Dear Alex: Responding to the New Ideas series

By Ed Miliband MP / @EdMilibandMP

22 January 2010

Dear Alex,

Thank you for your letter about your New Ideas for a Renewed Movement series. I am really sorry for the delay in replying.

The New Ideas series was fantastic. I really enjoyed reading the proposals put forward and the debate it generated. I’ve had a look at all of them on the site but I’ll respond to the five in your letter.

Increase the National Minimum Wage - as you know the Prime Minister announced that in every year of the next five years we will increase it. Addressing the issues faced by low paid workers is crucial and is something we’re looking at very closely.

High speed rail - the size of Britain’s high speed network lags behind that of many of our European neighbours and doesn’t connect any of our major cities. But we want to change that and Andrew Adonis will set out our plans for high speed rail in Britain in the spring. Our policy will help create a 21st Century railway, improving passenger journeys, cutting carbon emissions and boosting the economy.

A fully elected House of Lords - Britain needs a new constitutional and political settlement for a new era. Our immediate task is completing the removal of the hereditary principle from the House of Lords. But we will also ask for a clear mandate to make the Lords accountable and genuinely democratic.

Tax evasion - we are cracking down on offshore tax havens and we’ve already demanded details of over 100,000 offshore accounts. The Pre-Budget Report announced we will introduce measures which will protect around £5billion per year from evasion and avoidance.

Increase the basic rate of income tax threshold to £10,000 - we must help the low paid in every way we can but this proposal would cost approximately £23billion and it would require either spending cuts or tax rises to afford. We’ve announced a set of tax changes that are fair, meaning that combined with the last Budget and PBR over half the additional revenue raised comes from the wealthiest 2% of people. We will continue to help the low paid through tax credits. In the PBR we raised the child element of the Child Tax Credit by £20 above earnings indexation, and other benefits and tax credits normally linked to the Retail Prices Index by 1.5%. Other tax commitments will be in the manifesto.

Other good ideas were raised that didn’t make the top five including a national care service, youth services, housing, and votes at 16. We’ll look at all of them.

You’ve done a great job building up LabourList and making it such a significant place for debate. It is really important for me that party members get their say on what they want in the manifesto. It was a great series and it shouldn’t stop there. People should email me if they have further ideas or comments at ed_miliband@new.labour.org.uk.

There is a big fight on for Britain’s future. As LabourList shows the tide isn’t running out on progressive ideas. People don’t live in the politics of an electoral pendulum, they live in changed times where progressive values are more, not less, powerful. If we go out and make the case, we should be confident we can succeed.

Best wishes,

Ed Miliband