In this issue we look at:

Jenny has tabled a Fatal Motion for 13^th June to stop the government using a “Ministerial decree” to overturn a vote in the Lords. This is the first time ever that a Government Minister has tried to use secondary legislation to directly overturn the will of Parliament.

The Government lost a vote in the Lords on the Public Order Bill to change the interpretation of “serious disruption” of other people’s day-to-day activities to mean “anything less than minor”. This would allow the police to decide that almost anything was an arrestable offence. The Lords opposed this change by 254 votes to 240 only a few weeks ago.

The government are trying to reinsert this change via secondary legislation which has less Parliamentary scrutiny and can’t be amended in any way. The last time the Lords passed a Fatal Motion on a Statutory Instrument was in 2015, it provoked a mini constitutional crisis and the government then ordered a review of the powers of the House of Lords.

Labour are currently backing a regret motion on the government’s change. If passed, this amounts to a loud tut-tut and has no impact on the legislative change.

This is a make or break moment for parliamentary democracy. The Lords defeated the government on this issue and the Minister is now acting like a seventeenth century monarch by using a decree to reverse that vote. What is the point of Parliament if a Minister can just ignore the outcome of debates and votes by imposing draconian laws on the public?

The debate about the use of Ministerial decree to overrule parliament is not a one-off; but part of a trend of legislation that undermines parliamentary democracy by giving Ministers increasing powers to make, delete or change laws. In the last four years we have seen a series of skeleton bills pass through parliament that hand over powers and discretion to Ministers to make decisions with minimal parliamentary scrutiny. The Retained EU Law Bill is the boldest example of this authoritarian approach to law making which is side-lining our parliamentary democracy.

Despite the government dropping the sunset clause that would have automatically pushed thousands of environmental laws over a potential cliff edge at the end of the year, they have retained the power for Ministers to delete and amend a vast amount of legislation by 2026. The Green peers supported a successful Lords’ amendment which sets up a joint committee of peers and MPs to examine whether any changes put forward by Ministers need a proper debate and vote in parliament.

Natalie spoke in support of a successful Lords’ amendment that stops Ministers reducing environmental protection, food standards and safety safety protections compared to the retained law and must not conflict with UK international agreements. Unfortunately, a similar amendment on workers rights was not passed.

While we work well with Labour peers, it is frustrating how they constantly hold back on voting against some of the worse aspects of government legislation. The Illegal Immigration Bill was allowed to go forward when Labour failed to vote for a motion put forward by the Lib Dems and supported by the Greens. With so many Crossbenchers, Bishops and rebel Tories against this Bill, we missed a real chance to stop the government breaking international law. The Lords could have forced the government to invoke the Parliament Act in order to get it through. This takes over a year to do and could potentially have stopped this awful legislation becoming law before the General Election. Natalie asked, if Labour and other peers would not oppose this awful, lawbreaking legislation, what would they oppose?

Labour also gave up on challenging the draconian laws in the Public Order Bill after the initial attempts at amending It in the Lords. Labour are reluctant to rock the boat in the Lords as they believe they will be in government soon and don’t want the second chamber delaying what they want to do.

Greens continue to say the things that others don’t dare.

Demanding a refund from the water companies who have taken our money for upgrading the sewer system for the last 30 years but have given it to shareholders instead.

Telling a parliamentary committee that we have no problem with the water companies share price going down as that will make it cheaper to take them back into public ownership.

Arguing for allowing asylum seekers to be allowed to work and pay tax, rather than an enforced idleness being imposed upon them.

Supporting the striking health workers getting a fair wage, rather than reforms to the NHS that siphon off money to private health care providers.

Repeating that you can’t keep growing the economy on a finite world, we need a different economic model that works for both people and planet

Natalie this week chaired a session titled “World Press Freedom Day Every Day”, run by The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Campaign with Reporters Without Borders. Among the issues it covered was the Justice for Anton campaign and the case of Jimmy Lai and the Apple Daily in Hong Kong, while Natalie also spoke about the Thai election, a topic she recently covered for Comment Central.

She attended a fascinating and disturbing event “Women Human Rights defenders at risk in theocratic countries: Courage in Action”, a chance to make contact with two important UN figures, Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Defenders, and Professor Javaid Rehman, UN Special Rapporteur for Iran, and hear about the situation in Afghanistan from Malahat Mohammadzai of Free From Fear and Saudi Arabia from Lina Al-Hathloul of ALQST.

Back at home she spoke at the big Sort the System lobby of parliament, a coordinated effort by campaigns including Make Votes Matter and Unlock Democracy, to push for proportional representation, and at an event organised by Sheffield Greens as a part of the Festival of Debate on Just Access to Land, a very fundamental part of democracy, and life.

Natalie is writing a book, Change Everything: Political Common Sense for the Age of Shocks. She’s publishing with Unbound, which operates on a crowdfunding model. She now has enough subscribers to get the book into print but you can still jump in and pre-order your copy (from £10 for the eBook to £500 to be a “super-patron”, should you be feeling flush.). That means your name will be recorded inside as a supporter and you’ll be helping spread the Green message

To find out more about their work:

• Visit Jenny’s website
• Visit Natalie’s website

Please consider supporting this work. Our regular donor page is here

In hope and solidarity,

Jenny, Natalie and the team