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    Weekly brief: 26 April 2001

    Four years ago we promised that Labour would work hard to build a modern, fairer Britain. And that is exactly what we have done. It has not been easy – we cannot repair overnight the damage of the Tory years - but we've made a good start. The foundations have been laid for a country where opportunity, prosperity and security are open to the many, not the few.

    Promoting prosperity for all

    • The lowest inflation for 30 years.
    • Mortgage rates half what they averaged under the Tories - an average annual saving of £1,200.
    • The basic rate of tax cut to 22p and a lower 10p rate introduced and now extended – a tax cut for 25 million people.
    • The first-ever National Minimum Wage.
    • The Working Families Tax Credit – ensuring take-home pay of at least £214 a week.
    • The new Children's Tax Credit – worth up to £10 a week for 5 million families.
    • For pensioners, the biggest ever real terms rise in the basic state pension, guaranteed minimum incomes, free TV licenses, and the £200 Winter Fuel Payment.

    Modernising the NHS around the needs of patients

    • The biggest ever sustained increase in investment in the history of the NHS.
    • 17,000 more nurses and 6,700 more doctors than in 1997.
    • 500,000 more operations a year than in 1997.
    • The biggest hospital building programme in the history of the NHS.
    • Modernising every A and E department that needs it.
    • Delivering on our waiting list pledge – now over 100,000 lower than the figure we inherited from the Tories.
    • New services like the NHS Direct phoneline and walk-in centres.
    • Restoring free eye tests for over–60s.
    • The NHS Plan, drawn up with staff and patients, meaning more staff, more beds, more operations and better care.

    Education - our number one priority

    • Infant class sizes down – just 2 per cent remain in classes of over 30. And class sizes for 8-11 year olds falling too.
    • The best-ever primary school results last year, thanks to the literacy and numeracy hours.
    • A free nursery place for every 4-year-old, whose parents want one.
    • Funding per pupil up by £540 in real terms since 1997.
    • 10,000 more teachers in post than in 1998
    • More money direct to headteachers to spend on their priorities.
    • 17,000 school repair and refurbishment projects being carried out.

    Strengthening family life

    • Record increases in child benefit – now up to £15.50 for the first child and £10.35 for subsequent children.
    • Helping parents balance work and family life with the first-ever national childcare strategy – creating more places in 18 months than in the last 18 years.
    • Co-ordinating childcare, nursery education, family learning and primary health care initiatives with a UK-wide £540 million Sure Start programme.
    • Better maternity pay and leave – up from £60 to £100 a week and from 18 to 26 weeks by 2003
    • 2 weeks off for new dads from 2003.
    • Up to three months off for parents to care for their children up to their 5th birthday.
    • The right to time off work for family emergencies.
    • Giving everyone the right to a holiday with 4 weeks annual paid leave.

    Getting the unemployed from welfare to work

    • More people in work than ever before with one million new jobs since 1997. And dole queues have dipped below a million for the first time since 1975.
    • We've met our pledge to help 250,000 young people into work through the New Deal. In fact it's helped 279,000 young people find jobs.
    • Long term youth unemployment has been cut by 75 per cent since 1997.

    Being tough on crime and its causes

    • Crime down 10 per cent overall.
    • Burglary down 21 per cent and car crime down 15 per cent.
    • Biggest-ever investment in CCTV.
    • 375 local crime partnerships up and running.
    • Funding for 9,000 extra police recruits – meaning police numbers are now rising after seven years of decline.
    • The time from arrest to sentence for young offenders down from 142 to 89 days.
    • Expanding the DNA database to include every active criminal by 2003.

    Helping you get more out of life

    • Giving children and pensioners free access to national museums and galleries.
    • Ensuring lottery money is spent on the people's priorities. The £1 billion New Opportunities Fund is funding extra health, education and environmental projects.

    Renewing democracy

    • Established the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly.
    • Guaranteeing human rights in the UK for the first time.
    • Reforming the funding of all political parties to end sleaze.
    • Introducing Mayor and Assembly for London.
    • Ending hereditary peers' automatic voting rights.
    • Introduced Freedom of Information Bill.

    Getting Britain moving

    • Set up the Strategic Rail Authority to make the trains run as a network again and put passengers' interests first.
    • 1,300 more timetabled rail services every day in 2000 compared with 1996.
    • 2,000 new and improved rural bus services.
    • 18 per cent increase in funds for road maintenance in England since 1997.
    • 2p duty cut on cleaner fuel and road tax cut by £55 for smaller cars.
    • Ended the fuel duty escalator and acted with the competition authorities to bring down the cost of new cars.
    • The 10-year transport plan meaning billions extra to cut congestion and ensure a better journey – however you travel.

    A cleaner environment

    • Setting a target of 60% of new homes to be built on brownfield land.
    • Met our Rio target to stabilise greenhouse gases and set tough new targets to cut emissions.
    • Added 30,000 hectares to the greenbelt – an area three times the size of Bristol.
    • We have made our air and beaches cleaner – 94 per cent of beaches in the UK now pass European standards.
    • Leakage from water pipes in England and Wales has been cut by almost 30 per cent since 1997, ending the annual round of water shortages and hosepipe bans.

    Britain in the world

    • Taking a lead in Europe, securing better workers rights, jobs and reform of the wasteful CAP.
    • Banned the export, transfer and production of anti-personnel landmines.
    • Introduced tough new criteria on arms sales and secured a European code of conduct extending similar standards to our EU partners.
    • Getting the ban on British beef lifted.
    • Reversing the Tory decline in UK aid spending.
    • 100 per cent debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries and committed to spend proceeds on reducing poverty.
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