New Lib Dem plans will protect our local Post Offices after years of Labour cuts.
Your Focus Team is pleased that the Liberal Democrats in government are delivering on another one of their promises.
Under Labour 5,000 Post Offices were closed.
The Lib Dem plan will see the Post  Office:
 Becoming a One-stop shop.
 A central point of our community life again.
 Investing £1.3 billion into the Post Office Network, protecting the 11,500 remaining Post Offices.
 Having more services.
 Offering information for jobseekers,
 Access to over 80% of bank accounts including RBS and NatWest.
 Longer opening hours.
 Post Office services being offered at the shop till.
 Small, local shops providing some Post Office services.

The Transport Secretary has announced the network option the Government prefers for taking high-speed rail north of Birmingham.

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department of Transport Norman Baker has welcomed the announcement to include a ‘Y’ shaped network providing links to the Midlands, North West and the North East.

Norman Baker said “The ‘Y’ link will mean the great majority of the British population will have direct access to the high speed network will deliver major economic benefits totaling many millions to the economies  in the North.”

”It is a clear demonstration of this government’s commitment to creating jobs and prosperity, by investing in capital infrastructure like high speed rail and continue to ensure a fair deal for the North”.

The so-called “Y option” has been chosen, meaning two high-speed lines will branch out north of Birmingham at Lichfield with a line towards Sheffield, Leeds and the East Coast mainline and a line towards Manchester and the West Coast mainline.

Journey times between Leeds and London and Manchester and London will be slashed by forty minutes from around two hours and ten minutes to 80 minutes.

Report from your local representative on the Liberal Democrat Party conference in Liverpool.

Your Liberal Democrat Focus team are supporting the ‘Wear it Pink’ campaign, and we will be ‘Wearing Pink’ on October 29th. If you would like to be involved follow this link or click on one of the banners below. 

Why take part in wear it pink?

When you wear it pink you’re part of something amazing – finding a cure for breast cancer, by funding some of the world’s most promising and innovative research projects. The money you have raised in the past has helped to fund projects like Dr Ingunn Holen’s award-winning research, which found that if two drugs were given in a particular order at specific intervals, breast tumours were almost completely destroyed. This discovery could ultimately lead to improved chances of survival for thousands of women undergoing treatment.

Why is Breast Cancer Campaign’s work important?

Breast cancer research has made considerable progress over the past two decades and vital work is still underway. Past research has resulted in improvements in quality of life and survival. However, one woman in nine in the UK will be diagnosed during her lifetime. Each research project funded by the charity brings us a step closer to beating breast cancer.

Where does my wear it pink donation go?

Breast Cancer Campaign uses all wear it pink donations to fund innovative, world-class research throughout the UK and Ireland to understand how breast cancer develops, leading to improved diagnosis, treatment, prevention and cure.The charity currently supports around 106 projects worth £16.3 million in 38 centres across the UK and Ireland.

Find ‘Wear it Pink’ on:

This could be your chance…

Landshare brings together people who have a passion for home-grown food.It’s for people who:

·        Want to grow veg but don’t have anywhere to do it

·        Have a spare bit of land they’re prepared to share

·        Can help in some way – from sharing knowledge and lending tools to helping out on the plot itself

·        Support the idea of freeing up more land for growing

·        Are already growing and want to join in the community

Landshare came out of TV’s River Cottage. It began when Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall helped some Bristol families grow veg on derelict council land. The experience was so inspiring that River Cottage decided to see if it would work nationwide. Now Landshare is a national movement of more than 50,000 people, go to their web site by clicking here.

17 million people already affected… 

Floodwaters are still rising in Pakistan; the area covered to date is larger than the UK. These are the worst floods in many decades, they began a month ago with the rain hammering the country’s northwest region, over 1,600 people have died and the floods are affecting over 17 million people with 1.2 million houses being destroyed, leaving an estimated 8 million people homeless. The waters are now spreading through the rice-growing belt in Sindh province, 4.25 million acres of land and crops have been destroyed or extensively damaged. The scale of the disaster is overtaking the relief efforts and more aid is needed urgently to help the millions of people affected.Please donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Pakistan Floods Appeal by clicking here or by phone on 0370 60 60 900.

The Lib Dems will be delivering on another manifesto commitment when car clamping on private land is banned.
Liberal Democrat ministers Lynne Featherstone and Norman Baker have announced that car clamping on private land is to be banned as part of the Freedom Bill this Autumn.

Home Office minister Lynne Featherstone MP when making the announcment said:

“The Government is committed to ending the menace of rogue private sector wheel clampers once and for all.

“For too long motorists have fallen victim to unscrupulous tactics by many clamping firms. Reports of motorists being marched to cash points or left stranded after their car has been towed are simply unacceptable.

“A ban on clamping and towing on private land will end this abuse and companies who decide to flout new laws will face severe penalties.”

This is a link to the BBC website article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10993473

The Liberal Democrats have published their Freedom Bill, detailing how the party plans to roll back the authoritarian laws passed by both Labour and Conservative governments which have undermined civil liberties.

Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords protest the restrictions on demonstrating outside Parliament during the passage of the Serious and Organised Crime Act.

The legislation is the first time a major political party has collated all of the laws which have undermined civil liberties into one Bill, so that they can be easily repealed. By axing expensive and ineffective measures that hinder and keep tabs on innocent people, the Bill will help switch efforts to catching the guilty instead.

The 20 measures contained in the draft legislation will:
– Abolish the veto in the Freedom of Information Act that allows ministers to keep information secret
– Scrap the expensive mandatory ID card scheme
– Remove all innocent people from the DNA database, except for those tried for a violent or sexual offence
– Stop councils and others snooping by restricting the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to serious and terrorist offences
– Regulate CCTV to protect privacy following a Royal Commission on the use of cameras

You can view the bill in detail, comment on the draft and sign up to back the campaign at http://freedom.libdems.org.uk