Ahead of Thursday's General Election in the United Kingdom, all the main parties have made pledges which impact upon anyone who lives, works or enjoys the British countryside. We've taken a look at all the manifestos to measure up their varying promises.
LIFE IN THE COUNTRY
Conservatives |
Labour |
Lib Dems |
Green Party |
UKIP |
| High-speed broadband for every home and business by 2020 | Universal superfast broadband by 2022 | Expand hyperfast, fibre-optic broadband connection to every house in the UK with an unlimited usage cap by 2022 | Public-works programme of insulation to make every home warm and investment in flood defences and natural flood management | Match CAP payments, then introduce a UK Single Farm Payment capped at £120,000 per year; support farming without antibiotics |
| Post-Brexit, the same cash total in funds for farm support is promised until the end of the Parliament, with a new agri-environment system to follow | Rethink rural funding-allocation mechanisms and protect post offices, high-street banks, sports clubs, pubs and independent shops | Refocus support for farming towards producing healthy food and public benefits | Strong protection for the green belt, national parks, SSSIs and AONBs | New Environmental Protection Act |
| Safeguard the post-office network and support pharmacies and village schools | Develop coastal protection and better flood management | Increase accessible green space; new national nature parks | A more effective network of protected marine areas around our coasts | Leave Common Fisheries Policy, withdraw from 1964 London convention on fishing, set up Fisheries Protection Force and draft new Fisheries Bill |
| £2.5 billion flood-defence programme | Plant a million native trees | Establish a ‘blue belt’ of protected marine areas | Tough action to reduce plastic and other waste | |
| Public forests and woodland to be kept in trust for the nation | Keep forests in public ownership | Plant a tree for every UK citizen over the next 10 years and protect remaining ancient woodlands | Give power to local communities by allowing 40% of local electorate to secure a referendum on local-government decisions or recall their MP | |
| Natural England will expand provision of technical expertise to farmers | Allow EU workers employed across farming, fishing and food manufacturing to remain in the UK | Increase the powers of the Groceries Code Adjudicator | ||
| Conserve our marine environment | Reinstate the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme, as well as the Agricultural Wages Board | Set up £2 billion Rural Services Fund and prevent post-office closures | ||
| A comprehensive 25-year Environment Plan | Expand the current role of the Groceries Code Adjudicator | Establish a £2 billion flood-prevention fund | ||
| Extend the Coastal Communities Fund for seaside towns to 2022 | Set up a national review of local pubs |
ANIMALS AND WILDLIFE
Conservatives |
Labour |
Lib Dems |
Green Party |
UKIP |
| A free vote on the future of the Hunting Act 2004 | End badger cull | Suspend neonicotinoids until proven they don’t harm pollinators | An Environmental Protection Act to safeguard and restore the environment and protect and enhance biodiversit | Triple maximum jail sentences for animal cruelty |
| Reforms on pet sales and licensing | Safeguard habitats and species in ‘blue belts’ | Stronger penalties for animal-cruelty offences | ||
| Make CCTV recording in slaughterhouses mandatory | Prohibit neonicotinoids as soon as is allowed, to protect bees | Clamp down on illegal pet imports and minimise the use of animals in scientific experimentation | ||
| Control the export of live farm animals for slaughter post-Brexit | Promote cruelty-free and better-enforced animal husbandry | Update farm-animal welfare codes and promote the responsible stewardship of antibiotic drugs | ||
| Third-party sale of puppies will be prohibited | Develop ‘humane and evidence-based ways of controlling bovine TB’ |
TRANSPORT
Conservatives |
Labour |
Lib Dems |
Green Party |
UKIP |
| £40 billion into improvements, including HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail and the expansion of Heathrow | Bring private rail companies back into public ownership | Invest in road and rail infrastructure, including a continued commitment to HS2, Crossrail 2 and rail electrification | Return the railways to public ownership; invest in regional rail links and electrification of existing rail lines, rather than wasting money on HS2 and the national major-roads programme; cancel all airport expansion | Scrap HS2; upgrade existing mainline services |
| Develop the road network and create extra capacity on the railways | Complete HS2 into Leeds and Manchester, then into Scotland | Government-run companies to temporarily take over Southern Rail and Govia Thameslink; complete rail link between Oxford and Cambridge | Incentives to take diesel vehicles off the roads | Support zero-emissions vehicles; stop diesel drivers being penalised |
| Support expansion of cycle networks | New Brighton Main Line; complete the Science Vale transport arc from Oxford to Cambridge | Develop strategic airports policy for the whole of the UK; no expansion of Heathrow, Stansted or Gatwick | Support for rural bus operators and smaller regional airports | |
| Improve road surfaces in residential areas | Local bus companies will be publicly run | Diesel scrappage scheme and ban on sale of diesel cars and small vans in the UK by 2025 | Stop speed cameras being used as revenue-raisers for local authorities | |
| The need for extra airport capacity in the South-East is recognised | Extend ultra-low-emission zones to 10 more towns and cities | |||
| Provide local authorities and communities with the powers to improve transport and ticketing |
ENERGY AND RENEWABLES
Conservatives |
Labour |
Lib Dems |
Green Party |
UKIP |
| Independent review into UK energy costs | Transition to a publicly owned, decentralised energy system | Additional funding for renewables including solar PV and onshore wind, plus smart grid technology, hydrogen technologies, offshore wind and tidal power | Replace fracking, coal power and subsidies to fossil fuels | Cut typical household energy bills by £170 a year |
| No more large-scale onshore wind farms in England | Immediate energy price cap: the average dual-fuel household energy bill will remain below £1,000 per annum | Support use of nuclear power | Nationwide insulation programme | Withdraw from Paris climate agreement and EU Emissions Trading Scheme; repeal Climate Change Act 2008 |
| Offshore wind will still be developed | Insulate four million homes | Ban fracking | New Clean Air Act | Remove subsidies from unprofitable wind and solar schemes |
| Develop the shale industry | Ban fracking | Support coal, nuclear, shale gas, conventional gas, oil, solar and hydro | ||
| Build up renewable-energy projects and support nuclear energy |
HOUSING AND PLANNING
Conservatives |
Labour |
Lib Dems |
Green Party |
UKIP |
| Deliver one million homes by the end of 2020 and 500,000 more by the end of 2022 | Build more than a million new homes, giving councils new powers; prioritise brownfield sites and protect the green belt | £5 billion of initial capital for a new British Housing and Infrastructure Development Bank | Banning letting fees | Plan to introuduce low-cost, factory-built modular homes, affordable on the national average wage of £26,000 |
| One million more trees to be planted in towns and cities | Start work on a new generation of New Towns | New direct spending on housebuilding to help build 300,000 homes a year by 2022; build at least 10 new garden cities in England | Building 100,000 social rented homes by 2022 | |
| Four million properties to receive insulation retrofits by 2022 | ||||
| Enforce housebuilding on unwanted public-sector land |
SMALL BUSINESSES
Conservatives |
Labour |
Lib Dems |
Green Party |
UKIP |
| Improve the general business environment for SMEs and ensure that big contractors comply with the Prompt Payment Code | Lower small profits rate of Corporation Tax for small businesses | Create a new ‘start-up allowance’; support fast-growing businesses seeking to scale up through the provision of mentoring support | Freeze Insurance Premium Tax | |
| Business-rate relief and low taxation for small businesses will continue and bureaucracy and regulation will be cut | Small businesses excluded from plans for quarterly reporting | Review business rates to reduce burdens on small firms | Cut business rates by 20% for small businesses | |
| Take action on late payments and prioritise lending to small businesses |
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