• Davey: Sunak leaving D-Day early a “dereliction of duty”
• Lib Dems pledge to create new National Parks
• D-Day: Lib Dems call on Sunak to donate Hester £5 million to a veterans’ charity
• Scottish Liberal Democrats commit to returning UK to Erasmus
• Lib Dems call for new protections for rivers and coastlines as sewage dumped over 83,000 times in Welsh waters last year

Davey: Sunak leaving D-Day early a “dereliction of duty”

Responding to reports that Rishi Sunak left D-Day commemorations in Normandy early, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

One of the greatest privileges of the office of Prime Minister is to be there to honour those who served, yet Rishi Sunak abandoned them on the beaches of Normandy. He has brought shame to that office and let down our country.

I am thinking right now of all those veterans and their families he left behind and the hurt they must be feeling. It is a total dereliction of duty and shows why this Conservative government just has to go.

Lib Dems pledge to create new National Parks

• The Liberal Democrat manifesto will include a pledge to create at least three new National Parks, with additional funding to boost the National Parks budget

• Ed Davey said that the proposals would help “protect our beautiful countryside for the next generation” and make good on the “broken promises of the Conservative Party”

• The party sets out plans where the Chilterns, Surrey Hills, and North Downs could be among the first new National Parks created in 14 years

The Liberal Democrats have pledged to create new National Parks across England, Ed Davey will announce today.

The policy would lead to an expansion of National Parks by adding at least three new parks to the existing ten in England, with new funding of £50m a year for new and existing National Parks.

The party stated that new National Parks could be created in the Chilterns in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Other areas could include a new Park in Somerset including the Mendips, Cotswolds and Quantocks, or designating the Surrey Hills, Northumberland Coast or Dorset as new National Parks.

Liberal Democrats have also committed to boosting funding for existing Parks, helping them protect and enhance the natural environment, to enable them to become National Nature Parks. This follows the 2019 Glover review which said that National Parks didn’t do enough to enhance nature and needed greater support.

Planting 60 million new trees a year will also be a manifesto commitment for the party. It would aim to reverse the trend of declining tree planting, decreasing from 30,000 hectares per year in the late 1980s to just 3,000 per year in 2022/23.

The Conservatives pledged to create one new National Park in their 2019 manifesto but have failed to clarify where that Park would be, having waited to start the search until 2024.

The Conservatives have signed off on new gas drilling in the Surrey Hills National Landscape and reopening a previously closed site near Winchester in South Downs National Park. Liberal Democrats would ban onshore oil and gas drilling in National Parks and other protected landscapes.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

Our National Parks are some of the most beautiful parts of our country, and that’s why I’m delighted that Liberal Democrats will create three new National Parks across England.

This Conservative Party has broken too many promises to protect our countryside. Over the last few weeks, whilst travelling the country, I have heard from people about how important natural spaces are to families. It is hard to overstate the difference things like National Parks can make to entire communities.

Liberal Democrats promise to create new National Parks, which could include areas like the Chilterns, as well as ensuring that our existing parks, beloved by people across the country, are protected for generations to come.

D-Day: Lib Dems call on Sunak to donate Hester £5 million to a veterans’ charity

The Liberal Democrats have called on Rishi Sunak to donate the £5 million of donations received by the party from Frank Hester in January to a veterans’ charity, following his decision to leave the D-Day commemoration events early yesterday.

Liberal Democrat Defence Spokesperson and veteran Richard Foord said:

The Prime Minister has badly let down veterans and our country. He disrespected his office and the United Kingdom.

Yesterday it emerged that the Conservative Party accepted another £5m from Frank Hester, a man who has made the most appalling racist and misogynistic comments.

Rishi Sunak must personally ensure this money is donated instead to a veterans’ charity as an apology for his absence yesterday. It’s the least that our veterans and service personnel deserve.

Scottish Liberal Democrats commit to returning UK to Erasmus

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today set out his party’s commitment to returning the UK to the Erasmus Plus Programme, describing this as a crucial step in protecting the status of Scotland’s world-class universities and boosting education and skills across the country.

During a visit to Glasgow University, Mr Cole-Hamilton emphasised the damage caused by the Conservative Party’s hard Brexit, which has left the UK outside the Erasmus Plus Programme – a scheme which enables thousands of students every year to work and study across the EU.

The Scottish Liberal Democrat leader also discussed how the SNP have compounded problems by breaking their promise to Scottish students to bring forward a Scottish Government-run Erasmus replacement.

By returning Scotland and the rest of the UK to Erasmus, Mr Cole-Hamilton highlighted that we could protect the status of Scotland’s world-leading universities and lift up our skills and education sectors.

Mr Cole-Hamilton said:

The Erasmus programme is a fantastic initiative that helped us forge relationships with our European friends and opened up the world for Scottish universities and students.

We can expand opportunities for young people to study, teach and volunteer abroad by returning the UK to the Erasmus Plus programme as an associated country.

With their bombsite Brexit, the Tories have torn up our invaluable connections with Europe. The SNP have also broken their promise to get an Erasmus replacement sorted.

By contrast, in Wales, Liberal Democrats successfully delivered an Erasmus replacement programme, with thousands of opportunities for young people to take part in life-enriching exchanges.

By returning us to Erasmus Plus, we can boost the reputation of our world-leading universities across the channel and throughout the continent. It will equip young people with opportunities to succeed, support our skills sector and get our economy thriving.

Everyone knows that it’s only the Liberal Democrats who will put in the work to build back our ties with Europe.

Lib Dems call for new protections for rivers and coastlines as sewage dumped over 83,000 times in Welsh waters last year

• Rivers would be given a new protected status against sewage discharges with the current government scheme branded “toothless”.

• Party uncovers water firms have discharged sewage over 83,000 times in Welsh Waterways.

• In 2021, 7,888 of these spills were in designated bathing waters. Dŵr Cymru has failed to record spillages at bathing sites since 2021.

• Wales currently only has a single officially designated inland bathing water site (Llyn Padarn in Llanberis).

• Lib Dems set out “boldest manifesto on cleaning up our rivers and coastlines”.

The Liberal Democrats have announced a massive expansion of marine protected areas and a new Blue Flag status for rivers will be included in their general election manifesto.

In response to sewage being pumped into bathing water status rivers, the party has announced plans for new Blue Flag rivers, setting legally binding targets to prevent sewage dumping in those sites. Blue Flag rivers would give special protected status for swimmers and wildlife.

The current government bathing water scheme has failed to protect waterways from sewage discharges by only requiring increased water quality testing. Analysis by the Liberal Democrats has found in 2021 Dŵr Cymru discharged sewage into bathing water areas across Wales 7,888 times for over 63,598 hours. Dŵr Cymru has since failed to report sewage discharges in bathing waters since 2021.

The Liberal Democrats are also announcing new plans to protect coastal marine wildlife, which would see the expansion of the blue belt of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

Marine environments are currently in a state of crisis due to sewage and plastic pollution.

Commenting Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds MS said:

Our precious rivers and coastlines have been destroyed after years of a Conservative government letting water firms get away with environmental vandalism.

Meanwhile the Welsh Labour Government in Cardiff Bay has also failed to use the powers they have available to them to tackle the issue.

It is time we got tough on polluting and profiteering water firms. Conservative MPs and Welsh Labour Ministers have stood by whilst swimmers have become ill and wildlife killed by sewage discharges.

This scandal has to end now. The Liberal Democrats will have the boldest manifesto on cleaning up our rivers and coastlines. Families should be free to swim safely in the knowledge that our waters are not polluted with sewage.

Responding to the news that Welsh Water’s pollution incidents shot up last year, she added:

For years on end, water companies have been allowed to get away with pumping raw sewage into our waters while siphoning off huge amounts of money for executive bonuses.

The Liberal Democrats have the strongest commitments to cleaning up our rivers and seas and have been campaigning on this issue from the very beginning.

We would abolish Ofwat and replace it with a beefed-up regulator with real powers to enforce the protection of our waterways. We have also this week called for new Blue Flag status for rivers, setting legally binding targets to prevent sewage dumping in those sites.