• Ed Davey: get rid of Carer’s Allowance cliff edge
• Autumn Budget: NHS needs to be top priority to prevent winter crisis
• Phillipson on Laura K: hospitals left to rot need funding for repairs
• SNP ignore Parliament with hundreds of thousands of ‘Thatcherite’ P1 tests

Ed Davey: get rid of Carer’s Allowance cliff edge

Responding to news that the Government is set to increase the Carer’s Allowance threshold, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey MP said:

Raising the earnings limit for Carer’s Allowance would be a good step forward, but I hope the Government will go further and get rid of the cliff edge altogether.

We need a full review of Carer’s Allowance to end the repayments scandal and give carers the proper support they deserve.

Autumn Budget: NHS needs to be top priority to prevent winter crisis

Ahead of the Autumn Budget on Wednesday, the Liberal Democrats are calling for a rescue package for the NHS to prevent a winter crisis.

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said:

Years of neglect by the Conservative Government have left our health and care services at breaking point. Bringing our NHS and care back from the brink needs to be the number one priority in this Budget.

Our NHS is already bracing itself for this year’s winter crisis, on top of the continuing pressures of long waiting lists, crumbling hospitals and a care system in crisis.

It’s clear that a robust rescue package for the NHS is vital for economic growth – we simply cannot repair our economy without repairing our health services.

In the Budget this week, we Liberal Democrats want to see a new fund to break the cycle of the annual winter crises, meaningful investment to overhaul crumbling NHS infrastructure and outdated equipment and the launch of cross-party talks to finally put social care on a sustainable footing.

Phillipson on Laura K: hospitals left to rot need funding for repairs

Responding to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson announcing that the Government will commit to rebuilding crumbling schools during an interview with Laura Kuenssberg this morning, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said:

It is right that the Government commits to rebuilding crumbling schools. Children deserve to learn in safe, fit for purpose facilities and not have their learning disrupted by dangerous buidlings.

This Government also needs to commit to urgently repairing crumbling hospitals after the Conservatives left them to rot with empty promises.

Patients across the country are being treated in unsafe buildings that aren’t fit for purpose, some of which have sewage leaking into wards. This is unacceptable.

We Liberal Democrats will scrutinise the details, including timeframes to deliver new and improved buildings for our communities.

We also want to see health and care put at the heart of the Autumn Budget with a comprehensive rescue package for our NHS.

SNP ignore Parliament with hundreds of thousands of ‘Thatcherite’ P1 tests

Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Willie Rennie MSP has today called on the SNP Government to finally end their “Thatcherite” testing of Primary 1 pupils after new research revealed thousands of tests are still taking place despite Parliament voting to ban the assessments six years ago.

On 19th September 2018, the Scottish Parliament voted by 63 votes to 61 for a motion calling on the Scottish Government to halt the tests in P1. The Scottish Government immediately declared their intention to ignore the outcome of this vote.

Six years on, a parliamentary question from Mr Rennie has now revealed that 446,229 tests have been conducted since 2018, including 71,060 last year alone.

In November 2022, the SNP’s own policy convenor, Toni Giugliano, described the testing as “compounding pressures and mental health problems.”

Mr Rennie said:

Scottish Liberal Democrats and education campaigners won a hard-fought parliamentary victory which called for the scrapping of Thatcherite standardised testing of P1 pupils.

But the SNP government is hell-bent on ignoring the will of parliament at every opportunity, effectively telling it to get stuffed. If Westminster treated them like that, they would be up in arms.

From the very beginning, teachers have been clear that these tests are too stressful for the four- and five-year-old children subjected to them. They tell teachers nothing they do not already know.

Government is about choices, and this government have chosen to cut funding for mental health and school meals, all while maintaining a multi-million-pound contract on useless and cruel P1 tests. No wonder people don’t trust the SNP anymore.