The latest report by the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) reveals that the Dreadnought programme will far outstrip the MoD’s allocated budget of £41bn. BASIC’s report illustrates in clear detail the cost risk of Trident renewal to the UK’s Defence budget; Dreadnought’s through life costs are likely to be between £110-14bn. Continue reading “The cost risk of Trident”
Author: jonesjb
Questions for short debate
Questions for short debate are extra to the Oral Question allowance. The debate is longer than an Oral Question debate but not always in the main chamber. Short debates are an opportunity for members to draw the government’s attention to concerns and hold it to account. They last for about 60 minutes and a minister or spokesperson responds on behalf of the government at the end.
Oct 2022 – Corruption in the UK
Oct 18 – Property Guardians
March 18 – Facial recognition technology
Oct 16 – Detention of pregnant women
June 15 – Paving of front gardens
Feb 14 – Water cannons
Environmental Protections: Gove and the Lords vs the Treasury
The Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, has gone to war with the mighty Treasury over their blocking progress on our environmental protections. There is a happy coincidence between this Cabinet bust up, the EU’s taking the government to court over its failure to act on air pollution and the Lords rejecting the government plans for a post Brexit environmental enforcement agency. It highlights why the government should scrap their current flabbyconsultation on the creation of an environmental protection agency and restart it based upon the Lords’ amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill.
Continue reading “Environmental Protections: Gove and the Lords vs the Treasury”
Object Today – No Third Runway!
Prompted by CPRE, I’ve emailed the following objection to expansion.feedback@heathrowconsultation.com Please do the same and add your voice by March 28th.
Oral Questions
Members of the House of Lords (Peers) are allowed to table up to 7 Oral Questions – for short debate in the main chamber – per parliamentary session. In this session Jenny has tabled the following Oral Questions :
- September 2020 – Green Investment Fund
- July 2020 – COVID-19: Infection Rate
- May 2020 – COVID-19: NHS Contact Tracing App
- May 2020 – Policing: COVID-19 Guidance and Legislation
- March 2020 – Environmental Programme: COP 26
- February 2020 – Greenhouse Gas Emissions
- January 2020 – Fracking
Questions from previous Sessions
- October 2019 – Frequent Flyer Airmiles Schemes
- September 2019 – Nuclear Power Stations
- July 2019 – Carbon Budgets
- May 2019 – Heathrow Airport
- April 2019 – Protestors’ Rights
- March 2019 – The use of children as covert human intelligence sources (CHIS)
- February 2019 – Carbon emissions and Farming
- January 2019 – Air Pollution
- December 2018 – Agricultural subsidies and buffer zones
- October 2018 – Roundup – pesticide safety
- September 2018 – Children: Covert human intelligence sources
- July 2018 – House of Lords Reform
- March 2018 – Police: Undercover officers
- February 2018 – Recycling – Chinese import ban
- January 2018 – Independent environmental enforcement agency
- December 2017 – Domestic Energy Storage
- November 2017 – Use of pesticides – working with the Pesticides Campaign
- October 2017 – the policing of fracking protests – following a visit to Preston New Rd
- June 2017 – Fire safety – following the Grenfell Tower fire
My Bills
Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill – A Bill to establish the right to breathe clean air; to require the Secretary of State to achieve and maintain clean air in England and Wales; to involve Public Health England in setting and reviewing pollutants and their limits; to enhance the powers, duties and functions of the Environment Agency, the Committee on Climate Change, local authorities (including port authorities), the Civil Aviation Authority, Highways England, Historic England and Natural England in relation to air pollution; to establish a Citizens’ Commission for Clean Air with powers to institute or intervene in legal proceedings; to require the Secretary of State and the relevant national authorities to apply environmental principles in carrying out their duties under this Act and the clean air enactments; and for connected purposes. Read the Bill here
House of Lords Reform – which would create a second chamber where only peers elected via Proportional Representation would be entitled to vote.
Natural Environment Bill – A Bill to make provision for the setting of biodiversity and other targets; to establish a Natural Capital Committee; to require local authorities to maintain local ecological network strategies; to identify species threatened with extinction; for access to quality natural green space; and to include education about the natural environment in the curriculum for maintained schools. This bill did not progress beyond first reading but exists as a useful body of work and could be presented again
Land Value Tax Bill – A Bill to require the Secretary of State to commission a programme of research into the merits of replacing the council tax and non-domestic rates in England with an annual levy on the unimproved value of all land, including transitional arrangements; to report to Parliament within 12 months of completion of the research; and for connected purposes. This bill did not progress beyond first reading but exists as a useful body of work and could be presented again
Marine Protected Areas (Bottom Trawling) Bill – A Bill to regulate and limit the practice of bottom trawling in marine protected areas, and for connected purposes
Solutions for the farm of the future
As a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Vegetarianism and Veganism I’ve been asked to look at the findings in a report produced by the New Economics Foundation in collaboration with the Vegan Society as part of their Grow Green campaign. You can read the full report here but it is essentially identifying the barriers to increased plant protein crop production in the UK and how we can overcome them. Continue reading “Solutions for the farm of the future”
The Government must act to protect UK citizens from exposure to toxic crop sprays
People are often surprised to learn that highly poisonous chemicals – that were originally designed as weapons of war1 – have been allowed for many decades, under successive Government policies, to be sprayed on crop fields all over the UK. The chemical warfare in the countryside – known as ‘conventional farming’ – has resulted in thousands of residents suffering devastating, even fatal, consequences to their health and lives.
Continue reading “The Government must act to protect UK citizens from exposure to toxic crop sprays”
Why veganism is the greenest diet
I have invited Parliamentarians to a free screening of “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret”, a 91 minute film about why veganism is the greenest diet.The executive producer of the 2nd cut of the film is Leonardo DiCaprio, as you can read here:
Community energy still in the dark over its future
In a dark and stormy year, one sunny news story has been the continued growth of solar power around the world. It’s now coming in cheaper than coal and gas in the sunniest parts of the world, and prices are still dropping in the UK too. Continue reading “Community energy still in the dark over its future”
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb 