Fiona's Speech in Marlborough

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen. Good of you to come with the other rival attraction on television.

I live in this constituency and have done so for over 20 years, I've worked here, volunteered here, used the NHS here, used the public transport here, driven here and watched as successive governments national & local have overseen the closure of Post Offices - Village Schools - and Hospital Services.

Many of you know of my interest in transport and my work with PVTAG on the Wigglybus project. Now being cut back since Wiltshire Council took it over and dispensed with the community advice and involvement. I have also been involved in various ways with CPRE and VAK. Currently I am involved with PCAP looking at Education & leisure.

Since my Mother died I have gone back to teaching mathematics to those who find it a bit challenging.

Why do I want to be an MP? because I think that it is about time that the interests of those of us who live in Rural Britain were represented at Westminster.

Too often we are treated as an annoying anomaly to the policies of urban bureaucrats.

We need an MP to fight for the solutions that fit us here

I wish to thank Marlborough Council of Churches for organising this hustings. Real Democracy.

I will take the opportunity to tell you a little about our Liberal Democrat policies but first I want to say something about the state of our democracy.

Is democracy best served by two grown men shouting at each other once a week? Cheered on by others who might be supporting their local football team? Is it well served by an un-elected second chamber? By MP's and governments elected by less than half of those voting? By the date at which we all have the chance to vote in a general election being at the whim of the Prime Minister?

I don't think so. Fixed term parliament, proportional representation, an elected second chamber and a written constitution are things that Lib Dems have been calling for for years. I think their time has come. Liberal Democrats will Restore and protect hard-won British Civil Liberties with a Freedom Bill.

It may be taking a little longer but I still want to break the mould of British Politics just as I did when I joined the SDP.

Labour, well they seem to have had a road to Damascus conversion to these ideas as the election has drawn near. Not good enough, they have had 13 years to introduce these reforms and they have not done it.

One of the issues that is top of the agenda for many people in this area is the NHS.

You have seen your hospital modernised and then your services withdrawn - what a waste of money?

We will give people the power to have a say in how their local NHS is run and stop hospital closures in their area. We will devolve power to local people through elected health boards - if they don't listen then you will be able to vote them out.

We will make it illegal for a local health board to allow a doctor to work in the UK for the first time without passing robust language and competence tests.

We will ensure that local GPs provide out-of-hours care.

We will integrate health and social care.

Liberal Democrats are totally committed to the NHS. Free at the point of use - care when you need it, regardless of your ability to pay. But that is just our starting point. The real challenge we face is to improve the NHS at a time when the public finances are in a mess.

Liberal Democrats will halve the size of the Dept of Health over the next parliament and reinvest the money in patient care. We will cut the number of health guanos by a third and abolish the strategic health authorities.

Fair Tax

Vince Cable's proposal to raise the threshold for paying income tax to £10,000 will lift many low paid workers and pensioner right out of paying income tax. Most people will be £700 a year better of. It will be paid for by closing the unfair tax loopholes exploited by the very rich, pollution taxes and by the mansion tax.

This is money that will help the economy to recover.

Vince Cable is very clear about how we tackle the economy. First you do not risk the recovery until it is clearly underway. Then you look at what government spends, you prioritise and you cut out the unnecessary. Examples include no like for like replacment of Trident, expensive IT projects that don't work, that's ID cards and the health service system that does not work, the next traunch of the Eurofighter.

A pay cap of £400 for public sector workers

We will introduce a Bank levy so that the Banks pay for the help they have received and we will break them up so it can't ever happen again. Not tax breaks for a narrow group.

Now there has been a lot of talk about efficiency savings. Think we might know a bit about this here don't you. How our Tory led Councils told us that if we had a single Unitary Council there would be efficiency savings, they would have the money for things like mending the roads - what have we got, a higher than average council tax rise and pot holes in the road so big they are a danger to cyclists.

Education

There is one area where we think extra spending is called for and that is education

A fair chance for every child

Our plans for a pupil premium will give over £11million to schools in Wiltshire. Money Head Teachers can use to raise standards and outcomes for all our children. They might use it for extra staff to make class sizes smaller or to give extra help to those who fall behind.

You've been let down by Labour for the last 13 years. You've had 65 years of Labour and Conservative Governments taking it in turns to make the same old mistakes over and over again.

In Marlborough and Durrington you have been well served by Liberal Democrat Councillors for many years, now is the time to take it a step further and be represented in Westminster by a Liberal Democrat.