We cannot turn our back on the biggest humanitarian crisis since the Second World War – Tim Farron

“One million refugees entered Europe in 2015. I want Britain to take its fair share and to engage with our European partners. Then we could come up with ways of having safe routes. There must be a way of dealing with this that doesn’t involve turning our backs on refugees as well as our partners in Europe.
“The reality is we are not going to turn off the tap. Most of them are not economic migrants. The UN is clear that 94% of those going to Lesbos were refugees. We should open our arms to them.
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“I’m not saying we should do the same as Angela Merkel, but we also should not go to the other extreme which is what the PM is doing. What do we do? You can pick them up in the Mediterranean and have safe routes. Also, there could be centres where people can claim asylum safely.
“We cannot turn our back on the biggest humanitarian crisis since the Second World War, yet the PM is acting as if he is neutral“

Lib Dems call for fair funding for Mental Health Services

The Lib Dem’s shadow Health Spokesperson has called for fair funding for mental health services following research that showed that mental health trusts continue to be under significant pressure, including a rise in the number of unexpected deaths and suicide.

Norman Lamb MP

The figures from NHS England were unearthed after an FOI request from the Liberal Democrat Health spokesperson Norman Lamb, and cover serious incidents reported between 2012-2013 and 2014-2015.

Health spokesperson Norman Lamb said:

“The Clinical Commissioning groups should be equally focussed on mental health as well as physical health.

“At the moment whenever they feel under pressure to cut budgets, it’s the unprotected mental health services that get sliced.

“Year after year the problem occurs, and year after year the problem gets worse.

“This cannot continue any longer. People are literally dying as a result of the horrific under funding. People are losing their lives as a consequence of the institutional discrimination of mental health.

“The way that funding gets allocated to mental health always means that it loses out.”

Lib Dems say: Stop the ‘Love Tax’

Liberal Democrats are rallying to stop plans aimed at penalising up to one million single parents who move in with a new partner.

The party has said changes to Universal Credit – dubbed the ‘Love Tax’ – could affect up to a million low income working single parents.

It comes weeks after the Conservative government was dashed in its attempts to cut tax credits for families.

The IFS has said latest planned cuts would mean a single parent could be lose out by around £1,000 a year.

Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords have launched a bid, due be debated on Wednesday, to scrap the cuts to Universal Credit.

LONDON - MARCH 05: Liberal Democrat MP for West Morland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron looks on whilst posing for media on March 5, 2008 in London, England. A number of Liberal Democrat Leaders are preparing to defy the order to abstain in the vote on whether there should be a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. (Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

 (Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

The party’s leader Tim Farron said:  “The Conservatives claim they want to support two parent families, yet their pillaging of Universal Credit will mean that people single parents who find a new partner will actually be penalised.

“It is tantamount to a Love Tax. Imagine being a single parent, working on a low income, then finally finding happiness with someone and realising you’re going to lose over £1,000-a-year as a result.

“We stopped the original attack on tax credits and we will stop this. The Government should not use this as an excuse to cut their support.

“That is why they must rethink these brutal cuts to Universal Credit.”

Responding to the Google tax settlement, Susan Kramer, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson, said:

“This settlement shows once again that the Government is allowing one rule for the biggest companies and another for ordinary taxpayers.

“Last year HMRC didn’t even bother to answer the phone to taxpayers up to 55% of the time, yet they are more than willing to spend years negotiate sweetheart deals with giant multinationals.

“Any ordinary small business owner who failed to pay their taxes for 11 years wouldn’t be getting a cosy chat with HMRC Officials, they’d be getting a knock on the door from the bailiffs.   We need HMRC to begin prosecuting the largest companies as strongly as they do any other business operating in the UK.”
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Help us keep Bury Fracking Free

In the ‘media quiet’ days before Christmas, the Government awarded an additional set of Fracking licenses to private companies. Threes of these license blocks cover the Bury area, including one which covers parts of Prestwich.

License areas 70, 80 and 81, which includes a part of Prestwich, Whitefield, Bury, Radcliffe, Ramsbottom, Tottington and and then right across towards  Bolton have been awarded to Hutton Energy Ltd for exploration.

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Fracking, or ‘Hydraulic Fracturing’ is where underground rock is fractured by the high pressure injection of ‘fracking fluid’ to create cracks underground where natural gas can be released.

Residents will be aware of campaigners in many other parts of the country (e.g. in Lancashire) being very opposed to fracking sites near them.

Many of the areas covered by the Fracking License in our Green Belt – land which has been left as green and recreational land
Many of the areas covered are in former mining areas with old mining shafts and diggings, and areas have suffered from subsidence in the past.

Fracking is a controversial subject – there is more information about the environmental impact that Fracking can have at the Greenpeace website here.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/fracking

You can help us campaign to Bury Fracking Free by signing our online petition here.

Tim Farron challenges Government’s increasingly right wing agenda

Dangerous proposals by the Government which threaten individual freedoms risk exacerbating racial and religious tensions, Tim Farron has warned.

By linking the practices of ordinary British Muslims with radicalisation the Prime Minister risks alienating large sections of our society.

Leader of the Liberal Democrats Tim Farron said:

“Talk of banning veils and the deportation of women who struggle with English are worrying ideas from a government pushing an increasingly right wing agenda.

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“These are hugely worrying times for British values. Of course we need to seriously tackle home grown extremism but isolating vulnerable groups is not the way forward.

“With Islamophobia on the rise, now is the time for an open and serious inter-faith dialogue not headline grabbing policies which do nothing but appeal to the right wing of the Tory base.

“Liberal Democrats will always support an open minded, tolerant United Kingdom which does not cow tow to the politics of fear.”

£1,000 cut to Universal credit must be stopped – Lib Dems

Liberal Democrats have launched a bid to stop Government plans to cut Universal Credit.

The Party’s Work and Pensions Spokesperson, Zahida Manzoor, has used an amendment to the Government’s flagship Welfare Reform and Work Bill to seek to stop the cuts.

This Tory cut would mean low income working families applying for Universal Credit from 2017 would be an average of £1,000 worse off.

In the long term up to 2.6 million people are expected to lose out as a result of changes to Universal Credit’

In December, Tim Farron said the first significant political battle of 2016 will be over Conservative plans to slash support for working families on low incomes.

Zahida-Manzoor

Zahida Manzoor said:  “George Osborne claimed he listened to concerns about low income working families losing out when he U-turned on Tax Credits, but in fact he has simply delayed the pain.

“Universal Credit is a good system, that Liberal Democrats fought for in Government, but George Osborne Is taking apart that good work to create a system that is far less generous to working people.   If he and the Government are serious about supporting people on low incomes who go out to work every day then they need to drop these savage cuts to Universal Credit.”

Tacking Illegal Parking outside Schools

The Lib Dem team on Council have asked the Council if it will consider using the ‘Camera Car’ currently used to enforce bus lanes, to tackle some of the worst illegal parking outside some of our schools.

Lib Dem councillor Mary D’Albert asked the Council to consider the use of the camera car outside of schools, a practice that happens in many other local authorities, including next door in Manchester.

The Council stated that “The CCTV car is currently utilised during peak and off peak periods to enforce bus lanes”

It went not to say that:
“At some point in the future we may look at investing in fixed CCTV equipment to enforce bus lanes. This would then free up the vehicle to carry out enforcement outside schools. In order to carry out this type of enforcement we will need to apply for a new approved device status for the vehicle from DfT. The current approval would not cover the variation in enforcement.”

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Recently Bury Council reviewed the bus lanes going into and out of Bury Town Centre, and has agreed to review bus lane in the south of the Borough. The result of the review so far has been to completely suspect the Rochdale Road bus lane (the Heap Bridge motorway junction to the Town Centre).

Although it is important to make sure that drivers do not abuse bus lanes that are still in force, we believe that there should be some capacity to do this, given the significant problems that there are around some of our schools.

Norman Lamb: Government health proposals ‘morally wrong and economically stupid’.

Mental Health proposals fall massively short – Norman Lamb

Commenting on today’s announcement on mental health funding, the Liberal Democrats health spokesperson and former minister for Mental Health, Norman Lamb said:

“I will always welcome extra investment in mental health care. However, on the face of it, the proposals fall massively short of the vision we published in 2014. We said then that the objective for 2020 should be comprehensive maximum waiting time standards in mental health so that there is equality of access between physical and mental health. There’s nothing today which meets that vision.

“It will leave many people with mental ill health still with no right to access treatment on a timely basis. It will leave a disparity between physical health and mental health at the heart of our NHS. That is morally wrong and economically stupid.

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“My fear is that the extra investment announced may be, in part, smoke and mirrors. David Cameron must be clear, is this all additional to the £1.25bn announced in the budget in March for children and young people’s mental health – which the Liberal Democrats secured? Is it additional to the £600m announced in the Spending Review?

“If the Prime Minister is being genuine about his desire to help, he must confirm what accounts for new investment. We need absolute clarity.

“Every step to support access to treatment and support is always welcome, but we must recognise that there is much more to be done.”

Norman Lamb to call for a commission into the health and social care crisis

Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Norman Lamb will today (Wednesday) launch proposals for an unprecedented cross party commission into health and social care.

Norman Lamb, who has received the backing from Conservative and Labour former Health Secretaries Stephen Dorrell and Alan Milburn, believes that only a full non-partisan commission will properly deal with the crisis in health and social care.

They have been joined in this call by NHS survival – a group of 8,000 doctors, patients and and members of the public committed to ensuring the survival of the health service.
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The former care minister believes the commission would be a ‘Beveridge Report’ for the 21st Century, and be the first of its kind since the creation of the NHS and welfare state. Its aim is to engage with the public, staff in the NHS and care services and civic society on the massive challenge the NHS and care services face.

To mark his call for the commission Norman Lamb will use a 10 minute rule bill in Parliament, and will call for an investigation into the crisis being faced by the health and social care sectors.
The NHS funding gap is expected to be £30bn

NHS and Foundation Trusts are facing a projected £2.2bn deficit

The Health Foundation has estimated that there will be a £6bn funding gap in Social Care by 2020

Norman Lamb said: “The NHS and social care face an existential crisis. Demand for services continues to rise year on year but funding is failing to keep up. The position in social care is perhaps even more serious.

“Growing pressures on services are so severe that all parties must come together to fundamentally re-think how we can guarantee the future of the NHS and social care services.

“The Government cannot avoid this issue any longer. Establishing this commission will show they are serious about protecting these vital public services.”