Last week was the regular monthly meeting of the Greater Manchester Corporate Issues and Reform Scrutiny Committee. This report is from the Liberal Democrat representative on the Committee,  Prestwich councillor Tim Pickstone. Last week’s meeting mainly focussed on the very significant issues raised in the Kerslake Report into the 2017 Arena bombing terrorist incident and […]

Liberal Democrat councillors listen, work hard and get things done for their communities. It’s why right across the country, people have been electing more of them, week in, week out. There is a secret phenomenon in British politics. It is occurring in by-elections all over the country, week in, week out, to local authorities from […]

Liberal Democrat councillors on Bury Council have been successful in a a move to get Bury Council to play its part in tackling corporate tax avoidance. Lib Dem Councillors brought a motion on tax avoidance to the last full meeting of Bury Council. The motion was supported by other parties and is now the official […]

Layla Moran is co-sponsoring a bill to finally bring marriage equality to Northern Ireland – find out why I couldn’t have been prouder of Lynne Featherstone and the Liberal Democrats in government when we changed the law in England, bringing in equal marriage. It is, without doubt, one of the best things our party did […]

Local Liberal Democrats have warned that the number of hospital admissions due to an older person falling, is set to rise to nearly 1,000 a day across England by the end of the decade. The worrying forecast, according to data released by the Local Government Association, has prompted renewed calls for more funding for adult […]

Bury’s NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has announced cuts of £5.2 million for the financial year just started, towards meeting an expected £7.3 million deficit for the year. The cuts agreed are: Primary Care (GPs etc) £1.1 million – the largest items being: – Terminating the Vulnerable Patient Scheme, saving c£0.1m. – Terminating the Clinical […]

Theresa May has been making positive noises about funding the NHS properly recently – and if she wants to do that, then the Lib Dem plan is the best one out there. Although it is a step in the right direction for Theresa May to take a long-term approach to funding the NHS, it is […]

Two important announcements in the last week about future housing construction in Greater Manchester. The first is the publication, by the 10 Greater Manchester Councils (the Greater Manchester Strategic Authority, GMSA) of a detailed map of land identified for future housing and employment developments. The Councils estimate that this is potentially enough land for an […]

The Liberal Democrats are calling for an extra £6 billion a year to protect the NHS, paid for by an extra penny on Income Tax. The money raised will be guaranteed for the NHS and social care services, which is currently in crisis with delayed operations, full hospital beds and record numbers left waiting in […]

We want a new housing revolution to fix our broken market – read more here. We’re calling for a major overhaul of the powers of local councils to meet the goal of ensuring that everyone in Britain has a home. The package, passed at Spring Conference in Southport, calls for new powers that will see […]