In this issue we look back at the Parliamentary session which began in May 2022. The next Parliamentary session begins after the State Opening on 7th November

Jenny with campaigner Peter Stefanovic

Your two Green Party peers managed to secure one of the biggest victories for the environmental movement in this parliamentary term, when they led the Lords’ rebellion over the government scrapping water pollution safeguards for new housing.

The Labour Party’s housing spokesperson, Lisa Nandy, made it clear that she supported reforming the Nutrient Neutrality rules and an official in their press team said that Labour would keep the changes if the Government forced them through. Jenny Jones then wrote to all peers and spoke to the NGOs to convince them to support an outright rejection of the Government amendment to the Levelling Up Bill. With Lib Dem backing, and the help of some influential campaigners on social media such as Peter Stefanovic and Carol Vorderman, we managed to convince Labour’s frontbench to come out against the scrapping of the rules. This stopped even more pollution pouring into our waterways in some of the most sensitive areas of the country, such as the Norfolk Broads and the Lake District.

Peter Stefanovic made this video in support.

The Greens in the Lords have led a series of Lords’ rebellions in an attempt to inspire the Labour frontbench to oppose the worst of the legislation this Government has put forward. The Illegal Migration Bill was a key moment when Labour could have stood up for human rights and carried the House with the help of the Bishops. Despite the lack of an electoral mandate for this legislation, Labour backed down in the Lords.

Jenny did get Labour to reject the 18 pages of draconian laws outlawing various forms of protest. However, the Government brought much of this back in separate legislation and it was passed after going through the proper processes of consultation and amendment. The real defining moment of this parliament was when the Government imposed new rules that defined “serious disruption” as anything more than “minor”, and gave the police the ability to ban such a protest. This draconian power would have potentially made the massive Iraq War protests illegal and it was the first time ever that a Ministerial decree was used to directly overturn a parliamentary vote. A petition of 65,000 signatures urged Labour to back Jenny’s Fatal Motion and stop the government, but even this wasn’t enough to encourage strong opposition.

Setting the agenda is hard to do when there are only two of you in a House of several hundred peers, but Ella’s Law managed to gather enough support from across the political spectrum to be passed by the Lords. This Clean Air Bill has now been picked up by Caroline Lucas MP and she continues to promote it in the House of Commons. It is a ground breaking piece of legislation that links air pollution and climate change, while providing parents and victims of bad air with some real legal teeth. Ella’s Law is clearly a positive, breath of fresh air, when contrasted with the Government’s determination to be pro-pollution by reining back on Net Zero, Ultra Low Emissions and 20mph zones.

Jenny with Caroline Lucas MP and veteran broadcaster and campaigner Chris Packham

Our Westminster representatives won two of the six Nature 2030 Political Purpose Awards: Jenny won the 2023 Pollution, Waste & Air award and Caroline Lucas MP won the Lifetime Achievement award at the inaugural Political Purpose Awards held at the House of Lords on 20th September.

This parliamentary session Natalie has continued her ground-breaking policy work on human health and how industrial processes are impacting upon it. She has already worked closely with experts in the field of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – to explore public health policies that will help us retain our resistance to superbugs – and will put forward a bill about this at the start of the parliamentary session. With her interns – funded by the British Association for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy – she has been doing much more on this crucial area, part of the broader issue of our far exceeding the capacity of this planet to handle the “novel entities” with which we are poisoning it, from pharmaceuticals to pesticides to plastics.

One of the biggest upsides of having greens in the House has been to force votes on subjects where Labour and Conservative peers are mostly in agreement. It takes a degree of courage to stand up in the Lords and demand a vote that breaks the cosy, frontbench consensus over topics such as the loss of Freedom of Movement. Often, the House has a range of expert voices who are trying to raise important points about legislation, but they don’t push disagreements to a vote as they know Labour won’t back a fundamentally different approach. For example, when the Government loosened the regulations on Genetic Modification, it was Natalie who ended up being the most active voice trying to mitigate some of the worst aspects of the legislation and forcing a vote on whether the bill should progress at all.

This session Natalie worked hard to amend legislation including the Building Safety Act, Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, Elections Act, Energy Act, Financial Services and Markets Act, Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act, Health and Care Act, Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act, Nuclear Financing Act, Online Safety Act and Post 16 Skills Act.

Natalie initiated debates in this session on Civilian casualties in Palestine, Clothing sustainability, Corruption and conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Disposable and reusable nappies, Four-Day Working Week , Offshore wind, Pesticides, Philosophy in education and Ultra-processed foods.

Natalie with Greater Manchester Green Party

Natalie has made visiting local Greens a top priority and used the visits to generate parliamentary questions and other campaigning work. Her visits included St Albans, East Herts, Suffolk, Bristol, Manchester, Worcester, Walthamstow, Newbury, Leigh on Sea, Liverpool, Dudley, South Norfolk, Cambridge, Peterborough, Calderdale, Doncaster and West Depwade.

Community energy has been a big theme of campaigns run by local Green Parties and Natalie played a leading role in trying to convince the Government to accept a Lords amendment to the Energy Bill. She worked with independent peer, Baroness Boycott, to move the amendment that was successfully passed by the Lords. The fight for it to remain in the Bill – led by Power for People – was eventually lost but the government has made a modest concession of a consultation on the issue.

Natalie at Zagreb Degrowth Conference

• This session Natalie welcomed her third Kings College London Senior Intern, Jenn Howe, who is a doctoral candidate at the Department of War Studies. Her research focuses on motives for engaging in mass violence, often through a gendered lens. She served as a resident Women, Peace and Security Fellow at the Pacific Forum, a US-based research institute and is currently Pacific Forum’s Preventing & Countering Violent Extremism Project Lead. She is also a researcher at the Commonwealth Security Group.
• She hosted parliamentary events on behalf of Action for Animal Health, the Balochistan campaign, British Science Association, Durham Law School and the League Against Cruel Sports. She also held AMR events including a stakeholder consultation.
• Her speaking engagements included audiences and topics as diverse as: Coin St Centre Sustain meat and dairy summit, Launch of Wildlife and Countryside Link Wildlife Crime report, Institute of Customer Service, Parliamentary Reception as part of Credit Awareness Week, a WWF Agroecology event, Women Count, Rural Policy Group in the City, World Press Freedom day, Make Votes Matter, Green sex work panel, the Sloane Club, Global Greens, Aircraft Cabin Air conference, Eton College, Manchester Public Health event, Opposition Studies event at Kings College London, One Health and a UBI and farming event.
• She donated her time to chair various events including The Festival of Debate, Westminster Food & Nutrition Forum policy conference, The future for food and drink labelling in the UK, Adult Social Care APPG, Westminster Forum Green and climate education and the Westminster Forum climate adaptation and resilience.
• Visited schools and picket lines, attended and spoke at protests and demos and went on official visits to Kiev in Nov 22, the Falklands in February 23 and Cyprus in July. She also attended the Zagreb Degrowth Conference in August as well as countless roundtables, meetings, briefings and receptions, frequently several in one day.
• Has been an active member of the board of the Green European Journal, an active participant in the Learn with Lords programme which host school visits to the House of Lords, a Vice-President of the National Association of Local Councils, a Vice-President of the Local Government Association and a member of 23 All Party Parliamentary Groups.
• Regularly contributed to podcasts, a number of magazines and journals and radio programmes.
• Wrote her own book! Natalie has a project aiming to spread understanding of Green political philosophy far beyond the House, with a book titled Change Everything: Political Common Sense for the Age of Shocks. This is due to be published in the spring of 2024 and you can pre-buy your copy now! 

In spite of all this Natalie continued to play an active role in the national Green Party, attending and hosting regular meetings, speaking to local parties and at national GP events on energy policy and PR, and at the Disability Greens AGM as well as at GP conference.

The Aziz Foundation offers Masters scholarships to British Muslims, enabling them – in partnership with UK universities – to progress in their career. Natalie has welcomed Zoheb Ali to her team as Senior Intern. Zoheb has an MA in Post Colonial Studies from SOAS having read English and American literature at Goldsmiths. We are very much enjoying working with Zoheb who is a great addition to our team.

Natalie and Jenny offer tours to Green Party groups on Tuesday afternoons when the House is sitting. If you have a group of 6 party members who would like to visit please email wilsonc@parliament.uk

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

Promoted by Chris Williams on behalf of The Green Party, both at PO Box 78066, London, SE16 9GQ