Conservatives are tackling the green agenda with an action plan that puts our environment first.

In the Action Plan launched by Conservatives recently are a series of measures to make energy production greener and clean up our towns and cities. Local Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman Royston Smith has welcomed the plan, saying he "wanted Britain to be an innovator in the battle to combat global warming and greenhouse gas emissions."

Among the plans are:

Making Fly-tipping an arrestable offence

Exploring how energy efficient homes could benefit from a cut in stamp duty

Changing the rules on renewable energy so the incentives don't just help on-shore wind farms.

Encouraging new technologies like biomass, off-shore wind, tidal and wave power - areas where Britain has natural advantages and should lead the world

Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman Royson Smith said "Today, there is widespread debate about exam standards. Some think exams have got easier, others believe that children are put through exams at far too young an age. Most tend to agree that for employers and parents alike our examination system must be one we all have total confidence in."

Conservatives have outlined detailed proposals to tackle many concerns parents, teachers and business has with the current system.

The key proposals are:

• A-level marking. We will introduce a new top grade, clearly identifying those who have achieved the best academic results. We will also ensure that the highest grade of A-level will only be awarded to a fixed proportion of students sitting that subject in a particular year (see notes).

• Publishing marks. We will ensure that the actual exam mark, as well as the grade, is published for each candidate to ensure that universities and employers can distinguish between applicants who have similar grades.

• AS Levels. A-levels need to be made more thorough and demanding. The AS level will go, returning the A-Level to a 2 year course. We also think it wrong that students can retake parts of their A-levels time after time. So we will stop multiple resits of individual modules within A-Levels.

• Exam regulators. We will begin an immediate reform of the exam regulators and exam boards. The QCA has become too ardent a defender of every aspect of the present system. That has undermined its position as a credible referee. As a first step, we would overhaul the QCA entirely, so that the exam system is policed by people who are committed to maintain standards.

• Removing rules preventing other recognised exams. We will remove the DFES rules which prevent schools offering alternative, internationally-recognised exams such as the International Baccalaureate or the O-Level. It is clearly absurd that O-Levels continue to be written in the UK for students abroad, but cannot be taken by state school pupils in the UK.

• Scrapping the 50% target for all young people to enter higher education. The priority must be for students to reach a high academic standard for university entrance through application rather than the satisfaction of some arbitrary ministerial directive.

• Raising the standard of literacy and numeracy. Employers and academics are rightly concerned when they discover some well-qualified school-leavers with serious deficiencies in these areas.

• Retaining external assessment of students at 16. The British Chambers of Commerce and others have made it clear that they cannot expect their members to treat an internally assessed qualification as adequate. Nor could school league tables possibly be fair if schools had such an incentive to manipulate results. So we propose instead a more robust, more vigorous, more independent regime of external assessment - with incentives throughout for accurate, rather than convenient, results.

Crime is has spiralled out of control under Labour. Recent Home Office figures show that the number of firearms offences in England and Wales has risen in the last year. There has been a 3% climb in gun crime, following a 2% rise the previous year.

Cllr Royston Smith, speaking to a group of local residents recently about their crime and anti-social behaviour fears said; "No amount of Government spin will hide the fact that violent crime is out of control. We now have record levels of gun crime, rocketing sex offences, a further 14% increase in violent crime and overall crime is nearly 750,000 higher than 1998."

To tackle the problem, Conservatives have announced plans for tough action on hard drugs, support for drug-testing in schools, and plans to create 20,000 extra prison places.
The Conservative plan of action on crime and immigration includes:

- Ending the madness of police officers having to fill in forms every time they stop someone.

- On immigration, ensuring that holiday and student visas cannot be switched to long-stay visas once people have arrived here.

- Scrapping Labour's early release scheme and introducing immigration legislation to give priority to people who want to come here and make a positive contribution, like they do in Australia.

- Starting a prison building programme and the recruitment of 40,000 extra police officers over eight years.

- Setting in train 24 hour surveillance at ports of entry to make it harder for people to enter the country illegally.