Tag Archives: federal policy committee

Federal Policy Committee Report 13 September 2017

By Geoff Payne | Fri 15th September 2017 - 11:56 am

This report relates to the meeting of the Federal Policy Committee which took place on 13th September 2017. The committee had not met for a few months. Its last meeting, which was scheduled for 12th July 2017, had been cancelled. There was therefore quite a lot to catch up on.

Vince Cable Update on Priorities

It hardly needs saying but, since the last meeting, a new Leader has taken over. Vince Cable attended the meeting to update the committee on his priorities.

Vince said that he had been to eighteen meetings around the country as a substitute for leadership hustings. He had also …

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Federal Policy Committee discusses the General Election Manifesto

By Geoff Payne | Wed 3rd May 2017 - 9:50 am

This report relates to the meeting of the Federal Policy Committee which took place on 2nd May 2017, some 20 years to the day since the Labour landslide General Election victory in 1997.

This meeting commenced at 2pm and went on well past 10pm. The reason for the length of that meeting was that the only item on its agenda was to agree our manifesto for the 2017 General Election.

I am afraid that there is very little that I can say about the contents of the manifesto or the work that underpinned it for reasons that I am sure people will understand.

Comments from the Leader

Tim Farron MP made some introductory remarks about the importance of our manifesto, and the vigour with which we are fighting this campaign.

He stated that we are going to need a very distinctive manifesto in order to differentiate ourselves from the other parties. He said that the message that will come through in the introduction will be different from that in previous manifestos but it is one that has solid evidence behind it. You will see what I mean when you read it.

Campaign Update

Shaun Roberts, the Director of Campaigns, went through the campaign as it stands.

He indicated that we are facing a number of battlegrounds and set out in detail the challenges that we are facing in each one. He said that our present election message is working where it is heard. The challenge is to ensure that it is heard as widely as it can be. The message from us has to be that we are a strong opposition.

Shaun went though some of the groups of voters that we would want to get back. We used to get significant numbers of voters from public sector workers because our policies, underpinned by our strong beliefs, were to stand up for our public services. Our policies as they stand should go a long way towards attracting that group of voters back.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged committee reports | 13 Comments

Federal Policy Committee Report – 29 March 2017

By Duncan Brack | Mon 3rd April 2017 - 8:54 am

FPC’s meetings tend to be dominated by two things: consideration of consultation and policy papers, which are ultimately put to conference for discussion and debate; and trying to find ways to improve the process of policy-making and policy discussion within the party. Last Wednesday’s meeting featured both.

For the first hour or so of the meeting we discussed our responses to two of the consultation papers we published in February, on the 21^st Century Economy, and on Education. The working groups which wrote the papers for us will take our comments, along with the many received from party members and made at the consultative sessions at York, into consideration when they write their policy papers for the FPC to consider in June or July. The final papers will then be submitted to the Bournemouth conference in September for debate.

The rest of the meeting was mainly devoted to process issues. FPC is keen to improve the opportunities for debating policy within the party. While plenty of policy debates take place at federal and state conferences, at the local party level it’s quite variable. Many local parties run popular and effective pizza and politics events (or their culinary equivalents), but in others their efforts may be entirely taken up with campaigning and fund-raising. We believe policy debate is good in itself: it improves members’ experience of involvement in the party (after all, it’s the reason many members joined) and their knowledge of what we stand for, and it improves input into the formal policy-making process which FPC oversees.

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Federal Policy Committee Report – 15 February 2017

By Alisdair Calder McGregor | Sun 19th February 2017 - 8:55 am

Federal Policy Committee met on Wednesday 15th February. The meeting was slightly in advance of our normal cycle (it having been obviously felt that having a long FPC meeting on the evening before the Stoke-On-Trent and Copeland by-elections was a bad idea).

Sadly the combined effect of a Parliamentary recess and half term in some areas of the country led to a lower turnout than at the previous meeting with neither Tim Farron MP nor the regular compiler of these reports Geoff Payne being able to attend. In Tim’s absence the meeting was chaired by the committee vice-chair Duncan Brack.

The meeting as a whole was driven much more by discussion over future process than the previous meeting’s focus on policy matters for Spring Conference. In some ways Federal Policy Committee regards our pre-conference work as “done with”; we are now awaiting the input from conference on the policy papers, motions and consultation papers to shape how FPC will proceed. As such, much of our work this time was on preparation for post-conference work.

The shape of some of our subcommittees and working groups due to report back for Autumn Conference was fleshed out. Belinda Brooks-Gordon was elected as the Chair of the Policy Equalities Impact Assessment Group (of which I am also a member) which will review Policy proposals with an intersectional view of the impact of policies upon all diversity strands.

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Federal Policy Committee Report – 18 January 2017

By Geoff Payne | Thu 19th January 2017 - 9:51 am

Happy new Year! The most recent meeting of the Federal Policy Committee took place on 18^th January 2016 in Portcullis House, Westminster. This was a very well attended meeting indeed, it being the first of a new cycle of Federal Policy Committee meetings. This committee has a three-year term.

We welcomed a large number of new members the committee. There had been a substantial change in committee membership following the elections. They included Elizabeth Jewkes, Alisdair McGregor, Chris White, Paul Tilsley, Qurban Hussain, Christine Chueng, Jim Williams, Sally Burnell, Catherine Royce, David Weston, Susan Juned, Jonny Oates, Tony Greaves, Kamran Hussain and Heather Kidd. Andrew Wiseman attended to represent the Federal Conference Committee and Richard Cole represent the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors.

Composition of Federal Policy Committee and Committee Elections

Tim Farron MP remains as the chair of the committee.

There were elections for the post of Vice-Chair. There were three vacancies; one of them was reserved for a Parliamentarian (the old M.P. Vice-Chair). The contenders were Duncan Brack, Jeremy Hargreaves and Sarah Ludford and they were all elected without opposition.

Lizzy Jewkes and Alisdair McGregor were appointed to the Policy Equalities Impact Assessment Group. That group conducts an audit of each policy paper to ensure that the authors have thought through and considered the equalities aspect of their work.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged committee reports | 31 Comments

What can we learn from the Federal election results?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 18th December 2016 - 10:23 am

Yesterday, we learned who party members had chosen to represent them on the main Federal Committees. These were the first elections held under one member one vote. Previously, only those who had been elected as Conference representatives by their local party could have a say in the direction of the party.

Congratulations to all those who were elected – and commiserations to those who weren’t.

From 2012, Daisy Cooper and Sue Doughty led a process which led to the biggest internal democratic reform in the party’s history. In 2014, Conference accepted their proposals to give every member a vote. We now have not far off twice as many members as we did back then in the last days of the coalition.

So how did these elections go, and what can we learn from them?

Who was elected?

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged federal board, federal conference committee and internal elections 2016 | 30 Comments

Federal Policy Committee Report – 7th December 2016

By Geoff Payne | Fri 9th December 2016 - 10:25 am

The most recent meeting of the Federal Policy Committee took place on 7th December 2016 in Westminster. It was relatively sparsely attended but there were two good discussions nonetheless.

Composition of Federal Policy Committee

This was the last meeting of the committee as presently constituted. To say that the last two years of the Federal Policy Committee have been a journey would be an understatement! We started in the closing years of the last Parliament, when the Liberal Democrats were still in government, still had Ministers and at a time when we used to have a whole supporting cast of Special Advisors accompany them to meetings. We wrote the 2015 General Election Manifesto when the world was very different. We then, of course, suffered the cataclysm of the election itself. The chair of the committee changed. The party elected a new Leader. We re-built and fought back. We wrote another General Manifesto in the event that a snap election was called. It still may be. We have discussed policy papers, Brexit and our policy development plans looking forward. We ran the Agenda 2020 exercise and for the new policy working groups, we received over 800 applications from party members. Although the landscape is certainly not what it was in January 2014, we are building again and we have laid out a very good policy platform for the future.

There are several members of the committee who are not standing again. We will miss them. Whatever the outcome of the Federal Elections, the committee will be very different in just a few weeks from now.

This final meeting was spent dealing with two of the outstanding Policy Working Groups that are nearing their conclusion. It was relatively short, reflective of the fact that our work programme was coming to an end for now.

Nuclear Weapons Working Group

Neil Stockley attended the meeting to present the preliminary report of the Nuclear Weapons Working Group. This group has had to deal with one of the most thorny and difficult issues at the present time.

The remit of the group noted that the world had changed profoundly since the United Kingdom became one of the five declared nuclear powers in the 1950s. Britain’s nuclear posture has, however, not kept up. Following the Cold War position of mutually assured destruction, the post-Cold War era led to improved security but Britain nonetheless retained its nuclear deterrent. Many questioned the need but successive governments rejected the idea of giving up nuclear weapons. In this changed landscape, the group was charged with looking again at the case for Britain being a nuclear power.

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Federal Policy Committee Report – 22 November 2016

By Geoff Payne | Thu 24th November 2016 - 10:15 am

This is a report of the Federal Policy Committee meeting of 23rd November. This was a fairly sparsely attended meeting. The elections are in full swing and, for that reason, it is not particularly surprising that this was the case.

Brexit Update

Sarah Ludford took the committee through the latest position on Brexit. The Supreme Court case is listed for the early part of December. One of the key issues is whether Article 50 can be revoked. The parties agreed on that question in the High Court and it may be that the Supreme Court has to re-visit that question. There may be a reference to the European Court of Justice, if not from the United Kingdom then from elsewhere. That would delay matters. The stance that we have adopted is that there must be a Parliamentary vote on involving Article 50 regardless of the court proceedings. It would be odd, in an argument about sovereignty, if that were not the case. We have also said that there should be a referendum on the terms of the deal that ends up being on the table. We have said that we will vote against the triggering of Article 50 in the Commons unless there is a commitment from the government to have that referendum.

The committee had a general discussion about this question but there were no formal decisions to be taken.

Sex Work Preliminary Report

The committee went on to consider the preliminary report from the Sex Work Group, chaired by Belinda Brooks-Gordon. That report set out a number of issues that the group was to consider including violence against sex workers, coercion, police investigations or the lack thereof, the legislative framework, criminalisation, stigma and issues that sex work can cause in the local community.

The paper went on to deal with what the aims of a Liberal Democrat policy should be and what changes to the law were required. They were set out in some detail and they will be in the motion and paper that will mark the end of the process.

This is an area of great sensitivity and there were members of the committee who took slightly different views on some of the issues raised. Others raised the question of the effect that sex work can have on local communities. There was a debate over the differences in principle between criminalisation and legalisation. Nothing is finalised yet: a formal paper will be presented to the final meeting of the committee in December. The whole issue will then be debated at Federal Conference in the Spring.

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Federal Policy Committee Report – 6 September 2016

By Geoff Payne | Wed 7th September 2016 - 10:25 am

After a hiatus in meetings over the summer, the Federal Policy Committee met for the first time on 6^th September 2016.

This was a very lengthy meeting. It commenced at 14:30 and went on well into the evening. There were only two items on the agenda.

Snap General Election Manifesto

The Federal Policy Committee is responsible for the preparation of the General Election manifestoes for the party. Earlier in the year, following the turmoil surrounding the Brexit vote, the change in party leadership in the Tories and the extreme instability in Labour, it looked like there might be a snap General Election this Autumn. Under those circumstances, the committee wanted to have a manifesto draft available in the event that one was called. It would have taken far too long to prepare a document at that stage and we would have started on the back foot.

As regular readers of this report will know, a Working Group was set up to actually write the document. That group was chaired by Dick Newby. It worked very hard throughout the summer to prepare the first draft. There was also a consultation exercise in which 8,000 members of the party responded. Those responses were considered and many of them were incorporated.

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Report of Federal Policy Committee meeting – 13 July 2016

By Geoff Payne | Thu 14th July 2016 - 10:26 am

The Federal Policy Committee is traditionally very busy in the immediate run-up to the summer holiday. That is because of conference deadlines and the need to get everything concluded before August when a lot of people are away.

The most recent meeting of the committee, which came hot on the heels of the last one, was on 13th July 2016. It also happened to be the day that Labour plunged further into disarray following the revelation that Jeremy Corbyn will appear on the ballot paper in their leadership election and, of course, the country had a new Prime Minister foisted upon it.

As we were going through the meeting, government announcements were being about new Cabinet members. We paused several time for a collective intake of breath.

There was a lot to discuss. We did not finish until some time after 9pm.

Membership of the committee

Gareth Epps has resigned from the committee because he has taken a job that is politically restricted. Gareth has been a very active member of FPC for a long time and he will certainly be missed from the committee. We were, however, delighted to welcome Antony Hook as his replacement.

Education Working Group

The committee agreed the chairs, membership, and remits of three new working groups. Each of those groups was recommended by the Agenda 2020 exercise.

The first of these was education. The remit requires the group to identify proposals for new policy in Education in England. The group is particularly to be directed to identify policies which could be strong campaigning issues within education, reinforcing our overall liberal vision of creating opportunity for everyone regardless of background. The group is also expected to consider and address Liberal Democrat principles on diversity and equalities in developing their proposals. It will deal with the overall principles of education, Early Years, funding, structures, academies, governors, standards and inspections, quality, teacher recruitment, closing the attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students, school and the world of work, Further Education and adult education. It will not deal with Higher Education.

The chair is to be Lucy Nethsingha. The membership of the group was appointed. It is fair to say that there was very strong competition for places. In fact, we had over 830 applications for the working groups.

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Federal Policy Committee Report – 11 May 2016

By Geoff Payne | Thu 12th May 2016 - 4:20 pm

The Federal Policy Committee had its most recent meeting on 11th May 2016. The agenda was a fairly light one with two major substantive items.

Further Discussion on Liberty and Security Working Group Paper

Brian Paddick attended the committee again to discuss the progress of this working group. It is nearing its closing stages now and will report to conference in the Autumn.

The group has consulted very widely throughout the party; firstly at a consultation session at Spring Conference which was extremely well attended, secondly, through an online survey that was promoted on Twitter and Facebook, thereby doubling the number of responses, and finally through actively soliciting submissions from various groups within the party.

There was a short paper presented to the committee setting out various provisional conclusions that had been reached and that formed a basis for discussion.

The areas that are to be addressed in the paper will follow the remit that was set. Those areas include the range and severity of the threats to the country arising from terrorism, extremism and cross-border crime, the necessary powers of the police and security services in order to deal with those threats, online surveillance by the authorities, the regulation and accountability of the police, the encroachment on individual liberty by entities other than government such as private companies and news media and, finally, the steps that government can take to reduce threats to public safety other than through the police and security services.

It would not be right for me to go into the conclusions of the group now and before the release of the final paper. That said, the paper will cover issues such as the current threat level facing the United Kingdom and the sources from which that threat is derived, the Investigatory Powers Bill and its predecessors, secret courts, the PREVENT strategy and potential changes to it, data collection by private companies, the stripping of citizenship and the potential for someone to be left stateless, covert human surveillance, the Digital Bill of Rights, data protection, trust in the police and the effect of government foreign policy on community relations and perception.

There was a range of comments from members of the committee. There was an extremely interesting discussion about bulk data collection, dark areas of the net and social media and the ability of the security services to access that material and those areas. There were also comments about PREVENT and CHANNEL, Secret Courts and a new requirement to prove nationality if a person is stopped that the government has imposed.

The final paper will return to the Federal Policy Committee on 8th June 2016.

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Federal Policy Committee meeting report

By Geoff Payne | Thu 24th March 2016 - 4:10 pm

This report concerns the meeting of the FPC that took place on 23rd March 2016. This was not the best-attended meeting of the cycle but there were some very interesting discussions nonetheless.

Consultation Session on Liberty and Security Working Group Paper

Brian Paddick attended to offer the committee an opportunity to comment on the consultation paper that was taken to Spring Conference by his working group. The consultation session at Spring Conference was standing room only and there were a number of views expressed in that meeting.

Brian explained that the Investigatory Powers Bill is starting its committee session in the Commons shortly. The committee was delighted to hear that the chair is to be Nadine Dorries MP.

Members of the committee made a number of points in response to the consultation. There were comments surrounding the rushed nature of the legislation, the need to keep the rhetoric on the proposed powers proportionate to the threat, the issues in relation to bulk retention and the privacy implications thereof. There were also comments about the need to ensure that legal professional privilege is inviolable,that there should be proper judicial oversight with submissions potentially being made by special advocates for the other side and the need to ensure that there are no hidden ‘back doors’ into encrypted data. Others made comments about identifying those things that we disagree with and those things where there is a debate to be had about the detail, for example judges versus minsters issuing authorisations. Others queried the effectiveness of the measures and made the point that the provisions may have a disproportionate effect on minority communities.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged committee reports and internal party communication | 5 Comments

Reminder: How to contribute to the Federal Policy’s Agenda 2020

By Geoff Payne | Wed 14th October 2015 - 3:55 pm

The Federal Policy Committee (FPC) is presently in the process of a major review exercise called ‘Agenda 2020’ to consider,

The challenges that the United Kingdom will face over the coming years, (economic, social, environmental, political), and, in the light of it, to prepare,
A statement of the distinctively Liberal Democrat approach and,
A map of the policy development that the FPC needs to carry out in order to achieve it.

Given what happened to the party in May, it is now more important than ever that we assert our own identity and project to the electorate what it means to be a Liberal Democrat and why the country needs Liberal Democrats.

The Agenda 2020 group (of which I am a member) has put together a paper for discussion. It was the subject of two very lively sessions at conference and now it is out for wider consultation from members of the party. We really want to hear your views.

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Conference Countdown 2015: Agenda 2020 at conference: your chance to have your say

By Duncan Brack and Julie Smith | Thu 17th September 2015 - 9:45 pm

We’ve written here before about the Federal Policy Committee’s ‘Agenda 2020’ exercise – a major consultation within the party on Liberal Democrats’ basic beliefs, values and approaches. Our political philosophy is the backbone around which we build our policies on specific issues, and a vital part of our fightback.

A short consultation paper, Agenda 2020, and an accompanying set of essays setting out the personal opinions of a range of individuals within the party are both available on the party website.

The paper sets out a brief description of the Liberal Democrat philosophy and outlines the policy challenges the country, and the party, will face over the next five years. Responses to the paper can be submitted via the website, but we are also discussing it at two consultative sessions during the Bournemouth conference. Each of them will give you an opportunity to give us your thoughts on what’s in the paper, what you like, what you don’t like, and what’s missing.

It’s not terribly obvious from the conference agenda how the sessions will be run, so we thought it would be useful to outline them here.

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Posted in Conference and News | Also tagged agenda 2020, conference countdown and policy | 1 Comment

A chance to help shape Liberal Democrat policy on social security, privacy and sex work

By The Voice | Fri 28th August 2015 - 3:56 pm

The party’s Federal Policy Committee is looking for party members to take part in policy working groups to develop policy in three particular areas:

Social security
Security and privacy
Sex work

From an email sent to party members today:

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Policymaking reform; what the problem is and how to solve it

By Paul Reynolds | Mon 27th July 2015 - 6:51 pm

View image | gettyimages.com

New members often ask how to find out what current policy is, on a wide range of topics, how to influence or ‘input’ on policy, and indeed what the party does with its policy once it is established.

Normally I explain that in policy Conference is supreme, at least in theory. I talk a bit about Policy Working Groups (PWGs), initiated by the Federal Policy Committee, FPC. I also explain that there is a review of policymaking underway, to be discussed at Autumn Conference.

In this context, new members may appreciate a quick summary of my personal views of some of the problems and how we might approach solving them.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged policy working groups | 30 Comments

What does the party believe?

By Duncan Brack and Julie Smith | Wed 10th June 2015 - 12:25 pm

View image | gettyimages.com

The aftermath of a general election is always a good time to reassess what the party is about – why we are Liberal Democrats, what we mean by Liberalism (or, if you prefer, Liberal Democracy) and what this implies for our politics over the next five years. The party carried out this exercise after the 2005 and 2010 elections, but the catastrophic result of this year’s election, coupled with the huge, and very welcome, influx of new members, make it a vital part of the fightback this time.

So the Federal Policy Committee is proposing a series of activities to set a framework for discussion and debate throughout the party. In agreement with the Federal Conference Committee, we plan to use a number of sessions of the autumn conference to discuss the basic beliefs and values of the party – its philosophy. These will be structured round a consultation paper we’re working on now and which will be available in July, soon after the conclusion of the leadership election.

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Why the front page of our manifesto reminds me of 50 Shades of Grey

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 12th February 2015 - 10:55 am

So, it’s out. The front page of the Liberal Democrat manifesto gives five key policy priorities. These things are a negotiation in themselves and the version released is substantially zingier than the version initially presented to the Federal Policy Committee on Monday night. By way of example, I understand that the Five Green Laws point was initially described as a “Nature Law.” Why that makes me think of the Glee Club song “English Country Garden”, I can’t imagine.

Now, every single Liberal Democrat, being the
unique bunch that we are, will think that we could have worded these priorities much better, or we would have chosen something else. I certainly could. I’d have had housing in there and I sure as hell would not have put balancing the books as the first thing on the list. I’m not convinced of the need to do so in the next Parliament, even if I recognise that we can’t go back to the Days of Deficit Central while the economy is growing. The reason it is there, though, is because the economy, jobs and continued recovery feature highly in every survey of voters’ priorities.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured, general election 2015 and liberal democrat manifesto 2015 | 48 Comments

Sir Malcolm Bruce writes…Creating liberal policies to change the political agenda

By Malcolm Bruce | Mon 1st December 2014 - 7:30 pm

I was delighted on Tuesday to be elected as chair of the Federal Policy Committee, for the period up until the general election when I will stand down after 32 years as an MP. With the election now only a few months away it will be a busy and exciting time for the committee as we look to finalise the manifesto and the offer we will take to voters on May the 7^th. I’m confident the new committee is up to the challenge and I cannot think of a more talented or committed group of people to work with over the coming months.

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Federal Committee candidate lists announced

By The Voice | Tue 28th October 2014 - 10:25 am

If you are a party member, you might want to head to this thread on our Members’ Forum to see the lists of people standing for the Party Committees. The ballot will be conducted predominantly online with links to the ballot being provided to those Conference Representatives for whom the party has an email address. Those emails will be being despatched imminently. Ballots will be sent by post to those for whom there is no email address. The postie will be struggling up the path with the weight of the mailing – there are over 100 candidates for the 42 places on the three committees.

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Posted in News | Also tagged federal conference committee, federal executive, party elections 2014 and party organisation | 13 Comments

Opinion: Secrecy, federal committees and a lack of democracy

By Mark Pack | Tue 12th November 2013 - 8:47 am

Nearly all the debates about Liberal Democrat federal committees and democracy hinge on who the electorate for committee elections should be – conference reps or all party members?

However these debates miss a big problem, which is simply that the electorate, whoever it is, knows very little about the performance of incumbents. Democracy isn’t just about the right people having the vote, it’s about them being able to cast their votes in a meaningful way.

If you don’t know what people have done, it is hard to hold them to account.

Currently there …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged federal executive and internal party democracy | 8 Comments

Immigration, Asylum and Identity consultation paper now available

By Nick T | Thu 15th August 2013 - 5:34 pm

The working group focusing on the party’s policies on immigration, asylum and identity, chaired by Andrew Stunell MP, has just released its consultation paper ahead of next month’s conference.

The paper’s introduction sets out its aims thus:

1.1.1 The policy working group Immigration, Asylum & Identity aims to craft a practical, liberalpolicy which rebuilds public confidence in an immigration system that should be robust, efficient,and fair.

1.1.2 This consultation paper focuses on the future of migration as it affects the UK, theoperation of the asylum process in the context of our obligations under international law, and theintegration of immigrant communities and new citizens

…

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Help develop Party policy in two new working groups

By Duncan Hames MP | Thu 15th August 2013 - 10:22 am

The party’s Federal Policy Committee has recently decided to commission policy working groups on the implications of an ageing society (to be chaired by Paul Burstow MP) and on equalities (covering all the protected characteristics set out in the Equality Act).

These groups will be writing policy papers intended for debate at the party’s Autumn 2014 conference and will need to start work as soon as possible.

We are very dependent on the voluntary efforts of our members to bring their time, fresh ideas and clear thinking to our policy working groups.

I’d like members, especially those who can often be …

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Duncan Hames MP writes… Help shape Party policy in two new working groups

By Duncan Hames MP | Mon 3rd June 2013 - 3:20 pm

The Federal Policy Committee is advertising for members for two new policy working groups: Reform of Public Services, and Tackling Crime and Reform of the Criminal Justice system.

The Public Services group will look at overarching issues relevant to all public services, including themes like decentralisation and user empowerment, and also address specific policy issues in major services like education and health.

The other group will look at all aspects of preventing and reducing crime and the fear of crime, through the whole range of policy interventions.

Both groups are expected to produce policy papers for the Autumn 2014 party …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged crime and public services | 4 Comments

David Laws to chair 2015 Manifesto Working Group

By Stephen Tall | Tue 8th January 2013 - 7:15 pm

It’s now official: Lib Dem schools minister David Laws will chair the party’s Manifesto Working Group. Lib Dem MP Duncan Hames, who chairs the party’s Federal Policy Committee, has just emailed members with the following message:

Last night at the party’s Federal Policy Committee we agreed Nick Clegg’s nomination of David Laws MP to Chair the Manifesto Working Group for the next General Election. Alongside David, we also appointed two Vice-Chairs – Sharon Bowles MEP and Duncan Brack – and nine further members of the group.

The Manifesto Working Group reports to the Federal Policy Committee, which has responsibility for preparing the

…

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Opinion: Halfway to 2015 – three bits of advice for new Lib Dem Federal Party Committees

By Chris Richards | Mon 7th January 2013 - 5:23 pm

The beginning of 2013 not only marks the start of the second half of the Coalition, but also the start of the newly elected Federal Committees. Here is some advice for the three crucial ones, Federal Policy Committee (FPC), Federal Conference Committee (FCC) and Federal Executive (FE).

For FPC: Radical policy is required for 2015
Common sense says the 2015 manifesto should play it safe, yet common sense is often wrong.

A study of policy positions in party manifestos since 1971 in Norway, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK shows: Parties in Government who adopt relatively extreme ideological positions do …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged federal conference committee and federal executive | 10 Comments

Federal Committee Election results 2012

By Helen Duffett | Sat 10th November 2012 - 9:43 am

Liberal Democrat Federal Conference reps have voted for members of party committees for 2013-2014; the results are as follows:

Federal Executive committee
Places: 15
Candidates elected:

Qassim Afzal
Elaine Bagshaw

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged eldr council delegation, featured, federal conference committee, federal executive and international relations committee | 20 Comments

Lib Dems’ internal elections: your guide to where we’re at (UPDATED)

By Stephen Tall | Sun 7th October 2012 - 4:50 pm

Every couple of years the Lib Dems hold internal elections in which conference representatives choose members of key party committees. As one of the seemingly few Lib Dems neither standing for election nor with a vote, I thought our readers might like an update on where we’re at…

Federal Executive

What does it do?
The formal answer: ‘The Federal Executive is an elected committee responsible for directing, co-ordinating and implementing the work of the Federal Party.’ (From the party website.)
The informal answer: What does the Federal Executive do? by Alison Goldsworthy
Who’s standing?
There are 36 candidates (26 men, 10 women) competing for …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters and Party Presidency | Also tagged colin rosenstiel, eldr council delegation, featured, federal conference committee, federal executive, interim peers panel, international relations committee, party presidency and tim farron | 4 Comments

Opinion: Creating a fairer tax system

By Jeremy Hargreaves | Thu 20th September 2012 - 2:55 pm

As Benjamin Franklin wrote back in the eighteenth century, “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”. So while tax policy may not set hearts racing, anything that takes money from people’s pockets will provoke a strong response.

Already, in government, we’ve had major successes. Our flagship tax policy of a £10,000 tax-free allowance is being implemented, which will provide millions of taxpayers with an tax cut of £705 per annum by the end of this Parliament; we’ve raised capital gains tax for higher rate taxpayers; and we are clawing back £7bn worth …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged tax | 13 Comments

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