15 January 2025 – today’s Federal press releases

  • Public Accounts Committee SEND Report: Urgent reform needed
  • Inflation: economy is “stuck in the mud”
  • PMQs: Davey urges PM to create visa route to attract high-skilled Americans fleeing Trump
  • Davey: Israel-Gaza ceasefire must lead to a lasting peace and two-state solution

Public Accounts Committee SEND Report: Urgent reform needed

Responding to the PAC report on SEND provision, Munira Wilson MP, Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson, said:

This report lays bare what we already knew to be the dire truth: that a wrecked system of SEND provision in this country is failing children and families every single day.

And thanks to the last government’s total lack of action, local council budgets have become sinkholes for the SEND funding crisis – a ticking time bomb that will only last so much longer.

We urgently need reform. This Government must listen to Liberal Democrat calls and establish a National Body for SEND now.

Inflation: economy is “stuck in the mud”

Responding to inflation falling to 2.5%, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said:

This unexpected fall offers a glimmer of hope but the reality is the UK economy remains stuck in the mud.

The Chancellor’s Budget has failed. Growth is nowhere to be found after the damaging national insurance hike and stagflation remains a real threat.

The Conservative Party’s economic vandalism cannot be overstated but the new government’s approach has been totally flawed.

It is time for the Chancellor to rethink and bring forward thought through ideas for growth like rebuilding our trade relationship with Europe and scrapping their counterproductive jobs tax.

PMQs: Davey urges PM to create visa route to attract high-skilled Americans fleeing Trump

At Prime Minister’s Questions today, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey urged the Prime Minister to create a new visa route so that highly-skilled Americans seeking to flee the Trump presidency can “bring their money and their skills” to the UK, “so we can grow our economy and pay for our public services”.

According to a report in the Financial Times, UK immigration lawyers have received a spike in inquiries from “mobile, wealthy individuals in tech, law and the arts” who are “worried about socially conservative policies that Trump could introduce once in office”.

Under the poorly-designed immigration system introduced by the last Conservative Government in 2020, there are now only two main routes available for people not sponsored by an employer or coming to study in the UK: the “Global Talent” and “High Potential Individual” visas. But both of these have extremely limited criteria, with fewer than 2,700 issued to Americans in total since they were brought in.

When the Conservative Government closed the Investor visa route in 2022 – because Ministers had failed to prevent it being abused to launder money and evade sanctions, especially by Russian oligarchs with links to Vladimir Putin – it promised a new investment-based visa to replace it, but never delivered one.

At Prime Minister’s Questions, Ed Davey said:

An idea for the Chancellor to grow the economy: as President-elect Trump prepares to take office next week, there are reports that a number of wealthy, highly-skilled Americans are looking to come to the UK for fear of what President-elect Trump will do to their country.

But because the Conservatives so broke the immigration system, many of them are finding there is no visa that they can apply for.

Now I know the Prime Minister is rightly seeking to reduce immigration from the record highs of the Conservatives, but does he agree: if people like this want to come to our country, to bring their money and their skills, so we can grow our economy and pay for our public services, they should be able to?

Davey: Israel-Gaza ceasefire must lead to a lasting peace and two-state solution

Responding to the Israel-Gaza ceasefire, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, said:

The announcement of a ceasefire is, at last, a moment of hope after many months of darkness and despair for the region.

As this ceasefire comes into effect, Palestinians will hope that the killing will now stop. Israeli hostages will finally be returned to their loved ones again after being held in captivity for fifteen months. The work of flooding Gaza with the aid which it has desperately needed for months must begin in earnest.

Now, it is incumbent on the UK and the entire international community to do all it can to ensure that this ceasefire does not turn out to be a temporary truce. Otherwise we will not be able to get the remaining hostages home and finally alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

We must look back on this moment as the first step on the road to a lasting peace. That two-state solution – with a recognised Palestinian state based on 1967 borders – is the only way to deliver the dignity and security which Israelis and Palestinians deserve.

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One Comment

  • There is a third route available to “high-skilled Americans”, simply use their GB passport and return to the UK !
    Over the decades many high-skill UK passport holders have obtained green cards and gone to work in the US, for better pay…

    I doubt reopening the high net worth visa category will attract many Americans with sufficient net worth to make it worthwhile them becoming UK citizens and investing in the Uk beyond that necessary to build their oligarch residences…

    What would be more beneficial is to continue the programme of making the UK a good place to locate R&D. Whilst, David Cameron was a champion of this, I think he was building on something started in the 90s after it dawned on the government that the reason for the 1980s brain drain was lack of government funding to the universities and hence their ability to pay rates competitive to the US research universities.

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