Conservative party Cardiff conference

 

Conservative party Cardiff conference - politics live blog

George Osborne is to announce his plans for enterprise zones to the Conservative's spring conference in Cardiff. Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters

5.15pm: The conference has wrapped up for the day. Before I finish, here's an afternoon summary.

• George Osborne, the chancellor, has signalled that he is going to scrap a planned fuel duty increase in the budget later this month. "When it costs £1.30 for a litre of petrol; £80 to fill up a family car; I know people feel squeezed," he told the conference. "And I say this to people watching: I hear you." It is worth pointing out that a campaign by the Sun newspaper for the fuel duty increase to be scrapped may have helped to focus Osborne's mind on this issue. Labour have also said today that the increase, which was originally announced by Alistair Darling before the election, should not go ahead. (See 2.22pm and 4.09pm.)

• Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, has accused Labour councils of egregious waste. In the most partisan speech of the day, he said: "Labour councils just don't get why we need to pay off the budget deficit. These councils didn't plan for a rainy day. They don't believe in sensible savings or pruning their sprawling municipal empires." He criticised several Labour-run authorities by name, like Manchester. "[Manchester is] cutting sport centres, libraries, bin collections, even public lavatories. Yet it's got £100 million of reserves in the bank," Pickles said. "And it still finds the time to hire a "Nuclear Free Local Authority" policy officer, and bankroll a chief executive on £230,000 a year."

• Cheryl Gillan, the Welsh Secretary, has said the vote giving the Welsh Assembly full law-making powers should not be allowed to result in a "slate curtain" coming down across the border. "Wales must not be disadvantaged because political dogma or ideology draws down a slate curtain along the border with England," she said. "The people of Wales have a right to access the best services, locally, on whatever side of the border those services might be provided."

That's it for today. I'll be blogging again from the conference tomorrow. Thanks for the comments.

4.45pm: Oliver Letwin wants Britain to be more like France - at least in terms of productivity. In a speech he gave in his capacity as chairman of the Conservative Policy Forum, he identified raising productivity as one of the challenges he wanted the forum to address.

The French, who are notorious, should I say, or perhaps famous for living the good life do actually live the good life. They produce more per hour, and hence for roughly speaking the same domestic product as we produce, they work fewer hours. This would be a nice thing to be able to do. How do they do it? What can we do to match them? Or indeed to use the extra hours to work more and be richer than they are? That at least is a choice we have if productivity rises.

The other challenges for the policy forum that Letwin listed were: achieving higher employment; getting more regional balance in the economy; producing more affordable housing; tackling child poverty; improving the well-being of children; improving the life chances of looked-after children; ensuring that care for the elderly is properly funded; protecting "natural capital"; and reducing the scale of central government bureaucracy.

4.19pm: A story in the Daily Mail this morning said that Eric Pickles would deliver "the strongest attack to date from the government on Labour council bosses" in his speech this afternoon. I thought that was standard tabloid hyperbole. But, having read the speech, I think this assessment is spot on. The full text of the speech is on the Conservative party's website. But here's a flavour of what Pickles had to say.

The Labour Mayor of Lewisham says openness is "interfering."

Actually, the new government far from interfering is scrapping ring-fencing.

We are abolishing Labour's box-ticking inspection and interference.

The Labour leader of Bradford, another charmer, said it would be "embarrassing" if different firms were "able to sell to the council more cheaply".

When I was leader of Bradford, I'd be embarrassed if firms were ripping my taxpayers off.

Some advice to Labour: Incompetence is no reasonable excuse for secrecy.

And the Labour leader of Nottingham say openness is too expensive.

- No, openness saves money.

Business experts, Experian, have estimated councils are spending £150 million a year - just on paying the same bills twice by accident.

4.15pm: ConservativeHome's Tim Montgomerie has posted his verdict on George Osborne's speech. He sees it as evidence that Osborne is looking increasingly credible as a future prime minister.

There are no TB/GBs in this government. The fact is that if Osborne succeeds the government succeeds. If the economy is fixed - after what he described as a long, hard road - Osborne will be the hero. Sometime in the middle of the next parliament - if, if, if the Conservatives are re-elected - when there are a few more grey hairs on Osborne's head - he may well become Cameron's successor.

4.09pm: Labour have already called for VAT on petrol to be cut. Following George Osborne's speech this afternoon, the opposition has also come out in favour of the rise in fuel duty being postponed. Angela Eagle, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, makes this clear in the statement she's issued about the Osborne speech.

George Osborne's empty speech exposed that he still has no plan for jobs and growth to get the economy moving again and nothing more than platitudes for millions of families facing the squeeze.

With record high prices at the petrol pump, people want action not warm words from George Osborne. He should listen to Labour's campaign and act right now to help millions of families by reversing the Tory VAT rise on petrol, which has added £1.35 to the cost of filling up a 50 litre tank.

In the budget he should look again at the annual duty rise due in April. The last Labour government often postponed planned duty increases when world oil prices were rising, as they are now.

If George Osborne wants to tackle the forces of stagnation he should look in the mirror. He should rethink his reckless plan to cut too deep and too fast which has sent the economy into reverse with unemployment now rising again and the economy shrinking. And he needs to wake up to the fact that without more jobs and strong economic growth you can't get the deficit down.

With so little of substance to say the Chancellor would have been better off cancelling this speech, like the one he had to cancel earlier this week.

Her comment about Osborne cancelling a speech earlier this week refers to this.

3.14pm: I've just been reading the Osborne speech in detail. The full text is now on the Conservative party website. I've already covered the main points, but I think it's worth quoting a bit more from his passage about Libya because, in some respects, this was the most surprising section in the speech. We expected Osborne to talk about the economy, and the budget, and fuel duty. But he's not responsible for foreign policy and did not need to say anything about Libya. Instead he included a passionate section (see 2.18pm) about how the Libyans want freedom.

There is no one precise model for all countries and all the governments.

But let's be clear.

Freedom and peace are not alternatives - they are indivisible.

Democracy and stability are not alternatives - they are indivisible.

British interests and the values of liberty and open society are not alternatives - they are indivisible.

The British people and the cause of freedom - we are indivisible.

This does not necessarily mean that Osborne is coming out in favour of a no-fly zone. But it does mean that Osborne wants people to know that he's taking a hawkish stance on the key foreign policy issue of the day.

2.38pm: Osborne has finished now. I'll post a bit more on the speech when I've read the text properly, but the story is pretty clear: the fuel duty increase is not going to happen. Ministers have been saying for some time that they want to address this issue, but Osborne's comments probably merit that hoary journalistic cliché, "the clearest sign yet". He did not quite commit himself to ruling out the increase, but he left very little doubt as to where he's heading.

2.28pm: Osborne confirms that he will set up enterprise zones in the budget.

Today I confirm that in the budget we will introduce new enterprise zones across parts of Britain that have missed out in the last ten years.

They will be centres for new businesses and new jobs where taxes will be even lower and more restrictions on growth removed.

They will be in places in our land with great potential – but which need that extra push from government and local communities working together.

I am delighted that Nick Bourne and the Welsh Conservatives have said they want to make these new enterprise zones work here in Wales too.

We need to set people free again.

2.25pm: Osborne says the budget will be "unashamedly pro-growth". And he says he wants to promote growth not just in the south of England, but in the rest of the UK too.

Do you know one of the greatest scandals of the Labour years?

For every ten jobs created by business in the south, just one job was created in the north and the midlands.

2.22pm: Osborne turns to fuel duty.

When it costs £1.30 for a litre of petrol; £80 to fill up a family car; I know people feel squeezed.

And I say this to people watching:

I hear you.

This April I'm freezing council tax, cutting income taxes for 23 million people and increasing child tax credits payments to the low paid.

But we've got another of the Labour Party's pre-prepared rises in petrol tax also coming this April – one penny above inflation.

I won't take risks with economic stability, or wreck the public finances.

But I promise you I am doing everything I can to find a way to help.

• Osborne signals that he will cancel the planned increase in fuel duty in the budget.

2.18pm: On foreign policy, George Osborne is known to be a hawk, virtually a neo-con, according to some accounts. He does not talk about foreign policy often. But, in a passage on the Libyan crisis, he expresses strong support for those fighting for freedom.

While we are all righty focused on the threat from Islamic extremists, Conservatives have always understood that there is a far more powerful force.

The desire of people everywhere to be free.

Not just something for the people of London, Edinburgh and Cardiff to enjoy.

But on the streets of Tripoli and Benghazi, in the internet cafes of Tunis and Cairo – they want the same thing as we want.

To have a voice and be heard. To have a stake in our world. To leave something better to our children.

They want what we want. Freedom.

2.16pm: Now Osborne is giving the audience an Ed Miliband joke.

