Tomorrow Lib Dems will be gathering in Harrogate ready for Spring Conference. Whilst the formal opening will be on Saturday at 9am, there are a couple of events on Friday. There will be a Consultative Session on the Policy Review at 4.45pm and the Conference Rally at 6.30pm.
Conference Extra is a vital document if you want to make sense of the debates, because it includes all the amendments to motions. You can read or download Conference Extra here. It should be read in conjunction with the Agenda and Directory. Conference Extra also lists all the questions submitted on reports, plus proposed emergency motions.
Debates include:
F4: Science, Innovation and Technology. Note that part of the motion was omitted in the Agenda and Directory. The extra lines are in Conference Extra. There are three amendments.
F9: Free to be who you are. There is a drafting amendment, plus three amendments for debate.
F10: Implementing the Lessons of the General Election Review. This is a constitutional amendment which has generated a lot of discussion. It proposes changes to the processes for selecting Parliamentary Candidates. There are two amendments.
F14: The UK’s response to Trump. There is a drafting amendment, plus three amendments for debate.
F22: Emergency Motion. Members attending in person or online will be able to vote to select which motion will fill this slot. The choices are between:
- Dropped Targets – A Threat to Care
- Local Elections – Democracy Delayed is Democracy Denied
- New Hospitals Programme – A Broken Promise
- Restoring International Development Assistance
- Securing a Path to Citizenship for Refugees
F23: Animal Welfare in the Food System. There are two amendments.
F25: Ending the Crisis; A Fair Deal for Children with SEND. There are two amendments.
The Leader’s speech will be on Sunday at 11.45am.
The beauty of this is that you can follow all the debates, speeches and other events in the Main Auditorium including the Rally, with all the necessary documents, for free and without registering. You can watch the stream on Conference Live.
It’s also not too late for members to register as an online attendee. This costs £15 and gives you access to the voting system, which allows you to vote remotely on motions.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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2 Comments
Motion F25 on children with SEND is very good. However, I do think we also need to be discussing why it is that SEND pupils are a growing proportion of young people. What is changing in society that is leading to this outcome – I don’t believe that all of the growth is due to better identification of needs. My friends in education suggest that many of the markers of ADHD can also be signs of poor parenting so perhaps we are increasingly medicating young people for issues more related to upbringing? I also believe there is evidence of some parents pushing hard for assessment and classification of their children as this can impact on the benefits that they may then be entitled to claim.
Upbringing may well be an issue. There may also be a bit of influence from the Internet and children losing social skills because they spend too much time online. And I think Mike you have the crux of it in your last point: Parents pushing hard for assessment because – well, who wouldn’t want their child to be given extra support if they can get it! Add to that our increasingly litigious culture in which medical workers are unlikely to go against the wishes of a pushy parent who’s putting pressure on them, and you have the perfect conditions for many more children to be categorised as special needs than would have been the case a few decades ago. You can argue about whether this means we’re getting better at identifying those children or whether we are now unnecessarily categorizing too many children (or a bit of both).