Liberal Democrats hold Spring Conference in Wolverhampton

8.00.00pm GMT Sat 24th Mar 2007

Cllr Mike Heap (left) opens the conference

St Edmund's School in Compton Park, Wolverhampton was the venue for the West Midlands Regional Spring Conference.Springvale Lib Dem councillor Mike Heap who is a governor of the School welcomed conference to Wolverhampton and St Edmunds. Nick Clegg MP, the Lib Dem

Nick Clegg MP (right) endorses Robin Lawrence's campaign

Shadow Home Secretary told Conference that the Labour Government had spent ten years enacting a huge number of new laws dealing with crime and justice but had not made any real progress. Mr Clegg accused Labour of being more interested in pursuing headlines rather than the perpetrators of crime. Instead Labour was eroding civil liberties with bans on demonstrations, the world's biggest DNA data bank and their ID cards. He called for transparency in sentencing so that what the judge says is what the sentence is and the abuse of language in which a 'life sentence' means a few years must be stopped. Mr Clegg endorsed Park Ward Campaigner Robin Lawrence and his "We can stop crime" campaign.

Lorely Burt MP (left) and Liz Lynne MEP (right) prepare to address conference

Just back from all party Parliamentary Group to Brazil, Solihull MP, Lorely Burt MP gave a graphic account of flying low over the Amazon rain forest in a small aircraft to see the damage done by illegal logging. She said we should all insist that every stick of furniture we buy is properly certified so that we are not ourselves aiding and abetting the illegal destruction of the world's forests.

From the European Parliament Liz Lynne MEP said she had been involved in getting European Union support for a treaty banning cluster bombs in the same way as land mines are banned. For many years Liz has been involved with the problems of Kashmir and has had the task of amending an EU report on Kashmir and it now is line with Liberal Democrat policy. She noted that the Conference coincided not only with the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome but the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the Slave Trade. Liz has been very active in the EU's attempt to stop modern slavery in the form of human trafficking mainly of young women from Eastern Europe. No woman, she insisted, would submit to repeated daily rape just to live in an EU country. These women are victims yet too often they are treated as criminals.