Category: Civil liberties

Government, the police and intelligence services are too easily given sweeping powers that they too often abuse.

Jenny works with campaigners to defend our civil liberties. She has worked on legislation like the Investigatory Powers Bill, raised the cases of victims of state power such as detained pregnant women, and defended the right to protest.

Let it all fall

Published on by jonesjb

The Government have created a legislative deadlock. This was not the fault of this House; it was the fault of the Government, and if this legislation is not passed in the next few days, it falls completely. I have no problem with that—I would like to see it all fall—but the fact is that that probably is not a position this house House can take. However, we can obtain very significant concessions from the Government. They will not want to lose all these Bills, and this is an opportunity for us to throw out the worst bits of the legislation that we have all argued about over the past few months. Continue reading “Let it all fall” →

Police Bill Ping Pong

Published on by jonesjb

People do not approve of crackdowns on protest because there are times when they themselves want to protest. They want to protest about a crossing that is in the wrong place on their own road or to complain about cars idling outside their children’s school. People protest. It is all very well to call them “protesters” but actually they are just people.

Obstructing the highway should not land anyone in prison for a year. You can still be put into prison for a year even if the roads have already been closed by a traffic authority. When roads in Sheffield, sometimes quite minor ones, were closed for trees to be cut down, local people who were furious about that and were doing their best to stop it protested on those closed roads. Under the Bill, they could have faced up to 51 weeks in prison for protesting on their own road to try to protect their own trees. Peaceful protesters should never face jail. The original government amendment was bad and the compromise is also bad.

Continue reading “Police Bill Ping Pong” →

Elections Bill Committee Stage Day 1

Published on by jonesjb

At the moment political parties face higher fines for data protection breaches than they do for breaking election law. The risk is that fines for breaking election law just become part of the cost of doing business for political parties, especially those with the deepest pockets and richest donors. The Electoral Commission must be independent of both the Government and Parliament. Continue reading “Elections Bill Committee Stage Day 1” →

Judicial Review and Courts Bill Second Reading

Published on by jonesjb

A couple of months back, I said that every single Bill the Government brought to this House was worse than the last, but this is an exception. It is not as bad as I expected, so well done to the Government for bringing such a puny Bill that we can probably throw most of it out. The Bill continues the Government’s piecemeal approach to constitutional change: a little bit is tweaked here and a little bit there, but no overview is taken and so nothing coherent comes out.

We need an opportunity to look at how government and power should operate in a modern democratic state. The proper way forward is obvious: we need a constitutional convention made up of experts and members of the public to determine how and why government should work. Instead of that, we have these scrappy little bits of legislative change.

The procedural stuff in the Bill is an attempt by the Government to save money in the justice system and to unclog the backlog in the courts, which have been atrociously underfunded. These measures might help but are no replacement for proper investment in the justice process.  Continue reading “Judicial Review and Courts Bill Second Reading” →

Women and trans prisoners

Published on by greenlordsmedia

The National, a scottish newspaper, has now clarified that the quote saying I had spoken in “favour of female trans prisoners being held in the male prison estate”, was in fact an interpretation of my views by three Scottish Greens groups, rather than actual words used by me. I thank them for changing the article to make that clear.

Continue reading “Women and trans prisoners” →

The Subsidy Control Bill Committee Stage Day One: Net Zero

Published on by jonesjb

The Government keep bringing us these thin Bills that ought to include things such as the ecological crisis and climate change, but do not. The subsidy principle should ensure that all our environmental and climate targets are met. Ecologically damaging, polluting industries should be weaned off public money completely and, ultimately, binned. My Amendment 8 would ensure that subsidies contribute towards limiting global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees centigrade of warming. My Amendment 33 would prohibit subsidies for fossil fuels and extend the definition of fossil fuel subsidies to include any government policy that makes fossil fuels cheaper than their true cost. Continue reading “The Subsidy Control Bill Committee Stage Day One: Net Zero” →

The Subsidy Control Bill Committee Stage Day One: Scottish devolution amendments

Published on by jonesjb

In the Scottish independence referendum, the people of Scotland were promised devo-max. They received no such thing and then Brexit came along and gave this Government an excuse to steadily unpick devolution and centralise power in the UK Government. These amendments allow the Senedd Cymru and the Scottish Parliament actually to decide issues for themselves. The legislation itself is deeply annoying because this should be standard in every Bill. Continue reading “The Subsidy Control Bill Committee Stage Day One: Scottish devolution amendments” →