On Tuesday, a somewhat cryptic message went up on Lib Dem social media promising a “big announcement” at 09:00. Naturally, expectations were raised. When a Party primes its members and supporters like that, you assume something substantial is coming — a major defection, implementation of a flagship policy passed by Conference, or a decisive shift in direction.
Instead, what we got was… rebranding the Treasury as the “Department of Growth.”
A dull, inoffensive, and uninspiring ghost of New Labour if ever I saw one.
We’re told its functions will be reorganised and the whole department relocated to Birmingham. For a policy supposedly rooted in growth, this sounds like a costly exercise in administrative musical chairs. Moving a major Whitehall department is not cheap. Rebranding is not cheap. Structural upheaval is not cheap. If the goal is efficiency, this feels like a curious starting point. And, I’m not going to lie, naming it the Department of Growth (DOG) sounds concerningly close to Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), and the last thing we need to do is to follow Labour into echoing MAGA slogans—though, at least, we haven’t paired red baseball caps with our resemblant new slogan. To me, it all sends entirely the wrong message.
But, on top of this being a confusing policy move, the way this has been handled and communicated undermines the fundamental democratic foundations of the Party.
As Liberal Democrats, we pride ourselves on being member-led and listening to our members. Our Federal Committees, Federal Council, and Federal Board are formed of members who are elected to their positions. They’re accountable to the membership and can be removed by the membership. Meanwhile, policy is debated, amended, and adopted at Conference through a 1 member, 1 vote. We all acknowledge that this is not an optional extra—it is the democratic heart of the Party and is what sets us apart from Reform, the Conservatives and in more recent years, the Labour Party.
So I am genuinely confused as to why this announcement has been presented as settled Party Policy when it does not appear to have been passed through Conference. Conference exists for a reason: to ensure that members, not just the Parliamentary Party, determine the Party’s direction. If we circumvent that process, even for something that might seem technical or presentational, we chip away at what makes us distinct.
I have a massive problem when the Parliamentary Party just does stuff, and unilaterally writes its own brand new policy, rather than applying their own initiative to implement policy. Not to bang the same drum, but I do find it suspect that very little noise is being made in the Parliamentary Party about recently passed Party Policy such as Free to Be Who You Are, as well as the several historic conference motions passed on Universal Basic Income. It remains clear that Conference-approved policy is not treated as gospel, but as advisory rather than authoritative.
Conference is not a formality, or a jovial get-together, or a networking event. It’s a crucial twice-yearly event where we, as a Party, decide who we want to be in British Politics. Conference is Sovereign and we, the membership, decide how our Party is run. Furthermore, Its role in policymaking is crucial as it allows the Federal Policy Committee to bring well thought out, well researched, and fully costed policies to Conference to be debated and, if required, amended. If this does not occur, then the policies which make it onto the books in this manner have been determined by Directive from HQ, not Party Democracy.
If this policy announcement was intended as a proposal for discussion, then Daisy Cooper should have said so, and then she should bring it to Conference, as she is fully entitled to do as a Party member. Let her fellow members debate whether structural reform of the Treasury is a priority. Let us test whether this is how we want to frame our economic offer, and whether we want to echo the language of those harming society’s most vulnerable, including trans people and immigrants.
But if this is being presented as settled Party Policy without that process, then we have a much bigger problem than departmental branding. It risks signalling a deeper democratic deficit within our Party—one that cannot be permitted to fester.
* Tara Foster is a LibDem campaigner from Southampton. She sits on the LGBT+ LibDems Executive as an Ordinary Member and is a prominent member of the Radical Association.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Lib Dems pick Richard Kilpatrick as candidate for the Greater Manchester Mayoral election
The Joy of Six 1538
Is Kier Starmer the new John Major?
Neil Sandison
David Allen
Peter Hirst
Nick Hopkinson
Peter Martin
31 Comments
I’m sad to have to point this out, but in this case and many others, the party leadership and MPs are far more aware what is important to the vast majority of the British people than the average poster here on LDV. While we all have our own personal favourite policy – Goodness me the number of posts that end up as debates on whether the UK as a sovereign nation can simply increase debt/print money or not or equally the advantages of STV, De Hondt etc – we have to realise that most people have different priorities, and they are the people we need to get to vote for us or none of our policies will get enacted.
Moaning and belittling their efforts is at best just ignored as froth, or much worse are just damaging or self defeating to the party’s chances. We all have an absolute right to say what we like (within reason), but unless it is something profoundly against the party’s principles or something that you believe has massive unseen downside potential, please think before you moan about what they do.
Do try walking in their shoes for a day. You will probably find they do much much more to keep the party afloat than you ever imagine even for their $93,904 salary. For many it is a 12 hour, six and a half day a week job. Moans don’t help at all.
Irrespective of how the policy was decided, I cringed when I heard the announcement. The proposed new name alone is awful.
While there is certainly some merit in distributing government departments out of London, a location some consider isolated from the problems of the rest of the UK, is the Treasury really a practical choice? Is it something most people believe will make a difference to them? I can’t imagine the average voter cares what the Treasury is called, or where it’s located, when they have more important things in their lives that need improving: the cost of living, health and social care, education.
I have some sympathy for this piece but, as ever, I think it’s more nuanced.
On the one hand, we are unique in having a role for our members in genuinely setting policy, and that’s something we should nurture, value & protect.
On the other hand, we can’t leave all policy setting to two conferences a year (where there isn’t even space to cover a fraction of the policies members submit for debate). Sometimes events require a faster response from our party (particularly if we want to get any airtime) or there is an opportunity to get ourselves heard for once (no doubt why this announcement was trailed semi-mysteriously in advance).
It was always thus. I recall numerous times where Paddy (for example) would shoot from the hip, much to the chagrin of certain members. Vince, both as leader and as economic spokesperson, was one of the worst ‘offenders’.
But there is a balance to be struck. Sometimes conference needs to flex its muscles and proactively set or revisit a policy position that parliamentarians have espoused. Other times – particularly for relatively uncontroversial announcements like this – we might have to grin & bear it.
If I understood correctly there are two new departments to be formed in this policy.
From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn71mlmjn5mo
“The Liberal Democrats have announced they would break up the Treasury and replace it with a new department of growth based in Birmingham if they were in government.
The party said the new Department for Growth would be tasked with boosting long-term prosperity, improving living standards and easing cost-of-living pressures.
Under the plans, the new department would assume responsibilities for business and trade, while a new department for public spending would also be created.”
It seems to me that as long as the existing Treasury department covers both these issues it will prioritise controlling spending over growth. Maybe covering its backside to the extent that growth rarely gets a look-in
@ David Evans and Dominic
You are both making strawman arguments, the article is not saying that the leadership should not be able to come up with policies. It even explicitly says that the leadership should be able to announce policy proposals.
Our party also does have a procedure for formally adopting policy that can’t wait till the next conference, the leader can just call an emergency meeting of FPC to to vote on it.
But our current leader cares won’t even do this. Meaning the problem isn’t the need to come up with and announce policies quickly, it’s that our leader just doesn’t care.
And if there is any issue with the parties constutional setup then the solution is to change the constitution, not ignore it. If the government behaved like this wed all be outraged.
And it’s evidently not the case that the leader better at coming up with stuff that the public want, this policy is absolutely not what people are crying out for.
After all we are talking about the leader who tried to get the party to scrap housing targets when the housing crisis had become a bigger political problem than it has ever been!
I sympathise with the author. Member-led policy is what makes our party distinctive, yet just for the last two conferences and the forthcoming Spring Conference no fewer than 20 motions have been excluded solely due to lack of time to debate them at our in-person conferences. Our conference structure has not substantially changed since the foundation of the Liberal Democrats in March 1988 at a time when we only had 19 MPs and even the World Wide Web was just Tim Berners-Lee’s idea. Since then, the need to hold conferences online during the Covid pandemic has led to our current hybrid conferences, but online participants still cannot speak in debates. It is time that we questioned whether our current policy-making machinery is still fit-for-purpose.
“This policy is absolutely not what people are crying out for.”
If the policy is about getting the economy moving (and it says it is) , I think it is.
There are some (including me) who worry about the effect of unlimited growth on the planet. We also have to explain how growth can be reconciled with that within a reasonable time horizon.
Apropos of which, this is a really interesting article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/12/economics-climate-crisis-complexity-scientist-plan
I am very lukewarm on this proposal myself as I see this as a bit tokenism when it comes to genuine devolution of economic strategy from London to regions, that amounts to just rearranging of deck chairs and was disappointed it was not the “bread and butter” issues on the economy.
But, I agree that I am fearful of the democratic backsliding when it comes to policy annoucements. I don’t pretend to know all the ins and outs of policy procedure but I do understand the basics. It seems like the basic mechanics were ignored.
If can’t even get the leadership to even meet the basic standards, like an emergency one that goes through policy panels, then this is a concern.
And while I have meet some people who are favourable to the idea and seen comments online, this is then followed up with “how will this look like? why is the Chancellor still in charge of these departments? Whats the detail?” which even gets those favourable readers look more skeptical. But most “normie” friends and voters of mine just basically said this screams tone deaf to them. Again, I am not even opposed to the idea, in principal, but I agree with Tara, the author, it has so many follow up questions and the lack of accountability to members or policy board(s) does need to be questioned and looked at, only heightening a democratic deficit.
Well said Tara!
Being a member lead organisation is one key reasons why our 60k members work so tirelessly to ensure we punch above our weight in UK politics.
Attempts by the party leadership to undermine this are effectively self-destructive. We don’t have bottomless supplies of cash from producer interest groups or have a incumbency advantage.
We need our activists more than any other party.
“If the government behaved like this wed all be outraged.”
Would we really? Isn’t it Government’s job to develop policy (and then put it into effect). Government does have to get that policy past Parliament of course.
And we need to be clear: this is the Deputy Leader dealing with on her brief, so she will have prime responsibility.
Governments have to develop and implement policy ‘on the hoof’ to respond to situations as they develop. Opposition parties are different – they have time to develop their policy offerings while in opposition so they can have a coherent package to offer at the next General Election.
Our proposals around rebranding and moving the Treasury should have been presented to Conference first – there was no time pressure to justify how this has been done. Irrespective of the arguments around the proposals, the way this has been done is not acceptable in any Party that regards itself as democratic
I agree with Tara. This may or may not be a good idea, but I can’t tell because there is no detail behind it that I have seen.
As Tara says, what are the costs of reorganisation, moving and rebranding? Have they even been assessed? Daisy said this would prevent Governments from making short-term decisions at the expense of long term growth, but didn’t explain how?
Of course our MPs need some freedom to respond quickly and make minor policy announcements without reference to Conference, but something this big should have had the scrutiny that a consultation and policy paper would have provided.
I felt the same about the ‘War Bonds’ announcement a few weeks ago. Some told me I shouldn’t worry about it as we were getting headlines and coverage, but I would like our policies to be sensible and deliverable.
What is the point of this Truss like attack on the Treasury Department. The objective of The Treasury must surely be to give stability to the economy, and I’m sure in these difficult times it is doing a reasonably good job.
Interesting debate about the primacy of conference and being a member led party. So a question …from what I can find Autumn Conferences have somewhere between 2K-4K attendees. If we say 90% of those are members then that’s 3.6K . Add on say another 1K on line attendees gives us say 5K members attending. If we assume 60K total party membership, that is less than 10% of the membership deciding policy. Not exactly representative of a member led party?
I definitely felt these principles over the primacy of conference were more prevalent pre-OMOV (One-member, one-vote) amendments when Party Conference had both ‘Voting’ and ‘Non-voting’ delegates etc; a bygone era when you were elected at the local party AGM as ‘proper’ delegates for party conferences.
Good to see us talking about the economy at last, not so good that we are talking more about internal processes.
Is it a ‘good’ policy? For me, anything that challenges the hegemony of the Treasury is worth consideration. Jack Meredith and Andy Chandler offer a ‘Jenkinsite’ view of the ideas on another thread, which is interesting, although my takeaway was that the overcentralisation in the treasury was Jenkins fault in the first place when he abolished the Dept of Economic Affairs in the 60’s. We need to reform the way government makes long term decisions, that much is clear. If this policy announcement identifies the party as being prepared to tackle the status quo then that is a good thing.
As to internal process. Looking at recent FPC reports I discovered from their Autumn update that there is an Economy Group, led by Julia Goldsworthy. It is a shame that they do not seem to have made any statement about whether this announcement was the result of their work, one hopes it was.
I recognise that the parliamentary party has to operate in different timeframes to the conference, but it is only a month away. IF an announcement needed to be made now why not announce that this policy would be debated at conference, thereby making clear that (a) we are looking at radical reforms, (b) these will be backed up with evidence, and (c) that they will be tested democratically because that is who we are? And if it were debated at conference, just possibly someone would have pointed out that DOG is at best an unfortunate choice of words and that Get Britain Growing Again is an awful slogan.
I agree that this should have been presented as a proposal that Daisy would bring to conference. Otherwise why bother with a constitution saying that conference makes policy? But also, what does it achieve? Seeing it’s unlikely to actually happen, presumably the point is to signal to people what the Lib Dems stand for, in this case a joined-up government approach to driving growth as opposed to the current risk-averse Treasury orthodoxy. But is that actually going to attract a single target voter? It feels like one for the SW1 bubble. Why not spend more time finding ways to bring to life the policies that conference has actually adopted. To take one example, last September we passed a policy to support outdoor education experiences. Build on that and you might have a short report on what outdoor experiences do for mental health – with independent experts contributing – and have MPs and councillors joining young people in Dartmoor or the Highlands to see what outdoor education means. That’s in line with our policy. It demonstrates our values. It makes good TV and gives thousands of teachers and parents a reason to vote for us. And it doesn’t break the constitution.
David Vigar asks “Why not spend more time finding ways to bring to life the policies that conference has actually adopted.” He lists one example, but there are plenty more which would help the worst-off individuals and families. Even without the two-child cap, over 4 million children remain in poverty. Tara mentions Universal Basic Income, where we need to spell out the unconditional benefits to those on low incomes, with the cost being reclaimed from the better off. And we need to explain how Land Value Taxation would limit the use of landbanks, and make more land available for affordable/social housing at a lower cost. The scandal of long-term temporary housing must be stopped.
We’ve given up on regional government since the vote in the north-east was against an additional layer of expensive government. But we now have a parade of new Mayors covering parts of the country, but leaving other parts not provided for with the extra funding. We should cut the artificial link between electricity and gas prices, with people benefiting from lower electricity bills, rather than the government from windfall taxes.
I am sure people can think of more examples which would appeal to the average voter.
To answer the question, the point is to get drunk with your mates in an overpriced hotel bar on the south coast and maybe find a romantic partner, however briefly.
Look at a map of the United Kingdom. Birmingham is not in the middle of the country, certainly not the north. Indeed, it’s not even in the north of England.
Nor does it contain any winnable seats for the party!
We could at least have suggested moving Parliament and the civil service to Burnley. That’s far closer to the geographic centre of the country and also contains a highly winnable parliamentary constituency. Excellent bit of pork barrel policy!
I’m with Tara on the principle: a machinery-of-government change this big should ultimately be endorsed by Conference, not unveiled as if it’s already settled. That said, I can see why the leadership may have moved fast in the 24-hour news cycle — publish a fully worked paper too early and you invite misrepresentation or a cheap “we’ll do that too” spoiler. If that’s the judgement they made, I feel they should just say so explicitly, and then set out the remedy: ie, this is a proposal, here’s the outline paper, here’s the route/timetable for member approval (FPC and a guaranteed Conference vote), plus the follow-up detail that keeps the “Treasury brain” argument running. Transparency + process is how we keep both credibility and cut-through.
This proposal of Daisy’s certainly came over to me as not focussed enough on the economy and as Tara says not previously discussed among us Liberal Democrats. As to the policy itself, basing the department in Birmingham is fine but such a relatively minor matter that it is unlikely to get us the attention we need.
@Nigel Quinton, having a department of Economic Affairs sounds excellent. One of the problems with government today is the lack of acknowledgement that different policies interact. This is also part of our problem as a party, we lack a comprehensive message that ties together various policies so they can be focussed on people. I get fed up with loads more policies at conference when we lack a unifying message and am unhappy about the previous conference decision prioritising new policies.
In January Ed Davey announced new policy on the NHS stating we would spend £3 billion from scrapping the government’s deal with the USA over pharmaceuticals on reserving places in care homes, funding more care packages for people after they leave hospital, and supporting family carers properly to look after their loved ones at home.
Also in January he announced Defence Bonds for the public to buy to help fund defence spending. Neither have been submitted to our Spring Conference.
