A Liberal Democrat government would scrap home information packs, ID cards and the Labour Party’s prison building programme, according to its manifesto published yesterday.

Nick Clegg’s party said its core aim is to ‘hard-wire fairness back into national life’.

Like the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrats pledge to ditch ‘burdensome HIPs’, although they will retain the requirement for homes to have an energy performance certificate.

The manifesto is silent on funding legal aid, but pledged to put ‘thousands more’ police on the beat to focus on catching criminals rather than spending time on paperwork.

They will reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days and make it easier to prosecute and convict terrorists by allowing intercept evidence in court, and by making greater use of post-charge questioning.

The party will introduce a presumption against short-term sentences of less than six months, replacing them with community sentences.

It will turn the National Policing Improvement Agency into a National Crime Reduction Agency to test what policing techniques and sentences work, and spread best practice across police services and the criminal justice system.

A Liberal Democrat government would champion restorative justice programmes and give people a direct say in how petty criminals and those who engage in anti-social behaviour are punished by setting up Neighbourhood Justice Panels.

The manifesto says that ‘decades of Labour and Conservative rule have overthrown some of the basic principles of British justice and turned Britain into a surveillance state’.

To counter this, a Liberal Democrat government would introduce measures to ‘protect and restore’ freedoms, including the introduction of a written constitution and a Freedom Bill, the manifesto says.

The party would regulate CCTV, stop councils from spying on people, stop ‘unfair’ extradition to the US, defend trial by jury, and stop children being fingerprinted at school without their parents’ permission.

The Liberal Democrats pledge to protect free speech, investigative journalism and academic peer-reviewed publishing through reform of the English and Welsh libel laws, introducing a requirement that corporations show damage and prove malice or recklessness, and providing a robust ‘responsible journalism’ defence.

Cleggs’s party also promises to ensure that everyone has the same protections under the law by protecting the Human Rights Act.