My amendment on Day 6 of Renters’ Rights Bill Committee Stage

In Kirklees, a Green councillor, Andrew Cooper, was one of the driving forces behind a street-by-street insulation programme. Reports on how that worked out afterwards highlighted how much people are concerned about cowboy builders but that they trust their local authorities. That street-by-street process works well, but to make that happen you need the data. That is what this amendment is designed to achieve. Continue reading “My amendment on Day 6 of Renters’ Rights Bill Committee Stage”

My amendment on Day 5 of the Renters’ Rights Bill Committee Stage

Natalie moved my amendment for me on Monday saying ‘All the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Members of the House who are still here at 12.47 am will note that I am not Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. My friend is the Green lark, and I am the Green owl, so you get me after midnight’ Continue reading “My amendment on Day 5 of the Renters’ Rights Bill Committee Stage”

Employment Rights Bill Second Reading

We have a two-tier economy. The rich have been getting richer much faster, while the rest of us are stuck or going backwards. These two facts are obviously linked. Last year, the collective wealth of the UK’s small band of billionaires increased by about £35 million a day. Meanwhile, according to the IFS, the past 15 years have been the worst for income growth in generations Continue reading “Employment Rights Bill Second Reading”

Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025

On Monday I brought a Fatal Motion in an attempt to kill the government’s Statutory Instrument ‘Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025’. I didn’t in the end put it to a vote as the Lib Dems refused to support it having seen mine and then tabled their own. Instead I voted for the lib Dem Fatal Motion but the Tories sat on their hands and the vote was lost. Continue reading “Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025”

Water Companies: Fines

It is very hard to convey the anger felt by not just hundreds of thousands but millions of people at the mess the water companies have made over the past 30 years. I say “mess”, because that is what the public have had had to deal with – this is about sewage-filled seawater, dirty beaches, polluted rivers, chalk stream ecosystems destroyed and sometimes even E. coli in our water supply –  while water companies have been amazingly efficient at siphoning off money for shareholders and employees Continue reading “Water Companies: Fines”

Football Governance Bill Committee Stage

We know the climate is changing; we know that the weather is changing; we know there are more floods and more droughts; so it is very short-sighted not to include environmental sustainability when you are worried about the future of clubs and their financial sustainability Continue reading “Football Governance Bill Committee Stage”