Liberal Democrat MP and Minister for Care Services, Paul Burstow visited Boots Opticians on Sutton High Street on Friday 27th January to find out why regular eye tests are so important in preventing blindness.

1.8 million people in the UK are living with sight loss and this figure is set to increase by 115% to nearly 4 million people by 2050, largely due to the ageing population. Much of this is preventable through the early detection and treatment of eye problems. Regular eye tests are a simple and practical way to maintain good eye health and look after your eyes.

Local Optometrist and Chair of the Local Optical Committee Sonal Patel explained the health benefits of regular eye tests:

“An eye test is not just to check whether you need glasses but is also a means of ensuring your eyes are healthy. An eye test can also pick up other health problems such as high blood pressure or diabetes, so they are an important health check for everyone. Many eye conditions such as glaucoma are treatable and sight loss can be prevented if they are detected early enough.”

Commenting on his visit Paul Burstow MP said:

“Given that sight is one of the most vital senses, it is really important that people take good care of their eyesight, and if ever in doubt, visit their local opticians. As we update the NHS it is a good thing that opticians will be taking a greater role in the public’s health alongside clinicians and their local authorities.”

Many groups of people are entitled to free NHS sight tests. These include those aged 60 and over, all children under 16 and those on low incomes. Optical practices are convenient and offer easy access in the local community. You can visit any practice that is either near where you live or where you work. Optical practices can see NHS patients at times that suit them.

New powers to help councils cut the disruption caused by road works have been announced today by Liberal Democrat Transport Minister Norman Baker.

Under ‘lane rental’ schemes councils will be able to charge utility companies up to £2,500 a day to dig up the busiest roads during peak times when road works cause the most disruption. This will incentivise utility firms to carry out their works more quickly and at times when roads are quieter. Companies would be able to avoid the charges by carrying out works during off-peak periods or, if appropriate, at night.

Following consultation, the Department for Transport has today published guidance for local authorities wanting to put lane rental schemes in place. In order to gather evidence on the effectiveness of lane rental, the Department has proposed that schemes should initially be used in up to three pioneer authorities – one metropolitan area and two others – and is inviting applications from interested local authorities. The successful pioneer areas will need to have exhausted other options, including using a permit scheme. They will also be required to evaluate their lane rental schemes annually and this evidence will be used to decide how further lane rental schemes should be implemented.

Norman Baker said:

“It is incredibly frustrating to find vital roads being dug up in the middle of the rush hour or, even worse, traffic lanes closed when no one is even carrying out any work.

“This disruption is not only inconvenient but very expensive, with roadworks-related congestion costing the economy an estimated £4 billion a year, which is why we are taking firm action.

“While permit schemes are working well to reduce disruption from roadworks in areas where they have been sanctioned we think it sensible to try out a further option. We believe lane rental schemes provide a further incentive to utility companies and local authorities to carry out their works at times when they will cause the minimum disruption and to complete them as quickly as possible.”

The guidance which accompanies the new powers makes it clear that lane rental charges must be avoidable and proportionate to the costs of congestion. Councils are also being encouraged to apply the same principles to their own works and come forward with lane rental schemes which fit the needs of their local area.

Any revenue raised from the implementation of lane rental charges will have to be used by councils to fund measures which could help to reduce future road works disruption. This could include infrastructure work, research or measures to improve the management of works.

The Metropolitan Police have arrested 97 people in connection with ticketing, accommodation, and online fraud in relation to the Olympics due to begin in London in July.

Scotland Yard’s Operation Podium is a special task force set up to prevent criminal activity by keeping on top of intelligence concerning organised gangs. The Home Secretary, Theresa May has commented on the possibility of internet crime whereby hackers may attempt to disrupt Olympic sponsors’ websites.

She has said:

“We are aware of the threat from so-called ‘hacktivist’ groups,” and has confirmed that both the Government and private sector are working towards increased security against attacks from hackers.

Scotland Yard has confirmed that the investment in overall security for the Olympic Games to date is £475m.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency has recently published information advising that the most common frauds associated with the Games are the ‘London 2012’ logo appearing in mass marketing frauds, hoax websites, e-mail scams. Fraudsters have also falsely offered employment and set up lotteries and prize draws under the auspices of fundraising for the event.

SOCA reports that a number of companies have been registered with a direct link to the London 2012 brand. Domain names which include “2012” have also been registered, and SOCA believes that this may be with a view to facilitate fraud.

The official Olympic committee’s website has all the information the public needs to know about London 2012, including ticketing, employment and merchandise.

For accommodation in London, visitors are advised to book through well-established organisations such as Visit Britain.

The public are strongly advised not to purchase merchandise online from websites that offer too good to be true deals on products and services purportedly linked to the Olympics.

If you or anyone you know experience fraud, report it to Action Fraud.

According to a new study conducted by researchers at the Department of Public Health at Oxford, better hospital care and efforts to improve the nation’s health have helped cut the number of people dying from heart attacks by half in less than ten years.

The researchers, writing in the British Medical Journal, analysed data for England throughout the eight-year period from 2002 to 2010.

The team examined more than 840,000 people in England who had been admitted to hospital for a heart attack, or who died suddenly from one, and assessed the total death rate as well as the number dying within 30 days of an attack.

The results of the survey showed that the death rate fell by roughly half between 2002 and 2010, with a 50% drop in men and a 53% drop in women.

The researchers said just over half of the reduction in the number of deaths could be attributed to a fall in the number of new heart attacks, while just under half was because of a decline in the death rate following heart attack.

Overall, 61% of the people who experienced a heart attack were men, 36% of heart attacks resulted in death and 73% occurred in those aged 65 and over.

The study gave credit to efforts to cut smoking, manage high blood pressure and high cholesterol for helping to reduce the number of people suffering an attack.

An improvement in the hospital care of those who did suffer an attack was also recognised as contributing to the reduction. Researchers believe this has contributed to a fall in the overall number dying.

An email entitled ‘Population Census: a message to everyone – act now’ is being circulated, allegedly in the name of National Statistician, Jil Matheson. This email demands individuals provide further personal information, supposedly for the Census and threatens fines for non-compliance.

This email is a scam and a hoax. It has no connection whatsoever with the National Statistician, the 2011 Census or the Office for National Statistics.

Action Fraud believe the links in the e-mail could download malware to any computer where the user clicks on the links. This could put your personal data, including financial information, at risk.

Anyone receiving this, or similar emails, should delete them, not open any links and certainly not provide any information.

For more information on how to protect yourself from this type of threat, please visit the GetSafeOnline website.

The Office for National Statistics takes the protection of personal census information extremely seriously. Collection of census data was completed last year and no further requests will be forthcoming from them relating to the 2011 Census.

If you have been a victim of this, or any type of fraud then report it to Action Fraud via their online webtool.

Humberside Police are appealing for witnesses to an incident that happened on Ripon Street, Grimsby between 2030hrs and 2100hrs on Tuesday 24 January 2012.

A 36-year-old man left a train at Grimsby Town train station and walked towards his home address.

The man recalls being close to the Post Office on Ripon Street, before finding himself laid on the pavement and his mobile phone missing.

The man is unable to recall the exact circumstances of the incident and police are appealing for anyone who may have witnessed anything to contact police.

A member of the public is alleged to have assisted the man and police would appeal for that person, or anyone with information to call Humberside Police tel 101 quoting log 189 25 January 2012.

Brecon and Radnorshire, Liberal Democrat MP Roger Williams has welcomed today’s call by the Deputy Prime Minister to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000 sooner than originally planned.

The Government increased the tax allowance by £1,000 in the 2010 Budget, from £6,475 to £7,475. This year we have already announced a planned rise of an additional £630, to take the allowance up to £8,105. Meaning that a total of 1.1 million more people will no longer pay income tax at all.

Commenting Roger Williams said:

“This commitment was a cornerstone of the 2010 Liberal Democrat manifesto and indeed the coalition agreement and it is fantastic that even in these difficult economic times we can cut taxes for working families.

“The tax system we inherited from the Labour government was a mess, we were in the perverse position where a high wealth individual was paying proportionally less income tax than his or her cleaner. In government we are re-casting the tax system so that those with the broadest shoulders take the largest burden.”

Within hours of the new unit opening its doors for business on 3 January a man had been detained in Leamington Spa after allegedly claiming £35,000 for a stolen BMW that was still in his possession.

Before the week was out IFED had responded to a number of industry reports of policy holders making bogus claims.

This included a Hertfordshire man who in 2005 claimed a back injury had left him unable to work, leaving his insurance company with a bill running into several hundred thousand pounds.

However, police are now in possession of evidence that seriously calls into question the claim and has led to the man’s arrest and IFED’s first criminal charges.

Twenty four hours earlier detectives had arrested three people suspected of running an internet car insurance company that was pocketing premiums but not providing any cover, leaving individuals unknowingly driving uninsured.

The action continued in week two, with the unit receiving reports from police forces across the country of a major car insurance fraud allegedly based in the Midlands. Detectives are currently assessing the intelligence before deciding whether to launch a full investigation.

In a different case a man was arrested in Newport, Wales, after he was accused of staging a burglary in his own home and then making a claim for £29,000 worth of electrical goods and jewellery.

DCI Dave Wood, who is heading up IFED, said:

“We wanted to make an immediate impact and put out a clear statement of intent, and that is exactly what we have done.

“In two weeks we have travelled far and wide to dismantle organised insurance fraud and tackle opportunistic insurance fraud. The challenge for us is to maintain this very high level of performance.”

For more information visit the City of London Police website. Please note that Action Fraud is not responsible for the content of third party websites.

If you have been a victim of fraud, report it online at Action Fraud.

According to the department for Communities and Local Government, some estimates suggest that between 50,000 and 160,000 social homes are currently being unlawfully occupied across the country.

While sub-letting social housing is currently not a criminal offence, it is considered a civil offence and tenants who sub-let are often asked to hand back their keys to the council or housing association that owns the property. Claiming housing benefit for a property where someone is not resident is a crime and the claimant can be prosecuted for benefit fraud.

Housing minister Graham Shapps has said:

“Tenancy cheats are taking advantage of a vital support system for some of the most vulnerable people in our society and getting away with a slap on the wrist while our waiting lists continue to grow. It’s time for these swindlers to pay the price.”

Last week, Shelina Akhtar, councillor in the London borough of Tower Hamlets was convicted of £1100 in housing benefit fraud. The cost of her monthly rent was £400. She earned a significant profit through subletting the property for £1000 a month.

Councils and Housing Associations are currently required to pursue social tenants through the courts when evidence of sub-letting is apparent and landlords wish to evict. In 2011, 1800 properties were reported to have been recovered via formal evictions. Sub-letting tenants can be left in the dark as to who owns the property and can find themselves in the centre of eviction proceedings.

Graham Shapps is committed to greater legal consequences for social tenants who are intent on taking advantage of the current law. Proposals for a change in legislation are currently in the consultation stage. If these proposals become law offences for tenancy fraud may carry similar consequences to social security fraud.

The Housing Minister envisages stronger legal rights for social landlords, particularly, local councils who will be focused on detecting and prosecuting tenancy fraud. Lost revenue is a concern and needs to be recovered to benefit communities.

Overall, local councils would have more powers to investigate social tenancy fraud. This would be provided by having better access to data from banks and utility companies. While councils can currently request data organisations can refuse to supply customer information. The proposed legislation would oblige them to comply.

Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg today [Thursday] gave a speech on supporting working families:

Today I want to make clear that I want the Coalition to go further and faster in delivering the full £10,000 allowance.

Because the pressure on family finances is reaching boiling point.

Yesterday’s GDP figures remind us that the road to the UK’s economic recovery will be long and progress will be uneven.

Those GDP figures remind us that we cannot simply ride out these troubles.
Waiting for the good times to roll around again, nor can we return to business as usual.

