Geoff Payne from Harpenden, standing for FCC

[cosmolinguist]

What's your name, where are you from, and which committee(s) are you standing for?

Geoff Payne, Harpenden, Federal Conference Committee

Are you standing for the first time or restanding? If first time what new thing do you bring that nobody else could; if restanding, what about your record are you most proud of that you think should make us vote you back in?

I am re-standing. I am one of the current Vice-Chairs of the committee. I bring a vast experience of conference. I run the Chair's Training, chair the committee that sets the registration rates and I also chair the Access forum. I am most proud of my track record of selecting radical, eye-catching motions for debate. I am also proud that we held claimant rates steady and that our feedback on access has got progressively better in recent times.

Are you standing for any other committees, if so which ones; and if elected to more than one how do you plan to divide your time?

In terms of other committees, I have stood for Federal Policy Committee via the English Party. I have been on both committees for a long time and doi not often miss meetings. The two are highly compatible actually.

Are you an active member of any SAOs, and if so which ones?

I am a member of Rights-Liberties-Justice.

If someone asked you on the doorstep, the hustings or on TV to sum up in one or two sentences what the Lib Dems, uniquely, stand for – and then why anyone should vote for us – what are your answers?

The Lib Dems are all about freedom and fairness. We allow people the liberty to choose how to lead their lives without being told what to do by the state. We recognise that the state is there to deal with unfair power imbalances and to provide things that the market cannot be relied upon to provide, like education and the criminal justice system. We do not let people live in poverty; we are progressive, internationalist and human-rights driven.

What is your view on diversity quotas for committees? Should they be extended to cover more than just gender, scrapped totally, kept as is or something else?

Having chaired two quite high-profile debates at conference on this very issue, I do not think it would be right to set out what my own personal views are.

Secrecy rules prevent the party knowing what committees are doing. What will you do to communicate with members; and in what circumstances is confidentiality justified?

I have a very strong record of communications with members. After every meeting of Federal Policy Committee and Federal Conference Committee, I prepare a written report that I circulate to a mailing list throughout the Regions of England. Anyone can join the mailing list. I deal with a lot of the conference queries on the FCC Facebook page. I always strike a balance between secrecy and openness, erring towards the latter. Confidentiality is justified only where the party might be damaged commercially (such as precise conference revenue figures) or politically (such as the early leaking of a General Election manifesto or motion).

How would you make Conference more accessible for people who currently cannot attend?

1. We need to look carefully at remote participation and voting. Remote participation costs a lot of money and it has been made clear to us that there is not a lot of that available. That said, we must take action and I will press for a budget for it.

2. Work on the cost of conference. We need to ensure that we select venues the length and breadth of the country and look towards places with a wide range of accommodation at differing rates. York is very popular and one of the cheaper venues and I have supported its selection for that reason.

3. Continue to hold registration rates as low as we can - particularly the claimant rate (as I have done).

4. Ensure that we timetable as much as we can at the weekend at Autumn Conference and continiue our trial (which I was in favour of) of running a full programme on the Saturday.

What do you think needs to be done to improve the process of selecting the agendas for Conference?

The agenda selection process is pretty robust - but I would say that as I am one of the people that times the agenda! We should be more transparent in highlighting what was selected and what was not. We need to ensure that our reasons for rejection are comprehensive. We could be better at offering drafting advice to people and providing some more resource to those who have little experience of drafting motions.

There is a case for being more flexible with our agenda timings so that we can ensure that debates in which a lot of people want to speak have more time and those in which there are fewer speakers have less of it.