Local Councillors were out in force spreading Christmas cheer at the Longfield Centre on Saturday 18th December, as the regular Liberal Democrat Saturday Surgery took on a decidedly Christmassy flavour.

Councillors from all three Prestwich wards were on hand as usual on Saturday morning, but donned Santa hats and handed out free mince pies to shoppers and local people who came down to take part. Richard Baum, Liberal Democrat Councillor for St Mary’s ward, said “We have a surgery at the Longfield Centre every Saturday morning from 10.45 – 11.45 come rain or shine. The snow didn’t deter us on Saturday and we were in the festive spirit with our hats and pies. There was even some mulled wine to keep us warm.”

Richard continued “There’s a serious purpose to these Saturday Surgeries. We are here to listen to local people and try to help with any problems they’ve got. We’ve also got the “Scrap Prestwich Parking Charges” petition for people to sign, and over 2,000 people have done so far. We’re also asking people their priorities for Prestwich so that we can make sure we let the Council know what needs protecting when they make cuts to deal with the deficit and debt. But we’re also here to wish everyone in Prestwich a merry Christmas, and I was pleased that so many people went away smiling with a mince pie and our Christmas best wishes.”

The Saturday Surgery series will commence again in early January after a fortnight off for Christmas and New Year. In the meantime, Councillors are available by phone or email over the holidays.

Liberal Democrats believe that a quality education is the biggest opportunity to improve people’s lives. Nothing is more important than giving every child a fair start in life.

Today the coalition government published its white paper on schools – “The Importance of Teaching”. It sets out our ambitious reform programme to raise standards for all children while narrowing the gap between rich and poor.

It shows how the Government is delivering the fair start for every child that we promised in the Liberal Democrat manifesto.

The White Paper announced four key reforms –

– Delivering a Pupil Premium, on top of the budgets that schools already have, to go to every deprived child wherever they live, to allow schools to put extra resources into narrowing the gap in attainment between the richest and the poorest.

– Giving all schools more freedom to make the right choices for their pupils – slimming down the national curriculum, removing bureaucracy and red tape and reducing testing and league tables.

– Recognising that it is the quality of teaching that really makes a difference in the classroom – expanding graduate teacher programmes like Teach First, developing networks of “teaching schools” and supporting continuing professional development.

And, something important to Liberal Democrats, matching school freedoms with a strong strategic role for local authorities in ensuring fairness – in admissions policies, for children with special educational needs, and in championing educational excellence in all schools, including
Free Schools and Academies.

You can read more about the white paper – and you can watch the video below about the pupil premium.

As part of the consultation process, you can send your views on the white paper to: schoolswhitepaper.team@education.gov.uk. If you have friends or family working in education, please foward this email so they can get involved.

The Liberal Democrats are delivering in Government the fair start for children we promised.

Sarah Teather MP
Minister of State – Department for Education

When we came into office, we inherited an economy that was on the brink. With the largest budget deficit in Europe and no plan for tackling it, Britain faced huge economic risks. These could only be dealt with by a clear plan to deal rapidly with the worst financial position this country has faced for generations.

On Wednesday, we set out that plan. And while the scale and pace of the action we need to take is unavoidable, we can choose how we do it. The Spending Review sets out those choices: to spread the burden fairly, to promote economic growth, and to invest in the life chances of our children. These are hard choices that affect millions of people, but they are the right choices to set our country back on the road to prosperity.

We have spread the burden fairly by protecting the key services that the most vulnerable in our society rely on. Social Care has been given a funding boost worth £2bn, the NHS and schools have been protected and our plans for social housing will deliver up to 150,000 new affordable homes.

We have promoted future fairness through a £7 billion ‘fairness premium’ that will support improving the life chances of our poorest children from their first pair of shoes to their first pay packet.

We have promoted future growth by giving the go ahead to key transport projects that will unlock economic potential in every part of the country. We have also delivered on a Green Investment Bank that will kick start green investment and generate jobs.

And we are pushing forward with radical reform. Our decentralisation agenda will reduce the number of central government grants from 90 to fewer than 10. With the exception of schools and public health, ring-fences on council spending will disappear, giving local authorities much greater flexibility. We will deliver welfare reforms that simplify the system and make work pay. And our criminal justice reforms will roll out the community justice programmes that were pioneered by Liberal Democrats in local government.

Yes, it’s going to be tough, and everyone will make a contribution, but those with the broadest shoulders will bear the biggest burden. That’s why we’ve reduced taxes for the low paid, and increased them for the richest. It’s why we introduced a banking levy – and we’ve made it our aim to extract the maximum sustainable tax revenues from the banks that got us into this mess.

The worst thing to do would be to burden future generations with the debts that Labour left us. We have made the tougher choice, no doubt, but we should be proud of the way we have taken responsibility and we have done the right thing.

Danny Alexander MP
Chief Secretary to the Treasury

Today is a defining moment for the Liberal Democrats. Today we show what can be achieved as a party in power – that we can deliver on a promise that we put on the very front page of our manifesto: giving a fair chance to every child.

The Liberal Democrat’s purpose in Government is to make Britain a better, fairer nation. And ahead of next week’s comprehensive spending review, today we set out our plans for a four-year, £7 billion investment in improving opportunities for the most disadvantaged kids in this country.

Every disadvantaged two year-old will be entitled to 15 hours free early education – in addition to the existing entitlements at the ages of three and four. Every poor school child will get additional help from a Pupil Premium paid to their school. Every young adult who wants to go to university will be able to do so, undeterred by financial barriers.

By the end of the spending review period, we will be investing £3 billion a year on this Fairness Premium – including £2.5 billion on the pupil premium alone, £300 million on the extra help for two year-olds and £150 million on the university fairness scheme. From next year, we will he helping poorer children from two to twenty: from a child’s first shoes to a young adult’s first suit.

Given that we are having to cut spending these are sizable new commitments. But even as we cut spending, we are determined to invest in fairness.

Whatever Labour say, we have no choice but to tackle the deficit. Ed Miliband thinks otherwise. He says he represents a ‘new generation’. But he seems happy to saddle the next generation with the debt that his Government racked up. I am not.

Every day we lose more in interest payments to the financial markets: the amount we pay in interest is enough to build a new primary school every hour. Let me be absolutely candid: we have a hard road to recovery ahead of us. But also let me assure you, that as Liberal Democrats we are determined to ensure that road leads to fairness, too.

For me, this is personal. A decade ago I argued in favour of a pupil premium to help children and close the educational gap. Under Labour this gap has been left to widen and for too long the achievements in life have been dictated by the circumstances of birth. I represent a constituency in Sheffield where, for all Labour’s promises, inequalities still scar the community.

All of us are having to work hard in order to make the spending review fair. We’re all having to accept difficult cuts in many areas of public spending that we would very much rather avoid. Both parties in Government are having to negotiate and compromise. We’re all having to change our positions on some issues when the arguments demand it.

But all of us in this government, including the Prime Minister and myself, are not willing to compromise on a better future for the poorest children.

None of this would have been possible without all the hard work done by members up and down the country at the last election and over the many years before that. We should all be proud that we are delivering in Government the changes for which we have campaigned for so long.

Yesterday I was proud to be at the Government Dispatch Box in the House of Commons moving a motion in support of a Queen’s Speech that committed to delivering long cherished Liberal Democrat policies.

Over the coming months we will bring forward legislation for much needed political reform and the restoration of our civil liberties. We will bring in a proportionally elected second chamber, strengthen the role of parliament, increase devolution to Scotland and Wales, regulate party funding and lobbysists, introduce the power of recall for corrupt MPs and give people a chance to vote to end First Past the Post elections for the House of Commons. All huge leaps forward in reforming our politics.

And we will introduce a Freedom Bill. Something I campaigned for vigorously with Chris Huhne, Lynne Featherstone and others in opposition – which we will now deliver in government. It will scrap ID cards, end fingerprinting of children in schools without their parent’s consent, regulate CCTV cameras, place significant restrictions on the DNA database and restore the right to protest.

I am sincerely committed to working together across party lines to help bring about this new and better politics. And I hope all parties will work together on these issues. However so far sadly the Labour party is unwilling to learn from is mistakes in government. It seems wedded to deeply illiberal policies such as intrusive and unjustifiable ID cards and a DNA database full of the data of innocent men and women. I hope that will change.

Yesterday the Liberal Democrat MPs you helped elect voted in Parliament for a program of real, liberal change. After 13 years of failure from Labour we are already making a real difference in government. With your on-going support we can keep making Liberal Democrat policies a reality.