This Agriculture Bill will shape how our countryside looks for the next generation. It will change the way money is spent on food and land management as the £20 billions of subsidies that flowed through the European Union’s (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are replaced by a new system. We do not support this bill, but we are doing our best to make some good of it. We are attempting to insert new clauses and substantial amendments, as well as co-signing a number of important amendments from other peers. The wording of our clauses and amendments are detailed below in topic groupings.
Category: Climate change
We need a new era of fossil free politics
Our pension funds should divest from fossil fuels, our ministers should reject the advances of fossil fuel lobbyists and our councils and mayors should be supported to transition to a zero carbon economy
Jenny works with campaigners and industry to promote a more radical policy agenda on climate change
Read on for her latest posts on this topic
Brexit – what next?
Politicians in the UK have largely wasted the last four years discussing border arrangements, rather than the icecaps melting, rivers flooding and forests burning. The environment and our rapidly changing climate doesn’t recognise legal boundaries or custom checks. Despite the admirable efforts of Extinction Rebellion, Parliament has made few actual changes to end or even limit the damage we are doing to our planet. That has to change and I can only hope with January 31st out of the way, we can focus on promoting the New Green Deal and other essential changes. Continue reading “Brexit – what next?”
Leading Labour peer and rail expert slams HS2
Lord Berkeley has sent me a copy of his dissenting report on the HS2 Review and it is damning. It isn’t just his criticisms of the way he was written out of the process, despite being deputy chair of the Review, but his view that the positive conclusions in the Review are not supported by the evidence. Continue reading “Leading Labour peer and rail expert slams HS2”
Met Police acted unlawfully in Extinction rebellion ban
This is an historic win because for the first time we’ve challenged the police on overstepping their powers and we’ve won. It’s great.
This shows how the police have gone beyond their powers when dealing with peaceful environmental protests, There is a pattern in recent years of the police being under pressure from the government to help impose fracking on communities that don’t want it and to stop the highly successful Extinction Rebellion from raising the issue of climate change. Government Ministers were very vocal in wanting the police to clamp down on Extinction Rebellion’s October protests, after the summer protests led to Parliament passing a motion declaring a climate emergency.
Future Generations Bill introduced
Today, I am introducing the Future Generations Bill on behalf of independent peer, John Bird (founder of Big Issue). This Bill aims to look after the interests of the very young and those not yet born. In the words of John Bird, the world of tomorrow should: “… not simply be an accumulation of the half-arsed hopes and the short-term governmental thinking of days gone by.”
Court date 24th October – Extinction rebellion ban
Extinction Rebellion’s application for Judicial Review has been scheduled for an urgent day-long hearing in the High Court on Thursday 24 October from 10.30am. Baroness Jenny Jones, Caroline Lucas MP, Clive Lewis MP, David Drew MP, Ellie Chowns MEP, George Monbiot, and Adam Allnut are bringing the action on behalf of Extinction Rebellion to challenge the police’s blanket ban on our protests across the whole of London for the remainder of the week. Continue reading “Court date 24th October – Extinction rebellion ban”
Legal challenge to Extinction Rebellion ban
A collection of Climate rebels, including Parliamentarians such as myself, Caroline Lucas MP and Ellie Chowns MEP, are taking the Met Police to court to challenge the Section 14 Order which bans Extinction Rebellion Protests throughout the whole of London. We believe that the ban is an abuse of the law and in violation of fundamental human rights and our lawyers are seeking an emergency hearing this afternoon. We expect that the Court will rule the ban null and void. Continue reading “Legal challenge to Extinction Rebellion ban”
Green tests for the Environment Bill
Boris Johnson has written an article in The Times describing the Environment Bill which will be in the Queen’s Speech on Monday. As a quick measure of how green this Environment Bill really is, here are five policies that it must include: Continue reading “Green tests for the Environment Bill”
Burning more than we recycle
Over two years ago, I predicted that we would now be reaching the point where we burnt more household waste than we recycled and the 2018/19 figures from DEFRA, due to be published this December, will confirm that I was right. I have been warning that this would happen since my time as a London Assembly member, when it became clear that several London boroughs were tied into incineration contracts that inevitably led to them recycling far less than neighbouring boroughs. Continue reading “Burning more than we recycle”
Green New Deal, Agriculture and Fisheries
It is no longer hyperbole to state that our planet is facing multiple existential threats. It was the conclusion, and consensus, of international scientists laid out in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report late last year. And it is bolstered by the UN’s terrifying new report by the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. The conclusions can be summarised in a simple truth: humanity has caused mass extinctions and we are destroying the natural systems on which we all depend. It isn’t too late to change course – but we cannot delay a moment longer. Continue reading “Green New Deal, Agriculture and Fisheries”
