Junction Liberal Democrats

At the launch of the new Draft Bill on energy, Liberal Democrat Secretary of State of Energy and Climate Change Ed Davey, writes:

Over the next decade, around a fifth of existing power plants are due to close, against a background of increased energy demand and increasing prices. We need new investment simply to keep the lights on.

But more than that, we need a clean energy revolution to meet our ambitious climate change goals and make this the greenest government ever.

That’s why I am bringing forward a new Energy Bill today.

You can read more about our clean energy revolution here.

We also need to transform our energy market to reduce the risk and cost of low carbon technologies.

That’s what our Bill does.

The UK is fast becoming a world leader in renewable energy, especially in off shore wind. I want us to lead the world in Carbon Capture and Storage too.

And we are also tackling rising energy bills. Without reforming the energy market bills will rise by around £200 in the coming years. Our reforms will mean bills are around 4% lower than they otherwise would have been.

Going green is good for the economy, good for Britain and good for you.

Yours,

Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change

(Image licensed under Creative Commons from DECC)

(Click picture to play video)

It is shameful that, despite all the promise on a four or five year old’s first day at school, or the passion of their teachers, you can all too often plot that child’s path just by asking how much their parents earn.

The £2.5billion Pupil Premium was one of the four pledges on the front page of our manifesto.  And now, with Liberal Democrats in government, schools are using the money for things like breakfast clubs; homework clubs; or to provide one-to-one-tuition. These are the sort of experiences many middle class children take for granted but a poorer child might rarely enjoy.

Yesterday I visited a fantastic primary school to see how they are spending their Pupil Premium, highlight our new Summer Schools to ease the transition from primary to secondary, and to set out our plans to reward teachers and hold schools to account.

The Pupil Premium shows that, in tough times, we are implementing Liberal Democrat values and prioritising help for those pupils who need it most.

Best wishes,

Nick Clegg MP

Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister

PS Click here to find out how much money your local school will receive from the Liberal Democrats’ Pupil Premium.

This week, Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat minister at the Department of Health) has launched a national £4 million lung cancer awareness campaign. The campaign, the first of its kind, will use TV, radio and press adverts, and advertising on pharmacist bags and inside GP surgeries, to raise awareness of the disease.

One of its aims is to persuade anyone who has had a cough for more than three weeks to see their doctor.

You can find more information about coughing and lung cancer at the Department of Health website, here: http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/05/coughing-could-be-a-sign-of-lung-cancer-2/

With 33,000 new cases diagnosed each year, lung cancer is a blight on the lives of far too many of our families and an early diagnosis can make all the difference. Please take the opportunity of the Be Clear on Cancer campaign to find out more about prevention and diagnosis, and to visit your local doctor if you’ve had a persistent cough – it is always better to be safe than sorry!

http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/tag/be-clear-on-cancer/

Official reports have confirmed that no Liberal Democrat-run council in England has increased council tax for their residents. This is unlike both other major parties, many of which are increasing council tax by up to 3.5% this year.

Commenting on Labour and Conservative councils’ record on Council Tax, Liberal Democrat Party President, Tim Farron said:

“While Labour and the Tories fight over how many of their councils raised Council Tax, it’s clear that with the Liberal Democrats your money is safest: no Liberal Democrat-run council in England has raised Council Tax.

“Ordinary working families are struggling already with paying bills, without their councils increasing the burden.

“The choice in next month’s elections is clear: vote Liberal Democrat for financially responsible councils that create jobs. Vote Labour and the Tories for waste, mismanagement and tax rises.”

As well as freezing council tax across the country, Liberal Democrat councils are protecting front-line services, fighting to keep libraries and Sure Start centres open. This is in addition to the achievements of the Liberal Democrats in government, which after the Budget include a £130 income tax cut for all working families, the largest-ever rise in the basic state pension, an increase in child tax credits for the poorest families, and an increase in the Lib Dem Pupil Premium to £600 for every pupil receiving Free School Meals.

At every level of government, the Liberal Democrats are cutting taxes for low- and middle-earners and better targeting help to those that need it the most. It is a record of financial responsibility of which we can be proud.

A first look at part of this week’s Liberal Democrat Local Election Broadcast. This clip looks at our key pledge to cut taxes for working families, and celebrates the fact that Liberal Democrats in government have achieved:

• The biggest-ever single uplift in the tax-free personal allowance
• A £3.5 billion tax cut for working men and women
• 840,000 of the lowest earners in the country lifted completely out of paying Income Tax

Next year, the allowance increases again (to £9,205) – within touching distance of our manifesto promise to increase the Income Tax threshold to £10,000.

These are all significant achievements that are already making a difference for millions of hard-working men and women across Britain. Real change for real families in tough times – promised and delivered by the Liberal Democrats.

At the Full Council meeting on Thursday 29th March, Council was asked to adopt Islington’s new Transport Strategy and Local Implementation Plan.

The plan, though somewhat overlong is by and large a worthwhile plan. It sets some quite demanding targets for increasing walking and cycling journeys, reducing traffic accidents, increasing bus reliability, managing local assets (roads etc) and reducing CO2 emissions.

There is however a problem with this last target. That of reducing CO2 emissions.

Here in Islington, and right across London, we suffer from a huge problem of airborne pollution. Our GP surgeries, clinics, and hospitals have to deal with an ever increasing amount of illnesses and conditions, both acute and ongoing. These illnesses, such as Asthma, Bronchitis, High Blood Pressure, and Heart attacks can all be attributed in no small measure to the prevalence of CO2 and particularly to minute particulates (PM2.5, and NO2 – a toxic gas), given off by petrol/diesel vehicles. Only smoking causes more early deaths than long-term exposure to air pollution and levels of NO2 are higher in London than any other capital city in Europe and comparable with Beijing.

Separate scientific research published by the Aphekom group of scientists in 2011 has shown that those living near roads travelled by 10,000 or more vehicles per day on average could be responsible for some 15-30 per cent of all new cases of asthma in children; and of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and CHD (coronary heart disease) in adults 65 years of age and older. There are 1,148 schools in London within 150 metres of roads carrying over 10,000 vehicles per day and a total of 2,270 within 400 metres of such roads. I challenge anyone to show me a Primary School in Islington that is not close to a very busy road.

And so, back to Islington’s new Transport Strategy.

The Tuesday immediately preceding the Full Council above, Islington’s Labour Executive voted through a proposal to create a raft of free short-stay parking bays. As residents can already park for free under the Roamer scheme, these free spaces are clearly aimed at passing-through business vehicles, the vast majority of which are diesel powered (by far the more polluting than petrol). We are told almost daily, by this Council, that it is these vehicles passing through the borough that are responsible for 90% of Islington’s airborne pollution and yet the Executive have just voted to increase these journeys in Islington.

I think you’ll agree that the policy makes no sense and the two policies/strategies, pull the borough in inexorably opposing directions.

How can Labour on the one hand say they are committed to reducing both short and long-term CO2 emissions and on the other increase the very vehicle journeys that cause 90% of our local airborne pollution issues? Labour’s 2010 election manifesto pledged

“Islington Labour environmental policies are on the side of residents by contributing to a
Greener, cleaner and fairer future for all.”

I don’t think increasing vehicle journeys and thus airborne pollution in our tightly packed mostly residential borough is in any way greener, cleaner, or fairer, nor does it contribute in any way to anyone’s positive future.

Article from Arthur Graves published in the Islington Tribune on Thursday 5th April 2012

Right across the South East of England there are water shortages. The situation has got so extreme that we now have as little water as in 1976 when people had to fill buckets at stand-pipes in the street. There is currently a £1000 fine in force for anyone using a hose pipe to water their garden (has anyone checked the window baskets at the Town Hall recently?) and for the first time ever, one southern water company is buying water supplies from the Severn Trent area.

At the same time, Islington Council is digging a series of very expensive holes in the Tufnell Park Playing Fields to install pipes to remove any water.

A year ago I presented a motion to Full-Council asking that the Council install an irrigation system, so in wet times water could be removed but in dry times it could be pumped back to the places it was needed. The Labour administration was extremely dismissive of this idea saying that the problem was removing water, not adding it.

I understand they might not want to make an opposition (LibDem) Councillor look good but it doesn’t take a genius to read long term water predictions and see which way this issue is headed. We need water collection pipes from all the buildings at the playing fields (maybe the Council could ask for a connection to the rainwater downpipes of Opal4 next door too). These pipes need to feed the collected water into an underground tank and then, when there is very little water and the ground is hard as concrete and all the grass is dying, that saved water can be pumped back out. It’s not brain surgery.

Obviously the Council won’t do it. But as they’re already digging the required holes, they really should.

Letter from Cllr Arthur Graves to the Islington Tribune

We can be proud that the biggest tax cuts in today’s Budget go to millions of working families.

As a result of this Budget, someone working a full week on minimum wage will see their income tax bill cut by over 50% compared to under Labour.

Increasing the personal allowance to £9,205 takes us within touching distance of our number one manifesto pledge – ensuring no one pays any tax on the first £10,000 they earn.

Thanks to our changes, a basic rate taxpayer will be paying £45 a month less in tax than they would have been under Labour.

We can be proud that we’ve ensured the richest in our society will be paying more, much more.

The Tycoon Tax, an increase in stamp duty for high value properties and other new taxes on wealth will raise five times as much as the 50p tax rate. Those with annual incomes of more than £150,000 a year will be paying on average an additional £1,300 a year in tax, as a result of this Budget.

Of course, this is a Coalition Budget and we did not get our own way on everything. Conservative priorities are not ours. But as on so many other issues, we have made sure that there is a real Liberal Democrat stamp on this Budget.

Lower taxes for more than 20 million working people; effective new taxes on the rich.

This is a Budget we can be proud of – a Budget for the many, not the few.

Best wishes,

2012 is going to show the best of Britain. With the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee, we’ll be celebrating our past but with our face to the future and the change it will bring. In Government, the Liberal Democrats are at the heart of that change.

Of course, times are tough. Families are under pressure, worried about paying their bills. That’s why we’re cutting tax for working people while calling time on the tycoon tax dodgers.

From next month, 25 million working people will have more money in their pocket, because of us. You can help spread the word about our £60 tax cut by clicking here.

Going green is not a luxury for the good times – Liberals have always fought to protect the environment, and that’s why we’re part of the greenest government this country has ever had. Not only are we making the right choices for the environment, we’re putting green policies at the heart of our economic recovery.

This is a liberal nation with liberal values; hard work, fair play and a sense of freedom. I’m proud that the Liberal Democrats in Government are repairing Labour’s industrial-scale destruction of that liberty.

Just think for a moment what we’ll have achieved by 2015. The first gay marriage, and end to child detention and the first elections to the House of Lords, to name just three.

These are just some clips from the speech Nick Clegg MP,  Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister made to the Gateshead Lib Dem conference, for the text of his full speech click here.

Islington Labour councillors have voted against proposals to put an extra nine police officers on the borough’s streets.

At a recent meeting of the council, Liberal Democrats proposed an alternative ‘Common Sense’ budget that included plans for more police on the streets as well a new team of youth workers to stop young people drifting into gangs and anti-social behaviour.

Labour councillors refused to back the plans and voted against the proposals. They chose instead to spend £250,000 on setting up a new phone line to report anti-social behaviour and set up a new team of officers to write crime reports. Labour’s proposals will mean not a single new officer on the front line fighting crime.

Liberal Democrat Finance Spokesperson, councillor John Gilbert, said:

“The Liberal Democrat alternative budget for Islington was based on common sense ideas to keep our streets safer. It is incredible that Labour councillors voted against plans that would have put nine extra police officers on the beat.

“This is yet another example of Labour councillors saying one thing while doing the exact opposite. They say they want to be tough on crime but they have no ideas on how to tackle it. In fact many crimes have risen since Labour came to power in Islington.

“Islington desperately needs some common sense ideas to tackle the rising serious crime wave. But what is Labour’s answer? Setting up a phone line! What’s the point of reporting crime if there are no police to follow it up?

“To add insult to injury, Labour councillors say they have no money. But they are going to spend a quarter of a million pounds on setting up their phone line and employ more spin doctors than crime-fighting staff. They have also managed not to spend all the money they planned to for the last two years. But they are still cutting services and even stashing money in bank deposits for a rainy day. It’s time for some common sense.”