Liberal Democrat Manifesto Front Page

The Liberal Democrats launched the front page of their manifesto yesterday which illustrated key priories and commitments for the next parliament.

1) PROSPERITY FOR EVERYONE

Balance the budget fairly and invest to build a high skill, low carbon economy

Finishing the job of balancing the books in 2017/18. The Liberal Democrats are the only party who can commit to investing in public services in the next parliament, while also getting the public finances back under control.

As we finish the job of balancing the books, we will continue to protect NHS funding; education spending from cradle to college; the pensions triple lock and the international aid budget.

2) FAIR TAXES

Cut your taxes by an additional £400 by raising the tax-free allowance to £12,500

Raising the Personal Allowance to £12,500. We will fully fund this tax cut, by tackling tax avoidance and ensuring the wealthiest pay their fair share.

Employee National Insurance Contributions (NICs). Once we achieve this, we will look to reduce NICs which are currently paid by the low paid, further reducing hard working people's tax bill.

Aligning Capital Gains Tax with Income Tax. We will maximise the revenue from Capital Gains Tax by more closely aligning CGT rates with Income Tax for Higher Rate payers.

3) QUALITY HEALTH CARE FOR ALL

Invest £8bn to improve our NHS and guarantee equal care for mental health

Health Service funding will be at least £8bn higher per year in real terms by 2020.

We are the only political party to set out a credible road map for how we will back the NHS over the next parliament. This is in response to the call for this investment by the Chief Executive of NHS England, Simon Stevens, in Autumn 2014.

Top priority will be mental health. We will end the discrimination against mental health in our NHS, backed up by £500m per year for better mental health care.

4) OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYONE

Guarantee education funding from nursery to 19 and qualified teachers in every class

Protect school budgets from cradle to college. Liberal Democrats will not cut the money the Department for Education spends on schools, early years and 16-19 education.

A qualified teacher for every child. We will require every teacher in a state funded school to hold Qualified Teacher Status or be working towards it.

World class early years education. We will make sure every child is offered a high quality pre-school education from the age of two - so they start school confident, happy and ready to learn.

5) OUR ENVIRONMENT PROTECTED

Protect the environment and fight climate change with five green laws

Bees and pollinators. Include measures such as the publication of a 25-year plan for recovering nature, which will help us reverse the decline of UK species and their habitats.

Forests and trees. We will place Britain's forests in a protected trust to stop them ever being sold off, and, within the first year of entering government will develop the national tree planting programme.

Seas and oceans. We would play our part in protecting these resources by creating a million square km southern Atlantic Ocean reserve; championing the protection of the Arctic Sanctuary habitats from fossil fuel and other resource extraction; and completing the ecologically coherent network of Marine Protected Areas in UK seas.

In line with the Liberal Democrat party policy process, the front page of the manifesto and the full manifesto, will be subject to final approval of the Liberal Democrat Federal Policy Committee and published in due course.