The concept of elected Police and Crime Commissioners(PCC) was created in 2011 with the idea of generating greater accountability for regional police forces in relation to budgets and performance targets.

The first PCC elections were held in a stand-alone manner with three and a half year terms. The second round of elections in May 2015 will be for a fuller 4 year term, and scheduled to occur on the same day as regional elections, suggesting at least a partial increase in turn-out.

The poor turn-out for the PCC elections in the November 2012, averaging 15% nationally leave a serious democratic deficit whilst the 5k pound deposit and 100 names on a nomination form further restrict the ability of candidates outside of the establishment to participate.

The Liberal Party continues to opposite the elected role and the associated election as simple politicisation, whilst adding another level of bureaucracy.

Perhaps the only redeeming feature of the election was the fact that almost a third of the successful candidates were Independents, ensuring that the election wasn’t a simple carve up between the two dominate parties in Westminster.

PCCs have indeed had a tough induction, with steep and unprecedented cuts to Police budget, for which they should be given credit for navigating, but the concept of the PCC falls short of public expectations.

The PCCs accountability only extended to Police targets and budgeting, and they do not have any powers over operational or disciplinary issues, which remain beyond public scrutiny.

The PCC has the power to dismiss the Chief Constable, of which at least two have done so, but no further down the chain of command. Of course we don’t wish to introduce an element of political interference into the Police forces, but issues of public accountability continue to surface.

Nationally there remains no obvious supervision of regional Police forces from central Government, and we continue to see the sorry spectacle of police forces investigating police forces over the most serious issues.

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary for England and Wales (HMIC) exists only to assess and report on the efficiency and effectiveness of police forces in England and Wales.

The issue of the PCCs mandate therefore warrant critical scrutiny. Is the term Commissioner even valid without an expansion of the role?

Although the role meets the Liberal aim of ‘local’ accountability, it does so only for a limit set of functions, ie budget and performance, and not operational accountability.

One suggestion has been that the three emergency services should be covered by a single ‘Emergency Services’ Commissioner.
Although fire services share with police forces a county affiliation, the national ambulance service is run on a regional basis. In the Thames Valley, the South-east ambulance service covers Berkshire, Bucks and Oxfordshire, but also Hants which has a separate PCC.

The functions and responsibilities of the three emergency services are fundamentally different, and only the Police and fire service have any affiliation by any stretch of the imagination. As the nature and culture of these three services is also very different, it is hard to see where any commonality could be found.

Unified call centres for the emergency services obviously exists, but it is unclear how much further integration there could be. Would we wish to merge the role of Police call handler with Ambulance dispatchers?

The inclusion of fire services in the PCC responsibilities offers the only plausible route to a wider public role, but with the proviso that any such move in this direction needs to be carefully managed to ensure the minimum disruption to front line services

Councillor Charles Shaw, Chair of The Liberal Party NEC is currently visiting Hungary and Black Sea countries in his roles as chairperson of The Centre for Reconciliation and of The Youth Development Association in order to broker better relations through youth and community organisations and take stock of the situation there during the war in Ukraine.

There are many British Ex-Pats in the black sea nations who will want to contribute in helping with refugees needs at this time he said.

On behalf of The Liberal Party, I have reached out to contacts in the Russian, Ukrainian Greek Orthodox communities here in Liverpool.
 
I have had feedback that as well as real anxiety about relatives in Ukraine, Russian relatives drafted into the army, families are nervous they may be at the end of anti-Russian sentiment.
 
There is significant opposition to the war across all Orthodox communities in the city.
 
Cllr Steve Radford
Leader of the Liberal Party

The Liberal Party welcomes the announcement of an Environment Agency investigation into potential illegal activities at a number of sites jointly run by Walleys Quarry Limited and Red Industries Limited most importantly at Cemetery Road, Silverdale, Newcastle under Lyme.

Potentially damaging omission’s, particularly hydrogen sulphide, have blighted local communities in the area and potentially affected the health and wellbeing of residents and their families.

We believe that statuary bodies such as the Environment Agency should act in the interests of both local resident and businesses to ensure that the burying and disposal of waste does not create a long-term hazard.

They must also act to protect communities and the environment in a pro-active manner, seeking to identify and manage such issues in a proactive way without the need for public pressure to take notice and act.

The Liberal Party welcomes the start of the public enquiry into the Post Office scandal which saw over 700 sub-post masters and mistresses wrongly convicted of fraud, theft and false accounting.

The treatment of these people represents the most blatant miss-carriage of justice imaginable, aggravated by the disclosures that flaws in the Horizon system were known to both the supplier and Post Office management.

The party supports the payment of compensation to those wrongly convicted but believe that taxpayers should not be expected to shoulder the entire cost now estimated to run to potentially hundreds of millions of pounds.

We believe that that both Fujitsu, the chief contractor of the Horizon project as well as senior Post Office management who received bonuses during this time should contribute to the payments and should face further legal scrutiny.

The first addition of Liberal News for 2022 is now available from the party website.

It can be accessed via the Liberal library section.

Happy reading.

The Liberal Party has watched with concern at this week’s expansion of the national cost of living crisis with increases to the energy price cap and the unwelcome increase in inflation towards a potential peak of 7% this spring.
 
Whilst we welcome the announcements of government assistance for hard pressed consumers by way of a rebates on energy bill and the council tax, these neither cover the expected rise in energy prices, approaching £700 a year, nor the impact on household budgets by increases in taxation and NI.
 
We believe that the £20 pound a week reduction in Universal Credit should be reversed as it targets the most vulnerable families most effectively as does removing VAT on energy bills as this disproportionally affects low-income families.
 
We support the creation of the Council Tax Covid-19 hardship fund for councils but believe that utility industry regulators should be working to ensure that prices to households are fair and that reduction in costs are passed onto the consumer as readily as price increases.
 
We remain committed to a policy to lift tax thresholds on the low paid, which includes pensioners, which helps with real earnings but also increases incentives for people to enter the workforce thus increasing the supply of labour another source of inflationary pressure.

The Liberal Party notes with great sadness the news on the 22nd January that a 16-year-old youth has lost their life in Manchester after a fatal knifing incident. It is reported that the 4 teenagers arrested after the incident were all aged between just 15 and 17 years old.

Knife crime amongst the nations young people has extracted a tragic cost, with London alone recording 30 deaths in 2021, the highest total since 2008 when 29 lives were lost.

The party again calls for a comprehensive national response to such violence which blites communities and the families of both the victim’s, and those convicted of such offences who face length custodial sentences.

Violent urban crime can only be tackled with a combination of community and police engagement, intervention, and where necessary enforcement with safeguards on the sale of bladed weapons.

As first step to mitigating knife crime the Liberal Party would support the creation a £1bn fund for local authorities to spend on youth services in the worst affected regions to guide young people away from knife and gang related crime.

The Liberal Party is grateful to hear that member of the United Kingdoms armed forces have been deployed to assist the NHS during the current pandemic.

Whilst such support is welcome in times of acute national need, the country’s military personal risk being seen as a 4th emergency service, distracting them from their dedicate role of national defence.

Much of the strain being felt in our national health service comes from staff shortages driven by poor levels of pay for nursing staff aggravating the loss of staff and a lack of trainees who are UK long term residents.

These are long-term issues which cannot be resolved by simply relying on our military to plug the gaps on an open-ended basis.

The Liberal Party believes that the Government should concentrate on tackling the wider issues in the economy of recruitment, training and career development be it in the NHS, or logistics such as tanker drivers rather than repeatedly reply on are our equally over-stretched armed forces.

The Liberal Party welcomes the latest talks between the UK energy sector, Ofgem and the Government to address looming energy price rises which could potentially double bills in 2022.

UK consumers, both domestic and business face a perfect storm of rising prices, potential supply shortages and a loss of choice from the bankruptcy of 26 independent energy companies.

This has been largely the result of an ill-conceived attempt to contain prices by implementing a price cap which in-turn prevented firms passing on wholesale price rises leading to their failure.

Consumers of failed firms have then found themselves moved to larger suppliers consolidating their dominant position and reducing consumer choice.

The party believes that the Govt should reverse the £20 a week cut to Universal Credit to ensure those most at risk of fuel poverty are able to maintain their supply and see’s merit in reducing VAT on domestic bills.

However, with the need to de-carbonise the UK energy sector and economy means that reducing or cancelling green levies sends the wrong signal about our commitment to tackle climate change and should be protected.