The Lib Dem Conference has been a thoroughly enjoyable experience. The mood amongst delegates has been positive and determined. Positive about the opportunities to put Lib Dem principles into action, and determined to sort out the mess Labour left the country in within the 5 year term of this parliament.

My previous post covered the decisive action being taken to sort out the economic crisis and I don’t want to cover that ground again, except to point out a statistic that Nick Clegg raised in his excellent speech yesterday. In answer to those who claim that the current government is cutting spending out of some form of ideological zeal, he simply stated the fact that in the current plans, after all the cuts have been made, public spending will be 41% of national income – exactly the same as in 2006, 9 years into the last Labour government. So its not back to the 1930s or 1980s, its about getting back to the size of public spending the country can afford.

And today Chris Huhne laid out the Government’s clear and comprehensive plan to tackle the other crisis faced by our country; our dependency on fossil fuels which are increasingly insecure and risk dangerous climate change.

The plan has four parts. The first is to bring all our buildings up to a high level of energy efficiency by 2050. This is a huge task, requiring improvements to 26m homes and generating 100,000s of jobs.

The rest of the plan involves 3 elements to decarbonise a roughly doubled electricity generation industry as green electricity takes over from oil and gas. This will require massive investment – £200bn over the next 10 years, but again it will cause a boom of green jobs.

The three elements of the new electricity capacity will be:

1) Renewables, which will grow from the pityfully low level Labour left us with of 3% to a much more substantial 15%.
2) Nuclear – a compromise with the Tories, but only allowed on the condition that no public subsidy is allowed.
3) Carbon Capture and Storage of coal and gas, upscaling existing technology to bury C02, produced by burning coal and gas, under the North Sea.

This is a huge task, but it can be done and by setting a floor in the price of carbon it can be largely funded by the private sector. It will insulate us against the effects of oil prices soaring back over $100 barrel and will make a major impact on protecting our shared global environment. Labour talked impressively about this issue but failed to deliver during their 13 years in Government. Lib Dems will ensure this Government delivers where they failed.