Police and Social Responsibility Bill

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This Bill had its second reading in Parliament today.

The key issues in the Bill are:

– accountability of the police and the introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners (elected)
– the introduction of new licensing laws to curb binge drinking
– minor changes to Universal Jurisdiction so that the Director of Public Prosecutions decides on arrest warrants for foreign war criminals who come to this country as opposed to district judges
– ensuring that Parliament Square can be used for protests, but not used as a permanent encampment.
– new powers to deal with legal highs

There was a good debate with Labour supporting much (but definitely not all) of the content.

0 thoughts on “Police and Social Responsibility Bill”

  1. Hi Lynne,

    I hope you will be supporting Lib Dem Julian Huppert’s amendment to omit clause 150 (which removes the requirement for medical experts on the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs). We need more sense and science in our attitude towards drug classification and sentencing, as the first step towards a more liberal approach where drugs are taxed to offset potential harm.

    Dave

  2. Doesn’t this legislation make things easier for the likes of Robert Mugabe if they were to come to Britain?

  3. Lynne this is dull. How about you move onto telling us how you are decimating the NHS?

  4. I think it is only right that the Director of Public Prosecutions has the authority to determine and issue warrants for the arrest of potential criminals, rather than political exploitation of universal jurisdiction.

    The purpose for which universal jurisdiction was created may be a worthy and noble one. However, its current execution is problematic, to say the least.

  6. Re – the retrograde step on Universal Jurisdiction, weren’t the LibDems opposed to this when Gordon Brown was talking about it limiting it? Anyway, I just think it signals to various states that they can carry on acting with impunity – it’s a bad thing for us.

    As for elected ‘Sheriffs’, I think it’s a daft idea, a gimmick. Plus you’re gradually proposing many more votes and more referendums on different things that supposedly look democratic, however, so few people will end up voting that they simply won’t be.

    Anyway, how much do you intend to pay these ‘Sheriffs’ and their advisers? Surely this is a luxury to be considered when the country (outside parliament) is not being subjected to the most eyeball-popping cuts?

  7. I don’t get why the government wants all this extra “local democracy.” It all costs money and it makes Britain look more like America. That money would have been better spent on keeping the Education Maintenace Allowance, as David Cameron had promised to do before the election. And that brings me to another issue – what’s the point of elections if candidates can lie to the public?

  8. How about some police and political accountability for this footage of tuition fees protester Jody McIntyre being dragged from his wheelchair?

    He may have cerebral palsy, but he speaks with an eloquence and honesty that puts you to shame

  9. @ Jane, Muswell Hill
    ————————-
    I’m not sure what’s more disgraceful, the behaviour of the police or the line of questioning by Ben Brown, the presenter. In my naive state, the same one that voted Lib Dem at the last election, i had believed the BBC was impartial and not a government puppet. Spent most of the interview apparently trying to blame Jody for the fact he was dumped from his chair and dragged along the floor.

    “do you really think a person with cerebal palsy in a wheelchair poses any threat to a police officer who is armed with weapons?”
    “But you do say that you are a revolutionary” BB
    “that is a word, it is not a physical action that i have taken against a police officer”

    Regarding the Alfie Meadows incident
    JM “imagine it was Prince Charles, or Camilla or a police officer who had been within an inch of their life”
    subject is quickly changed by Ben Brown back to the violence by students that Ben Brown observed whilst embedded on the “battlefield”.

    Well done Jody McIntyre

  10. @ Ben Groves

    ———

    Absolutely, he is an extraordinary young man.

  12. For Dave above, Youll enjoy this….

    Nick Clegg in his own words, on Gary McKinnon.

    Writing in the Daily Mail, 4th August 2009
    “Expert lawyers assure me that, even at this 11th hour, the Government could prosecute him for those crimes here at home, instead of in the U.S.
    It is imperative that it does so. Quite simply, the rest of Mr McKinnon’s life is on the line. It appals me that, so far at least, no one in government seems prepared to lift a finger to help him
    You can be sure that if the situation was reversed, American politicians would be moving hell and high water to protect one of their citizens from such a gross injustice.
    It is an affront to British justice that no one in the Labour Party has the courage to do the same… It is time for Gordon Brown and his Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, to step in and do the decent thing”.

    At a protest outside the Home Office, on 15th December 2009
    “Gary McKinnon’s extradition to the USA must be stopped. The Government can change this. We say to them: ‘You can do this if you have the courage of your convictions to do the right thing”.

    Speaking to the Daily Mail on 17th October 2009
    “The Home Secretary has sat on his hands for too long, even in the face of legal advice from leading advocates that contradicts the Home Office’s position.
    This new psychiatric report into Gary McKinnon’s condition must persuade him that it is no longer acceptable to shrug his shoulders and claim that nothing can be done.
    Alan Johnson should do the decent thing and intervene to ensure that Gary is tried in Britain, where he committed his crime and confessed to it”.

    Gary McKinnon’s mother May 22nd.
    “I know I can count on Nick. I totally believe in him. He has been one of Gary’s most passionate supporters and David Cameron has publicly condemned the extradition. I am sure they are trying to do something behind the scenes”.

    May 26th
    “What I haven’t got power to do, neither has the Home Secretary neither has even the Prime Minister, is to completely reverse and undo certain legal aspects of this. That of course you wouldn’t want politicians to do. That’s what we are looking at the moment. It’s legally very complex”.

    Nick Clegg is clearly very complex!!

  13. Russell

    I think it is becoming crystal clear that the LibDems were, collectively, unbelievably stupid before they became junior partners in a Tory Government. Since then, they have not only remained incredibly stupid but have also become weak, hypocritical, and ineffectual.