The Lords has defeated the government a total of six times during the Public Order Report Stage.
Tag: Police
Lords can stop pre-crime becoming law
The Lords have the ability to stop the government’s “pre-crime” laws in a vote on Monday. The government has proposed late amendments to the Public Order Bill that give the police power to ban protests, or a series of protests, ahead of them being held. It doesn’t matter if the organisers have never been convicted of a crime and what’s planned is non violent, the intention is enough for the police to judge it as illegal, if they feel it will ‘seriously disrupt’ somone’s life.
A protest only has to be more than a “minor interference” to be counted as “serious disruption” under the government plans. The judgment over what is minor, rather than “more than minor interference”, will be left to the police to predict, ahead of the proposed protest. Which means the police are making more and more political judgments about good protests and bad protests. Anyone joining the banned protest will be subject to arrest.
As these pre-crime amendments have been submitted late and in the Lords, it means the Lords can vote them out of the bill. Please make some noise on social media to ensure that Labour peers and others vote to ditch pre-crime.
A failing police service given draconian powers
Baroness Jenny Jones, issued this statement in response to the conviction of Elite Metropolitan police officer David Carrick, as a serial rapist.
“The police service is finally coming to terms with having significant number of rapists and domestic abusers in its ranks. From the state sponsored abuses of the spy cops scandal, to the murder of Sarah Everard and the arrest of those at her vigil, the police have failed to deal with misogyny in their own ranks. The turning of a blind eye when women reported that their police officer partners were abusing them, is also part of this pattern of failure that has led to record low conviction rates for crimes of sexual violence against women.
With six police services in special measures and hundreds of thousands of every day offences not being investigated as they are ‘no crimed’; the government is obsessed with passing draconian laws aimed at peaceful protestors, who commit no violent acts. The distorted priorities of Ministers who are afraid of protest against corruption, austerity and right wing policies, means that they wish to hand a mistrusted and failing police service the ability to arrest people who are thinking about protesting peacefully.”
Police review on slow track as draconian powers accelerate
The government has pushed through more and more draconian powers for the police to use against peaceful protestors. Yet trust in police integrity, standards and culture has never been lower. There are now six police services (including the Metropolitan Police) who are in special measures. Plus the government has launched their own review after numerous scandals have exposed issues with police recruitment and attitudes:
Continue reading “Police review on slow track as draconian powers accelerate”
Greens in the House newsletter
Much of the legislation we were expecting to be dealing with this Autumn disappeared with the departure of Johnson’s government, but sadly not the Public Order Bill which arrives in the Lords tomorrow. We are yet to see the full implications of the Police Act’s expansion of police powers and the Public Order Bill is full of rehashed versions of provisions already rejected by the House of Lords. You can sign Liberty’s petition opposing the Public Order Bill here.
Much of the legislation we were expecting to be dealing with this Autumn disappeared with the departure of Johnson’s government, but sadly not the Public Order Bill which arrives in the Lords tomorrow. We are yet to see the full implications of the Police Act’s expansion of police powers and the Public Order Bill is full of rehashed versions of provisions already rejected by the House of Lords. You can sign Liberty’s petition opposing the Public Order Bill here.
Met Police must explain Gray report censorship
In response to the Met Police request for the Sue Gray report to ‘minimise’ references to parties at Number 10, Baroness Jenny Jones said:
“The Met Police need to explain why they want key details of the Sue Gray report to be censored, unless they have an expectation that there will be a jury trial as a result of the investigation and it would be prejudicial. The failure of the Met Police to start their investigation weeks ago raIsed suspicions that they were shielding the Prime Minister. By launching an investigation just before Sue Gray’s report is due out and then requesting she delete the majority of the references to the parties at Number 10, they are compounding those suspicions. Unless the Met Police can provide a clear reason why the detailed information should not be made public then I think the report should be published in full, or it will be seen as partial and incomplete.”
Police Bill: Monday vote explained
Since the last General Election gave the Conservative Party an 80+ seat majority of MPs in the Commons, they have pushed through some bad legislation. When these Bills come to the Lords, it’s our job to look at them line by line and try to improve them by carefully considered amendments. Which mostly the Tory-dominated Commons immediately throw out*.
Government by-pass MPs on new policing laws
Pages of new amendments to the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill have been submitted by the government as the legislation is half way through the Lords Committee stage. The new laws target “locking-on” and other forms of nonviolent protest, as well as giving police officers the ability to stop and search without suspicion.
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Drugs, organised crime and the climate crisis
I asked the government about the connection between drugs, organised crime and climate chaos because it is often over looked in big debates about international agreements, like COP26
Continue reading “Drugs, organised crime and the climate crisis”
Lawless roads and motorists getting off lightly
Today, I’m asking a Minister if breaking the law with a car attracts a lighter sentence than if someone does the same in any other area of their life?
Many years ago a police traffic sergeant told me that the best way to murder someone is to do it with a car. A hit and run carries a fairly minimum sentence and even if caught you can always claim that “accidents happen.”
The reality of this was brought home to me in 2014 when a man travelling at 80-88mph drove straight at the traffic officer who stepped out to flag his vehicle down for speeding. The killer made no attempt to stop as he threw PC Duncan into the air ‘like a rag doll’ and left him with fatal injuries. The starting point for murdering a police officer with a knife, or iron bar is 30 years, this driver received an eight and a half year sentence.
Continue reading “Lawless roads and motorists getting off lightly”
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb 