Category: Other issues

Remembering the police who put their lives on the line to keep us safe

Published on by iwin1961

It is one year since the tragedy in which five people were killed and 50 injured, as Khalid Masood ploughed a 4×4 vehicle into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and stabbed unarmed police constable Keith Palmer to death as he stood on duty outside the Houses of Parliament. We are marking these awful events at Westminster with a minute’s silence.

It is an appropriate moment to remember all those police officers who put their lives on the line to keep us, the public, safe. Two weeks ago I wrote to Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, to ask that she does something to improve the working conditions of the armed officers on duty here.

Dear Commissioner

Over the past few months I’ve become increasingly concerned about the wellbeing and effectiveness of the armed officers who patrol the Palace of Westminster, both inside and outside. As the weather has got worse during the winter, two things have become obvious.

First, the welfare of the officers is under threat. Many have nowhere to shelter when it rains or snows, nor when the wind is strong. If they get wet during their two hour tour of duty, it’s almost impossible to dry out their clothes properly in their one hour off duty.

Secondly, cold, wet armed officers are potentially ineffective against a terrorist threat. Handling a weapon with cold hands is less than ideal, tactically inefficient and possibly even dangerous.

There are ways of improving the situation, eg supplying canvas shelter as at No 10 or the erection of more bulletproof guard houses as elsewhere on the estate, offering (discreet) hot drinks on cold wet days, or supplying properly waterproof kit, including caps. And they should be supplied with waterproof gloves, not have to buy their own.

I have raised this within the Palace of Westminster with peers but have had little support for improvement. I can’t help but feel that if I were arguing for police horses or police dogs, they would not be left exposed to the weather like the officers.

I hope you can do something quickly before the weather gets worse again.

Restoring credibility to the spy cops inquiry

Published on by iwin1961

After a dramatic walk out by campaigners and their legal teams, the inquiry into undercover policing is struggling to retain any credibility. I asked the Minister what action they would take.

By my calculation, there have only been four years out of the last twenty-five when an undercover police officer was not in a state funded sexual relationship with a female campaigner. These are just the ones that we know about.

Bob Lambert deployed between 1985 -1988, left behind  ‘Jacqui’ with their toddler son. He also left behind an 18 month relationship with Belinda Harvey.

John Dines’ in the years 1987 – 1992.

Andy Coles deployed between 93 – 95 allegedly had a sexual relationship with a 19 year old activist, which lasted a year.

Mark Jenner, lived with a woman for five years during 1995 -2000.

Mark Kennedy was deployed between 2003 -2009 and had a long term relationship during this time.

In January we learned that Rick Gibson, who worked for the Special Demonstration Squad in the 1970s, is accussed of having had at least two sexual relationships, possible four, with campaigners during his deployment.

Given the regularity of these events, Ministers need to recognise that forming sexual relationships was used as a deliberate tactic by undercover officers over very many years.

Closing the environmental gaps in the Government’s Brexit Bill

Published on by iwin1961

The Government has allowed a series of late night sittings to deal with the Lords’ substantial opposition to its EU Withdrawal Bill. This opposition has been fuelled mainly by the Government’s failure to deal with the genuine concerns about the transfer of EU policies into UK legislation. Bringing across all the European rules and making them UK laws was meant to be the purpose of the Bill, but the amendments in the Lords have highlighted dozens of ways that the Government are trying to dump social and environmental protections.

Amendment 214, coming up at the next sitting, is one of five key amendments I have put my name on. It requires Ministers to make sure that EU Directives are properly implemented, so that we receive whatever benefits, rights, and remedies were intended by the Directive. Examples of Directives we have benefited from include the Working Time Directive and the Habitats Directive.

The big problem with the current approach (in the bill’s Clause 4) is that it will exclude legal rights simply because they haven’t yet been litigated on. It is a very odd approach for the Government to take in deciding that legal rights only exist once a Court has applied that specific right. The very nature of EU Directives means that there are whole frameworks which Governments may have simply taken for granted – but these could be lost simply because no one has sued the Government on them. This strikes me and many others as a perverse way to approach the issue.

 The second big problem is where the Government has failed to properly implement EU Directives. At the moment, people have legal rights to take the Government to court where they have failed to meet their obligations under EU Directives. This will all be lost as a result of Clause 4.

One example of where we have failed to implement an EU Directive is Directive 2016/802. The Directive requires the strengthening of regulations to reduce the sulfur content of liquid fuels, but the UK regulations instead talk about imposing less regulation.

Another example is the Water Framework Directive which requires price incentives to encourage people to use water sustainably – but we haven’t done this.

Rather than making good on our obligations under EU law, the Government is trying to tear up whole swathes of EU law, and our environment and our health will be the biggest casualties. We must plug these gaps or we’ll all be much worse off, and so will our precious environment.

Heathrow: expanding an air pollution hotspot

Published on by iwin1961

On the same day that four Parliamentary Committees united to condemn government inaction over air pollution, the House of Lords debated the National Policy Statement (NPS) on the expansion of Heathrow. The former really ought to have an impact on the latter, but our Government doesn’t seem to be listening.

Heathrow already breaks air pollution limits. I’ve spent years listening to the supporters of expansion telling me what they would do to reduce pollution if they got the green light to add another runway. They never think to do those good things now and show they can reduce pollution down to legal limits ahead of expansion.

For all the talk of congestion charging and electric vehicles, the only thing guaranteed to happen at the airport is a bigger car park to cope with at least 40,000 to 60,000 extra vehicles a day on the roads.

The only new infrastructure in the Heathrow NPS is a tunnel for the M25 and moving some big roads around. There is no extra money for rail links, just aspirations. Yet, there are meant to be an extra 200,000 extra trips per day by public transport, a lot of them relying on the Metropolitan Line and Elizabeth Line, which Transport for London are upgrading anyway, to cope with anticipated overcrowding.

The NPS shows that expansion will negate all the benefits of the Mayor’s plans to reduce air pollution near Heathrow.  We know that the pollution generated by expansion will shorten people’s lives. Despite this, I suspect that there are majorities within the Parliamentary Conservative and Labour Parties who will back expansion. So here are some other points about the Heathrow NPS.

No guarantee that regional airports and jobs won’t go into decline as Heathrow favours international routes.

No guarantee that taxpayers won’t be landed with a multi-billion pound bill to pay for new transport infrastructure.

A women’s revolution under attack

Published on by iwin1961

There are so many things to celebrate and campaign about this International Women’s Day, but the immediacy of the crushing violence being inflicted on the women’s revolution in Afrin, Syria, deserves more attention.

Afrin is one of the three cantons in the north of Syria, where women have taken active leadership in all spheres of society –  a rarity in this region. The area was liberated from the grip of ISIS by Kurdish forces who received the backing of the USA, but the area has now been invaded by Turkey in a clear violation of international law. Continue reading “A women’s revolution under attack” →

Big Brother is putting faces to names

Published on by iwin1961

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” →

Protecting human rights post Brexit

Published on by iwin1961

The Government promised that the EU Withdrawal Bill would bring across all the EU laws and turn them into British laws, so why aren’t they doing that? By exempting the Charter of Fundamental Rights they are significantly weakening the current system of human rights protection in the UK. If that is their intention, then let the Government have a proper discussion about it, rather than sneaking it through as an exemption in part of the much broader debate about the EU Bill. Continue reading “Protecting human rights post Brexit” →

Oral Questions

Published on by jonesjb

Members of the House of Lords (Peers) are allowed to table up to 7 Oral Questions – for short debate in the main chamber – per parliamentary session. In this session Jenny has tabled the following Oral Questions :

Questions from previous Sessions

 

My Bills

Published on by jonesjb

Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill – A Bill to establish the right to breathe clean air; to require the Secretary of State to achieve and maintain clean air in England and Wales; to involve Public Health England in setting and reviewing pollutants and their limits; to enhance the powers, duties and functions of the Environment Agency, the Committee on Climate Change, local authorities (including port authorities), the Civil Aviation Authority, Highways England, Historic England and Natural England in relation to air pollution; to establish a Citizens’ Commission for Clean Air with powers to institute or intervene in legal proceedings; to require the Secretary of State and the relevant national authorities to apply environmental principles in carrying out their duties under this Act and the clean air enactments; and for connected purposes. Read the Bill here

House of Lords Reform – which would create a second chamber where only peers elected via Proportional Representation would be entitled to vote.

Natural Environment Bill – A Bill to make provision for the setting of biodiversity and other targets; to establish a Natural Capital Committee; to require local authorities to maintain local ecological network strategies; to identify species threatened with extinction; for access to quality natural green space; and to include education about the natural environment in the curriculum for maintained schools. This bill did not progress beyond first reading but exists as a useful body of work and could be presented again

Land Value Tax Bill – A Bill to require the Secretary of State to commission a programme of research into the merits of replacing the council tax and non-domestic rates in England with an annual levy on the unimproved value of all land, including transitional arrangements; to report to Parliament within 12 months of completion of the research; and for connected purposes. This bill did not progress beyond first reading but exists as a useful body of work and could be presented again

Marine Protected Areas (Bottom Trawling) Bill – A Bill to regulate and limit the practice of bottom trawling in marine protected areas, and for connected purposes