Achieving the UK’s net zero target by 2050 will cost less than a single oil shock and bring health and economic benefits while insulating the country against future costs, the government’s climate advisers have forecast.

“Eliminating the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels by adopting renewable energy and green technologies, such as electric vehicles and heat pumps, would be the best and most cost-effective path for the future economy”, said Lib Dem campaigner Elizabeth Brame

Reaching net zero would cost about £4bn a year, the Climate Change Committee found, or close to £100bn by 2050, which was roughly equivalent to the energy-related costs of the fossil fuel shocks that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“In light of current world events, it’s more important than ever for the UK to move away from being reliant on volatile foreign fossil fuels, to energy that is clean, domestic and efficient,” she said. “People who oppose clean energy would abandon the pursuit of lower bills, national energy security and protecting our children and grandchildren.”

Elizabeth concluded: “Lib Dems are strongly supportive of the proposed Birkenhead Heat Network which will heat houses, flats and businesses by harnessing waste heat from industrial processes. This will be an efficient and sustainable way to decarbonise energy supplies and reduce energy costs.”

Hard-headed businesses like Tesco have installed solar panels on over 100 stores already and are aiming for ‘carbon neutrality’ by 2035.

Some traditions are good, but others stand in the way of progress.

The Private Member’s Assisted Dying Bill was passed by the Commons last June.

It then went to the House of Lords for more scrutiny. Some Peers put down worthwhile amendments to the detail. Others put down amendments (over 1000) with the aim of ensuring the Bill was never passed. The government wouldn’t allow sufficient extra time so it will, almost certainly, not be agreed before the Kings Speech in June. At this point the Bill is ‘lost’ and WILL HAVE TO START AGAIN in the Commons – if an MP who is lucky in the ballot is prepared to take it on as a Private Members Bill. How utterly ridiculous!

Whether you are in favour of this proposal or not (Lib Dem MPs voted 61 for, 11 against) archaic parliamentary procedures should not prevent MPs making a final decision this year. Lib Dems have long argued for radical reform of the House of Lords and for bringing parliamentary procedures into the 21^st century.

A similar Bill has been passed by the relatively tiny parliaments in Jersey and the Isle of Mann and is being thoroughly debated within the vastly better system in Scotland. Aspects of our Parliament are not fit for purpose. Lib Dems continue to lead the campaign for change.

For years, successive Conservative and Labour governments have opted for short-term gimmicks and unfair tax hikes, leaving us with low economic growth. Now Lib Dem proposals to stem the decline have been unveiled. 
The Treasury does too much - setting out economic policy, tax rules, and departmental spending. It’s over-centralised and isolated from the real economy. We should split the Treasury into a new Department for Growth, focussing on growth strategy, tax policies and strategic national infrastructure, and a Department for Public Expenditure, overseeing departmental budgets and ensuring value-for-money.

The Department for Business and Trade should be merged into the new Growth department, to ensure that business and investment is properly aligned with national priorities. And it should be based outside the capital to help re-balance our economy away from centuries of London-centric thinking.

A new Department for Growth, to boost long-term prosperity, is a radical proposal. But in the pursuit of economic growth, we can’t just tinker around the edges anymore.

The drop in overseas workers caused by UK’s lurch to the right on migration is a ‘car crash’ for UK hospitals and care homes, says councillor Stuart Kelly.

The number of overseas nurses granted entry to the UK has fallen by 93% over three years. Just 1,777 overseas nurses were granted entry in 2025, compared with 26,100 in 2022.

Visas for workers in the caring personal service occupations category fell from 107,847 workers in 2023 to just 3,178 in 2025, a 97% decline over two years as visa conditions have been systematically tightened.

The Royal College of Nursing’s chief nursing officer, said the profession faced “the worst of all worlds. At the current rate, the numbers of domestic nurses joining will nowhere near make up for the collapse in overseas nursing staff coming to the UK.”

Stuart agreed: “Ministers need to wake up. They continue to make the UK an unattractive destination, while doing too little to invest and grow the domestic workforce. No hospital wants a 93% drop in overseas nurses, at a time when 25,000 nursing vacancies remain unfilled. The unacceptable pressure being experienced in our hospitals is causing far too many nurses to quit.”

““The reason we need international recruits in the care sector is because no government has provided any solutions to getting a domestic work force for the people we support.  International recruits have been excellent in the roles they fill and helped keep the sector going.”

Stuart concluded “While we need to prioritise and train British workers for these roles an ideological opposition to controlled, legal migration is causing real herm now in our hospitals and care homes. Sadly, the government is so scared of the threat from right-wing Parties that they are copying their disastrous policies.”

Centrist ideas are no longer wanted in the Conservative party, Kemi Badenoch has said, arguing that one nation-type Tories or others who have qualms about her rightward direction for the party “need to get out of the way”. (28/01/26)

She explicitly rejected the approach of Andy Street, the former West Midlands mayor, and Ruth Davidson, the former Scottish Tory leader, who have launched a new group within the party for what they call “politically homeless” centrist and centre-right voters.

Badenoch said this did not want any policy ideas that were not based around her right-leaning views. She was clear on her direction, setting out a Reform-adjacent policy. “My Conservative party has moved to the right every day since I became leader.” “I won’t apologise to those walking away because they don’t like the new direction. We only want Conservatives.”

Such an explicit repudiation of the historically strong centrist tradition in conservatism will leave her electorally exposed given the Conservatives lost about 60 seats to the Liberal Democrats at the last election, many because more centrist Tory voters abandoned the party.

On Wirral our message to people who see themselves as one-nation Conservatives is that you will be welcome in the Liberal Democrats.