Promises about the big changes that the coalition ended up implementing, from major welfare cuts to a shake-up of the NHS, were mostly absent from the 2010 manifesto. Most of the minor pledges have been met but some significant ones – such as eliminating the bulk of the deficit – have not

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

What happened to Labour's 2010 election manifesto? Read more

The Conservative manifesto was launched on 13 April 2010, as “An invitation to join the government of Great Britain”. The notable thing about the document is the absence of promises about most of the major policies that the coalition ending up implementing – from sweeping welfare cuts to a shake-up of the management of the NHS. It is to a large degree composed of technocratic and minor pledges – such as elected police commissioners and introducing a day of voluntary service a year for civil servants. Most of these have been met, while some of the significant ones – like eliminating the bulk of the deficit – have not.

The economy

1) Emergency budget within 50 days of election to help pay down the bulk of the deficit.



Not met – The emergency budget took place but the deficit has only fallen by around a third. It has only halved as a proportion of national income.

2) Scrapping of planned increase in national insurance for employers and workers earnings less than £35,000. Main rate of corporation tax to be cut to 25%.

Met – The corporation tax cut was exceeded, falling to 20%.

3) Pledge to match Labour’s spending plans for 2010-11 in health and overseas aid.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest George Osborne outside Number 11 Downing Street with the budget on 18 March 2015. Photograph: Chris Yates/Demotix/Corbis

Met – The coalition ring-fenced health and foreign aid spending.

4) Abolition of Financial Services Authority, with supervision of the City handed back to the Bank of England.



Met – The Bank of England has now taken financial regulation in-house with its Financial Conduct Authority.

5) Consumer Protection Agency to address high levels of personal debt.



Not met – This is still under the remit of the new Financial Conduct Authority.

Education

1) Develop schools under the Swedish “free schools” and the US “charter school” models: small, autonomous institutions run and set up by parents and others.

Met – There are now more than 300 free schools.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pupils line up in the playground of the newly opened West London Free School. Photograph: Tim Ireland/PA Archive/Press Association Images

2) Recreate technical schools, which vanished in the 1950s when their popularity dwindled, offering pupils aged 14 to 19 training and apprenticeships. The aim was to create at least 12.

Met – There are now 30 of them and more than 55 are expected to be open by 2017.

3) More money for schools that take more than average numbers of poor pupils. But no detail on how much money will be allocated.



Met – The coalition introduced a pupil premium in 2011, giving more money to schools for every child on free school meals.

4) National curriculum to be focused around traditional subjects, such as history, science and maths in primary schools.



Met – As education secretary, Michael Gove rewrote the curriculum for primary schools in 2013.

5) Raise the minimum entry requirements for primary teachers.



Met – The government toughened up the entry tests for trainee teachers in 2012.

6) Smaller class sizes.



Not met – Average primary school class sizes are up from around 26 to 27 pupils.

7) Reading test at age six.

Met – New ‘synthetic phonics’ tests were introduced in 2012.

8) Sats tests and league tables to stay.



Met – Sats and league tables remain.

9) An extra 10,000 university places in 2010.



Met – Labour had promised 20,000 and the Lib Dems 15,000.

10) Pay off the student loans of maths and science graduates who become teachers.



Not met – This does not seem to have happened and the TES reports that the Tories are looking at it again.

Health

1) Scrap waiting-list targets.



Partially met –The target of a GP appointment within 48 hours was scrapped. The target of 98% of A&E patients being seen within four hours was replaced with a 95% target.

2) New 24/7 urgent care service and weekend access to GPs.



Not met – This is now being promised again by the Conservatives.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Cameron speaks to matron Sandra Allen at Witney community hospital on 11 April. Photograph: Pool/Reuters

3) Stop closures of A&E and maternity wards.



Not met – Of 29 hospitals with wards under threat before the election, 14 of the hospitals have seen casualty and maternity units closed, downgraded, or still at risk of closure, according to a Labour analysis.

4) A new cancer drug fund.



Met – David Cameron personally brought in the fund to offer last-chance drugs to dying patients.

5) Access to NHS dentistry to be extended to a million more people.



Met – This was fulfilled in 2012.

6) Give individual patients their own health and social care budget.



Partially met – This has been piloted in a number of places across England since October 2014.

Home affairs

1) Elected police commissioners to replace police authorities.



Met – The first were elected in November 2012, although they have been widely criticised for being a waste of money and attracting low electoral turnouts.

2) Instant grounding orders for antisocial youngsters.

Not met – Home secretary Theresa May scrapped the asbo and introduced something called the community trigger – requiring police to investigate any single incident reported by at least five people.

3) Prison sentences for carrying a knife.

Not met – This was the subject of a coalition row and blocked by the Lib Dems. An amendment passed by a backbench Tory introduces a mandatory jail term for those caught carrying a knife on the second offence but it is unclear when this will come into force.

4) Banning below-cost alcohol sales.



Met – This came into force in May 2014, with a new mandatory licensing condition banning the sale of alcohol below the “permitted price” – the level of alcohol duty plus VAT.

5) New border police force.

Not met – It is not clear what was meant by this but the UK Border Agency was folded into the Home Office in 2012 without gaining any new powers.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Home secretary Theresa May has seen changes including the end of asbos and the UK Border Agency’s incorporation into the Home Office. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/REUTERS

6) Payment by results for prisons and youth justice system.

Met – After a pilot scheme with unclear results, justice secretary Chris Grayling launched his Transforming Rehabilitation programme to pay companies by results for carrying out probation work for all but the most serious offenders.

7) Abstinence-based drug rehabilitation orders.

Not met – This idea, championed by work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, was shelved in 2010.

8) ID cards and register and Contactpoint children’s database to be scrapped.

Met – ID cards have not been introduced. The Contactpoint children’s database was shut down in August 2010.

9) Human Rights Act to be replaced by British Bill of Rights.

Not met – This never happened after a commission failed to agree how it would be implemented. It is, however, likely to make a reappearance in the 2015 manifesto.

10) Annual limit on non-EU economic migrants.

Not met – Non-EU migration has fallen but there is no formal limit.

11) Overseas students at new or unregistered institutions to pay bond on arrival.

Not met – Home secretary Theresa May had a plan to make all immigrants pay bonds but this was blocked by the Lib Dems.

12) English language tests for those coming to Britain to get married.

Partially met – This was introduced in November 2010 for the partner of non-EU migrants.

Social affairs

1) Big Society bank using unclaimed assets to fund charities and neighbourhood groups.



Met – The bank was launched in July 2011 but has had a relatively low profile.

2) Neighbourhood groups, the “little platoons” of civil society, will be able to take over failing public services.

Met – This was implemented in 2012, with neighbourhood groups given a community right to bid (buying buildings) and a community right to challenge (running services where they believe they can do so differently and better).

3) Community service for civil servants will count in staff appraisals.

Met – Under the civic service initiative, Whitehall staff are encouraged to do at least one day of voluntary work a year but it is not clear whether this counts towards appraisals.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Cameron meets young people from the National Citizen Service scheme during a team-building exercise. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

4) National Citizen Service for 16-year-olds.

Met – Around 100,000 young people are now taking part in the programme.

Families

1) Tax breaks to promote marriage and civil partnerships.



Met – This has been belatedly introduced in the final year of the coalition.

2) Conservative government will freeze council tax for two years.

Partially met – The government could not force local authorities to freeze council tax but offered incentives for them not to. A large proportion turned down the cash.

3) Ending tax credits for households earning more than £50,000.

Not met – There were a lot of benefit cuts but this was not one of them.



4) Right to request flexible working to every parent with a child under the age of 18. Currently limit is 16.

Met – This has been extended to all UK employees.

5) Ban companies from using latest interactive technology to sell to children.

Not met – This practice – known as advergames – still seems to be going on.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ed Balls and Rachel Reeves at Ashbury Meadow Sure Start centre, Manchester, before speaking to the Labour party conference in September 2014. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

6) Sure Start scheme to be refocused on poorest families.

Partially met – More than 400 Sure Start centres were cut during the first two years alone of the coalition. It is not clear that this meant support has “refocused” on the poorest.

Sport and the lottery

1) Restore the national lottery to its original “four pillars”: sports, heritage and the arts will see their original allocations of 20% of good cause money restored.

Met – The Lottery Shares Order of 2010 has implemented this aim.

2) Part of the community sports budget of the lottery diverted to deliver an Olympic legacy.

Met – Lottery funding was apportioned for Olympic legacy initiatives.

3) Deliver a successful Olympics in 2012, Rugby League World Cup in 2013, Commonwealth Games in 2014 and Rugby Union World Cup in 2015.

Met – Obviously this is difficult to measure, and the last of those has not yet taken place, but most would agree the Olympics and the others were a success.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fireworks explode above Tower Bridge on 27 July 2012 to celebrate the opening of the Olympic Games. Photograph: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images

4) “Strongly support” England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup.

Met – Again, this is difficult to measure and the UK did not win, but the government did appear to throw its weight behind the bid.

Defence

1) Support the replacement of the Trident nuclear missile system.



Met – The Conservatives have kept this ambition but the renewal has not yet been ordered.

2) Double operational allowance for troops in Afghanistan.

Met – This was one of the first things carried out by David Cameron.

3) Set up National Security Council “to integrate at the highest levels of government the work of our foreign, defence, energy, home and international development departments”.

Met – This body meets regularly.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Cameron meets troops in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, on 16 December 2013. Photograph: Pool/Getty Images

4) Set up a new permanent military command for homeland defence and security.

Not met – This does not seem to have happened although the military has played a significant role in domestic events such as the floods and security around the Olympics.

5) Cut MoD running costs by 25%.

Not met – In August 2010, then defence secretary Liam Fox only unveiled cuts of between 10% and 20%.

The environment

1) To make the UK “the world’s first low-carbon economy”, including becoming a world leader in green goods and services.



Not met – Britain is the around the sixth in the field but experts have warned output is faltering.

2) Promise to stick to international reduction pledges for greenhouse gases, and Labour’s domestic target of 80% by 2050.

Met – The government has stuck to this target.

3) Cut central government emissions by 10% in first year.

Met – Whitehall achieved this target, saving a total of 13.8%.

4) Energy mix from more renewables, nuclear and “clean coal”, backed by an emissions performance standard on power stations.

Partially met – An emissions performance standard has been introduced but existing power stations are exempt.

5) Ministers to make annual energy statement to parliament, and reform of energy regulator Ofgem to focus on security and low-carbon.

Partially met – The annual energy statements take place with little fanfare but Ofgem has hardly been reformed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Smog over Westminster on 10 April, 2015. The Conservatives pledged to stick to international targets to cut greenhouse gases. Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP

6) Green Deal promising £6,500-loan per household for energy measures, to be paid back through savings on bills over 25 years.

Met – The green deal has been introduced but it has had a very low take-up rate.

7) White paper on protecting the natural environment would introduce “conservation credits”.

Met – The paper was published.

8) Local authorities could pay people to recycle.

Not met – No evidence of this found.

• This article was amended on 14 April 2015. An earlier version said 17 technical schools had been opened but the rollout had been suspended amid concerns they were not proving popular or effective. Thirty university technical colleges are now open and the rollout has not been suspended. Another 11 will open in September 2015 and more are in development.