A hostile environment for home education

My speech to the House on day 9 of committee stage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill:

I declare an interest as a grandmother of three home-educated children. My experience tells me that school is not suitable for all children. Not all children can find a suitable school and you do not need to be wealthy to create a very rich educational learning environment out of school. Continue reading “A hostile environment for home education”

Great British Energy: Nuclear Development

I intervened yesterday in this debate to say: he Minister said that everybody around the House supports nuclear. No, the Green Party does not support nuclear. It is a dinosaur technology and it is really very expensive, when you look at the planetary impact and the cost to the Exchequer. It is going to be a disaster and it will be overtaken by sea-level rises as well. Why do the Government not take some good advice on this instead of believing in nuclear all the time? Continue reading “Great British Energy: Nuclear Development”

Renters Rights Bill Report Stage Day 3 – a Living Rent Commission

Back in 2001 I was a Green Party member of the London Assembly and we initiated the setting up of the Living Wage Commission. It has helped hundreds of thousands of Londoners get paid a bit more each week as employers have voluntarily adopted it’s calculations. Now, I’m suggesting we do the same for renters across the country with Living Rent Commissions that can calculate rents in their area. Continue reading “Renters Rights Bill Report Stage Day 3 – a Living Rent Commission”

Housing: National Tenant Body

Continue reading “Housing: National Tenant Body”

Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025

Baroness Jenny Jones speech on her Regret Motion:

“There are many reasons why proscribing Palestine Action is a bad idea. Listening to the Minister, I thought that his descriptions of the three organisations had very distinct differences and that the actions of Palestine Action did not appear to have the same calibre of evil as those of the other two. Therefore, collectively organising these three into one SI is perhaps a little bit sneaky of this Government. Palestine Action is not like any other group that the British Government have so far declared a terrorist organisation. I was 12 years on the Met Police Authority and in that time I had lots of anti-terrorist briefings. To me, the actions of Palestine Action do not ring true as terrorist activities. Continue reading “Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025”