“Today’s announcement has shown us yet again that for all of Cameron’s posturing, the Tories can’t be trusted to deliver on the environment,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary.

Commenting on the Conservative’s Energy Security Green Paper, Simon Hughes said:

“Blindly pledging to build a new nuclear plant every 18 months is a recipe for disaster.

“Nuclear power has always required huge amounts of public money and David Cameron’s signal that the Tories are ready to turn on the taps of taxpayer support risks billions that we simply can’t afford.

“Nuclear energy is not clean energy. A new generation of nuclear power stations would leave us with a legacy of deadly radioactive waste that will take hundreds of years and billions of pounds to clean up.

“As David Cameron himself said only four years ago, not having a plan to deal with this toxic legacy is completely irresponsible.

“Today’s announcement has shown us yet again that for all of Cameron’s posturing, the Tories can’t be trusted to deliver on the environment.”

“Executives, unions and politicians need to start acting like grown ups and get this sorted before the public declares a plague on all their houses,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Transport Secretary.

Commenting on railway workers voting in favour of strike action, Norman Baker said:

“In all the political mudslinging over who is to blame for strike action by BA or railway workers, it is the passengers who are suffering the most.
 
“There is no need for any of these strikes to go ahead. Management at British Airways and Network Rail need to get back round the table with the unions to sort this mess out before people’s holiday, business and travel plans are ruined for no good reason.
 
“There is far too much macho posturing and cheap political point scoring going on all sides of these disputes. Enough is enough. Executives, unions and politicians need to start acting like grown ups and get this sorted before the public declares a plague on all their houses.”

Willenhall Regeneration Project Reference Group met with the Friends of Willenhall Leisure Centre last night to discuss ways to stop Walsall’s Tory Cabinet from closing the centre this summer reports Liberal Democrat councillor Ian Shires.

Revised operating time tables, which have already been agreed in order to bring Willenhall’s subsidy in line with other centres across Walsall, were discussed. These will come into force after Easter and will be announced shortly.

Also on the agenda were more medium to long term proposals such as getting the building “Listed” and the formation of a Community Enterprise Company.

A further meeting has been arranged for the 31st March to discuss these issues in detail. The Tory Cabinet Portfolio holder for Leisure, Councillor Harris will also be invited to clarify his thinking on the future of Leisure in Walsall.

Ian Shires’s regular councillor’s surgery is at the Lighthouse Children’s Centre in Davis Road, New Invention this evening (Friday). Ian will be there between 7pm and 8pm.

Got a problem? Need some advice on council related matters? or just got something you want to get of your chest? why not come along. 

A new EU plan to fund business loans for unemployed people and very small firms will need active support from UK government agencies to succeed, says LibDem Euro MP Liz Lynne.

The European Microfinance Facility scheme is due to be launched in June this year and aims to give new entrepreneurs or small firms with less than 10 employees easier access to loans of up to 25,000 Euros (£21,000).

The scheme is part of the European Commission’s Economic Recovery programme and will be linked to the European Social Fund. The facility will be aimed particularly at people who have lost their jobs and want to set up their own business but who often struggle to get credit from banks in the current climate.

An initial 100 million Euro budget will be used to lever in additional funds of up to 500 million Euros more from institutions such as the European Investment bank, giving a total funding of approximately half a billion pounds.

Liz Lynne, MEP for the West Midlands Region, is Vice President of the Economic and Social Affairs Committee of the European Parliament and a strong supporter of this new initiative…….. http://bit.ly/cVlauw

“Prison clearly isn’t working to reduce reoffending and yet all Labour and the Tories offer are threats to lock up more people,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Justice Secretary.

Commenting on Ministry of Justice figures showing nearly half all criminals released from prison go on to commit further offences, David Howarth said:

“Prison clearly isn’t working to reduce reoffending and yet all Labour and the Tories offer are threats to lock up more people.

“We’re throwing billions of pounds at something that is creating future crime.

“We can cut crime if we start reducing the prison population by having a presumption against short sentences which don’t work and moving drug addicts and the mentally ill into more appropriate accomodation.”

Labour’s hypocrisy on the environment was today revealed by Liberal Democrat research showing that Jim Murphy has doubled the number of ministerial cars used by the Scotland Office, despite Scottish Labour’s call today for action to reduce the emissions of government cars.

Meanwhile, Scottish Labour’s energy spokesperson Lewis MacDonald is completely at odds with Labour’s Energy Secretary Ed Miliband over coal power:

• On Monday 15 March, Lewis MacDonald said: “If Scotland is going to make a significant contribution to cutting carbon emissions, it makes no sense to start by building a coal-fired power station […] If this goes ahead it will set back Scotland’s prospects of meeting our commitment on climate change”
• This is entirely at odds with Ed Miliband’s claim that “In order to ensure that we maintain a diverse energy mix, we need new coal-fired power stations”

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Scotland Secretary, Alistair Carmichael said:

“This shows the gulf between what Labour promise and what they actually do.

“It is hard to see how Labour can call for greener ministerial limos while Jim Murphy has doubled the number of cars he uses at the Scotland Office.

“Labour are also hopelessly split on energy, criticising coal power in Scotland while in Westminster they back new, dirty power stations.

“13 years of failure have shown that whatever Labour say during the election, they cannot be trusted to back it up with real action in Government.”

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg will today say this election is ‘an opportunity for the British people to vote to take their privacy back’.

In his speech to Privacy International to mark their 20th Anniversary, Nick Clegg will say:

“Labour has spent 13 years trampling over people’s privacy. From allowing children’s fingerprints to be taken at school without their parents’ consent; to making us a world leader in CCTV; to wasting vast sums of taxpayers’ money on giant databases that hoard our personal details. And now we hear that ministers want pensioners to swap their bus passes for ID cards.

“The Government’s staggering record on losing private data – leaving it in pub car parks and on commuter trains – just makes matters worse.

“And there’s an even bigger issue at stake: Labour’s flagrant disregard for our privacy flies in the face of hard won British liberty. It betrays a deep distrust of the British people, as well as an obsession with controlling every aspect of everyday life from Whitehall.

“Those same reflexes underpin this Government’s obsession with law-making. Since 1997 they have flooded the statute books with nearly 4,300 new ways of making us criminals. Some of them are completely bizarre, like ‘disturbing a pack of eggs when directed not to by an authorised officer’, and ‘causing a nuclear explosion’, as if we needed a new law for that.

“And where do all these new laws get us? Only one in a hundred crimes ends in a conviction in court.

“The Conservatives talk a good game on privacy, but scratch beneath the surface and it’s clear they can’t be trusted to roll back Labour’s surveillance state. Just look at their plans to make it even easier for the police to watch and record people getting on with their daily lives, all in the name of cutting red tape.

“Only the Liberal Democrats will bring an end to the endless snooping on innocent people.”

“There is a real fear that these cuts are preparing the ground for tuition fees to be raised,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Universities Secretary.

Commenting on the Government’s announcements of cuts to university budgets, Stephen Williams said:

“Universities and young people are bearing the brunt of Labour’s economic failure.

“There is a real fear that these cuts are preparing the ground for tuition fees to be raised.  It would be totally unfair for young people, the innocent victims of the financial crisis, to be punished in this way.”

Mr Hague is guilty of a cynical cover-up for a shabby decision which has cost British taxpayers more than £100 million”, says the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary

Commenting on William Hague’s admission of a “mistake” concerning Lord Ashcroft’s tax status, Chris Huhne said: “William Hague promised the Prime Minister that before Lord Ashcroft received his peerage he would pay “tens of millions” in British tax, but then never even checked whether the promise was kept. He has treated the taxpayer with total contempt.

It is utterly unbelievable to say, as William Hague did this morning, that he was not aware of the tax implications of these negotiations that dragged on for four months when he was kept informed by his closest loyalist, the Chief Whip.

Mr Hague is guilty of a cynical cover-up for a shabby decision which has cost British taxpayers more than £100 million.

William Hague is not fit for any role in Government, let alone that of Foreign Secretary. Lord Ashcroft must now meet his £100 million tax bill.”