Devon Lib Dems have uncovered shocking figures that show that last year, over 100 Devon children at any one time were placed in care outside of the County, with some being sent hundreds of miles away.

The figures come after the revelation that a seven-year boy from Devon was placed at a special school in Surrey.

You may remember, last November, taking part in a survey on members' views on Brexit and the party's campaigning on the future of UK-EU relations. Thanks to everyone who participated - 6,500 members, more than any previous survey of this type - and thanks to Greg Foster and Dan Schmeising at party HQ who organised it on behalf of the Federal Policy Committee. This article gives you the results.

South Western ambulance service response times for the most serious incidents, e.g. cardiac arrest, have increased to 11m 38s in December compared to November, new Ambulance Service Statistics have revealed.

The statistics, released from NHS England, show that average wait times for serious incidents have worsened in every region in England over the past month, failing to meet both the Category 1 and Category 2 callout times.

After the disappointment and failure of the 2019 general election, an independent post-mortem was carried out into what went wrong. The findings of the Thornhill Review set a broad and challenging reform agenda for the party, which we've made good progress on implementing so far.

On the role of the Federal Board itself, the Thornhill Review found that:

FPC members started the year bright and early with our first meeting last week. We cancelled our December meeting so we could all focus on North Shropshire, so this was our first meeting since November.

Big areas of focus for FPC this year will be further work on our messages and key policies to support them, leading up eventually to the Manifesto for the next General Election; and our substantial programme of working groups developing policies in politically useful areas, to bring to autumn conference.

This week I have written to the Secretary of State for Energy Kwasi Kwarteng demanding that he backs the Liberal Democrat call for a "Robin Hood" tax on the super-profits of oil and gas firms, to raise money to support local families facing soaring energy costs.

The proposed one-off levy could raise over £5 billion to help support families in Mid Devon as their energy bills sky-rocket. The money raised through this "one-off" tax could fund a substantial package of emergency support to help thousands of people facing higher bills.

In 2021 we achieved something we've not achieved since 1993: winning two Parliamentary by-elections in the same year off the Conservatives. We start this new year with a larger Parliamentary Party than any of us would have dared dream of a year ago. (A winning run that has continued with the first council by-election of this year too - congratulations to now councillor Andrew Dunkin who won a seat from Labour from third place.)

Liberal Democrats won a stunning victory in North Shropshire, taking one of the Conservatives' 'so-called' safest seats.

Will Aczel went up to North Shropshire to campaign all day Wednesday and Thursday last week with fellow young people from the South West, here is his take:

"I spoke with many voters on the doorstep who brought such a smile to my face because we agreed what a good MP, and PM, would look like.

Liberal Democrats won a stunning victory in North Shropshire, taking one of the Conservatives' safest seats.

Liberal Democrat candidate Helen Morgan received 17,957 votes, representing a swing of 34% from the Conservatives and giving her a majority of 5,925.

North Shropshire was the 58th safest Conservative seat in the country, with former Conservative MP Owen Paterson having a majority of almost 23,000 votes in 2019. This represents the second biggest majority overcome in a modern by-election, after Christchurch in 1993.

Liberal Democrats have and always will support public health protections that work but the use of so called "vaccine passports'' provides a false sense of security.

The Government has lost sight of why they put forward these measures in the first place - to reduce transmission of the virus. The vaccines being given in the UK are highly effective at reducing the severity of Covid symptoms, the likelihood of admission to hospital and against the risk of death. But even those who are fully vaccinated can still spread the virus.