Category: Civil liberties

The silent growth of facial recognition technology within police forces poses a major risk to civil liberties and the rule of law in the UK, yet it is happening without hardly a whimper of public debate. That is why I used a Question for Short Debate to enable a discussion about this invasive new surveillance in UK public spaces. Continue reading “Big Brother is putting faces to names” →

A debate in the Lords gave us the chance to discuss how the Government could give a voice to the thousands of women in Britain who’ve fled violence, conflict and persecution. Refugees come to Britain seeking protection and safety, having escaped unimaginable horrors – but all too often, as a nation, we neglect to give sufficient attention to what happens to people after they’ve arrived, and fail to provide them with the basic tools to rebuild their lives here. Language, and being able to communicate with others, is perhaps the most fundamental of these tools; which is why I was appalled to read research from the charity Refugee Action which shows that refugees are having to wait for up to three years to start English classes, as a result of Government funding cuts of over 50% since 2010 to classes for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). Continue reading “The voices of refugee women must be heard!” →

1918 was a triumph for democracy that came out of the tragedy of war, as three times more people were entitled to vote in the general election than in pre-war times. Unfortunately, that democratic revolution stopped at the doors of the Commons.  A hundred year later and the Lords remains an old fashioned male bastion: only a quarter of the peers are women. To this day the galleries overlooking the Lords Chamber are called “Peeresses Galleries” – the place where Lords wives are supposed to sit to watch the men debate. The simplest way to accelerate change would be to have an elected second chamber using a system of fair votes. Continue reading “Replacing the Lords would be a fitting step for the centenary of women’s suffrage” →

The Data Protection Bill, which has started in the House of Lords, will give you the right to access information held about your finances, medical history etc. It’s a positive step forward in lots of ways. For example, it will enable us to correct mistakes and challenge any false information which has become part of the official record.

However, my main focus has been to remove the Henry VIII powers, that allow Ministers to amend and revise protections without having any further Parliamentary scrutiny, or amendment process. Continue reading “A small victory but Labour abstain over immigration vote” →

The Data Protection Bill will be discussed in the Lords this afternoon and it contains a lot of sensible reforms on how we protect private information. However, it also contains a lot of Henry 8th powers giving Ministers the right to by-pass Parliamentary scrutiny if they want to change the law in the future. This is an obvious threat to democracy. Giving such Putin powers to this government is a bad idea, and it remains a bad idea if a Corbyn government takes charge in a few years’ time as the powers give the executive the ability to change the rules, and that is always a bad idea. Continue reading “Your privacy and the latest executive power grab” →

Vile views spread like wildfire on the internet and are spilling out into the real world. The Home Office released statistics this week which showed hate crime has increased by nearly a third in the last year, with the biggest rises being against people who are transgender and people with disabilities. The work of Ditch the Label is extremely important in the struggle to create a more equal world that is free of bullying and prejudice. Continue reading “Ditch the label, end hate crime” →