The decision that the Isle of Wight will elect two MPs from the next General Election has been welcomed by Island Liberal Democrats, following a non-politically led campaign with supporters drawn from across the poiltical parties.
Local MP Tim Farron is celebrating along with campaigners across the South Lakes after the government announced they will halt plans to privatise the remaining public forests.
The Welfare Reform Bill represents the most radical overhaul of the benefits system in a generation. Its focus is on helping people into work.
The rigorous, ongoing process of stripping out waste and finding every possible efficiency saving across all parts of the Council and its activities is certainly a major task. However, I only have to consider for a moment what we have to lose if we don't succeed in continuing to find the vast savings required to remind me how important it is. Once vital services are lost, it is hard to see them coming back. To take just one example of a key service which I am simply not prepared for us to lose in Bedford Borough our libraries, for instance, are fantastic community facilities which must be protected.
North West Liberal Democrat European MP Chris Davies is setting up a group of European MPs to push for change to the regulations governing fishing in the European Union. The majority of our fishing grounds are not sustainable and unless action is taken fishing stocks could be severely decimated in the future.
The LGBT Liberal Democrats today warmly welcomed the announcement by Lynne Featherstone, Liberal Democrat Home Office minister, that the government is consulting on equal marriage for all. Full marriage equality is an official policy of the Liberal Democrat party and an area which the LGBT group has long campaigned for.