East Midlands Liberal Democrats Question Nick Clegg, Leader of the Liberal Democrats

The East Midland Liberal Democrats were invited to a question and answer session with the leader of the party, Nick Clegg, by the East Midlands Chair Peter Morris in Leicestershire on Friday 12^th August 2011. Representatives from over 20 different parties from all six counties attended.

This event was not stage managed, questions were asked directly to Nick who simply invited members of the audience to ask questions.

Opening Speech

Nick talked about the last year in government identifying lessons learned. He has made an active effort to encourage other Liberal Democrat Ministers to talk to the media so that he has not always launched new policy or briefed on "bad" news stories.

Nick stated that there were lots of positives happening in government that were simply not getting out in the media due to the hype around spending cuts.

• A £200 income tax cut for people on middle and low incomes
• £2.5 billion to help the most deprived young people though the pupil premium
• Reducing the deficit and public debt and retaining AAA credit status of the UK

Nick emphasized that the UK government has a huge sovereign debt and he was very worried about the global economic situation. However due to the commitment to budget and fiscal responsibility we are not in the same position as the USA, Greece, and Italy etc.

He made it clear that a major priority of the coalition government had to be to reduce the budget deficit. However he noted that the coalition's plan to reduce the public sector spending by £16 billion a year was actually not so different from Labour's planned reduction of £14 billion a year.

Will the Liberal Democrats recover electorally?

This question was put by a member from Chesterfield where they had lost their MP and control of their council in the last two years. Members were frustrated because they believed they had a strong local record to defend.

Nick said that the closer to Sheffield the worse the attacks on Liberal Democrats have been, with the personal attacks from Labour and the trade unionist creating something of a fire storm.

Nick spoke about the transition Liberal Democrats were going through, from universally liked on the door step to almost universally hated, this he identified was due to the university tuition fees debate. He explained that the new policy was better but very technocratic and difficult to explain the advantages over the previous Labour scheme. The media had failed to explain the policy and therefore it was impossible to have an intelligent debate.

Nick spoke about the need for Liberal Democrats to develop simpler policies, similar to the 1p on income tax for education.

Nick expressed his frustration over being the leader of a party that came third in the 2010 election and that only has 8% of the MPs in the House of Commons. The fact that the party was in coalition and the fact the party did not win, meant that the Liberal Democrats in parliament cannot deliver their entire manifesto. However he believes that people are again beginning to be more receptive to the Liberal Democrats message. Gains are being made across the country with a seat in Eton being taking from the Tories. Nick congratulated Oadby and Wigston and Bosworth and Hinckley who retained control in the May elections.

Should the Coalition Government reconsider cuts to the Police Budget in view of the riots?

In short Nick disagreed with this; he had just come up from St Anne's in Nottingham which was subjected to serious disorder throughout last week. A resident claimed that there had been a serious reduction in Police Officers on the streets but when Nick asked the Chief Constable had there been any cuts to Neighbourhood Policing yet in Nottingham the officer replied "No". The idea that there is a reduction in Police numbers is mainly due to the media who are convincing their viewers /readers that there are less police on the beat.

Nick considered that the savings requested from each Police Force were not unreasonable and that it was not in reality a 20% budget cut when the police precept and the support forces get from local authorities is taken into account . He also highlighted that funding for the police nationally was only returning to what was spent on the police in 2008 and will remain significantly higher than pre 1997. He had spoken with senior police officers who had confirmed that they could manage the first two years of the cuts without degrading front line community policing.

What is the Liberal Democrats official response to the riots?

Nick Clegg suggested that it was the time for the politicians to examine what went wrong and why the riots happened. He stated that it was too simplistic to say that these riots were caused by the budget cuts.

Nick described James Q Wilsons (American criminologist) Broken Window Theory which predicts that if you smash one window and don't fix it, another window will be smashed, and then graffiti will appear followed by more serious crime.

Nick identified that there has been a series of broken windows in British Society, first the MPs with the expenses scandal, then the Banking crisis followed by the phone hacking scandal implicating the press and the police. With the decay of these pillars of society the concept of the rule of law and due process has been clouded. This may have given the impression that no one cares leading to an environment where the riots may seem acceptable.

Nick is looking at amending the agenda for the Birmingham Conference to see if the public disorder could be debated at conference to allow the Liberal Democrats to develop a policy position on the English riots.

How can parties share best practice and how can they access resources from Cowley Street?

This question was from a Hinckley and Bosworth Councillor, whose local party retained control of their council.

