It has come to light that MI5 may well be holding files on several members of the House of Lords
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.
Institutional racism
It is impossible to consider the disproportionate number of ethnic minority children in custody without drawing the conclusion that the criminal justice system is institutionally racist. More than half of all children in custody in 2020 were from a BAME background. However, the problem starts with the police…
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Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions?
I am concerned that we as a nation are pontificating about global corruption when it is clear we have inherent local corruption. Corruption is corruption, whether it is here in the UK, via Ministers, or anywhere else. So this does seem a strange piece of legislation to be coming through this House while details are still being released about the Government’s VIP-lane contracts to friends of Ministers and the dubious funding of the Prime Minister’s living arrangements. The Explanatory Memorandum recognises that “serious corruption” “has a range of corrosive effects on states, markets and societies wherever it occurs” – and it is occurring in Britain, and it will have a corrosive effect.
The Tories are planning an assault on democracy
I write for Left Foot Forward
Voter suppression, limiting protest on the streets by banning anything that might be effective, stopping people seeking justice in the courts when the government acts in a dictatorial way – the Queen’s Speech is clearly designed to help the Conservatives stay in power for many decades longer.
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5th Day of Debate on the Queen’s Speech
There are some important pieces of legislation tucked into the Speech, but I feel that those are the ones that will fall through the cracks and that we will probably not get around to. This is very distressing because it will be the most regressive laws that come through and that the Government support. This is really appealing to the darkest parts of human nature and it is not good for our collective psyche, not just here in the House but in the wider society. As such, I promise you strong and relentless opposition.
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Forensic Science and the Criminal Justice System (Science & Technology Committee Report)
I believe that it is impossible to separate forensic science from the wider undermining of criminal justice funding that has occurred during 11 years of Conservative cuts. The Government have treated people’s innocence as an unaffordable and optional luxury, rather than the underpinning of the fabric of society’s trust in the justice system. When people realise that innocent people can go to jail and guilty people can go free because of failures in the system that the Government have allowed to happen, the whole system is doomed. Continue reading “Forensic Science and the Criminal Justice System (Science & Technology Committee Report)”
Domestic Abuse Bill Ping Pong
The reasons the Commons have given for rejecting our amendments are absolutely pathetic. I just do not see how the Government can persist in their blindness towards what is happening in society and not at least try to make it a bit better. I fully realise that the Bill is a very valuable one and we absolutely need it, but why not make it as good as we possibly can?
Public service and private enrichment: the need for legal separation
Existing regimes often fail to ensure that people in government and politics work for the public interest and not for private gain. We need a legal, formal separation of public service from private enrichment. We need to hold former Ministers, former politicians and even former lawyers to much higher standards than exist at present. Continue reading “Public service and private enrichment: the need for legal separation”
Undercover Policing Inquiry – no access to Special Branch registry files
Baroness Clark of Kilwinning tabled an Oral Question to ask HMG what assessment they have made of the progress of the Undercover Policing Inquiry into police surveillance, established in 2015.
I said: My Lords, the chair of the inquiry has ruled that the Special Branch registry files, which could give more information about the work of undercover officers, will not be part of the inquiry. That means that the truth will be very filtered, which makes it hard for core participants, who feel that they will not get justice. Would the Minister agree to a meeting with me and perhaps a member of each of the opposition parties to discuss the major flaws in the inquiry and why the core participants are so upset?
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COVID 19 ONE YEAR ON – The unlawful, coercive and nasty parts of the Coronavirus Act must be repealed and a public inquiry launched
One year ago Parliament passed the biggest infringements to our rights and civil liberties that this country has ever witnessed. We were promised that there would be meaningful reviews of the provisions and that the Government would repeal anything that was not absolutely necessary and proportionate. A couple of days later, the Government published the real rules in the lockdown regulations, which imposed even tighter restrictions than were ever anticipated in the Coronavirus Act. Continue reading “COVID 19 ONE YEAR ON – The unlawful, coercive and nasty parts of the Coronavirus Act must be repealed and a public inquiry launched”
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb 