Lib Dems: Pitch to women

In a renewed pitch for the women's vote, the Liberal Democrats have set out a range of female-friendly policies.

Frontbenchers Sandra Gidley, Sarah Teather and Baroness Falkner joined party leader Charles Kennedy at a morning press conference to highlight their policy platform for women.

Kennedy said: "Women have made great progress over the past decades.

"But many of the old injustices and inequalities remain.

"Today we are setting out how we will tackle inequality and promote fairness in our society."

The party claims its election manifesto "addresses areas where women are still discriminated against in Britain... across the board".

It hopes to attract female votes by promoting plans for a citizen's state pension, based on residency rather than National Insurance contributions.

Lib Dems claim the current system penalises millions of women who take time out of work to care for children or elderly relatives.

Scrapping the council tax and replacing it with a local income tax would also benefit single-income families where the mother stays at home.

The party believes plans to scrap university tuition fees would also help women who choose to stay at home, while free personal care for the elderly would take the strain off children forced to care for their parents.

And the manifesto offers new mothers guaranteed maternity pay of £170 per week, as well as more investment in childcare.

Guarantee

Baroness Falkner said the party was committed to giving mothers the choice to spend more time with their child in the early months.

"Our maternity income guarantee of £170 a week for the first six months forms a solid base for working women to plan the start of their life with their first baby," she said.

"It will help to prevent this most exciting of times for new parents being marred by the financial worry that can so often accompany it."

Gidley said the Lib Dems were thinking about women across the policy board.

"Other parties have made a mistake of assuming that childcare is our only interest," she said.

"But women's issues are about so much more than that."

Teather added that "young women will particularly benefit from our policy to scrap tuition and top-up fees".

Tory attack

But Conservative shadow minister for women Eleanor Laing said female voters would not be won over by the Lib Dem proposals

"Like all people, women know that a vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote for woolly thinking," she said.

Laing argued the only thing the Lib Dems could guarantee women is higher taxes, the abolition of mandatory sentences for murder or violent crime and the abolition of faith schools, grammar schools and specialist schools.

And she added: "The choice for British women is clear.

"They can either vote for a party that will take a stand and vote for the concerns and priorities of the forgotten majority - more police, cleaner hospitals, school discipline, lower taxes and flexible childcare.

"Or they can vote for a party that is out of touch with the values of mainstream Britain."