Geoff Payne has been elected as the new Chair of Federal Conference Committee (FCC). Geoff served as Vice-Chair of the committee for eight years and was responsible for chairs’ training, access arrangements and the initial selection of venues and setting of registration rates. He was also a long-standing member of the Federal Policy Committee.
The election for chair followed the decision of long-serving former chair, Andrew Wiseman, to step down. Andrew was a highly popular chair of FCC and steered party conference through a period of great change including the coalition years. Everyone on FCC has paid tribute to …
This is the audio feed of a pre-Conference webinar held on Monday night where Party President Sal Brinton, new member Emily Barrass and Federal Conference Committee Chair Andrew Wiseman discuss Conference. Hear them talk about their funniest Conference memories (Mr Wiseman’s is particularly tame. He’s going to have to do better over the weekend, so he’d better have a good story lined up), the Glee Club, and speaking at Conference (Sal has some really good tips on that). Emily came to Conference in Bournemouth and has seriously caught the bug.
They strongly recommended chatting to anyone you meet. All our VIPs are incredibly approachable. If you have a question, just go up and ask them.
Mary, Joe and I will be there from LDV. Please come and say hello.
The chair of the Federal Finance and Administration Committee, Duncan Greenland has written an article in the Conference edition of Liberator on the highly controversial issue of Conference accreditation. A Liberal Democrat Voice poll in June, consistent with every other test of party opinion on the issue, showed that a majority of respondents opposed the system, which requires conference attendees to undergo police checks.
Mr Greenland felt that the Liberator coverage on the issue had been “misleading” and wanted to put the record straight about the process by which accreditation was approved. He stated that FFAC had become involved after …
Last Saturday, Federal Conference Committee chair Andrew Wiseman invited responses in an article on Liberal Democrat Voice from members on the controversial issue of an accreditation system for Conference. Sussex Police had requested that party members would have to submit their identity details and past addresses so that they could be checked out by the Police to keep out people who might cause security issues.
Unsurprisingly, the Liberal Democrat blogosphere has been vocal in response. If there has been a post out there in favour of such a system, then I’ve not been able to find it.
Despite a resurgence in recent years, the tabling of questions to party committee reports at Liberal Democrat conference is still very much a minority sport. So much so that 100% of questions to the Federal Policy Committee came from a certain North London Doctor with an penchant for chocolate…
The questions do however provide a good opportunity to ferret out information or push for a decision where you know the door is half-open. In my case this morning at Gateshead that resulted in questions to both the Federal Conference Committee and the Federal Policy Committee asking them to start publishing reports …
By Simon McGrath
| Sat 10th September 2011 - 2:28 pm
Lib Dem Voice has carried a number of articles in recent weeks, reflecting wider discussions among Lib Dems, about the security arrangement for the Birmingham Conference. The tone of many of these discussions has reached a quite extraordinary pitch of self-righteousness and vituperation, in many cases based on hearsay and rumour.
Perhaps it would be worth looking at some of the facts about the security arrangements.
Firstly the idea that this is a decision which Lib Dems can take on our own is simply wrong. Many others attend our conference, the media, exhibitors and the workers in the venue, who in …
The rolling saga that is security checks for people attending Liberal Democrat conference has generated a lot of heat, some light – and a fair degree of confusion. So this post is my attempt to untangle the main aspects of the story, which really fall into three sections: the principle of the checks, the way the checks have been communicated and the way the checks have in practice been carried out.
In theory, the principle of whether or not the Liberal Democrat conference organisers should have agreed to the police’s request for extra security checks on attendees for the autumn conference …
Saturday morning in Sheffield this weekend sees the LibDem conference debating two of the areas of coalition which have generated the most controversy: the NHS and the future of the Disability Living Allowance.
The motion on the Disability Living Allowance (F4) has been slightly overtaken by events as the debate within government over the Welfare Reform Bill develops and in fact the plans in this area have in effect been sent back to the drawing board. That makes the motion all the more important, because rather than being simply a chance to cast a verdict on what the government has done, it is a chance to influence what is yet to be decided. The heart of the motion calls for “the Coalition Government to reinstate the Mobility Component or otherwise fund the mobility needs of those who cannot afford to do so themselves”.
Straight after this debate comes one on the NHS (F5). The choice of Andrew Wiseman, Federal Conference Committee’s chair, to chair this debate is a good sign that this is expected to be one of the liveliest of conference as is the news that two Liberal Democrat MPs have signed an EDM expressing concerns over the policy.
Buried in the middle of the motion are lines 16-17 which says that “Conference welcomes the vision for the NHS set out in the Government’s White Paper”. That may be glossed over as a bit of padding between long lists of less controversial points or it may be the trigger for an all-out row, as also may be the amendment likely to be debated that is coming from ex-MP and doctor Evan Harris and Lib Dem peer Shirley Williams (who made her views clear in “I can’t support the coalition plan for the NHS“).
The gap between what the amendment calls for and what Liberal Democrats in government have been pressing for is not that large, however – and some have already expressed the view that the amendment may be a good route to getting more changes made to the health plans. That will provide a pointed choice for those promoting the amendment – whether to try to bring about change through aggressive antagonism or through emollient persuasion? And is modifying the government plans or setting out what a Liberal Democrat majority government would do their top priority?
The full text of both motions are in the Spring Conference Agenda and Directory embedded below.
News from Andrew Wiseman, chair of the Lib Dem Federal Conference Committee:
The Conference Agenda has been finalised and is now available online, together with accompanying policy papers and consultation papers. For those members who registered for conference before 30 January, hard copies will be arriving through the post very soon.
We have planned an interesting agenda with a variety of debates including one on the NHS and another looking at the strategy of the Party. Representatives will also have the opportunity to participate in two Q&A sessions, one with the Party Leader and the other with members of the BIS
All the papers for next month’s Liberal Democrat Conference in Liverpool are now available online at the party’s website.
These include the agenda, which contains details and times of speeches, debates and consultative sessions. There’s also an introduction from the new Federal Conference Committee chair, Andrew Wiseman, and an article by party leader Nick Clegg: “Delivering in Government.”
The training programme, reports to conference, “Accountability to the poor” policy paper and consultation papers on health, IT and volunteering are all …
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