For too long, the vital role played by hospices in our health and care system has been overlooked. These organisations provide compassionate, dignified care for people at the end of life, they support their families, and they give vital relief to our overstretched NHS. Yet years of neglect and underfunding have left them in crisis. 

Under the last Conservative government vital services were put in jeopardy, with hospices and end of life charities forced to turn sick and dying people away. Between 2022 and 2024 hospices faced a £47 million real terms funding cut. A Hospice UK survey found that 7 in 10 of hospices believed they would need to cut services due to pressure from rising costs.

The Liberal Democrats believe no one should be denied dignity and comfort at the end of life because of where they live, or whether local charitable fundraising can plug the gap left by government.

Today our members have passed new policy which calls for urgent action to end the postcode lottery in hospice care, secure fair and sustainable funding, and protect the future of these essential services:

• End the postcode lottery by allocating NHS funding for hospice and palliative care according to demand, so that areas that struggle to raise charitable income are still properly supported.
   
• Exempt hospices from the increase in Employer’s National Insurance Contributions, which has placed unsustainable financial pressure on already struggling providers.
   
• Tackle staffing shortages through a dedicated hospice workforce plan, cutting vacancy rates and ensuring hospices have the skilled staff they need to deliver high quality care.
   
• Establish a sustainable financial footing for hospices through a new commission, creating a fair and consistent funding model integrated with the wider NHS and care system.
   
• Support families and the bereaved by expanding access to bereavement counselling and therapy, available from the point of diagnosis.

Hospices already care for around 300,000 people each year, but just one third of their funding comes from the NHS. Many clinical costs are met instead by charitable donations – leaving patients’ dignity at the mercy of fundraising capacity.

NHS spending on hospices varies wildly across the country, from over £10 per head in some areas to just 23p in others. This broken, incoherent model undermines services and leaves families without the support they need.

Liberal Democrats would fix this.

A sustainable funding model, backed by fair commissioning, would save money as well as improving care. Palliative care provided in the community or by hospices costs far less than hospital-based care, and studies have shown that services like those run by Marie Curie can save the NHS more than 50% compared with in-patient admission.

Properly funded hospices ease pressure on overstretched hospitals and deliver the care people want, where they want it.

By protecting and strengthening hospice services, we can ensure that everyone has the dignity, comfort and support they deserve at the end of life.

Pubs, restaurants, cafés, and hotels don’t just contribute billions to our economy – they create local jobs, support vibrant town centres, and bring people together.

But the hospitality sector has been hit hard. Years of workforce shortages, the Covid pandemic, the energy crisis, and poor economic management under the Conservatives have taken a heavy toll. And now, the Labour Government’s policies are making things worse.

Rachel Reeves’ hike in Employer’s National Insurance Contributions is hitting hospitality particularly hard. Recent surveys show 1 in 3 hospitality businesses are running at a loss, 6 in 10 have cut jobs, and many have reduced staff hours.

The Government’s changes to business rates also shift the burden unfairly, forcing independent small and medium-sized enterprises to subsidise large corporate chains. On top of this, energy market failures continue to push up bills, with little competition to drive prices down.

Liberal Democrats believe that hospitality is vital for economic growth, jobs, and thriving communities. That’s why our members have today passed new policy:

• Abolishing business rates and replacing them with a fair Commercial Landowner Levy that supports small businesses.
   
• Helping small and medium-sized businesses invest in training, digital technology, and energy efficiency to become more competitive.
   
• Reforming the apprenticeship levy into a more flexible system that truly supports skills development in hospitality and beyond.

We are also calling on the Government to act urgently by:

• Exempting hospitality small and medium-sized enterprises from the Employer’s National Insurance Contributions increase to ease their cost pressures.
   
• Consulting on a new, lower NIC band for the portion of workers’ salaries between £5,000 and £9,100, to support part-time workers
   
• Making sure the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements delivers real improvements so hospitality businesses can access better energy deals.
   
• Speeding up apprenticeship reforms and empowering Skills England to be truly independent and employer-focused to tackle skills shortages.

If we want a growing economy and flourishing communities, we must back hospitality, not leave it to struggle under unfair policies.

Across the country, people are being held back not by a lack of potential, but by a lack of access to the training they need to succeed.

From care homes to construction sites, clean energy to HGV driving, employers are facing critical skills shortages. And while the world changes faster than ever, with AI transforming how we work, investment in training has fallen drastically.

If the Government are serious about driving growth, they would put skills at the heart of their agenda. Instead, their approach leaves key decisions tied to short-term politics rather than long-term needs.

Liberal Democrats believe in real opportunity for everyone, at every stage of life. That’s why today, our members have backed new policy with a bold, long-term plan to close skills gaps, boost growth, and help people turn their potential into success:

• A £10,000 Lifelong Training Grant for every adult, available in instalments at ages 25, 40, and 55, to support re-skilling and career transitions.
   
• Reforming Skills England into a truly independent body, accountable to Parliament and driven by regional and sectoral expertise.
   
• Guaranteeing apprentices are paid at least the National Minimum Wage, and scrapping the lower apprentice rate.
   
• Extending the Pupil Premium to post-16 further education learners and equalising per-student funding with school sixth forms.
   
• Creating Skills Cooperatives for small businesses to pool training resources and transforming the Growth and Skills Levy into a Skills and Training Account model to empower both employers and individuals to fund training.
   
• Boosting vocational qualifications, micro-credentials, and modular learning to give people more flexible routes to success.
   
• Speeding up recognition of people’s existing qualifications when they move to the UK, so they can use their skills here.

We also know that opportunity is about removing barriers. That’s why our plan tackles the childcare gap for full-time students, gives extra support to young carers, improves prison training, and makes care experience a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.

These reforms will help fix the skills shortages holding back our economy, while giving people the freedom and confidence to take on new challenges at any stage of life.

It’s marketed as harmless fun – a quick spin, a flutter, a chance to win big. As the MP for a town with a racecourse, I’m no stranger to gambling. As a liberal I view this as both a freedom-to and a freedom-from issue.

Because for too many people, gambling leads not to a jackpot, but to debt, broken relationships, and even tragedy.

Across the UK, millions are affected by gambling harms each year. It’s estimated that one-person-a-day dies by gambling-related suicide. Children are growing up in households where gambling problems overshadow family life. And the rise of online slot machines available 24/7 on phones means that gambling is easier, faster, and riskier than ever before.

The gambling industry knows this. It profits from it. And for years, the absence of firm regulation has let them get away with it. Public safety has been put behind profits, with few wider economic benefits from the rise of online gambling.

In 2023, politicians from all parties agreed we needed a public health approach to gambling, and now the Labour Government must not quietly step back from that consensus.

As liberals, we believe adults should be free to gamble if they choose. But freedom also means freedom from harm.

Today, Liberal Democrat members have passed new policy to put public health at the heart of gambling regulation:

• Creating a statutory, independent Gambling Ombudsman with real power.
   
• Curbing the impact of gambling advertising, marketing, and sponsorship.
   
• Enforcing affordability checks so no one can gamble beyond their means.
   
• Giving local councils the same powers over regulating gambling venues as they have over pubs.
   
• Regulating online ‘loot boxes’ as gambling.
   
• Making online gambling companies pay their fair share by increasing remote gaming duty from 21% to 42%.

The scale of the problem is clear: 1 in 40 people experience problem gambling, including 1 in 66 11–17-year-olds; and more than three million adults are harmed by someone else’s gambling. The cost to society is as high as £1.77 billion a year – and the human cost is far greater.

These reforms would not only save lives, they’d raise hundreds of millions of pounds to help fund NHS treatment for gambling addiction and prevent future harm.

The gambling industry has had a free pass for too long. Liberal Democrats will hold them to account and put people before profits, so that gambling in the UK can be safe, fair, and free from harm.

Years of Conservative mismanagement pushed our NHS to breaking point and Labour’s promises won’t be enough without urgent reform.

Nowhere is that clearer than in our emergency care services. From patients dying in A&E waiting rooms, to families waiting hours for ambulances, the crisis has become intolerable.

Dangerous practices like ‘corridor care’ – where patients are left waiting on trolleys in hallways without dignity, safety, or proper attention – have been normalised. Ambulance hubs have been under threat, air ambulances rely on charity funding, and too many people are left without urgent care when they need it most.

Ambulance Crisis

Last month a Freedom of Information request by our team uncovered that 2.7 million people made their own way to A&E last year, rather than waiting for an ambulance – a 14% increase since 2019. Over 250,000 of those people required serious, urgent medical assistance.

These figures lay bare the reality of this crisis, where people do not think they can rely on ambulance services even in the most serious of circumstances. This could have deadly consequences if people have lost faith that ambulances will be there when they need them.

Liberal Democrats are determined to turn this around.

Today our members have passed new policy to get emergency care back on track, calling on the Government to:

• End corridor care by the end of this Parliament, including through a new Winter Taskforce that builds resilience in hospitals, ambulance services, and patient discharging – making this year’s winter crisis the last.
   
• Fix the broken social care system, which accounts for 1 in 7 NHS beds being blocked. We would restart cross-party talks, conclude the Casey Review within a year, and put in place urgent reforms. That includes better support for unpaid carers – with guaranteed respite care, an end to the Carer’s Allowance cliff edge, and paid carers leave.
   
• Tackle staff shortages in emergency care with a dedicated A&E workforce plan and a strategy to ensure all departments meet or exceed “good” safety standards as judged by the Care Quality Commission.
   
• Guarantee safer emergency care for patients – including a qualified clinician in every A&E waiting room, a clinical manager on shift in every NHS 111 call centre, and a rapid rollout of mental health crisis centres to end the postcode lottery in mental health care.

Rescue and protect our ambulance services, designating every ambulance hub as critical infrastructure, integrating air ambulances into the NHS with guaranteed funding, and launching a new national drive to recruit rural Community First Responders.
 

When people turn to the NHS in dire need, they deserve emergency care where lives are saved and patients can trust that help will come. 

Instead, under the Conservatives, it became a symbol of neglect and crisis.

Labour has promised new investment, but without urgent reforms to social care and a systematic plan to build resilience, that investment will not be enough.

Our proposals would not only bring dignity back to patients in crisis but also protect the NHS workforce, restore public trust, and save lives.