Tag Archives: greg mulholland

Greg Mulholland to propose “complete separation of state marriage and religious weddings”

By The Voice | Sun 7th April 2013 - 4:00 pm

Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland was one of seven Lib Dem MPs to abstain from the vote on same-sex marriage in February. He explained his reasons for doing so here:

I do agree unequivocally that all adults must be treated equally in terms of legal recognition of their relationship and the rights that they convey; the question is how best to deliver that at the same time as protecting freedom of conscience. These are two important rights and must both be delivered simultaneously. The problem is that as currently drafted, the Marriage Bill delivers neither of these. It is a confused and flawed piece of legislation that does not actually deliver equality as it proposes different definitions of marriage for heterosexual and same sex couples; nor does it sufficiently protect freedom of conscience for people with religious and other differing views of marriage. This is why I was unable to support the Bill at second reading, however nor did I want to vote against it or what would be misinterpreted as my being anti equal legal rights, which I am very clearly not.

Greg now has a proposal, though it’s far-reaching legislative changes may not be well-received at Westminster:

Posted in News | Also tagged equality bill and same sex marriage | 18 Comments

Opinion: Why Greg Mulholland MP is wrong to criticise the NHS Medical Director

By Guy Lavis | Sat 30th March 2013 - 1:15 pm

When I heard yesterday that the local MP had called for the NHS Medical Director to resign following his decision to suspend all paediatric heart surgery at Leeds General Infirmary I dismissed it as predictable populist rabble rousing in search of a good local headline. On realising it was our own Greg Mulholland I felt angry and ashamed. How could one of our MPs have got this so wrong? Or as Stephen Thornton, the Chief Executive of the Health Foundation put it last night, “How low will local MPs stoop? Why does ‘local’ always trump quality in their eyes”. Quite.

In …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged child heart surgery and NHS | 30 Comments

Greg Mulholland explains his abstention on equal marriage bill

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 6th February 2013 - 4:50 pm

Greg Mulholland, Liberal Democrat MP for Leeds North West, has put a lengthy statement on his website explaining why he abstained during last night’s vote on the Marriage (Same sex couples) Bill. He did not want to vote against as he supports equality, but he does not feel that the Bill, as currently drafted, delivers that.

He said:

I do agree unequivocally that all adults must be treated equally in terms of legal recognition of their relationship and the rights that they convey; the question is how best to deliver that at the same time as protecting freedom of conscience. These are

…

Posted in News | Also tagged equal marriage | 4 Comments

Baroness Thomas writes… Getting Personal Independence Payments right

By Celia Thomas | Thu 31st January 2013 - 3:53 pm

This afternoon the Department of Work and Pensions announces a significant change on the new Personal Independent Payments following significant Lib Dem pressure. Celia Thomas, the Lib Dem peer who has campaigned tirelessly on the issue, explains why it’s a major win.

Getting the rules governing Personal Independence Payments right is vital. The new benefit, which will begin to replace Disability Living Allowance later this year, will have a huge effect on disabled people up and down the country.

I’m broadly in favour of the change to PIP, which seeks to clarify the eligibility of disabled people to this benefit, the purpose …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged mike german, personal independence payments, stephen lloyd and steve webb | 14 Comments

In other news… Teather’s non-defection, Mulholland on beer price-fixing & MEPs on Irish abortion law

By The Voice | Sun 25th November 2012 - 5:00 pm

Sarah Teather Would Rather ‘Poke Her Eyes Out’ Than Join Labour (Huffington Post)

Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather would rather “poke her eyes out” than defect to the Labour Party despite being sacked from the government, according to the party’s chief enforcer. After the New Statesman noticed Teather had voted against the coalition plans to cap benefits, a policy she decried as “immoral and divisive”, rumours swirled that this meant she was about to defect to Labour. However the speculation was shut down by Lib Dem whip Alastair Carmichael, who tweeted: “I just asked her, says she would rather poke

…

Posted in News | Also tagged catherine bearder, rebecca taylor, sarah ludford and sarah teather | Leave a comment

PMQs: Opposition leader asks: “Can I agree with the Prime Minister”?

By Paul Walter | Thu 12th January 2012 - 9:25 am

2012′s first Prime Minister’s Questions started with a bit of a score draw about rail fares. It got rather heated as Ed Miliband said the government had allowed fares to go up by 11%. He said:

The last Labour government saw that the train companies were taking advantage of consumers…we took away that power from them

David Cameron retorted that:

The power (to increase fares well above inflation) was given to them to do that by the last Labour government.

Channel 4 News FactCheck, as usual,has an excellent analysis of this spat, concluding that they couldn’t give either men a “Fact” or “Fiction” …

Posted in PMQs | Also tagged david cameron, ed miliband, mike crockart, railways and sir bob russell | 1 Comment

Ed Davey writes… Glass half full – or half empty?

By Edward Davey MP | Mon 28th November 2011 - 9:54 am

My announcement last week on pubs hasn’t won me or the Government three cheers from the likes of CAMRA or Fair Pint. Yet I believe it is a notable success for tenants and lessees across the country – and time will prove it so.

For the pubcos have till Christmas to make their Codes of Practice legally binding – so tenants and lessees can enforce their rights – and they know that if they don’t, Parliament would be very happy to make it legally binding for them.

Coupled with the other reforms we negotiated from the pubcos and brewers, real change has …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged martin horwood, pubcos and pubs | 36 Comments

PMQs: Bits start to fall off Cameron’s wagon

By Paul Walter | Wed 22nd June 2011 - 7:53 pm

After last week’s Miliband success at Prime Minister’s Questions, this time we started off with Ed Miliband in softly softly mode. He asked about Libya and the service chiefs’ concern about an extended campaign. Displaying a becoming measure of gravitas, he also asked whether the defence review should be revisited in the light of the “Arab Spring” which William Hague has described as more important than 9-11. That’s a good question given that the review didn’t mention Libya, Tunisia or Egypt.

David Cameron said he has been assured by the military grand fromage that we could keep the campaign going as …

Posted in Parliament and PMQs | Also tagged andrew george, angie bray, david cameron, dna samples, ed balls, ed miliband, iainstewart, john thurso, libya, the speaker and theresa may | 9 Comments

Greg Mulholland is first convenor of new Backbench Group

By Mark Pack | Mon 28th February 2011 - 3:25 pm

Greg Mulholland MP (Leeds North West) is the first convenor of the new Liberal Democrat Backbench Group. On being appointed he said,

The Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party has to work in a completely different environment than before and it is important that the voice of the Lib Dem backbenchers is heard.

We look forward to working constructively with Ministers and the Liberal Democrat leadership to make the government programme as positive as possible in these difficult times, as well as bringing a distinctively Liberal Democrat perspective to some debates.

Given the role of various Conservative backbench MP groupings in exerting pressure from their …

Posted in News | 4 Comments

Tuition fees: which way will MPs vote on Thursday?

By Mark Pack | Mon 6th December 2010 - 6:36 pm

Today saw a weird piece of media face with an impostor conning several news outlets into reporting that Edinburgh West MP Mike Crockart was going to resign as a PPS and vote against the tuition fees increase. The impostor even got as far as being interviewed by the BBC on the World at One before the hoax was rumbled. His office said that, “Mike is still waiting to see what the final offer will be before he votes and that has always been our line”.

(Ironically just before this took place, I was in Millbank to appear on the BBC’s …

Posted in News | Also tagged charles kennedy, higher education, mike crockart, Ming Campbell, norman lamb, tuition fees and universities | 76 Comments

PMQs: Hattie tries to throw a “stinger” in front of voting reform

By Paul Walter | Wed 9th June 2010 - 4:20 pm

Prime Minister’s Questions is definitely becoming more subdued these days. The bellowing and ya-boo atmosphere has reduced by about 80% since the election. The Cumbrian shootings have dominated both sessions so far, which has added to the quietish feeling.

Harriet Harman has suddenly developed an interest in the electoral roll and the fact that “3.5 million people” who could be on it, aren’t. Fascinating. She seems to have suddenly come up with this as a reason to throw a sort of police “stinger” in front of voting reform – or at least constituency boundary re-drawing. She seems to have forgotten that her party was in power for thirteen years. Why didn’t they do something about electoral registration then? And, as David Cameron retorted, the last election was fought on recently redrawn boundaries anyway – which rather kiboshed Hattie’s argument.

Harman then had a go about CCTV. David Cameron went off on one, ending up about rights to enter people’s houses. He did make some good points about civil liberties during which Nick Clegg nodded very strongly. Harman raised an estate on her patch where they want CCTV coverage. Cameron said it was all about proportionality. If only he could say that about voting reform.

Good joke from Cameron:

Posted in PMQs | Also tagged amnesty international, bridget phillipson, caroline flint, david cameron, electoral reform, harriet harman, james gray, jonathan evans, lord myners, nadhim zahawi, nick clegg, tim farron and wootton bassett | 42 Comments

Ros Scott’s campaign diary

By Baroness Ros Scott | Mon 5th April 2010 - 8:16 pm

During the general election campaign we will be running a series of diary pieces from party president Ros Scott. To kick off here’s her campaign diary of this month so far:

1 April

I’m fed up with waiting for Gordon Brown to call the election, so I’ve started without him.

Maundy Thursday saw me up bright and early to catch the 8.35 train to Sheffield for my first official visit of the campaign. I met up with Paul Scriven, leader of the City Council, and our Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) in Sheffield Central. Paul is both a highly effective council leader and …

Posted in General Election | Also tagged ashfield, bradford east, claire kelley, david ward, denis healy, dunfermline & west fife, glasgow north, gordon brown, harrogate, hull north, ian swales, jason zadrozny, katy gordon, leeds north west, paul scriven, redcar, sheffield central and willie rennie | 1 Comment

Lib Dems press on Kingsnorth climate camp policing

By Stephen Tall | Tue 7th July 2009 - 10:12 am

Lib Dem Voice has covered before the allegations of that the policing at the climate camp at Kingsnorth in August 2008 was unacceptable – click here for the archive. Lib Dem MPs are continuing to press the Home Office to present an honest account of what happened, and to state what lessons have been learned for future policing of peaceful protests.

Yesterday in the Commons, both Greg Mulholland and Chris Huhne asked the questions of the Government’s minister for policing. Here are the exchanges from Hansard:

Posted in Parliament | Also tagged chris huhne, home office, kingsnorth and policing | 4 Comments

Mirza Tahir Hussain’s death sentence commuted

By Will Howells | Thu 16th November 2006 - 9:12 am

Last month we reported on Greg Mulholland’s efforts to save Leeds man Mirza Tahir Hussain from execution in Pakistan. President Musharraf was also lobbied by Members of the European Parliament and by Tony Blair.

The BBC reports today that the hanging, imposed by a Sharia court after Hussain had been cleared by Pakistan’s high court, has been commuted to a life sentence by the President. Official confirmation is expected later this morning.

Posted in News | Also tagged mirza tahir hussain and tony blair | Leave a comment

Nick Clegg: "Of course the EU has to change"

"Mad, swivel-eyed loons": a top Tory on the Tories

Ed Davey: Helping consumers to get cheaper energy bills

That EU vote: Stephen Tall's 6 thoughts on what it means

Tag Archives: greg mulholland

Greg Mulholland to propose “complete separation of state marriage and religious weddings”

Opinion: Why Greg Mulholland MP is wrong to criticise the NHS Medical Director

Greg Mulholland explains his abstention on equal marriage bill

Baroness Thomas writes… Getting Personal Independence Payments right

In other news… Teather’s non-defection, Mulholland on beer price-fixing & MEPs on Irish abortion law

PMQs: Opposition leader asks: “Can I agree with the Prime Minister”?

Ed Davey writes… Glass half full – or half empty?

PMQs: Bits start to fall off Cameron’s wagon

Greg Mulholland is first convenor of new Backbench Group

Tuition fees: which way will MPs vote on Thursday?

PMQs: Hattie tries to throw a “stinger” in front of voting reform

Ros Scott’s campaign diary

Lib Dems press on Kingsnorth climate camp policing

Mirza Tahir Hussain’s death sentence commuted

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Nick Clegg: "Of course the EU has to change"

"Mad, swivel-eyed loons": a top Tory on the Tories

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That EU vote: Stephen Tall's 6 thoughts on what it means

Tag Archives: greg mulholland

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