Cameron to launch a Tory manifesto for English votes
DAVID CAMERON is set to stoke up more claims of English Nationalism from his party’s rivals today when he unveils the first ever Tory manifesto for England, which could herald an English income tax by March 2016.
Less than 48 hours after Labour leader Ed Miliband and his predecessor Gordon Brown accused the Prime Minister of playing the English Nationalist card as a response to the rise in the polls of the SNP, the Conservative leader will use a keynote speech in East Anglia to set out his party’s plans for English Votes for English Laws (Evel).
The Tories’ manifesto for England will give clear commitments on jobs, tax, schools, housing and health south of the border with a plan to ensure more than 60 per cent of new jobs will be created outside of London and the South East as part of its move to establish a “northern powerhouse”.
But it will be the governing party’s constitutional reforms that will cause most controversy.
Last week, when the PM unexpectedly unveiled his party’s plan for an English income tax, he was accused by Jim Murphy of a “brutal betrayal” of Scotland that would fracture Britain’s tax system.
The leader of the Scottish Labour Par t y claimed Mr Cameron had staged a “desperate and craven attempt to woo Ukip voters at the expense of the UK tax system”. The same allegations are set to be made again today.
Alongside William Hague, the architect of Evel, the Tory leader will tell party supporters that proposals for the constitutional change will be brought forward within the first 100 days of a new Conservative government and fully implemented in time for the first Budget of the new parliament in March 2016.
On the Tories’ English Manifesto, the PM will seek to counter his critics and say: “We do not support English Nationalists. We do not want an English Parliament. We are the Conservative and Unionist Party through and through.
“This manifesto simply recognises that the democratic picture has got more complicated in the UK, so beyond our main mani- festo, English voters deserve one document, clarifying in black and white what they can expect.”
On the commitment to deliver an English rate of income tax, Mr Cameron will say: “Soon, the Scottish Parliament will be voting to set its own levels of income tax – and rightly so – but that has clear implications.
“English MPs will be unable to vote on the income tax paid by people in Aberdeen and Edinburgh while Scottish MPs are able to vote on the tax you pay in Birmingham or Canterbury or Leeds. It is simply unfair. With English votes for English laws we will put it right.”
He will also make specific policy guarantees from real-terms increases in health spending and giving more freedom to schools to extending the right to buy to housing association tenants and providing 30 hours’ free childcare to working parents of three and four-year-olds.
Launching the manifesto alongside Mr Cameron, Mr Hague will set out the Evel timetable, saying: “This is not a vague promise to make this change some time in the future, this is a plan ready to be implemented.
“We will table our proposals within the first hundred days after the General Election. And after consultation with the Procedure Committee of the House of Commons and running a pilot test of the new rules, we will fully implement our plan within the first year of the new Parliament and apply it to the Budget of 2016.”