Leicestershire County Council Lib Dems

Dear All,

 i just wanted to say a big thank-you fro everyone who voted Lib Dem last Thursday - we are now the official opposition to the Conservatives at County Hall with 14 Councillors.

 I also want to thank those hard working Lib Dem activists who made this all possible - well done!

Dear all,

 I am writing to inform you of an article in todays Leicester Mercury that alleges that Senior Conservative County Councillors have possibly engaged in electoral fraud and have been reported to the police. The piece quotes the Liberal Democrats, but i must emphasise that these are allegations only.

What i would say is that at the current time, when the people are feeling betrayed by their MP’s over expenses and the Government over empty promises - the possibility of senior local Politicians engaging in something like electoral fraud is troubling indeed and will need careful consideration before and after the election.

The article is available at: http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/Police-probe-allegation-election-dirty-tricks/article-1017451-detail/article.html

I will update you with information as i get it.

I am pleased to announce that the Liberal Democrat County manifesto for the June 2009 has been released. Thanks for everyone who has contacted us with ideas and contributions.

Below is our ‘Pledges for Leicestershire’ and the full manifesto is availble from the links on the left side of the page.

Simon

Our Pledges for Leicestershire 

• We will devolve many decisions (as appropriate) to Local Forums and allow the local Councillors to engage with their communities to make the decisions that will affect them

• We will continue to campaign against centrally imposed housing targets – with a clear emphasis on protecting

  Greenfield land & regenerating Brownfield sites

• We will start a committed recruitment drive to bring in Youth & Community workers to provide support and guidance to young people.

• We will halt the above inflation increase in charges for Home Care introduced by the Conservative administration over the last few years. (The Home Care hourly charge rose from £6 to £8.40 (40%) from 2005/06 to 2008/09).

• We will work with local businesses to preserve jobs and maintain workforce skills.

• We will re-establish the ‘Community Plus’ budget to support Community Associations in a fair and transparent way

• We will set ambitious recycling targets for household waste of at least 65%. And pursue alternative technologies for waste disposal rather than rely on mass scale incineration.

• We will get tough on anti-social behaviour across Leicestershire.  We will expand the work of the IMPACT teams to combat anti-social behaviour

• We will always focus on getting good quality services – not wasting tax payer’s money on gimmicks and pet projects.

Hi all,

 Sorry there has not been a post for a while, i have been snowed under with preparing the manifesto and a consultation response on ecotowns - its been pretty hectic.

However i can reveal that our manifesto will be released next week, and a copy will go on the website (if possible) or at least the main points. We had hoped to get it out sooner but the Governments Budget meant we decided to revisit some sections. I don’t particularly trust the government not to dump all of these ‘efficeincy savings’ on us, and with the recession getting worse - we thought our manifesto could do with some tweeking to ensure we can actually achieve what we say.

Responding to Alistair Darling’s Budget, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg said:  
 
“Today we got a pick and mix Budget of recycled announcements from a government skilled in raising people’s hopes but incompetent at actually delivering help. 

“This Budget is a political supermarket sweep of random promises, without even a hint of a plan or any likelihood the promises will be put into practice. 

“The biggest disappointment in this Budget is its failure to sort out

The Liberal Democrats will fight the next general election with a pledge to cut income tax bills by £700 for people on low and middle incomes, Nick Clegg revealed today. The party will promise to raise the income tax personal allowance to £10,000 by closing tax loopholes exploited by big businesses and the wealthy.  

Speaking today, Nick Clegg said: “These plans will give money back to the people who really need it at the time when they need it most. “It is time to end the unfairness that sees big businesses and the wealthy treating taxes as something to be easily avoided, leaving everybody else to pay out. 

“For too long governments have been letting companies stash their money in offshore tax havens while taxpayers are left to foot the bill. “Over time a tax system has developed that creates loopholes for the wealthy and does nothing for those who really need help. 

“People who say there isn’t enough money to make our tax system fair are wrong. Our plans wouldn’t add a penny to the overall tax burden, but they would spread that burden far more fairly.  “Far from making this reform difficult, tight Government finances and a harsh recession make it absolutely vital. It will help millions of low and middle income taxpayers who are most likely to spend money so helping the wider economy. “The Liberal Democrats will create a fundamentally rebalanced system that is fair for all, putting hundreds of pounds back into the pockets of millions of British people, and taking four million out of paying tax altogether.” 

Notes for information Raising the personal allowance to £10,000 for all people will mean that those on the standard personal allowance will see an increase in their allowance of £3,525 in 2009/10; this will give an effective tax cut of £705 to anyone earning over £10,000 . 

Raising the personal allowance will take approximately four million people out income tax altogether: <http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/income_tax/menu.htm> 

Measures which will be used to pay for this proposed increase in the personal allowance include:·

• Restricting tax relief on pension contributions to the basic rate ·
• Taxing Capital Gains at marginal income tax rates, allowing for indexation and retirement relief
• Tackling Stamp
  Duty,
  Land Tax avoidance and Corporation Tax avoidance·
• Subjecting benefits in kind to National Insurance Contributions as well as income tax and applying National Insurance to multiple jobs·
• Switching aviation taxes from per person to per plane and increasing taxation on non lifeline domestic flights. Full details of the costing of this tax package will be released in advance of the General Election based on latest HMRC estimates.

Following an intense debate on the issues of housing in the last County Council meeting before the elections in June, a Liberal Democrat amendment was agreed with all parties and moved with unanimous approval. Simon Galton Leader of the Lib Dem Group said: “I am delighted – after a very passionate debate on housing numbers and provision through the regional plan, it became clear that our amendment offered the most common ground for agreement. With some slight alterations, the amendment was passed and a forceful stance on housing issues has been achieved.” 

A copy of the passed amendment is below: 

County Council Meeting – 25^th March 2009   An amendment will be moved by Mr S. Galton    and seconded by  Mr Parsons    All of the words after first bullet point in paragraph a) of the motion be deleted and the following inserted In their place: 

•  The Prime Minister stated his intention that 3 Million homes are provided across England up to 2020 is no longer achievable.

•  The underline principles of the plan led system which involves local communities and is meant to give certainty about the amount of development which will take place is right but the top down process whereby Central Government imposes housing numbers is denying local people proper involvement and results in excessive amounts of Greenfield land being allocated for development.

•  That a further partial review of housing numbers and the legislation currently before Parliament will give Council Leaders on the proposed Leaders Board a key role in determining future housing numbers.

 All of the words after ‘b) That, accordingly, this Council’ be deleted and the following inserted:  

• Urges the Government to abandon nationally imposed housing targets based on population assumptions, abolish the NHPAU and introduce a system which allows Councils to plan for the needs of their communities in genuine consultation with local people and by working in partnership with other authorities

• Urges all members to attend the “Meeting the Local Housing Challenge” conference to be held 27^th March 2009 to allow members to explore possible solutions to the housing crisis and requests the 3 Leaders to meet as soon as possible after the conference to give consideration to any proposals which come forward with a view to the County Council exercising its community leadership role to address the housing situation through cross party co-operation;

• Urges District Councils in preparing their LDF’s to protect existing green wedges and open space and consider extensions 

• Believes that the polices in the adopted RSS of urban concentration and regeneration remain the right priorities and urges district councils and Leicester City Council  to encourage the redevelopment of Brownfield sites to minimise the use of Greenfield land

• The privatisation of the employment service and social fund:   The Liberal Democrats are not opposed to contracting out employment services per se, but examples from abroad suggest that private companies tend to cream the easier-to-help clients off the top and ‘park’ the most challenging cases, so that the people most in need of support do not receive it.  We are also concerned that the process does not involve a level playing field: Jobcentre Plus itself is not allowed to bid, and smaller voluntary and third-sector organisations, who often understand the clients’ needs very well, are crowded out by big multinational private organisations.  These organisations tend to pay lower wages to their staff and experience higher rates of staff turnover, which in turn has a detrimental effect on those that they are supposed to be supporting into work.  On the subject of the Social Fund, it is far from certain that any company would wish to take it on in the current economic environment. 