The financial crash and the recession that followed were unprecedented, and they were global. But the UK’s weakness in the face of those events was a damning indictment of the way our economy had been run.
An economy that became closed, elitist, driven by vested interests. Where we prized recklessness and short-term gains, and undervalued stability and hard work.

So picking ourselves up for good means fundamental reform. Hitting the reset button to ensure that not only does prosperity return, but, this time, it’s properly shared and really lasts.

The first part of that is clearly deficit reduction.
Filling the black hole; wiping the slate clean;
Preventing years of higher interest rates and fewer jobs;
Ensuring that the next generation does not pay for this generation’s mistakes;
Creating the sound public finances, the macroeconomic stability that we know is a prerequisite for lasting growth.

But, beyond that, we must also rebalance our economy: ending our overreliance on financial services and the South East;
Shifting from consumption to investment;
From debt-driven bubbles to sustainable growth.

And there is another element of rebalancing.
Rebalancing our tax and benefits system, because both need to be rebuilt with work at their heart, restoring some sense to the assistance and rewards the state provides.

We cannot pin all our hopes on the traders or the bankers. It will be the millions of hardworking Britons who deliver the nation from these difficult times. So we must now make the most of all of our human capital. And we must help struggling families stand on their own two feet. That means a benefits system that gets more people into work and a tax system that ensures work pays.

Today I want to say a word on each.

First, benefits.

I have always believed in a welfare system that helps those in need – those who cannot work must be protected. And those who have jobs must be confident that, should they lose them, there is a safety net in place.

That is precisely why, in the Autumn Statement last year the Coalition committed to the full uprating for pensions and out-of-work benefits from April – 5.2%, in line with inflation. Not everyone agreed that “the unemployed” should receive the full uplift, certainly not in the current climate. And, if you believed everything you read, you would think that these benefits are, essentially, unlimited handouts for the ‘idle poor’.
But that just shows what is so often wrong with this debate.

For one thing, for decades now benefits have been uprated in line with prices while earnings have generally increased at a faster rate. So the value of benefits such as Jobseekers Allowance have actually shrunk over the years compared with the incomes of those in work.

But, even more importantly, abuse of the benefits system by a minority has obscured the needs of a deserving majority.
The older people who have contributed to our society for their whole lives.
Those who cannot work due to disability or serious illness.
And – the group most often forgotten – working people who have been laid off, through no fault of their own. And, most often, for short periods of time.

Yes, sometimes the system is exploited – and that cannot be accepted.
But the majority of people who claim JSA are off benefits within three months.
People who pay their taxes, support their families, but are temporarily down on their luck. So we need a benefits system that helps those who can work into work.

And it is that simple principle that drives the Coalition’s welfare reforms. From the Universal Credit, to the benefits cap, to the Work Programme and the Youth Contract.

While the economy was booming. We saw four and a half million people stuck on out-of-work benefits.

The number of young and unemployed hardly changed. There are now 2.6m people on incapacity benefits. 900,000 of them have been parked there for 10 years or more. And where children grow up in homes where no one works they are twice as likely to experience long spells of unemployment themselves.

It isn’t right; the country can’t afford it. The Coalition is determined to see it change.

Nearly 70 years ago, when William Beveridge designed the welfare state he imagined a system that would give people protection from cradle to grave. Not one that would act as a crutch every day in between. The state must offer security in hard times.
But it should not, he warned, ‘stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility’.
In the words of another great liberal, John Stuart Mill, ‘assistance should be a tonic – not a sedative’. I couldn’t agree more.

Tax – the different traditions

And it is those same values, that same belief in the potential of ordinary men and women to flourish that needs to be instilled in our tax system too.

My philosophy on tax is simple: The system should reward effort, enterprise and innovation and bear down on those things which are bad for our society.

That sounds like a proposition with which most people would agree. But attitudes to tax are a good proxy for our deepest political instincts. And the three major political traditions in the UK – conservatism, socialism and liberalism – have very distinct approaches.