Nick's reply was simply to involve the campaign team at Cowley Street and invite MPs and senior party members to events. Also share the work you are doing regionally and nationally through the campaigns department, websites and regional conferences.

In view of the riots should the Coalition Government look again at youth provisions?

This question was from a Lincoln member whom had been made redundant by Lincolnshire County Council from their which job was part funded by Children's Services and gave advice and support to young people in the city.

Nick recognised the importance of working for and with young people who had become marginalised in our society. He was aware that this was a problem that has been visible on estates for at least a decade. Many young people now feel desperate for many reasons including trying to find work, and in their relations with the police.

He went on saying that young people need to be provided with a sense of hope and self purpose. It is necessary to start young to give children confidence and self respect - 16 years old is more than 10 years too late.

200,000 apprenticeships are available to young people throughout the country - he had been told when visiting Tottenham that there were 1,300 apprenticeship places available within a 3 mile radius of where the riots took place there. The pupil premium was also a major initiative that could help disadvantaged youngsters.

Why is it that the Conservatives Ministers do the good news and Liberal Democrats the Bad?

Nick highlighted that there are just not as many Liberal Democrat Ministers as there are Conservative Ministers and that there is a different style of party politics within the Conservative Party.

Conservative ministers will always defend their leader when he/she is in difficulty until they eventually slit their throat. Whereas the Liberal Democrats, when faced with difficulty expect their leader to do a significant amount of the work and used their personal capital to protect the party.

Nick is encouraging Liberal Democrat MPs to defend the Coalition Government so that the press did not simply see the leader of the party presenting everything.

Nick discussed how both the left and the right of the media are frustrated by having the Liberal Democrats in power. The Guardian and the Mail run similar stories against the Liberal Democrats because the Liberal Democrats have upset the pendulum of the left and right bipartisan politics that the press is used to.

We as a party need to stop meeting behind closed doors and get out into the public?

Nick Clegg was rather confused by this question for a little while until the questioner pointed to the 5-6 security officers guarding the doors to the conference room. The questioner also highlighted the "ring of steel" erected in Sheffield for the spring conference. The questioner highlighted that all this security was bad publicity.

Nick stated that the security officers were there for his protection as a member of government rather than the Liberal Democrats attending the event. He encouraged Liberal Democrats members and Councillors had to get out and about more. Despite the protection Nick is out and about nearly every day and asked the members attending the meeting "Are you getting out and about in your communities? Are you engaging with your voters?"

The Alternative Vote was at the wrong time and promoted the wrong message, what went wrong?

Nick agreed that the referendum was a disaster but disagreed that is should have been postponed. He said that he was under pressure from within the party to hold the referendum at the same time as the local elections. The pressure to hold the referendum early on was to try and exploit the anger associated with the expenses scandal.

Nick said that while people were more worried about jobs and personal debt they were not particularly concerned by the abstract idea of the alternative vote. However he also stated that if they had waited for 2013 there would have still been the unholy alliance of Labour dinosaurs and Conservative money that ensured that the "No" camp won the referendum.

Can we reform the tax system to tax assets rather than income?

Nick replied that there are better ways of taxing and is something that the Liberal Democrats should look at. He importantly identified the need to tax wealth in terms of assets rather than annual salaries that are based upon effort.

Nick talked about the work that Ian Duncan Smith was doing with regards to making work pay, ensuring that people are always better off in work than they are on benefits. A tax of assets is a different way of raising revenue and is an idea that could be developed by the party further, but it must be careful not to make it too technocratic.

A number of Liberal Democrat policies have been shelved due to our Conservative partners how can we ensure that if and when Labour are back in power they do not claim our Policy as their own, as they have done historically?

Nick agreed with some of this sentiment but was keen to highlight the fact that the Liberal Democrats are the junior partners in the coalition. Nick also spoke of the need to hold Labour to account stating that Labour's deficit reduction was not radically different from the Coalitions Governments and that Labour were not providing an effective opposition.

Pupil Premium - Key facts

• Total funding for the Pupil Premium will be £625m in 2011-12, and will rise to £2.5 billion a year by 2014-15.
• The Pupil Premium will be allocated to deprived children who are currently known to be eligible for FSM in both mainstream and non-mainstream settings and children who have been looked after for more than 6 months.
• The level of this premium in 2011-12 will be £430 per pupil.
• A premium will also be introduced for children whose parents are currently serving in the armed forces - this will be set at £200 in 2011-12.

More pictures can be downloaded from here

Thanks

The webmaster would like to thank Guy Grainger and Matthew Holden whose notes have been used to provide this reports.

Thanks also to Barry Coward and Craig Gunton Day for the Photos