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Building britain’s future growth, jobs and better public services

News Release issued by the Government News Network on 29 June 2009

Public service entitlements will for the first time be guaranteed to parents, patients and communities.

New measures will also drive economic growth and create jobs.

The full plan and policy detail can be found at: www.hmg.gov.uk/buildingbritainsfuture

As a first step, the Government is today making a number of commitments to the British people:

* We will not lose another generation to work. Every young person who has been out of work for a year will have to take a job, training or work experience place.

* A new, more active industrial policy to drive growth and create the high value jobs of the future. We will establish a new £150 million Innovation Fund which will lever up to £1 billion of private sector funding.

* By switching spending priorities, we will target investment worth £1.5bn over the next 2 years to deliver 20,000 new affordable homes, creating 45,000 jobs in the construction and related sectors.

* Patients will get enforceable entitlements to the highest standards of health care, including hospital treatment within 18 weeks, access to a cancer specialist within 2 weeks and free health-checks on the NHS for people aged 40-74.

* Parents will be guaranteed an education individually tailored to their child, including a personal tutor for every pupil at secondary school, with catch up and one to one tuition for all those who need it.

* We will give local people more power to keep their neighbourhoods safe, including the right to hold the police to account at monthly beat meetings, to have a say on CCTV and a vote on how offenders pay back the community.

* We will work with the British people to deliver a radical programme of democratic and constitutional reform. We now plan to legislate in the 2009/10 session for further reform of the House of Lords, including completing the process of removing the hereditary principle. And we will now bring forward a draft bill for a smaller and democratically constituted second chamber.

In the coming months we will build on this plan by setting out more details in key areas, including: transport, infrastructure, financial services, social care, climate change and energy, life sciences and constitutional reform.

The Prime Minister said:

“In this plan for Building Britain’s Future we are determined to take forward the reforms of the last decade. Our task after three terms in office is not merely to defend Britain’s achievements over the last decade but to work even harder so as to meet new challenges with the same sense of conviction.”

Building Britain’s Future marks the start of a conversation with the British public on the big issues facing our country.

Cabinet and Regional Ministers will be holding town hall meetings across the country to discuss the plan.
For more information about the consultation, go to:
www.hmg.gov.uk/buildingbritainsfuture/roadshow

Building Britain’s Future also includes the Government’s Draft Legislative Programme for the next Parliamentary session:
www.commonsleader.gov.uk