For those on the philosophical right, taxes are necessary but there is an understandable fear that tax-done-badly can threaten entrepreneurialism and business, strengthening the hand of an intrusive state. That wariness means the right can be less inclined to promote tax as a way of redistributing wealth and opportunity, putting less of an emphasis on using the tax system to tackle inequality, for example, between those who earn their income and those who are asset rich.

For the traditional left, on the other hand, taxes are the principal means of redistribution. Socialists will support a penal rate of tax on the highest earners, simply because it makes them poorer.

For them, tax is a badge of socialist success: the more, the better. They would rather draw money in through the state and then hand it back to people rather than letting them keep more of their earnings in the first place.

The liberal approach, put most simply, is based on a profound commitment to the value of paid work.

Citizens are empowered when they can keep the fruits of their own labour. As Gladstone said, it is better for money to ‘fructify in the pockets’ of the people who earn it, rather than in the Treasury and fiscal liberalism supports taxes on unearned wealth, precisely to lighten taxes on the wages of the hardworking.

A simple choice

Those principles could not be more important today. Because, in developed economies around the world, in every country now seeking to get back on the right path, where money is scarce, where every day families are tightening their belts, the biggest question we face is this: how is that burden shared?

That’s why, this week, we heard President Obama devote his State of the Union Address to greater fairness in the American tax system. It’s why tales of tax avoidance are filling our newspapers everyday. And every politician now has a simple choice: do you support a tax system that rewards the hard-working many? Or do you back taxes that favour the wealthy few?

I know which side of the line I stand on: The UK’s tax system cannot go on like this.
With those at the top claiming the reliefs, enjoying the allowances, hiring other people to find the loopholes, while everyone else pays through the nose.

So the Coalition is calling time on our unfair and out-of-whack tax system.

We’ve put up Capital Gains Tax – Ending the scandal, under Labour, of a hedge fund manager paying less on their shares than their cleaner paid on their wages.

We’ve reduced tax breaks on pension funds for the very rich.

We’ve clamped down on avoidance and taken steps to raise an extra £7bn through closing the tax gap.

And our priority in Government, from the front cover of the Liberal Democrat manifesto to the pages of the Coalition agreement, is freeing the lowest-paid from income tax altogether and cutting income tax for millions of ordinary workers.
Raising the personal threshold to help the squeezed middle

Over recent weeks you will have heard a great deal about fairness at the top, through Vince Cables’ reforms to curb excessive executive pay.

You will have heard a great deal about fairness at the bottom, through reform of our welfare system to ensure benefits are fair and reasonable, and to get more claimants into work.

This is about fairness in the middle. More money in the pockets of the people who need it.

Whether you call them the ‘squeezed middle’, ‘hard-working families’, or, as I have, ‘alarm clock Britain’, cutting income tax is one of the most direct tools we have to ease the burden on low and middle earners. The people whose incomes are too high to qualify for welfare benefits, but too low to provide any real financial security. The group whose plight the Resolution Foundation has done so much to highlight.

The working mum whose bills keep rising but whose wages do not.

The father kept awake in the dead of the night, worried tomorrow the company will be laying people off.

The young couple who used to look forward to the holiday they would book or the car they would buy, but who now know that if the boiler breaks or the washing machine packs up, the money just isn’t there.

Go back 50 years or so and many more working people were exempt from income tax thanks to a more generous tax-free threshold. But over the last few decades wage rises have outpaced the increase in the allowance. Sucking more and more people into the income tax net. And, while in the early 70s, the Personal Allowance was worth around 28% of average earnings. By 2010 that had dropped to around 20%.

At the last election my party promised to raise the personal allowance to £10,000 for ordinary taxpayers. And I am extremely proud that the Coalition is on track to do so over the course of this Parliament. We’ll make sure that anyone earning £10,000 or less will pay no income tax at all and for those on middle incomes, the first £10,000 they earn will be tax free.

For millions of basic rate taxpayers – ordinary, hardworking people – that means paying £700 less in income tax each year, around £60 a month.

In the 2010 Budget we increased the tax allowance from £6,475 to £7,475. This year we have already announced a planned rise of an additional £630 – meaning that a total of 1.1 million more people will no longer pay income tax at all.

But today I want to make clear that I want the Coalition to go further and faster in delivering the full £10,000. Because, bluntly, the pressure on family finances is reaching boiling point.

Compared to those at the top, these families have seen their earnings in decline for a decade and that’s got worse since 2008, with lower real wages and fewer hours at work.

Ongoing consolidation in the UK public finances has meant necessary increases in taxation, reductions in spending, restrictions on public sector pay, and higher contributions on pensions.

Last year brought much higher world inflation, some food prices have doubled, some energy prices have gone up by 50%.

And, yes, we are now seeing some moderation in inflation.

But, in just three years, real household disposable incomes have fallen by some 5 per cent, one of the biggest squeezes since the 1950s, since the records began. These families cannot be made to wait.

Household budgets are approaching a state of emergency. And the Government needs a rapid response.

Delivering the £10,000 personal allowance more quickly will need to be fully funded. We cannot just cut taxes by raising borrowing – that is just extra taxation deferred. And it would undermine our success in restoring stability and credibility to the public finances. So we need to find the money. And that will not be easy, of course.

But to those who say: we cannot afford to do this. I say: we cannot afford not to do this. And it is because of the pressure our economy is under that there is now an urgent need to give families more help; an urgent need to rebalance our tax system so it rewards work and encourages ordinary people to drive growth. And that means those who are better off paying their fair share.

In its recent excellent report Divided We Stand, the OECD noted how the incomes of the richest 1 per cent have soared away from everyone else over the last 20 years and showed that these people could be making a bigger tax contribution.

They also made clear that the right way to do this is not to increase marginal tax rates on work any further. This would simply drive many of the rich away to other countries. Or encourage them to use tax avoidance mechanisms more aggressively.
Instead, they suggest, governments need to look at tackling industrial-scale tax avoidance.

As well as at the allowances and reliefs which favour those on very high incomes that is how we can raise the average taxes paid by the very rich, without any further rise in marginal rates.

To that end the Coalition set up the Aaronson Review to look at a General Anti-Avoidance Rule on tax so that the tax industry cannot spend all its time creating ever more contrived schemes, undermining the principles and intentions of the system.

There are a range of other, specific areas where we need to be tough too, not least stamp duty avoidance, particularly on higher end property sales and the transferring of assets and income abroad to avoid UK tax.

We need to look at what more can be done to “green” the tax system. Not just because we care about the planet we leave our children – although that would be reason enough. But because, when the decision is between taxing pollution or taxing hard-graft, the right impulse is obvious.

And, there is another big part of the tax system where I believe we need to be much more ambitious: Serious, unearned wealth.

The eye wateringly lucrative assets so often hoarded at the top. We still live in a society where, for so many people. How much you earn can never compete with how much others own. Our tax system entrenches that divide. And we need to be bold enough to shift the burden right up to the top.

I know the Mansion Tax is controversial, but who honestly believes it is right that an oligarch pays just double the Council Tax of an average homeowner even if their house is worth one hundred times as much?

And who seriously thinks we would kill aspiration through a levy on the 0.1% of the population who own £2 million pound homes? The Mansion Tax is right, it makes sense and the Liberal Democrats will continue to make the case for it. We’re going to stick to our guns.

So, to finish as I began: we are living in tough times. And many families are feeling the pinch. We need more of those who can work in work, and real rewards and incentives for those who are.

It is often said that to govern is to choose and, in particular, to choose whose side you are on. That is especially true when there is no money around. My choice – the Liberal Democrat’s choice – is clear:

I want to help the hard-pressed and the hardworking. If that means asking more from those at the top – so be it.

We are committed to eliminating the deficit, and eliminate it we will. But I am determined that we do so in a way that is fair.

That rebalances our economy.

That gives the right people their dues.

People look to the Liberal Democrats to keep this Coalition anchored in the centre ground. They want economic competence, but they want compassion too.
It is our job to make sure this Government delivers both.

Thank you.