Autumn Conference 2004 was held at Kendal Town Hall on Saturday, 23 October.

Policy Motions passed at this conference appear below.

Conference:

notes that the UK has become a net importer of natural gas and that the Government is encouraging the development of new on shore storage facilities;
recognises that the increase of Gas imports requires new storage facilities to be developed;
expresses its concerns about the use of solution mining to create underground caverns for gas storage.
is particularly concerned about the use of such caverns in the light of explosions connected with these facilities in Hutchinson, Kansas and in Texas.

Conference calls upon the UK Government to follow the recommendations of Kansas State Legislature and restrict the building of such storage facilities so that no underground storage be allowed: (a) within three miles of a municipal settlement, (b) within one mile of a disused brine well and (c) within 5 miles of abandoned or active mine workings.

Conference notes with concern:
(a) that uniquely in Europe the owner of a river bank in England controls the right of passage along the river, and that over 50,000 kilometres of rivers in England and Wales including virtually all upland waters have no public access;
(b) that these restrictions are contrary to the principles of free access to land, represented and enforced in the Countryside and Rights of Way (CRoW) Act;
(c) that the sport of canoeing, in particular, both as recreation for all ages and abilities, and as a competitive sport from local club to Olympic level, is seriously held back by these restrictions.

Conference affirms its support for the principle of access rights on inland waterways, parallel to the rights of access to land set out in the CRoW Act, and subject to similar safeguards for the environment and for landowners' rights.

Conference therefore:
(1) supports a right of navigation for non-mechanically propelled craft on inland waterways;
(2) calls for new primary legislation to create this right;
(3) asks Federal Policy Committee to consider this policy, and
(4) urges Liberal Democrats in local government to promote voluntary access initiatives in their local areas.

Conference notes
(a) the launch by the Deputy Prime Minister of the "Northern Way" initiative and expresses concern at both the way it is being handled and some of the policy imperatives that appear to be coming from it.
(b) that in order to succeed the "Northern Way" will require the active support and involvement of local authorities across the north of England.

Conference expresses its concern that
(i) it appears to be a top-down initiative, from central government via regional development agencies (RDAs), with little involvement by local councils in early discussion of this matter;
(ii) it appears to pay little regard to the democratic mandates of locally elected councillors and their own long-term visions for their areas based on a local knowledge that RDAs so not always have.

Conference is further concerned:
(A) at press reports apparently emanating from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) stating that the number of homes that will require demolition over the next ten years has doubled to 400,000;
(B) at proposals to create an urban area along the M62 that will rival Greater London which have been announced without reference to the people who live in he M62 corridor or their locally elected representatives.
(C) that the Northern Way proposals appear to have been issued independently of the established planning system and development frameworks.

Conference believes that appropriate development in the north of England and in particular in the North West will help ease many of the social problems in these regions, and housing and environmental problems in the South, but that the types and scales of development reported will be bitterly resisted by local people and may not be deliverable.

Conference therefore calls on the ODPM to:
(1) issue the Northern Way blueprint very much as a consultative document;
(2) involve all councils fully in discussion of what the proposals will mean to their areas and people and allow them to come up with tried and tested local proposals for their detailed implementation;
(3) issue realistic timescales that will enable all public sector bodies to handle properly the delivery of proposals that are agreed.

Conference finally resolves to seek the support for these views of the Liberals Democrats in the other Northern regions, at national level and in North West local authorities and to support actions to lobby the government on them.

Conference

(a) notes the admission by the Foreign Secretary on 12th October that the claim that Iraq had been within 45 minutes of launching weapons of mass destruction was false, and that the intelligence on which this claim was based has been formally withdrawn;

(b) notes that this claim was a crucial element used by the Government in its dossier and Commons statements to convince MPs of its case for war;

(c) firmly believes that the Prime Minister and his Cabinet demonstrated appalling judgement in using the 45 minute claim as part of their case for war;

(d) notes that the use of such claims has led to the suicide of a leading Government weapons expert, a public and personalised disagreement between the BBC and the Government leading to the sacking of a senior correspondent and the resignation of the Director-General of the BBC, and to four independent inquiries costing millions of pounds of taxpayers' money;

(e) believes that the official Conservative Opposition has demonstrated ineptitude and ineffectiveness in their unquestioning support of the Government despite its reliance on questionable intelligence;

(f) notes the existence of a campaign, which includes some Liberal Democrat MPs, calling for the impeachment of the Prime Minister;

(g) notes the continuing call on British military support and involvement from the United States, leading this country further into a drawn-out guerilla-style war in Iraq (and possibly Afghanistan);

(h) believes that Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon's statement that to not send the Black Watch to American-occupied areas of Iraq would be 'failing our duty as an ally' of George Bush (which mirrors the sidestepping and negation of parliamentary scrutiny of the 'weapons of mass destruction' and '45 minutes' notice' issues which triggered the invasion of Iraq), again raises the issue of trust; and reconfirms the need to internationalise peacekeeping in Iraq.

Conference calls on the Prime Minister and his Government to resign now and to call a General Election.