Following news that the Beales chain of department stores is in severe difficulty in a further illustration of the national crisis for the UK's high streets, Bedford Borough Council's Executive Member for Town Centres Cllr Henry Vann has reaffirmed the authority's commitment to helping Bedford town centre and its businesses to thrive.

The Jobs Hub will, in partnership with its local training providers, be holding an Employment and Skills Information Day on the 20th January at the Queens Park Neighbourhood Centre.

The event will bring together a range of providers offering free training and skills provision as well as employability support to help people get into work and education.

Lib Dems MPs recently tabled an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill to save Erasmus, so that students can live, study & work across the EU.

Last week, the Tories voted it down.

We will keep fighting to stop Boris Johnson limiting the horizons for young people.

The Liberal Democrat amendment would have inserted a clause in the withdrawal agreement bill requiring the government to seek continued participation in Erasmus+ on existing terms after Brexit, and to report on the progress of negotiations to parliament. But on Wednesday MPs voted down a second reading of the amendment, by 344 to 254.

I want to thank you for all your hard work over the last six weeks. Everyone did everything they could in this campaign but the result has been deeply disappointing.

Despite Liberal Democrats gaining 1.2m votes and our share of the vote increasing in every region of the UK, we are now one seat down compared to 2017. Under a proportional system, we would now have 84 MPs.

The latest EU Settlement Scheme Statistics, published by the Home Office, show more than 140,000 EU citizens applied to live and work in the UK after Brexit in November.

These figures show 361,900 people are still waiting for a decision, with 2,592,800 applications received but only 2,230,900 concluded.

This news is yet more evidence that Boris Johnson's government looks set to crash our economy thanks to his disastrous Brexit plans.

Whether its putting people's livelihoods on the line in our factory sector, or increasing prices with the pound weakening in 2020, it is clear that Boris Johnson's promise to unleash Britain's potential is nothing more than empty rhetoric.

We haven't even left yet.

Boris Johnson's government has set out a disastrous agenda which will force through a hard Brexit, undermine our public services, destroy opportunities for our communities and cripple living standards.

Brexit will hinder our ability to safeguard our NHS and reduce our capacity to tackle the climate crisis.

The fact that radical climate action has been ignored is a hallmark of a government which is setting all the wrong priorities.

Voting reform is not about the electoral advantage of any party.

It is about better democracy.

As politicians we have a responsibility to ensure voters across the UK do not feel disenfranchised.

In this election the Liberal Democrats increased their vote share by 4%, more than any other party, but achieved fewer seats in Parliament.

Boris' bad Brexit bill is before the House of Commons today.

So what are we doing to fight the damaging and dangerous effects it will have on democratic scrutiny, workers' rights, the battle against the climate crisis, and more?

Today, we tabled an amendment to block the Withdrawal Agreement Bill because: