FPC meeting report April

With our work for spring conference complete and before we come to the key summer period when we will finalise our four major policy papers for this autumn conference, FPC has been focussed recently on commissioning working groups to develop policies for us to bring to the two conferences next year. 

At our most recent meeting we completed the creation of the two intended for spring conference 2026. We have appointed an excellent working group, led by Councillor Katie Mansfield, to develop policies on High Streets and Town Centres which will help to communicate our party’s values and help us win votes. And a second group, chaired by Dr Mohsin Khan, will do the same on Mental Health. We had about 90 applications for each, so were able to appoint groups with a good range of balances for both of these. We thank all those who applied and who enabled us to appoint groups which will cover well so many aspects so their remits. 

Following our previous discussions about groups for autumn 2026 which I reported on from our last meeting, and also in line with other discussions such as at the policy review’s consultation session in Harrogate, FPC has now decided to set up four working groups:

• A Thriving Economy – developing our distinctive Liberal Democrat narrative on why the economy has been performing so poorly, how to turn it around, and how to make sure everyone feels the benefits of growth equitably.
• International security – reviewing the party’s well-established approach here, in light of current world developments, to outline our distinctive Liberal Democrat response to Trump, Putin and the other global challenges we face.
• Defending and strengthening our democracy – in response to Conservative chaos and scandal, Labour failure and inaction, and low public trust in politics, developing the Liberal Democrat defence of our liberal democracy: how we can restore public trust, protect it from foreign interference, and put meaningful power in people’s hands.
• Primary healthcare – developing our plan to tackle not just the crisis of access to GP services, community pharmacies and dentists, but the way it can help us towards solving the wider problems in the NHS and in the nation’s health. 

We will be advertising shortly for party members to apply to be part of these groups, and we encourage those with useful knowledge to contribute, to apply. 

The Policy Review which we are planning to bring to this autumn conference will also set out a wider programme for policy development for this parliament, for conference to discuss. 

Away from future working groups, we also caught up on the work of two of our current ones, on the Future of Work and on Opportunity & Skills (including Further Education).

And we had an excellent discussion with Baroness Dee Doocey about her work as a party spokesperson on policing and the many very serious challenges it faces. The work she has done is a very sobering reminder of the state of not just policing, but of much of the public sector generally.