The Conservative Manifesto 1997

JOBS AND BUSINESS

Britain is succeeding. 900,000 jobs have been created over the past 4 years. By contrast the European social model is stifling job creation on the continent by imposing regulations and burdens on business. In the United Kingdom unemployment is much lower than in the rest of Europe and falling whereas in Germany, France, and Italy it has risen to its highest level for a generation. This is no accident. It is because we have pursued very different policies from those on the Continent.

Curbing the power of trade unions, opening up markets and cutting red tape, have given us a low strike, low cost economy: and as a result we are the number one location for foreign investment in Europe.

Never have such policies been so important. For the first time this century we face a world full of capitalist competition. The only way Britain will be able to compete and win in world markets is by sticking to the Conservative policies that are delivering success. We can earn prosperity as one of the world's most successful global trading nations. We should not risk this progress by adopting the very policies that have made the continent uncompetitive and have increased unemployment in Europe by 4.5 million over the past 5 years.

Small Businesses - Britain's Risk-takers

Entrepreneurs often risk everything when they set up their own business. We have already helped them: raising the VAT threshold, cutting employer's national insurance contributions, simplifying audit requirements and much more besides. Now we intend to go further, tackling the remaining problems they face.

High taxes and rates deter enterprise. Our low tax structure has been crucial to our industrial revival. We already have the lowest corporation tax of any major industrialised country. As we want small businesses to flourish, we will go even further.

We will cut the small companies rate of corporation tax in line with personal taxation as we move towards a 20p basic rate.

Investment and enterprise are deterred if the tax man takes too much of the capital that is built up by a successful business. Capital is ever more mobile, flying around the world to places where the tax on it is low: Britain must be one of those places.

We will continue to reduce the burden of capital gains tax and inheritance tax as it is prudent to do so.

One of the heaviest burdens small businesses face is business rates. At the moment, this bears more heavily upon small businesses than large ones.

In the next parliament, we will reform business rates to reduce the cost that falls upon small businesses.

No businessman has time to fill out reams of forms. We will continue to simplify the administration of NICs and PAYE for small firms, allowing them to concentrate on satisfying customers not bureaucrats. We are also tackling a problem that hits small businesses particularly hard - the late payment of bills. On top of our programme to ensure government departments and local authorities pay on time we have legislated to require companies to publish their payment policy and to report their record on how quickly they pay their bills to small businesses.

We have already abolished over a thousand regulations. New regulations must only be introduced if it is clear that their benefits exceed their costs and they do not place an undue burden on a small firm.

We will introduce "sunset" requirements into new regulations whenever it is suitable so that they are automatically reviewed or dropped after a specific period.

Many businessmen suffer regulatory burdens imposed by local government and quangos.

We will therefore insist that the whole of the public sector adopts the same stringent rules that we require of central government in justifying the benefits of new regulations against their costs.

Reducing the Burden on Companies

Britain is enjoying more jobs and record investment, thanks to the competitive edge we have over other European countries. We are a low cost economy. But that does not mean we are a low pay economy. Our competitive advantage comes from the lower costs facing our businesses. It can be measured by the social costs an employer has to pay on top of every £100 of wages: in Germany it is £31, in France £41, but in Britain, it is only £15.

Many countries in Europe have tried to cocoon themselves from global competition behind layers of red tape and regulation - such as the Social Chapter and a national minimum wage. This provides a false sense of security, playing a cruel trick on working people. It also excludes the unemployed from work. As companies in the rest of Europe have grown more uncompetitive, employers have found it too expensive to employ new workers, investment has gone elsewhere, and the dole queues have lengthened. The European social model is not social and not a model for us to follow. But if Britain signed up to the Social Chapter it would be used to impose that model on us - destroying British jobs.

No Conservative government will sign up to the Social Chapter or introduce a national minimum wage. We will insist at the Intergovernmental Conference in Amsterdam that our opt out is honoured and that Britain is exempted from the Working Time Directive: if old agreements are broken, we do not see how new ones can be made.

We will resist the imposition of other social burdens on the work place through a new European employment chapter.

Welfare into Work

We will always help those in genuine need: in return, the unemployed have a responsibility to look for work and accept a reasonable offer. That belief underpins our new Jobseekers Allowance which ensures that no-one can refuse reasonable work opportunities and remain on benefit.

As unemployment falls, we want to focus on those who have been unemployed for some time. At present, Project Work is helping 100,000 people who have been unemployed for more than 2 years in cities around Britain. They are first given help in finding a job - which includes giving employers incentives to take them on. Those who do not find jobs are then required to work for a specific period on a community project. This helps them regain work habits and ensures they are available for work.

As Project Work succeeds and demonstrates that its costs can be met by the savings from getting people into work, we will extend the programme to cover the long term unemployed nationwide.

We will also develop an innovative "Britain Works" scheme which uses the experience and ingenuity of private and voluntary sectors to get people off welfare into work.

Britain has one of the most mobile economies in Europe. People move on and up, into better paid jobs more easily than on the Continent.

The Information Society

We are launching an ambitious programme with industry to spread "IT for All", giving every adult the opportunity to try out and learn about new IT services. We will work with industry to ensure that all schools are connected to the information superhighway.

We will use the Millennium Lottery Fund to transform the computer facilities and information links available in schools, libraries, museums, voluntary organisations and other public places after the turn of the century.

This will give the public much wider access to information services in the years ahead. We will also take advantage of information technology to transform the way government provides services to the public.

We will keep Britain in the vanguard of new mobile service development - including mobile telephone and information services - by introducing a pricing system for the radio spectrum to achieve more efficient allocation of radio frequencies.

We will maintain a strong, free and competitive broadcasting and press environment at both national and local level, while continuing to be vigilant in monitoring whether action is needed to curb breaches of standards, and prevent unacceptable press intrusion.

Science

2020 Vision

Thanks to Conservative policies of liberalisation and privatisation we are strong in industries of the future such as telecommunications, financial services, and information technology. These are the industries that will benefit from opening up trade around the world. We will push for completion of the European Single Market and continue to pursue the objective of transatlantic free trade against the background of world trade liberalisation.

Our aim is nothing less than tariff free trade across the globe by the year 2020.

Free competition is important for free markets. Companies should not make agreements that restrict competition and hence result in poor value for consumers. We have set out proposals to give companies greater protection against price fixing, dumping, and other restrictive practices by larger competitors.

We will introduce a Competition Bill to take forward these proposals in the first session of the next parliament.

We are committed to pushing forward our competitiveness agenda which is making Britain the Enterprise Centre of Europe.