Author Archives: Zoe O’Connell

Zoe O’Connell

Autumn Conference FCC Report

By Zoe O’Connell | Wed 10th July 2019 - 12:30 pm

As well as setting out the agenda for this Autumn, we also discussed future venues for Spring 2020 and beyond. We know many of you are eager to book travel and accommodation as soon as possible but this is the one area where the committee observes strict secrecy until an official announcement can be made – when it has leaked out before we have found commercial companies block-booking accommodation in advance, putting the prices up for ordinary members. Staff are in the process of finalising arrangements to ensure favourable rates and the venues will be announced as soon as this is completed.

Returning to this Autumn, regular readers will be familiar with the process by now. In the first round, FCC considers the timeliness, accuracy, quality of drafting, overlap with other motions and so on to decide which motions can be debated. In the second and any subsequent rounds, timings are allocated to motions and motions culled in order to fit into the limited debating time available. Over the last couple of years, we have had more pressure on debating time as the 2017 General Election disrupted the Federal Policy Committee’s schedule for policy papers. We are now roughly back on track, which has left a little more time for member and local party motions. The selection process is name-blind, which means that the detail below on who submitted a motion was not available to committee members until after sections have been completed.

The full text of motions will be available once the agenda has been typeset for publication. If you are thinking of submitting an amendment or emergency motion to autumn conference, the deadline is 1pm on the 2nd of September – but please do consider making use of the drafting advice service, as many motions and amendments fall purely to to problems with how they are structured. The deadline for that is the 20th August.

Business and the Economy

Brexit Bonus (Bexhill and Battle) – not selected
Bringing Prosperity to the Regions (North West Region) – not selected
Business Tax Reform: Fair for business and fair for society (12 Party Members) – selected for debate
Corporate tax avoidance (Oldham) – received after deadline
More Sustainable and Responsible Business (13 Party Members) – not selected
Well Being First (30 Party Members) – not selected

Continue reading »
Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged and | 29 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

FCC Report: The Amendments selected for Conference

By Zoe O’Connell | Tue 12th March 2019 - 6:55 am

With Spring Conference just days away, Federal Conference Committee met on Saturday for the almost-final selection of amendments and Emergency and Europe motions. You can see the full text of what we selected in Conference Extra.

Unfortunately, time is always the biggest factor when selecting amendments, and we simply can’t select all those that come to us. The list of unsuccessful amendments is below, along with those we will be debating. For those less familiar, there are two things that can happen with a successful amendment: They can be accepted for debate and vote, or if they are uncontroversial they can be drafted in (e.g. to bring a motion up to date based on revent events) and do not require a vote. The summaries are not those of the submittors, so only give a brief taste of the kind of thing the amendment addresses.

Several of the Supporter’s Scheme amendments related to areas that will be voted on separately in blocks. A full explanation of how the vote will be condicted is in Conference Extra as there are a number of alternative outcomes.

Due to the rapidly developing situation over Brexit, we have delayed the amendments deadline for this item to midday on Friday. This does not allow much time for people to draft and submit amendments in response to events on Thursday, so if you suspect you will be submitting we suggest you try to get the necessary ten or more members ready to sign ahead of time.

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged | 5 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Would you like free rail tickets to conference?

By Zoe O’Connell | Fri 8th February 2019 - 6:44 pm

Fancy you and a friend travelling to Conference in style? London North Eastern Railway have kindly given us two First Class tickets to give away for use on their trains!

To be in with chance of winning a pair of tickets, just join the Liberal Democrat Federal Conference group https://www.facebook.com/groups/ldconf/ and “Like” the post announcing this. You must be a party member to be eligible.

The lucky winner will be picked at random on 15th February from those who liked the post, and announced in the comments below.

Not registered for conference yet? It’s running 15th-17th March in York, and you still have time to book! https://www.libdems.org.uk/spring-conference.

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference | Tagged | Leave a comment
Zoe O’Connell

What will the party debate at Spring Conference?

By Zoe O’Connell | Thu 24th January 2019 - 12:45 pm

The party meets again at its Spring Conference in York on the 15th-17th March, and if you have not registered yet there is still time! Federal Conference Committee has also now met to decide the agenda so we can reveal what topics will be up for debate.

Motion selection proceeded in the usual fashion that by now will be familiar to many readers – in the first round, members of the committee debated the suitability of each motion for debate considering how well it was drafted, how recently the topic was last debated and so on. Once that has happened, timings are allocated to each motion, and the committee considers the relative priority of the remaining motions.

Of the 19 motions submitted, 6 were eventually selected for debate. Constitutional amendments must be selected for debate if they are in order, which applied to one of two submitted amendments. A 105-minute slot has also been reserved for a later deadline on Europe, as given the current state of politics any motion submitted now would certainly be old news by March!

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , and | 30 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

What will the party debate in Brighton?

By Zoe O’Connell | Wed 18th July 2018 - 10:34 am

Federal Conference Committee met this weekend – unusually at Amnesty HQ in London rather than LDHQ – to set the Agenda for Autumn conference in Brighton.

If you have not yet registered, please don’t forget – conference runs from the 15th to 18th September, and you can sign up at https://www.eventsforce.net/autumnconference2018. Or, if you’d like to take advantage of our new refer-a-friend discounts, see https://www.libdems.org.uk/refer_a_friend

As noted in my reports on Spring conference, the snap election last year delayed progress on several policy papers which have now come through so time pressure was again an issue. This did mean that some good motions that would have fared better had there been more time were dropped early in round one of voting. I should also mention that a Nem Con decision does not mean that no members liked a motion. FCC runs largely according to consensus, where only issues that might be controversial or result in a close vote end up with a formal show of hands. If only one or two people are arguing for/against a motion, it is often not worth pushing it to a vote. Running 63 votes in round one alone would risk the meeting becoming a multi-day epic!

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and Op-eds | 11 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Federal Conference Committee Report Back

By Zoe O’Connell | Wed 6th June 2018 - 7:30 am

Firstly, Andrew Wiseman stepping down as Chair of Federal Conference Committee (FCC) and Geoff Payne’s subsequent election as his replacement left a vacancy for one of two Vice Chair slots on the committee. As has been reported previously on LibDemVoice, Nick da Costa won the subsequent election and joined me as Vice Chair. Andrew’s departure from the committee also left a vacancy for an ordinary member and based on a recount of the original election result we can now welcome Jon Ball back on to FCC.

FCC then had the chance to question a representative of Your Liberal Britain about their …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | 2 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Federal Conference Committee Report: Amendments and emergency motions selected

By Zoe O’Connell | Sat 10th March 2018 - 7:18 am

Federal Conference Committee (FCC) has now selected the amendments and emergency motions for spring conference. The full text of selected amendments and emergency motions will appear in Conference Extra and Conference Daily, which may well have been published by the time you read this.

Emergency motions that are in order (I.e. genuine emergencies) are selected by all-member ballot on Saturday morning, via the ballot box at the front of the auditorium. Full details on the process and content will appear in Saturday’s Conference Daily.

Some authors of amendments have included titles, but this is not mandatory so a number are my own …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 10 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Federal Conference Committee report – January 2018

By Zoe O’Connell | Mon 29th January 2018 - 4:34 pm

Just over a week ago, Federal Conference Committee met at LibDem HQ to set the Agenda for Southport in March, now just under six weeks away.

It is always tough to sort through the many worthy motions that are submitted, but on this occasion the job was even harder – the snap election last year delayed some policy papers back so we have very limited time to debate non-policy-paper motions. We also had an increased number of motions submitted, 34, compared to 26 this time last year.

Unfortunately, that lack of time is likely to spill over into Autumn too with more …

Continue reading »
Posted in News and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 25 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Federal Conference Committee Report – amendments and emergency motions for Bournemouth

By Zoe O’Connell | Mon 11th September 2017 - 6:15 pm

Federal Conference Committee (FCC) met on Saturday to discuss amendments and other issues for debate in Bournemouth this weekend.

As a quick recap, and for those who haven’t been to conference before, three things can happen to an amendment: They can be accepted for debate and voted on my conference, they can be drafted in as if they were part of the original motion or they can be rejected. Drafted in amendments should not be controversial or ambiguous in any way, and typically they will update a motion to reflect recent events, or correct or clarify wording.

The time for each motion is listed, as this can be a factor when deciding to select an amendment for debate. One amendment is the realistic limit for a 45 minute debate, and longer debates allow us to fit more in.

Some disclaimers needed: The titles are my own brief summaries to give a flavour of the types of things people seek to amend, as the submitters of amendments do not need to include them. Errors or lack of clarity are my own fault. As with motions, non-selection does not mean that the topic is not worthy as amendments may contain technical errors, a lack of clarity, are too insubstantial or not sufficiently within scope of the original motion.

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged and | 17 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Federal Conference Committee report on selection of motions for Bournemouth

By Zoe O’Connell | Mon 17th July 2017 - 12:16 pm

 

Federal Conference Committee met again last weekend to select motions that will be debated when we meet in Bournemouth. 41 motions were submitted, and usually selection proceeds in rounds. Motions are first eliminated on the basis of drafting, debatability and other such issues before subsequent rounds trim the agenda further based on time constraints.

However, due to the snap general election we received slightly fewer motions than usual for an Autumn Conference so only one round of debate was required. In most cases, the discussion gave a clear consensus and no vote was needed, but I have noted below where there was a vote that was particularly close.

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged and | 76 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Federal Conference Committee Report

By Zoe O’Connell | Fri 17th March 2017 - 8:20 pm

Federal Conference Committee (FCC) met this afternoon to go through the amendments, emergency motions and topic issues submitted for spring conference. Thank you to all those who submitted items for consideration – unfortunately, the deadlines for spring conference are very tight compared to autumn, so we do not have time to give everyone the individual feedback on amendments and motions we usually would. The full text of selected amendments and emergency motions will appear in Conference Daily.

Emergency motions are selected by ballot and papers should be returned to the ballot box in the auditorium on Saturday morning. Full details will appear in Saturday’s Conference Daily.

In all, 16 amendments, 13 emergency motions/topic issues and 5 questions to committees were considered by FCC. With the exception of the titles of emergency motions, the summaries are my own so apologies if any errors have crept in. The amount of time for debating each motion is listed, as this is a good indication to the number of amendments we can debate. A 45 minute motion can realistically only have one debated amendment, whereas a 90 minute motion might have up to three.

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Leave a comment
Zoe O’Connell

Federal Conference Committee Motions Report

By Zoe O’Connell | Wed 1st February 2017 - 11:45 am

Avid readers of Liberal Democrat Voice will already have seen Geoff Payne’s report on the results of this weekend’s Federal Conference Committee meeting. All those whose motions were not selected should now have received feedback, so we’re able to release the list of motions to be debated in March when the party gathers in York.

Although I have covered this before, a quick reminder of how FCC selects motions is probably helpful particularly as this is the first time I have included information on voting. Selection runs in rounds, with the first round consisting of an FCC member responsible for a particular policy area briefly introducing the motion and making a recommendation on inclusion on the agenda. After this, committee members discuss it and decide if it should be accepted or not. This usually involves a show of hands, although the decision is often clear following the debate and a lack of any objection to the recommendation. Even being very tough in round one, we always end up with more excellent motions left than can fit in the agenda, so the process is then repeated in subsequent rounds as necessary.

It is important to note that non-selection of a motion usually does not mean that FCC believes the topic unworthy of debate, although we are always wary of repeatedly debating the same few items over and over. Most motions end up not making it to conference due to lack of time, because of technical or drafting issues or because Federal Policy Committee already working on a policy paper in that area. Those who submitted motions will have been given more detailed feedback. The committee also can only select from motions that have been submitted to us!

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 16 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Amendments and emergency motions for Brighton

By Zoe O’Connell | Mon 12th September 2016 - 3:32 pm

Saturday was the final pre-Brighton meeting of Federal Conference Committee, (FCC) in which we selected the motion for the reserved Europe slot, amendments to be debated on all motions and emergency/topical issues for the all-member ballot. We also discussed:

  • One appeal against selection of a motion, which was rejected.
  • A request for an external (non-party) speaker to be allowed to put in a card to speak in the Europe debate, which was accepted.
  • 10 questions to party bodies, all in order.

For those less familiar with the process, here’s a short reminder of what can happen with an amendment, or part of an amendment: They can be accepted for debate and vote with a proposer and summator, they can be drafted in as if they were part of the original motion or they can be rejected. “Drafted in” amendments should be entirely non-controversial – updating a motion to reflect recent events, correcting or clarifying wording and so on.

For debated amendments, time is usually the biggest factor FCC has to contend with as we only have time to debate one amendment in a 45 minute slot – longer debates will allow for more amendments, although more than three amendments may be confusing no matter how long the debate is.

68 amendments were submitted, and we selected (either drafted in or for debate) 35 of them.

Continue reading »
Posted in News | 6 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Motions selected for debate at Federal Conference in Brighton

By Zoe O’Connell | Mon 11th July 2016 - 7:19 pm

 

Whilst UK politics is in barely-controlled chaos, the Liberal Democrat policy-making process rumbles quietly on – with Federal Conference Committee (FCC) meeting in London on Saturday to select motions for Autumn Conference. I have described the decision-making process in previous posts so I will not go on at length, except to repeat my usual caveat that non-selection of a motion does not mean FCC does not think the topic is suitable for debate. Many motions are dropped in round one because of drafting problems, constitutional issues, timing in the electoral/policy making cycle or because the issue is covered by another motion or working group.

More detailed feedback has been given to those who submitted motions, often including suggestions for improving motions. This is not something I will try to repeat here as I only have my own notes of the meeting to go on, and errors would be inevitable. The task of rapidly providing feedback requires a lot of effort and is split amongst a dozen members of FCC.

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged | 27 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Federal Conference Committee report – Spring Conference amendments edition

By Zoe O’Connell | Sat 12th March 2016 - 8:25 am
Federal Conference Committee (FCC) met late yesterday afternoon to discuss the Amendments and Emergency Motions for York – the full text of accepted amendments will appear in Conference Daily. The usual caveat regarding descriptions of amendments applies. Amendments don’t have titles with them, so these are my own entirely unofficial summaries which may not be entirely accurate or complete. The list of accepted/rejected amendments is also based on my own notes as Spring conference is very intense and moves quickly – so I apologise in advance for any errors.
There are a few more options open to FCC compared to full motions – in particular, we can often “draft in” uncontroversial amendments so that they can be accepted without needing to spend time moving and voting on them. Conversely, we can be quite restricted in that it makes no sense to accept two overlapping amendments
Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and News | Tagged | 3 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Federal Conference Committee report

By Zoe O’Connell | Tue 26th January 2016 - 12:16 pm

Saturday yet again saw Federal Conference Committee‘s agenda-setting meeting, this time for Spring conference in York – now less than 6 weeks away. As well as
worrying about which motions would be debated, the committee also received a welcome update on the success of the new Access Fund, discussed details of Friday night’s rally and proposals for a new “supporters” conference attendees category. This new scheme will allow members to vouch for friends and family of members to enable them to come to conference without needing to pay commercial rates – more details on that should be available soon.

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference | 14 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Zoe O’Connell’s Federal Conference Committee report

By Zoe O’Connell | Tue 24th November 2015 - 10:25 am

Federal Conference Committee met at Liberal Democrat HQ on Saturday 14th November for a meeting that had, despite press reports suggesting it was called purely to discuss special conference, been in the diary for some time.

Many topics were discussed, as the November meeting is one of the few where members get to kick about ideas and discuss new developments rather than focusing on motion and amendment selection. Even after a relatively short time on the committee, these feel to me as if they are standing agenda items – many FCC members are keen to keep up work on better use of funds to improve conference accessibility and financial inclusion, investigate remote voting, use of new technology, timing of conferences and so on. FCC rarely decides anything concrete at this point, but members are often tasked to go and consult with other groups such as, for example, talking to DEG and LDDA about some aspect of accessibility or funding that has arisen.

I generally refrain from reporting discussions-in-progress on these topics, as I feel it right that groups representing members who have most to gain (or lose) from changes should get the first say. There are three areas that deserve special mention, however:

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Tagged and | 8 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Amendments selected for Conference agenda

By Zoe O’Connell | Wed 16th September 2015 - 8:55 am

 

The final meeting of Federal Conference Committee prior to us all heading to Bournemouth took place this Saturday, where amendments were debated and selected. One big difference from the motions selection meeting is that debate is more rapid, with 73 amendments, 9 emergency/topic motions, 12 questions to federal bodies and one appeal to deal with.

When discussing motions the ultimate decision is a yes or a no, but with amendments there is also the option of accepting it as a drafting change. This only applies to simple and uncontroversial changes, often clarifications, and means it does not need to be voted on and can simply be published in Conference Daily. Drafting amendments should not be substantial, so even a non-controversial amendment to update the motion based on events since the agenda was published still needs to be formally voted on.

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and News | Tagged and | 7 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Federal Conference Committee report

By Zoe O’Connell | Tue 14th July 2015 - 8:45 am

Photo by Jon BallFederal Conference Committee (FCC) met on Saturday to decide which of the 52 motions submitted by members should be debated when we go to Bournemouth later this year. I’m sure many of you will be scrolling down to the end of this post to find out the good news, but for those who are new to the party or two FCC machinations, I shall quickly explain what FCC does and how it arrived at it’s decision.

The full FCC meets six times a year, three per conference. The first meeting in the cycle is general business, discussing topics such as future venues, stewarding and security needs, design of speakers cards, overall allocation of time between policy/speeches/Q&As, registration rates and so on. Before anyone asks, I should point out that the location of future conferences is a closely guarded secret until officially announced as we don’t want commercial companies block-booking accommodation in advance, as this puts the price up for ordinary members.

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and News | 60 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Opinion: The Burchill controversy – a mixed blessing for the trans community

By Zoe O’Connell | Tue 15th January 2013 - 12:44 pm

I have followed recent mainstream media events unfolding around the transgender community with a mixture of excitement, anxiety and sadness.

Excitement, because it is rare that trans issues get coverage that isn’t designed to portray us as perpetrators of some hideous evil. Even though the stories started with biased coverage in the Guardian about a doctor under investigation by the General Medical Council, it turned into something more positive when the #TransDocFail hashtag lead to LibDem Councillor Sarah Brown discussing the issue on BBC Radio. Even the continuation of bad reporting had a silver lining, when Julie Burchill’s

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 2 Comments
Zoe O’Connell

Opinion: The Four Boxes – why the student occupation should be denounced

By Zoe O’Connell | Sun 14th November 2010 - 2:05 pm

There is a rather American saying which runs along the lines of “We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury
box, and the ammo box. In that order”.

It becomes a good way of putting Wednesday’s violence in context, particularly for those that are trying to argue some similarity between the suffragette movement and student fees. That movement had no choice but to resort to violent occupation because the very thing its members were campaigning for was access to the ballot box.

But rather than the entire NUS executive distancing themselves …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 120 Comments
Advert



Recent Comments

  • Ruth Clark
    Kropotkin or Clegg? Not a tough contest is it Ben? Love this!...
  • Steve Comer
    We cannot simply oppose for oppositions sake, if we do we end just looking like a 'Tory lite' party. We've opposed inheritance tax for a small number of wealth...
  • Phillip Bennion
    The author makes the same mistake as Labour and the IFS in failing to look behind the headline statistics on farms. Half of the holdings are basically lifestyle...
  • Mark Frankel
    I agree. I don't think we should be opposing Labour's measures just for the sake of it. It makes us look shallow and opportunistic and probably doesn't do us mu...
  • Peter Watson
    @Paul Barker "This article says everything I have been thinking over the last Year." I completely agree! I've only recently started revisiting this site, havi...