Maldon Liberal Democrats

Lib Dem MEP for the East of England has backed calls from his colleague Sarah Ludford, the ALDE group shadow rapporteur on the update of EU data protection law, is demanding that an 'anti-FISA' clause be reintroduced in the text of the proposed new Regulation.

They want to ensure that EU customers are shielded from US National Security Agency data-mining authorised by the Patriot Act and the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, such as the recently revealed 'PRISM' programme.

The G8 meeting in Northern Ireland should make a clear statement on the escalating crisis in Turkey. I have written to UK Prime Minister David Cameron and to EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso to urge as many of the G8 leaders as possible not to miss the opportunity of their meeting to condemn the provocative stance adopted by Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan.

The first phase of the campaign is a major apprenticeships drive. The party's ambition is to double the number of companies offering apprenticeships from 100,000 to 200,000.

Campaigning 'Action Days' will take place across the country tomorrow [Saturday], with MPs and local parties highlighting the work they and the party nationally are doing to help create jobs and apprenticeships in their local areas.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg said:

Liberals and Democrats today rallied around a pragmatic solution which will allow the next Parliament to integrate the new Croatian MEPs without upsetting the overall balance of the Parliament's composition. The European Parliament meeting for the Strasbourg plenary session decided overwhelmingly for a distribution of seats between Member States resulting from an empirical method, based on the desire to minimize deviations from the current situation.

Measures to enhance consumer rights and make them easier to understand, which will boost the economy by £4 billion over the next decade, have been unveiled today by Consumer Minister Jo Swinson.

The proposals, outlined in the draft Consumer Rights Bill, streamline overlapping and complicated areas from eight pieces of legislation into one consumer Bill. They also introduce new rights for consumers and businesses. Currently consumers spend more than 59 million hours a year dealing with goods and services problems. This deregulatory measure will reduce the effort consumers and businesses have to make to resolve problems.

Under the draft Bill consumers will have the right to:

The Local Growth Committee will bring together the Secretaries of State from all the key economic departments, bringing together the ministerial groups previously chaired by the DPM on the Regional Growth Fund (RGF) and City Deals. It will provide oversight across the local growth agenda to drive jobs and growth across England.

Potential agenda items include the implementation of the 1st wave of City Deals, signing off the 2nd wave of City Deals and allocation of RGF money. It is also likely to discuss the design and implementation of the Single Local Growth Fund and look at cases where infrastructure policy could impact upon particular localities.

The DPM will chair the committee with Chancellor George Osborne as deputy chair. Other members will include Vince Cable, Michael Gove, Eric Pickles, Ed Davey, Patrick McLoughlin and Danny Alexander. The Committee will meet on ad-hoc basis but intends to meet for the first time before the summer recess.

Nick Clegg will make the announcement at a dinner in Sheffield this evening marking the 100th anniversary of the discovery of stainless steel.

The economic benefits of offshore oil and gas production, for energy security, jobs, tax revenue and growth are set to be maximised, as Government announced the start of an independently-led review today.

The UK's oil and gas industry is of vital national economic importance, supporting 440,000 jobs, and stimulating business, innovation and skills. Some 41 billion barrels of oil and gas have already been produced from the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) and we must maintain our momentum and make the most of the huge opportunity that the UKCS still represents.

The review will be led by Sir Ian Wood, who will undertake full analysis, and work with industry leaders and Government to make recommendations for improving the future economic recovery of UKCS oil and gas.

Secretary of State Edward Davey said:

"The MoD plans to fully integrate 30,000 fully-trained Reserves into the Regular Army by 2020, but this is going to be a real challenge which we need to do more to achieve. Surprisingly, Gurkhas aren't currently recruited into the Reserves automatically on leaving service - unlike other soldiers.

"We've got to retain the Gurkhas' unique skills and recognise their brave and dedicated service to this country by putting them into the Reserves. They can then lead the way in building the TA and the Regular Reserves into a new, rejuvenated and deployment-ready Future Reserves."

"There was nothing in this speech to demonstrate Labour have a plan on the economy. Labour left a record deficit, youth unemployment that had increased by 40% on their watch and a broken economy that had been focused on financial gamblers in the City of London for too long.

"Liberal Democrats are working in the Coalition Government to repair the damage done by Labour and build a stronger economy in a fairer society, enabling everyone to get on in life.

"We are creating jobs across the country through the Regional Growth Fund and Vince Cable is overseeing a record rise in apprenticeships, helping 1.2m people gain the skills and experience necessary for a successful career.

"We have made the tax system fairer than it has ever been for the low-paid, with people on national minimum wage seeing their tax bill cut in half and 20m working people are paying £600 a year less than they were under Labour.

"Empty speeches dressed up as economic plans will not convince the British people to trust Labour again."

"The positive vote for the Energy Bill is one of the biggest majorities this Government has seen.

"This overwhelming majority is great news as the Bill now makes its way through the House of Lords.

"A clear message has been sent to investors that we are providing the security they need to work with us to revolutionise the energy sector and produce cleaner energy, keep the lights on and people's bills down."