Kennedy Launches Alternative Queen's Speech

11.24.40am GMT Sat 20th Nov 2004

Kennedy: "We will continue to hold the Government to account"

Charles Kennedy, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, has launched the Liberal Democrat Alternative Queen's Speech Programme. Mr. Kennedy said: "In this Parliament, the Liberal Democrats have provided the main opposition over the Iraq war and we have opposed measures such as the introduction of student top up fees."

He continued: "The Government is running scared of the Liberal Democrats and is in danger of following its Conservative predecessors in stoking up a climate of fear and eroding civil liberties unnecessarily.

"We will continue to hold the Government to account over the role of British soldiers in Iraq and its relationship with George W. Bush.

"We will also say what we would do differently. In Government in Scotland, we have been successful in acting on our priorities. This Alternative Programme for the Queen's Speech establishes our priorities for action at Westminster.

"We would introduce measures in the Queen's Speech that would create a fairer society in which people have their freedoms protected and their fear of crime reduced."

Liberal Democrat top priorities for this parliamentary session are:

1) Scrap student top-up fees and tuition fees.

2) Scrap the unfair Council Tax.

3) Introduce a Citizen's Pension uprated in line with average earnings to reverse the mass means-testing of pensioners.

4) Introduce free personal care for the elderly.

5) Modernise the police force, reduce re-offending rates, and introduce new systems of justice for the victims of crime.

6) Ensure that the Environment is put at the heart of public policy-making.

On the Government's legislative programme, Lord Tom McNally, Liberal Democrat Leader Elect in the House of Lords, said:

"The Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords are in a unique position to ensure that requests for powers which reduce civil liberties or infringe human rights are made to clear the highest hurdles.

"The Liberal Democrats in the Lords will not be wreckers; but neither will we be rubber-stampers. The Government must be made to justify new legislation, and the House of Lords must use all of its powers of scrutiny to carry out its function as an advisory and revisory chamber."