In November 2025 Daisy Cooper announced new policy – a windfall tax on the banks. This was not proposed for our Spring Conference.
I also remember Sarah Olney when she was Treasury spokesperson announcing in her speech to Conference the new policy of taxing share buybacks.
Another policy which was announced and not passed by Conference was increasing the Digital Service Tax.
Doubling the Remote Gaming Duty was announced by Daisy I think after the general election, but not discussed and agreed by Conference until autumn 2025.
Tara Foster,
While Conference did approve in principle the idea of a Universal Basic Income. It is no longer Party policy being replaced with a Guaranteed Basic Income passed at our spring 2023 conference (F12 A Fairer Society).
I totally agree with this article: Conference makes policy, so Daisy should have presented this policy idea as a proposal which the party should debate. And David Vigar makes an excellent point, that our party could usefully consider ways to bring to life policies that Conference has adopted. For another example in addition to the good one he suggests, we should be promoting the Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI, not UBI) policy passed at Bournemouth in 2023, intended to try to end deep poverty within a decade, which we should ask the present Government to take up if they are as serious as we are in wanting to greatly reduce poverty. Joseph Rowntree Foundation has just reported that deepest poverty has actually worsened in our country.
PS Michael BG with his excellent memory gives several examples of the leadership wrongly announcing as policy often excellent ideas which had not been approved by Conference. (It leads one to wonder if the leaders are discussing these ideas in Federal Policy Committee, unknown to most of us, and regarding that as sufficient, which it should not be.) As to our policy of GBI, which Michael says was passed in the Spring 2023 Conference after the working group report, and I in Autumn 2023 at Bournemouth, I am relieved to see we are both right – the Autumn decision was based on policy paper 153 For a Fair Deal. It being 2026 now, it is high time our policy was being promoted : I will ask Ed about it in PM Questions at York if possible.
Has the LibDem Conference had time to set a party line on the proscription of Palestine Action?
It might help Lib Dems, and in particular Ed Davey, to avoid contradictory positions.
Ed Davey now says banning Palestine Action was a grave misuse of terrorism laws. Yet, every LibDem MP, including Ed Davey, abstained in the vote to ban them.
@Peter Martin: As was discussed at the time, the vote was to ban Palestine Action and two relatively obscure neo-nazi organisations. Quite devious of the government to lump the 3 organisations together, as it meant opponents of proscribing PA were d*mned whatever they did. Some Lib Dem MPs registered a formal abstention by voting in both lobbies. This could be taken as saying “We don’t agree with the form of the question being asked of us.” In the circumstances, using it against Lib Dems now is rather unfair and suggests a partisan anti-Lib Dem agenda.
@ Alex,
The correct course of action is always to formally vote against a package in Parliament if it contains something which you fundamentally disagree with.
I’ve voted Lib Dem in the past so I’m not anti Lib Dem per se. I don’t agree with all Lib Dem policies but that’s also true of all the alternatives.
So it could be argued that I shouldn’t vote for anyone on this basis!
We don’t have the option of moving amendments though. Like an amendment to have separate votes. Would this have been a possibility in this case?
This looks like Harold Wilson’s Department of Economic Affairs (DEA).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_of_State_for_Economic_Affairs
The same rationale, the same tensions. A lack of real top level backing.
DEA lasted from 1964 to 1969. It was folded back into Treasury. It has
been asserted that DEA could not make progress as Treasury disagreed
with what the DEA wanted to do. And it held the purse strings. During
balance of payments crises, and other events.
Wiki tells is that, “The DEA was the model for the fictional Department of Administrative Affairs in the television series Yes Minister.”
History does not repeat itself, etc …
A little late to this debate, I know, but the whole idea of the Lib Dems being a democratic party is a bit of a fallacy, Compared to other parties I suppose you could make a case, but in reality the average member has no input in the running of the party. Most members never go to a conference due to money/time/distance involved. Most local parties have closed Executive meetings and the only member’s meeting is the AGM. Most members will never get anywhere near a policy working group, places on which will go to known activists. Tara says conference is not a jovial get together or a net working event. I’m afraid for some that is exactly what it is. This “row” has all the hall marks of a turf war between the party’s parliamentarians and their inner circle and a cadre of prominent activists.