Questionnaire For Local Election Candidates

(1) There are so many changes that need to be made, after the mess this country has been left in, that it's hard to choose just one! We need Britain to be a fairer place, with fair taxes, a fair chance for every child starting out in life, a fair economy with jobs that last, and a fair system for governing ourselves. But judging from comments elsewhere on Wisbech People, there's a lot of frustration that so many constituencies like North East Cambridgeshire are taken for granted as 'safe seats' by one party or the other. The most important change is to shake up the voting system so that that can never happen again and people feel their vote and their opinions matter.

(2) The state pension should be linked to earnings, and uprated each year to the same level as the rise in earnings, the rise in prices, or 2.5% (whichever is the highest). We'd scrap compulsory retirement ages, so people would be able to choose when to stop work.

(3) Too much of our education system is determined by central government and not enough locally. We'd replace Academies with new 'Sponsor Managed Schools', accountable to their local council not to Whitehall, and would allow other appropriate organisations, like charities and parents' groups, to be involved in delivering state-funded education. We'd also enable new faith schools to be established, while making sure their admissions policies were fully inclusive.  Our policy to provide an extra £2.5 billion in total to the schools teaching the million most deprived children in the country would help improve those schools.

(4) The Liberal Democrats held a very lively and informative debate about the Digital Economy Bill at our conference last month. We oppose the very worrying proposals in the Baill (now an Act, of course, as it's been passed, with us opposing) for web-blocking, disconnection, and the very real threat to organisations such as schools, libraries and businesses offering web access to the public. The Bill has too readily put the interests of big corporations above those of consumers and the general public.

Hope that helps.

Lorna Spenceley
(Liberal Democrat)