Liberal Democrats 2015 Pre-Manifesto

The Liberal Democrats pre-manifesto, sets out out the party's vision for Britain in the next Parliament

The policies in the pre-manifesto, which has spreading opportunity for the next generation at its heart, will be debated and voted on by our members at the upcoming Lib Dem Party Conference in Glasgow.

Liberal Democrats in government have played an essential role in rescuing Britain's economy, creating more than 1m jobs and bringing the economy back to growth.

We are proud of this record of delivery and the pre-manifesto document sets out our promise of more in the next. Our focus will be on a 'manifesto for the next generation' with a host of policies aimed at improving opportunities for children and young people, including plans to expand free childcare to all two year olds, introduce free school meals for all primary school children and triple the early years pupil premium.

If you would like to read the full document, please click http://www.libdems.org.uk/policy_paper_121here.

Our pre-manifesto is the first big building block for the manifesto we will put to the British people at the General Election next year.

We are the only party which produces one of these, in order to give our members the opportunity to debate, amend and vote on the policies that will eventually go into our final manifesto. That all happens at the Lib Dem Conference later this month.

The Liberal Democrats are a party of government now.

75% of our previous manifesto promises were successfully negotiated into the Coalition Agreement, according to University College London's Constitution Unit. 75%.

Just think through the Coalition's most significant, signature reforms:

• the biggest ever income tax cut for millions of people;
• the biggest ever cash rise in the state pension;
• the £2.5bn Pupil Premium;
• the biggest ever investment in renewable energy;
• the biggest expansion of apprenticeships in a generation

All Liberal Democrat policies from that last manifesto. We may be the smaller party but time after time we have come up with the biggest ideas.

So we take this manifesto process seriously, and we totally accept the need to show that what we say is credible and deliverable.

We've learnt our lesson from tuition fees - and we've learnt it the hard way. There will be no repeat of that mistake.

The commitments we make will constitute an ambitious, distinctly liberal vision for Britain - but they will also reflect the tough fiscal realities the country continues to face. This time our proposals, taken together, are actually more fiscally modest and financially smaller than five years ago and, while we'll set out our costed plans in full when we publish the final manifesto, we've already begun setting out necessary measures for raising revenue and cutting spending.

What you'll find in this document are workable proposals which, crucially, build on the things we've already done.

When we say we'll protect spending from cradle to college in the next parliament, we've already safeguarded schools' funding this time around.

When we say the Liberal Democrats will keep on cutting income tax - raising the point at which people start paying tax to £12,500 - Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander have already brought income tax down Budget after Budget, year after year.

And when we say we'll finish dealing with the deficit - we've already reduced it by a third, and by the end of the parliament that will be half.

It is because of our record in THIS Government that people can believe in our promise of more for the NEXT Government.