Coalition Plans Revealed

DAVID CAMERON and Nick Clegg vowed on Thursday to crack down on benefits cheats and hand more power to the public.

The agreement covers 31 areas and commits the coalition Government to introducing a banking levy, with an independent commission examining the former Lib Dem commitment to separate retail and investment banking.

A report is due in a year’s time.

The administration will ‘seek to ensure an injection of private capital into Royal Mail, including opportunities for employee ownership’. But Post Office Ltd will remain in public ownership, according to the document.

Pledges to scrap the ID card scheme and national identity register, and introduce a Freedom Bill, were also confirmed.

The launch came as Tory MPs accepted Mr Cameron’s bid to reform the key backbench 1922 Committee, which has previously been the focal point for backbench unrest.

These are the agreement’s other main points:-

Schools

• Parents, teachers, charities and local communities given the chance to set up new schools
• Teachers’ pay and conditions reformed so good teachers can be paid more and poor teachers axed
• Teachers accused by pupils to be given anonymity
• State schools given chance to offer wider range of qualifications
• Heads given more power to tackle poor behaviour

Jobs and welfare

• Benefits only for those who are willing to work
• All current claimants of Incapacity Benefit to be reassessed
• Benefit system to be simplified
• All existing welfare to work programmes scrapped
• ‘Work Clubs’ and ‘Service Academies’ set up to help people back to work
• Those claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance to be referred to welfare to work programme immediately – not after 12 months

Crime and policing

• Time-wasting bureaucracy to be scrapped
• Health and safety laws to be amended to allow common sense policing
• Police forced to hold regular ‘beat meetings’ where public can hold them to account
• Greater protection for those who defend themselves from intruders
• System of temporary bans on new ‘legal highs’ while health issues are considered
• Police must publish detailed local crime statistics every month

NHS

• Number of health quangos axed
• Stop closure of A&E and maternity wards
• Pledge to increase spending on NHS in real terms in each year of Parliament
• Cut the cost of health administration by  a third
• Patients to get a voice on boards of their local public health trust (PCT)

… (Telegraph, 25/05/2010) – Queen’s Speech – point by point