Tag Archives: ferries

17 March 2025 – today’s press releases

  • OECD: Chancellor cannot ignore “steady drumbeat of economic misery”
  • Thames Water appeal: Govt must put company into special administration
  • Scottish Lib Dems: We must end big city bias in creative spend
  • Rennie: Dundee University needs a ministerial taskforce
  • Ferguson missing out on ferries order “hangover” from SNP fiasco

OECD: Chancellor cannot ignore “steady drumbeat of economic misery”

Responding to the OECD revising down their 2025 growth forecast for the UK by 0.3 percentage points to 1.4%, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said:

The Chancellor cannot ignore this steady drumbeat of economic misery any longer. Trump’s senseless tariffs and the Government’s own economic policies are acting as an anchor on any meaningful growth.

At the Spring Statement, Rachael Reeves cannot bury her head in the sand. She must admit that her Budget has failed to break from the years of Conservative economic vandalism.

The Chancellor must change course by first scrapping her growth-crushing jobs tax which is about to hammer small businesses, and second, by embracing the idea of a bespoke UK-EU Customs Union which would unleash growth.

Only then will we see the growth needed to rebuild our public services and properly protect family finances.

Thames Water appeal: Govt must put company into special administration

Responding to the news that the court has rejected his appeal to prevent Thames Water from an additional £3 billion bail out, MP for Witney Charlie Maynard said:

Thames Water remains a cash cow for its lenders, while its 16 million customers are left to foot the bill for the company’s ludicrously expensive interest charges and advisory fees.

It is in the Government’s power to end this now for the benefit of the British public and seek to put the company into special administration.

We must not stand back and allow Thames Water’s lenders to keep lining their pockets at the expense of customers and the environment while our regulators sit on their hands and the company pumps gallons of sewage into our rivers, neglects basic repairs and hikes up customers’ bills.

Scottish Lib Dems: We must end big city bias in creative spend

Scottish Liberal Democrats have today revealed the disparities in arts spending across Scotland and urged the SNP Government to ensure that creative talent can flourish in every corner of the country.

Creative Scotland is the public body responsible for funding the creative industries in Scotland and distributing funding from the Scottish Government and the National Lottery.

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13 January 2025 – the overnight press releases

  • Record 518,000 trolley waits of 12 hours or more last year – up 400-fold in less than a decade
  • Rennie comments ahead of Glen Sannox first crossing

Record 518,000 trolley waits of 12 hours or more last year – up 400-fold in less than a decade

Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson Helen Morgan MP has urged Wes Streeting to produce an emergency plan to tackle “shocking and dangerous” A&E wait times as the government “looks to be asleep at the wheel”.

Last year there were a record 518,000 waits of 12 hours or longer in A&E from a decision to admit, research by the Liberal Democrat has revealed. Staggeringly, that is nearly 400-times more 12 hour waits than 2015’s figure of 1,306.

The figures also revealed a sharp rise of more than 100,000 12 hour trolley waits on 2023’s figure of 415,000, a jump of 25%. Prior to the pandemic in 2019 there were just 8,272 trolley waits of 12 hours or longer. Last year that figure rose 63-fold to 518,000.

In December alone, 54,000 patients waited 12 hours or longer in A&E from a decision to admit, up 23-fold on the December 2019’s figure of just 2,356.

Long waits at A&E are extremely dangerous and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimates that in 2023 14,000 deaths were associated with long waits in A&E.

Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care Spokesperson Helen Morgan MP called the figures “shocking” and said the new government “looks to be asleep at the wheel”. The Party is calling on the Health Secretary to come forward with an emergency plan to tackle this crisis to protect patients from this ongoing crisis.

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31 July 2024 – today’s press releases

  • Pensioner waits more than 9 hours for ambulance after suffering heat stroke as UK hits heatwave
  • CalMac maintenance soars 55% in a year to over £41m

Pensioner waits more than 9 hours for ambulance after suffering heat stroke as UK hits heatwave

  • Freedom of Information Act (FOI) on heat strokes reveals a pensioner in the East Midlands waited close to nine-and-a-half-hours for an ambulance last year.
  • FOI shows an almost doubling of ambulance response times when going on call outs involving heat stroke since 2018/19, rising from 32 minutes to 59 minutes in 2023/24.
  • Lib Dem Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper calls for urgent cross-party talks on social care and a review of the UK’s preparedness for heat waves saying: “We’ve heard too many harrowing heatstroke stories from people waiting hours in a state of confusion for an ambulance to arrive.”

A pensioner in the East Midlands waited close to nine-and-a-half-hours for an ambulance last year a Liberal Democrat FOI has revealed as the UK is in the midst of a heatwave following high temperatures this week.

The data also revealed that there has been a staggering 84% increase in ambulance response times when going on call outs involving heat stroke since 2018/19, rising from 32 minutes to 59 minutes in 2023/24.

Posted in News, Press releases and Scotland | Also tagged , and | 1 Comment

21-30 December 2018 – press release catch-up

You’d been wondering where I’d gotten to, hadn’t you? Well, following some consideration of how this regular feature works, I’ve decided to change it a bit. From now on, I’ll publish on Monday to Thursday inclusive, and on Sunday evening. My thinking is that politics goes a bit quiet when Parliament isn’t sitting, and one can develop a false expectation as to the flow of press releases from that.

And now, a catch up of press releases you’ve probably missed…

  • Lib Dem call to scrap Vagrancy Act gets Labour backing
  • Cable: Corbyn offers no real alternative
  • Govt must take no deal off the table

Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , , , and | 3 Comments
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