Simon Hughes MP

Growth that lasts: A Fair, Green and Sustainable Economy

Today is Mothering Sunday. There have been some questions about why the Liberal Democrats are here, giving priority to politics, when we should be elsewhere giving priority to families.

Later today, most people here will be back with their families.

But conference this motion is also about prioritising families and individuals - and not just today but for a generation ahead.

This is because our economy is at the heart of everything we do.

It is about jobs, the livelihoods of our families and the taxes we pay in order to fund the schools and hospitals that we use.

Today the economy is in deep and profound crisis. But this should have come as a surprise to no one, preceded as it was by the deep social crisis of increasing unfairness and an emerging environmental one.

Of course, if we have a tax system which places the unfair burden on some of the people who work the hardest, and if use up our precious natural resources at an irresponsible rate, we will end up with an economic and environmental crisis.

After 13 years this Labour government has left us with a Britain even more unfair than under the Tories; where young people struggle to find jobs, where hardworking average families pay a greater proportion of their income in taxes than the very wealthy.

This Labour government has given us an energy policy leaving us third from bottom in the European Union in the proportion of energy produced from renewable sources.

This Labour government for years let the banks throw away our money on bad investments. Then when the banks failed - instead of taking the opportunity to restructure them so they could contribute to our economy, they have continued to let the bankers throw money at themselves, literally billions of pounds a year.

But the difference is that this time the bankers are using our money to do it.

Conference - this time, we will not stand for it!

The public know that we simply cannot afford to continue with the inadequate policies of this Labour government.

***

So what of the Conservative Party? So what of the Conservative Party?

Can the Tory party claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility - when their deputy chairman as well as one of their favoured candidates haven't even been paying full UK tax?

Can the Tory party claim to be the party of the environment, the party of the oak tree - when they drop the environment altogether from their top ten reasons for voting Tory?

Can the Tory party claim to be the party of fairness - when their only major tax policy will only benefit really really rich dead people?

Come on Britain.

In a time of national economic crisis who would you rather have at the helm - uncle Vincent or boy George?

We have a message for the people of Britain

The change you can chose at this election is between our party - Which wants change that works for you.

Or the Conservative party - that wants change that works for them.

***

My friends, this crisis should have been, could have been, and with Liberal Democrats in power still can be a great opportunity for change.

Liberal Democrats understand that we will not emerge from the economic crisis that the Labour party has left us with unless we also solve the social environmental crises that Labour has left us with.

We now need a party of radical reform which puts fairness at the top of the national agenda. We also need now a new green industrial revolution to build the things required for a green and sustainable economy. Britain needs an economy that reflects our values, not dictates them.

Conference, in Bermondsey, Bradford and Birmingham; in Chippenham and Derby, Hereford and Hull; in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff and Swansea - all over Britain, there is no shortage of work to be done.

We must build transport infrastructure like new electric railways so that people can change from half empty planes to speedy trains.

We must build industrial infrastructure so that we can have a world-leading manufacturing sector in green technology.

And we must build energy infrastructure so that we can power our homes and our lives in a clean, green and environmentally responsible way.

We will invest in all of these things through the creation, at the centre of a UK Infrastructure Bank, and regionally and locally stock exchanges and enterprise funds. These will create millions of environmentally sustainable jobs and give skills to the next generation of workers.

We will eliminate some of the terrible waste in our economy.

We will have a national programme of home insulation to be completed within 10 years - so that we can stop needlessly wasting so much of the energy we use. And a policy of no waste to landfill - so that we can use our waste to create energy rather than throwing it away.

We will eliminate the waste of our public finances by ending large and unnecessary spending programmes such as ID cards and the like-for-like replacement of Trident.

And we will introduce a levy on the profits of banks for as long as they are underwritten by us, the public, because this country will never have a fair and sustainable economy until banks in Britain behave responsibly and pay their fair share.

Conference, it is just over one hundred years since David Lloyd George proposed his radical people's budget which for the first time seriously sought to redistribute wealth in this country.

It is almost 75 years since John Maynard Keynes published his 'General Theory', which gave the world the ideas which brought us out of the last global economic crisis.

Our job in all our constituencies is to fight and win.

Remind the people with confidence that it was Liberal ideas which led the world out of the last great economic crisis. And tell the people with confidence, that now is the time for Liberal Democrats to lead the country out of this crisis too.

We cannot wait any longer to build a fairer Britain.