Nick Clegg Q&A

There is a Podcast here.

Danny Alexander announces war on billion-pound tax dodging

Speaking to the Liberal Democrat federal conference in Liverpool today, Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, announced a £900m attack on tax avoidance and evasion.

The additional investment is expected to raise an extra £7bn each year by 2014/15 from those who currently avoid paying their fair share of tax.

HMRC will use the extra funding for:

- A more robust criminal deterrent against tax evasion
- The creation of a new dedicated team of investigators to crackdown on offshore evasion
- The creation of bespoke cyber crime teams and online specialists
- More investment in freight and detection technology to prevent alcohol and tobacco smuggling

In his speech, Danny Alexander reminded representatives that Liberals and Liberal Democrats have seldom taken the easy road.

"In this great City of Liverpool, " he said, "when Chris Rennard and campaigners led the long march to take power from Labour, they did so not because it was easy, but because it was right.

"When Charles Kennedy was a lone voice in Parliament against the war in Iraq. When he was shouted down by hundreds of MPs, he did it not because it was easy, but because it was right.

"In May this year our party faced the toughest decision of its life. We chose to reject the ease of opposition to govern this country in coalition with the Conservatives. Taking responsibility for Britain’s future at one of the most difficult times in our economic history. Not because it would be easy, but because we knew it was right.

"Conference, I have never been so proud to be a Liberal Democrat, and I am proud of the agreement we negotiated. One party at war with itself has been replaced with two parties working together in the interests of our nation.

"Of course we have disagreements – and we give as a good as we get. But we get on a great deal better than the last lot did, and as a result we will achieve a great deal more. Already, Liberal Democrats in government are delivering on our manifesto commitments.

"We have increased capital gains tax, we have introduced a substantial bank levy, we have restored the earnings link to pensions, and next year 900,000 low income workers won’t pay a penny of income tax: a major step towards our manifesto pledge to make the first £10,000 you earn tax free.

"These measures make our country substantially and permanently fairer. Labour had 13 years to make these changes – they chose not to. We made them in 13 weeks. We will take no lectures on fairness from them.

"Gordon Brown was very generous with other people’s money. He ran the British economy like the drunk in the pub who says ‘lend me a tenner and I’ll buy you a drink.’

"Labour were irresponsible. They ignored the warnings, years in advance, of the impending financial crisis. Vince Cable warned them that the bankers’ greed and the bubble it was fuelling, threatened our economy. They lived in denial.

"They were reckless. They allowed Britain to build up the largest budget deficit in Europe with no plan for tackling it. Shamefully, they made expensive promises to communities across the country, weeks before the election when they knew full well there was no money left.

"Until Labour apologises for that cynical attempt to bribe the British people with bouncing cheques it will never be fit to govern this country again. Until they apologise for their disastrous economic legacy and until they set out, in detail, how they would tackle the deficit, the people of Britain will know that Labour cannot be trusted with the economy. Meanwhile, we have to clean up their mess.

"Since the election our long term interest rates have fallen - helping jobs and growth. There is not a choice between balancing the books and economic growth. The two go together.

"Labour allowed political convenience to trump economic necessity once too often – we will not make that mistake.

"I didn’t come into politics to cut public spending. But it has to be done. I know we, Liberal Democrats, have the courage to see the task through. Not because it is easy, but because it is right.

"The size of the cuts we have to make is unavoidable, but we do have a choice about how those reductions are made.

"So I want to set out the principles – the Liberal Democrat principles - on which I will base our decisions in the spending review: tackling waste, investing in growth (which Vince will speak about on Wednesday), fairness [and] radical reform of public services.

"Government has a duty to spend your money carefully. As if borrowed from a friend. So we will be ruthless in rooting out wasteful or unnecessary spending. Before we ask frontline services to face tough choices, we are ensuring that we have rooted every penny of savings from the back office."

Read the full speech here: http://www.libdems.org.uk/latest_news_detail.aspx?title=Alexander_announces_major_clampdown_on_tax_avoidance_and_evasion&pPK=9f8f3c11-ba63-4db3-8737-1e04f17c33ca

Purposeful start to LibDem conference

There was a low-key but purposeful start to the Federal Conference which began in Liverpool today. Federal Committee reports were approved, and two motions which may not hit the headlines, but which are nevertheless important, were passed.

Andrew Wiseman, taking over from Duncan Brack as chairman of Federal Policy Committee,  stressed the need to maintain our distinctive identity. He regretted the need to sack eight members of staff from the policy area alone, as a result of losing funding to support the research and campaigning functions of opposition parties (the "Short" and "Cranborne" monies). On the positive side, members of the Federal Policy had input to coalition policy discussions.

The first motion, to press for the award of a national defence medal to UK service veterans was passed overwhelmingly. [Text published as a comment to this post]

Duncan Greenland, in moving acceptance of the Federal Finance and Administration Committee report, pointed out that, while the Labour Party was reported to be some £20m in debt - causing Lord Prescott to speak of it as being on the brink of bankruptcy - the Liberal Democrats had net current assets. The party had fought its most expensive general election campaign yet, at £5m, of which £1m had come in the form of individual donations raised in various ways including over the Internet.

In moving F7 (Transactions Transparency and Conflicts-of-Interest in Government) Paul Reynolds of Leicester repeated the charges which he made at spring conference about the revolving door of civil servants and supply companies,  and the ability of civil servants to hold shares in companies they were dealing with. He cited the recent Chinook helicopters debacle. There was an amendment which aimed to put central & local government on same footing. Peter Black AM for South Wales West objected to the part which attempted to bind devolved administrations as unconstitutional, though conference disagreed. The motion as amended was carried.

Two ex-councillors jailed for Bradford postal votes fraud

FIVE Bradford men, including two former councillors, were jailed earlier this week for their parts in a failed postal votes scam aimed at getting a Conservative Party candidate elected in the 2005 general election.

A judge heard that a newspaper investigation and police inquiry unearthed a plot to try to get Tory candidate Haroon Rashid elected in the marginal Bradford West seat using hundreds of fraudulent postal vote applications.

Leeds Crown Court was told detectives examined about 900 suspicious forms - many from people who did not exist or had no idea an application had been made on their behalf.

The plot was foiled before the conspirators had the chance to convert the applications into votes and, in the end, Mr Rashid was defeated by sitting Labour MP Marsha Singh who won with a majority of more than 3,000.

Prosecutors said that if the press had not intervened in May 2005, "the plan may well have been successful".

Simon Orme, of the Crown Prosecution Service special crime division, said: "The Crown Prosecution Service takes electoral fraud very seriously indeed. These offences not only attack democracy, but they also have the potential to undermine the public's perception of, and
confidence in, the democratic system in this country."

[From The Yorkshire Post]

Trident payment schedule put back

In a move which some commentators view as a recognition by the Conservatives of the strong feelings about the expense of the Trident programme on the part of their allies in the coalition government, Liberal Democrat Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey has suggested that some major decisions could be put back from 2014 to 2015.

There is also a comment on Liberal Democrat Voice.

Neath LibDems select by-election candidate

Aberavon & Neath Liberal Democrats have selected Mathew McCarthy, a young student of history and law, as their candidate for the Neath North by-election on October 14th.

"Pathways to Work" largely ineffective

Labour spent £760m on a programme to reduce the number of people on incapacity benefits called "Pathways to Work". Work on the scheme was contracted out to private providers.

A report, issued today by the Labour-chaired Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons, reveals that the programme was largely ineffective and that the private companies did not give value for money.

LibDem backbencher forces Osborne to explain £4bn

Mr Speaker Bercow today agreed with Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, that a Treasury minister should attend the House of Commons to explain planned cuts in welfare benefits. As a result, Chancellor George Osborne was forced to publicly defend his announcement of cuts on top of the £11bn already slated in the emergency budget. Mr Russell told Radio 4 this afternoon that we should not forget that Labour got us into the mess which made cuts necessary, but what Mr Osborne was considering could affect the most vulnerable in his constituency.

The Independent also has the story.

Hundreds mourn Sir Cyril

Veteran Liberal Democrat politician Sir Cyril Smith has been laid to rest in Rochdale after a memorial service he organised from his deathbed.

Hundreds of mourners attended the celebration of his life in his beloved home town. The famously-outspoken politician, who served the town as MP for 20 years, planned the celebration in a nursing home during his final weeks.

His friend Lord Alton said he received a letter from Sir Cyril after his death telling him he must read the poem Death Is Nothing At All. "He was a brilliant political organiser," he told the congregation at Rochdale Town Hall, after reading the Canon Henry Scott Holland poem. He was a remarkable man, a wonderful man, a great friend and we shall all miss him greatly."

LibDem Peer moves to reform libel laws

A UK lawyer trying to stop the gravy train of libel shopping in London is like turkeys voting for Christmas, but Lord Lester, a leading champion of human rights and freedom of information is doing just that and more. He explains how on Liberal Democrat Voice.

Nationalists vote against Ieuan Air

Freedom Central reports:

In a bizarre twist to the story of Ieuan Air, the Plaid Cymru Leader’s own party have voted against the North-South Wales air link. An amendment was submitted to the Sustainable Transport Motion, which was passed, advocating a withdrawal of subsidies for internal air services. The money to instead be spent on rail improvements.

Welsh Liberal Democrat Shadow Transport Minister Jenny Randerson AM said

“This humiliating vote will force Welsh voters to question what Plaid really stand for. They are for and against nuclear power. They are for and against tuition fees. They are for and against Ieuan Air. As a voter, I wouldn’t be sure what I am voting for!

“It is a clear rejection of Plaid’s record on transport in government from their own activists. It will be interesting to see whether Plaid ignores its activists or aligns itself with Welsh Liberal Democrat Policy”

The vote was supported by the party’s former chair, John Dixon.

The motion as it was passed calls for “the withdrawal of government subsidies to internal air services within Wales, with the money saved being invested in improved north-south rail services”.

The Welsh Government subsidy is £800,000 per year.

Social Liberal Forum

The Social Liberal Forum exists to foster debate within and beyond the Liberal Democrats, with the aim of developing social liberal solutions and approaches which reflect these principles and which find popular support.

James Graham, a member of the Forum's governing council, was responsible for this amendment, accepted without dissent, to the motion put to the Birmingham special conference at which the Liberal Democrats endorsed the coalition: “Conference calls for Liberal Democrats to work constructively in government to ensure that the the net income and wealth inequality gap is reduced significantly over the course of this parliament.” His speech is here.

The Forum has also sponsored a motion to be debated at the Liberal Democrat Federal Conference: "Ensuring Fairness in a time of Austerity". The Autumn Conference starts in Liverpool on Saturday 18th September.

Liberal Democrat MEP condemns French anti-Roma action

The European Parliament has debated the recent actions of the French government removing Roma from France and will tomorrow vote on a resolution sponsored by the liberal ALDE group condemning the discriminatory nature of the Sarkozy government's policies and rhetoric.

Liberal Democrat European justice & human rights spokeswoman and London MEP Sarah Ludford, who has long campaigned on Roma issues, said:

"Sarkozy is clearly playing the race card for electoral reasons in his 'voluntary expulsion' policy of bribes for Roma to leave. Targetting and stigmatising Roma people as an ethnic group and scapegoating them as criminals is totally against EU law."

"EU law allows restrictions on individual residence rights under the 'Free Movement' Directive. It of course does not prevent legitimate tackling of insanitary camps. But the European Commission must decide if France is committing illegal collective expulsion and if so, take appropriate legal action."

"The continuing poverty, disadvantage and marginalisation of the 10-12 million Roma across Europe is a disgrace to our continent. The Commission should check whether the billions of euros given to EU states with large Roma populations have been effectively spent, but in addition the EU as a whole needs an urgent Roma integration strategy with top-level political support."

Voting Reform

Today, the House of Commons will begin to debate proposals to give people a chance to reform the voting system, and to equalise our parliamentary constituencies.

Our two Parties have different views on the future of our voting system. But we both recognise that there are genuine concerns about the current system. And we emphatically agree that the decision is not, in any case, for government alone.

It should be taken by the people themselves.That is why both our parties support putting this question to a referendum next May, just one example of the power shift we are determined to deliver. Fixing parliament also means tackling the unfairness in the geography of MPs' constituencies by making sure votes count equally wherever they are cast. The coalition also proposes to cut the number of MPs to 600.

This won't just cut the cost of politics. A smaller, hard working House of Commons, is part of redistributing power away from the centre to local people. This is precisely the sort of modernisation our Parliament needs – and Labour MPs know it.

Yet tonight, Labour MPs will troop through division lobbies voting against a referendum on voting reform – a referendum they promised in their manifesto. Labour now seems to be about opposition, opposition, opposition. In the end, opposition for opposition's sake gets you nowhere.

NICK CLEGG VISITS PAKISTAN

Nick Clegg warned that flood-hit Pakistan will need aid for years to come as he saw the devastation for himself. The Deputy Prime Minister said the disaster would have a "long tail", with threats from water-borne disease and opportunistic extremists. Speaking after being shown aid camps near the southern town of Sukkur - one of the worst affected regions - Mr Clegg said: "I think the sheer scale of this is really quite difficult to comprehend. The terrible thing is that it has got a long tail. It has got a lot of aftershocks that are going to last for a long time." He said the international community's response has been too slow, but praised donations from the British Government and public. "We have to make a huge effort to provide important emergency aid, but really stick with this for the long term," he said. Mr Clegg stressed that the flood waters have not drained away in many areas, and there is a "real danger of diseases taking hold". "It's going to take years and years for normality to come back to Pakistan," he added. He also warned that the influence of extremist groups could be boosted by the disaster. The danger always is that you get groups who have an ulterior motive who provide aid to try to curry favour," he went on. The Deputy Prime Minister toured the Pakistan Air Force flood relief camp at Sukkur, which houses more than 3,000 refugees. He was shown a clinic and chatted with children at a makeshift school, before moving on to the UN World Food Programme distribution base. At nearby Sukkur airport he received a briefing from aid agencies and met President Asif Ali Zardari, who was also touring the disaster scene. Mr Clegg discussed the situation with the president, and briefed him on his visit to Afghanistan and talks with President Hamid Karzai yesterday. More details of how the Government's £33 million of aid will be allocated were released to coincide with Mr Clegg's visit. About £9 million is going on items to help the millions displaced, including: 2,330 water pumps for safe drinking supplies Emergency shelter kits for around 30,500 families Repairing or installing 5,000 toilets Spades, picks and wheelbarrows to help 1,600 families clear debris from their homes 650 kits containing essentials for newborn babies The money will be given to charities Save The Children, Concern and Oxfam to source and distribute supplies. The aid will be targeted on the Punjab and Sindh provinces where the floods have had the worst impact.

Labour former council leader accused of fraud

The South Wales Evening Post today accused Derek Vaughan, MEP, the former Neath North councillor and leader of Neath Port Talbot CBC, of claiming money for attending meetings of the South Wales Police Authority at which he was not present. The 2009/10 report of the authority is said to show that over a period of three months, Mr Vaughan was scheduled to attend three full authority meetings as a representative for Neath Port Talbot — but did not attend them.

He also did not go to any "additional events" such as public consultations or meetings with senior officers, according to the Evening Post's information.

Update: Mr Vaughan has informed us that the allowance is paid automatically, not claimed. As soon as he was made aware of the situation, he returned the money. We are happy to correct the impression given by the newspaper report.

Local Government Association vice-chairman criticises minister for interference

The government is urging councils in England to cut unnecessary road signs, railings and advertising hoardings in a bid to make streets tidier and safer.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said the number of signs was damaging the character of towns and villages.

Mr Pickles said: "Our streets are losing their English character. We are being overrun by scruffy signs, bossy bollards, patchwork paving and railed off roads, wasting taxpayers' money that could be better spent on fixing potholes or keeping council tax down. We need to 'cut the clutter'."

But Richard Kemp, the Liberal Democrat vice-chairman of the Local Government Association, told the BBC that decisions about street furniture were for councils, not ministers, to make.

"One man's clutter is very much another man's simple signing," he said.

"In our shopping streets in particular, we have to get a balance between pedestrians, residents, business needs and motorists, and that's a local decision, not something that a secretary of state should be involving himself in."

More at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11092590.

Another One Wales Agreement pledge is dropped

A flagship One Wales pledge to give grants to first time buyers so as to make their homes more energy efficient has been quietly dropped by the Welsh Government due to a lack of interest.

More details here.

Unfounded rumours

CHARLES Kennedy (in Scotland on Sunday) has described claims he is considering joining the Labour party as "complete rubbish", following reports that he was about to resign in disgust at the Liberal Democrat pact with the Tories. 

The former Lib Dem leader emerged from a meeting with constituents in Dingwall to declare he would not be joining Labour.

"It is absolute rubbish," he said. "I am not joining the Labour Party and have not had any 
discussions about it with anyone from the Labour Party."

He added: "I will go out of this world feet first with my Lib Dem membership card in my pocket."

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Dismissing a report in the Daily Mail of 7th August, a party spokesman said: "William Hague is not part of the conference agenda and I can confirm that he has not been asked to speak at the Liberal Democrat conference. No Conservative ministers have ever been approached to speak at our conference.

"Fringe events are still being finalised, and it is of course possible that an independent group may have invited Mr Hague to speak at their Fringe event. But this is no different to any other year and it is common for MPs of all parties to attend these events."

UK Government wrong to dismiss request for alcohol licensing powers out-of-hand

Wales Office Ministers are wrong to dismiss out-of-hand the request to devolve power over alcohol licensing to Wales, the Welsh Assembly Member for South Wales West, Peter Black has said.

Referring to the intention of the Health Minister, Edwina Hart to seek legislative competence for the Assembly over the licensing and pricing of alcohol through the planned Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, Mr. Black said that the proposal deserved serious consideration by UK Ministers.

“I was disappointed,” he said, “at the way that Wales Office Minister, David Jones, rejected this bid so quickly. I understand that there is currently an England and Wales consultation in terms of 24 hour licensing and alcohol fuelled crime, but that does not mean that the UK Government should be deaf to requests for this to be dealt with by the Welsh Assembly.

“Official Welsh Liberal Democrat policy is to devolve justice powers to Wales along with the administrative responsibility for police and prisons. Licensing would form part of that package. As we are part of the UK Administration as well I would hope that Ministers would at least consult with us before dismissing the Health Minister’s request out-of-hand.”