The 8 key points from the Conservative manifesto: Tax cuts, new GPs and Rwanda

Rishi Sunak has unveiled the Tory manifesto at Silverstone racecourse in Northamptonshire this morning.

The Prime Minister hopes his offer to the country will help the party turn a corner and lead them to victory in this election race.

Mr Sunak pledged a tax break for landlords and help for first-time buyers before the launch.

The Prime Minister’s offer includes a 100 percent relief on capital gains tax liability for landlords who sell to their existing tenants, claiming the move will be “transformational”.

He has pledged to “scrap entirely the main rate of self employed national insurance” in the next parliament to encourage enterprise as he launched the Tory manifesto.

Tax

Front and centre of the manifesto is the plan to introduce a 2p cut in National Insurance, along with the ambition to eventually abolish the ‘second tax on jobs’.

They have also pledged to maintain the triple tax lock ensuring no rise in headline rates of income tax, National Insurance or VAT.

There is also a Family Home Tax guarantee, pledging no increase in stamp duty or capital gains tax on the family home and no new council tax bands or revaluations.

The threshold for first-time buyers paying stamp duty raised to £425,000.

On “reducing borrowing and debt”, the Conservative Party manifesto states: “In the next Parliament, we will continue to meet our fiscal rules of having public sector net debt falling and for public sector net borrowing to be below three percent of GDP in the fifth year of the forecast.

“The measures in this manifesto are fully funded and would result in lower borrowing in 2029-30, which will be the target year for our fiscal rules in the first fiscal event of the new Parliament.”

The manifesto states the Tories would “not raise corporation tax”.

It adds: “For the very smallest businesses, the four million people who are self-employed, we will abolish the main rate of national insurance entirely by the end of the next Parliament.”

It also states they would “keep the VAT threshold under review and explore options to smooth the cliff-edge at £90,000”.

Health

The party has pledged to recruit thousands more doctors and nurses, promising 100 new GP surgeries and 50 new diagnostic centres.

As well as this, they have remained firm on raising the legal smoking age every year to prevent anyone aged under 16 ever being able to legally take up the habit.

What's more, they have promised to increase the role of pharmacists to free up millions of GP appointments

A £86,000 cap on social care costs is also included in the plans.

Education and children

They will double the income threshold at which families start to lose child benefit from £60,000 to £120,000.

The party has also reiterated that they plan to scrap ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees to release funding for an extra 100,000 apprenticeships.

The manifesto also details a ban on the teaching of ‘contested’ gender ideology in schools.

The Equality Act would be amended by a new Conservative government to deliver greater protections to women and girls, Rishi Sunak said.

“We will protect women and girls by guaranteeing single sex spaces through an amendment to the Equality Act to make it clear that sex means biological sex.”

Immigration

On immigration, the Tories want to introduce a new legal cap on the number of people coming into the UK, with MPs voting each year on the total number of visas which should be issued.

And of course, they hope to press ahead with the plan to send Channel migrants to Rwanda as soon as next month.

The manifesto states: “We will run a relentless continual process of permanently removing illegal migrants to Rwanda with a regular rhythm of flights every month starting this July, until the boats are stopped.

“If we are forced to choose between our security and the jurisdiction of a foreign court, including the ECHR, we will always choose our security.”

Speaking at Silverstone, Mr Sunak said: “Labour have no answer to this question. We saw the other week Keir Starmer simply can’t tell you what he would do with people who come here illegally because he doesn’t believe it’s a problem.

“Now, with Brexit we took control of our borders, but migration has been too high in recent years and we have a clear plan to reduce it.

“Last year we announced changes which means 300,000 people who were previously eligible to come here now can’t and we will introduce a migration cap that means parliament, your elected representatives, will vote on how many people should be able to come here every year.

“Our plan is this: we will halve migration as we have halved inflation, and then reduce it every single year.”

Transport

The manifesto details a series of transport pledges, including £8.3 billion to “fill potholes and resurface roads” and boosting Midlands rail connectivity with £1.75 billion to fund the “Midlands Rail hub in full”.

Railway upgrades in the South West, including the line through Dawlish, the energy coastline in Cumbria and the Ely Junction scheme in East Anglia are also among the measures listed.

Public spending on research and development would be increased to £22 billion a year in the next Parliament, the Conservatives said.

Defence

The Tories have also said they will guarantee that defence spending will rise to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030, as Mr Sunak pointed out that Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour Party are not matching it.

Mr Sunak said that the UK is facing “increasing threats and we must show our enemies that this country with our allies will stand strong”.

The Prime Minister claimed it was only the Conservatives who could keep the nation safe.

On top of this, he confirmed the plan to introduce National Service, which will be put in place for 18 year olds.

Pensions

Going for the silver vote, the Tories revealed plans for the Triple Lock Plus in order to raise personal allowance for pensioners to ensure the basic state pension is never hit by income tax.

Rishi Sunak said Labour would not make the same commitment and as a result a voter’s pension “simply isn’t safe with the Labour Party”.

Police and crime

Onto policing and the party has promised to recruit an extra 8,000 police officers to beef up neighbourhood policing.

They also outlined they want to increase the minimum tariff for murders in the home from 15 years to 25.

Finally, they will step up stop and search powers to tackle knife crime.