2016 Labour election manifesto summary

Economy and Tax

• Use the powers of the Scottish Parliament to make different choices and stop the cuts.
• Create fairness by ensuring spending on public services will rise in real terms.
• Set the basic and higher rates of income tax just 1p higher than that of George Osborne to stop the cuts and make public services better.
• Set a higher 50p rate for the top 1%, who earn over £150,000 a year, and investing that in schools.
• Scrap the unfair council tax and leave 80% of households better off
• Scrap the bedroom tax.
• Double the maternity grant for new mums to lift children out of poverty.

Education

• Protect education spending in real terms
• Create a Fair Start Fund to give nursery and primary head teachers more money to help ensure all children get a good education.
• Begin the roll-out of breakfast clubs to every school.
• Bridge the gap between the richest and the rest in our classrooms.
• Keep university tuition fees free and reverse cuts to student grants.

Health

• Increase NHS spending in real terms and oppose privatisation.
• Guarantee an appointment at a GP surgery within 48 hours.
• Cut cancer waiting times.
• Guarantee a social care package within a week.

Housing

• Help first-time buyers save for a deposit.
• Tackle rogue landlords and ban rip-off rent rises.
• Build 60,000 affordable homes.
• Reform the planning regime.
• Support a debt amnesty for local councils.

Environment, Energy & Transport

• Ban fracking in Scotland.
• Make it cheaper and easier to travel with a single smartcard ticket.
• Tackle fuel poverty through a Warm Homes Act.
• Deliver a publicly owned ‘People’s Scotrail’.
• Immediately halt the CalMac privatisation process

Law and Social Justice

• Restore local accountability to Police Scotland.
• Prioritise the prosecution of domestic abuse.
• Scrap the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act.
• Reform and improve the support given to victims of crime.
• Adopt a zero-tolerance approach to hate crimes.
• Tackle sexual exploitation.
• Stop the spread of Fixed Odds Betting Terminals

Democracy

• Devolve power to local communities.
• Rule out a second independence referendum.
• Back the UK remaining in the European Union.
• Deliver equal gender representation on the boards of public bodies.
• Reform the way the Scottish Parliament works to ensure better accountability of ministers.
• Freeze the pay of government ministers and ban second jobs for MSPs.
• Promote workplace democracy.