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 Welfare Reform Bill.

Under an amendment tabled by the widely respected Conservative Peer, Lord Mackay of Clashfern – former Lord Chancellor under Mrs Thatcher – and co-signed by Lord Kirkwood, parents with main care of children who have no alternative but to use the statutory maintenance service (currently the Child Support Agency) in order to get maintenance for their children would be exempted from government charges.

The proposed charges are:

• An upfront charge levied on the applicant (usually the parent with care) in order to use the future new Agency. The Government is currently proposing an upfront charge of £100 or £50 for an applicant on out-of-work benefits;

• An ongoing ‘collection charge’ taken by the new Agency from every maintenance payment it collects, in the range of 7-12% of the payment, before the money is passed on to the children;

• A further ‘collection surcharge’ which the Government proposes to charge those ‘non-resident parent’, likely to be in the range of an extra 15-20% of the maintenance liability.

Lord Mackay, who has received significant support from Peers across all parties, said: “When a woman as a typical example has taken all reasonable steps and done all she can to reach an agreement but cannot manage it, I do not agree that she should be charged by the CSA for her application…That is utterly unfair.  If anyone is to pay for that, surely it should be the person who has caused the difficulty by trying to escape from his moral obligations.”

Ministers say the main purpose of charging is to drive behavioural change and make former couples choose to collaborate rather than use the state maintenance system. Yet, as a DWP briefing for Peers has acknowledged, a “significant proportion” of parents will not be in a position to agree private maintenance in this way.

Fiona Weir, Chief Executive of Gingerbread said:

“There appears to be a groundswell of support from Peers across the House for Lord Mackay’s principled stand.  They can see the injustice of making children pay the price. Most people agree that parents remain responsible for their children after they separate. Where that responsibility is not met the state must step in for the sake of the children.”

Hopefully Lib Dem peers will see how unfair these proposals are and vote in favour of Lord MacKay’s amendments.

‘The Independent View‘ is a slot on Lib Dem Voice which allows those from beyond the party to contribute to debates we believe are of interest to LDV’s readers. Please email if you are interested in contributing.

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

Ministers fostered the impression that this is about ensuring working families get a fair deal compared to those who don’t work. However, it was later quietly revealed in DWP’s impact assessment that any couple working up to 23 hours a week will still be affected by the cap when it is introduced. That means many families not in receipt of any out-of-work benefits – e.g. jobseekers’ allowance (JSA), income support (IS) and employment and support allowance (ESA) – and receiving just earnings, tax credits and in work benefits – e.g. housing benefit (HB) and council tax benefit (CTB) – will be hit by the cap too. (For the government’s confirmation that working tax credit will be used as indicative of being in work for the cap policy, see the impact assessment).

Myth 2: The claimants targeted have more money than the typical working family

Most of those hit by the cap will be in private rented households. It is the landlords that get the cash – often paid directly to them – meaning the families are really left struggling to pay for basic costs like utility bills, food, clothes, transport etc. The root problem of rising housing benefit costs – which in any case working families can get too – is the failure to maintain sufficient supplies of social housing, and the runaway inflation of private rents due to the bubble in the housing market. The cap does nothing about the root problem and the crisis in the supply of affordable housing is predicted to worsen by housing experts. (For more information on affordable housing crisis, see Shelter’s web page)

Myth 3: Families with a disabled member will not be affected

Disability living allowance (DLA) (then the personal independence payment (PIP)) will be used as a proxy to identify households that will be excluded from the cap on grounds of disability. However, many disabled people do not qualify for DLA – and even fewer will qualify for PIP. The government has admitted that they expect half of the households hit by the cap to have a disabled person (using the Disability Discrimination Act 2010 definition). Poor decision making for DLA claims, with high rates of successful appeals, will also mean many families going in and out of the cap unfairly, causing chaos, debt and homelessness. (For the government’s statement, see answer to PQ 68034).

Myth 4: There will be no behavioural changes and social impacts

The government’s impact assessment has assumed that there will be no behavioural changes, and states that there will be no social impacts. However, the measure introduces a couple penalty that will mean some families may be able to receive twice as much in benefit payments if they separate. A couple with at least two children who are subject to the £500 cap could claim up to £1,000 in benefits if the parents separate and divide the residency of their children between two homes. The incentive for families to break up will not just be financial, as it may also mean that they are able to remain living in the same area so that they can avoid their children changing schools and continue living in the same neighbourhood as networks of friends and relations. (For more information, see the impact assessment).

Myth 5: The cap will deliver fiscal savings

The cap is likely to reduce benefits spending by £240 million per annum, but it will lead to costs elsewhere in the system that may surpass those savings.  Warnings from within government suggest there will be a net fiscal cost. The Private Secretary to Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, wrote to the Private Secretary to the Prime Minster last year and said, “we think it is likely that the policy as it stands will generate a net cost” as a consequence of the homelessness and migration that will be caused, and the costs this will place on local authority services. (You can read the full warning letter here.)

Myth 6: This is a new policy

This policy has in fact been tried and failed once before. The ‘wage stop’ in force during the 1970s was a similar policy which aimed to cap benefits at the level of average wages. It proved unfair and unworkable and was eventually abolished. (For more information on the wage stop, see this speech by Robin Cook who successfully campaigned for its abolition.)

On Monday the House of Lords votes on the cap, following amendments from the Bishops who have been taking the lead in opposing it. Unless the Liberal Democrats are prepared to back the amendments in both the Lords and the Commons, this awful assault on child welfare will progress will its full and dreadful force, and on the basis of its false prospectus.

‘The Independent View‘ is a slot on Lib Dem Voice which allows those from beyond the party to contribute to debates we believe are of interest to LDV’s readers. Please email if you are interested in contributing.

* Alison Garnham is Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group.

It’s hard to see how the Open Society concept, with its nods to Karl Popper and Isaiah Berlin, will resonate outside of Westminster at a time of increasing economic concern. When people’s major concerns are the cost of energy bills, the cost of living and worries about unemployment and job security, it is unlikely that a political leader’s philosophical musings are really going to transform his political situation.

As I have written many times, Clegg is right to talk about the importance of social mobility, with opportunity not being decided by the lottery of birth. Declining social mobility is one of the biggest problems facing the UK today. As somebody who attended a North Eastern comprehensive, I feel passionately about the issue. Indeed, the rise of politicians with the background of leaders such as Clegg is one of many symptoms of a decline in social mobility (as well as power being concentrated in an increasingly narrow elite).

