Motion F9 Improving the diversity of our MPs is up for debate late on Saturday afternoon at the Liberal Democrat Sheffield conference. It attempts to be a successful, and not toothless, compromise between the strongly held conflicting views in the party on what should be done in response to not only the continuing dominance of the (Commons) Parliamentary Party by white men but also the significant slippage of the party’s diversity record compared to that of both Labour and Conservatives over the last few general elections.
As it is a motion explicitly about MPs, I can appreciate why it does not address local government. However, the flatlining of the proportion of Lib Dem councillors who are female for two decades now is a much neglected subject, and the male (and white) dominated pool of councillors is an important contributory factor to the similar pattern amongst MPs in my view.
What the motion does cover is better mentoring, setting of targets and then the heart of the proposals:
The creation of a Leadership Programme for outstanding candidates from under-represented groups, which will:
a) Have a maximum number of approved candidates, with a minimum of 30 by the end of 2011, and within that, 50% of the places will be reserved for women, and 20% for those from BAME backgrounds, and 10% for those with disabilities.
b) Provide advanced training and support, particularly in media, leadership and team building skills, and fundraising.
c) Provide mentoring and coaching from the moment they are approved as a candidate until after the election day.
d) Offer them opportunities to shadow a Parliamentarian.
e) Raise funds to provide practical support to PPCs from under-represented groups.
As an added impetus, the motion says that if there are enough applicants, then at least two people from the Leadership Programme must be included on the shortlist for a priority seat. Also, development seats should advertise in clusters, making it easier for them to hit targets for diversity in shortlists across the whole cluster.
When talking about how tortoises hold the secret to online success, I only talked about the total number of people on email lists. If you are a campaigner wanting to build up an email list to effectively communicate with residents in your area, that is an important number to have a sensible target for and to work towards.
But it’s only one of the three crucial email numbers.
The second is the open rate on your emails. Email open rate statistics are provided by most of the email management services available, and indeed it’s one of the main reasons for using …
Yesterday Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne launched the Government’s Carbon Plan, setting out in draft form the steps the government will take to cut carbon emissions. The plan is now going out to consultation, with the final version due in the Autumn.
There are three priority areas in the plan for change in the way we do things: electricity generation, heating of homes and workplaces and transportation. The plan also commits the government to working for tough international agreements on tackling climate change.
Reflecting Chris Huhne’s eagerness to see environmental action as being good for the economy as well as the environment, the plan was accompanied by a scheme to train at least 1,000 Green Deal apprentices. That would both help implement environmental improvements and provide people with the skills to get jobs.
Nick Clegg said at the launch that,
We want to be the greenest government ever. We will reshape the economy, change the way we power our transport, heat our homes, and generate our electricity. We must put the development of the green economy at the centre of our ambitions to rebalance the economy.
The Green Deal is about the future – and it is important we ensure that future generations have the skills they need to take advantage of the opportunities of the green economy. These apprenticeships are a perfect example of how government and business can work together towards a low carbon future.
There is a noticeable difference between the comprehensive environmental action in the climate change plan (coming from a Liberal Democrat led department) and the government’s sustainability policies (coming from the Conservative-led Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).
Key proposals in the plan include:
Legislating to create a floor in the carbon price by April 2011
Awarding the contract for the first UK Carbon Capture and Storage demonstration by end of this year
Getting the Green Investment Bank operational by September 2012
Reducing central government’s emissions by 10% in twelve months to May 2011
Nick Clegg talked about the plan on a visit to B & Q, one of the firms which has been at the forefront of building environmental considerations into its work. Here’s a short video from his visit:
Saturday morning in Sheffield this weekend sees the LibDem conference debating two of the areas of coalition which have generated the most controversy: the NHS and the future of the Disability Living Allowance.
