Lib Dem leader 'proud' after four-day week triumph

Sir Ed Davey said South Cambridgeshire Council had been right to try out a four-day working week

The leader of the Liberal Democrats has said he is proud of party members on South Cambridgeshire Council who introduced a four-day working week despite government criticism.

Sir Ed Davey spoke to the BBC on the eve of his party's conference where the Lib Dems will celebrate their best general election ever, having secured 71 seats including seven in the east of England.

The party now has MPs in Norfolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire.

Speaking about the previous Conservative government trying to stop the four-day work scheme, he said: "I think a top-down approach where Whitehall tries to tell a local community that it knows best is never right."

South Cambridgeshire council became the first in the country to put staff on a four-day week in January 2023.

They do 100% of their work in 80% of their contracted hours, without a reduction in pay.

Even though staff sickness and turnover levels improved, and an independent report suggested the experiment was working, the last government ordered the council to stop. Just before the election, it also threatened to change the law.

Speaking about the council's actions for the first time, Sir Ed said he was proud of Lib Dems in South Cambridgeshire.

"It was only a trial, they wanted to see if it would work," he said. "Innovation is important but the key thing is that services to local people need to be maintained at a high level and affordable cost and I think that's what they're doing."

'Regaining trust'

The Liberal Democrats have never had so many MPs in the East of England.

Sir Ed said the party's message on the health service, social care and dirty water had resonated with voters.

"They understood that we got it," he said. "We now want to make sure that we repay the trust people have put in the Liberal Democrats.

"We lost it a while back, I think we have now regained it and we want to keep it and we'll do that by our MPs being local champions for their areas taking up the big issues like the NHS, sewage or the cost of living."

He said he wanted his party to be the main choice for voters in future elections but there were still real challenges for the party.

It may have 72 MPs but the current Labour government has a majority of 174.

The Lib Dems felt the gap this week when their MPs voted against plans to cut the winter fuel allowance, with the ultimate result being that the cuts will proceed.

The party has already begun preparing for next year's local elections when it hopes to play on dissatisfaction with the Tories to make further in-roads across the East, particularly in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire.

How to win those elections will be discussed at this weekend's conference in Brighton, along with debates on subjects as varied as the the cost of living, reforming the Sunday Trading Laws, supporting the NHS and creating more National Parks.

Much of the conference, however, will be about celebrating a successful year which has seen a considerable change in the party's fortunes, particularly in the East.