Is it right that governments can be formed by a political party with three out of five voters preferring its opponents ? That’s exactly what happened, for example, in 1974 when Labour won an absolute parliamentary majority with less than forty per cent of the vote.

Our outdated "first past the post" voting system consistently produces governments that are supported by only a minority of voters.  No wonder people feel that their votes don’t count. It must be time for us to have a fair proportional voting system, as already exists in the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.

At the last general election here’s how many votes it took to elect an MP:

Labour 27,000
Conservative 44,000
Liberal Democrat 96,000

This is why on May 5th it is perfectly possible for Labour to win more council seats than any other party and still be the biggest group on Salford City Council, in spite of its unpopularity.

Out of almost 200 worldwide countries, only around 40 use our "first past the post" voting system. Most of them being our former colonies.

Critics of proportional representation never point to the success and stability of countries like Germany, Finland, Sweden, Austria, New Zealand  and so many others who use a fair voting method and which operate on cooperation and consensus among politicians.

That’s why I’m voting Yes! to AV on Thursday 5th May.

New research reveals that many voters think that the Lib Dems joining the Coalition Government showed that the party was “prepared to take real responsibility, not just oppose from the sidelines.”

And 64 per cent of voters who considered voting Lib Dem, but actually decided not to, think that the party is “making an important contribution to the government of Britain”

The detailed private research was commissioned by political enthusiast and lifelong Conservative Lord Ashcroft, former treasurer of the party, who poured huge sums into the Tory general election campaign, so his personal comments are particularly interesting.

He writes: ” Before May, the Lib Dems were held back by two common views: that they were a wasted vote because they would never win, and that although they seemed terribly nice people their policies probably didn’t really add up.  The party’s presence in government therefore offers at least the chance to overcome both of these barriers.

“At the same time, it could retain its two biggest strengths: the reputation of Lib Dem MPs as local champions, and the perception that they seemed more reasonable, and less inclined to indulge in partisan sniping, than the other two parties.”

Lord Ashcroft says that his research aimed to look deeply into the opportunities and threats facing the Liberal Democrats now in coalition. It also found that a “large bloc” of people voted for the party on the basis of local issues or candidates.

Greater Manchester Police has issued a warning to smartphone and iPhone users to keep their expensive gadgets and mobile phones safe after a theft earlier this month at the Langworthy metrolink stop.

A thief snatched an iPhone at about 2.30pm on Friday 4 March 2011 from a 27-year-old woman who was travelling towards Eccles on the Metrolink.

She was flicking through applications on the phone when the tram stopped at the Langworthy Road stop on Eccles New Road and a stranger snatched the phone from her and ran out of the tram.

The victim and another passenger chased the offender.

There is no clear description of the offender and it is not known whether the person responsible is a man or a woman. The person was wearing a grey hooded top.

Police Constable Mark Gingell said: "The offender may have thought he or she could get away with this but we are now actively pursuing this person.

"We are appealing to anyone who was on this tram and who might be able to paint a better picture of the offender. The descriptions we have are scant because the incident took place so quickly.

"The more witnesses we get the better the chance we have of tracing the person responsible."

Anyone with any information is asked to call police on 0161 856 5250 or call the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Following Salford Council’s budget and their announcement that school crossing patrol numbers are at risk I note that Liberal Democrat-controlled Sefton Council (just down the East Lancs Road) has voted in it’s own budget to reduce Councillor allowances by 5%.

This measure (suggested by both opposition parties on Salford Council and rejected by Labour) has saved all of Sefton’s “lollipop services”.

Sefton Councillors now receive £8,520 which also includes a fixed amount for travelling expenses. Compare that to Salford Council’s £10,080 standard allowance plus travel expenses can be claimed on top of that.

All councils throughout the country are getting less taxpayers government grant money to pay for running their services because Britain is hugely in debt and they are having to make big savings. The previous government spent money that it simply didn’t have.  Instead, it borrowed.

Our “national credit card” debt is now equal to £22,400 for every person living in our country. We are in hock to others who lend us this money and we cannot go on like this and must reduce this huge national overdraft for us and future generations.  Government has to pay out millions of pounds every day in interest payments.

It’s difficult to realise, as we all go about our daily business, that Britain’s finances are in such a dreadful, perilous state. In fact, worse than any other developed country. That’s how bad things are and they are no different at a local level.

Huge cuts to frontline services have already been made by Labour-controlled Salford Council, with more than 600 job losses – but savings could have been made elsewhere without impacting essential services.

The Liberal Democrat group on Salford Council wanted to help make sensible savings in the budget, but Labour refused to allow local Lib Dems to engage with them, affectively shutting us out from the process. The Conservative Group faced the same shut-out from Labour and they offered a budget of their own they knew would be voted down by the Labour-controlled Council (it was).

If Labour had listened to some of the budget suggestions made by the Liberal Democrats and Tories, we could have had a budget agreed by all local parties that would not have seen frontline services slashed, but expensive and unnecessary projects such as sponsoring the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, commissioning a “world-class” opera and moving two lumps of metal (aka the Quays cranes) a couple of miles up the road.

Labour have their priorities wrong, it’s time to make a change on the council and send Labour a message on May 5th by voting Liberal Democrat and shifting the balance of power away from those that do not deserve it. Cuts to our frontline services in Salford are Labour cuts, don’t let them convince you otherwise.

Liberal Democrat Councillors in Salford were today welcoming the news that due to changes in the national tax system, implemented by Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government, 3,290 of Salford’s poorest residents have been lifted out of the personal income tax band altogether.

A further 91,000 residents will also find themselves better off when the changes are implemented in April this year – paying up to £200 less per year in income tax.

When the coalition was formed the two parties agreed to implement a key Liberal Democrat policy that the personal allowance for income tax should be increased in order to help lower and middle-income earners.

The change is being funded with the money that would have been used to pay for the increase in Employee National Insurance thresholds proposed by the Conservatives, as well as revenues from increases in Capital Gains Tax rates for non-business assets.

After pressure from the Liberal Democrats the two parties also agreed to a longer-term policy objective of further increasing the personal allowance to £10,000, making further real terms steps each year towards this objective. Achieving this would provide much more tax fairness towards the poorest in our society, something Liberal Democrats are committed to.

Speaking about the great news Councillor Norman Owen, Leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Salford Council said,

“This is great news for thousands of Salford’s residents, especially for the 3,290 residents who are being lifted out of the threshold for paying income tax. This will be a really positive bit of news for those people, who are amongst the poorest in our communities, at a time when many are struggling. Liberal Democrats are continuing to push for yearly increases to the allowance until we reach £10,000 as the threshold. This would provide much more tax fairness towards the poorest in our society.”

Residents of Pendleton are celebrating now that the Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition government has approved a PFI scheme for the area which will see it transformed. Over £100m of investment from the government will build over 1,200 new homes as part of the scheme and see a massive refurbishment of 1,200 council homes.

Pendleton is already the home to 13,000 proud and passionate residents and they will benefit from this government-backed large scale regeneration which will return the area back to the once thriving community it used to be. Under PFI the properties will remain in council ownership and tenants will remain as council tenants with all their existing
rights, including right-to-buy.

I welcome the government announcement. Pendleton has been in need of modernisation for far too long and for many years Labour dragged their feet over investment here. The regeneration of Pendleton will create a better choice of
quality houising for new and existing residents. In addition to providing new homes and bringing existing ones up to
the Decent Homes Standard, we will now see a much needed re-modelling of streets and estates.

There has been no real investment in Pendleton in the 34 years since it was built and that’s a sad reflection on Labour’s
dismissive attitude towards the community-spirited people who live here. I’m glad that the government has approved the PFI scheme and I think this is an opportunity to make Pendleton a better place.

Liberal Democrat Councillor for Langworthy Lynn Drake said “People have been frustrated by the lack of investment in Pendleton so I am extremely pleased that the coalition has given the green light to Pendleton PFI. I’m particularly gratified to see that social and private housing will be developed in a way that means there is no obvious visual distinction between them.”

Lynn added “Pendleton has a great community but the estate does need redesigning to help reduce crime. I think most residents will welcome the proposals.”

Local Liberal Democrat Councillor Lynn Drake has been asking Salford Council officers if they can shed any light on the future of Seedley Primary School. So far the school, which closed last summer, has not been earmarked for any future
use and local residents are worried that the building will be allowed by the council, to fall into unsafe disrepair, just
like the adjacent council owned shops on Liverpool Street.

Councillor Drake who lives behind the school said “The shops on Liverpool Street partially collapsed in June last year and I’m worried this will happen to the school building if it is not maintained properly.”

Recently, Salford Council published a notice of intention to demolish the old school building, but there’s no indication of when that might happen, how the site will be secured both,during and after demolition and what (if any) plans the Council have beyond that. It’s possible the Council will try and sell the site to a developer, if so, both Councillor Drake and I will be keeping an eye out for any future planning applications.

Langworthy residents were left angry and upset after January’s Community Committee meeting where it was revealed by council officers that it was unlikely there would be enough money left in the budget to pay for much needed car parking and an access road behind the shops on Langworthy Road.

I attended this meeting and raised my concerns about the council’s priorities.

By the time the Langworthy Road shop car parking scheme reached the community committee, it was too late as council officers wanted the money left over in the budget to be spent in Ordsall on some new ‘super crossings’ at the soon-to-bebuilt Oasis Academy.

If the Council can afford to spend nearly £700,000 moving the two blue cranes from the Quays to Regent Road roundabout, I’m sure they can afford to fund the supercrossings themselves and let us spend community funding on the essential car parking and an access road behind the struggling shops on Langworthy Road.

Local Lib Dem ward Councillor Lynn Drake was astonished at the decision.

She said “Shop owners and residents on Langworthy Road were promised the parking 5 years ago as part of the re-generation. It never happened then and looks like it won’t happen now.”

Last summer Langworthy Lib Dem campaigner Steve Middleton and local
Councillor Lynn Drake submitted a 250 name petition to Salford Council in protest over the alarming rise of speeding cars and heavy goods vehicles cutting through side streets across the ward.

Residents of Seedley Park Road, Lower Seedley Road & Seedley Terrace in particular have had to put up with their streets being used as rat runs and short cuts by motorists trying to avoid traffic jams on Langworthy Road and HGVs delivering to the new Willow Tree Primary School and the surrounding house clearance demolition.

Local residents have had enough of late night car crashes on their streets and this petition was the final straw for some. We are glad the council has finally seen sense and approved two schemes to slow down the traffic.

Figures just released by Salford Council show that last year, two events they hosted and paid for “on behalf of the city”, lost almost £400,000 of taxpayer’s money. The Proms in the Park which was held in Buile Hill Park and broadcast live by the BBC lost £199,500 in 2010 and The Ice Rink (which was moved to The Quays last Christmas in a last ditch, desperate attempt to stem the losses of previous years), lost £154,300.

Neither the Proms in the Park nor the Ice Rink has ever made a profit for Salford Council and the cumulative losses for both make difficult reading.

The Proms has now been running for 3 years in Salford (televised twice) and the cumulative losses for 2008-2010 are £486,400 and the Ice Rink’s cumulative losses for 2007-2010 are £470,400.

Each year since the “Pink Rink” first started in 2007 (the Proms event was first held in 2008), Salford Liberal Democrats made it clear to our Labour-controlled Council that we did not believe these events provided value for money for our taxpayers. Each year we were ignored and the losses increased.

Finally, Salford Labour have seen sense and neither event will be held in 2011 but the total losses to date speak for themselves. Almost £1 million pounds lost by the Council on efforts to make Salford look good on the BBC and provide some subsidised ice skating for children.

What could that £1 million pounds have paid for if not frittered away by Salford Labour? Council jobs saved? Charlestown, Irlam & Cadishead Libraries prevented from closing? Stopped the now-planned increase in car parking charges across the city? Paid for full staffing for Salford’s Citizens Advice Bureaux for the next 3 years? No cuts in Graffiti or street cleaning?

The list is endless, that £1 million pounds would have gone a long way to saving essential services instead it was frittered away by a Labour council that has got it’s priorities all wrong and is content to blame the coalition government for everything.

It’s time for a change on Salford Council. In approximately 2 months time we go to the polls again in the local elections and you can rid this city of the wasting, whinging Labour and elect a Liberal Democrat councillor who will work hard for YOU!

Vote Liberal Democrat on May 5th.

Ed Balls, the man who is responsible for Britain’s economic mess, is back in the Labour shadow cabinet. Ed Balls isn’t just a deficit denier; he’s a deficit enthusiast.

It was Ed Balls who decided to let the bankers run riot and it was Ed Balls who ensured that our economy was unable to deal with any economic downturn.
Despite that he still refuses to accept that Labour made any mistakes on the economy. He’s not a deficit denier, he’s a deficit enthusiast.

Ed Balls on banks:

• ‘Nothing should be done to put at risk a light-touch, risk-based regulatory regime’ (Bloomberg Speech, 14 June 2006).
• ‘I believe we are right to avoid prescriptive, heavy-handed regulation in Britain’ (Balls, ibid.).
• ‘In my first speech as City Minister at Bloomberg in London, I argued that London’s success has been based on… light-touch principle-based regulation’ (Speech to The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce and The British Chamber of Commerce, 13 September 2006).
• ‘It is important that the FSA continues to deliver a light-touch and risk-based regulatory approach’ (14 June 2006).
• ‘[The Labour government] will outlaw the imposition of any rules that might endanger the light-touch, risk-based regulatory regime that underpins London’s success.’ (13 September 2006).

But now:

• We should have ignored Tory and City claims that we were being too tough on financial regulation and been much tougher still. (Independent, 24 January 2011)

Yesterday Nick Clegg and Paul Burstow unveiled a new mental health strategy in which more focus will be placed on dealing with mental health problems at an early stage.

The new mental health strategy for England promises an extra £400m for therapies, such as counselling, to increase access to them by 60% by 2015. It also stresses the need for early intervention, to nip in the bud mental health problems in children.

Mental health represents 23% of burden of disease (30% of people that walk through a GP’s door, for example) but only 11% of expenditure. One of the first speeches Nick Clegg made on becoming Liberal Democrat leader was to highlight the state of mental health provision and accuse politicians of “shamefully” turning a blind eye to the scale of mental health problems.

Under Labour the top-down approach has ultimately denied many service users the personalised support they need.

Under measures announced today we will be investing around £400 million in talking therapies over the next four years:

·         an extra 1.2m people able to get treatment for depression and anxiety
·         0.5m more people will recover, many more showing measurable improvement
·         75,000 more people will be able to work, or take part in education, training or volunteering
·         and more than £700m in savings, in healthcare, tax and welfare gains.

Speaking yesterday morning on Daybreak, Nick Clegg said: “Today we are announcing that we are repealing an old-fashioned outdated law which means that MPs at the moment are disqualified from being MPs if they have a mental health problem which goes on for more than six months.

“We are scrapping that – it is a relatively symbolic thing because it has never been used – but it nonetheless shows that we are determined to root out that stigma.”

“Many people think that soldiers coming back from conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan, they have been so brave and so courageous, I think people think ‘Well, surely they are not susceptible to mental health problems’.

“But often, actually, the toughest battle for them is when they have actually come back from the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Paul Burstow youtube video can be seen here with more info available on the Lib Dem website here

Alastair Campbell blog: More Power to Clegg on Mental Health Agenda
Guardian: Children to be offered talking therapies
Sun: Sun wins £7m for Our Boys

Read More

The government are implementing a key Liberal Democrat manifesto pledge and changing the tax system to make it fairer, by lifting the poorest workers out of Income Tax altogether and cutting taxes for most people.

This April 880,000 workers will stop paying Income Tax when the lower threshold is raised from £6,475 to 7,475.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says the tax changes will mean the richest tenth will lose around 3% more of their income and that the main winners from the 2011 tax changes will be lone parents who are not working, and low-to-middle income households.

The IFS report concluded that:

·         The main winners from the 2011 tax changes will be lone parents who are not working, and low-to-middle income households

·         For example a family with two children and one person earning £20k will be £530 better off

·         Those earning up to about £42.5k a year (including tax credit) will also be better off owing to the changes being introduced in April

·         The biggest losers are the very richest households owing to restrictions on the amount that can be contributed to a private pension. They have also been affected by the 50% income tax rate on earnings above £150,000 and withdrawal of the income tax personal allowance above £100,000

While Salford City Council started to publish a breakdown of their expenditure (more on this later), as per the coalition’s new initiative on transparent government, a council house rent rise three times the rate of inflation went largely un-noticed.

Salix Homes tenants will be faced with rent rises of around £4 per week, which may not sound much – but if you are a minimum wage worker or struggling to survive on benefits, it’s a significant rise.

The rent rise is doubly annoying when you look at how Salford Council spends your money – they bleat about government cuts, but the shear amount of wastage on ice rinks, proms in the park, sponsoring the BBC Philharmonic, management and consultancy fees has ended up costing the poorest people in our city a collosal amount in rent rises.

Perhaps then, it would be no surprise to learn that Salford Council spends more on management fees to Salix Homes (£12.3m) than it does on repairs of council homes managed by Salix (£11.6m). This, perhaps, explains why Salford Council predicts that by next year 60% of it’s council homes will not meet the Decent Homes Standard. According to the Government, ‘A decent home is one which is wind and weather tight, warm and has modern facilities.’  That’s around 5,500 homes that will not meet these basic of standards.

Our Labour-led Salford Council has it’s priorities wrong and nothing I have seen in 2011 is leading me to believe they are likely to change their ways. Times are tough and the council should not be wasting our money on frivolous projects (such as spending £750,000 moving 2 blue cranes up the road) and all the others I mentioned above.

It’s time for a change on Salford City Council.

I’ve always stood up for free, fair and unbiased reporting as I believe it’s one of the things that makes this country great. To stand up and speak the truth is, I think, a universal right. The Egyptian people are struggling with this same problem as we speak, their media’s right to free speech was quashed yesterday when the popular news network Al Jazeera was banned from broadcast.

So it with disdain that I read in our local paper, The Salford Advertiser, the week before last about how the Langworthy ward contained the most benefit claimants compared to the rest of Salford. Whilst this snippet of information is true, the article written by Salford Advertiser reporter Denise Evans was slanted (along with unhelpful comments from Langworthy Labour ward Councillor John Warmisham) to suggest that because Langworthy had the highest number of benefit claimants, they therefore must all be benefit cheats.

The Langworthy article was poorly constructed to sensationalise a statistic that exists purely because of the geographical and diverse community that we have in Langworthy, compared to say Worsley and Boothstown (which the article helpfully points out has the lowest benefit claimants).

My letter, which was published in last week’s Salford Advertiser readers viewpoints page, addressed some of the problems with the assumptions in the original article and I won’t repeat those words here.

Manchester Evening News

It was doubly disappointing to therefore read a Manchester Evening News article written by respected MEN reporter Pamela Welsh (see here), which is basically a government-bashing piece that shows the MEN is decidedly biased in it’s reporting.

