Category Archives: Op-eds

Tom Brake MP writes…Liberal Democrats have improved the Lobbying Bill

By Tom Brake | Wed 29th January 2014 - 6:27 pm

Yesterday the long, and at times tortuous, journey of the Transparency Bill through Parliament came to an end. It will shortly receive Royal Assent. The Bill had many critics, so it is worth reiterating the purpose of the parts of the Bill I was closely involved with as a Minister.

Part 1, sets up a Statutory Register of Lobbyists, to complement the existing regime of quarterly data published by Ministers about which external organisations they meet. Liberal Democrats have successfully pushed for this data to become much more accessible and useful in future, so that all the data is published …

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Tagged lobbying and transparency bill | 59 Comments

Afternoon Debate: Should all members have a vote for Deputy Leader?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 29th January 2014 - 2:27 pm

Last night we saw Sir Malcolm Bruce narrowly defeat Lorely Burt for the post of Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Party in the House of Commons, to give it its full name.

I’ve seen a few posts on social media this morning from people who have never heard of Malcolm. If that’s the case, then I’m glad that they have the chance to get to know him. I can still remember speeches he made over 20 years ago and for me his closing speech at Scottish Conference is always a big treat for me. You get some idea of the man’s …

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Tagged deputy leader. internal party organisation | 8 Comments

Pupil Premium: is it working? Probably – but it’s not a quick-fix solution

By Stephen Tall | Wed 29th January 2014 - 10:05 am

The Pupil Premium – money targeted at children from low-income households – is the Lib Dems’ flagship education policy. By the end of the Parliament, it will be worth £2.5 billion, cash given directly to schools to spend as they wish on improving attainment outcomes.

Is it working? That’s the question being asked, given the news that the attainment gap at age 16 – the difference between GCSE results achieved by pupils eligible for free school meals and all other pupils – increased very slightly last year. In fact, results for both low-income pupils and all other pupils improved; …

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Tagged pupil premium and schools | 13 Comments

Opinion: More money in your pocket from April

By Alex Smethurst | Wed 29th January 2014 - 8:28 am

At the last election, Liberal Democrats up and down the country campaigned hard to cut taxes for working people and put money back in your pocket. It was our top priority – taken from the front page of our manifesto – to increase the amount you can earn before paying tax to £10,000. This has made a real difference to taxpayers up and down the country.

Since 2003, middle wages have failed to rise with growth. When we came into government, someone working full time on the minimum wage would lose …

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Tagged featured, income tax and tax threshold | 24 Comments

Nick Clegg MP writes…The recovery would not be happening without us

By Nick Clegg MP | Tue 28th January 2014 - 4:25 pm

This morning we’ve seen yet more proof that the economy is firmly on the path to recovery. Growth is returning, with today’s figures showing the longest period of growth since 2007. We’ve also had good news on jobs – with youth unemployment down, jobs outside of London up and a surge in new full time jobs.

In Government we’re clearing up Labour’s mess. Here are four reasons why it would not be happening without the Liberal Democrats.

1. Our decision to go into coalition gave Britain the stable government needed to get the country through these difficult times. Despite the endless clamour …

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Tagged economy and featured | 14 Comments

Opinion: Go for a freefall nuclear force

By Toby Fenwick | Mon 27th January 2014 - 3:50 pm

Former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates recently decried the UK’s conventional force cuts making it clear that the UK’s ability to conduct global operations as a major US partner would be threatened. In doing so, Gates was pointing out the obvious implications of the Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir Nick Houghton’s December speech at the Royal United Services Institute.

I was therefore heartened by Sir Nick Harvey’s recent LDV post, where he accepts that the conventional force cuts will constrain the international role to which he aspires. He then logically makes the …

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27 Comments

Ed Davey writes… Power to the people

By Ed Davey | Mon 27th January 2014 - 12:01 pm

For those of you old enough to remember, ‘Power to the People’ was the battle cry of ‘Wolfie Smith’, Robert Lindsay’s character in the BBC sitcom ‘Citizen Smith’. The running joke of the series was that while he had radical and revolutionary ideas, the delivery side was left somewhat lacking.