Clegg is right to point out that as a country, low levels of social mobility mean that we are not making the most of our potential and that too many people from lower income backgrounds are unable to make the most of their individual potential.

That is an issue which resonates with many ordinary voters. However, the rest of his speech might well be viewed through the prism of out of touch politicians discussing ‘ivory towers issues.’ I would instinctively agree with many of the points raised in Clegg’s speech, but it is hard to say that now is the time to debate niceties about constitutional reform as the UK runs the risk of returning to recession.

When the public perceive politicians as being out of touch, it’s hard to see how politicians directing a speech purely at the Westminster bubble is going to change that. In Clegg’s case, in particular, it’s difficult to envisage such a Westminster-centric speech restoring his party’s brand amongst the general electorate.

So many polls show that people, particularly those from aspirational working class and middle class families, do not believe that politicians understand their concerns or share their economic worries. This is surely not a time for the leader of a political party suffering from dire poll ratings to wander off into philosophical musings. I doubt that the “alarm clock heroes” identified by Clegg a year ago will be particularly impressed.

* David Skelton is Deputy Director of Policy Exchange.

‘The Independent View‘ is a slot on Lib Dem Voice which allows those from beyond the party to contribute to debates we believe are of interest to LDV’s readers. Please email if you are interested in contributing.

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 small solar businesses’ order books is already having an impact; almost 30,000 jobs are at risk. Community projects are being shelved. And many homeowners who hoped to free themselves from the shackles of the Big Six energy companies have had to shelve their plans.

We believe the Government’s action is illegal: they introduced the tariff cut even before their consultation into the matter concluded. We think it is as economically as it is environmentally illiterate – at a time when we need new industries and jobs more than ever, and when millions of people are struggling to pay their energy bills.

It is especially surprising that the scheme should be devastated under the watch of a Liberal Democrat Energy Secretary. Lib Dem MPs were essential to the introduction of the scheme, and it is one of the most striking examples of Lib Dem principles in action: communities working together to produce their own energy, protect the environment and reduce energy bills for the poorest.

Lib Dems have spoken out passionately in support of the scheme – including party members, Peers, and councils like Eastleigh in Chris Huhne’s constituency. Regardless of the court outcome, Chris Huhne must step in to put the solar industry on a sure footing for the long term. Chris has shown he is prepared to stand up to George Osborne’s anti-green posturing, now he must make it count before this green success story is lost.

Friends of the Earth agrees that cash-back rates should fall – scales of economy mean solar costs are dropping quickly. But Government should reduce the rates in a measured way that the industry, householders and community groups can plan for. The Government should increase the total spending on Feed-in tariffs (FITs) by using the £275 million each year the scheme contributes to Treasury coffers: a no-brainer to save jobs at no extra Government cost.

Our legal challenge is part of our new Final Demand campaign – calling for energy we can all afford, and a public inquiry into the power and influence of the Big Six energy companies. Sign Friends of the Earth’s Final Demand petition: www.foe.co.uk/finaldemand.

Liz Hutchins is the Friends of the Earth’s parliamentary campaigner.

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 the remit and resources to step back and have a long look at banking. He talked to bankers, regulators and – most importantly – actual people. The final report was a wide-ranging and considered plan to fundamentally change banking in the UK. It is referenced in Paris, Frankfurt and New York.

And now the British government has done something really unusual. It has followed-up. This is no Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction committee in the US – attacked, dissected and promptly forgotten. This external academic study is going to become policy.

A lot of people are unhappy about this. The ring-fence is the main lightning rod for criticism – see Angela Knight and the British Banker’s Association – but the Government is going to implement it, essentially unchanged from how Sir John imagined it, in this Parliament. There’s plenty of time before then and now, however, not least if the Government accepts the Joint Committee’s proposal to wait before implanting higher capital standards.

More time for capital requirements may seem like a sop to the bankers, but many MPs of all stripes have been calling for a slowdown in the pace of reform given the current economic circumstances. That said it’s quite possible that a slower pace for enhanced capital requirements is both a boon to the bankers and good for the economy – unfortunately these things are rarely simple and never black and white.

Whilst the pace of change is under debate the Government has agreed in principle to the need for capital higher requirements than stipulated in Basel.

There have been conflicting reports on whether Britain can implement capital requirements above and beyond those decided in Brussels. The Chancellor thinks we can. Andrea Enria – Chairman of the European Banking Authority – seems less sure.

The problem remains that Brussels regulations are not even close to completion, and even if they do decide upon maximum harmonisation (preventing the UK from going higher on capital) there is more than one way to skin the capital cat.

Ultimately a good day for the ICB then. But there is a wider point. There are hundreds of work streams in London, Brussels and Washington that will impact on financial services. These are all intended to cure the ailing economy and prevent another crash.

In medicine when more than one drug is pumped into the patient there is a chance they can interact in unexpected and sometimes detrimental ways. The likelihood of interaction increases with the number of drugs. Each drug may be used with beneficial intent, but the combined result can be disastrous.

And so it is with financial services. The sector needs radical reform but too many cures will kill the patient.

* Ben Norman works on financial policy at Cicero Consulting.

‘The Independent View‘ is a slot on Lib Dem Voice which allows those from beyond the party to contribute to debates we believe are of interest to LDV’s readers. Please email if you are interested in contributing.

The last government’s record was far from perfect, but Milburn should advise the Coalition to recognise the very real progress made and learn from the successes just as much as from the failings.

Some Ministers, including Lib Dems, have bizarrely trashed the last government’s poverty record by pretending they were in office for only two years. ‘Child poverty rose by 200,000’ they have claimed. Well, yes, if you take 2005 as the starting point and 2007 as the end point. But if you take 1997 as the starting point and 2010 as the end point, the Office for National Statistics will tell you child poverty was reduced by 900,000.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies attributes this progress in somewhat equal measure to increased parental employment and the targeting of higher support to low income families with children through benefits and tax credits.

The absurd idea that ending child poverty should not involve counting the number of children in poverty is a disturbing and regressive echo of the approach that led to child poverty accelerating in the 1980s and 1990s. We have comprehensively responded to the myth making on measuring child poverty this way before.

Milburn needs also to remind the Government that tackling the scandal of child poverty should be a national priority in the good times but even more so in the bad times. Doing right by these children is also doing right by the economy. By limiting children’s potential, poverty reduces the skills available to employers, and impedes economic growth. Living with child poverty costs Britain at least £25 billion a year.

There are now two main government narratives about child poverty. In the yellow corner is the ‘social mobility’ narrative, led by the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg; and in the blue corner is the more emotive ‘bad British parents’ narrative, led by Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith.

