By Michael Berwick-Gooding and Katharine Pindar
First of all, consistent policies based on our established and unchanging values. We seek a fair, free and open society balancing liberty, equality and community, in which every citizen is valued.
We have an economic vision rooted in our Liberal vision, based on being pro-EU and protecting the environment, emphasising green growth. We should be pro-growth, which requires there to be businesses and wealth creation. We are committed to ending deep poverty and promoting public services and local communities.
We should want
- to change the power structures of our society to make them more liberal
- to raise the standard of living for everyone, promoting growth by government investment in infrastructure and giving the required assistance to SMEs
- a fair deal for immigrants settled in this country, but to stop irregular migration by giving safe and legal routes on the Continent, with the chance to apply for asylum there
- to combat the ill effects of climate change by supporting major home insulation upgrades, the widespread deployment of heat pumps accelerating the transition to electric rather than gas power, with expanded charging infrastructure for electric vehicles
- to end the economic insecurity of too-high energy costs alongside promoting further inland and tidal wind and solar power and reforming the National Grid
- to tackle the housing crisis by building 380,000 new homes per year of which 150,000 should be social homes including council houses, encouraging factory-built modular housing and backing major Council housing developments
- to have an inclusive way of skilling people up including using AI and provide incentives for employers to employ disabled people
- to ensure employees have a stake in the businesses they are employed in.
We should demand
- the correct conditions for growth including everyone having a stake in the country, reduction in inequalities, taxing wealth more and that all government policies have to be assessed to discover their effect on SMEs.
We should assert
- that the government has a role in increasing economic growth by increasing public investment and spending on infrastructure, and in controlling inflation, rather than leaving that to the Bank of England. The Bank of England should have an objective of maintaining economic growth which has the same importance as their inflation objective.
We care about
- the welfare of all our citizens, and want to devolve power closer to all our communities.
Michael Berwick-Gooding has been long-active in British liberal politics as an organiser, councillor and member of the Social Liberal Forum (SLF). A founder member of the Liberal Democrats and serving on various regional and English party bodies for over two decades, he has held roles including Vice-Chair, Chair of a Regional Local Parties Panel and Borough Councillor, as well as Treasurer of a community association. He has a particular interest in developing policy on poverty, skills, housing and unemployment alongside colleagues.
Katharine Pindar has been engaged with the Liberal and Liberal Democrat movements since the early 1960s, first as a Young Liberal and later through long-standing local party involvement and hundreds of published contributions on Liberal Democrat Voice. With experience in communications and party campaigning, she has championed a “new Beveridge Social Contract” to tackle modern social issues such as poverty, health, education, unemployment and homelessness, rooted in the UK’s social liberal tradition.