Policy Announcements, Friday 16 February

Government

• Home Secretary John Reid announced that he has commissioned another two new prisons to manage the growing prison population and protect the public from dangerous and persistent offenders. Speaking at the first prison he has personally commissioned, HMP Kennet in Merseyside, the Home Secretary said that the Home Office was "working flat out to deliver additional capacity within the system".
• The NHS, patients and industry will benefit from bar coding technology, which will increase patient safety, improve efficiency and save the NHS £millions in extra bed days, announced Lord Hunt. By wearing a bar-coded wristband a bar code reader can be used to verify the patient's identity at any time, and be an extra check that the right patient is about to received the right care. At present errors, many of which are caused by getting the patient identity wrong, cost the NHS around £2 billion in extra bed days.
• Speaking in Glasgow on the second day of his visit to Scotland, the prime minister urged Labour supporters to step up their campaigning. Tony Balir said Labour would set out how the partnership benefits both Scotland and England, and could "help each other advance" as well as spelling out the negative consequences of separation."I actually want people excited about the prospect of even greater progress and prosperity through a modern union of nations who know they are stronger together than apart," he told the Labour audience.

Conservatives

• David Cameron delivered a call to action in response to a recent report from Unicef which placed Britain's children at the bottom of their wellbeing table. He said that Britain needs a turning point and this means not for more Government action, but for Social Responsibility -"This is not about announcing a batch of policies. Much more important, I'm explaining how I will make judgements. I will make judgments based on my belief in the quality of life, in responsibility, and in common sense."
• David Cameron has called for more powers to "compel" fathers to look after their children in an effort to tackle gang culture. He said he backed tax breaks to help families stay together and promoting a "culture of responsibility and respecting authority". The comments follow the fatal shootings of three London teenagers. But Prime Minister Tony Blair said the killings were not "a metaphor for the state of British society".

Liberal Democrats

• Commenting on John Reid’s announcement of plans to build two new prisons, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Nick Clegg MP said "John Reid’s ill-formed plans for a few extra prison places will not solve this crisis in the long term. With the prison population set to reach 100,000 and reoffending on the rise, it is clear that Labour’s policy of mass incarceration isn’t working. If we want to cut crime, and protect victims, we should divert the money from the prison building programme to expanding secure and semi-secure mental health treatment and drug rehabilitation."
• The Liberal Democrats have released research showing that the top 300 civil servants have combined pensions worth £250 million. Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, David Laws MP said: "The current public sector pensions system is skewed in favour of high-flying civil servants, ministers and MPs at the expense of hardworking lower paid workers. This will be a shock to people working in the private sector who have seen their pensions slashed over recent years because of Gordon Brown's stealth tax rises and the closure of good private sector pension schemes. It is essential that we establish an independent commission to review all public sector pension schemes so that they can move forward on a fair and affordable basis."
• The Liberal Democrats have condemned Britain's attempts to stand in the way of renewable energy, following the announcement that the British Government has successfully blocked plans for a binding target for Europe to produce 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.