Common Sense for Scotland - The 2011 Scottish Conservatives Manifesto Launch

Annabel Goldie today unveiled the Scottish Conservatives Manifesto at the Glasgow Science Centre.

I am proud to have been a Scottish Conservative Candidate today as Annabel delivered our Manifesto, the first of the Scottish Party leaders to do so, telling it as it is to the gathering of Candidates, Activists and an assortment of Media.


A Manifesto that offers an honest, positive and fully costed vision for Scotland.

A Manifesto that set out how the Scottish Conservatives shall deliver even more for Scotland on top of what we have achieved over the last four years.

Some of the highlights include:

- Creating a Scottish Business Start Up Fund
- A Business Dividend Fund - so good, Labour have already stolen it for their manifesto!
- Business Rates Reform Bill
- Hard Shoulder running on M77 & M8
- Referenda on Elected Provosts in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen & Dundee
- Budgets to Community Councils to deliver more in their communities
- £140m Town Centre Regeneration Fund.
- Road Maintenance Fund of £200m - including Pothole Fund
- More powers for Head Teachers
- Greater focus on Reading, Writing & Arithmetic
- Pupils at 14 are free to leave school provided they engage in a monitored apprenticeship or Full-time vocational or technical training programme.
- Fair and affordable graduate contribution of £3600 per year, capped at £4,000
- Protect NHS spending and increase funding in line with inflation
- Oppose the SNP's abolition of Prescription Charges and reintroduce at 2009 level of £5 per item and £48 for a pre-payment certificate.
- Cancer Drugs Fund of up to £10m
- Establish an IVF Fund
- Pilot Walk-In Treatment Centres to improves access to health care
- Re-introduce prison sentences of less than 3 months
- Pilot a Community Court in Glasgow
- End automatic early release from Scotland's jails
- Compulsory drugs tests in Scotland's jails
- Replace Police Boards with elected local Police Commissioners
- Freeze Council Tax until at least 2013
- When freeze ends, a change in law to give local residents the power to stop bills rising faster than inflation
- £200 per pensioner household discount on their Council Tax from 2013/14
- £20m to give all parents a guaranteed level of health visitor support

Will the other parties offer a Manifesto that adds up?

Will Alex Salmond offer another never-never land perspective of Scotland in the Nationalists, but never the National interest? Will Iain Gray offer us the usual 1980's rhetoric and anti-politics? Probably.

This is the Scottish Conservatives vision for Scotland. This is a Manifesto for all of Scotland.

This is Common Sense for Scotland!