Liberal Democrat News

Commenting following today’s cross party Age UK, at which the health spokespeople of the three main parties met to discuss the reform of social care, Norman Lamb said:
 
“It’s clear from today’s social care summit that voters want politicians to come together and solve one of the biggest social challenges facing our country.
 
“We need long-term solutions to this problem so that older people are treated with the respect they deserve. We cannot continue with the current system where people have to sell their homes to pay for care and the quality of care on offer is not up to scratch.
 
“There was broad agreement that solving the crisis in social care is going to require a partnership between the state and individuals and if the other parties are willing then there is no reason why the current differences in opinion should be insurmountable.
 
“Liberal Democrats want to put an end to the political bickering. We are willing to work with the other parties to solve this problem once and for all. There should be no preconditions and we are open to all ideas that seek a solution that will be fair, affordable and sustainable.
 
“Rather than shouting at each other let’s have a commitment from all three parties to start finding a solution now.”

Nick Clegg said:
 
“Gordon Brown and David Cameron want to pretend that foreign policy is not an issue at the General Election. Gordon Brown doesn’t want to remind voters of the disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq. David Cameron doesn’t want to remind voters that he is friendless in Europe.
 
“The real truth is that the future of British foreign policy is as much in the balance as the future of our economy, or the future of our political system.
 
“This election is an opportunity to turn the page on the Labour-Conservative consensus on foreign policy which has been in place since the Suez crisis: one of following what the White House wants rather than leadership in Europe and the world.
 
“Of course our relationship with the US is of immense importance, but that should not mean that Britain unquestionably does what America wants when it is not in our interests to do so. On Iraq, on Russia, on the Middle East, on the interrogation of torture suspects and many other issues our strategic interests have differed.
 
“Baroness Manningham-Buller’s admission that the US kept our security forces in the dark about unacceptable interrogation techniques only confirms the impression of an unbalanced and unequal relationship.
 
“That is why, in the same way we must rebalance an economy that is over-reliant on bankers, we must rebalance foreign policy that is over-reliant on the White House. It is time to repatriate British foreign policy by standing tall in our European backyard and pursuing a policy of partnership – not followership – with our friends in the US.
 
“At this General Election only the Liberal Democrats realise what is at stake and are prepared to spell out what a different foreign policy would look like.”

Launching the paper at The Salmon Youth Centre in Bermondsey, the policy outlined how the Liberal Democrats will ensure that all young people have better access to after-school facilities, comprehensive support and training for those entering the workplace and legislation in place to stamp out homophobic bullying.

The paper includes proposals to:

• Introduce a new ‘Paid Internship’ scheme allowing 800,000 young people to receive a ‘Training Allowance’ of £55 a week for up to 3 months
  
  
• Support schools, colleges and apprenticeship schemes to promote opportunities for disabled children and young people
  
  
• Immediately remove young people under 16 from the National DNA Database unless they have committed a sexual or violent offence
  
  
• Ensure that all schools include ways to tackle homophobic bullying and at least one teacher in every school has sufficient training to do so
  
  
• Cut back on bureaucracy and red tape so youth organisations are free to be creative and flexible

Commenting, Lynne Featherstone said:

“It is clear that Labour will continue to fail our young people and the Conservatives will ignore them completely.

“While youth organisations are left to do their vital work on a shoestring, greedy bankers are bailed out by the taxpayer and flaunt their bonuses while we watch every penny.

“Our young people will inherit an economy where it is tougher then ever to enter the work place.

“It is high time that realistic measures are put in place to support the future workforce from mass unemployment and crippling debt.

“Only the Liberal Democrats will give young people and those who work with them the chance for a real future.”

Responding to the Prime Minister’s economic speech this morning and the announcement of the Budget date, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable said:

“Gordon Brown’s speech shows he is leading with a weak hand.

“It’s very difficult to see how the man who claimed to have abolished boom and bust can campaign on his stewardship of the economy after the greatest bust for decades.

“The only reason he is, of course, is because the Conservatives are even worse. The only consistent thing about their economic policy is that they have been consistently wrong.

“The Budget must clearly spell out where Labour intend to make spending cuts in order to tackle the budget deficit.  All we have seen from the Prime Minister today is more waffle.

“Gordon Brown admits that there are bumps in the road ahead.  The public know that and expect all parties to follow the Liberal Democrat lead and tell them where the bumps are and how we will be navigating our way over and around them.”

Commenting on today’s Ofsted figures, which show that half the schools they inspected last term were considered to be no better than ‘satisfactory’, David Laws said:

“Labour has had 13 years to get a grip on education, but thousands of children still attend schools which are not considered to be providing good standards.
 
“In spite of the controversy about whether these figures can be compared with earlier years, the bottom line is that half of schools inspected were not good enough.
 
“We need more well-led and properly funded schools if we are to address the disadvantages faced by so many young people in Britain.”

Commenting after a vote at the Northern Ireland Assembly, Alistair Carmichael said:

“It’s time for David Cameron to come clean about the position of his new alliance on policing and justice.

“With the UUP saying one thing, and the Tories saying the complete opposite, voters will struggle to understand what exactly joint Tory/UUP candidates stand for.

“What we’re seeing is the Tories in complete disarray. When it takes George Bush to step in as the voice of reason, it’s clear that David Cameron has dug himself a very big hole.

“This raises serious questions about David Cameron’s judgement. If he can’t manage to steer a straight course in opposition, how on earth would he cope as Prime Minister?”

The Honours Scrutiny Committee withdrew its objections to Lord Ashcroft becoming a peer on the basis of his clear undertaking that he would “take up permanent residence in the United Kingdom again before the end of the calendar year”.
 
Commenting, Lord Taverne said:
 
“If Lord Ashcroft’s undertaking was broken, or significantly changed without the House of Lords being informed, that would be a serious breach of the Code of Conduct.
 
“Lord Ashcroft does not appear to have been straight with the Lords. This directly contravenes the principles of standards in public life and therefore raises the question of his suitability for public office.
 
“Transparency and honour are vital to maintain the standing and good name of the House of Lords. The opaque and secretive nature of Lord Ashcroft’s behaviour risks bringing the House of Lords into disrepute.”

Commenting on the news that UK exports took their biggest plunge in more than three years during January, Vince Cable said:

“These are deeply alarming figures which suggest that British exporters simply haven’t been able to take advantage of the big devaluation which occurred in the last year.

“They suggest that the long term decline and neglect of British manufacturing has taken its toll and that an awful lot more needs to be done to rebalance the economy to make it more competitive.
 
“It is wrong to suggest that the British economy can escape from this recession by just relying on exports. It just isn’t happening.

“Exports are one modest part of the national economy. We need an economy that is strong and secure across the board – and the Liberal Democrats are committed to delivering that.”

The figures, released ahead of tomorrow’s cross-party social care conference, undermine Conservative claims that their plans would enable older people to pass their homes on to their children as two thirds of pensioner households would have to sell or release equity from their homes to pay for the private insurance scheme.

The figures reveal that:

• 63% of pensioner couple households (1.4m) do not have non-housing assets of £16,000 (cost of insurance to cover both pensioners)
  
  
• 71% of single female pensioner households (1.6m) do not have non-housing assets of £8,000
  
  
• 64% of single male pensioner households (600,000) do not have non-housing assets of £8,000

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary, Norman Lamb said:
 
“The reality is that Conservative social care plans are unworkable, unfair and unaffordable for the majority of pensioners in this country and do nothing to pay for the costs of care at home. 

“This is basically a ‘poll tax’ and many people on modest means will be wondering how the Tories could think it’s fair that they should pay the same amount for care as multi-millionaires.

“David Cameron needs to start being honest with older voters. Most couples don’t have a spare £16,000 to cover an insurance premium and it’s incredibly dishonest to say this will stop people from having to sell their homes to pay for care. 

“The Tories need to explain how they’re going to get the numbers to add up on this plan especially as the private insurance market has failed to get people interested. Perhaps this is yet another example where the Tories need a little help when it comes to using a calculator.

“Whoever wins the next election cannot avoid the fact that we’re facing a crisis in funding for care. What we need is a long-term solution which is both fair and affordable in the long-term.”

In a letter to the Home Secretary, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne called for both the failures of conventional monitoring and the inadequacy of internet monitoring to be put right.

Commenting, Chris Huhne said:

“Our procedures are still lagging behind the development of the internet, since we do not even require the registration of IP and email addresses of sex offenders, which has now become typical in the United States. This would allow police to monitor social networking activity.
 
“It is also disappointing that Facebook, which was used by Peter Chapman to make contact with Ashleigh Hall, is the only big social networking site not to install the button that allows users to get advice on, and to report, suspicious on-line activity from so-called friends.

“If Bebo and MSN can install the button from the Child Exploitation and On-line Protection Centre, then so can Facebook.
 
“Until Facebook acts on this, its protestations that it cares passionately about the safety of people who use its site will look like empty words. Facebook urgently needs to take this clear, simple and practical step.”

Commenting on today’s Nursing Times survey which revealed nurses are being asked to treat patients in mop cupboards, Norman Lamb said:

“It is absolutely unacceptable that patient care is being compromised in this way.

“Labour’s failure to put patient care above its obsession with targets has meant that nurses are being forced to treat people in completely inappropriate places.

“Labour seems to have lost sight of the basic importance of dignity and care.

“A mop cupboard is no place to treat a patient.”

Extracts from the speech are below:




We need to rethink our approach to banking. Successive Labour and Conservative Governments have left Britain vulnerable to an over-inflated financial services sector, where institutions became too big to fail.

On a UK level – where British banks are 4.5 times bigger in terms of their liabilities than the country’s economy – this is bad enough. But in Scotland, this has been still more pronounced. At the time they got into trouble, RBS’ and HBOS’ liabilities were 25 times the size of Scotland’s economy.

We have to break up the banks, in particular the vast Lloyds group, and bring the Bank of Scotland home. This would not only help protect us from the threat of banks that are too big to fail – it would also increase diversity in Scotland’s financial sector and competition on the high street.

Until the banks are split up, the Liberal Democrats believe that they should pay for the guarantees they receive which is why we would introduce a 10% levy on banks’ supplementary profits.



The publicly-owned banks have an important role to play in ensuring credit is available to the sound and solvent small and medium sized businesses who are the drivers of our economic recovery.

Worryingly, the FSB estimates that around 1/5 of small businesses in Scotland are reliant on credit cards to finance their business. This suggests RBS and Lloyds are not living up to their obligations - obligations which Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are meant to enforce.

The Government needs to get a grip on these banks, which after all are publicly owned, and ensure they provide credit to sound small and medium sized businesses so that they can survive and expand. This will protect jobs and ensure that growth isn’t damaged. This is where RBS’ money should be being spent, rather than being thrown away on extortionate bonuses.



What has to emerge from the current crisis is a sustained recovery not an ephemeral or unstable one; not another bubble; not a boom which depends on the fickle fortunes of the banking sector.

And that is why the Liberal Democrats want to underpin stable, sustainable growth by maintaining the operational independence of the Bank of England, investing in education and by supporting private institutional investment in Britain’s infrastructure through the creation of an Infrastructure Bank.



We do not approach any difficult spending decisions with relish. We realise that we are dealing with staff who have a real sense of public service and with services which are valued.
What is needed is a calm and rational plan, a proactive rather than reactive approach, identifying the priority steps which need to be taken to reduce government spending.
There are fundamental changes that need to be made to how the British state operates- axing much of the command and control system overseeing local government and NHS administration, scrapping expensive Home Office projects like ID cards and some substantial reductions in defence procurement such as Trident.
I have to tell you that I have had the pleasure of receiving not one but two letters from Alex Salmond regarding the Scottish Government’s spending plans for 2010-11.

As is the case in all elections, we will be laying out plans for tax and spending for each year of the next Parliament in our manifesto and have assured Mr Salmond that Liberal Democrat plans would not reduce the Scottish budget but in fact increase it.

Mr Salmond acknowledged in his correspondence that from 2011-12, the public sector will face several years of fiscal austerity in Scotland, as well as the rest of the UK.

The Liberal Democrats have led the way on coming up with a credible and rational plan to deal with the deficit - its time that other parties displayed the same openness and honesty with the British people. To that end, I have asked Mr Salmond if he will follow our lead and set out how the Scottish government intends to meet higher budget controls in the coming years.

Commenting on David Miliband’s appearance before the Chilcot Inquiry, Edward Davey said:

“David Miliband and Gordon Brown are on a PR offensive to rewrite the history of the Iraq War.
 
“The idea that the UK upheld international law by invading Iraq is pure Labour doublespeak.
 
“Iraq diminished our standing in the Middle East and the wider world and divided us from our natural allies.
 
“Nobody will listen to Labour when it comes to restoring Britain’s reputation abroad.”

Commenting on the report by the Princess Royal Trust for Carers which reveals that only 23% of the money allocated to help carers was used in this way, Norman Lamb said:
 
“The Government has completely neglected the vital work that carers do and this report is further evidence of the scale of the problem.
 
“Labour’s cuts are already biting across the NHS and their failure to cut back on waste means that it is the most vulnerable who are losing out.
 
“This report highlights the need for a guarantee to respite care which only the Liberal Democrats are committed to.”

Speaking to party workers, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg accused the Conservatives of ‘a crude form of blackmail’ by encouraging fears of a fall in the stock market.

Nick Clegg said:
“The Conservatives are so desperate that they have resorted to a crude form of blackmail.
“David Cameron and George Osborne are stoking up fears in the markets, actively trying to destabilise the pound and reduce the Government’s ability to borrow.

“It’s like a protection racket: vote for us or our friends in the City will lay waste to your economy, your savings and your job.

“There is nothing positive in the Conservatives’ election strategy. It’s built entirely on the hatred of Gordon Brown, stoking up fears of a broken society and now threatening economic meltdown.

“It’s a strategy that is completely negative and without hope, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that people aren’t going to fall for it.”

A panel of experts including fashion writer and broadcaster Caryn Franklin and author of Fat is a Feminist Issue, Susie Orbach, will debate measures to tackle the harm caused by pressure to conform to unrealistic and unhealthy body image ideals.  Other attendees include Girlguides, Linda Papadopoulous and the world’s leading body image experts.

The event will mark the launch of the Campaign for Body Confidence.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone said:

“Since the Liberal Democrats launched the Real Women campaign last year, we have been inundated with messages of support from people who are fed up of the constant pressure to live up to totally unrealistic ideals of beauty.

“Unrealistic and unhealthy ideas of what’s beautiful mean people suffer with anything from low self-esteem to serious eating disorders, which is why we are launching the Campaign for Body Confidence.

“Politicians, media figures, modelling agencies, mental health experts and ordinary people will be asked to pledge to campaign against this dangerous trend.”

Commenting, Susie Orbach said:

“I welcome this debate.  The body image pressure on girls and women constitutes a public health emergency.  I hope that the Government will take urgent measures to prevent the commercial world preying on young girls.”

Commenting, Caryn Franklin said:

“There is a responsibility in creating fashion imagery in a digital age. All Walks Beyond the Catwalk, launched in September 2009, has introduced the process of working with a range of models in size and age at London Fashion Week with the goal of offering more realistic fashion imagery to women who feel ill-served by what is currently in existence.”

"I am pleased to add my support to International Women's Day. It is crucial that people are able to come together to celebrate the achievements of women around the world. However this is not a time to just be reflective but also a time to look forwards and work together to stamp out all signs of inequality that threatens to undermine our society."



"As the first woman from the Turkish community to be elected as councillor, I am a strong supporter of International Women's Day, and campaigner for more women in public life. We must join forces and speak out against the continuing evil of so-called 'honour killings', most recently the terrible death of a young Turkish woman, Tulay Goren. Woman across the world continue to suffer. We have a duty to be the voice and the change that will make a difference to their lives."



"I'm delighted to support International Women's Day because I think it's important we remember the struggle of women both past and present to win the right to vote and to stand for election. As a new Mum running for Parliament I still get asked - Why isn't your partner standing instead? How can you do it with a baby? You're not going to breastfeed here are you?  We need to keep on working for equality so that little girls born today enjoy even greater opportunities and are supported in their dreams."



"The fight for women's equality is not finished. And as lucky as I am to work for a party where equality and fairness runs through our very bones, some women do not have the same luxury. As a second generation Ghanaian, I am aware of the shocking poverty women and girls in Africa face on a daily basis. Though I shake my head in despair and give a sum of money each month to a charity, the visceral pain some women still face shakes me to my very core. We must not forget and we must not get complacent. We still have a fight, so lets win it together."



"Taking this day to pause and remember the struggles of women throughout history to seek equal opportunity remains as vital as it always has been. Clara Zetkin's original ideals of pressing for female equality resound as true now as they did nearly one hundred years ago. International Women's Day marks the triumphs of women and girls around the globe and on this day we stand together, looking forward, to improving education, increasing representation and eradicating inequality.”



"I support International Women's Day because I feel that women are still the unsung hero's of modern British society. While things have progressed since my mother's generation - for example there are many more women in work - the pressure on women has also grown exponentially. Women can now be a mum, partner and career woman all at the same time but are often less paid. We should celebrate our achievements but realise there is still a long way to go before true equality. Just take Parliament as an example: 51% of the population represented by 20% of MPs! Shocking. Come on ladies, let's make this election count!"



"I’m delighted to be one of millions of women celebrating International Women’s Day today. Across the world, women boast extraordinary achievements. Despite poverty, we raise families. Despite discrimination, we excel and prosper. Despite pressures to fulfil roles that are defined for us, we can be strong, confident and secure in ourselves. To all young girls, I say one thing - become the woman you want to be."



"I'm supporting International Women's Day because women are the answer to many of the world's problems and investing in women's education, empowerment, and entrepreneurship will change the world."



“How wonderful to have a global day celebrating women, the roles we play in the home and our achievements in society.  May I wish all women the courage of their convictions, and the ability to greet each challenge with a smile!”



"I support International Women's Day to recognise the role of women in society throughout the world and it is essential that their determination be celebrated across the world."

Responding to the CBI’s submission to the Chancellor urging him to use  his last Budget before the election to set out more details of spending plans for government departments in order to boost confidence in the UK’s public finances and provide economic stability, Vince Cable said:

“This submission highlights how dangerous the Government’s position is.

“The country can’t afford to have political parties playing politics with the public finances.

“The British people and the markets have the right to know how and when each political party will tackle the deficit.

“The Liberal Democrats have made it clear that the point at which we cut spending will be based on economics and not political dogma.

“While Labour buries its head in the sand and the Tories mire themselves in confusion, only the Liberal Democrats have produced a credible and coherent plan for dealing with the deficit.”

Nick Clegg will argue that in return for the investment of an additional £2.5bn in schools, teachers will be put under pressure to ‘raise their game’ to reinvent the curriculum, increase the number of children achieving good results and close the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their wealthier classmates.

He will also attack the Conservatives for pledging to help poorer pupils without allocating any funding to pay for it and accuse the Government of ‘not funding, but buying’ schools

To give every child a fair start in life, the Liberal Democrats will spend an extra £2.5bn on schools, guaranteeing them the money they need to support children who are struggling.



Nick Clegg will say:

“Today, I ask our schools and colleges to sign up to a deal with the Liberal Democrats: We will give you everything we can. We will find you extra funding, even while elsewhere there are cuts. We will give a level of freedom you haven’t known for decades. But, in return, we will place the greatest expectations on you any government ever has. 

“One - we will expect you to transform the curriculum, so that it is rich, relevant, and stretches the brightest pupils while elevating those who struggle. Two - we will be much more ambitious about the number of young men and women leaving school with good results. Three – we will expect you to close the gap between poorer children and their wealthier classmates. A gap which entrenches inequality in Britain today.

“That deal is a new settlement for schools and government. Once it is in place we will get on with governing, you will get on with teaching, and children will benefit most of all. Let’s take our side of the bargain first. We are proposing an extra investment of £2.5bn for our schools. Around an extra £2,500 will be allocated for each pupil in receipt of free school meals. Raising the amount allocated for the poorest children to levels spent per pupil in fee-paying schools.

“The budgets of schools with similar catchments, but in different parts of the country, can vary wildly. Our Pupil Premium ensures every school taking a child from a disadvantaged background, no matter where it is, gets extra money to provide extra support.

“Money you can spend as you see fit – perhaps to cut class sizes, provide extra one-to-one tuition, evening or weekend classes. It would be up to you.

“Unlike the Conservatives, who have promised money to help poorer pupils without actually allocating a single penny to pay for it, we want to give schools certainty about the resources they can expect.

“So, to be absolutely clear: our Pupil Premium is new money. As the IFS pointed out earlier this week, unless a Pupil Premium is funded with extra cash, many schools – particularly secondaries – will suffer significant budget cuts.

“Labour didn’t fund schools, they bought schools. The price of unprecedented investment was untrammelled control.

“So, more freedom, more funding, that is our side of the bargain. What about yours? We will give you money, we will cut the reins, but our expectations on you will be high. We will expect you to reinvent the curriculum so it is broad and relevant. We will expect you to increase the number of children achieving good results. We will expect you to close the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their wealthier peers.

“I am tired of the buck passing that dominates the debate over education in this country. When pupils do badly, government blames schools, schools blame government, and parents are left watching endless finger-pointing that does nothing to help their children.

“We want to make Britain a place where it is no longer possible, on a pupil’s first day of school, to predict how well they’ll do simply by asking them how much their parents earn. 

“So, a deal between government and schools: Money and freedom in return for high expectations and more ambition.”

Commenting on Gordon Brown’s appearance at the Iraq inquiry, Nick Clegg said:

“This was the day Gordon Brown finally had to come clean and admit that he believes the Iraq war was right.

“We now know we were betrayed by Gordon Brown and we were betrayed by the Labour Party.

“How can we trust a man who still believes that this illegal war and all the horror it has caused was right?

“When the Liberal Democrats were the only party to oppose this immoral invasion we didn’t just speak for us, we spoke for the nation.”

Political Slot: A fair start for children

This week Nick spoke about Liberal Democrat plans to help improve the lives of children in Channel 4’s Political Slot. He also spoke to the Salvation Army about the importance of early years education in tackling inequality. Read our full policy on improving education here. Watch the video >

Danny Alexander launches ‘Why vote Lib Dem?’

This book, which went on sale yesterday, covers topics as varied as fair taxes, gay rights, looking after our armed forces, political reform and the fight against climate change.
Read more >

 
Ashcroft estimated to have saved £127m in tax

“Non-doms have to tell the taxman that their first allegiance is to another country. No-one should be a British lawmaker whose first allegiance is not to Britain,” said Chris Huhne.
Read more >

Labour has condemned people to overcrowded housing

“People should not be condemned to homes more suitable for battery hens. Labour has left us right back where we were under the last Conservative Government," said Sarah Teather.
Read more >

Vince responds to your questions

Two week’s ago we asked you to submit questions to Vince Cable on the economy. Yesterday he recorded answers to the questions as voted for by you. He covers subjects including economic recovery, investing in green jobs and nuclear power. Watch the video >



5th - 7th February:
This weekend Scottish Lib Dems will be hosting their spring conference in Perth. Nick Clegg and Tavish Scott will talk about how we will make Scotland fairer.
Find out more >

12th - 14th March:
Birmingham will be hosting federal spring conference. Policy discussions will include a full debate on the youth policy paper, as well as consultation sessions on localism and international development. Find out more >

Ahead of today’s speech at the Scottish Liberal Democrat Spring Conference, Nick Clegg said:

“Labour has failed to deliver for Scotland. Labour’s banking crisis and recession has caused serious damage to the Scottish economy and businesses.

“Under the Labour Government the gap between rich and poor has grown wider and social mobility has foundered.

“In Scotland, life expectancy remains lower than anywhere else in the UK and it is losing jobs at the fastest rate in Western Europe.

“All this has to change and neither the Conservatives nor the SNP are capable of doing it.

“The Lib Dems in Scotland have set the political pace on our campaign for a fairer society.

“Scotland deserves real change, and the Liberal Democrats are the only ones to deliver it.

“Under a Liberal Democrat Government, you will not have to pay any income tax on the first £10,000 you earn.

“This will free half a million Scots on low incomes from having to pay any income tax at all and put £700 back in the pockets of people on low and middle incomes, providing an incentive to work and save.”

Commenting on reports from the Electoral Commission that Tory officials had refused requests to be interviewed by investigators, Chris Huhne said:

“It’s extraordinary that officials of a major political party should refuse a meeting to answer questions from the regulator designed to ensure funding is open and honest.

“It’s the equivalent of a criminal suspect asking a police officer whether their work is really necessary. 

“The Conservatives must now answer the question about who told their officials to withhold cooperation from the Electoral Commission. On whose authority was this request refused?”

Government reforms mean that from 6 April this year, both men and women will need to make 30 years of National Insurance payments to be eligible for the full state pension.

The changes mean that a woman who has paid National Insurance for 30 years whose 60th birthday falls on 6 April would be entitled to a full state pension, whereas a woman who was born a day earlier and has worked just as long would only be entitled to three quarters of this – or around £75 a week in 2010-11. This could mean women retiring this year before the 6 April cut off could miss out on as much as £10,400 over the next decade.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Steve Webb said: 

“The April 2010 changes to the rules on state pensions are entirely welcome and long overdue. But they create a cliff-edge for those who reach pension age immediately beforehand. 

“Many of these women could lose out on up to £10,000 simply for being born a few days too early.  

“Big changes like this should be phased in. Even now, the Government could look again at how it is working out pensions for women retiring in 2009/10 and consider giving them some of the benefit of the new rules.”

Commenting on today’s petition by Shelter to update the 1935 overcrowding standard, Sarah Teather said:

“Labour’s betrayal of the hundreds of thousands of families stuck in cramped conditions is frankly unforgivable.
 
“Overcrowding means children unable to do their homework, and families falling apart due to the stress of living on top of each other. 
 
“Labour has left us right back where we were under the last Conservative Government.  We urgently need to bringing many more homes back into use and update the outdated rules on overcrowding.
 
“People should not be condemned to homes more suitable for battery hens.”

Wednesday 03 March
7:55pm - 8:00pm
Channel 4
Liberal Democrats

Nick Clegg, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, visits a school in north London to discuss Liberal Democrat plans to cut class sizes.

Commenting on the death of former Labour Leader Michael Foot, Nick Clegg said:

“Michael Foot was great parliamentarian, a great intellectual and a great idealist.

“He always stood up for what he believed in, even if that meant inviting unpopularity at times. His intellectual integrity is an example to everyone in politics.”

The book, which goes on sale on Thursday, covers topics as varied as fair taxes, gay rights, looking after our armed forces, political reform and the fight against climate change.

Other contributors include Gurkha veteran Madan Kumar Gurung, political reform campaigner Pam Giddy and Duwayne Brooks, Stephen Lawrence’s best friend who was with him on the night he died.

Commenting Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg said:

“There are hundreds of reasons to vote Liberal Democrat, but there is also just one reason: the will to create a better, fairer Britain by doing things differently. This is what unites all the contributors to this book.

“I am delighted such a great group of people from so many different backgrounds have come together to share their reasons for backing the Liberal Democrats.”

Commenting on the Government’s announcement of a green loans scheme for households who want to make energy efficient improvements to their homes, Simon Hughes said:

“It is staggering that it has taken this Government nearly 13 years to come up with plans to green our homes and cut people’s fuels bills.

“Refurbishing our homes should be a win-win situation, but Labour has bungled this kind of thing before.

“Today’s announcement will leave millions of families without the warm homes they need for up to 20 years.

“We urgently need a nationwide scheme to make every home a warm home.”

Lord Ashcroft’s annual tax saving is conservatively estimated to be £12.76m and he has been a member of the House of Lords for a decade.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“Anyone who wants to pass laws in this country should pay this country’s full taxes and not hide behind the special offshore status of non-doms.
 
“Non-doms have to tell the taxman that their first allegiance is to another country. No-one should be a British lawmaker whose first allegiance is not to Britain.
 
“On even the most conservative estimates, Lord Ashcroft has avoided vast amounts of British tax by deploying the non-dom tax dodge. If he challenges our estimate of how much tax he has dodged, then there is a simple solution: publish the figure.”

Commenting ahead of today’s publication of the BBC strategy which could see its website scaled back and radio stations 6 Music and Asian Network closed, Don Foster said:

“Today’s report signals the end of the BBC roaming wherever it fancied. The decision to focus on high quality UK content is welcome.
 
“However, I am not convinced that using 6 Music and the Asian Network as sacrificial lambs to pay for it is the right approach.
 
“While the BBC has become overgrown in some areas and needs pruning, the Licence Fee payers must have their say about what’s to go.”

Commenting on today’s IFS report ‘The Pupil Premium: assessing the options’, which shows how many schools would have their budgets cut under Conservative plans to bring in a Pupil Premium without extra funding, David Laws said:

“This independent report confirms the Tories’ proposals would be disastrous for thousands of schools, wrecking opportunities for millions of children.  

“The Conservatives’ plans will mean many schools have their budgets slashed.
 
“David Cameron may talk about raising standards but his plans commit no pounds and no pence of extra money to our schools.  He now needs to be honest about the devastating impact this will have on England’s schools. 
 
“Liberal Democrats will give schools the money to cut class sizes and provide children who are struggling with more individual support by committing an extra £2.5bn. This extra cash and our plans to set schools free to raise standards will give every child a fair start in life.”

In his speech, Vince Cable:

• Argues that the recession provides a unique opportunity to re-shape our economy and that environmental goals can go hand in hand with job creation
  
  
• Suggests that a creating a ‘green spine’ for the economy will allow many diverse activities to branch from it, from the creative industries and pharmaceutical and biological science through to specialist IT services
  
  
• Reiterates the party’s commitment to setting up an Infrastructure Bank
  
  
• Reaffirms the party’s objection to Heathrow expansion and new nuclear power

Thank you for the kind invitation to speak to you.

The fact that you have invited me I take as a challenge to demonstrate that the Liberal Democrats see the environment in holistic terms: not as a separate set of concerns but connected to mainstream economic policy. I am also aware that I am following in the footsteps of Mr George Osborne. I see that, since that meeting, the Tories have deleted the environment from their list of 10 Reasons to Vote Conservative. I don’t know what you did to him but I can assure you that I won’t react in the same way. The environment – defined as part of a sustainable economy - will be a major plank of our election message.

When you mark your card after the beauty parade of political parties may I suggest that depth of commitment is not measured only, or even mainly, by the number of boxes which the parties tick in terms of policy statements. To explain the Liberal Democrat position on the environment, I go back a generation to the late 1970s. At that time, I wasn’t involved in Liberal politics; I worked for a Labour Minister, John Smith. I was however intrigued by an earnest group of people who came round my local streets in Twickenham collecting bundles of paper for recycling. In truth, I think I regarded them as rather loopy. But they weren’t a joke. A few years later they wiped out the local Labour Party, defeated the Conservatives and, having taken over the council, launched a pioneering drive in municipal recycling which we now regard as a basic function of local government. And twenty years ago when climate change was still a subject confined to the scientific journals Paddy Ashdown asked me – I had just become the candidate for Twickenham – to set up a group looking at the issue, out of which came the ideas for green taxes on which we have continued to build. The Green Fiscal Commission we regard as the best source of new thinking on the subject.

Perhaps I could indulge in a few more personal recollections: not to personalise the arguments but so that you are clear where I am coming from. My starting point is that of a fairly hard-nosed economist whose formative years were spent working in or with developing country governments in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. I had a pretty negative view of conservationists who seemed obsessed by preserving animals and views for rich, white, people to look at while keeping the local population in a romanticised traditional lifestyle. I saw my job as identifying ways of helping an expanding population of poor people to improve their living standards. And I regarded as economically illiterate the Club of Rome, anti growth, theorists whose obsession with raw materials running out took no account of prices. I confess that I continue to trail various environmental heresies with mixed results. Some years ago I was ranting about the fallacy of the concept of ‘food miles’ at a public meeting and seriously annoyed a farmer in the audience, a lady with strong, green, views. The argument continued after the meeting but it was resolved; we are now very happily married.

But my first encounter with serious environmental thinking was as part of the small team which worked with Mrs Brundtland to produce Our Common Future in the mid-1980s and which first launched the concept of ‘sustainable development’. ‘Sustainable development’ has become a mantra we all now use. But it emerged from fierce debate between those, mainly from developed countries, who wanted economic growth slowed down to take account of environmental damage and limits, and those with a developing countries standpoint, including me, who wanted economic growth speeded up to reduce poverty. ‘Sustainable development’ was an ideological compromise – a plea for growth which respects the environment. The underlying tension remains and is reflected in the way different views of the EU on the one hand and China and India on the other at Copenhagen. ‘Converge and contract’ – the compromise formula for climate change – is designed to resolve that tension but agreement is a long way off. And both sides are right. The continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions threatens serious consequences for the next generation. But the rapid growth achieved in China , especially, and India in the last three decades has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and there is an enormous, understandable, appetite to continue.

I moved from Brundtland to work on the first of the major intergovernmental reports on climate change to Commonwealth Prime Ministers and worked with the East Anglia scientists and others who were trying to raise awareness of the issue over two decades ago. I was persuaded of the need to take climate change seriously – as was Mrs Thatcher, one of the Heads of Government to whom the report was presented – by the rigour of the climate scientists: stating that there was a problem but always acknowledging uncertainty and the range of error; never overstating the case.

No one could now complain about lack of awareness of the climate change issue. But I worry about the damage done by failure at Copenhagen and the process of rapid political retreat now taking place, particularly in the USA. The underlying problem is that climate change is an elite project with a narrow and thin political base. It depends critically on public trust in science and scientists. That trust has now been dented. I know that the sceptics are employing every dirty trick in the book and are wildly overstating the significance of a few pieces of slipshod work and exaggerated claims. But much damage has been done to trust in climate science. I don’t agree with a lot of George Monbiot’s work but he was absolutely spot on in his tough response to the slippage of scientific standards. Scientists complaining about emails being stolen and the burden of FOI requests are behaving like the more obtuse MPs during the expenses crisis.

What is now required to restore trust is to reassert the importance and values of science: making it clear that man made global warming is not a fact but a scientific hypothesis with strong evidential support; that there is a lot of uncertainty about magnitudes and impacts; but that the costs of preventive action are likely to be much less than the cost of climate change if it materialises. Climate science must be open to challenge, like all good science. It is not a religion. And critics, however tiresome, have to be treated with courtesy not abused (I can’t be the only person who takes deep offence at the term ‘climate change deniers’, equating sceptics with neo-Nazi holocaust deniers). Those of us who are still convinced that climate change is a major challenge have to reflect that humility if the arguments are not to be lost, irretrievably. What I can assure you is that the Liberal Democrats will continue to give prominence to climate change as a crucial issue we must address.
   
But let me turn to our approach to policy. Where economics and environment come together is in recognising that the costs of environmental pollution should be captured in the price. A proper marriage of economics and environment would sweep away the array of subsidies, protectionist trade policies and tax breaks which disguise the costs of farming, water extraction, fishing, timber production, waste disposal, energy production, mining and manufacturing. Pollution costs would be taxed as the rather dry pre-Keynesian economist Pigou argued almost a century ago. There has been some progress at least in the developed world to tackle that agenda. The Liberal Democrats bring together environmentalism and liberal market economics and are comfortable promoting sustainable economics; while our sister parties, in Canada and Germany for example, have a track record of delivering on the ground.

That is also the rationale for carbon taxes which are clearly the best way of setting a carbon price for consumers and producers. Liberal Democrats support the concept. But in practice we are starting from somewhere else: a complicated system of national taxes bearing quite heavily on motor vehicles but hardly at all on domestic heating or aviation, with a modest industrial – climate change – levy and an EU carbon trading regime (which has so far had minimal impact on the carbon price because permits have been issued too liberally and grandfathered rather than auctioned).

We suggest that one useful step forward is to introduce realistic pricing for aviation in ways that circumvent the treaty restrictions on taxing aviation fuel. Aviation is a rapidly growing source of emissions and the last redoubt of the old idea that polluters don’t and won’t pay. Aviation has unfair, distorting tax advantages over competing modes of transport, notably long distance rail, because there is no tax on fuel, no charge for landing rights which, in a sensible world, would be auctioned (and in contrast to the track charges imposed on rail operators) and with subsidised landing charges (cross-subsidised by shopping in the bizarre, Alice in Wonderland world of aviation regulation). As a result aviation does not pay for carbon, or localised – nitrogen dioxide – pollution or the disamenity of noise, especially at night. We suggest as one – modest – first step: changing the tax base, and increasing tax, by applying it to flight take-offs in a way which captures the emissions generated by the engines and flight distance and scrapping the current ticket tax which penalises the efficient use of aircraft and doesn’t tax air freight. We would aim to raise £2.6bn from this green tax which would contribute towards cuts in direct taxation on the low paid. We are also opposed to the current ‘predict and provide’ approach to airport expansion in the South East. We hope that the Conservatives will be as good as their word in working with us to stop Heathrow expansion in particular.

Road transport is already taxed relatively heavily in the UK by international comparison – a fact which encourages road hauliers to dodge British tax by filling up with diesel on the continent. But despite unpopular tax indexation, the cost of motoring has risen less rapidly than the cost of bus or train travel. Moreover, petrol duty and VED make no distinction between travel on congested roads where there are alternatives and remote rural areas where there is no congestion and no alternative. We should be moving towards a proper road user pricing system for which the technology is now available. Tax is however only one way of changing behaviour. A more direct route is a tightening of energy efficiency standards – miles per gallon – for new vehicles along the lines advocated by my former boss at Shell, Mark Moody-Stuart.

Tougher standards – for insulation in new building are likely to work better for domestic heating than the price mechanism – higher taxes – which would cause fuel poverty with only a very blunt incentive to invest in energy efficiency. And in parallel there has to be a concerted drive to improve the existing housing stock, street by street, rather than the current fragmented, shambolic, set of programmes.

There are big strategic choices to be made in power generation. At present, progress on new renewables in the UK is pitifully slow and the opportunities for changing the basic model of energy delivery to local, distributed, power systems is being missed, though feed in tariffs will help in future. The government has effectively shelved the 2003 White Paper which set out a strategic framework based on energy conservation, new renewables and – transitional – gas. Intensive lobbying has led to agreement for a new generation of coal-fired power stations as at Kingsnorth and more importantly support for a new generation of nuclear power stations. I appreciate that nuclear power has attractions to many in the green movement because it is an – almost – zero carbon fuel. Its proponents have also cunningly exploited public anxieties about energy security with wildly exaggerated stories about disruption to gas supplies which, in the case of the UK, are very diverse and safe. The hidden costs of nuclear waste storage and decommissioning are vast. When I spoke in Parliament against the bailout of British energy in 2003, some of the best analysis I encountered came from Greenpeace.  The Liberal Democrats oppose new nuclear power not from some theological opposition to the principle – it would be ludicrous to declare war on physics – but because of the potential hidden cost – the blank cheque needed from the taxpayer - and the potential which nuclear power has to ‘crowd out’ new renewables. A traditional, grid based, system gets in the way of more innovative, distributed, localised systems.

But the whole environmental agenda is in danger of being derailed by the current economic crisis. Economic necessity concentrates the mind. The environment has plummeted down the list of the electorate’s priorities.

Much of the established green approach, resting as it does on environmental taxes and a more general approach to frugality, assumes that there is a large appetite for self flagellation. For those people who clamoured for a zero growth world – well, here it is and it isn’t very nice.

Fortunately there is a growing recognition that the current economic crisis presents opportunities as well as threats to environmental thinking. The key issue is jobs and where they come from. Britain has a major short term problem of cyclical unemployment or underemployment arising from the banking collapse and recession and a longer term structural problem of generating jobs and growth out of an economy which can no longer rely on consumption driven by household debt, inflated property prices and the high octane economy of the sharks and young bloods in the City.

The short term problem cries out for classic Keynesian public works based on ‘shovel ready’ projects. The construction sector has been the worst hit by the recession and arguably has the richest potential for job creation directly and through supplier industries from timber frames to ceramic fitting. There is massive pent up demand for social housing, and supply is seriously constrained by lack of funding. Improvement of empty and substandard property for rent is one – relatively cheap – way forward. The Liberal Democrats have also been arguing for a concerted programme of home insulation.  Since we acknowledge that there is a major fiscal contraction ahead and no scope for enlarging deficit financing we identify savings from government spending which can be redeployed in this way. Environmental goals can be neatly reconciled with job creation. I shy away from the term ‘green jobs’ since it implies that non-green jobs like being a car mechanic or a gas fitter are somehow less worthwhile which is not right or sensible. Indeed I note with some amusement that the centrepiece of President Obama’s ‘green’ public works programme is road building.

Liberal Democrats are anxious to ensure that the baby of environmentalism is not thrown out with the bath water of unsustainable public spending. We are, for example, seeking to use some of your ideas on carbon spending for saving money.

The term Green New Deal also captures the convergence of economic and environmental aims. The term suggests a short term, recession, programme but it has been better described to me by Colin Hines, one of the authors of the idea, as creating a ‘green spine’ for the economy from which many diverse activities will branch. It is already possible to see some of the activities around which future employment and growth will occur – creative industries; pharmaceutical and biological science; specialist IT based services; health and education services; and financial services disarmed of their destructive potential.

Environmental services and industries are another and could be a leading sector with encouragement. Much will happen spontaneously led by market demand. But this new economy will require infrastructure, preferably a green one. There is a potentially vast demand for digital infrastructure, new and improved public transport, renewable power production and transmission systems plus the education and training of a new generation of scientists, engineers and skilled workers to operate this new economy. The Government is not going to be able to finance much of the infrastructure because the public sector balance sheet is so weak. The funding will have to come from the private sector and I have been promoting the idea of an Infrastructure Bank tapping into the hundreds of billions in annuity funds of pension and insurance companies looking for a home in the UK or retail investment in what could be ‘green bonds’. Part of its remit would be environmental but it would clearly have a broader infrastructure role. It could also mobilise private, retail, investors looking for an attractive, long term productive use of their savings. Colin Hines has coined the term ‘savers and saviours’ – what is needed is the imagination and leadership to link employment growth, environmental imperatives and the self interest of entrepreneurs and investors.

The Liberal Democrats want to work with like-minded people to develop that vision. We must take these ideas forward on all fronts: national, international and local.  Birmingham City Council which we run in joint administration with the Conservatives has advanced plans for a municipal green new deal.  Given our traditions of localism, we have more confidence in bottom up than top down initiatives. A sustainable future will require both.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne has written to the Electoral Commission to ask it to conclude its inquiry before the General Election.
 
In the letter, Chris Huhne said:

“Should the Conservative Party secure a majority following the General Election using donations made by Bearwood Corporate Services Limited, and your investigation were to conclude after the General Election that these donations were illegal, this would raise serious concerns about the legality and validity of the entire election result.”

Commenting on Lord Ashcroft’s admission that he is non-domiciled for tax purposes, Chris Huhne said:

“The Conservatives’ biggest donor is a tax-dodger from Belize who has not paid a penny of British tax on the vast bulk of his estimated £1.1bn fortune held offshore.

“This raises extraordinary questions about the judgement of successive Tory leaders - William Hague, Michael Howard and David Cameron - whose view seems to be that only little people should pay tax.

“The Tory party has been bought like a banana republic.”

Commenting on today’s BBC survey which reveals tens of thousands of council jobs in England could be at risk over the next five years, Julia Goldsworthy said:

“Three quarters of council money comes from Government grants.  John Denham’s attempt to wash his hands of blame is outrageous.
 
“Councils are currently working in the dark and planning for worst case scenarios as Labour refuses to publish the spending review they promised last summer.
 
“Ministers love kicking difficult political decisions into the long grass.  They must come clean about cuts to council funding.”

I’d like to thank the Salvation Army for inviting me to speak today.
 
Last winter, I went out with your Sheffield branch at the crack of dawn to try and help some rough sleepers.
It was a wet cold morning, and we found ourselves in a derelict warehouse, windows smashed, rubble and refuse everywhere, needles strewn across the floor, where people were sleeping in the most horrible conditions imaginable.
And – for the first time – I truly understood the reach the Salvation Army has.
Right into the most distressing, most hidden, parts of our society.  
Where you help people without judgement, without prejudice, without expectation.
An ethos which represents the best side of all of us.
 
Let me take this opportunity to congratulate you particularly for your Seeds of Exclusion Programme.
That work has been enormously revealing in terms of the complex relationships between the different forces that lead to social exclusion.
 
There is a simple principle that the Salvation Army, the Liberal Democrats, and many of the organisations here today share:
It’s this: the fortunes of someone’s life should not be decided at their birth.
A person’s fate shouldn’t be settled by their sex, their colour, their postcode, or their parents’ bank balance.
In a fair society no one can tell you to lower your sights because - no matter how hard you try - the things you dream of somehow aren’t for you.
 


I want to talk about that society today.
About how we don’t live in it yet, but about how we can.
If we are willing to tackle the unfairness that sends some children along one path while others are left behind.
If we intervene to head off the destructive patterns of behaviour that take root when people are young.
If we invest in people before it becomes too late – investing in our schools to close the gap between children from deprived homes and those who are better off.
  
Let’s start with where we are.
Britain isn’t fair.
There is profound inequality everywhere you look: how much people earn, the homes they live in, the schools they send their children to.
In a fair society there will be differences between people’s lifestyles, of course.
But your place in society won’t be decided for you; it will be up to you to decide for yourself.

That is a socially mobile Britain.  
Some people say it is too much to hope for.
How can you move everyone upwards? There isn’t enough space at the top.
I say: that’s an excuse.
It is shrugging your shoulders at unfairness.
It is getting in the way of making Britain better.
 
Better than 23% of children living in poverty.
Better than millions of pensioners seeing out the winter in a single room because they can’t afford to heat their whole house.
Better than a baby born today in a poorer part of my city, Sheffield, dying on average 14 years before a baby born in a wealthier neighbourhood down the road.
 
We heard last month from the National Equality Panel that the richest 10% of people in Britain are now more than 100 times as wealthy as the poorest 10%.
In 1997, when New Labour was first elected, no one would have believed it would end like this.
But Labour’s bright, shiny promise of a fair society has faded away.
And all that remains is disappointment, hardship, and – worst of all – hopelessness.
 
I travel around the country every week.
The people I meet are angry, they want more for their families and their neighbourhoods, they’re desperate for change.
But too many are no longer sure that’s possible.
It’s a completely understandable reaction, after 18 harsh years under the Conservatives, followed by let down after let down from Labour.
But that sense of powerlessness is dangerous.
It’s stops people demanding the Britain they want to live in.
 
Our big task now is giving people back their hope.
It’s something the Salvation Army does every day – with people who have problems with drink or drugs, women escaping violent relationships, prisoners coming to terms with their pasts.
It’s how you help people turn their lives around.
We’re only going to turn this country around if we do the same: make people believe it is possible.


 
For politicians, that means spelling out the big changes that really mean something to people.  
The Liberal Democrats have laid out four steps to do that.
Four steps we can begin taking immediately to make a real difference to people’s lives:
Fair taxes, a rebalanced economy, decent, honest politics, and a good start for all of our children.
I’d like to take each in turn, but I’ll concentrate on the last one.
Because so long as opportunity is a privilege for some children but not others, any programme to tackle inequality is condemned to failure.
 
First, tax.
Our tax system is grossly unfair.
It’s a scandal that the poorest 20% of people in the country still lose a bigger chunk of their incomes to the tax man than the richest 20%.
That a millionaire still pays a lower rate of tax on his capital gains than his cleaner does on his or her wages.
The Liberal Democrats would close the loopholes exploited by big business and the very wealthy, giving everyone else a break.
Low and middle income earners wouldn’t pay a penny on the first £10,000 they earn. Giving most people £700 back every year, while 3.6 million pensioners and people on low incomes wouldn’t pay any tax at all.
 
Second, rebalancing our economy.
For decades successive governments made our whole economy subservient to a single square mile: the City of London.
So when our financial services collapsed, British taxpayers and businesses were left paying the price.
My party understands that there are nearly 100,000 square miles in Britain.
We want to usher in a new era where growth and jobs are spread across the nation.
By placing a new emphasis on infrastructure, on people, and on green technology…
I want to live in a country where we learn to build things again, not just place bets on computer screens in the City of London.
 
Third, politics must be opened up.
Made honest, decent, relevant.
That means getting rid of the influence of big money that is contaminating our political system.
Introducing fair votes so every vote counts.
And empowering every member of our society, bar none, starting with giving people the right to sack badly behaved MPs.


 
Finally, fairness for our children. 
 
Education is everything when it comes to opportunity.
How self assured we are, how equipped we are to deal with adult life, depends very much on the experiences we had when we were young.
And, when it’s done right, education can be society’s greatest liberator.
Because how well you do depends on how hard you work, and nothing else.
 
But Britain’s education system is failing too many children.
Despite the dedication of good schools and great teachers, one in three 11 year olds leave school unable to read and write properly.
And nearly half of 16 year olds leave school without 5 good GCSEs.
 
And it is the worst off children who are being let down most.
By the time children start their formal education the language skills of the poorest already trail nearly a year behind those of the children from middle income homes. 
By age 7 a bright but poor child will have been overtaken by his or her better off classmates.
By age 16 poorer teenagers are only half as likely to get 5 good GCSEs as everyone else.
That means less chance of further training, less chance of a good job, less chance of a stable life.
 
So what can we do?
 
Helping our schools make sure no child falls behind is half the answer.
And I will come on to how the Liberal Democrats would do that in a moment.
 
But schools can only do so much.
Because a good education doesn’t end at the school gate.
Every good parent knows that their children can only flourish if they are also taught the right values, given the right support, at home. 
If they are read to when their young, if someone checks their homework, if they are encouraged to ask question after question.  
 
For most parents providing that support is a natural reflex.
Life is hard for many working families.
But I meet plenty of mothers and fathers who work punishing hours and still find the time for their children’s education.
 
But, sadly, there are those who don’t.
A small minority of parents who do not see their children’s education as part of their duties as parents.
Who drop their children off in the morning, pick them up in the afternoon, and think that’s their job done.
 
Most probably their parents were the same with them.
But these are different times.
We now know, beyond any question, that, when it comes to a child’s development, what happens in the home is just as important – if not more – than what happens in the classroom.
That’s why, for example, children who are read to every day achieve better results.
 
When you deny a child that support, you hold them back.
Having a child is the greatest gift.
But it is a gift that carries duties.  
You hold their life’s fortunes in your hands.
When you let them down, you limit their chances.
And, you limit the chances of other children too.  
 
Because when your children fall behind…
When they lack self-confidence…
When they don’t place any value on education…
They’ll play up, and they’ll cause problems for everyone else.
 
We all remember from our own school days:
The pupils sat at the back of the class, disinterested, disengaged, disruptive.
Bored, having lost interest in a lesson they don’t understand; on the look out for other ways to entertain themselves.
Teachers try commendably to help those children, but the bad behaviour spirals.
Maybe they play truant, maybe they become bullies …
Maybe they never catch up, growing up into the lost young men and women organisations like the Salvation Army so often have to help. 
 
The knock on effect is that while teachers are busy trying to get those pupils to toe the line, there’s less time for everyone else, and all of the pupils suffer.
 
I’m a parent – I don’t imagine every classroom can be full of rows of perfectly behaved little angels.
But I don’t accept that a handful of parents who aren’t doing their job properly should be able to hold back the whole class.
 
So the Liberal Democrats in government would make a deal with parents:
You look after your children’s education at home…
And we will make sure they get the best start possible at school.
So on days like today, national offer day, you can rest assured that your children will move from a great primary school to a great secondary school.
 


I’m a liberal.
I don’t believe in the passive assumption that only government can – or should – fix the problems in our society.
Yes, there are huge flaws in our education system that will not be resolved without intervention by the state.
But governments can only make a difference if parents do their bit too.
 
For our part, the Liberal Democrats will make lifting the standard of education in this country an absolute priority.
We have pledged an extra £2.5bn to our schools.
Head teachers will be able to use that money on a whole range of measures to help pupils.
From recruiting the best teachers in the toughest schools, to providing lessons outside of the normal school day, to more catch up classes, more one to one tuition, and head teachers will be able to cut class sizes too.
 
The money will be targeted specifically to closing the gap between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their wealthier classmates.
That is how we can tackle the inequality that blights our education system…
Which, as a report on social mobility I commissioned from Barnardo’s Chief Executive Martin Narey confirmed, is how we tackle the inequality that blights our society.
 
The extra investment helps not only the poorest children, but all of their classmates too.  
An average primary school could see an extra £90,000 in its budget.
Enough to cut class sizes from 27 to 20.
In an average secondary school, they could go down to 16.
That’s good for every child in the class.
 
The Institute of Fiscal Studies is publishing their analysis of this type of investment tomorrow, which I look forward to reading.
That is important work in moving this debate forward among policy makers.
But many parents will feel they don’t need a report to tell them what they already know:
That any measure which gives teachers more time with their child, and more time bringing into line the children who would otherwise be playing up, can only be a good thing.
 
Ask teachers too - I was at a primary school in Brent just a few weeks ago…
The teachers I spoke to don’t just want to supervise a room full of children.  
They want to teach.
 
The Government did, to their credit, pass a law to cap classes for 5-7 year olds.
But more than 8000 children are still in classes that are technically illegal.
A problem that, with the number of 5-7 year olds rising every year, is only going to get worse.
 
The evidence is clear:
Whilst smaller class sizes are not a panacea on their own, and whilst the effect of teaching children in smaller groups is less as children get older…
They can nonetheless have a dramatic effect on the educational performance of the youngest children.
And we all know that what happens in the first few years of a child’s time at school is of disproportionate importance to their subsequent life chances.
 
So providing smaller class sizes, especially for young children, is one of the most important changes our Pupil Premium will allow head teachers to introduce in their schools. 
 
Ask yourself this:
 
Why does Switzerland, which consistently tops the literacy tables, have some of the smallest primary school classes in the world?
 
Why are more than 60% of the poorest pupils in Rutland not getting any GCSEs higher than a D – where the average secondary school class contains 24 pupils…
While in Westminster, where the average class is only 19, do less than 20% of the poorest children achieve the same result?
 
And why do the best off families pay vast sums every term to send their children to private schools where classes are around half the size of state schools?
 
Because they know that pupils will pay more attention to teachers, there will be less disruption…
And more opportunity to identify individual pupils’ problems, and talents, as they emerge.
 
Under our plans smaller classes won’t be a privilege reserved for the rich.
Our Pupil Premium raises the funding per pupil, for the poorer children, to the same levels as the money spent per pupil in private schools.
Head teachers can use that money to have smaller classes, like in fee paying schools. Taking our poorest children a huge leap towards an education they would otherwise never be able to afford.
 
So education is at the very core of what the Liberal Democrats will be proposing to voters at this election.
We are now the only true party of education.
 
Labour, despite all the money it has put into schools, has failed to transform the life chances of thousands of children who need the most help.
The Conservatives parrot the language of school reform – but refuse to allocate a single penny to make their promises a reality.
 
We are spelling out exactly what we would do, how much it would cost, and how we would pay for it.
And we are asking parents to enter into a deal with us:
Your child’s education will be our number one priority;
Help us by making it your number one priority too.
 
The difference smaller class sizes can make is so important that our Pupil Premium is one of only two substantial and immediate proposals for new investment the Liberal Democrats are making at this election.
The other being a major investment programme in green infrastructure to create jobs and boost the economy.
 
The public finances continue to bear the strain of the economic crisis.
But we can find the money if we are prepared to take tough decisions about what the country can and cannot now afford.  
My party has, for example, identified money that can be saved by taking above-average earners out of the means-tested tax credit system.
By scrapping unnecessary government databases, like the Contact Point children’s database.
And by cutting the vast sums currently spent on central government, including halving the size of the Children Schools and Families Whitehall department…
As well as scaling back BECTA, the quango that tells schools which computers to buy.
These and other savings can be used to reduce our national deficit while we simultaneously invest in our priorities…
Like tackling the impact of disadvantage on a person’s life chances.  
 
The Conservatives have also promised to target funding towards disadvantaged pupils.
But they have not given any detail on how they will pay for it.
In fact, they have committed precisely no pounds and no pence.
It is, in my view, the height of cynicism to pledge a pupil premium – by definition an amount of money per pupil – without attaching a figure to it.
 
It is playing games with people’s hopes to dangle the promise of extra money for children in front of parents with no evidence you can come good on it. 
If they are planning to increase investment for disadvantaged pupils, they owe it to people to come clean about what they will cut to pay for it.
If they are planning simply to shift around existing school budgets, they owe it to schools to come clean on which ones are going to face cuts.
 
What we do know about the Conservatives is that they are going to cut funding for school buildings.
We can only assume – given they have talked about ringfencing the NHS, but have stayed quiet on education budgets – that they are going to cut those budgets overall.
So in the absence of any evidence that they will actually help the poorest children…
One thing we can be sure of is that their promise of ‘brazen elitism’ in our schools is bound to come true.
 
For the Liberal Democrats, education is at the heart of our vision for fairness.
I want us to get to people before they get to the organisations in this room.
 
Uprooting the inequality that is embedded in our schools won’t solve every problem.
But it will start to give every child a chance in life, irrespective of the circumstances of their birth.
It will mean that underachievement, low self-esteem, a lack of self confidence in the classroom, won’t blight a child’s education as widely as they do now.
I don’t want to live in a society where it is all too easy to predict in a maternity ward which children will do well and which children won’t.
 
I want to live in a society where every child has a chance.
 
I want to live in a fairer Britain.

Commenting on David Cameron’s speech at Tory spring conference Chris Huhne said:

“Once again the speech was short on specifics and on the key assurance of fairness that is essential if we are to tackle our economic problems.

“We need fair taxation, new green jobs, a fair start for our children and a fair political system that gives voters real choice to sack miscreant MPs.”

Last December Ministers set out plans to freeze payments of the State Earnings Related Pension and the Second State Pension, effectively cutting state pension payments by £515million next year.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Steve Webb said:

“Labour has betrayed pensioners by promising to increase their pensions when millions are actually set to receive a real-term cut this year.

“Freezing pension top-up payments will leave almost nine million older people worse off at a time when they are already struggling to make ends meet.

“Older people are already facing high fuel bills following this cold winter and rising inflation eroding their savings.

“The Liberal Democrats will vote against this latest example of the Government failing to give a fair deal to pensioners.”

Chris Huhne said:

“We should not be the sort of country where ministers put people under house arrest without them even knowing the accusations against them. Control orders are pure Kafka and must end.
 
“Control orders are a constant reproach to Labour’s liberal credentials. The Conservatives have promised to vote with us against them but have repeatedly bottled out of doing so.

“Their line seems to be ‘Lord, make me liberal but not yet’.”

Responding to the news that the UK economy grew by 0.3% in the final three months of last year, faster than had been previously estimated, Vince Cable said:

“While it is welcome news that the economy has grown by more than had been previously estimated, the British economy is still weak. And with the Government stimulus largely coming to an end last December it is highly likely growth will continue to be weak for some time.
 
“This news underlines again the folly of rushing into rapid cuts which could push the economy back into recession and inflict further structural damage on the UK, making it harder to sustain our credit rating and creating an even larger budget deficit.
 
“Decisions about the speed and timing of tackling the deficit should be based on the state of the economy, not political dogma.
 
“If the public and markets are to have confidence in the political parties, Labour and the Tories must follow the Liberal Democrat lead and demonstrate a credible plan for when and how the deficit will be tackled and where the cuts will come from.”

Commenting on the publication of a judge’s criticism of the security services, which stated that some officials ‘appear to have a dubious record when it comes to human rights and coercive techniques’, and that while ‘the good faith of the Foreign Secretary is not in question’, there is ‘an obvious reason for distrusting any UK Government assurance’ on mistreatment, Edward Davey said:

“The implication that David Miliband had the wool pulled over his eyes is deeply embarrassing for the Foreign Secretary.

“However, the suggestion that he acted in good faith means the real questions need to be answered by others in Government. Did former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sign off on the ‘coercive techniques’ referred to in the judgement?

“The suggestion that there were others in the security services involved in unacceptable practices makes the need for a full judicial inquiry irrefutable.

“But it must be asked how appropriate it is for Jack Straw to remain in charge of this country’s justice system when there are such serious questions laid at his door.”

Nick Clegg addresses voter apathy by answering your questions

The Leader of the Liberal Democrats this week responded to questions posted to Facebook and Twitter in his latest online Q & A session with voters.

Watch his video response here >




Cable says IMF study backs Liberal Democrat position

“Decisions of when to cut Government spending must be based on economic principles not political games," said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor. Read more >


Support farmers through rural payments reform

At the NFU conference this week, Tim Farron set out plans to reform the farm payments system and use the savings to support farm apprenticeships. Read more >


Migration system mismanaged for decades says Huhne

“The abolition of exit checks by Conservative and Labour Governments means that we can only guess at the numbers coming in and out," said the Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary. Read More >


Protecting and improving the NHS

This week Nick Clegg and Norman Lamb launched the Lib Dem NHS commitments: 'Protecting and Improving the NHS'. In a speech on Monday, Nick spoke about the party’s respite care guarantee, providing a week’s break from caring every year to the 1m unpaid carers.

Find out more and listen to the speech >





ACT Creative - just launched!

Today we're calling for creative people everywhere to submit entries to our digital poster competition.

We are a party of fairness and we want you to show us, using your graphics skills, what that means to you.

Submit your entries to ACT. The best will be put to a vote by ACT users and the winner(s) will support our online election campaign messages.

Find out more and enter >


26th - 28th February:
This weekend Liberal Youth will be hosting their spring conference at York University. Bonnie Greer, Phil Willis and Lord Rennard will all be speaking.
Find out more >

12 - 14 March:
Birmingham will be hosting federal spring conference. Policy discussions will include a full debate on the youth policy paper, as well as consultation sessions on localism and international development. Find out more >

Commenting on today’s Office for National Statistics migration figures, Chris Huhne said:

“Public confidence and trust in the migration system has been shattered by decades of mismanagement.

“The abolition of exit checks by Conservative and Labour Governments means that we can only guess at the numbers coming in and out.

“People over-staying on short-term visas are probably the biggest source of illegal immigration and we still cannot say whether they are leaving when they are meant to do so.

“Exit checks must be reintroduced immediately.”

Questions covered: Support for carers, voter apathy, voting Lib Dem, military pay, the 'Robin Hood Tax', democratic accountability, Scottish independence; the hunger strikers and rights of children at Yarl's Wood detention centre and whether he prefers tea or coffee.

Commenting on the announcement of RBS’ losses and bonus pool, Vince Cable said:

“It’s hard to understand why £1.3bn is being paid out in bonuses when RBS continues to make losses.

“RBS rewarding individual bankers is like a football team paying their striker for scoring when they’ve just been relegated.  

“While it is good news that RBS is meeting its mortgage lending target, its lending to business has fallen.
 
“The Government has to get a grip and explain how it will exercise its 84% shareholding in RBS to benefit the taxpayer. At present we are seeing very little. Part nationalised banks are for lending, not bonuses.

“Stephen Hester seems to think that his only goal is to push up the share price. But RBS has made a commitment to support recovery by ensuring that viable businesses are not starved of capital.  If RBS doesn’t lend to businesses they will go bust and people will lose their jobs.

“The lending agreements for 2011 need to be more concrete, long term and better policed.”

Commenting on the huge increase in profits announced by British Gas, Simon Hughes said:

“These massive profits show that the energy companies are out of control and their regulator is out of action.
 
“The six big beasts of the energy jungle must be tamed immediately – to stop their predatory activities which are so dangerous to the public.
 
“Liberal Democrats will change the rules so that fuel bills reflect fuel costs and consumers are not ripped off again and again.”

Commenting on reports that RBS is set to pay out over £1bn in bonuses despite expectations of poor performance to be announced tomorrow, Alistair Carmichael said:

“The idea of a bank which is still propped up by taxpayers paying out over a billion in bonuses is offensive. There should be no rewards for failure.

“With people across the country having to tighten their belts, bankers are living on another planet if they think they deserve millions in bonuses.

“RBS is effectively owned by the public. If Gordon Brown really believed in fairness he would intervene to stop these bonuses going ahead.”

Commenting on George Osborne’s Mais Lecture, Vince Cable said:

“Osborne’s latest economic commentary shows just how out his depth he is when it comes to the important economic issues.
 
“Slashing spending now could push the economy back into recession and inflict further structural damage on the UK that will make it harder to sustain our credit rating.
 
“He is at odds with his leader on when cuts should come and fails to appreciate that what the markets are looking for is a credible plan to reduce the deficit, not a willingness to slash regardless of economic conditions.
 
“In the current climate it is essential that decisions about the speed and timing of tackling the deficit are based on the state of the economy, not political dogma.”

Commenting on today’s report on Mid Staffordshire hospital, Norman Lamb said:

“This damning report confirms the appalling neglect of patients at Mid-Staffordshire hospital. 

“This report makes clear that the Government’s obsession with targets was responsible for the neglect of patient safety at Mid-Staffordshire.

“It’s a disgrace that patients were subjected to these horrendous conditions in an NHS hospital.

“The need for a full public inquiry is now overwhelming and many people will remain concerned that the truth is still being kept behind closed doors.
 
“We owe it to those who lost loved ones to ensure that this never happens again. We need a single regulator in charge of keeping patients safe so that everyone knows who is responsible.”