This was a bad week for democracy and our freedoms in the UK. We lost the right to protest noisily, and effectively, to vote without ID, and to have an independent electoral commission. Parliament also allowed the government to break international law by deporting refugees to Rwanda, along with giving the Home Secretary the power to arbitrarily deport several million people born in this country (dual nationals) with no right of appeal prior to them losing their citizenship.
Drax uses wood from forests in Louisiana, North Carolina, British Columbia, Estonia
and Latvia. These forests will take centuries to recover, centuries which we simply
do not have when tackling the climate emergency. The government claim that Drax is sustainable simply ignores all the extra emissions from felling, making the pellets and transporting it all. It ignores the extra carbon that is oaked up by more mature trees.
Continue reading “Why are we paying £2m a day for Drax to pollute the planet?”
This government is investing a lot of taxpayer money to restore peatlands in this country, while allowing supermarkets and garden centres to make a big profit out of the destruction of peatlands. People within government clearly want to do the right thing, but not if it gets in the way of corporate greed.
Continue reading “ASDA fails environment – where are the peat free alternatives?”
Burning waste in the new Edmonton Incinerator will be twice as bad for climate emissions as putting the waste in landfill, according to a new analysis of the report commissioned by local councillors to support the project. It is vitally important that we elect Green Party councillors in the May 8th elections who will reopen the debate on this environmentally damaging incinerator and force councils to look again at the basis on which they have supported burning waste, rather than recycling it.
The real interference in our democracy comes from the top. We all know that the problem is billionaire donors and lobbyists bankrolling the Tory party. That is where a failure of democracy is happening. We have to stop the Government’s interference with democracy. Continue reading “Elections Bill Report Stage”
Today, the House of Commons is being given a choice to make about its treatment of refugees. Does it back the 19 amendments from the House of Lords to the Nationality and Borders Bill that create a more welcoming and humanitarian approach to refugees, or do MPs nail the doors shut on people fleeing conflict and terror?
My oral question today is: “to ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the creation of a Minister for the Oceans?”
We’re a maritime nation. Fish and chips on a Friday night and national icons like Nelson and Sir Walter Raleigh. Our history is connected to the seas and our coastal waters are becoming one vast energy source with wind farms and the prospect of tidal power.
So it seems odd that both France and Portugal both have Ministries for the Oceans, but not us. We have a Space Strategy but not an Ocean Strategy, despite huge under-explored expanse that makes up two thirds of our planet.
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”
I do not understand why the Government are trying to move people to other countries. This makes no sense, and it is one of the many ways that the Government are trying to avoid their obligations. Instead of trying to deport people while the Government dither about processing their claims, we should provide them with decent accommodation and work so that they can start to retrieve some of their lives. If there was ever a moment when this Government should come out against the far-right ideology within their own ranks, this is it.
The Home Secretary said yesterday in the Commons that we have a “unique scheme” for accepting refugees. Yes, it is a unique scheme. It is uniquely complicated. It is mean spirited. It is slow compared with those of every other country in Europe. It is not something to brag about.
I had a dream last night that we had a snap general election which would have meant that this Bill, along with the police Bill and others, would have fallen and I woke up very happy. Continue reading “Nationality & Borders Bill Report Stage Days 2&3”
Animals are not there for our sport, or to be killed for our pleasure. They are part of their environment and we should leave them alone.
· 9 in 10 voters back an immediate ban on trophies
· British trophy hunters kill lions – many of them bred in captivity and shot in enclosures.
· They also shoot leopards, giraffes and endangered polar bears.
· British trophy hunters are among the world’s biggest elephant hunters.
· Hundreds of animals have been killed by British trophy hunters since the Government announced its pledge to ban trophies in the 2019 Queen’s Speech.
· 40,000+ submissions were made to the Government’s public consultation on trophy hunting, including from scientists, wildlife experts, and people in Africa. Almost 9 in 10 backed a ban.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb 