Category Archives: The Independent View

The Independent View: Lib Dems crucial in preventing further welfare reform injustice

By Gingerbread | Published 25th January 2012 - 2:55 pm

Child maintenance is a life-line for many single parent families, whose children are twice as likely to live in poverty as those of couple families. The Government’s proposals to attach charges to access the Child Support Agency will see vulnerable families with no option but to seek state help to gain maintenance pushed further into financial distress – with their children ultimately footing the bill.

After a week of turmoil in the House of Lords where crossbench alliances have proven crucial, this evening attention will turn to the Government’s child maintenance proposals – and the possibility of another government defeat of the …

Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged child maintenance, fiona weir, gingerbread, lord mackay of clashfern, the independent view, welfare reform | 4 Comments

The Independent View: The benefits cap policy is based on myths

By Alison Garnham | Published 22nd January 2012 - 5:35 pm

The benefit cap was announced by George Osborne at the Conservative Party Conference in October 2010. It means families will not be able to receive more than a total of £500 in benefits each week – regardless of local rental values or how many children are in the household. As the crucial votes on the cap take in the House of Lords on Monday, it’s important that the myths on which the cap policy is based are exposed.

Myth 1: The cap is just for out of work claimants of benefits

Ministers fostered the impression that this is about ensuring working families …

Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged benefits, welfare reform | 30 Comments

The Independent View: FIT for purpose

By Liz Hutchins | Published 20th December 2011 - 3:53 pm

Every day the economic storm clouds get darker and darker as the recession deepens and unemployment soars. Over the past two years one new sector has offered a glimmer of hope: the UK solar industry. But Government cuts to solar payments this month are set to devastate a home-grown economic success story and pull the plug on tens of thousands of clean energy jobs.

Today Friends of the Earth and two solar firms are taking the Government to court. Ministers are slashing cash-back for generating green energy through solar panels, ahead of plan.

Pulling the funding rug from under …

Tagged feed-in tariffs | 10 Comments

The Independent View: The banking sector needs radical reform but too many cures will kill the patient

By Ben Norman | Published 19th December 2011 - 6:58 pm

For seven days before Christmas it has been an incredibly busy day for the financial services sector. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Draft Financial Services Bill has produced its wide-ranging report into regulatory reform; the FSA has published its Mortgage Market Review consultation; and, last but not least, the Treasury has published the Government’s response to the Independent Commission on Banking.

At least the latter was well leaked – what isn’t these days? – and gave me time to think about the ICB.

The ICB is actually something quite amazing, not to mention something entirely Lib Dem.

Sir John Vickers was given …

Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged banking, independent commission on banking, john vickers | 2 Comments

The Independent View: MoD suppresses Lib Dem review and spending information on Trident ahead of Parliamentary decision

By Kate Hudson | Published 8th December 2011 - 9:28 am

Liberal Democrats can be rightly proud of their record on challenging like-for-like Trident replacement and keeping Britain’s nuclear weapons near the top of the political agenda – certainly during the last general election campaign. But now it looks as though their coalition partners are moving to stifle the gains they have made. Not only has the Defence Secretary announced the suppression of the Lib Dem-led Trident Alternatives Review. He is also making a mockery of the delayed Trident replacement decision – scheduled for 2016 – by committing to spend £6 billion before that decision date. This is hardly fair play …

Tagged cnd, liam fox, nuclear disarmament, peter luff, philip hammond, ros scott, tessa munt, trident | 18 Comments

The Independent View: Selling our NHS data is not putting us in control of our health records

By James Baker | Published 5th December 2011 - 2:55 pm

Back in 2010 there was a wave of optimism amongst civil liberties campaigners, especially those of us concerned with protecting privacy from an over-bearing database state. Not only did the coalition agreement set out a promise to scrap ID cards and its associated population register, there were other promises too: “We will end the storage of internet and email records without good reason” and then on page 25 of the coalition agreement the statement that “We will put patients in charge of making decisions about their care, including control of their health records”.

In our briefing document ‘Privacy Under Threat’ …

Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged civil liberties, NHS | 25 Comments

The Independent View | Peter Tatchell writes… Lib Dems should stick to their principles and urge Lynne not to renege on equality pledge

By Peter Tatchell | Published 4th December 2011 - 11:45 am

Bravo to the Liberal Democrat party conference. Two years ago, party members voted overwhelmingly to end the twin legal bans on same-sex civil marriages and opposite-sex civil partnerships. They committed a future Lib Dem government to scrap sexual orientation discrimination in marriage and partnership law. Well done. Thank you

Sadly, the Lib Dem Equality Minister, Lynne Featherstone, apparently with the support of the Lib Dem Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, is now actively backing discrimination. She plans to keep unequal laws, contrary to the Lib Dem’s election pledges.

Specifically, Lynne is vowing to retain the prohibition on heterosexual civil …

Tagged civil partnerships, equalities, gay rights, lynne featherstone, nick clegg | 18 Comments

The Independent View: Autumn Statement makes the best of a bad situation

By Ben Norman | Published 29th November 2011 - 5:53 pm

How did George do then? The Chancellor needs to walk the line between providing stimulus on the one hand and protecting Britain from the bond markets on the other. It really isn’t easy to decide which side he should err on.

The bond markets are currently a ravenous pack of hyenas who have tasted blood in Greece, Italy and Portugal. Although they’re currently distracted by Belgium, Spain and now France even the slightest hint of weakness on Britain’s part will draw their perilous attention our way.

That said, protecting Britain from a bond market savaging must not be done at the expense …

Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged economy, george osborne | 30 Comments

The Independent View: 10 ways to promote growth

By Tony Dolphin | Published 25th November 2011 - 3:48 pm

Ahead of every recent budget and autumn statement, the right-of-centre think tanks have come out with a set of recommendations that support the broad thrust of government policy and argue for more of the same. True to form, earlier this week Reform made the case for sticking to Plan A on deficit reduction, abolishing the 50p tax rate and cutting workers’ employment rights.

But, with the economy having grown by just 0.5 per cent over the last year, and the Prime Minister hinting in a recent speech to the CBI that the government’s deficit reduction plan is being blown off course, …

Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged economy, george osborne | 5 Comments

The Independent View: Next Tuesday, the Chancellor’s greatest currency is consistency

By Will Tanner | Published 25th November 2011 - 12:20 pm

As next week’s Autumn Statement fast approaches, the siren calls for the Chancellor to “do something” to revive growth are growing louder. Yet George Osborne must resist the 10-point plans and shopping lists of eye-catching initiatives that promise instant economic alleviation and instead hold his nerve in the face of weaker-than-expected growth.

As Reform’s new report, The long game, argues, the economic recovery was always going to be difficult. All of the evidence shows that fiscal crises originating from financial crises are protracted and severe. The levels of debt in the economy prior to the recession had reached unsustainable proportions, …

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The Independent View: 1 in 7 people go hungry every day. But you can help. Here’s how…

By Manmeet Kaur | Published 24th November 2011 - 9:17 am

It is a shocking fact that whilst enough food is produced globally to feed everyone, one in seven people go hungry every day. Around half a billion of these hungry people are smallholder farmers who struggle to grow enough food from their land to feed themselves and their families. So Concern Worldwide has launched a campaign action for you to use your influence to help tackle hunger.

World leaders of the Group of 20 leading economies met in Cannes in November 2011 and promised to address the issue of hunger. However, despite some progress, the issue was largely …

Also posted in Europe / International | Leave a comment

The Independent View: And then there was one… (Unmasked! The only backbench Lib Dem MP 100% loyal to the Coalition)

By Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart | Published 18th November 2011 - 9:45 am

When a quarter of the parliamentary Conservative party rebels, everyone sits up and takes notice. On 24 October, 2011, 81 Conservative MPs defied a three-line whip to vote in favour of an EU referendum: cue a blaze of negative publicity for David Cameron and the Tory party whips.

But a week or so later one-quarter of Lib Dem MPs rebelled, and (almost) no one noticed. In nine separate votes on 1 and 2 November, a total of 14 Lib Dem MPs voted against various aspects of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. The largest …

Also posted in News, Parliament | Tagged david laws, featured, legal aid, lorely burt, simon hughes, tom brake, tuition fees, whip | 13 Comments

The Independent View: The Coalition needs to get serious about protecting citizens’ privacy

By Nick Pickles | Published 11th November 2011 - 11:02 am

Slowly, we are waking up to the enormous risk to personal privacy posed by the misuse of personal information.

Big Brother Watch’s report into the data protection breaches in the NHS highlighted a number of harrowing individual cases. However, the wider cultural question is the one which should be of greatest concern.

In an age when ever more personal information is collected as a matter of routine by both the public and private sector, how that information is held and protected is of critical importance. When that information is of the kind of sensitive details found in medical records, …

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