My Report on the Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference

My Report on the Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference - Birmingham 2011

September 26, 2011 9:47 AM
By Jeremy Hilton

This year the Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference was held in Birmingham, on the site of the old Bingley Hall where William Gladstone stood 130 years ago to found the National Liberal Federation.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable conference. The party was united behind our objective to serve our country in government.

We have been in government now for 500 days and I am proud of our team of ministers led by Nick Clegg in all that they have achieved in this time.

Doing the right thing for Britain has been hard, but Liberal Democrats are resilient.

The biggest task is taking our country through the dire economic legacy left to us by thirteen years of Labour rule and their over reliance on the City of London for our prosperity.

Rebalancing our economy will take at least ten years, but a start has been made.

It was good to hear the news at conference that Jaguar is investing £335m in a new factory to build low-emission engines in the Midlands creating 750 jobs.

Liberal Democrat Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Chris Huhne told conference that thousands of new jobs are now in the low carbon economy.

Chris Huhne said: "It is our route to recovery. Green business is good business."

We have established the world's first Green Investment Bank with £3bn of public money that is expected to receive £18bn of private capital to invest in new green businesses.

The city council should be looking to tap into this resource by encouraging new green businesses to start up in Gloucester - with maybe a new green business park on the Railway Triangle?

I attended a fringe meeting on High Speed 2, where Norman Baker MP the Under Secretary for Transport also mentioned the government decision to dual the track between Kemble and Swindon, which will speed up train times between Gloucester and London.

As the Liberal Democrat national lead on fire at the Local Government Association, I met representatives of the Electrical Safety Council to discuss counterfeit electrical goods sold over the internet.

Counterfeit goods, such as mobile phone chargers are unsafe and the buyer is unaware of the fire hazard that they bring.

In Gloucester we are also benefiting from government investment the building of two new fire stations for Gloucester that will speed up response times.

The coalition government has also scrapped Parmjit Dhanda's plan for a regional fire control based in Taunton - a project I have long opposed.

Thanks to Liberal Democrats in government our fire control will remain at the TriService Centre in Quedgeley.

We all still await an apology from Parmjit Dhanda, the former Labour Fire Minister, for the £469m he squandered on the failed FireControl project.

As the conference closed I was interviewed live by SKY News to comment on Nick Clegg's superb conference speech. I close this report with a few words Nick said:

"For liberals, the litmus test is always the national interest. Not doing the easy thing. Doing the right thing."