Scott Collins

The Liberal Democrats have tabled a motion promoting the 10:10 campaign.

Simon Hughes MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary and Martin Horwood, Liberal Democrat Shadow Environment Minister will be opening and winding up the debate for our party. I shall be present and vote with enthusiasm to support this important motion.

Liberal Democrats understand that the next few weeks and months are of vital importance in our efforts to tackle climate change.

In December world leaders will meet in Copenhagen to seek a global agreement to address the worsening climate crisis. To secure a deal, Britain and the developed world need to accept their historic responsibility for the industrial emissions which are causing runaway climate change. And take action.

Liberal Democrats want to commit Parliament to sign up to the 10:10 campaign and want the government and public sector to achieve a 10% reduction in carbon emissions by the end of 2010.

Now is the time for action on climate change, not just more warm words. The UK government and parliament has a chance on Wednesday to take a leadership role and send a powerful signal around the globe of its commitment to address the climate crisis.

The Labour party has had twelve years in government and failed for too long to take the serious action needed to prevent the climate crisis. The Conservatives have claimed to be an environmental party but policies to deal urgently with these issues seemed to have dropped a long way down their agenda. This Wednesday is the chance for the two other main parties to match their actions and their votes to their words.

Liberal Democrat Councillors tonight elected Brian Hoare (Lib Dem, Abington) to succeed Tony Woods (Lib Dem, St David) in the Guildhall’s top job.

Brian’s elevation from Deputy Leader saw Paul Varnsverry (Lib Dem, West Hunsbury) elected in his stead as Deputy Leader.

Cllr. Hoare will now formally be elected by the Borough’s 47 Councillors at their next meeting on Monday 26th October. Cllr. Varnsverry will also be formally noted.

Changes to Cabinet posts, committee positions and Council appointments to outside bodies will also be confirmed at the meeting.

Liberal Democrat, Dave Hodgson, has been elected as the Mayor of Bedford Borough.

Scott Collins, Parliamentary Candidate for South Northamptonshire, sent and the constituency’s congratulations to Dave and his team stating” This was a hard fought but well deserved campaign and proves that the Tory resurgence is not real and has been found wanting in Bedford”

Commenting Scott said “Bedford Party can be truly proud of their efforts and have again in Dave Hodgson shown that the Liberal Democrats are the peoples choice when it comes to straight talking, honest and trustworthy government. This also dispels any myth that the Tory Party are automatically the next Government in waiting.”

This election which received visits from David Cameron and other Tory MP’s has shown that the public are no longer swayed by the much hyped Cameron Effect which they think will steer them to Government next year, The voters are seeming though their sham speeches written for soundbites not progress and policies written for press not people”.

The result, following the re-allocation of second preference votes, was as follows:

Dave Hodgson (Lib Dem) 13555

Parvez Akhtar (Con) 11543

In his acceptance speech, Dave Hodgson paid tribute to Frank Branston, whose sudden death in August caused the by-election. He pledged to work to make Bedford a great place to live, work and do business.

In response to Northamptonshire County Council leader Cllr Jim Harker’s recent announcement of ‘new’ “internal spending restrictions” official opposition leader Cllr Brendan Glynane, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Opposition on the County Council said:

“The Conservatives only have themselves to blame. Liberal Democrat County Councillors warned that the Conservative budget was unsustainable six months ago.”

“This comes after the Conservatives announced a huge increase in borrowing - up from £427 million to £629 million - a debt of £2400 for every family in Northamptonshire.”

“Add to that the £32 million Carillion contract that went bad; on which we are still waiting for the Conservative administration to explain why they failed to apply due diligence when implementing the contract.”

“Finally, so far, there is the fiasco of the aborted sale of surplus school sites sales in Northampton. Now the Conservatives are holding a ‘fire sale’ to offload these sites individually at knock down prices due to the property price-crash. We warned that the planned sale of the sites to one bidder was doomed to fail.”

“The Conservative administration is locked into a pattern of financial incompetence. This latest budget crisis just serves as further confirmation of that.”

Scott Collins commenting on the news said “This is just another example of the Tory administration failure to manage the finances of the County Council. This from a party that spent months extolling the virtues of financial stability, the truth is now being laid bare on a daily basis to the cost of every tax payer and service user.”

“Following George Osbourne’s comments recently on learning from Tory Councils, we can only expect dark days of financial failure under a Tory Government if they learn from Northamptonshire County Councils administration”

The Conservative shadow chancellors comment that a Conservative Government must learn from the way Conservative’s run the councils they control will surely raise a smile across Northamptonshire amongst the elderly, the vulnerable, the disabled and the young alike.

Scott Collins, Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate in next year’s General election said “This has to be a joke. Since the Conservatives took control of the Counties services there has barely been an area that has not failed, been slashed or just plain removed”

“For the man who wants to manage the countries finances to think that Government can learn lesson from Conservative Councils is a shocking statement and must herald an era of cuts in support for the most vulnerable, a reduction in investing in new services, massive financial mismanagement and debt and not surprisingly another era of spin and denials”

“This is the way the Conservatives have run Northamptonshire County Council. I am sure the exposure of the £268 Million of debt already accrued by this administration is surely only a sign of the slash and burn budget we can expect from the newly elected cohort of Conservative councilors. We all know how deep they cut in their first post election budget in 2006.”

The comment made to a Conservative Seminar in London surely highlights the Conservative mindset of cuts, cuts and more cuts.

Commenting further Scott said “Only the Liberal Democrats have the policies to make a real difference to the economy, education, employment and people’s lives in Britain . A careful future of support and the removal of government waste and mismanagement compared with the Conservative mantra of blindly cutting services to fit the budget regardless of the outcome or affect on peoples lives”

As many as 1 rural primary school a month is closing due to a dramatic fall in school rolls. This is the finding of reseach carried out be the National Housing Federation which represents social landlords and housing associstions and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.

The information released under a freedom of information reuest has shown the true scale of the issues facing rural areas. With ana average of 13 schools closing every year.

They predict a further 200 schools could close by 2014 due to thew escalating problems of school rolls falling as families are priced out of rural comunities.

The problem which is driven by a lack of affordable housing for young local families to maintain the balance within villages.

Scott commented “The Emergent Joint Core Strategy’s forced growth agenda will be yet another cause of the decline of rural villages.

The drive towards huge levels of growth in Northampton, Daventry, Towcester and to a lesser degree Brackley will only deprive rural areas of the much needed affordable housing projects.

This will all lead to further falling roles and the loss of essential facilities from Post Offices to Pubs and the closure of schools.”

Scott Collins, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for South Northamptonshire , has backed a call by Tim Farron MP for fair trade for British farmer’s.

The call comes as farmers see further falls in farm gate prices whilst retail prices have remained static. During a recent speech to the Liberal Democrat Conference in Bournemouth Tim Farron MP said “Supermarket greed is forcing farmers out of business. So whilst world food demand is set to double over the next 40 years we are losing the capacity to produce it. This situation is not just immoral, it’s completely stupid.”

He went on to say “”We have the tragic irony of millions of consumers going to the supermarket each week, going down one aisle and buying fair trade Columbian coffee …and then going down the next aisle and buying the milk to put in that fair trade coffee from an exploited British dairy farmer”.

Speaking after the speech Scott Collins said “The idea that supermarkets can continue to exploit British farmers whilst reaping the profits is just not sustainable or moral. We need to look again at how farmers and producers are treated by supermarkets. Driving down farm gate prices is damaging our ability as a country to produce food. If we are truly to move to a more environmentally sustainable economy then we need to promote local produce and cut down the amount of food shipped in from abroad. All the time we allow farmers and producers to be driven out of business by large supermarket chains we become more dependant on foreign imports”.

Tim Farrons speech to the Bournemouth Conference is available at http://www.libdems.org.uk/news_detail.aspx?title=Speech%3a_Tim_Farron_speaks_about_rural_Britain_at_Liberal_Democrat_Conference&pPK=4fc37f4d-83bf-4736-832d-6c19702aef3d

His speech also includes pledges on second homes and Post Offices.