General Election Analysis: Liberal Democrat Party Manifesto

BASW UK's Communications & External Relations Officer, Jonny Adamson asks key questions of the Liberal Democrat's manifesto in the run up to polling day.

Lib Dem Manifesto

The Liberal Democrats were the first party out the traps to launch their General Election manifesto, ‘For a Fair Deal’.

While their party leader, Ed Davey has been up to all sorts of quirky antics this election campaign, the Lib Dem manifesto is full of serious policies worth closer inspection.

Social Care

The Lib Dems have tried to talk up their health and social care credentials this campaign. They’ve even launched a separate manifesto wholly focused on their plans for care and carers.

It is welcome to hear them place emphasis on social care which, until now, has largely been the forgotten issue of the election. Indeed, it has been notably absent in successive government budgets in the last parliament, which BASW has frequently challenged. It is imperative that the next government, whatever persuasion, acknowledges the challenges facing social care and fronts up to the need to adequately fund it.

Ed Davey is a carer himself and says he is determined to use his experience to shine a spotlight on caring and make it his personal mission to stand up for carers in parliament. This has led to several policy pitches for carers such as:

Create a National Care Agency to set national minimum standards of care.
Enable individuals to transfer their care package
Increase Carer’s Allowance and expanding eligibility for it.
Introduce a statutory guarantee of regular respite breaks for unpaid carers.
Introduce paid carer’s leave
Make caring a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and requiring employers to make reasonable adjustments to enable employees with caring responsibilities to provide that care.
Introduce a Young Carers Pupil Premium as part of an ‘Education Guarantee’ for young carers.
Create a new Carer’s Minimum Wage, boosting the minimum wage for care workers by £2 an hour, as a starting point for improved pay across the sector.
Roll out digital platforms for care users to develop networks, relationships and opportunities, connecting with care workers, friends and family, voluntary groups and more.
Introduce a statutory definition of kinship care.
Develop a weekly allowance for all kinship carers.

A big social care commitment the Liberal Democrats have announced is to introduce free personal care in England, similar to the system that exists in Scotland, based on provision of need rather than ability to pay.

They also want to develop a social care workforce plan, with a focus on improved pay, better recognition and career progression. Linked to this is a call for a cross-party commission to agree a long-term model of sustainable funding for social care. This is a good start, but there’s a lack of detail on these proposals and questions around whether it’s an ambitious and urgent enough to address the escalating severity of challenges facing social care in England.

It is also disappointing that there is no specific mention of social work in the Liberal Democrat’s manifesto.

Mental Health

Historically, the Liberal Democrats have banged the drum about funding better mental health support, and this manifesto is no different. Their raft of policies in this area include:

Open walk-in hubs for children and young people in every community.
Offer regular mental health check-ups at key points in people’s lives when they are most vulnerable to mental ill-health.
Put a dedicated, qualified mental health professional in every school
End out-of-area mental health placements by increasing capacity and coordination between services, so that no one is treated far from home.
Extend young people’s mental health services up to the age of 25 to end the drop-off experienced by young people transitioning to adult services.
Increase access to clinically effective talking therapies.
Take an evidence-led approach to preventing and treating eating disorders and challenging damaging stigma about weight.
Make prescriptions for people with chronic mental health conditions free on the NHS
Transform perinatal mental health support for those who are pregnant, new mothers and those who have experienced miscarriage or stillbirth.
Tackle stigma through continued support for public education including Time to Talk.
Recognise the relationship between mental health and debt and provide better signposting between talking therapies and debt advice.
Create a statutory, independent Mental Health Commissioner to represent patients, their families and carers.
Widen the current safety investigation into mental health hospitals to look at the whole patient experience, including ward design and treatment options.

They also set out a commitment to modernising the Mental Health Act, which is one of BASW’s priority asks in our manifesto.

Other Policies

The Lib Dems have put forward several policies in other areas that chime with BASW’s manifesto and campaigns. These include:

Scrap the two-child limit, benefit cap and Bedroom Tax
Ban conversion therapy
Cancel the Rwanda Scheme & repeal the Illegal Migration Act
Build 380,000 more homes a year across England, including 150,000 social homes
Restore 0.7% international aid target
Raising employer’s awareness of Access to Work scheme and simplifying the application process
Investing in more addiction services and support for drug users, including specialist youth support services
Banning no-fault evictions, making three-year tenancies the default
Develop and implement a comprehensive race equality strategy
Introduce a Hillsborough Law (supported by BASW England)

Interestingly, they highlight reviewing the Barnett Formula for Wales, but not for Northern Ireland. The latter of which is included in BASW’s manifesto and is a key ask from BASW Northern Ireland, who want to see a needs-based approach to funding public services to replace what has been an under-resourcing Barnett Formula.

The Lib Dems also commit to reducing the inappropriate use of inpatient services for autistic people and people with learning disabilities. This is a big win for BASW England’s Homes Not Hospitals campaign who have been engaging politicians and pushing for the parties to tackle this critical issue.

How are they paying for it all?

The question on everyone’s lips is how parties intend to pay for what they promise. The Liberal Democrats claim they can increase public spending by almost £27billion a year across the UK by 2029 through raising levies on banks, reforming capital gains tax, cracking down on tax avoidance and introducing a new aviation duty.

They also set out plans to triple tax on social media giants in order to fund their policies to support young people’s mental health.

What is missing?

As mentioned earlier, there is no reference to social work throughout the manifesto. As such, many of the key policy asks in BASW’s manifesto around better supporting, resourcing and recognising the social work profession are not featured.

Whilst the manifesto is good in other areas that BASW champions, it is ultimately disappointing that no focus has been placed on the social work profession, including on reviewing caseloads, addressing recruitment and retention, implementing a workforce strategy and reforming student bursaries.

There is also no mention of increasing the non-taxable mileage allowance rate for social workers or social care staff, which seems a major oversight given the Lib Dem’s intention to better support social care.

Finally, while the Liberal Democrat’s manifesto puts forward measures to making our asylum and immigration system fairer, there is no specific reference to abolishing scientific methods of age-assessment, scrapping the national age assessment board or reviewing no recourse to public funds.

Conclusion

It’s fair to say Ed Davey won’t be Prime Minister in a weeks’ time. That’s not a slight on him or his party’s manifesto, but rather the limitations of the First Past the Post electoral system. A positive result for the Lib Dems would be to increase their seats to the 50 or 60 mark and become the third largest party in parliament.

However, as we saw in 2010, a hung parliament could open the door to the Lib Dems working with another party in coalition to get their policies through. If not, they’ll have to make do with arguing their case on the opposition benches, hoping to find common ground with Ministers to help bring their manifesto to life.