• Conservative Leadership Race: Candidates have spent years defending the indefensible
• Badenoch’s maternity pay comment: Another example of Tory sleaze and scandal
• Cole-Hamilton addresses King at 25 years of the Scottish Parliament event

Conservative Leadership Race: Candidates have spent years defending the indefensible

Commenting after the four Conservative leadership candidates spoke with Trevor Phillips, ahead of the Conservative Party Conference, Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper MP said:

As James Cleverly said himself, people wanted the Conservatives out of Government and this dire set of candidates has made it crystal clear why.

From the Conservative’s Partygate and PPE scandals to their disastrous mini budget, every one of the Conservative’s leadership candidates has spent years defending the indefensible.

The British people have had enough of Conservative sleaze and scandal. They’ve had enough of seeing their health services and economy trashed. And that’s why so many former life-long Conservative voters backed the Liberal Democrats at the last election.

People want urgent action to fix the health and care crisis not Conservative leadership candidates sniping from the sidelines. That’s why Liberal Democrats are calling for a Budget to Save the NHS and Care and working day in day out to be the constructive opposition the country needs and deserves.

Badenoch’s maternity pay comment: Another example of Tory sleaze and scandal

After Kemi Badenoch’s comments on maternity pay earlier today, Liberal Democrat Women and Equalities Spokesperson Christine Jardine MP said:

It is this kind of out touch comment that shows yet again why the Conservatives got trounced at the last election.

The Conservative Party should focus also on championing policies that support British families, rather than the constant Tory sleaze and scandal we’ve become all too familiar with.

The Liberal Democrats’ proposals would give new parents the choice and flexibility they need, including boosting statutory pay for new parents, and a new ‘dad month’ to help more fathers take time off work to be with their new baby during the first year.

Cole-Hamilton addresses King at 25 years of the Scottish Parliament event

Speaking as he addressed Their Majesties The King and Queen to mark 25 years since the opening of the Scottish Parliament, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said:

Presiding Officer, Your Majesties.

It is said that the majority of children currently at primary school will go on to do jobs that do not yet exist.

That was certainly true for me, as I dare say it is true for the majority of members in this parliament.

I left primary school 10 years before this Parliament was reconvened by Her Majesty the Queen. It did not exist.

And yet the arc of my career has brought me to this chamber.

I love this place. I have never stopped loving it.

It can be a bear pit, full of rancour and acrimony.

But we’ve shown it can also be a cathedral of ideas, of shared endeavour where the needs and interests of the people who sent us here are paramount and supreme.

That together we can use the serious powers of this Parliament to give everyone a chance in life.

To lift people up with a secure warm home, good schools and fast access to local healthcare.

To protect our environment and the future of our planet.

And to create a society where hard work is rewarded, and where everyone can enjoy the promise of a comfortable retirement.

This chamber can be transformative.

So, Your Majesties, what of today’s primary school children, and the careers they will go on to have?

This Parliament has now existed for 25 years. Some of those children will carry the fire in this Chamber well into the next quarter century.

Many will go on to achieve things that we cannot possibly imagine. It is incumbent on all of us to nurture their ambition, to open doors to them. In everything we do here we must think of them and the inheritance we leave them.

On behalf of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, I would like to thank Your Majesties for your continuing support for the work of this Parliament.