I recently joined organisations campaigning to save the promised Animals Abroad Bill – which would ban imports of hunting “trophies”, fur, and foie gras as well as the promotion of elephant tourist rides overseas. I joined representatives from the “Don’t Betray Animals” Coalition who launched two enormous balloons, shaped like an elephant and a lion, above Parliament to send a clear message to Boris Johnson that animals need action, not hot air.
My Clean Air Act is top of the Lords’ ballot for private members bills which means that it stands a good chance of getting through all three stages in the Lords, before moving into the Commons. The bill aims to protect the public against air pollution which is one of the biggest public health hazards of our time and responsible for tens of thousands of premature deaths in the UK. I’ve been working on this issue for over twenty years, but this is my best chance to get the government to take decisive action.
The Lords deleted nearly 18 pages of the most draconian restrictions on the right to peaceful protest from the Policing Bill, but the government are now trying to bring them back. This must be opposed.
The government want to stop any protest that might get noticed and be effective. They have already got the right to ban noisy protests, now they want to clamp down on all the other forms of peaceful, non violent protest that people use to get attention. And that’s the crucial point – protestors are just people. People who work, pay taxes, study, or collect the pensions they have earned. People who see something wrong and want it to stop. People like you and me.
The Conservatives are starting to lose their grip on rural England and Wales. Family farmers feel betrayed, country dwellers can’t let their dogs swim in the local badly polluted river and whole regions feel a post Brexit neglect.
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?”
The Government have created a legislative deadlock. This was not the fault of this House; it was the fault of the Government, and if this legislation is not passed in the next few days, it falls completely. I have no problem with that—I would like to see it all fall—but the fact is that that probably is not a position this house House can take. However, we can obtain very significant concessions from the Government. They will not want to lose all these Bills, and this is an opportunity for us to throw out the worst bits of the legislation that we have all argued about over the past few months. Continue reading “Let it all fall”
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”
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb 