At-a-glance: Lib Dem manifesto

The Liberal Democrats have published the Scottish manifesto for the 2010 UK election. Here is a look at what they have proposed:

Tax:

No income tax paid on the first £10,000 of earnings, freeing 500,000 Scots on low incomes from having to pay any income tax.
Tax relief on pensions only at the basic rate.
Taxing capital gains at the same rates as income, so earnings are taxed in the same way.
Tackle tax avoidance with new powers for HM Revenue and Customs and a law to ensure properties cannot avoid stamp duty if they are put into an offshore trust.
Tax pollution with a per plane duty for air freight and domestic flights with exemption for lifeline services.
Mansion Tax at a rate of 1% per cent on properties worth more than £2m, paid on the value of the property above that level.
Reform the system of "non-domiciled" status, allowing people to hold such status for up to seven years, after which they become subject to tax on all offshore income.

Spending:

Make £15bn of savings in government spending per year.
£400 pay rise cap for all public sector workers, initially for two years, ensuring the lowest paid are eligible for the biggest percentage rise.
End government payments into Child Trust Funds.
Banking levy to fund financial support they have received.
Scrap ID cards and the next generation of biometric passports.
Reform public sector pensions to ensure they are sustainable and affordable for the long term.
Establish a council on financial stability, involving representatives of all political parties, the governor of the Bank of England and the chair of the Financial Services Authority.

Economy:

Give people greater control over pensions and savings.
Reform winter fuel payments to extend them to all severely disabled people.
One-year economic stimulus and job creation package and an infrastructure bank to direct private finance to essential projects such as new rail services and green energy.
Break up the banks, to ensure taxpayers are never again expected to underwrite high-risk banking and encourage development of regional banks and re-establish the Bank of Scotland in Scotland and Northern Rock as a building society.
Invest up to £400m refurbishing shipyards in Scotland and north England to build offshore wind turbines and other marine renewable equipment and take in sites including Leith, Campbeltown, Nigg, Aberdeen, Dundee, Ardersier, Montrose and Arnish.

Environment:

Year-long, £400 eco cash-back scheme for people installing double glazing, micro-generation or replacing an old boiler.
Extra cash for schools to improve building energy efficiency.
Bring 25,000 empty homes in Scotland back into use with grants or cheap loans for renovation.
Invest £140m in a bus scrappage scheme that helps bus to replace old polluting buses with new low-carbon vehicles.

Education:

Scrap unfair university tuition fees that still hit Scottish students who study in England so everyone has the chance to get a degree, regardless of parental income.
"Pupil premium" to ensure that every child gets the individual attention they need at school.
Move the school funding for the most disadvantaged children up to "private school levels".

Health:

Give priority to preventing people getting ill by linking payments to GPs more directly to prevention measures.
Give patients right to choose the GP they want and the right to access their GP through e-mail and ensure that local GPs provide out of hours care.
Reduce the ill-health and crime caused by excessive drinking with ban on below-cost selling.

Culture:

Change the way the National Lottery is taxed from a ticket tax to a gross profits tax, which is forecast to deliver more for more for good causes, prizes and the Exchequer.
Use cash in dormant betting accounts to set up a capital fund for improving local sports facilities and supporting sports clubs.
Ensure the BBC remains strong, free from interference and securely funded.

Families:

Give fathers the right to time off for ante-natal appointments.
Allow parents to share the full allocation of maternity and paternity leave between them in whatever way suits them best.
Protect existing childcare support arrangements until the nation's finances can support a longer term solution and move to 20 hours' free childcare for every child, from the age of 18 months.

Environment:

Make British economy carbon-neutral overall by 2050, reducing carbon emissions in the UK by over 40% of 1990 levels by 2020.
10-year programme of home insulation, offering a home energy improvement package of up to £10,000 per home, paid for by the savings from lower energy bills.
40% of UK electricity to come from clean, non-carbon-emitting sources by 2020, rising to 100% by 2050.

Defence:

Pay rise to the lower armed forces ranks so that their salaries are brought into line with the starting salary of their emergency services counterparts.
No to the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system, which could cost £100bn and hold a full defence review to establish the best alternative for Britain's future security.

Immigration:

Reintroduce exit checks at all ports and airports.
Secure Britain's borders by giving a National Border Force police powers.
Introduce a regional points-based system to ensure migrants can work only where they are needed.
End the detention of children in immigration detention centres such as the Dungavel centre in Lanarkshire, with alternative systems such as electronic tagging, stringent reporting requirements and residence restrictions used for adults in families considered high flight risks.
Take responsibility for asylum away from the Home Office and give it to a wholly independent agency.

Transport:

Support High Speed Rail from London to Scotland, with links to the whole of Scotland.

Politics:

Introduce proportional voting system for MPs, with preferred Single Transferable Vote system.
Introduce fixed-term parliaments.
Replace House of Lords with a fully-elected second chamber with considerably fewer members.
Give people the right to sack MPs who have broken the rules and a recall system to force by-elections.
Cap political donations at £10,000 and limiting spending throughout the electoral cycle.
Require all MPs, Lords and parliamentary candidates to be resident, ordinarily resident and domiciled in Britain for tax.
Curb improper influence of lobbyists by introducing a statutory register of lobbyists, changing the ministerial code so that ministers and officials are forbidden from meeting MPs on issues where the MP is paid to lobby.

Constitution:

Radical transfer of fiscal powers to the Scottish Parliament and implement the recommendations of the Calman Commission review of devolution.
Replace the current Barnett formula for allocating funds to the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments with a new needs-based formula.

Science:

Ensure that state-funded scientific research research, including clinical trials, is publicly accessible and that the results are published and subject to peer review.
Reform science funding to ensure that genuinely innovative scientific research is identified and supported.
Safeguard academic freedom and the independence of scientific advisers by amending the ministerial code to prevent government from bullying or mistreating advisers and distorting the evidence or statistics.