Tories pledge to end inequality in public services
The Conservatives have completed their review of public services with a raft of suggestions on housing, health and education.
Stephen Dorrell and Baroness Pauline Perry reported to David Cameron this morning with the latest conclusions from one of the Conservatives’ policy groups.
They said the next Conservative government should be focused on ending inequality in access to good schools, health and housing.
Setting out their recommendations on education, Baroness Perry said: “If we want to build a better society, we have to start with getting education right.”
The review recommended schools get extra money for taking children from disadvantaged background.
It also extolled the virtues of smaller schools for improving discipline and raising results and said head teachers should consider setting up “schools within schools”.
As predicted, it said pupils could be made to repeat the final year of primary school or go to summer school if they are falling behind in standards.
Among other proposals, the report called on the government to scrap AS levels, slim down national tests and found a Royal College of Teachers.
Turning to social housing, the review recommended a formal review of the waiting list for social housing.
But it said the government should look towards increasing home ownership. To achieve this it should make the right to buy scheme more affordable and give social tenants ten per cent of the value of their home to buy their own property.
Baroness Perry said: “Where you live can determine your access to public services. Poor housing estates generate poor school performance, poor health and shorter life expectancy.
“Unlike Labour, we don’t believe that just building more and more new social housing units is the answer. Helping people out of what has been called the ‘living tomb’ of poor social housing to independence and home ownership is at the heart of our proposals”.
Mr Dorrell said the Conservatives supported the NHS and would reduce bureaucracy and increase accountability for doctors. Nurses should also be guaranteed a job for the first 12 months after training.
But the report said responsibility for health ultimately lies with the individual.
It called on the government to create incentives for schools and workplaces to promote healthy eating and exercise. It also recommended danger labels on products that damage health, including food as well as tobacco and alcohol.
Alistair Darling dismissed the report and claimed the Conservatives’ “sums do not add up”.
The chancellor said: “The Tories can’t match Labour’s spending when at the same time proposing billions of pounds of tax cuts, including cutting inheritance tax, the abolition or reduction of stamp duty on shares, the reduction of corporation tax, and the introduction of transferable tax allowances.
“At the same time, they’ve been touring the country making reckless spending pledges worth billions of pounds without any plan how to pay for them, as well as saying they would reduce borrowing.”
The Liberal Democrats said the report was right to highlight the inequalities in public services, but argued the “Conservatives’ fingerprints are all over inequality,” with Mr Dorrell presiding over a two-year waiting list as health secretary.
Steve Webb, chair of the party’s manifesto group, said: “People will rightly doubt the credibility of the Tories’ sudden concern about inequality in public services.
“How deep is their leader’s commitment to social justice, when the manifesto written by David Cameron at the last election wasn’t about universal public services, but instead about helping the rich to opt out?”
