Tag Archives: steve webb

Jenny Willott MP writes… Protecting a lifeline – Lib Dem success in battle for DLA Mobility Component

By Jenny Willott MP | Published 1st December 2011 - 3:21 pm

With all the headlines and discussion this week about the Autumn Statement and public sector strikes, people would have been forgiven for missing an announcement from the Minister for Disabled People, Maria Miller MP, that proves once again the Lib Dem influence in Government, and fulfilling yet another Conference motion.

Maria Miller has today announced that the Government is dropping the proposals to remove the Mobility Component of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) from people in residential care homes.

The reversal answers the calls our Party made last Spring in Liverpool, where we passed a motion calling for the plan to be dropped. …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , | 12 Comments

LibLink | Steve Webb fears poor rap for pensions

By NewsHound | Published 20th November 2011 - 11:28 am

FTAdvisor.com reports:

Steve Webb MP has raised fears about pensions’ poor image and how low interest rates and quantitative easing have damaged annuities. The Pensions Minister, who said the government is going to use employers to promote pensions and auto-enrolment, described auto-enrolment as being like a Ming vase – “very precious, but very fragile”.

He added he wants to change perceptions and instil confidence in retirement planning to ensure that charges are not too high and that pensions offer value for money. He said: “We need to move from a system that’s fiendishly complicated, that still leaves millions of pensioners living

…

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“The best pensions minister we have had in a generation”

By Mark Pack | Published 23rd October 2011 - 6:54 pm

I think you can guess who this quote is about… but here is what Andrew Hilton wrote in the Evening Standard this week:

[Steve Webb] is the best pensions minister we have had in a generation.

Hat-tip: Vote Clegg, Get Clegg

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Jenny Willott MP writes: 18 months and over a Billion pounds – Lib Dem victory on Women’s State Pension Age

By Jenny Willott MP | Published 13th October 2011 - 12:53 pm

The UK is getting older. In 1970 a person reaching 60 could expect to live a further 18 years. Last year, this had become 28 years. Advances in healthcare, living standards and technology mean that people are living longer and life expectancy is rapidly increasing.

That is why the Government took the decision to bring forward planned increases in the State Pension Age. As I’ve said on Lib Dem Voice before, it is absolutely right for the Government to do this. It’s not a nice decision but doing nothing would risk plunging future pensioners into poverty with less and less …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , | 12 Comments

The most striking statistic from Liberal Democrat conference

By Mark Pack | Published 22nd September 2011 - 8:50 am

Steve Webb, speaking to Lib Dem conference:

I found out that I was, indeed, the 11th different pensions minister in the last 14 years.

Posted in Conference | Also tagged | 2 Comments

Liberal Democrats Conference round-up and preview: Tuesday/Wednesday

By Mark Pack | Published 21st September 2011 - 8:17 am

What happened on Tuesday in Birmingham at Liberal Democrat conference and what to watch out for today, Wednesday:

(To find out more about any of the motions I mention, or indeed the others I’ve not highlighted, see the full agenda for the Liberal Democrats conference.)

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Liberal Democrats Conference round-up and preview: Monday/Tuesday

By Mark Pack | Published 20th September 2011 - 7:19 am

What happened on Monday in Birmingham at Liberal Democrat conference and what to watch out for today, Tuesday:

(To find out more about any of the motions I mention, or indeed the others I’ve not highlighted, see the full agenda for the Liberal Democrats conference.)

Posted in Conference | Also tagged , | 1 Comment

LibLink: Rennard and Webb in the Saturday papers

By NewsHound | Published 17th September 2011 - 4:36 pm

A double dose of LibLink love with two pieces to highlight.

First, an op-ed from (Lord) Chris Rennard for The Guardian with a lesson from history for the Liberal Democrats:

[Being in coalition] leaves the Liberal Democrats shaken by the drop in poll support but not entirely surprised by it. My view is that the drop in support should not be regarded as inevitable on polling day in 2015. In December 1996, the Lib Dems were suffering from too close an association with Labour and a poll rating below 10%. Analysis of the new parliamentary boundaries showed that the Lib Dems were

…

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Interview with Mike Moore MP – Action in Government, ideas for the future

By Caron Lindsay | Published 5th September 2011 - 1:51 pm

Interview: Mike Moore MP –  Action in Government,  ideas for the future

It can’t be much fun being Alex Salmond these days.  The euphoria of May has subsided, and he’s  realised that there’s nobody else to blame for his majority Government’s actions.  On top of that, wherever he looks, he sees the grin of Wilie Rennie,  ready to highlight any example of anglophobia, of  dodging , delaying, ducking and diving. The Scottish Liberal Democrat leader has had accolade after accolade in the press for providing such high quality opposition to the SNP …

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Posted in LDV interviews, Scotland | Also tagged , , , | 5 Comments

LDVideo: A fairer, more democratic, greener, liberal country

By Helen Duffett | Published 22nd February 2011 - 9:43 am


Video also available on YouTube here.