To openly support an anti-government petition is surely beyond the remit of The Manchester Evening News – this goes beyond mere news reporting and comment; it is making the news itself.

Pamela Welsh and The Manchester Evening News should withdraw “support” for this petition and merely report on it. If they do not, I cannot take anything they write as the truth, but merely the opinion of an anti-community and anti-government mouthpiece.

Salford and Manchester’s free and fair local paper has died. RIP.

Back in November I wrote here about the cancellation of funding from the NWDA for phase II of the Quays Gateway Masterplan, which involved moving the old and disused Quays Cargo Cranes to the M602 roundabout and the construction of three key ‘supercrossings’ that would be built across Trafford Road directly in front of the new Oasis Academy at MediaCity:UK.

When the Manchester Evening News suggested that the whole plan had been scrapped, suddenly Salford Council came to the rescue and claimed the MEN had it all wrong (even forcing the paper to print a retraction and withdraw online versions of the articles) and that the Cranes had been saved after all. Salford Council generously offered to fund the continuation of phase II of the Quays Gateway Plan – minus the Trafford Road supercrossings.

A despicable plan has been hatched, and it would seem this plan was in motion as far back as November of last year when Ordsall & Langworthy Neighbourhood Officer Ross Spanner suggested that the community committee would have to consider funding the supercrossings from it’s road safety budget, following the withdrawal of funding from the NWDA.

So, in exactly 7 days time on January 11th (6.45pm), the Ordsall & Langworthy Committee will be asked to exhaust it’s road safety budget to pay for three supercrossings that Oasis Academy should have been forced to build as part of their planning application.

Further, if Salford Council can afford to fund the moving of 2 lumps of old, rusting metal to “pretty up” a roundabout but cannot fund essential life-saving supercrossings that would protect our children – they they have their sums wrong (at the very least their priorities).

I’m asking every resident of Langworthy if they think this is right. Please do your best to attend next week’s community committee meeting and send the council a message that we will not be manipulated in this way.

There are far too many road safety schemes that need the community committee’s attention to be exhausting our budget on a scheme that should have been paid for by Oasis Academy and could be paid for by Salford Council.

What do you think? Cranes or Crossings?

Blogging has been thin on the ground these last few months (a new year’s resolution may be in order to rectify that), but it seems that a new year has not brought a ‘new’ Labour. In fact, quite the opposite.

Nationally, we see Labour claiming the VAT rise is “the wrong tax at the wrong time” – and while I’m no fan of the VAT rise, I do remember Alistair Darling publicly discussing the need to bring in a rise of 19%. Just what would Labour have done if they’d won the election (or, god forbid participated in a coalition)? We’ll never know, Labour’s blank page is still waiting for a drop of ink.

Locally, Salford’s Labour are no better. The end of the year saw disaster after disaster: Salford Childrens Services being rated poor (the lowest possible rating), the previously excellent Adult Care suffered badly under the new stewardship of Langworthy Councillor John Warmisham and a dodgy land deal was done with Tesco.

The £4m under-the-counter “deposit” by Tesco as part-payment for land in Pendleton adjacent to the Precinct could be tantamount to a bribe, but to subsequently discover the land itself has probably been undervalued by possibly a further £10m suggests a return to the sinister and backhanded corruption that I personally always thought was the writings of  TV fiction.

I’ve submitted a Freedom of Information Request to attempt to find out which officers knew about the £4m payment and, if it’s even suggested anyone on the planning panel knew about this, I intend to report this whole sorry saga to the Council’s Standards Board.

Don’t for a minute think I am against the new Tesco at Pendleton, I’m not. But I am against council corruption.

This year, I’ll be standing as the Liberal Democrat candidate in May’s Salford Local Elections – where it’ll be my intention to route out corruption like this and expose the guilty. With more opposition councillors on the council, I’ll have more chance to reduce Labour’s waste and ensure we return our Adult Care & Childrens Services to the effective departments they have the potential to be.

I’ve just finished reading the latest Ofsted report on Salford’s Childrens Services and it doesn’t make pleasant reading. Regular viewers of my blog (or even those willing to try a casual search here for either ofsted or childrens services), will know that I’ve written often about this subject, none of it flattering to Salford Council.

As the last few years have gone by, Salfords Childrens Services has fallen from good, to adequate, inadequate and now poor (the lowest possible rating). We are at rock-bottom. Whilst it’s not all doom and gloom in the Ofsted report (for example it points out that the majority of our secondary schools are good or better at helping young people develop the knowledge and skills necessary to gain a job, that achievement of three to five year-olds has been above the average[s] for similar areas, the large majority of schools have good or better behaviour and more children and young people taking part in physical activities and sport), the ‘poor’ areas make difficult reading.

The Manchester Evening News reports that this year’s rating is worse than 2009, when it was rated ‘adequate’. But in fact, my blog readers may remember in June I wrote here about a scathing report from Ofsted which branded safeguarding services ‘inadequate’ for the second time in four years. This time, Inspectors said the council had still not taken ‘sufficiently robust action’ to improve its safeguarding services.  Safeguarding services monitor and provide support for children living in the community and deemed to be at risk from neglect or abuse.

In the June report, Ofsted found child-protection concerns were not properly identified or responded to quickly ‘leaving some children at potential risk’.  Caseloads of some social workers in the court and child protection team were too high.

And, as the Evening News reports, since August the department has been subject to a notice ordering it to improve – the government says it could take over running the department if there isn’t significant improvement by next month. I urged the government to step in and take control in my last blog post in June and today I repeat that call again.

Salford Council have had enough time to improve and have failed to do so.

So much has been written about Tuition Fees of late, it’s not surprising this bit of good news for pensioners hasn’t made it to any mainstream media. The state pension will rise for single people from next April, it was announced today.

Liberal Democrat Pensions Minister Steve Webb said the pension for a single person will rise by £4.50 to £102.15 a week.

Single people on the pensions credit would receive an above-earnings increase to their minimum guarantee of £4.75 to take their weekly income to £137.35.

For couples, the increase on their minimum guarantee would be £7.30, taking their new total to £209.70 a week, Steve Webb said in a Commons statement.

Steve Webb said the Government believed it was “right” to move to the consumer price index (CPI) for uprating additional state pensions, public and private pensions and social security benefits.

But he conceded: “I do acknowledge that over the long-term the CPI tends to rise more slowly than the RPI but the question of course is not which is the higher or lower number, it is which is the most appropriate way to track and measure the changes in average prices.

Mr Webb had earlier told MPs: “At a time when the nations’ finances are under severe pressure, this Government will be spending an extra £4.3 billion in 2011/12 to ensure that people are protected against cost of living increases.”

Dear Steve,

Today’s vote on Higher Education funding was one of the hardest things we have had to do in politics. I know that there are strong and passionately held views on all sides of the debate, which I very much respect.

And of course I understand why many in our party wish we could have pursued a different policy. I wish that too; but we simply were not in that position, we did not win the General Election but went into a coalition and had to tackle the greatest economic crisis in decades.

Within those constraints, Vince Cable and his team have put together a highly progressive package. We are ending the upfront fees for part-time students, increasing the repayment threshold from £15,000 to £21,000 – lowering every graduate’s monthly repayments, guaranteeing that poorer graduates pay less than they currently do and richer graduates more. Added to those progressive changes, a national scholarship fund has been setup to give further support to students from the poorest backgrounds as part of our fairness premium.

Taking all things into consideration, this is a package which is fairer than the existing situation, fairer than Lord Browne’s original review, fairer than the NUS proposals and fairer than the policies that both Labour and the Conservatives would have implemented had they been in government alone. And at the same time we are delivering on our front page manifesto commitment for a fully funded pupil premium – which will act as a huge driver of social mobility. That is something we can all take pride in.

Best Wishes

Nick Clegg MP
Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister