The party is seeking members for a new policy working group, called Empowering Consumers. The group will be aiming to prepare policy proposals for Spring Conference next year.
If you would like to know how policy is decided in the Liberal Democrats, and how policy working groups fit in, then there is a useful guide here.
In brief, policy groups meet in person and online and take evidence from professional and industry experts before crafting a policy paper. The paper is then distilled down to provide a substantial set of proposals which form a conference motion. They also carry out a consultation of conference members before finalising their findings.
The brief for the Empowering Consumers group is:
People often feel powerless in the face of not only public services, but also utility companies, arms-length government bodies and many large businesses. They don’t feel able to hold them to account, and too often don’t see anyone else doing it effectively on their behalf
A new cross-cutting, thematic working group will develop concrete policies to deliver on our liberal promise to put real power in people’s hands and hold the already powerful properly to account.
If you are interested in joining the group then you can apply here.
* 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.


