Liberals from the Highlands and Islands have always been at the heart of our party. From the late great Jo Grimond and Russell Johnston, great leaders like Bob Maclennan, Charles Kennedy and Jim Wallace in Scotland, to our current team at Westminster, Highland and Island voices have shaped who the Liberal Democrats are.

In Danny Alexander and Alistair Carmichael, I have Liberals from the Highlands and Islands with me right at the heart of British Government. At Holyrood too Highlanders have made their voices heard. And on the Highland Council we've boosted our numbers with Carolyn Carrick's stunning by-election win before Christmas.

SCOTTISH PARTY

The last time I was here in the Highland capital we were looking ahead to the Scottish parliamentary elections. They didn't quite turn out the way we had hoped, indeed it was a painful experience. As a party we lost a lot of excellent people from the Scottish Parliament. And a few weeks later we had the hardest loss of all - the sad passing of Andrew Reeves. These elections will be our first in Scotland without Andrew and to say he will be sorely missed is a huge understatement. His humour, commitment and sheer force of personality have been steering us through election campaigns for many years. But what Andrew would have wanted is for us to put last May behind us and move on.

That's exactly what Willie Rennie has done at Holyrood. And with his team of Alison, Tavish, Liam and Jim he is more than making up for in quality what we lack in numbers. Doing what Liberal Democrats do best - punching above our weight. Whether it's on defending the right of Scots to go to the Supreme Court. Being prepared to speak out against restrictions on free speech contained in bad law on sectarianism. To the campaign to protect the Scotland's colleges; to increase affordable housing; to promote equal marriage; Willie and his team have been holding the SNP to account and running rings around Labour and the Conservatives.

And we have a proud record of achievement in councils up and down Scotland. In Edinburgh, where Liberal Democrats have cut crime by a fifth thanks to real, community-based neighbourhood policing. In Fife, where Liberal Democrats have improved recycling rates and made it one of the greenest councils in Scotland. And in Aberdeen, where Liberal Democrats know a thing or two about clearing up Labour's mess. They brought the budget back from a cliff edge and are now held up as an example to follow by Audit Scotland. Our councillors don't get the same recognition as our MPs, MSPs and our MEP but they are the unsung heroes of politics here in Scotland. The work they do and the commitment they show to their local areas is crucial. Liberal Democrats have always understood that politics is local. Across Scotland, Liberal Democrat councillors are fighting for the things that matter most to their communities. Our councillors are the lifeblood of this party. Without their good work we would not be able to make the difference we are making in Holyrood or Westminster.

INDEPENDENCE

But that election last May altered more than the balance of power at Holyrood. The SNP victory changed the landscape of Scottish politics and it presented us all with a new and formidable challenge. The SNP now has a mandate to ask the people of Scotland whether they want to be separated from the rest of the United Kingdom? Do the Scottish people want to stay within the family of the UK or break up the longest and most successful political and social partnership of nations in history?

My hope, and that of our party, is that the people of Scotland choose to stay in the UK. As an Englishman I believe that our countries are much stronger together than they would be apart. That Scotland, like the other parts of the UK, has fared better in this global economic crisis than many of our European neighbours because we are part of one of the world's strongest economies. That we have all been protected from the worst of the recession by the credibility and low interest rates the UK government has been able to secure and maintain.

But the question of Scottish independence shouldn't be a numbers game. Too much of the debate over independence is about what divides us, not what unites us. The people of the United Kingdom have a rich shared heritage. We share a culture, a history and an identity. We live side by side in towns and cities across the British Isles. Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish people are together every day, in offices and factories, school classrooms and playing fields. We have rallied together in hard times. Our forefathers fought together and died together, just as brave Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish service men and women are fighting side by side in faraway lands right now. For centuries we have crossed each others borders, married each other, raised families together. What Scot doesn't have any English, Welsh or Northern Irish in their family tree? I believe the bonds that bring us together are stronger than the forces that would tear us apart.

But it is not for me to tell the people of Scotland what they should think. The debate over Scotland's future is one for the people of Scotland. The referendum - which our excellent Secretary of State for Scotland Mike Moore is doing such a great job ensuring will be legal, fair and decisive - must be made here in Scotland for the people of Scotland. And I hope all of you will support Mike and Danny, and Willie and all of our team in Scotland in making the case for staying in the UK.

DEVOLUTION

Liberal Democrats believe Scotland is stronger when its two governments are working together. And we also believe in making Scotland stronger still. We have always been a party that is committed to devolution. For Liberal Democrats devolving power is in our DNA and we are delivering that in Government. The Scotland Bill which Mike Moore is leading through Parliament is the biggest single transfer of power from the UK to Scotland since the Act of Union. More power for Scotland because Liberal Democrats are in power in Westminster.

But don't think we're stopping there. That's why we have set up the Home Rule Commission to look at the next stage in the relationship between Scotland and the rest of the UK. And who better to lead that process than Ming Campbell, a statesman who commands such huge respect on both sides of the border. We need to settle the independence question first. But if the Scottish people decide they want to remain in the United Kingdom, then we can get on with the business of giving Scotland more power.

ECONOMIC VISION FOR SCOTLAND

Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government don't believe in simply throwing a few headline measures at Scotland and hoping that is enough. We have a real vision for Scotland's future. I want nothing short of a green economic renaissance for Scotland. A Scotland where green jobs fuel a thriving economic future. Dockyards reopened as wind farm factories. Wind and wave power providing the green energy of the future. Scottish universities developing new green technologies for Scottish companies to export around the world. With Scotland's young people trained in the skills they need to be at the heart of our green economy.

It is early days, but we are seeing the start of this green energy revolution already. Between April last year and January this year, more than half a billion pounds was invested in renewable energy in Scotland, creating more than 2,500 jobs. And there is much more in the pipeline because Liberal Democrats have a vision for Scotland's economic future. A nation with vast natural resources. A nation of thriving businesses with skilled, motivated workers. A nation at the heart of a green energy revolution.

We don't believe in putting Scotland in its box. We believe a strong Scotland is good for the United Kingdom and a strong United Kingdom is good for Scotland. Four strong countries pulling together as one United Kingdom.

WHAT LIBERAL DEMOCRATS HAVE DONE FOR SCOTLAND

Nonetheless these are anxious times. I know how families are feeling. And I know how people worry about paying their bills. If you haven't had a pay rise for two years or more. If you can't plan for the future because you look around and you worry about what might happen if you lose your job or if your partner does. And all the while things are getting more expensive. One day you come back from the supermarket and wonder why your weekly shop costs more than it did. The next your gas and electricity bills arrive and they've gone up again, just like they did last time and the time before. You fill up at the petrol station and the price has gone up again since the last time you filled your car. If you're young and you don't own a home you wonder if you ever will. You get up early, you work hard, you never ask for anything and yet everything is getting harder.

We are coming out of a crisis, an economic heart attack, and there is no magic wand that will make everything better overnight. But as we build a new economy from the rubble of the old, Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government are giving you real, practical help in tough times. That's why we have cut your taxes, even as we've had to take difficult decisions to raise money elsewhere. Thanks to Liberal Democrats, by raising the point at which you start paying income tax, we put £200 a year back in your pockets last year and another £130 from next month. And we want to go further and faster, lifting millions of the poorest workers out of tax altogether by raising to £10,000 the amount you can earn tax-free, putting £60 a month back in your pockets. Already we have lifted 72,000 Scottish workers out of paying tax altogether and two million Scottish workers have received a tax cut. Liberal Democrat tax cuts for the many - not the few.

This Coalition Government is standing up for the culture of work that is such a proud part of Scotland's history. By making sure that work always pays. By making sure people can keep more of the money they earn. And by making sure our young people have the skills they need to enter the world of work. And for those of you whose working life is over, Liberal Democrats are on your side too.

Thanks to our pensions triple lock, a million Scottish pensioners will receive the most generous rise in the state pension for a generation. From next month, you will receive an extra £5.30 a week. No more of Labour's insulting 75p pension rises. Liberal Democrats are giving you real help.

In November Danny Alexander announced that the Scottish Government was to receive £103m from the Fossil Fuel levy to invest in renewable energy. That is real investment in Scotland by Liberal Democrats in Government. Last week this government's policies led to a reduction in fuel prices on the islands through the Rural Fuel duty derogation scheme. Labour didn't do it. The SNP said we wouldn't do it. Now we have done it. Liberal Democrats in Government delivering for Scotland.

So we go into this May's elections with our heads held high. A record of fighting for local communities in councils up and down Scotland. A record of holding the SNP's feet to the fire in Holyrood. And a record of delivering real help for Scottish people in Westminster. Putting more money in your pockets. Making work pay and giving our young people a fighting chance. And putting Scotland at the heart of the new, green economy that will fuel Britain's future. From our grassroots to our Government ministers, Liberal Democrats are building a freer, greener and more liberal Scotland in a fairer, greener and more liberal United Kingdom.

"James Murdoch's resignation has all the appearances of being bundled in a car, away from the scene of the crime.

"There still are unanswered questions on James Murdoch's knowledge of phone hacking at the News of the World.

"He must make clear that his move to New York will not be a barrier to getting answers and his taking responsibility for what happened on his watch."

Europe's approximately 23 million SMEs make up to 99% of all businesses and provide two-thirds of all private sector jobs in the EU. A study presented by the Commission in January revealed that six in ten new jobs are created by small enterprises. More than half of the value creation of European companies is attributed to SMEs.

