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”
Yesterday I asked the Government: What are the main factors that have led to decades of low levels of rape cases being prosecuted, and continue to prevent such prosecutions, and what steps are they taking to resolve this? Continue reading “My Debate on Rape Prosecutions”
Do this Government see that, as a massive consumer still driving climate change, we have a duty to people who are fleeing drought and floods, as well as to refugees from war zones? Continue reading “Immigration: Human Rights”
If we were talking about benefit claimants who had behaved in the way that water companies have, we would not just slap them on the wrist in the way that we have the water companies; we would crack down on them, claw back the money and take them to court. The water companies have got off so lightly in this whole process. That really does not seem fair to bill payers or to taxpayers. The water companies have been saying that they invest all the bill payers’ money in infrastructure, but they then take out loans and pay themselves dividends. With this legislation—even with the amendments—the Government are missing the opportunity to crack down on predatory capitalism. Continue reading “Water (Special Measures) Bill Report Stage”
We cannot say that we have a justice system if we have an innate injustice such as this. The sentencing and continued imprisonment of IPP prisoners has just been cruel. We Greens are well aware that prison is overused as a tool of justice. Far too many people are imprisoned, when there are much more effective ways of rehabilitation or stopping reoffending. Continue reading “Imprisonment for Public Protection Bill”
When we have a House that is undemocratic, overcrowded, dominated by silly archaic practices and unrepresentative of the British population, we should be careful about which changes we make. We need a smaller House and a second Chamber that is representative of the regions, elected by a form of proportional representation and operating in a modern parliamentary building, rather than a 200 year-old museum that threatens either to fall down or to burn down. We should have term limits, all be elected and be limited in size very carefully. Getting rid of the hereditaries is only a tweak when our system is still open to exploitation by Prime Ministers, who can give titles to party donors and those who have provided political favours. It is a terrible process, and that is where Labour should have started, if it was really serious about positive change here. Continue reading “House of Lords Reform”
This last weekend I joined tens of thousands of people marching for clean water in London Continue reading “Water Bill Committee Stage Day 3”
My amendment to require representatives of employees and the public to sit on the boards of water companies Continue reading “Water Bill Committee Stage Day 1”
I will bring forward amendments to ensure that this Bill does not simply allow these failed zombie companies to continue extracting bill payers’ cash while loading huge amounts of debt on to the balance sheet. The Government need a serious look at the opportunity to bring these companies into public ownership, and this Bill should give Ministers the option to nationalise these companies where it makes sense. Continue reading “Water (Special Measures) Bill [HL] Second Reading”
Privatisation of rail has given us higher fares and generated a fat profit for all the state-owned German and French rail companies, which took advantage of UK taxpayers. I congratulate Labour on bringing this to an end. But why not end the disastrous mistake of water privatisation that will cost £12.5 billion in this Parliament alone, only to pay shareholders and creditors, but which will still result in waterways full of faeces, agricultural run-off, other chemicals, drugs, paint, bleach and plastic? If water companies collapsed, we could buy them for pennies and run them ourselves. Continue reading “Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill Second Reading”
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb 