Tag Archives: clive jones

Caron Lindsay

Coming up: Four things to watch out for from Lib Dems MPs this week

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 5th January 2025 - 2:28 pm

Parliament is back tomorrow after the two week Christmas recess. You would think that our MPs would have been taking a well earned rest after a brutal year of campaigning and then settling in to their new roles.

Not a chance. They’ve been on the doorsteps, doing urgent casework, attending events in their constituencies.  They’ll have full inboxes to attend to. The holiday gives their regular correspondents plenty of opportunity to write in with their asks on many different subjects.

So what will our MPs be up to this week?

On Wednesday, Keir Starmer will face his first PMQs of the year – and he’ll have five Lib Dems to look forward to. Marie Goldman has the second slot, Victoria Collins the fourth Andrew George and Christine Jardine are at 9 and 10 respectively. And Ed will also have his usual two questions.

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Mark Valladares

31 October 2024 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Thu 31st October 2024 - 11:30 pm
  • Ed Davey: Exempt social care from National Insurance tax hike
  • Budget: online gambling tax “a missed opportunity” for fairer NHS and care funding
  • Govt makes new commitment to create a ‘national cancer plan’ at Lib Dem led debate
  • Scot Lib Dems respond to government ditching pilot of juryless trials

Ed Davey: Exempt social care from National Insurance tax hike

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey has called on the government to exempt social care from the employer’s National Insurance tax rise.

The Chancellor has provided extra funding for the NHS and other public sector organisations to cover the cost of the tax rise. However, the vast majority of care providers are private and so won’t benefit from this help.

98% of care providers – 18,000 organisations – are small employers. The Liberal Democrats have said care providers including care homes and those providing care in people’s homes should be exempt from the National Insurance tax hike.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

Hammering small businesses with a tax hike is the wrong choice. It will hit people’s wages and jobs, but it also risks worsening the NHS crisis by hiking costs for care providers and pushing some to the brink.

It just shows that yet again the government seems to have forgotten about care. At the very least, the Chancellor should be exempting social care from this costly jobs tax.

Budget: online gambling tax “a missed opportunity” for fairer NHS and care funding

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey is calling on the Government to double the tax on online gambling firms as a “much fairer” way to raise money for the NHS and social care.

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The Voice

Maiden speech: Clive Jones MP for Wokingham

By The Voice | Wed 18th September 2024 - 11:49 am

Now that Conference is over, we can start catching up with the maiden speeches our MPs made last week. Here is Wokingham MP Clive Jones speaking in the Budget Responsibility debate.

The text is below

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The Voice

Our new MPs: Mike Martin, Danny Chambers, Charlie Maynard, Will Forster, Clive Jones

By The Voice | Sun 7th July 2024 - 1:15 pm

We thought you might like to find out a little bit about our new MPs. We didn’t think we’d have quite so many, but this is a lovely problem to have. All details come from the party website or the MPs’ social media. We’ll get to know them more over the next wee while, but here’s a taster. 

Our editor sleepily compiled a Twitter list of all our MPs’ accounts she could find. You can follow it here. 

Mike Martin MP: Tunbridge Wells

Mike Martin is standing as the candidate for Tunbridge Wells. He is a former British army officer who served multiple tours in Helmand, Afghanistan. Since leaving the army, he has also had other leadership roles, including as a senior executive in a global charity working to bring different people and organisations together to solve problems.

Mike is a Senior Fellow at King’s College London – an expert in geopolitics and conflict – and the author of several books on psychology, conflict and travel.

His background has taught him a lot about how to understand and work with different perspectives, how to bring people together to solve problems and how to get difficult things done.

Mike is campaigning on making the town centre of Tunbridge Wells a town centre that is fit for the 21st century—greener, less traffic, and with more things for youngsters to do. He would also like to lead a drive towards building more affordable housing in the area and, crucially, to make sure there is sufficient infrastructure for the houses that we already have. This means enough GP surgeries, and school places, and public transport.

At a national and international level, Mike has significant expertise in geopolitics and conflict. If elected, his focus at a national level will be on helping guide the UK through the turbulent years that we face.

Twitter: @threshedthought

Danny Chambers MP: Winchester

Danny works as a vet in Winchester, is the trustee of two charities and was elected by his peers to the body that governs the veterinary profession. He’s been involved in charitable projects all over the world.

He is committed to campaigning for better healthcare services for Winchester. He has also used his platform as a vet to campaign nationally on wider issues ranging from mental health to animal welfare.

Danny enjoys cycling, running and hiking. One of his favourite routes is the Itchen Navigation along the route of the old canal.

Twitter: @dannyvet

Charlie Maynard MP: Witney

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Caron Lindsay

New seats for our new MPs

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 28th September 2019 - 4:40 pm

This afternoon it’s been announced that Phillip Lee will be taking on John Redwood for the Liberal Democrats at the General Election. He will move from his current seat in Bracknell to Wokingham, which is considered winnable for the party.

According to the Wokingham Paper:

THE Liberal Democrats have announced that their candidate for Wokingham will be one of its newest MPs, Dr Phillip Lee. It sets up a Leave v Remain contest against the incumbent, Sir John Redwood.

Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrats deputy leader, announced the news to a packed meeting of Wokingham party members held at the Hilton St Anne’s Manor hotel in London Road.

The seat is one that polling by ComRes suggests could switch to the Lib Dems.

A projection suggests that the party would have a 37% vote share, compared to 33% for the Conservatives and 14% for Labour.

However, it also lists the Brexit party as 9% – the party is unlikely to field a candidate in Wokingham constituency as Sir John Redwood is a committed Leaver.

This move will be more controversial than Chuka Umunna moving to Cities of London and Westminster or Luciana Berger moving to Finchley and Golders Green. Both of these moves were widely welcomed in the party.

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