Ed Balls, and Ed Miliband, don't want to confront the truth about what needs to be done to clean up the mess - because they can't handle the truth: it's their mess.

Of course they had different responsibilities.

Ed Balls should have taken more care in writing Gordon Brown's budgets.

And Ed Miliband should have taken more care in photocopying them.

Osborne also says that Balls and Miliband are leftwing politicians "who don't understand anyone who wants to get up and get on, anyone who want a better life for their family, anyone who want to create wealth, and start a business, and create jobs, and leave something to their children."

2.13pm: Osborne says the government deserves credit for low interest rates.

Our fiscal policy allows our independent Bank of England to keep interest rates lower than they would otherwise be.

Today, Britain has a budget deficit greater than that of Spain or Portugal.

But our businesses and families can borrow at interest rates similar to those of Germany and France.

That is the boost we have provided to our economy.

If the government were to abandon its deficit reduction programme, there would be panic in the markets, he claims.

2.12pm: Osborne defends the government's decision to tackle the deficit. But he says the government protected the NHS budget. "It's shameful that the Labour/Nationalist Welsh Assembly government is cutting the NHS budget when I've given them the resources to protect it," he says.

2.08pm: Osborne defends the decision to form a coalition. And he says it was right to agree to a referendum on the alternative vote.

This Party has never been afraid of letting the people decide.

Let me shock you: on AV, I agree with Nick Clegg.

It is, as he says, a 'miserable little compromise'.

Let us go out there, over the next eight weeks, and make the case against the alternative vote.

It is unfair on voters.

It means politicians are unaccountable.

And the party leader who gets the most votes can end up losing.

If you don't believe me, just ask David Miliband.

2.04pm: George Osborne has just started speaking now.

1.37pm: In her speech Lady Warsi made a point of saying that David Cameron is a Conservative prime minister "delivering Conservative priorities based on Conservative promises". But, according to Lord Mandelson, Cameron is more-or-less a Blairite. Mandelson has written a fascinating essay on the contemporary political scene for the new paperback edition of his autobiography, The Third Man. I finished reading it on the train to Cardiff. His comments about Ed Miliband have already been reported, but his analysis of Cameron is also intriguing. Here's what he says:

I suspect that [David Cameron] is temperamentally more at ease in leading a coalition than he would be leading a government of his own party. Not just in campaigning and presentation, but in a number of policy areas, the signs have been more of a continuity with New Labour than an old-style Tory unravelling of what proceeding Labour administrations had put in place ...

Still - and I make no apology for saying this - some of the early policy initiatives are consistent with the reforms that New Labour started, including reforms, in areas like the extension of academy schools, or welfare and benefit changes, which we did not manage to get fully done. They may also turn out, if implemented intelligently, to be the kind of decisions that will resonate with the political middle ground that most of Britain inhabits

There's plenty more stuff in the chapter worth reporting. It's a bit "off-topic", but if I get a chance I'll post the highlights this afternoon.

1.13pm: Here's a lunchtime summary.

• Labour have suggested that George Osborne's plan to revive enterprise zones is a gimmick. The Treasury has already trailed the plan, which Osborne will formally announce in a speech to the Conservative spring conference this afternoon. But John Denham, the shadow business secretary, accused Osborne of just chasing positive headlines. He put out this statement.

George Osborne will have to show how his new enterprise zones will be more effective than those in the 1980s. Independent analysis of enterprise zones at home and abroad show they have limited impact and the cost of job creation is far higher than alternatives like the future jobs fund. The Tory-led government has wrecked regional development agencies and ignored Labour pleas to give [local enterprise partnerships] real powers over skills and resources. Britain needs a plan for growth, not a plan for headlines.

• Lady Warsi, the Conservative co-chairman, has said that winning the referendum on the alternative vote is more important than doing well in the local elections. For the Tories, "winning" means securing a no vote. In part this reflects a recognition that the party will do badly in the Scottish, Welsh and English local elections on 5 May. Warsi said as much in an interview published this morning. But it is also a response to fears that "losing" the AV referendum could damage the Tories' long-term prospects of forming a majority government. Warsi urged activists to "fight every single Liberal Democrat backing the other side" on this issue. (See 12.40pm.)

12.40pm: Here are the main points from Lady Warsi's speech. The full text is now on the Conservative party website.

• Warsi said that the referendum on the alternative vote was more important than the Scottish, Welsh and local elections on 5 May.

On May 5th, I want you to defend the seats we hold. Of course, we've got to take the seats we can. But above all on May 5th, we need to win the one election which will affect every single general election to come.

This is interesting because it reflects the concerns of some commentators, like Paul Goodman at ConservativeHome, that the Tories have so far been underplaying the importance of the AV referendum. It also marks a contrast with the stance taken by senior Labour figures, who have generally been arguing that the local elections are more important than the AV poll.

• She urged her audience to fight the Lib Dems. This should not be a surprise, of course, but it made my ears prick up, because you don't often hear Tory ministers now talking with relish about attacking the Lib Dems. Warsi did this in the context of AV, in a passage that is not in the printed version of her speech released to the media.

Go out and fight every single Liberal Democrat backing the other side because the Conservatives are voting no.

• She warned that the party could do badly in the local elections.

Let's remember where we're starting from. We hold almost half of all English seats, gaining many when Labour were rock bottom in the polls. So we have a high base to defend.

She was even more explicit about this in an interview in today's Daily Telegraph. "We will do badly in the local elections and Labour should do very well because of where we are in the electoral cycle," she said. I've already heard one Tory commentator here complaining about this, on the grounds that a party co-chairman should not be conceding defeat before the local election campaign has already started.

• She insisted that the government was "led by a Conservative prime minister" and "delivering Conservative priorities based on Conservative promises". This seemed aimed at those Conservative party members - 58% of the membership, according to this ConservativeHome poll - who think that Cameron is making too many concessions to the Lib Dems.

12.34pm: Lady Warsi, the Conservative party co-chairman, has just finished speaking. It wasn't one of the great speeches of the year, but it was more interesting than many of the speeches you'll hear at sleepy conferences like this at 12.30pm on a sunny Saturday. I'll post a summary in a moment.

12.07pm: In the comments hilltop predicted that I wouldn't be fighting for a seat in the press room. He was right. There are about nine of us here at the moment.

But the conference hall itself looks reasonably full. Admittedly, it's not the Albert Hall. It's a smallish auditorium. There are probably about 200 people in it now listening to the end of the Welsh debate.

Nick Bourne, the leader of the Conservatives in the Welsh Assembly, spoke earlier. He set out what amounts to a mini-manifesto for the assembly elections. He proposed:

• Enterprise zones across Wales.

• A voluntary charter mark to recognise businesses that promote the Welsh language.

• Free bus travel and other benefits for members of the armed forces in Wales.

• Reversing Labour's health cuts in Wales.

• An extra £3m a year for the Welsh air ambulance service.

11.36am:This is appropriate. The conference is taking place at the SWALEC stadium, the home of Glamorgan cricket club. Conservatism, like cricket, is an essentially English passion that has never been fully embraced by the Welsh.

I've arrived and I'm just getting my bearings. I'll post again soon.

10:31am: I'm writing this on the train to Wales. It's the weekend of the Conservative spring conference (or spring forum, as they call it – anyone know why?) and over the next 48 hours we'll hear from at least 10 cabinet ministers, as well as David Cameron, who will be giving the closing speech tomorrow afternoon.

Spring conferences can be low-key affairs, but with the economy wobbling, severe spending cuts coming into effect, the Libyan crisis deepening, Ukip beating the Tories in the Barnsely Central byelection and the budget looming, it will be odd if this event doesn't generate some solid political news.

Today's main story seems to be about the budget. George Osborne is speaking this afternoon and the Treasury has already revealed that he will announce plans to create the "enterprise zone" championed by the Tories in the 1980s. The budget will be "unashamedly pro-growth", he will say, and it will include plans to set up enterprise zones in 10 areas of the country.

My train arrives in Cardiff mid-morning and so I'm going to miss the first hour or so of the conference, which is about what the party has been doing in Wales. (The Welsh Conservatives normally have their own spring conference; this year their event has merged with the national spring forum.) But here are the main events I'll be covering.

• 12pm: Lady Warsi, the Conservative co-chairman, gives a speech.

• 2pm: George Osborne, the chancellor, opens a session on economic growth with a speech. There will then be a panel session on regional growth, with MPs and AMs (members of the Welsh Assembly) speaking.

• Around 3pm: Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, gives a speech.

• Around 3.30pm: Oliver Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister and chairman of the Conservative Policy Forum, gives a presentation. There will then be a discussion on developing economic policies for the future.

• Around 4.30pm: Cheryl Gillan, the Welsh secretary, closes the session.

I'll post again after 11am, once I've arrived.