The social mobility narrative suggests that with a narrow focus on improving the quality of early years services and schooling, children can flourish and succeed despite material deprivation at home and regardless of being socially and economically excluded from the mainstream of society. The evidence is clear that high quality early education and care leads to improved outcomes for children and the effects are the most long lasting for the most disadvantaged children – hence the importance of this investment. But the most powerful factor is still the home environment, so if you make their parents worse off, chances are you will not get the same effect. And we have no evidence yet of the long-term impact on child poverty of these policies. As readers of The Spirit Level will know, the evidence points strongly to another relationship – that higher social mobility is an outcome resulting from a more equal society with lower levels of income and wealth inequality.

There are fundamental issues that the social mobility narrative does not address. The UK economy has a growing problem of dependency on low pay. In the 1960s, pay accounted for 60% of GDP, but it is only 53% today. Pay is shared less fairly too, with much larger pay differentials between those at the top and the bottom and twice as many low paid jobs in the economy today as there were in the 1970’s.

The single biggest cause of child poverty is therefore the lack of jobs with a decent income that parents can raise their families on. There are far more children in poverty because their parent is a care worker, a retail assistant, a cleaner, a factory worker or a hospitality worker than because their parent is a gambler, alcoholic or drug addict. Around 6 in every 10 children below the poverty line are in homes where there is a parent in work.

The bad British parents narrative (which I have written on before) is a surprisingly literal pursuit of a ‘nanny state’ for its Conservative and Liberal Democrat proponents. It suggests that state services need to intervene much more in the lives of low income families, forcing parents to work and to improve their bad parenting skills. If a parent is in work but the family are still too poor, then it is they – rather than unscrupulous employers – who will face new financial penalties under the in-work conditionality rules of the Universal Credit.

Measured after housing costs, there are 3.5 million children below the poverty line inBritaintoday. This is around 3 in every 10 children and it is about twice as high a child poverty rate as countries like Germany, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Slovenia and Sweden. Are we really to believe that the key difference between theUKand our European neighbours with much lower levels of child poverty is the poor quality of British parents? There is in fact no evidence that low income families are any worse at parenting than anyone else.

Surely it is differences such as better pay and conditions for workers, adequate benefit and tax credit payments, higher state investment in universal childcare provision, more affordable housing and high quality public services that explains why they are doing so much better for their children that we are in the UK.

So, on Tuesday, we will be looking to Milburn to remind the Coalition about what the evidence says about why people are in poverty, what works to reduce or prevent poverty and, ultimately, that rising child poverty will be an indelible mark not just on the lives and life chances of children and our national prosperity but also on the Coalition’s legacy.

‘The Independent View‘ is a slot on Lib Dem Voice which allows those from beyond the party to contribute to debates we believe are of interest to LDV’s readers. Please email if you are interested in contributing.

So it’s not surprising that Tessa Munt MP, well-known for her principled stance against nuclear weapons, had the following to say about this shabby and unaccountable behaviour:

I am becoming increasingly concerned about the lack of openness at the MoD regarding the review on alternatives to Trident. This must not be delayed or hidden or re-branded whilst more and more contracts are signed which make Trident unstoppable after 2015.

No doubt Tessa’s concern will be echoed by many Liberal Democrat members and supporters, particularly from amongst those who have fought hard in recent times to ensure that their leadership holds the line on Trident – even if it’s not the full anti-nuclear position that many of them would prefer. After all, 2010 Party Conference delegates fought hard to secure the emergency debate which demanded due scrutiny, cost-saving measures and a rigorous review of alternatives to like-for-like replacement of Trident and secured this commitment by top levels of the party.

It is impossible to know – until an insider publishes their memoirs presumably – the exact extent to which Lib Dem ministerial intervention contributed to the Trident replacement delay. But certainly former Party President Baroness Scott thought that it was a pivotal factor. As she said in October 2010, after the delay was announced:

So Trident will not be renewed this parliament – not on a Liberal Democrat watch. Let us be clear, this is a significant victory for Liberal Democrat campaigners, and a fantastic example of what our Ministers can and do achieve in government.

Not long after, in May of this year, then Defence Secretary Liam Fox announced the Trident Alternatives Review – under the auspices of Lib Dem Defence Minister Nick Harvey and reporting to the Prime Minister and his deputy – to “review the costs, feasibility and credibility of alternative systems and postures”. This would enable the Lib Dems to put forward credible alternatives to like-for-like Trident replacement. Whilst many of us have argued that a ‘no-nuclear’ alternative should also be considered, nevertheless it was another Trident victory for the Lib Dems.

But the trouble with victories is that those on the losing side will then work to redress the balance.

It’s taken a few months, but the Tory backlash has started. Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has stated, in an answer to a Parliamentary Question from Jeremy Corbyn MP, that “[t]here are…no plans to publish either the report or the information it draws upon.”  Read that again. Now ask yourself how a review designed to open up debate and scrutiny of plans to replace our nuclear weapons system cannot be made public.

Following this, Defence Minister Peter Luff has itemised £2bn of spending at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Aldermaston where our nuclear warheads are made – also prior to any decision on upgrading them. This is in addition to the MoD’s projected £4bn which will be spent on replacement submarines before the ‘Main Gate’ decision point in 2016.

Both these developments are an insult, to parliamentarians as a whole, whose part in the decision-making process is being denied, and to Lib Dems in particular, who have made advances only to see them unilaterally – presumably – reversed. Tessa Munt MP is absolutely right to highlight the ‘lack of openness at the MoD’ and the fact that come 2016, the replacement of Trident could be presented to Parliament as a fait accompli. This cannot be countenanced and doubtless this view is widely shared amongst Lib Dems. Their fighting spirit, I am sure, will not allow the Tories to roll over them on this question.

Kate Hudson is the General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

In our briefing document ‘Privacy Under Threat’ NO2ID recently gave the coalition 3/10 on sticking to some of these promises. The proposed sale of information from our private medical records is the latest example that illustrates why we have the coalition such a poor rating. The reasoning behind such schemes is a utilitarian argument that the perceived benefit to sharing information trumps any rights or control we as individuals have over our own information.

Sadly we as citizens are losing even more control of our own information.  Our medical records continue to pass from doctors to central systems within the NHS, census data can now be widely shared with a range of bodies, and attempts to reclaim data capture by the police on the network of travel tacking ANPR cameras have been met with a stonewall.

