Caron Lindsay

Norman Lamb’s speech in health debate at Liberal Democrat Conference

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 18th March 2017 - 7:45 pm

Here s Norman Lamb’s speech from this afternoon’s health debate:

First, we condemn Theresa May for her refusal to guarantee the rights of EU citizens working in our NHS and care services to stay in this country.

We value the vital contribution you make.

We demand that their right is guaranteed.

The Budget completely failed to address the dire financial situation facing the NHS and care.

Whatever your politics, it makes no sense to spend a reducing share of our national income on the NHS as demand rises at 4% every year

Whatever your politics, it makes no sense that in 2018/19 spending per head in real terms will actually fall as pressures grow

Whatever your politics, surely we can’t tolerate over a million older people with care needs left unmet.

Yet this is the reality today.

And it’s not just numbers or statistics – it’s the impact on people which is so disturbing. There are real consequences for families up and down our country.

This is what the brilliant charity, Young Minds, reports from its Parents’ Helpline:

‘The helpline receives calls every day from parents who are desperately trying to get support from Children’s Mental Health Services. We regularly hear from parents who can’t even get a referral or who have been waiting months for an initial assessment and whose children’s conditions have got worse during that time. Children who have started to self harm or become suicidal during the wait – or who’ve dropped out of school, which not only has a big impact on their own education but also means that one of the parents has to give up their job to look after them.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems to continue quest for multilateral disarmament after amendment to get rid of nuclear weapons falls

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 18th March 2017 - 6:30 pm

Another conference, another debate on nuclear weapons. The anti nuclear weapons side has won once, in 1986, so the odds weren’t good. What would happen today, though, given that it was the first ever vote under OMOV.

Well, the party was clearly bringing out its big hitter so both sides. Conference darling Alistair Carmichael for the party working group position and Conference darling Julian Huppert for the anemdnemnt.

The working group was set up in Bournemouth in 2015 to look at the issues around nuclear weapons and drew up a paper which recommended keeping a nuclear deterrent and working for multilateral disarmament. An amendment recommended getting rid of nuclear weapons and spending the money strengthening our conventional weapons which, its movers argued, were actually what was needed to counter the global threats we face.

After a generally good-natured debate, Conference voted by 244 to 429 to reject the amendment.

Here’s a flavour of the debate:

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The Voice

Emergency motions deadline approaching #ldconf

By The Voice | Sat 18th March 2017 - 12:00 pm

There is space for two emergency motions in the Conference agenda. Five have been submitted.

As ever, conference reps have the chance to vote for their favourites.

A ballot paper is on the back of the Conference Daily. Complete and return it to the ballot box in the main auditorium before 12:40. Your badge will be punched so you can’t vote more than once.

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Caron Lindsay

Conference passes sex work motion unamended

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 18th March 2017 - 11:07 am

The first policy debate of the Conference has taken place with Conference overwhelmingly backing a policy paper which decriminalises sex work and provides workers with support which will improve their health and make them safer. An amendment which would have undermined the motion by calling for kerb-crawling convictions to be maintained was defeated. Joe Otten was right in his summation to talk about sexual harassment but as Charlotte Cane reminded conference in her summation, the evidence was that criminalising clients made sex workers less safe.

Here’s a flavour of the debate:

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The Voice

Tim Farron’s speech to the Conference rally: I am the only UK party leader opposing Brexit

By The Voice | Sat 18th March 2017 - 10:30 am

Here, in full, is Tim Farron’s speech to last night’s Conference rally. It went down very well in the hall with several bouts of spontaneous applause.

So, never let it be said that I don’t play fair.

My daughter Gracie went on Spanish exchange to Madrid last month to stay with her friend Alba, and her Parents took them to Real Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium.

This week it’s our turn to host Alba, and where have we taken her in return?

That’s right, we’ve brought her here to Liberal Democrat party conference.

We’re telling her its Wembley.

We told her the truth really. She is incognito, but she is here tonight…

So welcome to the only party in Britain that is unashamed to say that we actually like foreigners.

It is great to be here in York again. A city that exemplifies our liberal values. That the folks of York can – not just once, but two years running now – welcome a party led by a Lancastrian, just shows what a tolerant place this truly is.

And we gather here at the end of a week that will go down in history.

The week that our government won the right to trigger article 50 and throw our country out of the plane without a parachute

The week that Nicola Sturgeon chose to exploit Brexit to seek to divide our country

The week that 3 million EU citizens who have made our country their home were told that they did not count

Let that sink in. This is a time when you need to trust your gut instincts.

If those three events this week make you instinctively angry,

then the time for posting distressed statuses on facebook is over,

the time for crying into your coffee is over,

the time for throwing stuff at the TV is over.

The time has come for you to do something about it

You need to stand with the only party that stands for Britain in Europe;

that stands for Britain together,

that stands for a Britain that honours all who live and work here.

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Caron Lindsay

Defiant Conference rally sets out Liberal Democrat anti-brexit stall

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 18th March 2017 - 9:12 am

The Conference rally is always an opportunity to enthuse the Liberal Democrat conference goers and to set the tone for the whole weekend.

Last night’s was a gritty show of defiance of a Government that refuses to listen to any sort of reason over Brexit, contempt for an opposition that helps them on their way and a strong statement that only the Liberal Democrats will stand up for the rights of the British people.

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Caron Lindsay

Today at Spring Conference

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 18th March 2017 - 8:00 am

The Saturday of Spring Conference is very busy, with a packed training programme and fringe as well as debates in the hall. Don’t forget to grab your daily bulletin and make sure that you vote for the emergency motion you want to see debated by lunchtime.

The party will be talking about Brexit but because the situation was so fluid, the motion will only be published when we get to Conference as to do so before could have rendered it out of date.

The most controversial debate of the day will be on nuclear weapons. The policy paper produced by the Working Group recommends maintaining a nuclear deterrent while aiming for a global reduction in nuclear weapons. The arguments in favour of the motion and in favour of having no nuclear deterrent have been set out on this site  here by Tim Farron and here by David Grace respectively.

There’s a huge variety of fringe meetings. Some highlights are below.

Here is the full timetable for the day:

09.00–09.10: Opening of conference by Baroness Brinton
09.10–09.30: Report of Federal Conference Committee
Report of Federal Policy Committee
09.30–10.30: Policy Motion: A rational approach to harm reduction (Sex work policy paper)
10.30–11.15: Policy Motion: Tackling overcrowding in the prison system
11.15–11.35: Speech by Lynne Featherstone
11.35–12.40: Emergency motion or topical issue: Britain and the EU

12:40-14:20: Lunchtime fringe

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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.

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The Voice

Clegg: Brexiteers are shameless pedlars of fake news and fake hope

By The Voice | Fri 17th March 2017 - 4:55 pm

At the Conference rally tonight, Nick Clegg will take apart the arguments of the Brexiteers, calling them shameless.

He will say:

I’ve had enough of the continued, blatant attempt by Brexiteers to pull the wool over the public’s eyes. They spread fake news as indiscriminately as Trump’s Twitter rants. It started on the campaign trail with a promise of £350 million for the NHS – rejected by its authors the day after the result. Since then we’ve had patently false claims that Brexit will lead to more not less trade – a logical impossibility if we leave the EU’s single market and customs union – and the Utopian commitment to have all the details of our new relationship with the EU signed and sealed within 24 months.

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Caron Lindsay

How Liberal Democrat Lords stood up for the British people – Jonny Oates

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 17th March 2017 - 3:25 pm

In a few years’ time, when people may well be wondering why Parliament didn’t stop the Government in its reckless pursuit of the most damaging brexit possible, it will be clear who stood up for their rights. As Labour crumbled in farce, Liberal Democrat peers stood firm for the rights of the EU nationals who are are parents, neighbours, partners, co-workers and against the Government. The Lib Dem lords did all they could to prevent the disaster.

Here is Jonny Oates’ speech when pressing the issue to a vote.

My Lords, I move this Motion for the following reasons. First, despite the large majority that voted for the amendment to the Bill in this House, the Government have failed to make any concessions and not even attempted to address the many issues raised by noble Lords in Committee. Secondly, the profound nature of the issue at stake should make us think very carefully before we concede. This debate is not over some arcane technicality or some petty, partisan disagreement; it is about people’s lives. It is about whether people will be allowed to live in the country that they have made their home with the people for whom they care, whether they can stay in a job or plan a career, and whether their children can remain in the school they know and study with the friends they have made. It is about their futures, their homes and their families, and it is about the fear and misery being caused by every further day of uncertainty.

Thirdly, we should weigh our decision very carefully, because this debate is also about the integrity of our country. It is about whether we will honour the unequivocal commitment made by the official Vote Leave campaign that, if the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, the rights of all EU citizens in the UK would be guaranteed. Unlike most other issues arising from the referendum, there is absolutely no dispute about what was promised to EU citizens. The Vote Leave campaign, which was supported by a number of noble Lords, made the following categorical statement:

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Caron Lindsay

Today at Spring Conference

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 17th March 2017 - 1:55 pm

As you read this, Liberal Democrats will be arriving in York. I’ll be just about to head to lunch with some friends in a place called Sutlers. Never been there before, but anywhere that boasts of having 100 gins is good by me.

Conference kicks off at 3 with various consultation sessions. These are an important part of our policy making process. The Federal Policy Committee sets up working groups to look at various subjects. They take evidence from experts and consult members. Once they have done that, they draw their conclusions into a final paper which is debated by the full conference. This Spring’s consultations are:

15.00–17.30 21st Century Economy
Education
Rural Communities

16.30–18.15 Britain in the World

Then there’s a civic drinks reception at 5:15 and the Conference rally at 6:30.

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John Pugh

John Pugh MP writes: Campaigning for your local school

By John Pugh | Fri 17th March 2017 - 12:30 pm

Its Spring and much is stirring as people look cheerfully ahead at prospects new. Every well informed individual in the schools sector though looks ahead with scarcely disguised pessimism.

There is one very obvious reason for this. School funding is scheduled to nose dive. Heads know it,teachers know it and gradually parents are getting to hear about it. Today we have seen a new report published by the Education Policy Institute underlining the same grim statistics that troubled everyone from the National Union of Teachersto the National Audit Office. https://www.nao.org.uk/report/financial-sustainability-in-schools

The message is stark. Rejigging pupil funding on a national formula within a budget falling in real terms by £3 billion spells gloom for all. Nearly every school they suggest will lose and on average that will cost two teachers to primary schools and six to secondary schools. In many places the impacts will be worse.

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George Kendall

Social justice in a time of deficits

By George Kendall | Fri 17th March 2017 - 11:31 am

Liberal Democrats, and social democrats in the Labour party, share two key priorities. We want to improve social justice, and, to fund that work, we need to strengthen the economy.

We’ve often argued about the best way to do this, both within our parties and between them. But the decisions of the 2010-2015 parliament are behind us, and we need to look forward.

Unfortunately, deficits aren’t in the past. Since 2010, the deficit, when adjusted for the economic cycle, has fallen by about 40%. But it’s still around £65 billion a year. And the existing deficit is only one of our challenges.

Each year, the age profile of the UK gets older. As it does, the pressure on the NHS and other services increases, and the pressure on the government budget grows.

This will probably be made worse by Brexit.

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Caron Lindsay

Good vote share gains for the Liberal Democrats in last night’s by-elections

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 17th March 2017 - 10:39 am

No seats changed hands in last night’s by-elections but there were some solid rises in vote share for the Liberal Democrat candidates.

The Conservatives may have held on to Walton-le-Dale East ward in South Ribbble but it was Liberal Democrat candidate Alison Hesketh-Holt who was the real winner, gaining 14.6% of the vote. We didn’t stand last time the seat was fought.

An even bigger vote, 15.1% was similarly won by Andrew Thorpe in the Saham Toney ward of Breckland Council.

And Chris Boyle got us an 11.5% rise in the South Heaton ward in Newcastle – another strong performance in that area.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Trump lost on Wednesday

By Tom Arms | Fri 17th March 2017 - 9:15 am

I am not talking about the court ruling on version two of his travel ban. Neither am I talking about the mounting incredulity over his wiretapping claims and tax returns.

I am talking about an event that took place 3,843 miles away from the White House on the other side of the Atlantic– the Dutch general election.

Trump’s man was  Geert Wilders. The anti-EU, anti-immigration, racist leader of the Netherlands’ Freedom Party  who has bounced in and out of the Dutch courts on hate crime charges.

There was never any question of Wilders winning a majority in parliament and forming the next Dutch government. Their proportional representation  system makes that a virtual impossibility for any political party.

However, Wilders’ Freedom Party was tipped to win more seats than any other Dutch party. He failed, miserably. And he failed with 80 percent voter turnout—up 5.5 percent from the 2012 elections.

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The Voice

Farron: Now is the time to stand and fight

By The Voice | Fri 17th March 2017 - 5:58 am

The first big showcase event of Spring conference takes place this evening. At the rally, Tim Farron will call on pro Europeans to stand and fight.

First of all, though, he may gloat a bit about being named Remoaner in Chief by Arron Banks’s outfit:

If remoaning means standing up for EU citizens who have made their lives here in the UK.

If remoaning means demanding that the British people have the final say in this process

If remoaning means standing up for a family of nations that has healed the wounds of two world wars and a terrifying cold war

Then I am proud to be your remoaner in chief!

He will go on to talk about how we need to continue the fight against the destructive Brexit course chosen by the Conservatives and Labour:

I am not an enemy of the people, but I am the enemy of those people who seek to divide our country, to pervert the referendum result for their narrow ideology and trash our values by turning our backs on our neighbours.

And the more they come after us, the louder I will shout.

Despite what this government and their fanatical Brexit supporters in the press would like us all to believe, democracy did not end on the 24th of June.

It might be a political risk for us to speak out against the direction our country is going.

But it is the right thing to do.

Because what Britain does in the next two years will define us for the next one hundred.

So now is not the time to sit down and shut up.

Now is the time to stand up and fight.

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Paul Walter

Despite fight by Lib Dems, government changes today deny up to 160,000 people suffering from mental health disabilities access to Personal Independence Mobility Component

By Paul Walter | Thu 16th March 2017 - 9:00 pm

As we reported less than a month ago, Liberal Democtrats in the Parliament have been fighting the government’s decision to deny disability benefits to 160,000 vulnerable people. The government have refused to listen and the new regulations came into force today.

Stephen Fry tweeted:

He links to this message from Mind, the mental health charity:

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Manchester Gorton: We need YOU!

By Elspeth McCobb | Thu 16th March 2017 - 7:44 pm

The Manchester Gorton by-election can change things for the whole party – and we need you to come and help to make that happen.

Look at what we achieved in Witney. We sent a message loud and clear that the Lib Dem fightback was on. We proved we could take a serious number of votes from the Conservatives, angry at their former party’s backing for a hard Brexit.

If we can do to Labour in Manchester what we did to the Tories in Witney or Richmond Park we will send shock waves through British politics.

We have an amazing story to tell in Manchester Gorton.  From our great candidate Jackie Pearcey who has a proud 20 year record as a local councillor, to our party’s positive message of hope for an open and tolerant Britain.

And that’s not to mention the failure of Labour in Manchester and nationally. Labour have sided – and voted – with UKIP on Brexit – letting down the 62% of people in Manchester Gorton constituency who voted Remain. And at a local level they take Manchester and its voters for granted.

But we need your help to get that message across.

Only last Wednesday we walked into an empty shop on Stockport Road in Levenshulme for the first time to set up our new Lib Dem HQ. Within hours of getting the office keys, it was bustling with activity as we unloaded the party’s by-election kit – fresh from its triumphs in Witney and Richmond Park.

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Joan Walmsley

Baroness Joan Walmsley writes…Can’t we agree to agree on funding health and social care?

By Joan Walmsley | Thu 16th March 2017 - 3:03 pm

A sight that all of us will have seen since the Autumn is ambulances queuing at A & E and patients waiting on trolleys in hospital corridors. Some of us will have seen the situation at first hand, waiting with a relative or waiting for treatment. Bed occupancy has been dangerously high in many hospitals, with senior managers and doctors having to take decisions that, in some instances, are literally life or death.

Upsetting as these images are, they show only the tip of a very large iceberg that is threatening to sink an NHS and the social care system unable to cope with demand.

Three reports have been published this week which expose the crisis in other key services.

The Kings Fund’s report “Understanding NHS financial pressures: How are they affecting patient care?” looked at the impact on four services that rarely make the headlines: genito-urinary medicine (GUM) services; district nursing services; elective hip replacement services: and neonatal services. The report states:

The growing gap between demand for services and available resources means that staff are acting as shock absorbers, working longer hours and more intensely to protect patient care. ….
Our findings create a fundamental challenge to the direction of travel set out in the NHS five year forward view ……the NHS appears to be moving further away from its goal of strengthening community-based services and focusing on prevention, rather than making progress towards it.

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Peter Taylor

A liberal case for faith schools

By Peter Taylor | Thu 16th March 2017 - 1:50 pm

At the age of 11 I had a choice. I could either attend a Catholic secondary school or a secondary school without a religious character. I chose the Catholic secondary school. This school, Notre Dame, had a catchment area covering half the city of Sheffield. This meant that there were pupils from affluent and less-affluent areas, from the inner city and the suburbs and from the families of many nationalities. I had classmates who were Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Muslim and of no-faith at all. Had I chosen the non-Catholic school, all of my fellow pupils would have lived in the same neighbourhood and would been almost uniformly white-British.

My experience was not an exceptional one because Catholic schools are diverse. They have more pupils from deprived neighbourhoods, one third of the pupils attending Catholic schools are not Catholic and the percentage of black and minority ethnic pupils in Catholic schools is significantly higher than in non-faith schools. They are also more likely to have an Ofsted grade of good or outstanding. Not only that, Church schools provide a rounded education with a strong emphasis on the social and moral development of everyone, helping each person to recognise the importance of being active in their communities.

Critics of faith school frequently argue that allowing faith to be used as an admissions criterion is discriminatory and that everyone should be able to study at faith schools. An obvious response is that many pupils in Church schools do not share the faith of the school they attend. For example, there are over 26,000 Muslim pupils attending Catholic schools in England and Wales. It is important to remember that the Church provided the land, buildings and ongoing financial support for Church schools. Is it liberal to argue that central government should insist on one set of admissions rules for every school, of whatever type, in every circumstance without faith communities having a say?

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Toby Keynes

An end to religious discrimination in our schools

By Toby Keynes | Thu 16th March 2017 - 12:37 pm

This Sunday, Conference will decide our party’s policy on state-funded faith schools – and in particular on whether schools should be able to select children on the basis of their religion or belief.

I would like to think this would be an uncontentious issue.

Surely we are defined as a party by our rejection of discrimination, and by our determination to oppose entrenched privilege and inequality.

And yet there are some within this party who believe that our children should be segregated by their religion – so that Catholic children only play and learn with other Catholic children, Jewish children only play and learn with other Jewish children, and so on.   And that the Jewish child whose local state school is in the same road but happens to be a Catholic school should be barred from that school because they are Jewish.  

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Joe Bourke

Irish Liberal Democrats and LDV St Patrick’s Day fringe at York

By Joe Bourke | Thu 16th March 2017 - 10:18 am

Theresa May dealt a blow to Ireland in her Brexit white paper when she said she wanted in effect to leave the EU customs union, confirming Brexit poses a huge threat to frictionless cross-border trade on the island of Ireland, the mainstay of the Irish economy.

The Irish Ambassador to the UK, Daniel Mulhall said last month that comprehensive customs and border checks between Ireland and Northern Ireland are not remotely possible

Northern Ireland polled more europhilic than other regions in the UK before the election. Its Remain vote of 55.7 per cent was the third strongest in the country. Nationalists wanted the UK to remain in the EU, but unionists generally wanted to leave. Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the Ulster Unionists, Alliance and the Green Party wanted to stay. The Irish government also wanted a remain vote. The DUP, the TUV and the left-wing People before Profit party backed Brexit.

As Sinn Fein and the DUP jostle for position in a new power sharing agreement at Stormont the Brexit divide has come to the fore. If the parties are unable to agree an accommodation, we may yet see a return to direct rule of the province from Westminster.

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Caron Lindsay

Updated for York 2017: Caron’s guide to the craziness of Conference

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 16th March 2017 - 8:45 am

Federal Conference is probably the best fun that you will ever have in your life. You will thoroughly enjoy every exhausting moment. If you’re new, it can be a bit overwhelming until you get used to the sensory overload. I had a long break from going to them and when I returned, in 2011, I spent the first day wandering round in a state of wide-eyed amazement,  like a child in a toy shop. Spring Conference is smaller than Autumn, but a look at the agenda tells me that there are at least two things going on that I want to go to at all times.

So, with that in mind, I thought I’d throw together a fairly random list of tips and hints for getting the best out of the annual cornucopia of Liberal Democracy. If you have any other Conference survival tips, let me know.

1. Plan your days

The Conference day has a huge variety of things to do. As well as the debates in the hall,  there’s a comprehensive training programme.  There are spokespeople Q & As. There are competing fringe choices to be made, even though the overall selection has reduced in recent years.  You can guarantee that you will never be bored and that several things you want to see will be on at the same time.

Be aware as well that you can eat quite well for free by choosing the right fringe meetings – look for the refreshments symbol in the directory.

Believe me, it’s much easier if you sort out your diary in advance. The best laid plans will always be subject to a better offer or meeting someone you haven’t seen for years randomly in a corridor, but it’s best to at least try to get some order into the proceedings. The Conference App is a real help for this. You can download it from whichever App store you use on your phone (search for Lib Dem Conf). It allows you to add events to your schedule and is pretty flexible. 

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Nick T

Strong showing for liberals in The Netherlands

By Nick T | Thu 16th March 2017 - 7:38 am

Nick Clegg with Mark Rutte in 2010

As the FT reports, VVD, the liberal party of Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, will once again be the largest party in the Dutch parliament:

Prime Minister Mark Rutte looks certain to form the next Netherlands government, with his party projected to secure a clear general election victory over rivals including populist challenger Geert Wilders.

The projected victory was welcomed by moderates and pro-EU politicians across Europe and has calmed their fears that the continent was poised to fall under the sway of nationalists following the UK’s Brexit vote and the election of President Donald Trump in the US.

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Caron Lindsay

Another civil liberties victory for the Scottish Liberal Democrats

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 15th March 2017 - 7:24 pm

A couple of years ago, the SNP was planning to make this super ID database which made what Labour’s planned ID cards from 2008 look positively timid. They intended allowing 120 public bodies, including the Royal Botanic Gardens and Quality Meat Scotland, access to the NHS Central Register.

Alison McInnes, our then Justice spokesperson was on it straight away, as was Willie Rennie and made such a big fuss that the idea has now firmly been consigned to the dustbin.

Following parliamentary questions from Liam McArthur, our new Justice Spokesperson, the Scottish Government admitted that it had “decided it would not …

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron writes: A nuclear weapons-free world?

By Tim Farron MP | Wed 15th March 2017 - 3:56 pm

 

I recently revisited an article that I wrote ahead of Autumn Conference in 2015. My article opened with the line, “Another Lib Dem conference and we find ourselves talking about our nuclear deterrent once more.”

And they say politics has changed in the last eighteen months!

In York this week, we will again debate the future of the UK’s nuclear deterrent. At conference’s request, the FPC has commissioned a policy paper on nuclear weapons (pdf). The paper, written by party members after long consideration, advocates a step down the nuclear ladder by moving to a medium-readiness posture, and proposes an end to continuous at-sea deterrence. It also calls on the UK to become a leader in the disarmament and control of nuclear weapons. This position reflects the UK’s continued need for a minimum nuclear deterrent, suitable for the 21st century, which sits alongside the Liberal Democrats’ commitment to working for a world free of nuclear weapons, working within international institutions, particularly the UN.

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Jonathan Hunt

Make cheating employers pay, not lone entrepreneurs

By Jonathan Hunt | Wed 15th March 2017 - 2:39 pm

 

Many politicians protesting, quite rightly, about the unfair hike in National Insurance contributions for the self-employed have missed the real solution.

The important contribution is the one paid by employers, at 13.8 per cent of wages for abroad middle range of employees. It is an expensive outlay on workers, and often claimed to be a deterrent to increasing the payroll.

More unscrupulous companies, mostly but not all US-owned multinationals, are evading this tax. They do not employ most of their workforce, but engage people labelled as self-employed.

As one who has been self-employed for many years, even while holding such executive positions as business editor on national newspapers, I recall that becoming self-employed was beset with hurdles. A principal test was to prove that you decided how the task was to be performed, not those paying you.

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Stephen Harte

The emotions of constitutional change

By Stephen Harte | Wed 15th March 2017 - 12:24 pm

 

Here we go again – Scotland is (if Westminster grants a S30 Order) being treated to yet another bitter, divisive and emotional constitutional referendum where lies and spin will confuse one and all and we will likely end up with a narrow result that satisfies no one. What joy!

I voted No before.  This time we are told that circumstances have changed (thus the SNP and the hyper-nationalist Scottish Green Party are demanding the re-vote that they would have demanded whatever happened) and some of my LibDem friends say that Brexit means they will now vote Yes.

Willie Rennie promises to make an “emotional case for the Union”.  I find it hard to get any more emotional about staying with the Union then separating from it.  Where can a liberal find that emotional call?

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Paul Tyler

Some progress on party funding reform – comments please!

By Paul Tyler | Wed 15th March 2017 - 10:35 am

 

The adage “if you want to keep something secret, say it in the House of Commons” certainly extends to the Lords on Fridays, when Private Members Bills are taken.

However, our team made significant progress last week in pushing the government to take seriously their own manifesto commitment “to continue to seek agreement on a comprehensive package of party funding reform”.  We have been plugging away at this by whatever means possible, including by initiating a special Select Committee on party funding reform last year, and by introducing my Political Parties (Funding and Expenditure) Bill last week.  I opened the debate, and Chris Rennard and Ian Wrigglesworth both spoke too.  We received support also from Labour Peer Larry Whitty, and from the Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Paul Bew.

For decades, Lib Dems have sought a cap on individual donations – to limit the auction of influence and access to government and senior political figures which now takes place.  In return, a limited element of public funding – linked to support in the country – would be needed to ensure the parties could continue their campaigning.

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 9 Comments
Tony Lloyd

This time we should be firmly pro-Independence

By Tony Lloyd | Wed 15th March 2017 - 9:00 am

 

At the last conference Alex Cole-Hamilton explained his opposition to Scottish independence by noting that he was a UK citizen, an EU citizen and wanted to remain both.

It is a fine sentiment.

The time, though, is fast arising when he and others may have to decide which is more important. When no amount of campaigning against the decision will prevent the outcome, when the Tory backbenchers melt and when the Labour leadership get behind the Brexiteers, then then people of Scotland are faced with a choice. It is a stark choice, it is a difficult choice and it is a choice, no doubt, that people do not want to make. But it is a choice they will be forced to: “UK or EU”, “both” will not be on the ballot paper.

So which to choose?

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 66 Comments
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