Queen's Speech a missed opportunity for Mid Sussex - Lib Dems

"A disappointing string of announcements with no vision and little to offer local people in Mid Sussex." That's the verdict of Lib Dems as local residents digest the Government's plans for the next year.

In a message to residents, Serena Tierney, Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesman for Mid Sussex said: "This is a Prime Minister who promised a new vision but has delivered a stream of dreary announcements tinkering with the harm his government has caused over the last ten years and failing to take real action on the issues that matter most to us here in Mid Sussex - climate change, our local hospital services at the PRH, the shortage of affordable homes for local people and the unfair council tax.

"Here in Mid Sussex we have suffered record rainfall this year following drought last year, a result of climate change caused by carbon emissions. The government proposes a Climate Change Bill with reductions in carbon emissions of 60% - nowhere near the 80% needed to avoid dangerous rises in global temperatures.

"There is nothing about the poor value for money obtained for the large sums invested in our NHS in recent years or the pressure to move local hospital services to distant 'centralised' units like Brighton.

"We can only assume that Brown will continue his obsession with inflexible central control and fail to provide real accountability to the people the NHS is meant to serve.

"Many people in Mid Sussex are unable to live in a home of their own because the government has failed completely over the past decade to ensure there is enough affordable housing. Yet the government's proposals will do too little on affordable housing, too little on social housing and too little on sustainable housing.

"Central diktat simply will not work. The Government must empower local communities to take their own housing decisions and put public land into affordable housing through Community Land Trusts. Instead it proposes to move even more planning decisions away from our local community and give them to Whitehall.

"Thousands of residents of Mid Sussex are hit hard by council tax, the unfairest tax around. But there was no mention of scrapping it and replacing it with a fairer system based on ability to pay.

"In fact across wide swathes of policy the government's approach is indistinguishable from the Tories'. It is clear that they now agree on tax policy, accepting widening inequality, and retaining an unreformed council tax. Both are bidding for the anti-immigrant vote; both are pursuing short-sighted populist policies; both are intent on filling prisons with petty criminals and the mentally ill; both are promoting nuclear power and an unfettered airport expansion regardless of the environmental consequences; both are backing student top-up and tuition fees; and both are in the thrall of the Bush administration - notably on Iraq.

"On all of those issues it is the Liberal Democrats who offer a distinctive voice.

"And what has happened to Gordon Brown's promise to listen to what people want?

"As far as Mid Sussex is concerned, we will still face the same problems after these measures have been implemented. Many in Mid Sussex will be disappointed that Gordon Brown has ignored the opportunity to save the PRH and allow us to plan ourselves for the housing that we need locally.