The motion on the Disability Living Allowance (F4) has been slightly overtaken by events as the debate within government over the Welfare Reform Bill develops and in fact the plans in this area have in effect been sent back to the drawing board. That makes the motion all the more important, because rather than being simply a chance to cast a verdict on what the government has done, it is a chance to influence what is yet to be decided. The heart of the motion calls for “the Coalition Government to reinstate the Mobility Component or otherwise fund the mobility needs of those who cannot afford to do so themselves”.
Straight after this debate comes one on the NHS (F5). The choice of Andrew Wiseman, Federal Conference Committee’s chair, to chair this debate is a good sign that this is expected to be one of the liveliest of conference as is the news that two Liberal Democrat MPs have signed an EDM expressing concerns over the policy.
Buried in the middle of the motion are lines 16-17 which says that “Conference welcomes the vision for the NHS set out in the Government’s White Paper”. That may be glossed over as a bit of padding between long lists of less controversial points or it may be the trigger for an all-out row, as also may be the amendment likely to be debated that is coming from ex-MP and doctor Evan Harris and Lib Dem peer Shirley Williams (who made her views clear in “I can’t support the coalition plan for the NHS“).
The gap between what the amendment calls for and what Liberal Democrats in government have been pressing for is not that large, however – and some have already expressed the view that the amendment may be a good route to getting more changes made to the health plans. That will provide a pointed choice for those promoting the amendment – whether to try to bring about change through aggressive antagonism or through emollient persuasion? And is modifying the government plans or setting out what a Liberal Democrat majority government would do their top priority?
The full text of both motions are in the Spring Conference Agenda and Directory embedded below.
This weekend’s Liberal Democrat conference in Sheffield starts on the Friday afternoon with three policy consultation sessions: Facing the Future, Information Technology and Intellectual Property and Inequality.
The Facing the Future policy working group is chaired by Norman Lamb MP and, as Norman explained on this site last autumn, is intended to set the party’s broad policy framework for the next few years. Having such a key party leadership figure chairing the group is good news as it raises the chances of the group’s deliberations and outcomes having an impact on what the Liberal Democrats in government subsequently do.
The big challenge for the group is to avoid the fate of previous similar broad policy reviews which generally have done a good job at the technical details of what policies need reviewing and in which order, but have tended to have either very muddled overall messages or messages that sink largely without trace. (It’s a time for Facing up to the Future of Challenge, Opportunity and Responsibility while Moving Ahead to Meet the Challenge, Make the Change a policy wonk might almost say.)
The success of this group is all the more important this time round as without a clear direction, the party’s policymaking processes are likely to get over-shadowed by the day-to-day decision making impetus from government – where the policy teams are coalition rather than Liberal Democrat teams.
Norman’s presence as chair of the group is therefore particularly welcome, and it’s the absence of a similar senior leadership figure from the chair of the other two groups that illustrates their main challenge.
The Information Technology and Intellectual Property group (chaired by Julian Huppert, and which I’m a member of) and the Inequality group (chaired by David Hall-Matthews) both need to get their own recommendations right. But almost as important is to have recommendations which Liberal Democrats in government then pay some attention to. In both cases, the more closely the policies are drawn up with regular discussion with those in government, the more likely they are to have an impact on what happens.
Take the example of the Inequality group, which amongst other issues looking at those of social mobility and how important, or not, overall levels of equality are. The consultation paper says both are “crucial” and that tackling the former “would not necessarily” lead to improvements in the latter. That, and the chairmanship of David Hall-Matthews, give a fairly strong clue as to the recommendations the group is likely to produce. The key test, however, will be the degree to which any such recommendations influence the words and actions of Liberal Democrat ministers, especially Nick Clegg whose emphasis has been very much on only the former.
In my experience, policy working groups are very open to the views of others in the party where they are clearly put and with some evidence or experience to substantiate them (not a hurdle all submissions pass, alas!). So although some of the bigger questions may be beyond the direct reach of individual party members, I’d strongly encourage people to take part in the consultation processes.
This morning saw the launch of a plan for giving away bank shares from Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Williams. Laid out in a pamphlet published by CentreForum, Stephen Williams’s plan is to give shares owned by the government in the banks to everyone on the electoral register. A floor would be set so the shares could not be sold until they had passed the price paid by the government and individuals would only keep any gains made above that floor price. In other words, as the shares rise in price and get sold the government gets back the funds it put into the banks and, if the banks do well, the public gets to profit from that.
It’s a neat idea, and one of the first substantive plans for what the government could do with its 83% of RBS and 41% of Lloyds. As is to be expected with any plan for such a controversial area, it raises a number of questions.
First, the government only gets back the money put into the banks if people sell their shares. If people hold on to them, those funds do not come back to government – and in particular that means a large source of possible government funds ends up being highly dependent on what can be very volatile stock markets. Such uncertainty would apply to other policies too – including direct government selling of shares on the stock market – but it is still an issue.
Second, even leaving aside the uncertainty, would this route raise more or less money for the government than a straight-forward sell off of shares? Stephen Williams and colleagues think so, as their Q&A explains,
The absolute and relative size of the Government’s shareholdings in Lloyds Group, and RBS make it conventional exit through share sales impossible at a reasonable price. In other words, shares would have to be sold at a substantial discount over many transactions over a number of years. This increases the risk that the public would never get its money back – as has happened in the US, where the Obama Administration has lost at least $10bn in selling a tranche of its GM shares.
Third, the degree to which shareholders have failed to hold boards of directors to account has been bad enough even with big institutional shareholders, let alone with mass small-scale shareholdings. But given how poor institutional shareholders have been, would this situation really be that much worse?
Fourth, by giving the same amount of shares to everyone, there is a neat piece of simplicity combined with fairness. Because the sale of shares would be subject to capital gains tax, the initial allocation of shares would have the virtue of simplicity whilst subsequent capital gains tax revenues would mean that the richest end up paying more of what they have been given back in tax.
Fifth, although I said “simplicity”, relying on the electoral registers raises issues of principle and practicality. The principle is about whether the electoral register should be used solely for electoral purposes. The practicality is about the accuracy of the electoral register. The offer of money in return for being on the register would most likely be an extra incentive for people to register, but what about then deliberate fraudulent register entries? Having a system that is resistant to fraud makes the idea not quite as simple as it looks at first.
(Strictly speaking, it’s not just the electoral register the proposal uses. As the Q&A explains, shares would go to “those on the electoral roll for UK elections who are resident in the UK for tax purposes. In addition, non-UK nationals serving in HM Forces and their dependents should be eligible on the same basis”.)
In other words, there are plenty of questions that the scheme raises, but as this is a proposal designed to help set the political agenda rather than a finely worked out imminent piece of legislation, that is as much a compliment as anything else. It’s a good contribution to the debate.
Tomorrow Linda Jack is returning as guest editor for the day on Liberal Democrat Voice. Linda was our second guest editor, back in September and is a blogger herself at Lindylooz Muze.
With the Liberal Democrat (federal party) spring conference coming up in Sheffield on 11-13th March, I am going to be doing a series of posts previewing some of the main items up for debate, expanding on my previous whistlestop tour of the conference agenda.
First, however, is a look at the fringe meetings being held over the weekend. These meetings may not have the power to decide in the way that conference debates can, but they do often give a great chance to hear issues discussed in greater and more expert detail than the rather staccato main hall style of 3-5 minute speeches back to to back.
The highlights I’d pick out are:
Lords Reform 1911-2011: A century after the veto power of the Lords was broken in 1911, democracy has still been kept out of the Lords. The History Group’s fringe meeting will look at both past and present attempts to reform the Lords. Friday, 8pm, Jury Inn Suite 3. Event on Facebook here.
Vince Cable and Evan Harris in discussion over further and higher education: It is a smart move by the Social Liberal Forum to get two prominent people with very contrasting views together – and in a format that should shed more light than heat if Evan’s previous ‘in discussion’ with Nick Clegg is anything to go by. Saturday, 1pm, Mercure St Paul’s Hotel, City Suite A.
Breakthrough or breakdown? CentreForum looks at the electoral prospects for the party with Tim Farron (briefly, as the new Party President is continuing the Simon Hughes tradition of doing two fringes at the same time), Chris Huhne and academic polling expert Paul Whiteley. Saturday, 6:15pm, Mercure St Paul’s Hotel, City Suite A.
Who runs the internet? The Voice’s own fringe meeting with James Blessing, Evan Harris, Jim Killock and Mary Reid as trailed here. Saturday, 8pm, Mercure St Paul’s Hotel, Meeting 6. Event on Facebook here.
These are of course only the four best fringe meetings in my own view – your own view, especially if you have different interests, may be different. So do check the full list of fringe meetings including in the Spring Conference agenda and directory embedded below.
Some people like regularly visiting a site to see if there’s new stories of interest. Some people like subscribing to its news feed (RSS) and checking that way. But if you prefer email, you can instead sign up to get a daily early morning email with a summary of the previous day’s posts from Lib Dem Voice, complete with a note of how many comments each post has got and convenient links to click on if any take your fancy and you want to take a read.
The Co-operative Party, which runs joint candidates with the Labour Party, reports:
Following last year’s ruling by the Electoral Commission that precluded joint candidates from using an emblem – which was made without warning and after the nominations deadline – we have spent a long year of negotiation with the EC and the Cabinet Office to secure the necessary change to legislation.
A statutory instruments laid before Parliament last week updates election rules to tackle this. The Local Elections (Principal Areas) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Rules 2011 adds the following to the rules:
If a candidate who is the subject of an authorisation by
Baroness Rawlings, a government spokesperson, told the House of Lords the coalition will help the private members’ Bill become law, but with caveats.
The Bill, tabled by Lib Dem Lord Clement-Jones, includes plans to offer a licensing exemption to pubs that host gigs attracting an audience of 200 or fewer. It tallies with The Publican’s own Listen Up! campaign.
But Baroness Rawlings said certain criteria had to be met for the Bill to get the coalition’s full support…
Lord Clement-Jones said he was “delighted” the Bill had received such a “positive reception”.
Delivery slips are the neglected corner of Liberal Democrat literature. They should be a crucial tool – being a key communication with helpers, making it easy for them to help and keeping them informed – but far too often they are a poorly laid-out mishmash of minimalist content and third-rate layout.
So here are six tips to make your delivery slips more effective: more effective at keeping helpers happy, more effective at gathering in useful information and more effective at getting the right work done.
Design the slips well: they are a communication between the party and our helpers. A badly designed
Nick Clegg’s speech to the party’s Welsh conference contained much in the way of summarising the party’s current official position on politics and government priorities – and also a reference to Lembit Opik. His departure from the Commons was made the subject of a joke rather than a cause of regret – just the sort of reference that Lembit’s own actions do nothing to dissuade people from.
Central to the speech was Clegg’s description of the Liberal Democrat approach to a fair tax system:
Not all the decisions we’ve made have been easy and we must be honest about the many obstacles
With attempts to control the internet ranging from drastic actions of dictators in the Middle East to democratic debates in the US Congress over an internet ‘kill switch’, and not forgetting the continuing debate over the Digital Economy Act in Britain, The Voice’s fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrat spring conference is looking at who has control over what on the internet:
Who runs the internet? Wikileaks, piracy and censorship
Libel law reform campaigner and former MP Evan Harris, website pioneer Mary Reid, James Blessing of the Internet Service …
Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…
The military coup in Egypt was met with widespread international support – because it deposed President Mubarak. Similarly, the sending of troops into Libya by Britain and other countries to help people leave has been met with barely a whisper of concern about whether or not troops should be sent into another country without any UN motion or similar. Yet pragmatism and self-interest is hardly all the rage – for Tony Blair’s attitude to Libya has been coming under much criticism as has …
Max Teuerman took to this blog last month to criticise George Monbiot’s attack on the government over corporation tax plans. Now the BBC’s Robert Peston has blogged his own long-promised take on the story, saying:
The government seems to be trying to do precisely the opposite of what Mr Monbiot accuses it of doing: it is trying to stem the exodus of companies and their assets abroad.
As Peston explains,
George Monbiot warns that if dividends from overseas branches of multinationals become exempt from tax, that will create an incentive for multinationals to relocate more of their operations to these overseas
There was some good news for local government yesterday with the announcement that the capitalisation budget is being increased from £200m to £300m for 2011-12.
Since the £200m figure was set in autumn spending settlement, Liberal Democrats in local government and also ministers such as Danny Alexander and Andrew Stunell have been pushing hard for an increase – with the result being yesterday’s news.
Capitalisation is a technical financial measure but in brief it allows councils more flexibility in their financial decisions. It is the process of letting revenue costs be treated as capital expenditure in limited circumstances, the primary advantages of …
The London Assembly has called for changes in the law ahead of the 2012 London Mayor and Assembly elections, following a review of the lessons from last year’s council and general election in London.
Two issues are likely to meet widespread support, namely the problems of voters being intimidated and people being left still queuing when polls closed at 10pm. Both issues were significant problems in specific parts of London last year.
The report says:
The difficulties identified include most significantly a number of instances where there were queues at polling stations and people were unable to vote. Our report highlights the confusion in applying the electoral law to enfranchise the voter that led in some instances to a breach of election rules. We therefore recommend a change in electoral law to prevent a repeat of the disenfranchisement of so many people in London and across England. Without a change in the law there will need to be new guidance to Returning Officers as to how they can better prepare to deal with any late surge of voters.
A further significant issue addressed in this report is how to stop the intimidation of voters that is taking place at some polling stations. Clear advice to polling staff and consistency in how that advice is acted upon is necessary to tackle this unacceptable behaviour.
More controversial is likely to be the report’s call for a repeal of the legislation introduced last year to ensure overnight counting of votes for the general election.
The bigger issue that was not covered by this review, by virtue of its rermit, is the mistakes that were made in counting votes at the last London elections. As I wrote at the time:
In the immediate aftermath of this May’s London Mayor and Assembly elections, it became clear that some mistakes had been made during the count. Some Mayor votes in Merton and Wandsworth were omitted from the count, and in addition the checking process was flawed as votes were reported from more wards than exist in London.
Both the Open Rights Group and the Electoral Commission identified further problems, with my summary of the Electoral Commission’s verdict still valid:
In other words, “the numbers don’t add up; we don’t know why; it might be bad, it might not be; but there wasn’t a proper audit trail so we’re all left clueless.”
Counting the votes correctly and having a proper system for checking that the results are right is by far the most important change that needs to happen for the 2012 elections.
At the time the Conservatives announced their plans for an Office of Tax Simplification it looked to me like a good exception to the general policy of cutting quangoes. Its major report into tax reliefs looks to have justified that belief – because the Office of Tax Simplification has discovered that far more tax reliefs exist than it was expecting.
Yup, you read that right – that tax system is so complicated it turned out to be even more complicated than people who already thought it was complicated expected. Or in its language:
We found 1,042 reliefs,allowances and exemptions; far more than any of our initial estimates.
The OTS’s report also has the distinction of starting its foreword with a quote from Star Trek, even if by Chapter 1 it is back on to more familiar tax quotation grounds with William Gladstone.
The big stories from the review are:
During the review, a number of key themes have emerged:
Merging income tax and NIC – this is a long term project of structural reform thatwould deliver major simplification;
Employee benefits and expenses – The longer term aim would be to align the treatment of employee benefits, with shorter term aims of simplifying many minorbenefits with a de minimis limit of £100/£500, or amending the current £8,500threshold;
Inheritance tax and trusts – the reliefs for inheritance tax are integral to the policyand we consider that a more appropriate approach would be to review the tax as a whole;
Capital gains tax, particularly as applicable to companies –the capital gains systems for individuals and companies have drifted apart, with gains by individuals taxed at a lower rate than income to reflect inflation, whereas companies are still required to calculate indexation. Our aim would be to realign the treatments and simplify the tax, but as there are changes in relation to corporate capital gains expected in Finance Bill 2011, this is clearly a longer term project; and
Environmental taxes –Both landfill tax and aggregates levy should be reviewed, as both regimes contain basic charging provisions with numerous exemptions and it may be more appropriate to define what is caught rather than what is excluded.
In amongst the details are some great examples of just how much parts of the tax system is in need of simplification, such as the continuing tax break on the first 15pence (yes, pence) of the value of a luncheon voucher given by an employer to staff. As the review says,
The value of this relief has eroded since its introduction in 1946 and is outweighed by the time and cost in providing it.
My favourite, however, is the discovery that there is still a tax relief on the books for a tax rule that no longer exists:
Certain specified and certified instruments were exempt from £5 fixed stamp duty. As the fixed rate of duty was abolished in 2008, the policy rationale is no longer relevant and the relief has no current application.
Yorkshire drinkers of obscure beer may wish to check section 4.37.
If there was a prize for the shortest op-ed this year, chances are it would go to Chris Huhne. His latest op-ed weighs in at just 117 words – though given those are 117 words in The Sun they reach a rather larger audience (even of Liberal Democrats) than many a longer piece elsewhere.
Here is a brief sample:
Before long, we’ll all be plugging into the mains.
Philip Green’s report into how the government could save money was initially rather dominated by the way he has arranged his own personal tax affairs. Some of his ideas were also far from good – such as the idea that the government should become a slow payer of bills to small businesses – but there were also good ideas in the Philip Green report.
The government has now come up with its response to the report and its plans for implementing many of the recommendations. What particularly caught my eye was …
The Electoral Commission has published its review of expenditure at the 2010 general election, finding that national spending by parties dropped sharply from its 2005 peak, though it was still above 2001 levels.
Total reported national campaign expenditure by all political parties (i.e. excluding expenditure recorded on candidate expense returns and excluding expenditure that does not count towards any limits*) across the United Kingdom was £31.5 million, just under £11 million lower than in 2005 but nearly £5 million higher than 2001. Nearly all of the fall is accounted for by a £9.9 million drop in the amount spent by Labour.
Non-submission of election expense records by Parliamentary candidates continues to be a problem, with as late as January 2011 3% of candidates still not having submitted the returns the law required to be submitted last summer. No legal action has been taken against any candidate for these failures, although none was a candidate who finished first or second in a constituency. The Electoral Commission says it is “currently considering” how to tackle this issue in future, and points out that at the moment the only action that can be taken is referral to the police for a criminal investigation which, in its view, “can be a disproportionate reaction to administrative non-compliance”.
Total expenditure for the 2010 election by the main parties was:
Conservative: £16.7m (national), £9.8m (total by candidates) for a grand total of £26.5 million
Labour: £8.0m (national), £6.5m (total by candidates) for a grand total of £14.5 million
Liberal Democrats: £4.8m (national), £5.0m (total by candidates) for a grand total of £9.8 million
The Liberal Democrats were the only party to have a greater local than national spend, although the two numbers are not fully comparable given the different time periods and definitions for them.
* This exemption includes some surprising items, such as staff salaries, and was the cause of one of my favourite exchanges with the Electoral Commission during my time working for the party. It went something like this: ‘Just want to check I’ve understood both the law and your guidance correctly. We have a member of staff here whose job title is General Election Planning Manager. However, their salary does not count towards the General Election expense limit, is that right?’ ‘Yes.’
