I have hated almost every minute we spent on this Bill over the days, weeks and months. I deeply regret that it will pass. I wish it had not been presented in the first place and I wish we had not been forced to let it through, but it has been historic. One of the things that has been historic is the united opposition to some of its worst parts. That is something the House can be proud of Continue reading “Third Reading of the Police Bill: Last word”
The Vagrancy Act is relic of an age when being homeless was a crime, it made it a criminal offence to beg or be homeless on the street in England and Wales. The law was passed in the summer of 1824.
One of my favourite podcast interviews in the Jen’s Green Jam series was with Lord Bird, founder of the Big Issue. He spoke then about getting rid of the Vagrancy Act and afterwards, I was left wondering if it was one of those issues that had to wait for a change of government. Continue reading “Repeal of the Vagrancy Act”
This Bill is really lacking that overarching sense of using monetary and fiscal policy to transform our economy from a dirty, polluting one to a clean, green, high well-being society. The mechanisms in this Bill will not achieve that and lack ambition.
Restorative justice, women in prison, the use of juvenile covert human intelligence sources, survivors of sexual violence and the new statues statute: my speeches from the 5th day of Report Stage are below Continue reading “Police Bill Report Stage Day 5”
I am very concerned about the Government undermining the doctrine that police on these islands gain their authority from the consent of the governed. Overuse of stop and search powers has deeply undermined community consent in many areas of the country and there are racial and socioeconomic disparities in who gets targeted by the police. These government severe violence reduction orders will create a new suspicionless stop and search power, and once a person is issued with one of these orders they could face unlimited interference from police officers. There should not be a power for the police to search without reasonable suspicion. Continue reading “Police Bill Report Stage Day 4”
The last week before the Festive break had two days of Report Stage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. The Lords have tabled hundreds of amendments to the original bill and Jenny spoke to amendments on the confiscation of mobile devices, child abuse sentences, road death sentences, mandatory minimum sentences, IPP sentences and Friday releases. The Report Stage of this bill will continue in the New Year. Continue reading “Police Bill Report Stage Days 2&3”
If you make protests impossible to perform legally, criminalise non-violent direct action, abolish or restrict the ability of citizens to challenge the Government in court through judicial reviews, turn people against lawyers, gerrymander the election boundaries and dish out cash in the way that looks best for Conservative MPs, that is deep, dark politics. Many of us here are not particularly political and perhaps do not see the dangers inherent in what the Government are doing. It all seems like a calculated ploy to turn all the cards in favour of an unaccountable Government that cannot be challenged in the courts, at the ballot box or on the streets.
Continue reading “Final days of Police Bill Committee Stage”
We are world leading in the awful way in which we treat children. At 10, we have the lowest age in Europe for criminal responsibility – far below the suggestion from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child of a minimum appropriate age of 14. That is the average across European countries, but even China and Russia – where the UK rightly often has cause to point out human rights abuses – have higher ages of criminal responsibility than we do. Continue reading “Police Bill Day 9 of 7”
We have abysmal conditions in many jails and they are not the place for a pregnant woman. The Howard League for Penal Reform has highlighted the fact that pregnant women in prison are routinely denied access to suitable maternity care and that babies have died as a result. Women in prison should receive at a minimum the same standard of maternity services as women outside. When we punish these women in prison, we also punish their babies, and that cannot be right. Getting this right will change the lives of prisoners and families, and have an impact for generations. Continue reading “Police Bill day 8 of Committee Stage in Lords”
Mandatory prison sentences could lead to a repeat of what happens in the USA with their obscene rates of incarceration: nearly 1% of the American population is in prison or jail, and this is very racially unbalanced. It is easy for the Government to increase prison sentences and set mandatory minimum sentences; it is much more difficult, but more important, to deliver real rehabilitation and diversion so that people do not reoffend and we do not take up huge amounts of taxpayers’ money keeping them in prison. Continue reading “Police Bill day 7 of Committee Stage in Lords”
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb 