• Lib Dems say shocking hospital wait stats should “shake us to our core”
• GDP: Govt must now use UK-EU summit to boost growth
• Sneaky Kemi needs to “take head out of the sand” on EU
• Lib Dems move to quash sell-out law allowing foreign stakes in UK newspapers
• Cole-Hamilton to First Minister: SNP have failed social care and NHS

Lib Dems say shocking hospital wait stats should “shake us to our core”

Responding to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimating that there were more than 16,600 deaths of patients linked to long waits in A&E for hospital beds last year, Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson Helen Morgan MP said:

These figures should shake us to our core. People are dying needlessly in corridors and glorified cupboards as staff are stretched to breaking point, working in conditions that resembling the stuff on nightmares.

This is where we must draw a line in the sand. The Conservatives led us to this point – an NHS on its knees and countless preventable deaths – but it is up to this Government to make sure that this never happens again.

The Health Secretary must step up, free up much-needed hospital beds by overhauling social care as he has pledged to do and back our campaign to end corridor care by the end of this Parliament. That is what the public deserves.

GDP: Govt must now use UK-EU summit to boost growth

Responding to GDP growth of 0.2% for March and 0.7% over Q1 of 2025, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said:

This is positive news for the economy but this is no time for complacency.

These figures are from before the Chancellor’s jobs tax came into force and Trump’s trade war began.

The government needs to use the UK-EU summit on Monday to boost businesses and cut red tape, including by immediately starting talks on a bespoke customs union.

Sneaky Kemi needs to “take head out of the sand” on EU

Following Kemi Badenoch’s speech to the International Democracy Union, James MacCleary MP, Liberal Democrat Europe Spokesperson, said:

Kemi sneaking off to Brussels to talk down Britain: I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. It’s a well-rehearsed act.

She’s wrong on Europe: standing stronger together with our EU allies makes us stronger at home, not weaker.

It’s time for Badenoch to take her head out of the sand and wake up to the huge potential for growth that a proper deal with the EU could unlock.

Lib Dems move to quash sell-out law allowing foreign stakes in UK newspapers

Following the revelation that the Labour Government will legislate to allow foreign states to own up to 15% of British newspapers, the Liberal Democrats will move to dismantle the new rules via a Fatal Motion – a rare parliamentary device that would permanently halt the law’s progression.

The Government’s new plans to allow foreign states to own up to 15% has been met with outcry across the industry and by the Liberal Democrats, who have called the move an “insult” to the “centuries-old” freedom of the press championed in Britain.

The move by Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, reneges on previous legislation passed in 2024 intended to prevent foreign ownership, control or influence over UK newspapers and news magazines. Those measures, contained in the Digital Markets and Competition Bill, received cross-party support.

The Lib Dems have pledged to table a Fatal Motion in the House of Lords to halt the passage of the new legislation that would allow foreign stakes in UK newspapers. The device, though rare, has the power to kill off the legislation outright, forcing the Government to scrap their plan to sell out British papers to foreign states.

The motion would have enough votes to pass if the Conservatives chose to back it. The Conservatives in the Lords voted for Fatal Motions that successfully halted Government legislation when they were last in opposition before 2010, research from the House of Lords Library shows.

Max Wilkinson MP, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Culture, Media and Sport, said:

Our free press is the cornerstone of British democracy – it can never be for sale to foreign powers.

In 2024, it seemed there was cross-party consensus on this. But just as we’ve seen with their approach to copyright protections and AI, Labour are demonstrating they are willing to put at risk one of this nation’s great assets.

This move insults all of those working to maintain the centuries-old British value of press freedom. It must be reversed.

Lord Chris Fox, the Liberal Democrat Business and Trade Spokesperson in the House of Lords, said:

Our newspapers need certainty that their editorial independence won’t be swayed by foreign powers buying up stakes in their business.

It’s one of the most important values we have here in Britain – and the Government reversing a ban on foreign stakes in the UK press agreed just last year pulls the rug out from many who thought they had a final decision from the Government.

We’ll be tabling a fatal motion to stop this misguided move to sell out our press freedoms.

Cole-Hamilton to First Minister: SNP have failed social care and NHS

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today accused the First Minister of failing social care and the wider NHS in Scotland, highlighting the case study of a Highland resident who couldn’t get a local care home place due to closures and waiting lists.

Mr Cole-Hamilton asked:

There is a crisis in social care in Scotland.

Research by my colleague Angus MacDonald MP shows that, in the last decade, the number of care homes for older people in the Highlands fell by a fifth. That’s whilst the older population in that part of the country is surging.

Duncan lived in Acharacle in the West Highlands- but when he needed a care home, the nearest available was in Fort Augustus. Because the local home to him had closed.

That’s the equivalent of placing an Edinburgh resident at a care home in Dumfries.

The travel time meant that his wife Nino was robbed of precious hours with her dying husband every single day. Time she can never get back.

Does the First Minister think that that is acceptable?

Responding to the First Minister, he said:

It’s not just people like Nino that are being denied precious time with their loved ones.

Because on any given night in this country, 2,000 Scots are stuck in hospital. They are well enough to leave but cannot.

Why? Because there is no care home place to receive them, or a care package to help them home.

That means hospitals are overwhelmed.

That means people aren’t getting operations.

That means ambulances are stacking up outside our A&E.

So, can I ask the First Minister if he will commit with urgency:

To building new care homes in areas like the West Highlands;

To delivering key worker housing;

And to boosting salaries to make social care a profession of choice?