improved EU military capabilities will not be separate from NATO structures and would only be deployed where NATO as a whole chooses not to engage. The launch of an EU operation will follow a unanimous decision, with each member state free to decide whether to take part.

We support Trident, Britain’s minimum nuclear deterrent. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty commits us to work for the global elimination of nuclear weapons. We are enthusiastic signatories to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, whose coming into force will impede nuclear proliferation, and we want to see the USA and Russia continue to reduce their nuclear stockpiles.

We recognise the new dangers posed by the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the need to combat them. Nuclear arms reductions and proliferation controls remain an important part of defence and security policy. We will seek effective inspections against the development of chemical and biological weapons. We will encourage the US to consult closely with NATO allies on its ideas for missile defence, and to pursue a dialogue with Russia on a new framework for strategic arms control that will encourage further cuts in nuclear weapons.

The British defence industry is a vital part of our economy, sustaining some 350,000 high-technology jobs. We will continue to work closely with our best companies to get the best equipment for our armed forces – a good deal for the taxpayer as well as a secure future for high-technology jobs.

The UK has introduced the most open report on arms exports of any European nation and has led the EU to adopt a code of conduct on arms sales. Labour will lead efforts to control the trade in small arms, and work for a comprehensive action plan at this year’s UN conference on small arms, including an International Arms Surrender Fund to provide development aid in exchange for firearms. We will legislate to modernise the regulation of arms exports, with a licensing system to control the activities of arms brokers and traffickers wherever they are located. We will work with EU applicant countries to strengthen their capacity to control legal and illicit arms transfers.

#### The modern world
Britain belongs to a unique range of influential global organisations, giving us responsibilities and opportunities. A Labour government will stand up for Britain:
* at the UN, where we support a more modern and representative Security Council, with more effective peacekeeping
* at the Group of 7 leading industrialised countries, where we will stay at the forefront of efforts to promote development
* in the Commonwealth, where we will work to promote human rights and to bridge the digital divide.

We will argue for an early, comprehensive world trade round, to the benefit of industrialised and developing countries alike. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) must be reformed, not rejected. We will support fairer terms of trade for developing countries and a reduction in protectionism in the developed world in areas such as agriculture. We will continue to help developing countries exercise their rights within the WTO.

We support the promotion of higher labour standards around the world, as well as respect for the environment, as we expand world trade. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is the place to set labour standards, but we believe there should be closer co-operation between the ILO and the WTO through the creation of a joint standing forum of the two organisations.

We are committed to encouraging universal observance of human rights. Governments which are democratically elected will be firmer allies for peace; open societies which respect individual freedom will be more reliable trade partners. Labour will be a friend of those denied human rights and a supporter of steps to strengthen them.

Labour has played a leading role in bringing war criminals, notably from former Yugoslavia, to justice, and in establishing a permanent court to try war crimes. We will work to make the International Criminal Court a reality, with Britain as one of its first members.

#### International development
In 1997 Labour pledged to give new priority to tackling global poverty. Four years on, there have been real achievements – a Cabinet Minister heads an internationally respected department, the aid budget has been substantially raised, and tied aid has been abolished. Britain is playing a leading world role on debt relief, education, HIV/AIDS, and in responding to humanitarian disasters. With strong UK leadership, the international development effort is now increasingly focused on poverty reduction.

This is morally right, but also in our interest. Many of the world’s biggest challenges – from violent conflict to rapid population growth to environmental threat – are caused or exacerbated by global poverty and inequality. There can be no secure future for any of us unless we promote greater global social justice.

Labour will continue to focus Britain’s development effort on the achievement by 2015 of the International Development Targets – including halving the proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty, reducing child and infant mortality by two-thirds, primary education for all children, and sustainable development plans in every country.

With Labour, the aid budget will rise to 0.33 per cent of GNP by 2003-04, reaching £3.6 billion – a 45 per cent increase in real terms since 1997. We remain committed to the UN target of 0.7 per cent of national income devoted to development and will make further substantial increases over the next Parliament. We remain committed to our Bill – blocked by the Tories – to consolidate our poverty-focused approach to development.

We are using this aid to support political and economic reform in developing countries. Our aid is an investment to help countries put in place policies to raise the growth rate with greater equity, crack down on corruption, promote human rights including for women and girls, and develop effective governance and democracy. We will legislate to toughen controls over UK nationals who commit offences of corruption abroad.

