Report on ALTER's activities at Lib Dem Spring Conference 11-13 March 2011

Conference began for ALTER with several members attending the consultation on Friday afternoon on the outline Inequality policy paper, where LVT was given an airing.

The paper endorsed the idea that LVT is a good way to shift the burden of taxation "onto unearned wealth". It asked: "Would LVT be feasible and helpful?" When the policy working party (and session) chairman, Dr David Hall-Matthews, asked for a show of hands against that proposition, none were raised. Nor did anyone speak against the idea.

Since then, ALTER has offered to help the Inequality policy group draft the final paper, to ensure that what is said about LVT is sound. The offer has been gratefully accepted. A formal debate on the policy paper will take place at the autumn conference in Birmingham, after it has been approved by the Federal Policy Committee. ALTER will write to FPC during the summer and our Executive Committee is to discuss how best to use our Birmingham fringe slot to promote LVT as a redistributive policy.

While this was taking place, ALTER's exhibition stand was being prepared. We had a prime double-fronted site, allowing us to use both of our new banners with "Tax Land not Work" and a large screen with rolling Powerpoint of quotes by famous people on LVT - thanks to William Davison for lending the screen. We signed up several new members and about 20 new contacts for the email list over the weekend. Party Leader (and ALTER Vice President) Nick Clegg paid us a visit.

That evening, at a private dinner following the shortest ever ALTER AGM, 18 of us heard our Hon President Chris Huhne give his inside view of the economic policies of the Coalition - with a few hints at what might come in the Budget. Shelter's new Head of Policy Toby Lloyd was a guest at the dinner.

At the AGM, a new committee was elected (well, mostly the old one re-elected!) including Sutton's Head of Scrutiny Cllr Gerry Jerome - a second sitting councillor and the only one currently from a Lib Dem controlled authority.

The main event for ALTER, as always, was our fringe meeting on Saturday lunch-time. With fewer fringe events to choose from, attendance was good. The theme was Housing & Land: putting needs first. Jason Cowley of New Statesman pulled out as Chair a week ahead, but Cllr Angela Lawrence, Executive Member for Housing at Vale of White Horse DC in Oxfordshire, stood in.

From the panel, Rachel Smith (aka Mrs Cable) explained how difficult it has become to sustain a small rural housing association in a high-value area (she chairs one in the New Forest). Toby Lloyd gave a lively insight into how dysfunctional the housing market has become in the UK - in both price and quality: "What other product has purchasers preferring the 100-year-old model to the new one?!" He was quite clear what he thought the main reason was: LVT! Toby is one of the best young speakers on housing economics (and LVT) I've heard. It was left to your Chairman to outline the approach to introducing LVT in Britain that ALTER has been developing in recent years, as outlined in the flyer we launched at Sheffield.

There was hardly any time for questions or discussion but the audience seemed to remain engaged with the subject. Housing is closely related to Inequality and these themes could help set Liberal Democrats apart from our Coalition partners as we approach the next general election, if we can get the LVT message across to voters effectively.