What I’ve announced today is both radical and sets out how community energy will be delivered. Astonishingly, it’s Britain’s first ever community energy strategy and will empower …

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23 Comments

Opinion: Lessons from 1979

By Mark Pack | Mon 27th January 2014 - 8:32 am

Leaving through some kindly donated old copies of Liberator from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, there is a distinct sense of déjà vu. Calls to revive Community Politics. Urgent pleas to reinvent liberalism for a modern age. Complaints about how the English Party is run. Provocative comments from Simon McGrath triggering hostile rejoinders. (Although it did amuse me to find that one passionate argument against the party ending up a centre-right pro-capitalism outfit came from one Gavin Grant.)

Some of the issues covered have been lost in the gaps of history. Others are still very …

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30 Comments

Opinion: Football, Freedom of Speech and the Y-word

By Paul Head | Sun 26th January 2014 - 10:20 am

In the last few days, the Crown Prosecution Service has taken the decision to charge three Tottenham Hotspur supporters with “using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour”. The charges relate to the use of the word “Yid” by the fans.

The decision to charge the fans should be a cause of major concern to anyone who values freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

For those unaware of the history and context behind the use of the word by Spurs fans, it’s worth a quick …

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Tagged crown prosecution service, featured, football, spurs and tottenham hotspur | 26 Comments

Opinion: The male voice on Female Genital Mutilation

By Rob Parsons | Fri 24th January 2014 - 5:19 pm

Please note that the second paragraph of this article contains some graphic details of the procedure of FGM which some people might find distressing.

I’m very glad to see Liberal Democrats at the forefront of the drive to rid this country and the world of female genital mutilation (FGM), one of the most horrible expressions of male power over the female. The debate about it, around the world, as well as in this country, is often blurred by comparisons with male circumcision, which many people also campaign against actively (and in my view rightly). When the topic of FGM comes …

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Tagged equality and female genital mutilation | 79 Comments

Sarah Ludford MEP writes…Being “In” Europe crucial for jobs and living standards

By Sarah Ludford | Fri 24th January 2014 - 1:00 pm

When the Liberal Democrats say we’re the party of ‘In’, it’s not because we worship symbolically at the altar of EU institutions. It’s because being In Europe is vital to achieve real policy goals, of which the most immediately important is jobs in Britain. This is the clear message coming from major employers, like Ford, Nissan, Siemens and BAE Systems, which have all warned against pulling Britain out of Europe.

According to a recent YouGov poll 6% of British companies said they would go out of business if we left the EU. This translates into almost 10,000 firms closing and 300,000 people being out …

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Tagged #whyiamIN and eu | 26 Comments

Lynne Featherstone writes… Lib Dem action on tax helps to ease the cost of living

By Lynne Featherstone | Fri 24th January 2014 - 11:55 am

International Development minister Lynne Featherstone writes a monthly column for one of her local newspapers. Here is the latest one…..

There are so many perks of living in Haringey – vibrant high streets, good transport links, wonderful parks and views – to name but a few!

But on the downside, our bin collections, roads and other public services are notoriously bad. Haringey Council – which is run by Labour – has been rated the worst in London.

Week in, week out, Haringey Labour seem to lurch from one crisis to another. They failed to meet their own targets for making our local …

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Tagged cost of living | 15 Comments

The Independent View: Vince Cable should make sure all companies are bound by new transparency law

By Richard Dyer | Fri 24th January 2014 - 10:45 am

Consider this question – what is the difference between a T-shirt from Tesco and one from TopShop? Lib Dems will undoubtedly have their own style preferences.

But for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Minister Vince Cable there’s an important distinction. Cable is seeking to weaken proposed EU rules that would require companies to report annually on risks their operations pose to communities and the natural world, such as accidents, pollution and human rights. The new non-financial reporting directive could be a game-changer on a path towards more sustainable production.

It should ensure that a firm like Tesco, as a large …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged company transparency, eu and friends of the earth | 2 Comments

Lord (Paul) Tyler writes… Transparency Bill – Government concessions

By Paul Tyler | Thu 23rd January 2014 - 3:01 pm

Yesterday Lords amendments came to the Commons for consideration. The Government has accepted the principle of my amendment on including Special Advisers (SpAds) in the regime of transparency about who lobbyists get to meet in government. However, the Conservative Party refuses to ‘switch on’ this provision at this stage, and probably for the duration of this Parliament.

The Government therefore brought forward an amendment which will allow Ministers to bring those who meet SpAds into the register of lobbyists, but they will remain out for now. David Cameron says ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant’. Since two of the big lobbying scandals …

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Tagged lobbying and transparency bill | 3 Comments

Edward Davey MP writes…Lib Dem led British diplomacy paves way for global climate change deal

By Ed Davey | Wed 22nd January 2014 - 6:28 pm

Liberal Democrats in Government are having a huge impact on tackling climate change, and today you’ve seen concrete evidence of how we’re winning the debate – not just in the UK, but across the EU and potentially beyond.

The main prize is huge – we’re working towards a global climate change deal that will be discussed at the critical 2015 talks. But how do we get there?

Firstly, I got cross-Government agreement on an ambitious UK position. We have pushed for a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions across the EU by 2030. We want this increased to 50% if the rest …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged climate change and eu | 15 Comments

Opinion: So who are those Rock the Boat people?

By Grace Goodlad | Wed 22nd January 2014 - 11:30 am

Eleven months ago the Liberal Democrat world was tipped on its axis when Channel 4 broadcast reports from women making serious allegations of sexual harassment against one of the Party’s most senior, loved and respected figures. As the sorry tale unfolded it was clear that the party had failed to deal with the complaints they had made and had failed to let anyone involved in the terrible situation get justice. It became clear that we, as an organisation, had a cultural problem and no idea of how to get our house in order.

As one would expect – if you know Lib Dems at all – the grassroots spoke, and James Shaddock set up a Facebook group called “Rock the Boat.” It grew rapidly and now has over 400 Liberal Democrat members. The idea was that sometimes you have to say or do uncomfortable things to stop sexual harassment – whether that is to speak out about your own experiences, write policy motions, tell your friends if you think they are behaving inappropriately, or even reflect on your own actions and behaviours and perhaps change them after some soul searching and analysis. Sadly, eleven months ago it became quite obvious that when people had spoken up on sexual harassment, they had been told “Don’t Rock the Boat” – hence the name.

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Tagged equality, Rock the boat and sexual harassment | 15 Comments

Michael Moore MP’s Westminster Notes

By Michael Moore | Wed 22nd January 2014 - 10:25 am

Liberal Democrat MP Michael Moore writes a regular column for newspapers in his Borders Constituency. Here is the latest edition.

Free Childcare

My colleagues in the Scottish Parliament have been making the case for extending child care provision in Scotland for some time. So the fact that from August 2014 thousands of two-year-olds in Scotland will be entitled a free childcare place for 15 hours a week is excellent news for families across the Borders.

This means that we now catch up with the situation in England where the Liberal Democrats have helped to deliver a similar plan for two years now. The …

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Also posted in Parliament and Scotland | Tagged broadband, childcare, hearing loss, Michael Moore and Westminster Notes | 1 Comment

Opinion: The demise of the middle classes

By David Boyle | Wed 22nd January 2014 - 8:55 am

I was on a policy panel recently, when I heard somebody dismissing the idea of ‘choice’ in public services as a sop for the middle classes.

Now, there are two rather odd aspects of this.

The first is that, depending on what you mean by choice – and every political party has its own distinct meaning – it isn’t actually true.

The polling I carried out during the Barriers to Choice Review showed that nearly 90 per cent want ‘choice’. It is just that they are often muddled about what that actually means.

The second is that I hear this kind of sentence in …

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Tagged featured, middle classes, public services and standard of living | 27 Comments

Opinion: Why I am against Grayling over Criminal Legal Aid

By Antony Hook | Tue 21st January 2014 - 5:16 pm

As a candidate for the European Parliament my focus is on EU-related issues: trade, climate change and cross-border crime. But some national issues are, in my view, so pressing that I cannot ignore them. Among these are Chris Grayling’s proposed cuts to criminal legal aid, so severe they threaten whether defendants will have proper representation at all.

On 6 January, I was in Oxford to support a protest against these cuts. Concurrent protests happened at courts all over England & Wales. The campaign aims to raise public awareness and persuade parliament to say ‘no’ to Grayling, as Parliament did over Price …

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Tagged chris grayling, featured and legal aid | 14 Comments

Opinion: Closing the gap

By Linda Jack | Tue 21st January 2014 - 4:10 pm

Yesterday was an important day for anyone concerned about the state of mental health care in this country. It was also an important day for me as not only did I find myself agreeing with Nick for the fourth time in a fortnight (scary but true) but I could applaud a coalition policy.

Just over a year ago I lost my younger sister Sarah, who was suffering from schizo affective disorder. As a family we had grown up with a bi-polar father at a time when so few of us, or the wider population, understood the condition. With my sister we understood more, but were only too aware of how little others did. I haven’t written about Sarah yet as it is still too painful – that is a story for another day. But, I have always taken a particular interest in mental health and bringing mental health services up to the standard of the rest of the health service. Even for someone like me (who is not particularly afraid to challenge), my interaction with the services has been horrendously frustrating and myself and my family nearly always felt as if we were being totally ignored. Getting anyone to do anything was like constantly banging your head against a brick wall, exhausting, frustrating and painful.

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Tagged closing the gap, mental health and norman lamb | 4 Comments

Opinion: Step forward true liberals

By Anonymous Liberal | Tue 21st January 2014 - 12:10 pm

True liberalism is hard. Sometimes we don’t understand this. Lacking an urgent, reformist edge, we let others define us. Our milder critics used to style us sandal-wearing fruitarians who knitted their own CND badges. Hostile tabloids called us dangerous deviants.

Oddly, we were comforted by these perceptions. Underlying them was a sense that Liberals are relaxed and open to all-comers. But this vision of our tolerant Party has two problems. Tolerance can degenerate into shoulder-shrugging passivity and turning a blind eye. And we’re not that open anyway.

We’re a Party of ageing, white males. Just like we used to be.

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Tagged featured and liberalism | 49 Comments

Opinion: What does ‘bringing the party into disrepute’ mean?

By David Howarth | Tue 21st January 2014 - 9:00 am

The suspension and threatened expulsion from the party of Chris Rennard for ‘failure to apologise’ takes the Rennard affair into a new and much darker place. Even those of us who think Chris should apologise should stop and think about where this is taking us.

Alistair Webster’s statement seemed to me to be entirely sensible, but there was one issue Alistair should have said more about, namely what can count as ‘bringing the party into disrepute’. That issue is crucial because on it depends the rights of minorities in the party to stay within it. If, for example, disagreeing with the …

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Tagged alistair webster, chris rennard and featured | 116 Comments

Opinion: Shocking complacency in UK banking reform

By Paul Reynolds | Mon 20th January 2014 - 8:44 am

In British politics there is one area of policy where popular sentiment and dire need strongly coincide. Banking reform.

Opinion surveys seem to suggest that it is Chancellor Osborne’s ‘Achilles Heel’. Indeed, senior ‘expert’ LibDems have expressed concern over the last three years about the pace of reforms. Now Labour has jumped on the bandwagon, and may reap electoral benefits. YouGov polling of a few weeks ago found…

… 67% thought was ineffective. Only 18% were confident that changes to the banking sector over the last few years were enough to stop a repeat of the banking crash. The

…

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Tagged banking | 12 Comments

Opinion: Time to concentrate on making our party fairer

By Daisy Benson | Sat 18th January 2014 - 11:00 am

Bad things happen in political parties just as they do elsewhere – the important thing is to learn from your mistakes and make every effort not to repeat them.

Recently, serious events forced us as a party to hold up a mirror to ourselves and in a number of areas we were found wanting.

As Helena Morrissey author of Processes and culture within the Liberal Democrats and recommendations for change herself said

Liberal Democrats recognise that the allegations alone and the circumstances surrounding them mean that the Party failed to live up to its own ideology.

Our ideology aka our values …

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24 Comments

Julian Huppert MP: Another promise kept – Nick Clegg announces more than doubling of young offenders’ education time

By Julian Huppert | Fri 17th January 2014 - 10:05 am

If people are to be in jail, one of our priorities is to make sure that when they leave prison, they won’t come back. We realise that the best way to do this isn’t about draconian sentencing; it’s about providing people with skills. That’s why in our 2010 manifesto we said that we’d increase the number of hours prisoners spend in education and training.

Today, we’ve achieved another goal – Nick Clegg has announced that through a new system of Secure Colleges, young offenders will see the time they spend in education more than doubled.

This really matters. At any one time …

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Also posted in News | Tagged nick clegg, tom mcnally and youth justice | 5 Comments

Opinion: Why local banks need Lib Dems to act

By David Boyle | Fri 17th January 2014 - 8:15 am

It hardly seems worth Ed Miliband’s time to actually make the speech on economics today, because it has been previewed, leaked and debated – almost sentence by sentence – all week.

There was a debate about the middle classes on Tuesday. Then there was the important commitment to competition in the banking sector, where he flagged the idea of a market cap, an important idea – but there are three practical problems with it.

First, there is a danger that it will lead to the big banks dumping poorer customers – though equally, there will be more banks available for them to …

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Tagged banking, ed miliband and featured | 8 Comments

Lord Paul Tyler writes: An update on the Lobbying bill

By Paul Tyler | Thu 16th January 2014 - 8:15 pm

The Government’s Transparency Bill is nearly complete. It is a very different Bill from that introduced to the House of Commons in the autumn. Full marks to Tom Brake who, while robustly rebuffing the more hysterical accusations about the Bill, has listened, and worked hard inside government to secure a sensible package of improvements. The first was in the House of Commons, where MPs voted to ensure the definition of non-party campaigning remained the same as for the last thirteen years. If this were a ‘gagging law’, then so too was Labour’s PPERA of 2000.

In the Lords, we have concentrated …

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Tagged lobbying and transparency bill | 11 Comments

Brian Paddick writes… The curious case of Chris Rennard

By Brian Paddick | Thu 16th January 2014 - 2:55 pm

For the record, I abhor anyone who uses their power to take advantage of others and that includes men over women, let alone men who are in positions of authority. Chris Rennard denies any wrongdoing and an independent review of the evidence has concluded that there is less than a 51% chance that the allegations could be proved beyond reasonable doubt. As I still hold the record as the highest-ranking openly gay police officer in the UK, hopefully people will accept a degree of neutrality in my observations.

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Tagged chris rennard | 55 Comments

Nick Harvey MP writes… Robert Gates poses stark defence question to UK: Do we want to be a real military partner or a nuclear power and nothing else?

By Nick Harvey | Thu 16th January 2014 - 1:58 pm

Former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning decrying the UK’s defence cuts. He said the squeeze meant the UK could no longer be a ‘full spectrum’ military partner of the US, acknowledging that our relationship with the US has been fundamentally altered.

A sceptic would quickly dismiss the comments of a man currently promoting his memoirs, but Gates makes a wider point about what exactly we want to be doing with a smaller defence capability.

Both Labour and the Tories continue to cling to the idea that we should maintain a full-scale Cold War …

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Tagged featured, nuclear disarmament, nuclear weapons and trident | 31 Comments

Opinion: Making allowances – 12 conclusions about the Personal Allowance policy

By Adam Corlett | Thu 16th January 2014 - 12:28 pm

CentreForum today published ‘Making allowances’ – a paper all about the Lib Dems’ flagship policy of raising the income tax Personal Allowance. Here are some of my conclusions – some obvious, some more obscure – to help inform future tax cuts.

1) The costs are huge. The coalition’s Personal Allowance increases have cost £11bn, and the Lib Dems’ minimum wage tax target would cost at least the same again. With this combined total, we could (roughly) reduce VAT to 15%; scrap council tax or business rates; easily deliver quality universal childcare; or

…

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Tagged centre forum, national insurance, personal allowance and tax cuts (Lib Dem) | 16 Comments