Labour will champion increased effectiveness and a stronger focus on poverty reduction within international institutions – particularly the EU but also the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the UN and the Commonwealth – with full support for poverty reduction strategies where they genuinely prioritise poverty reduction. We are committed to international action to put the needs of children at the centre of these strategies. By 2006 we want to raise to 70 per cent the proportion of EU aid going to low-income countries, and work with the Commission, Parliament and other governments to strengthen the EU’s development effort.

Labour has led internationally on debt relief, providing 100 per cent relief for countries committed to spending the proceeds on poverty reduction. We will work to help more of the heavily indebted poor countries qualify for debt relief where this benefits the poor. And we will work to prevent new debt burdens through international agreement not to give export credits for excessive military spending or prestige projects.

Education has a special place for Labour. We will increase further our support for quality primary education for all, particularly for girls. Our Imfundo project, part of an £800 million education programme, will bring together public and private sector commitment to use IT to ensure effective teacher training and education management. We will give top priority to combating the spread of HIV/AIDS which is inflicting massive human and economic costs across the developing world. We will work for the creation of a global health fund to make essential drugs and commodities more accessible to the poor, focusing on TB, malaria and HIV/AIDS. This will complement our existing support for the development of basic healthcare systems and our new tax credits to incentivise research by the drug companies into the diseases of poverty.

Development goes much wider than aid and debt relief. It is also about how we manage the global economy. Our aim is to shape globalisation so that it works better for the world’s poor.

Trade is key. But so is private investment. We will promote socially responsible business practice through advisory services on codes of social responsibility, the Ethical Trading Initiative, the Export Credit Guarantee Department’s new code of business principles, the Commonwealth Development Corporation’s partnership with the private sector, and our initiatives to encourage private investment in infrastructure.

Nowhere will our resolve be more tested than in Africa. Labour is committed to strengthening our partnership for development with Africa. We will work with reforming governments, international institutions, the private sector and civil society in support of nationally owned development strategies. We will also redouble our efforts to prevent and resolve violent conflicts in Africa, using our new Africa conflict fund to provide help for security sector reform, demilitarisation programmes and tighter controls over small arms.

#### The environmental challenge
The poor make the smallest per capita contribution to climate change, but are often most affected when it happens. We are convinced by the scientific evidence of climate change – and convinced that now is the time to act. We need action at local, national and international level if we are to preserve the stability of our natural environment over the next 50 years. The principle of mutual responsibility that governs our approach to social problems also applies to environmental issues.

The healthy future of our environment is one of the world’s greatest challenges. We must make substantial changes in the way we work and live to safeguard all our futures. The UK played a leading role in the Kyoto conference. The targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions agreed at that conference are a vital first step in the battle against global warming. It is critical that the whole international community plays its part in making a reality of sustainable development. We are determined to play a constructive role at the Rio plus 10 meeting in South Africa next year.

We are one of the few countries to have met our 1992 obligations to hold greenhouse gases in 2000 below their 1990 levels. In 1997 we set a target of reducing CO₂ emissions by 20 per cent by 2010. We will meet our obligations arising from the Kyoto protocol and have set out a detailed strategy to achieve more – a 23 per cent cut in greenhouse gases by 2010. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has said the UK will need to cut CO₂ production by 60 per cent by 2050, so we need to press ahead with a radical agenda for the development of low-carbon economic growth, embodied in our £700 million commitment to renewable energy.

In addition to our proposals for environmental technology and renewable energy described in ‘Prosperity for all’, we must also make progress in the following areas:
* We must make the market work for the environment. Britain is developing the first national CO₂ emissions trading system in the world. It will help companies find the most efficient way of reducing emissions and reward them for doing so. Once the system is established here we will seek to extend it around the world.
* We will support hybrid and fuel cell vehicles – which already offer a halving of fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions, with cheaper motoring to match – and for cleaner fuels and biofuels. By increasing demand for new technologies we can boost innovation and the vitality of the UK car industry.
* It is imperative that we use natural resources more efficiently and recycle more. We will continue to tax pollution and reward clean production. We will develop environmental productivity indicators. We have set a target for the recycling of 35 per cent of household waste by 2015, and will work with all local authorities to introduce kerbside recycling schemes wherever appropriate.
* Water management is a vital challenge for the future – for the environment and for the growing world population. We will continue to make our contribution at home: leakage is down by almost 30 per cent since 1997, bills have been cut by 12 per cent and disconnections have been ended.
* Environmental protection and sustainable development go hand in hand. We cannot protect the environment without addressing the development needs of the poor, and poverty reduction depends on safeguarding natural resources on which poor people depend.
* We will continue to provide leadership abroad, working for international agreement on climate change, improved integration of the environment in European policies and a strong global environment agency built around the current UN Environment Programme. We will work to improve marine and forest conservation overseas and in the UK.

> **How Labour is strengthening your voice in the world:**
> * by taking a lead in Europe, standing up for Britain’s rights and reforming Europe to promote jobs and deepen democracy
> * by supporting our armed forces, making sure our troops are always available and effective in times of crisis
> * by working to tackle global climate change, meeting our own tough targets and pushing other countries to meet theirs
> * by leading the fight against global poverty, with increased aid, better spent

> **Britain can be pivotal to world affairs, using our alliances to advance our interests and values. The key is to use our strengths of history and geography to engage with other countries, not retreat. That is Labour’s promise.**

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## The choices for Wales

These are our ambitions for Wales and Britain – and how they can be achieved. Clear in our values, confident in our policies, we seek a new mandate from the people of Wales. We are proud of our record in government. But as well as being proud, we are not yet satisfied. Labour is the party of reform and we fight this election as agents of change in Wales and the rest of Britain.

Change to our economy, so more people share the benefits of growth. Change in our public services, so that they better advance equality of opportunity. Change in our welfare system, so that we extend security, responsibility and independence. Change to tackle crime and its causes. Change to deepen our democracy. Change to Britain’s role in the world.

The Conservatives were rejected in 1997 because they had failed. The national debt had doubled; crime had doubled; we were 42nd in the world education league; one in five households were on benefit; we were marginalised in Europe.

Yet instead of learning, the Conservatives have become more dogmatic, more extreme, more divided. They are worse than ever. The British people now face a choice. New Labour stands in the political mainstream, rooted in the best values of the British people. The Conservatives have veered to extreme positions. A vote for the Nationalists can only help the Conservatives win.

This election will decide whether we continue the policies that have brought us economic stability, steady growth, investment in public services and targeted tax cuts for children and families, or whether we lurch back to boom and bust. It will decide whether we modernise the criminal justice system. It will decide whether we stand for a positive engagement with Europe and the wider world, or retreat to the sidelines. And it will decide whether we put our schools and hospitals first, or put them second after unaffordable tax cuts. Because £16 billion worth of Tory cuts would mean less money for the Welsh Assembly to invest in Welsh public services, its police and transport system. That is why we need Labour at Westminster and Labour in Cardiff.

We want everyone to vote in this election. But before you do, think of your job; think of your mortgage; think of your school and hospital; think of your children and your parents; think of police and crime prevention; think of the choice of leadership.

Think of who you want to succeed in Wales – the many or the few.

There is still much to do with new Labour – and a lot for you to lose under the Conservatives.

**The choice is clear: for an ambitious Wales and a confident Britain, the choice is Labour.**

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## 25 steps to a better Wales

1. Basic skills for 750,000 people
2. Free local bus journeys for pensioners and people with disabilities in Wales from 2002
3. A £300 million five-year plan for integrated transport in Wales
4. Raise the minimum wage to £4.20
5. £1,000 tax cut – the Children’s Tax Credit – for parents of newborn children
6. Smaller class sizes in Welsh primary schools, with new money to drive up standards in secondary schools
7. Invest £290 million in school buildings in Wales in the next three years
8. Reduce patient waiting times year on year in Wales
9. More health service workers – more than 1,000 extra nurses in Wales
10. Free access to national museums and galleries throughout Britain
11. An ‘Employment First’ interview for everyone coming on to benefits
12. Expanded support for children through tax and benefit reform
13. Extend and increase paid maternity leave and introduce paid paternity leave
14. New Pension Credit for lower- and middle-income pensioners, and Winter Fuel Payment retained
15. £83 million ‘Communities First’ initiative in Wales for the 100 most deprived communities
16. An extra 6,000 police recruits across England and Wales, raising police numbers to their highest-ever level
17. Double the amount of assets seized from drug traffickers and other major criminals
18. Increased sentences plus education and drug treatment for persistent offenders
19. A bill of rights for victims
20. New freedoms with new targets for local government
21. Lead economic reform in Europe
22. Work for the re-start of world trade talks
23. Strong, effective and responsive armed forces
24. Raise international aid towards the UN target
25. Be the first country to introduce greenhouse gas trading to cut pollution

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## The contract delivered

In the 1997 Labour manifesto, Tony Blair said: ‘We set out in the manifesto that follows ten commitments, commitments that form our bond of trust with the people. Judge us on them. Have trust in us and we will repay that trust. This is our contract with the people.’ This is a summary of Labour’s record since 1997. For more information on Labour’s policies, please visit our website at www.welshlabour.org.uk, or contact your local Labour campaign team.