Despite the coalition’s initial promises it ia business as usual for Whitehall data-sharing projects.  What started under the program of ‘Transformational Government’ is now wrapped up in the language of ‘Open Data’. The new language is attractive – after all we all want public data to be open and accessible.  Sadly bureaucrats too often conflate public data with private data collected and stored by public bodies.

Our private NHS medical records should belong to us, we as citizen s should be in control of them. They are not the Department of Health’s to trade and share. If we want to share our medical records so others can benefit there should be a clear opt in system where active consent is sought. This principle of clear consent operates throughout all medical research and should apply to how our data is used too. When government starts taking control of our information alarms bells should ring in those who are liberally minded. After all a society in which government assumes control of information is a society in which the government controls us.

* James Baker is the campaigns manager for NO2ID

‘The Independent View‘ is a slot on Lib Dem Voice which allows those from beyond the party to contribute to debates we believe are of interest to LDV’s readers. Please email if you are interested in contributing.

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 partnerships and on religious same-sex marriages by faith organisations that want to conduct them. This is in direct defiance of what her party members voted for: equality.

Nick Clegg has not dissented from her stance. We can only assume that he endorses it.

Lynne is lovely. I like her as a person. However, she has announced a long and unjustified delay in the government’s promised consultation on civil marriage and civil partnership; pre-empting the consultation findings by ruling out straight and religious equality.

She said at the start of this year that the consultation would begin in June. Then she postponed it until October. Now it has been put off until March next year. Why can’t the consultation start now? Despite all our requests, Lynne has failed to explain why this delay is necessary.

I am not persuaded that there needs to be any consultation at all. The ban on same-sex marriage is homophobic discrimination and should therefore be repealed immediately.

If black or Jewish people had been banned from marriage, the government would act swiftly to ensure marriage equality. There would be no long drawn out consultation period. There would be no appeasement of racists and anti-Semites. Why the double standards?

No other government legislation is being subjected to such prolonged consultation and repeated postponements.

The Scottish government has not hesitated. It’s consultation on marriage and partnership equality is already underway. Why is the UK Equality Minister dragging her feet and delaying her consultation until next spring? It doesn’t make sense.

The Westminster government has promised to legislate marriage equality before the date of the next election, due by May 2015 at the latest. However, the delayed consultation could result in the measure not completing its parliamentary progress in time. Likely resistance by the House of Lords might result in its being timed out. Is this deliberate?

Ending sexual orientation discrimination in marriage law is not only the right thing to do,
it has majority public support. There is, therefore, no reason for the government to delay in bringing forward legislation to end this legal iniquity.

Nearly two-thirds of the public support marriage equality. According to a 2009 Populus opinion poll, 61% of the public say that lesbian and gay couples should be allowed by law to get married:

Lynne Featherstone’s gay marriage consultation announcement looks like an attempt to head off the Equal Love – www.equallove.org.uk – legal case in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

In February, four gay couples and four heterosexual couples filed an application in the ECHR to overturn sexual orientation discrimination in civil marriage and civil partnership law.

Speaking as the appeal coordinator, I can say we are quietly confident that we will win the case – eventually (an ECHR ruling can take four years).

The current UK ban on straight couples having a civil partnership is clear discrimination. Lynne’s commitment to maintain this inequality is both surprising and shocking. It is wrong for her to exclude in advance any discussion about opening up civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples.

I stand for equality and this includes equality for straight people too. It would be wrong for the LGBT community to demand equal rights for ourselves and then ignore or accept the denial of equality to heterosexual people. In a democracy we should all be equal before the law.

There are many heterosexuals who would like a civil partnership. To deny them this option is very unfair – and it is illegal under human rights law. How can a Lib Dem Equality Minister support inequality?

The Netherlands has an equivalent to civil partnerships. Called registered partnerships, they are open to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. The vast majority of Dutch civil partnerships are heterosexual ones. They are hugely popular and would be equally popular in the UK, if the government allowed straight couples to have them. To deny British heterosexuals the option of a civil partnership is profoundly wrong and unjust.

This is bad enough. However, Lynne has also ruled that her consultation will not consider the option of ending the ban on religious marriages for lesbian and gay couples, even though some faith organisations – such as the Quakers, Unitarians and Liberal Jews – have requested that they should be allowed to marry same-sex partners. Lynne says no. She says the ban must stay. This is a violation of religious freedom. While no religious body should be forced to perform same-sex marriages, those that support gay marriage should not be barred by law from doing so.

I appeal to Lynne – and Nick Clegg – to rethink this ill-considered consultation timetable and its pro-discrimination parameters – to both ensure non-discrimination and to avoid an embarrassing defeat in the European Court of Human Rights.

It is outrageous that the Equality Minister wants to maintain the unequal, discriminatory laws that bar gay religious marriages and opposite-sex civil partnerships. Her stance is not compatible with her professed Liberal Democrat values or with the wishes of the vast majority of Lib Dem party members.

If you share my concerns, I urge you to email Lynne Featherstone via her Equality Office senior officials, Emma Reed and Lucy Phipps at

Your help could ensure a much needed rethink. Thank you.

• To sign the Equal Love petition: www.equallove.org.uk. For more information about Peter Tatchell’s human rights campaigns and to make a donation: www.petertatchell.net.

* Peter Tatchell is an international human rights campaigner. In 2009, he won LibDemVoice’s annual ‘Liberal of the Year‘ award which recognises liberals beyond the Lib Dems for their contributions to public life.

The Independent View is a slot reserved for writers from beyond the Lib Dems to write on matters the site’s editors believe will be of interest to our readers.

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 of the people who actually make up Britain. Unemployment is toxic for the entire country. Each year a new cohort of working age Britons is going to enter a depressed jobs market. Those that find a job will find themselves worked harder and for less pay, and they’ll be the lucky ones. The rest will endure scarring periods of unemployment with no promise of light at the end of the tunnel perhaps into the late 2010s.

There are no easy solutions to any of this. The pain is going to have to be borne; the only thing within the power of Government is to mitigate the pain on those least able to bear it, and it is on this basis that the Chancellor should be judged.

Infrastructure spending is one of the few tools left in the stimulus box, and it has the added advantage of being attractive to overseas investors. But even if Lou Jiwei – Chairman of the $410bn China Investment Corporation – and Britain’s pension funds ride to the rescue atop shiny new trains the impact is going to be neither immediate nor effective for the 1,000,000+ unemployed young people. Credit easing might be effective at shaking out a few billion more for business, but it’s not going to be transformative. Targeting millions for investment in SMEs has some promise but with so little money behind it we’re not going to see a significant dent in the unemployment statistics.

Ultimately, the Chancellor is doing what he can. And, despite the noises off before, during, and most likely after the Autumn Statement, Labour would not be doing things much differently. Taxes cannot be much higher than they are now without a serious impact on competitiveness, and the national credit card is far past maxed out.

That leaves the Chancellor trying to kick-start a £1.7tn economy with a package that will shake out to being worth less than £100bn. The Americans as a ratio of GDP spent almost treble that and they remain trapped in anaemic growth. I say this as a devoted Keynesian; this is a problem Britain cannot spend herself out of.

We’ve had a decade of Potemkin growth fuelled almost entirely by credit, and now the time has come to pay the piper. The deleveraging must be done but it must be done whilst protecting the most vulnerable in society.

This is not just altruism talking – although altruism frankly ought to be enough. No-one in Britain has become wealthy in isolation. The richest Britons make use of the workforce that the rest of the country pays to educate, they transport goods on the roads the rest of us pay to pave and they are safe in doing those things thanks to the police force the rest of us pay to patrol.

Ultimately, the Chancellor has done what little he could be faced with typhoon-strength economic headwinds. There is no silver bullet, and whilst I disagree with some of the decisions around the edges of today’s Statement – the climate change language was frankly a sop to the Tory back benches – I agree with the intent behind it; I have no choice, it’s the only game in town.

* Ben Norman works on financial policy at Cicero Consulting.

‘The Independent View‘ is a slot on Lib Dem Voice which allows those from beyond the party to contribute to debates we believe are of interest to LDV’s readers. Please email if you are interested in contributing.

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, more of the same is the last thing the economy needs.

In an attempt to show there is a real alternative to the government’s approach, IPPR has published its ‘10 Ways to Promote Growth’. These range from short-term measures that address the lack of demand in the economy right now to longer-term measures designed to address structural weaknesses that threaten to hold back the economy in the medium-term.

These measures include an overhaul of the deficit-reduction plan, first to spread it out over a longer period (something that may well be forced on the government in any case) and second to make it responsive to growth in the economy. Quite simply, there would be a set of rules that meant deficit reduction would be speeded up when growth was strong and slowed down when, as now, growth is weak.

This would create some flexibility for the Chancellor to guarantee the long-term young unemployed a job (matched by an obligation to take up the offer); to follow the CBI’s advice on introducing capital allowances; and to announce an immediate increase in public infrastructure spending, amounting to £10 billion by 2012/13. It would also allow the government to extend free childcare to make it easier for parents to return to work, as a first step towards a system of universal childcare.

Eventually, this will require offsetting action to make the deficit reduction arithmetic add up. Spending cuts and tax increases are not appropriate now, while the economy is so weak. But, when it is stronger, options for additional revenues include abolition of the winter fuel allowance, introducing a capital receipts tax to replace inheritance tax and restricting tax relief on pensions to the basic rate of income tax.

The Chancellor is expected to announce a policy of ‘credit easing’ in his Autumn Statement. This should focus on ensuring small companies are getting the funding they need to survive and expand in the current tough climate. Large companies already have large cash surpluses, and so are in less need to help in this regard. There has also been talk of seeking investments from pension and insurance funds to finance infrastructure projects. Past experience suggests this is a lost cause. Instead, the Green Investment Bank should be developed into a fully-fledged National Investment Bank, designed to raise capital to finance infrastructure spending.

The government also needs to offer firms more support for innovation – through the creation of ‘innovation zones’ – and for exporters – through an expansion of the Export Credit Guarantee Scheme. It also needs to encourage employers to lift productivity levels by making greater use of the existing skills in the workforce and to place skills centre-stage in its growth strategy.

Finally, the government should reverse its clampdown on students, who bring revenues to the higher education sector, and on skilled migrants from outside the EU, who businesses say are needed if they are to maximise their potential. The economy cannot be ‘open for business’ while also being closed to those who want to study and work here.

The government’s plan for growth is based on a set of miscellaneous policies agreed in coalition negotiations. This is the wrong approach. Instead, it needs to identify what is needed for the economy to grow: more demand in the short-term and increasing supplies of capital, labour, skills and land, together with better ways of utilising them, in the medium-term. Then it can work out how best it can help to deliver them.

* Tony Dolphin is Chief Economist at IPPR

‘The Independent View‘ is a slot on Lib Dem Voice which allows those from beyond the party to contribute to debates we believe are of interest to LDV’s readers. Please email if you are interested in contributing.

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, with total gross debt rising from 322% of GDP in 2000 to 543% of GDP in 2009.

This leveraging was not just driven by financial services or government; households too increased their debt to income ratio from 112% in 2000 to 169% in 2008. Government, industry and public must all, therefore, go through a painful but necessary period of deleveraging and low growth. Even without market uncertainty and sovereign debt crises, the programme of austerity was always a 10-year project, with the first Parliamentary term reducing the deficit, and the second consolidating the gains.

Furthermore, history has shown that tinkering around the edges, no matter how well intentioned, can actually make things worse. Gordon Brown’s time in the Treasury demonstrated that micro changes to tax and regulation actually undermine investor confidence and damage productivity.

This is especially true of proposals to target policies to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Firstly, the evidence shows that SMEs, despite comprising 99.9 per cent of enterprises in the UK, contribute 58% of employment, less than 49% of turnover and just 14% of tax revenue to the Exchequer. By contrast, the largest 100 firms in the UK contribute around 12% of tax revenue.

Secondly, attempts to incentivise enterprise and small business growth, such as the Government’s moratorium on regulation for micro and start-up businesses, can create perverse consequences such as incentivising larger firms to become smaller and preserving inefficient small businesses that contribute little to the general economy. The same is true of Vince Cable’s announcement of small firms’ exemption from employment regulation, which should be extended to all businesses. Business policy should not be targeted according to firm size, but aim to improve the environment for all firms.

The proposal to bring forward infrastructure spending to create jobs is equally flawed. The days of building infrastructure with high volumes of manpower with picks and shovels are long gone. Modern infrastructure projects, including green infrastructure, are capital intensive and largely employ skilled labour. As such, they are therefore unlikely to provide immediate respite for the one million currently unemployed, as many claim, and are equally unlikely to be situated where jobs are needed most.

Furthermore, as is the case with the Government’s launch of the Get Britain Building Fund on Monday, shifting forward infrastructure spending also increases the risk of the wrong project being pursued. The Government’s plans to underwrite mortgages and accelerate stalled projects risks repeating mistakes over sub-prime loans and developments that nobody wants.

