Conservative Party - Diversity Equality

Community Relations - Building stronger, more integrated communities is central to our vision for Britain.Under Labour, state-driven multiculturalism, uncontrolled immigration and the threat of extremism have led to an increase in distrust and segregation, and left us with divided communities.A Conservative Government will correct Labour’s mistakes and create a Britain where people from different backgrounds can celebrate their diversity while sharing common civic values and national pride.And we will unite Britain’s communities with a package of measures: * Supporting community groups based on their effectiveness in countering poverty and deprivation rather than on the basis of ethnicity or faith

* Devolving power to local authorities, who are better placed to make decisions for their communities
* Offering English language instruction for all to cement the English language as the bedrock of our national identity
* Tackling unacceptable cultural practices, such as forced marriage and female genital mutilation
We believe that the State is no substitute for community. So a Conservative Government will help foster community cohesion, but recognise that it is about much more than government and politics – it is, above all, a social responsibility. And that means that everyone must do all they can to make this a fairer and more just society - helping others, creating opportunity, and ensuring that no-one is excluded.
http://www.conservatives.com/Policy

Sayeeda Warsi - Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action

Sayeeda is a leading campaigner for awareness and stronger legislation on issues like forced marriages, female genital mutilation and the chewing of Khat. She has been politically involved from her early college days when she was elected as the Vice President of the Students Union at Dewsbury College.  Sayeeda is a member of David Cameron's Shadow Cabinet, a former Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party and adviser to Michael Howard MP.

She has always had a keen interest in racial justice issues. She was instrumental in the launch of Operation Black Vote in West Yorkshire in 1996 and was for many years an executive member of the Kirklees Racial Equality Council.  She is also a member of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust's Racial Justice Committee and regularly represents them at national conferences.

Sayeeda was born in Dewsbury in 1971. She was educated at Birkdale High School and Dewsbury College, and then the University of Leeds where she read Law (LLB). She attended the York College of Law to complete her Legal Practice Course and trained with both the Crown Prosecution Service and the Home Office Immigration Department.

After qualifying as a Solicitor, she worked for John Whitfield, the last Conservative Member of Parliament for Dewsbury, at Whitfield Hallam Goodall Solicitors and then went on to set up her own specialist practice, George Warsi Solicitors in Dewsbury. Sayeeda has worked overseas on a research project for the Ministry of Law in Pakistan and is currently chair of the Savayra Foundation, a women’s empowerment charity based in Pakistan.
POSITIONS HELD:
* Community Relations Advisor to the Leader of the Opposition, June 2004 – June 2005
* Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party, June 2005 – July 2007
* Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion & Social Action, July 2007 –
* Shadow Minister for Sheffield, Aug 2007 –
PROUDEST POLITICAL ACHIEVEMENT: In December 2007, Sayeeda successfully represented her country and secured the release of British teacher Gillian Gibbons in Sudan.
INTERESTS OUTSIDE OF POLITICS: * Theatre * Music * Family * Food
FAMILY LIFE: * One child - Aamna
http://www.conservatives.com/People/

A STRONGER SOCIETY - VOLUNTARY ACTION IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
We want to expand the role and the influence of charities, social enterprises and voluntary bodies in our society.
Our approach is not to change the voluntary sector, but to change government: from being an object that gets in the way of civil society to being a force that gets behind it.
Encouraging giving and volunteering
* Simplify the Gift Aid system to reduce the bureaucratic burden on charities
* Support for volunteering to go through grassroots organisations not government quangos
* Reduce the burden of regulation on volunteers
* Support efforts to establish volunteering as a social norm
Supporting the voluntary sector
* Replace the Big Lottery Fund with a Voluntary Action Fund dedicated to the voluntary and community sector
* Operate a genuine one-stop funding portal for significant government grants
* Create a network of Social Enterprise Zones
Working with the voluntary sector
* Allow voluntary organisations delivering public services to earn a competitive return on investment
* Remove state interference by agreeing on goals and outcomes, not dictating methods of delivery
* Create a powerful Office for Civil Society to fight for the interests of charities and community groups
DELIVERING SOME OF THE BEST HEALTH IN EUROPE - OUTCOMES NOT TARGETS
Labour's system of running the NHS through top-down process targets isn't working. We believe the focus should instead be on outcomes, in order to make the NHS more accountable to patients and restore professional discretion over how to treat patients.
Our strategy for driving up standards involves:
* Phasing out Labour's process-driven targets
* A national focus on the health outcomes we want the NHS to deliver
* Collecting information about the results of people's treatment in the NHS
* Publishing those results, so we can see where we are making progress and where we lag behind other countries
* Developing outcome measures which patients with chronic conditions themselves provide
* Giving patients a choice of provider so they can use published outcome information to get the care they want
* Introducing payment-by-results within the system

CONTROL SHIFT - RETURNING POWER TO LOCAL COMMUNITIES
Decentralisation, devolution and empowerment are part of the Conservative approach to government – and we have set out a series of policies that will transfer powers from the central state to local people and local institutions:
* Abolishing all regional planning and housing powers exercised by regional government, returning powers and discretion back to local communities
* Creating bottom-up incentives for house building, by allowing councils to benefit more from the increase in council tax revenues from new homes, rather than being equalised away by Whitehall
* Allowing councils to establish their own local enterprise partnerships to take over the economic development functions and funding of the Regional Development Agencies
* Giving local authorities a new discretionary power to levy business rate discounts, allowing them to help local shops and services, such as rural pubs or post offices
* Provide citizens in all large cities with the opportunity to choose whether to have an elected mayor, through mayoral referendums
* Greater use of direct democracy, including allowing residents to veto high council tax rises, and instigating local referendums on local issues
* Requiring councils to publish detailed information online on expenditure by local councils – including the pay and perks of senior staff, and issuing new guidance to stop ‘rewards for failure’ to sacked town hall staff.