Matthew Oakeshott’s departure as a Liberal Democrat spokesman for criticising the ‘Project Merlin’ deal with the banks over bonuses and the like may have got the headlines, but the real story is revealed by Anthony Hilton in the Evening Standard – all the members of the Commission threatened to resign in protest at government interference with their work.
The Government offered to emasculate the Independent Commission on Banking as it tried to strike a deal on bank bonuses a few weeks ago. I am told it backed off only when Sir John Vickers, chairman of the inquiry, and his entire committee, Clare
The lesson from David Meerman Scott’s post The secret to getting 50,000 followers on Twitter is just as applicable in the field of politics, such as if you are a councillor wanting to communicate with residents via Twitter or a Parliamentary candidate wanting to build up an email list of constituents.
Never let it be said that self-referentiality is dead in Parliament. I give you Early Day Motion 432 for 2010-11 which calls for EDMs to be reformed or abolished.
EDMs have come in for a fair degree of flack (and it’s hard to see what the David Hasselhoff And Morecambe Winter Gardens EDM really achieved). However, many of the criticisms are easily dealt with by simple reforms, such as abolishing the expensive printing of hard copies of EDMs in large quantities.
With a few such simple reforms, EDMs could be an effective, and cost-effective, part of our Parliamentary processes. …
Last week Redcar owners, Tata and Thai buyers, SSI announced a deal which will safeguard 700 existing jobs at the huge site in Teesside. Nick Clegg said that the deal will also employ a further 800 new people and may see another 1,000 jobs created in the wider local economy.
He said: “It’s a great thumbs up for Teesside and the North East, for the steel industry and the UK. It’s a breath of fresh air at a time of difficult news about the British economy. I would
Peter Martin @ Kira,
The words you quoted were from Peter Davies'. Not me. I wouldn't agree with raising VAT on energy to 15% right now. I'd leave it as is.
The point ...
Peter Martin “‘why can’t social care and NHS spending be treated as ‘investment’’. Of course, that wont wash”.
I'd agree if were talking about re...
Peter Martin There's really only two fiscal rules that make any sense:
1) If inflation caused by an overheating economy is the main issue, then governments should tax mor...
Peter Davies @Kira Collins You seem to have missed the bit about raising tax allowances. That primarily helps those on low wages....
David Wright According to this well-argued article (by Lib Dem councillor Mark Ellis), a simple wealth tax wouldn't work, but tax on TRANSFER of wealth could, if current tax...
We want to be the greenest government ever. We will reshape the economy, change the way we power our transport, heat our homes, and generate our electricity. We must put the development of the green economy at the centre of our ambitions to rebalance the economy.
Straight after this debate comes one on the NHS (F5). The choice of Andrew Wiseman, Federal Conference Committee’s chair, to chair this debate is a good sign that this is expected to be one of the liveliest of conference as is the news that 
The success of this group is all the more important this time round as without a clear direction, the party’s policymaking processes are likely to get over-shadowed by the day-to-day decision making impetus from government – where the policy teams are coalition rather than Liberal Democrat teams.
More controversial is likely to be the report’s call for a repeal of the legislation introduced last year to ensure overnight counting of votes for the general election.
Non-submission of election expense records by Parliamentary candidates continues to be a problem, with as late as January 2011 3% of candidates still not having submitted the returns the law required to be submitted last summer. No legal action has been taken against any candidate for these failures, although none was a candidate who finished first or second in a constituency. The Electoral Commission says it is “currently considering” how to tackle this issue in future, and points out that at the moment the only action that can be taken is referral to the police for a criminal investigation which, in its view, “can be a disproportionate reaction to administrative non-compliance”.
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Martin Wainwright's Guardian obituary of Michael Meadowcroft
Evaluating different electoral systems for the House of Commons
Brexit and summer holidays
Peter Martin 
Peter Davies 
David Wright 