Below is the text of an Emergency Motion being submitted to Liberal Democrat Spring Conference – to support the motion, please fill in the form below
Emergency motion: kickstarting economic growth
Conference is concerned that the latest published figures show:
- low growth, as confirmed on February 27th 2013;
- negative net bank lending (especially by RBS and Lloyds), as confirmed on March 4th 2013;
- and weak manufacturing confidence as announced on March 4th 2013;
while real incomes are being squeezed for the fourth year in a row, with retail prices rising at 3.3% pa, more than twice as fast as average earnings at 1.4% as announced on February 12th 2013.
While noting positive trends in employment and company start-ups, conference believes our economy continues to suffer in the wake of the disastrous banking crisis from a serious shortage of confidence and domestic demand, and therefore calls on Lib Dem ministers to show unity and resolve not only to reduce the structural deficit in the budget but to take radical action to get growth going again with a bold Plan A+ with these four pillars:
1. Get the builders building.
2. Get the banks lending to business.
3. Prevent a slash and burn approach to public spending.
4. Bring in the mansion tax.
Conference calls for:
a. Loosening the straight jacket preventing public capital investment by government and councils and realising a once in a lifetime opportunity to invest using low interest rates
b. A firm commitment to increase house building by at least 100,000 houses a year by 2015 including at least 50,000 more social homes by freeing councils and housing associations to borrow and build.
c. Urgent action to step up lending to SMEs through the imposition of net lending targets on semi state owned banks as in the Coalition Agreement, including consideration of whether it is necessary to split them in to good and bad banks, and further development of the Business Bank and Green Investment Bank.
d. Resisting pressures to agree to curbs on public spending beyond the lifetime of this parliament when this Coalition Government will be over
e. Shifting the tax burden from hard earned income to wealth with a Mansion Tax of 1% a year on a property’s excess value over £2m to help lift the income tax threshold to £10,000
I support Prateek Buch’s emergency motion.
Carry on the cause, it’s so important we provide a real alternative to the Tories and Labour at the next general election.
I support the Kickstarting the economic growth motion.
I agree that this is an important motion to support
I support the Emergency Motion on “Kickstarting Economic Growth”
I would like to support this motion. I am a voting Conference Rep. and my details are:
Name: Steve Comer
Local Party: City of Bristol
Membership no: 3697282
The motion is a very modest response to a developing disaster situation in the UK economy, it is an emergency because new data shows the Government is NOT succeeding in getting growth or getting the banks (we own) to lend.
Vince Cable’s arguments for Kickstarting economic growth have been well state in his New Statesman essay. I support this emergency motion.