• Work for your benefit schemes:  ‘Work for your benefit’ involves people working for up to £4 less than the minimum wage^[1], which is completely unacceptable.  This measure will not effectively target ‘scroungers’ but will hurt those who already face the most significant barriers to work, such as those with disabilities or mental health issues.  The Government’s own research into similar ‘workfare’ schemes in the USA, Canada and
  Australia found little evidence that it increased the likelihood of finding work, and that it is least effective within weak labour markets with high unemployment; a situation that we are increasingly facing in the
  UK. 

• The abolition of income support:  We support the introduction of a single working-age benefit but this is not the way to do it.  Such a benefit needs it needs designing, modelling and piloting.  The Government claims that its reforms will simplify the system but simply moving people from one benefit to another, or changing the name of a benefit, just adds to the complexity and confusion, and we have concerns that people will lose out under these changes. 

• Cutting the benefits of single parents, carers and those with long-term illness:  The Bill would abolish all new claims for adult dependency additions on Maternity and Carer’s Allowance.  It would also phase out the additions for those already receiving Carer’s Allowance.  We are concerned that some of the most vulnerable people will see their incomes fall, and we have tried to remove these provisions from the Bill.  

• Requiring all parents of young children to seek work:  We do not support measures to compel lone parents with children under school age to undertake ‘work-related activity’. The Government clearly regards raising young children as a second class activity and these measures would place decisions about child care and child rearing into the hands of Jobcentre Advisers rather than the parents.  We tabled an amendment to the Bill that would have ensured that parents with children under the age of 7 would not have to carry out any work-related activity.   We would also want an assurance that appropriate and affordable childcare was made available across the country before the Government makes work-related activity a condition for lone parents to receive benefit.
  

[1] Estimate used by Citizens Advice and CPAG is that people may be forced to work for as little as £1.73 per hour, compared with the minimum wage of £5.73 per hour

Here is something to clarify the parties stance on the new climate change targets the Labour government will obviously write and ignore (not much point mentioning the Tories the only thing green in their party is in the Logo). As a party we have always been committed to envrionmental issues - and here is the proof:

Recent scientific studies have shown that climate change is an even greater threat than was understood even two or three years ago. The government now has a duty to react accordingly.   Liberal Democrats have always argued that targets for carbon emissions reductions must be based on science not on politics. We therefore support the Friends of the Earth campaign for the immediate adoption of a 42% reduction target by 2020.  

Liberal Democrats want to create a zero carbon Britain by 2050. In the Climate Change Act 2008 the government committed to an 80% emissions reduction target. Although we think the government could be more ambitious, the key now, as you make clear, is to establish a clear pathway to reaching that target.  Targets mean nothing without action to meet them. On April 22, at the same time as the most important Budget in living memory, Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will make an announcement about the first three, five year carbon budgets for the period up to 2022.   The introduction of carbon budgets is a welcome step. The full details of the first three carbon budgets will be announced in the summer, but the April announcement will set the tone. The carbon budgets must be ambitious. If they are not, we are in danger of being locked into high carbon emissions that we cannot afford. This will be much more expensive to correct, both environmentally and financially, after 2020.   That is why Liberal Democrats have proposed action now to address climate change. In these extraordinarily difficult times we are presented with an opportunity to rebuild our economy on green foundations.

Instead of the temporary VAT cut which is wasting £1 billion every month, Liberal Democrats would use those resources on immediate green measures, including plans to build 40,000 new zero carbon social homes, insulating our hospitals and schools and extending our national railway network.  In addition, Liberal Democrats have recently announced an ambitious programme to make every home in Britain energy efficient within ten years. Domestic households account for 27% of national carbon emissions. Yet less than 1% of Britain’s homes meet the energy efficiency standard. Inefficiency is costing households hundreds of pounds each year and adding hugely to our carbon footprint. A national programme to deliver change is needed urgently and we will continue to campaign for government action.  

The Liberal Democrat’s support an ambitious carbon emissions target for 2020 and beyond, we understand that our economic and environmental crises are linked. We will plan for the long-term by proposing action now to rebuild our economy on green foundations.

I thought you might like to hear about Liberal Democrat proposals for the G20 summit in