Not strictly a Powerpoint presentation, but notes for a speech made to Liberal Democrats at Autumn 2010 Conference in Liverpool proposing motion "Ensuring Fairness in a time of austerity". Corrected against delivery.

1. Ensuring Fairness in a Time of
Austerity
Speech delivered at Liverpool
Conference 2010

2. Fellow Liberal Democrats
• We have been, to put it mildly, living in interesting political times.
• And one of the things that is most interesting about those times, is
the size of the opportunity that we have – as members of a
democratic party of government – to influence those times.
• It’s exciting. It’s challenging. It’s occasionally a bit disconcerting..
• But the next five years are, by far, the biggest opportunity of our
political lives to date to see Liberal Democrat ideas implemented.
• To see our commitment to freedom. To fairness. To the
environment. Implemented. Making a difference to the lives of
people in this country.
• But it’s been an up and down journey.
• Mid-May wasn’t the best time of my life, but I can still remember
the sense of delight when I read the coalition agreement for the
first time. When I saw how many of the things I’d fought the
General Election on were now in the programme for Government.

3. But it hasn’t all been easy
• But one of the more difficult lesson we’ve had
since then is that not everything is covered in the
coalition agreement
• Some of the decisions outside the agreement
have felt decidedly uncomfortable.
• And they won’t necessarily be the last ones.
Decisions will have to be taken, budgets written,
cuts made, that unavoidably lie outside what was
agreed in early May.
• And this motion is a response to that.

4. At the heart of it lies the idea that the deficit is
not the only challenge that the country faces
• We fought the election on the basis that we were
facing not just a:
– Financial crisis
but an
– Environmental crisis
– Political crisis
– And a crisis of social justice and inequality
• Our ministerial team is doing great work across all
these areas, but this motion unambiguously seeks to
strengthen our commitment to tackling the evils of
poverty, social injustice and inequality
• Hard to do at the best of times. But even harder in a
time of austerity.

5. Tackling social justice
• Because we’ve seen huge increases in youth
unemployment and the risk of a ‘lost generation’, it puts
forward a commitment for investment in training and
education – and reforming higher education funding.
• Because we have a housing, environmental and
employment crisis, it reinforces our commitment to green
affordable housing
• Because our financial system has proved itself not fit for
purpose, it encourages the establishment of credit unions,
mutuals and regional stock exchanges to support small
business – and reinforces Vince’s plans to reform the banks
• And because of the continuing evil of child poverty, it
deliberately puts it front and centre of our policy priorities
for this Government.

6. Office of Budget Responsibility
• But it also seeks to build on the experience of the first few months,
on the way we’ve sometimes seen the Government’s claims to
fairness and social justice challenged – and to the shared
Conservative and Liberal Democrat commitment to openness and
transparency.
• The Conservatives deserve credit for the idea of the Office of
Budget Responsibility. Particularly after years of claims from Labour
and Gordon Brown that just didn’t stack up
• But not everything about the idea has been perfect and we seek to
build on that idea. Give it, if you will, a Liberal Democrat twist, and
to extend its remit to look at the socio-economic impact of Treasury
policy – not just the effect on the deficit.
• Not just statistics. But people. The effect on women and on men.
On old and on young. On able-bodied people and disabled people.
• This is a critical commitment. We face hugely difficult times. It’s
vital that the people with the broadest shoulders take the heaviest
load. This proposed change puts that commitment under the
greatest scrutiny and at the heart of Government policy.

7. Wealth
• But no policy programme that is serious about social justice can fail
to look at inequalities and taxation of wealth.
• We still live in a country where the richest 20% own nearly 2/3rds
of the country’s wealth. And the poorest half have only 9%.
• Wealth taxation isn’t just right. It’s responsible. A recent OECD
report made clear that wealth taxes are the least harmful to growth
compared to all other ways of raising money.
• But introducing them is now always straightforward. The transitions
can be difficult – particularly on property and land taxation.
• But if we’re thinking differently. Thinking for the next election.
Thinking what we can achieve before the next election. We need to
start now – and this motion calls upon our ministers to get the work
done to get the cool, dispassionate look at taxation on wealth –
instead of other taxes – as a way of closing the deficit and paying
for our public services.

8. Close
• Not all of this motion will be loved by our coalition partners.
Although they have shown quite a capability an ability to
surprise us.
• But we’re deliberately putting forward measures that put our
commitment to social justice firmly on the table in our
discussions with our coalition partners.
• We want to add a new frisson to the relationship. To strengthen
our ministers hands. Ensure that there is creative tension, not
just consensus and compromise
• But most of all, we want it to be that when people look back on
the 2010 coalition Government, they don’t just say that it fixed
the deficit, fixed the political system and made huge progress in
greening our economy and our society,. But that the 2010
coalition Government became a Government that made a real
difference. A big difference. In tackling the evils of poverty and
social injustice. And becomes a Government that we can all say
we were proud to support and be part of.