Next Tuesday, the Chancellor’s greatest currency is consistency. The Government’s steadfast position of Plan A is right. It is also reasonable. For the two years which allow comparison, 2011 and 2012, the UK’s forecast contraction is 2.2% of GDP, compared to 2.4% in the Eurozone as a whole.

Yet inconsistencies in the Government’s economic policies are holding back growth. The Government’s ambition to make the UK “open for business”, for instance, is being undermined by restrictions on skilled migration and the Government’s equivocation on supply-side reforms to health and safety and employment law. Efforts to encourage bank lending to businesses are contradictory to simultaneous calls for banks to shore up their balance sheets and minimise risk within the system. The list goes on.

If the Chancellor holds his nerve in the face of economic headwinds and delivers on consistency then business confidence growth will return in the medium term. The Autumn Statement must recognise that quarterly growth reports should not guide economic policy, and that what really matters for growth is the underlying potential of the economy. The Chancellor must play the long game if he is to create a stronger and fairer economy in the future.

* Will Tanner is a Researcher at the independent think tank Reform. Reform’s new report, The long game: Increasing UK economic growth can be downloaded at www.reform.co.uk.

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 left as a footnote at the Summit. Meanwhile the hunger crisis remains more pressing than ever.

Global hunger has increased after the 2008 food price spike. The Global Hunger Index (GHI) notes that twenty-six countries in the world have hunger levels that are described as ‘serious’ or ‘alarming’. With four years for governments to keep their promise to achieve the Millennium Development Goals; the first one aiming to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, this situation is alarming.

Concern Worldwide works in 25 of the world’s poorest countries, with smallholder farmers like Jean Benchimas (pictured). With the right support, we know that many poor farmers are able to feed themselves through their own hard work. And we know that support to agriculture goes beyond the farmers themselves. When farmers grow more, they eat more and better food, sell food locally and employ others, helping the whole community to thrive.

People in the UK and the government have responded quickly and generously to the crisis in the Horn of Africa, but long-term solutions like support to smallholder agriculture are not getting the attention they deserve. Global aid to agriculture has declined since the 1980s. Poor farmers growing food for their families or on small-scale farms are often excluded from receiving agricultural support, as they are not seen as being ‘economically productive.’

The Liberal Democrat agenda regarding international development highlights its commitment on supporting actions to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. So we know that Lib Dem supporters will agree with Concern Worldwide that hunger is an outrage and needs to be tackled urgently.

The UK is highly influential in international development and we want to see the government lead the way on hunger reduction through support to smallholders. So we are asking you to push your MPs to:

• prioritise hunger reduction through DFID’s aid spending, focusing on longer term agricultural support to poor farmers
• commit to ensuring the UK uses its position as a leading international donor to pressure other governments to invest in poor farmers at the G8 and G20 meetings

Concern Worldwide is calling for the UK to lead the way globally to support poor farmers to grow more, to help make hunger a thing of the past. Please join us to help end hunger for hardworking farmers like Jean Benchimas, by emailing your MP today.

* Manmeet Kaur is Campaigns and Parliamentary Assistant at Concern Worldwide (UK). Find out more about Concern Worldwide UK’s campaign, Unheard Voices, championing the cause of smallholder farmers.

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 single rebellion saw 10 Lib Dem MPs vote to extend legal aid in complex cases. Exclude those in government, and as a proportion of the party’s backbench MPs, 14 rebels constitute a whopping 40%.

There have now been 86 Liberal Democrat rebellions so far this Parliament. In one session we’ve had more than twice as many Liberal Democrat rebellions as in the whole of the last Parliament. That’s a rebellion rate of 22%. Government is proving noticeably harder to handle than opposition – just as the Conservatives have also discovered.

Perhaps most worrying of all, however, for the party whips is the way the habit of rebellion has now spread. Almost everyone on the Liberal Democrat backbench has either abstained or voted against their party line (and most have done both).

The Legal Aid rebellions saw both Tom Brake and Simon Hughes finally break their ducks (Hughes had already abstained on tuition fees in December 2010). Of those who have been on the backbenches the entire parliament, the only Lib Dem who has not cast a single rebellious vote against the whip is Lorely Burt, although even she abstained on tuition fees last December.

Following the most recent rebellions, there is in fact now only one Liberal Democrat backbench MP whose voting has remained wholly loyal to the Coalition. His name is David Laws.

* Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart are at the Centre for British Politics at the University of Nottingham. They run www.revolts.co.uk, which analyses the voting behaviour of British MPs.

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, lax attitudes towards confidentiality and privacy are unacceptable.

Despite the much publicised decision to scrap the last Government’s NHS IT boondoggle, one element was quietly retained – the Summary Care Record.

As highlighted by our report ‘Broken Records’, this system will allow more than 100,000 non-medical staff access to patient information, with no requirement or check that they have any need to see the contents of a record.
There are clear steps that can be taken. Proper audit trails of who accesses records – assigned to individuals, not terminals – will add accountability, and much more robust training about the importance of privacy.

This kind of measures will help develop a more rigorous and respectful culture around personal information. Equally important is the work being done by a range of groups to highlight the incidents that would otherwise go unreported and to keep up the pressure for more attention to be paid to the problem.

Furthermore, there are two fundamental changes that are of a more serious nature. Firstly, infringing the privacy of someone – be they a patient, customer or marketing database entry – should be treated far more seriously. Verbal warnings and counselling appear frequently in the research we conduct, and only in a small proportion is employment terminated.

Secondly, the penalties under the Data Protection Act are clearly inadequate. The corporate penalty is of insignificance to the large organisations that hold the most information, while individuals are likely to escape with a small fine.

There is also a broader question that should be asked much more frequently – how much information is needed to provide the service in the first place? Big Brother Watch will be talking much more in future about the tendency of organisations in both the public and private sector to harvest as much information as possible. Simply, the greater the volume of information held, the greater the risk to our privacy.

There is one final, legislative step that requires urgent attention. The Justice Select Committee was the latest body to call for prison sentences to be available to judges presiding over cases involving breaches of the Data Protection Act, a move Big Brother Watch had previously said is much needed along with the Information Commissioner.

This power has already been legislated; however it remains to be enacted.

If the Coalition is serious about civil liberties and protecting privacy, delaying further on giving courts the tools to protect our personal information is unforgivable.

* Nick Pickles is Director of Big Brother Watch.

The evidence shows that even when children start school at age five on a reasonably even footing, those from disadvantaged backgrounds begin to diverge dramatically from their peers in terms of attainment.In 2009, for example, 38% of pupils in schools in the 10% most income deprived areas gained five A*-C grades (including English and Maths) at GCSE, whilst 63% achieved this benchmark in the 10% least income deprived areas, a gap of 25% (DCSF, 2010).

Education levels can be directly linked to a person’s happiness, earning power, and even health and longevity. This is why educational disadvantage remains one of the UK’s most unjust and pervasive problems.

It is a complex and deeply-rooted issue, with no one ‘quick-fix’ solution. I have seen increasing evidence, however of the power that education has to transform lives and, within a school, the single most important thing which can make a difference to a pupil’s future is access to effective teachers and leaders.

Teach First was founded to create, equip and mobilise a movement of leaders with a life-long commitment to raising the achievement, aspiration and access to opportunity of children from low socio-economic backgrounds.

We are making steady progress. This year Teach First was one of the most popular choices for graduates, with 6,000 applying for over 750 places on the two-year Leadership Development Programme. In September, those who got through the rigorous application process started teaching in 350 partner schools in challenging circumstances in six regions across the country. They all want to make a difference and most stay in teaching and engaged with our mission long-term. In July this year, the quality of Teach First’s training was rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted in all 44 categories assessed.

The Liberal Democrats have been supporters of Teach First since our launch, as have the two other main political parties. More recently, the coalition government’s support for our expansion, and the support we receive from our corporate partners and the schools we work with, has been invaluable in enabling Teach First to grow in numbers and expand our reach over the last nine years.

Teach First cannot address this problem alone, and as we head towards our tenth anniversary in 2012, and set out plans for the next ten years, a real focus will be on strengthening our partnerships with people and organisations that share the same goal.

If businesses, government, parents, schools and charities like Teach First continue to work together to tackle the attainment gap, I sincerely believe that one day every child in the UK will have access to a great education and the life chances that come with this. We should expect no less.

* Brett Wigdortz is Founder and CEO of Teach First. 

‘The Independent View‘ is a slot on Lib Dem Voice which allows those from beyond the party to contribute to debates we believe are of interest to LDV’s readers. Please email if you are interested in contributing.

“Tackling the financial deficit is the Coalition’s most immediate task. But tackling the opportunity deficit – creating an open, socially mobile society – is our guiding purpose.”

These are strong words indeed, marking an unequivocal commitment to improving the life chances of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. At a very minimum, they indicate a clear intention to manage the necessary public spending cuts in a way that recognises this laudable goal.

Last week, an analysis by the IFS revealed an expected fall in public spending on education of 3.5% per year in real terms between 2010-11 and 2014-15. Far more striking, however, are the discrepancies in the severity of cuts to be felt by the different areas within the education budget. Spending on schools, for example, will be essentially protected (with projected cuts of around only 1%). In stark contrast, the Early Intervention Grant – encompassing Sure Start and other early years spending – is expected to face an overall cut of around 22%. It is this deep and disproportionate cutting of early years spending that actually flies in the face of the stated desire to improve social mobility.

There is now an overwhelming body of evidence indicating that early intervention and a focus on the early years of child development are where the biggest differences can be made. The government itself has received two powerful reports on precisely this theme: those by Frank Field and Graham Allen.

The scientific evidence on the crucial importance of early brain development to later life chances –- outlined in detail by the Harvard Centre on the Developing Child -– is clearly established. So too, thanks to Nobel prize winning economist James Heckman, is the economic case for the cost effectiveness of early interventions over later remedial programmes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, prevention is better than cure.

All this evidence points categorically to the conclusion reached by Nick Clegg himself in response to the Allen report: “The foundations of a fairer, more socially mobile society are laid in the critical early years of life.”

If the Coalition is genuinely serious in its desire to significantly improve social mobility and create a fairer society, it should therefore be protecting and even prioritising early years spending, rather than slashing it. Ring-fencing school spending -– although it may appease more people -– will not be enough. Continuing the blanket subsidy on travel and fuel for pensioners regardless of need will certainly do nothing to help, and a move towards means-testing would easily cover the proposed cuts to the Early Intervention Grant.

The government is certainly doing some positive things in early years -– including expanding the free pre-school offer to disadvantaged two year-olds and the recently announced piloting of universal parenting classes. However, the IFS projections indicate quite clearly that there are elements within government -– possibly within the Department for Education itself -– that still have not grasped the crucial importance of the early intervention agenda.

The key point is that social mobility is not in fact just a ‘social’ issue: it is also a deeply economic one. One estimate predicts that failure to improve levels of social mobility could cost the UK economy as much as £140 billion each year by 2050 in wasted potential.

We are repeatedly being told that it is necessary to address the deficit now because it is ‘unfair to burden future generations with debt’. It is surely equally unfair to burden those generations with an ossified society that is both morally and economically flawed.

The Coalition should, in effect, be prepared to put its money, however limited, where its mouth is. Its own evidence indicates clearly that the biggest differences can be made by intervening early. Slashing early years spending by over a fifth is contradictory in the extreme with a ‘guiding purpose’ of improving social mobility.

* Chris Paterson is a researcher for the independent liberal think-tank CentreForum.

Instead of stressing coalition differences, the Lib Dems have the opportunity to show that they are a true alternative to Labour. The Lib Dems should stress that, unlike Labour, they protect ordinary workers by deregulating the labour market, and do not tend to just burden the unionised workforce with extra regulation. Labour unions do not represent all workers (only 26% of all salaried workers are union members (OECD)), nor do they represent the unemployed. Yet the Labour Party is likely to tend to this minority’s needs.

In total 85% of the Labour party’s donations come from the unions. 62.4% of the union members work in the public sector, where 64.5% of the wages are collectively agreed.

In the private sector, where 80% of the workforce works, just 16% of the wages are agreed collectively. These unions, despite being relatively small, have a huge amount of political power, not only because they fund Labour, but also though their election of the party’s leader, Ed Miliband. This power means that Labour is more likely to back the labour union member, rather than the majority of the workforce outside the unions.

This can have a devastating effect on the protection of workers outside the labour unions. Many of the workers outside the labour unions are paying for public sector pensions though general taxation. Additionally, many unemployed are not allowed to take the place of unionised workers who are striking.

Most devastatingly, unions are generally in favour of both immigration controls and red-tape, which hamper entrepreneurship, job-turnover, innovation and growth. Growth and innovation bring new jobs outside the unions’ control at the expense of old unionised jobs.

Collective bargaining, and other employment protections makes it expensive to get rid of workers. This not only slows the innovation process which is critical for growth, but again makes jobs more expensive as the entrepreneur takes the possible future cost of firing a worker into account. The entrepreneur will have an incentive to innovate in such a way to avoid these firing cost. This means that shops may choose self-sevice-check-out systems at supermarkets instead of employing more young workers.

To protect the liberties of the ordinary citizens, to allow ordinary workers to be innovative, entrepreneurial, and free from ridiculous regulation, the Liberal Democrats must make sure that they are the party protecting ordinary workers. The Lib Dems should emphasize the fact that the Labour Party is no more than a Labour Union creating a welfare state for union workers at the expense of ordinary workers and society at large.

* Henry Gruijters is a member of the Dutch liberal party, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).

Nick Clegg launched the government’s social mobility strategy last April, promising to ‘open the doors of opportunity’ to children from disadvantaged homes as they move into adulthood. Children from poor homes are half as likely to achieve five good GCSEs as their better off peers, and they account for less than one in a hundred Oxbridge students. Clegg rightly pointed out that this is both unfair and damaging for the competitiveness of our economy.

A key way to improve social mobility is to raise the educational achievement of children from poor backgrounds, and help more of them go to university. This goal is at the core of the government’s social mobility strategy, which sets out to narrow the huge difference in results between pupils from different social class backgrounds. People with degrees on average earn 85% more than those who leave school after GCSE, and are far more likely to work in the top professions such as law and medicine.

But recent figures from a number of different sources are all pointing in the wrong direction for improving social mobility. Most strikingly, we learned this week that applications for university courses are down 12% on this time last year, largely as a result of the rise in tuition fees. Of particular concern is the dramatic decline in mature students applying to university – which has seen a fall of over a fifth since last year. Studying later in life is often the best way of enabling people to improve their lot, especially if they have been let down by their education in childhood.

Meanwhile, eyebrows are being raised at the publication of the latest school exam data. Pupils at independent schools are three times more likely to achieve an A* grade at A-level than students from comprehensive schools. Given the top universities now require most applicants to have A* grades, it doesn’t seem likely that the gulf between the number of private and state school students getting into top universities will be closing anytime soon. This situation is likely to get worse following today’s revelation that spending on sixth form students is facing bigger cuts than other areas of the education system.

Dig into the data for GCSEs, and other worrying trends emerge. If children from disadvantaged homes are to get into top universities to study for subjects like physics or engineering, then they will have to take ‘hard’ subjects at GCSE and A-level – because it is these subjects that are preferred by admissions tutors. But only 20% of pupils in comprehensive schools took individual science GCSEs last year, with the remainder taking a ‘combined science’ course that leaves them poorly prepared to study the science subjects at A-level. This in-turn means they are less likely to go to a top university, as well as reducing the all important science base of the nation. Compare this to grammar schools – where 70% of pupils are studying individual science GCSEs – and the size of the gap that has to be closed becomes clear.

Of course going to university is not the only way to improve social mobility. There is much that can be done by employers to help open doors for young people to move straight into work, or for people to study in further education colleges. But it doesn’t look like the labour market holds many answers given its current state, with youth unemployment the highest it has been for a generation and the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training about to top one million.

With all the underlying indicators pointing to reduced social mobility, action needs to be taken to both stimulate jobs for young people and improve educational achievement. IPPR is calling for a job guarantee for young people who have been out of work for more than twelve months; a strengthening of apprenticeships and vocational qualifications through much greater involvement of employers ; making the pupil premium an ‘entitlement’ to guarantee that the extra cash reaches the pupils who need it, and a school accountability framework that focuses on the progression of all children, not just those achieving grades C or above. Taken together, these actions could form the basis of a proper offer for young people, and a strategy for raising social mobility with real impact.

Jonathan Clifton is Research Fellow at IPPR.

‘The Independent View‘ is a slot on Lib Dem Voice which allows those from beyond the party to contribute to debates we believe are of interest to LDV’s readers. Please email if you are interested in contributing.

Mozambique, Luis pointed out, ought to be well placed to feed its people, with 70% of the population living in rural areas and practising subsistence agriculture. In reality though, around 35% of families go hungry, as the government prioritises export agriculture. And an increasing proportion of this export production is devoted to feeding the appetite of the rich world’s cars and trucks, rather than meeting the needs of Mozambicans.

“Huge tracts of land are being granted to overseas companies to cultivate biofuels,” Luis told the meeting. “The people who lived and farmed there are forced out. Previously they could feed themselves but now they are left hungry.”

Luis leads an organisation, União Nacional de Camponeses (UNAC: the National Union of Peasant Farmers), which is part of a growing worldwide movement demanding a new model of food production known as “food sovereignty”, defined as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems”. People should have control over their food systems, whereas an emphasis on export projects such as Mozambique’s biofuels is only fuelling hunger.

War on Want published last week a report laying out the basic principles of food sovereignty. The report shows how the British government in particular has driven a free trade agenda at the international level, while pressing countries to remove social protections that would reduce suffering. Far from relieving hunger, the Department for International Development funds development of new crop technologies that deepen farmers’ reliance on companies’ seed and agrochemicals at ever greater prices, leading to hunger on an unprecedented scale.

The report was published as the UK and other nations held talks on the global food crisis at the recent UN food security committee in Rome. Unfortunately, while the world’s hungry number almost one billion, the committee failed to agree international guidelines on land governance. This leaves multinational companies free to buy up swathes of land inAfrica andAsia, often at local people’s expense.

The British government’s approach to world hunger is based on a model known as “food security”. It relegates the issue of hunger to a social welfare problem that can be resolved by simply handing out more food, while leaving world food systems at the mercy of free markets. As a result it fails to address any of the structural problems behind hunger. Indeed, by relying on inherently unstable commodity markets and filling the gaps with charity, the approach fosters extreme insecurity.

War on Want supports the call of campaigners like Luis for food sovereignty, which offers a real solution to the problem of hunger. It requires agrarian reform in favour of small producers and the landless, and the reorganisation of global food trade to prioritise local markets and self-sufficiency. This model also demands tougher curbs on global food chain firms, like supermarkets, and the democratisation of international financial institutions. Sadly, the government’s infatuation with big business is taking precedence over the rights of undernourished people.

* Greg Muttitt is Campaigns & Policy Director, War on Want.

War on Want’s report, Food Sovereignty: Reclaiming the Food System, can be downloaded at www.waronwant.org.

‘The Independent View‘ is a slot on Lib Dem Voice which allows those from beyond the party to contribute to debates we believe are of interest to LDV’s readers. Please email if you are interested in contributing.