**1. Education will be our number one priority, and we will increase the share of national income spent on education as we decrease it on the bills of economic and social failure**
The record: Key Stage 2 results in Wales reached 74 per cent for English (up 10 per cent since 1998), 67 per cent for Welsh and 69 per cent for maths (up 5 per cent since 1997) in 2000. GCSE and A-level results have also improved. This September there will be no five-, six- and seven-year-olds in class sizes over 30. We have cut the costs of debt and unemployment by nearly £9 billion per year. Education spending has risen from the 4.7 per cent of Britain’s national income we inherited to 5 per cent this year (2001-02).

**2. There will be no increase in the basic or top rates of income tax**
The record: We cut the basic rate of income tax to 22p in April 2000 and introduced the 10p band in April 1999. There has been no increase in the top rate of income tax. The direct tax burden on a single earner family on average earnings with two children is the lowest since 1972.

**3. We will provide stable economic growth with low inflation, and promote dynamic and competitive business and industry at home and abroad**
The record: Net borrowing in every year from 1997 to 2003-04 is forecast to be lower than in any Tory year, 1992-93 to 1996-97. Inflation has been consistently under control and on target. Economic growth has been steady, averaging 2.75 per cent a year since 1997. Living standards are on average about 10 per cent higher in real terms than in 1997.

**4. We will get over 13,000 young people in Wales off benefit and into work**
The record: Over 18,000 young people in Wales have been helped into work by Labour’s New Deal. There are 35,000 more people in work than in 1997. Unemployment is at its lowest level for 25 years in Wales.

**5. We will rebuild the NHS, reducing spending on administration and increasing spending on patient care**
The record: The next four years will see the biggest ever sustained increase in NHS spending. Over £1 billion will have been released from administration by next year. The NHS has been treating 620,000 more in-patients and is seeing over 650,000 more out-patients than in 1996-97. There are 2,000 more nurses in Wales than in 1997.

**6. We will be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, and halve the time it takes persistent juvenile offenders to come to court**
The record: Recorded crime has fallen by 16 per cent in Wales since 1997. Investment is now rising. The time from arrest to sentence for persistent young offenders is down in every police area in Wales – on track to halve the time within the five years promised in 1997.

**7. We will help build strong families and strong communities, and lay the foundations of a modern welfare state in pensions and community care**
The record: Child Benefit has been raised by over 25 per cent for the first child. The Children’s Tax Credit is worth up to £520 a year. We have introduced parental leave and rights to holidays. We are extending maternity leave. £4.5 billion extra in real terms is being spent this year on pensioners. The basic state pension will rise to £75.50 for single pensioners and to £120.70 for pensioner couples next year, while the minimum income guarantee is helping over 1.6 million of the poorest pensioners. TV licence fees have been abolished for the over-75s, and there is free access to Welsh national museums and galleries.

**8. We will safeguard our environment, and develop an integrated transport policy to fight congestion and pollution**
The record: We have doubled the money available for subsidising rural bus services in Wales. We are committed to a £300 million five-year plan for integrated transport in Wales. We will achieve a 23 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions. We have legislated to promote protection for and access to the countryside. A £1.6 billion strategy for farming and rural enterprise will redirect subsidies to promote growth and the environment.

**9. We will clean up politics, decentralise political power and establish a Welsh Assembly**
The record: The funding of political parties, campaign expenditure and conduct of referendums is now regulated. For the first time the UK has a Freedom of Information Act. The Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament are now up and running, while local democracy has been returned to the people of London. The first stage of reform of the House of Lords has reduced the number of hereditary peers to less than 100.

**10. We will give Britain the leadership in Europe which Britain and Europe need**
The record: Labour has negotiated successfully for Britain in Europe. Our rebate is protected, enlargement is being taken forward. We have led the debate on European economic reform, on the development of a European defence capacity rooted in NATO structures. In Kosovo, our armed forces played a leading role in standing up against ethnic cleansing.