- NI tax hike: Government must scrap damaging jobs tax
- Trump tariff deal: Govt must come clean and publish impact assessment
- Lib Dem MP to take Thames Water to the Supreme Court
- Rennie responds to school leaver deprivation gap widening
- SNP miss key targets for drug treatment and care
- Rennie: Will another 77 pages of school violence guidance change anything?
- Cole-Hamilton: NHS, care and economy at the heart of liberal vision
NI tax hike: Government must scrap damaging jobs tax
Commenting as S&W’s business owners sentiment survey revealed around a third of business owners have said they plan to cut more jobs after being hit by higher national insurance contributions, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said:
Unfortunately, this confirms what we knew from the start – that the unfair National Insurance tax hike is a massive hammer blow to businesses already struggling to cope, and will lead to people losing their jobs or seeing their salaries suppressed.
Small businesses are the engine of our economy and the backbone of our communities. After all the damage they faced under the last Conservative Government, the government should be doing everything it can to support them.
Ministers need to go back to the drawing board, scrap this damaging jobs tax that holds back economic growth, and instead ask the big banks and social media giants to pay their fair share of tax.
Trump tariff deal: Govt must come clean and publish impact assessment
Responding to the news that the UK-US trade deal has been partially signed off by Donald Trump, Daisy Cooper MP, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson and Deputy Leader, said:
The Government needs to come clean on the full details of this deal – including publishing impact assessments on how it will affect British farmers, food standards and steel industry. When you’re dealing with someone as unreliable as Trump, you have to read the small print.
If precedent is anything to go by, Trump will be working behind the scenes to extract more concessions. We need a cast-iron guarantee that the NHS will be exempt from any kind of Trump deal and that US tech giants won’t be given a tax cut.
Lib Dem MP to take Thames Water to the Supreme Court
Liberal Democrat MP Charlie Maynard will be appealing to the Supreme Court, and asking them to hear his case against the Thames Water (TW) restructuring plan.
This follows Charlie’s case earlier in the year which was heard in the High Court. Charlie is arguing that the public and customer interests should be taken into account for this restructuring plan given Thames Water provides essential public services and has a monopoly over customers, and that the Court should not leave it up to the Secretary of State or Ofwat to decide whether there are any public interest objections.