Fujitsu is still a major government contractor which gives money to the Conservative Party. Fujitsu should be in the dock and prosecutions should already have begun. If you let major corporations run your Government, taxpayers will be ripped off and find that they are paying out millions when things go wrong. Fujitsu should pay the costs back to sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses, not us taxpayers. Continue reading “Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill Second Reading”
It passed. We tried to stop the Rwanda bill with a Fatal Motion proposed by the Lib Dems back in January. We knew that the government would never listen to reasoned amendments. This was not in the Conservative Party manifesto. The Lords could have stopped it. Continue reading “Rwanda bill passed”
We cannot say that we have a justice system if we have an innate injustice like this. The sentencing and continued imprisonment of IPP prisoners has just been cruel. The lawyer and campaigner Peter Stefanovic put out an online video about it. Continue reading “Victims and Prisoners Bill – IPP Prisoners”
We are debating today whether this authoritarian Government can declare that the objective truth of facts decided by the courts can be overruled. If we allow it, it is another big step towards a dictatorship—intentional or not. I know that the majority of people in the House of Lords know that the Government are wrong. I also know that many still cling to the belief that the House should not vote to stop the Government passing the most draconian of laws. We are paid more than £300 per day to come here and talk and vote, but what is the point of all our hard work if the Government ignore us? Continue reading “Government push on with Rwanda Bill”
This is a mess of a Bill; it is illegal and nonsensical.
The Green Party remains utterly opposed to the entire Bill. I greatly regret that we gave it a Second Reading, it is nasty and inhumane. Clause 1(2)(b) says that “this Act gives effect to the judgement of Parliament that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country”. Acts of Parliament are not vehicles for Parliament to express its opinion about issues, so this clause ought to be removed on that basis alone, or else we will start legislating opinions instead of laws. We have not been presented with any evidence to prove that Rwanda is safe, and we have no process to make such determinations.
The Government have created this problem by not putting in better, safe, legal routes.
They have thrown together something they call a solution that is not a solution at all.
They have dishonoured both Houses by tabling the Bill. It was wrong to bring this Bill to us; it was wrong to develop it at all. Continue reading “Rwanda Bill – Second Reading in the Lords”
Rishi Sunak’s government aims to enact a law – the “Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill” – that threatens our most fundamental rights. Continue reading “Rwanda Bill – sign our petition”
Baroness Jenny Jones was on the Met Police database for domestic extremists, while serving as an elected politician on the Metropolitan Police Authority, voting on their budget and holding them to account. The Observer story relates how “Government officials have drawn up deeply controversial proposals to broaden the definition of extremism to include anyone who “undermines” the country’s institutions and its values,”
Continue reading “Government plan to brand anyone ‘undermining’ UK as extremist”
The unelected House of Lords is an outdated institution and recent decisions by Labour Party Lords are pushing its constitutional role to breaking point. Continue reading “Parliamentary convention”
