LOCAL CALLS FOR ACTION AT PARTY CONFERENCE ON POLICE PRIVATISATION, RECYLING AND BUSES.

Stockton Lib Dems were at the Lib Dem Party Conference at The Sage in Gateshead this weekend, taking part in the conference.

Lib Dems have backed a call to block the privatisation of policing.

At the party's national conference in Gateshead this weekend, Suzanne Fletcher, President of the North East party and former Stockton Councillor and Police Authority member, secured the support of voting members in opposing the relaxation of rules that prohibit frontline services from being put out to tender to private firms.

In the conference debate, where Suzanne warned of the dangers of privatisation and stressed the importance of people having trust and confidence in the police.

She said:

"Transparency and accountability to the public are central to the delivery of all our public services and particularly policing, and should not be put in the hands of business and shareholders. People do not want their private details held to be in the private sector, the trust would not be there".

She added that the privatisation of police services was only possible because of the Police Reform Act of 2002, brought in by the Labour Government.

She pointed out that if the training, on-going development and accountability were not the same as with existing police it could lead to mistakes that were not just expensive, but had serious consequences for society.

Cllr Alan Lewis met with Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and amongst other things, Alan raised the issue of so much of our packaging not being able to be recycled. Alan said " residents, including our family, want to be able to recycle as much as possible and it is frustrating that so much packaging says "not yet recyclable". Ed Davey agreed to pursue the issue.

John Fletcher, who is Chair of Stockton Borough Transport Users Forum, raised the issue of control of bus services. He said that " since the Thatcher government's privatisation of the buses, successive governments have expected councils to promote bus services by persuasion, highway improvements, subsidies and bearing the shortfall locally in government funding for the national scheme of pensioners' bus passes - anything but the ability to operate services themselves or to tell bus operators what to do. No sticks and a shortage of carrots to hand out!" .