Commenting ahead of the event, the Leader of the UK Liberal Democrat delegation in the European Parliament, Fiona Hall MEP, said that Lib Dem MEPs would take this campaign to the UK to help boost local businesses in a bid to create and safeguard jobs. She added:

It proposes a number of changes to police forces in England around three key areas, which will change the culture of police for the better:

• More trusted - listening to local people and making policing much more responsive to communities' priorities.
• More professional - setting up the new police professional body with a key responsibility to recommend detailed national minimum recruitment standards for the police.
• More effective - making evidence based policing the defining feature of 21st century policing by establishing the world's first Institute for Policing Excellence.

The Leader of the UK Liberal Democrat MEPs and energy expert Fiona Hall, chief negotiator for the Parliament's Liberal and Democrat Group on the Energy Efficiency Directive, said that the new bill was necessary to get the EU back on track towards the 20% target.

She went on to highlight the influence that Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government had had on the Commission's proposals. She added that the new Energy Company Obligation and the Green Deal both introduced by the Coalition Government inspired some key provisions proposed in the new bill, including an obligation on energy utilities to assist their customers with energy saving measures.

Commenting after the vote, she said:

The European Parliament's Industry Committee voted to replace current rules, which expire in June 2012, with even lower price caps to move further towards a levelling of domestic and cross-border mobile phone charges. The new regulation will also for the first time impose caps on data roaming - fees which incur when customers surf the internet while abroad. In addition to the price caps, the new bill introduces a set of structural reforms aimed at attracting new operators to the market and at lowering prices by stimulating competition.

Fiona Hall, the leader of the Liberal Democrat MEPs and industry spokesperson for the delegation, commented after the vote:

Dear Colleague,

The Health Bill currently in the House of Lords is now undoubtedly a better Bill because of the Liberal Democrats. A number of people deserve credit for improving this Bill. Firstly, and most important, are our Party members who made it clear at our conference in Sheffield in March last year that we would not accept a Bill that puts profits before patients. We secured a "pause" in the legislation, which led to a number of substantial changes to the Bill, for instance that competition could only be on quality and not on price. Since the "pause", there have been further changes, which owe a great deal to the hard work of our Health Minister, Paul Burstow and our parliamentary health committee led by co-chairs, John Pugh and John Alderdice. Second, our Liberal Democrat peers in the House of Lords, led superbly by Judith Jolly, have done an outstanding job scrutinising the Bill line by line.

With the help of the House of Lords Constitution Committee, several eminent Conservative peers, Labour's Lords team led by Baroness Thornton and Lord Hunt, and a determined group of cross-benchers, many members of the medical professions, an all-party consensus has now ensured that the Secretary of State will remain responsible and accountable for a comprehensive health service financed by taxpayers, accessible to all and free at the point of need.

This should guarantee the future of the NHS, one of Britain's greatest social achievements. In addition, led by Phil Willis and others, arrangements have been put in place to make the UK a world leader in medical research, to raise the status and protect the independence of the Public Health service, and to ensure that all profits from the treatment of private patients in Foundation Trust hospitals must benefit the NHS.

The Bill has now undergone more than 200 hours of scrutiny and had more than 1,000 amendments made to it, amendments that have put patients and the people who know them best at the very heart of the legislation. This is not the Bill that we debated as a party last March. Crucially, some elements of Labour's 2006 Health Act, which opened up the possibility of a US-style market in the NHS, have been radically changed, such as the gold plated contracts for the private sector, which allowed a Labour Government to pay private providers a total of £250million for operations that weren't even performed. We can also take pride in the fact that it was the Liberal Democrats who changed this Bill to ensure that no government will once again be able to favour the private sector over the public sector like the last Labour government.

The Bill also now has in place safeguards to stop private providers "cherry picking" profitable, easy cases from the NHS, and we have made sure that private providers can only offer their services where patients say they want them. We are also clear that no one should be allowed to spend public money without telling us how they are going to use it. That is why we have insisted that decisions about patient services and taxpayers' money must be made in an open, transparent and accountable way.

We now have a Bill that delivers on the issues that Liberal Democrats have campaigned on for years. For the first time, there will be real democratic accountability in the NHS through new Health and Wellbeing Boards that will give councils a real role in shaping local health services. Public health will finally be returned to its rightful place in local government. Integration between health and social care will become the norm rather than the exception.

However, given how precious the NHS is, we want to rule out beyond doubt any threat of a US-style market in the NHS. That is why we want to see changes made to this Bill that have been put forward by our Liberal Democrat team in the House of Lords to make sure that the NHS can never be treated like the gas, electricity, or water industry. First, we propose removing the reviews by the Competition Commission from the Bill to make sure that the NHS is never treated like a private industry. Second, we want to keep the independent regulator of Foundation Trusts, Monitor, to make sure hospitals always serve NHS patients first and foremost. Third, we will introduce measures to protect the NHS from any threat of takeover from US -style healthcare providers by insulating the NHS from the full force of competition law. We will also insist that anyone involved with a commissioning group is required to declare their own financial interests so that the integrity of the clinical commissioning groups is maintained. Finally, we will put in place additional safeguards to the private income cap to make sure that Foundation Trusts cannot focus on private profits before patients. These changes are needed, not just because of this Bill, but also to plug the holes left by Labour's 2006 Health Act that allowed private providers to make profits at the NHS' and taxpayers' expense. It was that Act that started the process of the marketisation of the NHS by allowing private providers to be paid on average 11% more than the NHS. These changes will ensure that competition and diversity in the NHS will always be done in the interests of patients and not profits.

Next month we will return to where this process all began a year ago when we meet at our party's Spring conference. Once these final changes have been agreed, we believe conference can be reassured that it has finished the job it started last March and the Bill should be allowed to proceed. We believe these changes will appeal to those in the House of Lords and the House of Commons who share our commitment to the NHS, and believe it can now embark on the reforms that matter: putting patients at the centre, working with local communities, and responding to the financial challenges of an ageing population.

That will demand a united effort not only from the NHS but from all of us who cherish it. Then the essential work will begin to ensure that the necessary changes are introduced as smoothly as possible in full collaboration with everyone who works in the NHS. The real test will be to demonstrate tangible benefits to patients. After all, in the end, it is the interests of patients, which should count most of all.

Best wishes


Nick Clegg
Baroness Shirley Williams

Getting young lives back on track

Nick Clegg unveiled a pioneering scheme this week to get 16- and 17-year-olds who are out of work and not in education, earning or learning again.

As the next part of the Deputy Prime Minister's £1bn Youth Contract, for the first time funding will be targeted to this group of teenagers through tailored support on a payment-by-results system.

Help will focus on at least 55,000 young people - those 16- and 17-year-old NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training) with no GCSEs at A* - C at the highest risk
of long-term disengagement. In England, the government is making £126m of new money available to give teenagers opportunities to train, work and get their lives on track.

Charities and businesses with expertise in supporting young people are being invited to bid for contracts worth up to £2,200 for every young person they help. Support will be tailored to suit individuals' needs, and will include basic skills training and interview practice.

Unlike any past schemes for this age group, payment will depend on results. Organisations will receive an initial payment for taking young people on, followed by subsequent payments when they show progress - including sticking with training programmes, undertaking apprenticeships, or holding down jobs.

"Sitting at home with nothing to do when you're so young can knock the stuffing out of you for years," said Nick. "It is a tragedy for the young people involved - a ticking time bomb for the economy and our society as a whole. This problem isn't new, but in the current economic climate we urgently need to step up efforts to ensure some of our most troubled teenagers have the skills, confidence and opportunities to succeed."

"Many of them will have complex problems: truancy, teenage pregnancy, a lack of GCSEs and health problems. So helping them onto their feet will not be without challenges and government cannot do this alone. But we all have a duty to reach out to the young people who can be hardest to reach. That's why I am calling on charities and other organisations at the coalface to work with government to help tens and thousands of lost teenagers onto a brighter path."

Funding will be awarded to organisations across England with a proven track record in getting young people into work, apprenticeships, or training. Three areas - Liverpool, Leeds-Bradford-Wakefield and Newcastle-Gateshead - will be able to allocate their own pot of money as part of the Government City Deal agenda, aimed at giving more autonomy to England's core cities.

"I am delighted at Edward's re-election. He has proved a passionate, determined and highly effective campaigner for human rights and democracy.

"As the British Foreign Minister responsible for human rights and a fellow Liberal Democrat, I am greatly looking forward to working with Edward to pursue this agenda, which is so central to the enlightened interests of the UK and Europe as a whole.

"With the Arab Spring continuing and tentative steps towards political reforms in Burma, the presence of strong and credible voices, fighting for human rights and democracy at home and abroad, is absolutely essential.

"I am convinced Edward is the right man to help ensure that we maximise the collective weight of the European Union in defending and promoting human rights and democracy."

"Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government are committed to delivering a tax system which is fair and progressive for everyone, why should working people who are not married pay more tax?

"Our commitment to increasing the income tax threshold to £10,000 has already resulted in an extra £200 in take home pay for millions of workers last year, with an additional £130 coming this April.

"Tax breaks for married couples would only help 4 million couples to the tune of around £150 year.

"This year, thanks to the Liberal Democrats, over 1 million people will have been lifted out of paying any income tax, rising to 4 million by 2015.

"Giving low earners a tax cut is exactly the kind of policy the Coalition Government should and is prioritising at a time when money is tight and people are feeling the pinch."