In this short film from Channel 4′s “Political Slot” Tim Farron, Floella Benjamin, Chris Huhne, Paddy Ashdown and Steve Webb talk about what Liberal Democrats are doing to make Britain a fairer, more democratic, greener, liberal country.

Tim says,

Normally, if you like Liberal Democrat ideas, ideas is all they remain. But for the first time in 65 years, the Liberal Democrats are in power, making a huge difference.

…and with the help of his colleagues, sets out the changes the party wants to make over the next four …

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Posted in Lib Dem TV | Also tagged , , , | 9 Comments

The political thought of the Liberals and Liberal Democrats since 1945: book review

By Mark Pack | Published 26th January 2011 - 10:25 am

Kevin Hickson’s volume, The political thought of the Liberals and Liberal Democrats since 1945, may be a short volume from an academic publisher with an academic book price tag to boot (look out for cheaper second-hand copies) but its contributors include many political practitioners. With Vince Cable, Steve Webb, David Howarth , Richard Grayson and Duncan Brack amongst them, this book has a very strong representation of people at the coalface of policy making rather than simply those who know of it only in theory.

As Hickson points out in the book’s introduction, the policies of the Liberal Democrats – even more so than other aspects of the history of the party and its predecessors since 1945 – have had very little coverage in books, an omission which this volume sets out to remedy and which political fortunes in the year after the book’s publication has made all the more useful a task to tackle.

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Posted in Books, Op-eds, Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Promising news on welfare spending as major reforms set for go-ahead

By Mark Pack | Published 3rd October 2010 - 8:57 am

On Friday I mentioned how the old Liberal Democrat policy of integrating and simplifying the tax and benefits systems is getting a revival courtesy of Iain Duncan Smith. The former Conservative leader turned Work and Pensions Secretary has been arguing hard for the funds to introduce a simplified universal benefit that also is more generous than current rules to people in low-paid jobs. This would mean that people who currently find that taking a job makes them worse off, or only marginally better off, than being unemployed thanks to loss of benefits would lose less of their benefits and so …

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The Independent View: Child poverty

By Richard Exell | Published 6th July 2010 - 3:35 pm

In 1999, the government announced that it meant to end child poverty by 2020. Making progress towards that objective is now the responsibility of the Coalition; how well is it likely to do?

Tony Blair’s pronouncement, made out of the blue at a meeting in Toynbee Hall, was a typical coup de théâtre, and it even surprised his own cabinet. It illustrated Mr Blair’s strengths – reassuring supporters who worried that new Labour had lost touch with their Party’s traditional values and at the same time neutralising critics from the other end of the spectrum. For a generation, inegalitarians had …

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Posted in Op-eds, The Independent View | Also tagged , | 9 Comments

The coalition agreement: jobs & welfare and justice

By Mark Pack | Published 1st June 2010 - 12:20 pm

Welcome to the thirteenth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.

The jobs and welfare section of the coalition agreement is one of the least important – not because the policy area doesn’t matter (it certainly does) but because it says very little beyond, “we want to make the welfare system better”. Quite what better means and whether it can really be done is all down to how Iain Duncan Smith in particular does his job, the choices he makes and the degree to which pensions …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , | 1 Comment

LibLink: Steve Webb – Indy readers ask the questions

By NewsHound | Published 29th March 2010 - 5:45 pm

Over at The Independent, Lib Dem spokesman on Work and Pensions Steve Webb answers questions from the paper’s readers, such as ‘Aren’t you having it both ways on the deficit?’ and ‘Isn’t Clegg really a Tory?’ Here are 3 of the Q&As …

Why haven’t British politicians learned the lesson of welfare reform in Wisconsin? Cut benefits, create jobs, and end a dependency culture. Christopher Rope, Ipswich

There are plenty of people who receive benefits through no fault of their own, so how is cutting benefits across the board morally defensible? The phrase “dependency culture” is insulting to those who have poor health or family responsibilities or other perfectly good reasons for relying on what I still think of “social security”, many of whom would love to be able to get out and work. Wisconsin-style measures cut the “welfare rolls” but what happens to those people and their children then?

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