Prime Minister David Cameron reaffirmed his commitment to further devolution for Scotland in his keynote address to the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham yesterday.
He stated early on in his address that "During that referendum campaign we made a vow to the Scottish people that they will get more powers - and we will keep that vow". This followed on from the earlier commitment by Ruth Davidson MSP on the Tuesday session of conference that the Scottish Conservatives would be fighting to see full income tax raising powers to be devolved to Holyrood during the process of the Smith Commission when it sits for the first time early next year.
The Prime Minister also announced various key manifesto plegdes ahead of the 2015 UK General Election next May. It was announced that 30m people would be taken out of income tax altogether by raising the pre-tax personal allowance to £12,500 over the course of the next parliament and by increasing the threshold for the 40p rate of tax to £50,000 from £44,000. Further tax incentives also included a commitment to scrap the 55% tax rate on post-death pension pots so that hardworking savers can leave more for their children and also to ensure that Britain has the most competative rate of corporation tax out of any nation in the G20 to encourage more global businesses to invest in Britain.
Whilst there were several monetary announcements, David Cameron also reaffirmed his commitment to an EU referendum in 2017 but noted that he would fight to repatriate several key powers including powers over EU migration which is currently controlled by Brussels. He also noted that the Governments Modern Slavery bill would help end modern day trafficking in Britain and also stated that the Government would commit to protecting NHS spending again in the next Parliament.
David Cameron also stated that whilst it was a brilliant achievement creating over 1.8m new jobs, the Conservatives would pledge to end youth unemployment by the end of the next Parliament.