‘THE coming UK General Election will be important choice between competence versus chaos.

As all the political parties gear up for the Westminster elections, voters rightly want to know what policy commitments they will make.

Let me be quite clear: the main focus for the Conservatives will be on two key areas: securing economic growth and reducing the burden of the state.

As far as the economy is concerned, there is a need to ensure that the green shoots of recovery which have been established by George Osborne can be built upon. This means focusing on policies which will increase the number of jobs, which minimise the tax burden and which take it away altogether for those in the lowest incomes.

Since the last General Election, employment has gone up by 175,000 in Scotland and unemployment has fallen by 61,000. At the same time, there are 37,600 more businesses in Scotland than there were in 2010, each of them providing more people with a regular wage and the ability to provide for their families. We need to do more, however. That is why the Conservatives are the only party with a long-term economic plan to build a stronger economy and secure a better future for Scotland and Britain.

Working families across Fife will be given up to £2000 to ease the cost of childcare as part of a scheme to be rolled out in autumn 2015. A typical family with two children under 12-years-old could benefit by up to £4000 a year as a result, and people on Universal Credit will get 85 per cent of their childcare costs covered.

When it comes to supporting pensioners, Conservative reforms will mean that our senior citizens are guaranteed £800 extra per year by the end of the next Parliament. These changes mean the state pension will be worth at least £131-a-week by 2020, up from just £97.65 four years ago.

But besides these economic priorities, there will be another issue which will underpin the Conservatives’ policy agenda and that is allowing individuals and families to have much greater freedom to run their own lives.

In Scotland, this is in stark contrast to an SNP Government which is increasingly statist in its approach. It has told every child between 0 and 18 that they must have a Named Person, it has abolished the right to buy a council house, it has centralised our police force, it has undermined the autonomy of our colleges and universities and now, via the new land reform legislation, it is threatening to take private land back into public ownership if it doesn’t like the way you run your own property. This is a completely unacceptable extension of the state and it puts yet more clear blue water between the Conservatives and the SNP.

As an MSP for Mid Scotland & Fife I am always available to help local constituents with any problems and can be contacted on the following: Elizabeth Smith MSP, The Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh, EH99 1SP Tel: 0131 348 5000 Email:elizabeth.smith.msp@scottish.parliament.uk’