Surgery all morning until lunchtime (I had moved it from Friday so I could be in Parliament to vote on Clare Short’s bill about Parliamentary approval before the country goes to war) and then off to Bounds Green School where we Haringey Liberal Democrats are playing host to party training session for the coming local elections (ie providing the tea, coffee and lunch!). I give a speech and afterwards it is back home to try and catch up on my paperwork, emails etc!
Category Archives: Blog
Clare Short's bill
Into Parliament so that we can vote for Clare Short’s Private Members Bill to require Parliament to approve sending our armed forces into conflicts in future. We need 100 affirmative votes for it to get beyond this stage. When Clare moves to call for the vote – sadly we fall short at 91. The Lib Dem benches are the fullest, with the Tories barely visible and even the Labour rebels seem to have found going home on Thursday preferable to being in Parliament on a Friday. Great disappointment.
I think it important that Parliament should debate and decide such important issues for our country. Of course – the legislation would have to work not to impede going to war if time was of the imperative – but we might not get in such a mess if such debate was mandatory.
Moreover, I am still shocked to find that those running the country (who until I knew them I still had the illusion that they were my elders and betters and actually knew what they were doing) hadn’t thought beyond the war. Unimaginable to me that we could go to war without an exit strategy – and all the different scenarios worked through. Naive old me!
More gesture politics from Labour
Back to the Violent Crime Reduction Bill. Last thing yesterday dozens of amendments were published for the weapons part of the bill. But first we have to finish up on Alcohol Disorder Zones. This is with an argument from the Lib Dem about an absurd bit of the proposals which gives the area proposed for a disorder zone an opportunity to put forward an action plan and sort things out first – but then says that if the Local Authority doesn’t like the way the things are going it can step in and impose the zone anyway. You can’t have a mechanism for giving people a chance to do things the right way and then not give them that period. Unless you’re a Labour Government!
So then we arrive at guns. My Lib Dem No.2 on the Committee (there are only two Lib Dems) is a gun using Scot. He has lawful possession of a number of guns and is expert on the ins and outs of firearms certificates and the like. I have some relationship with alcohol – but none with guns.
We are arguing with the Government on a number of aspects. First there is an issue with tightening up on the transport of guns. As John Thurso points out, if he had his gun locked in his boot (which is the only way you are allowed to transport guns) and he popped out from the car to buy something and his friend was left in the car, he could then be had for this ‘crime’ – and moreover he could get 5 years minimum mandatory sentence for the pleasure – under Labour’s proposals, as currently written.
Latter on I argue against minimum mandatory sentences – partly because we believe law makers should not lay down what should rightly be decided by judges as to particular circumstances of each case, but also because it is another example of Labour being ‘tough’ without thinking things through. In this case, we’d have a dog’s breakfast of some offences having a mandatory five-year minimum sentence but equivalent acts with other firearms had completely different penalties. The whole structure would become a nonsense – and the Government has promised and promised a reviews and consultations – and then nothing. Sentencing is already becoming nonsense with Charles Clarke letting prisoners go because the prisons are too full. It’s all ‘gesture’ and ‘message’ with existing laws not enforced properly and a whole pile of new laws instead.
Anyway – Labour have a right go at me – but I stick to my guns (so to speak)!
We finish around 5pm and will resume where we left off next Tuesday – just before which pagers vibrate to bring us the news that Cameron and Davis will fight it out.
Nuclear power
After the Lib Dem Home Office team meeting, where we discuss our position on the relevant bills going through Parliament, I decide I’ve too much work to do to go to Prime Ministers Questions and instead head off to my office. At 2.30pm we have the first ‘evidence’ session of the Environmental Audit Select Committee where we are looking at energy. With the Government raising the nuclear flag again – we are alert to what may be coming down the line.
Tackling alcohol problems: Violent Crime Reduction Bill
Five and a half hours in Committee going over the details of the Violent Crime Reduction Bill.
Today is alcohol – and we are moving through Drink Banning Orders and Alcohol Disorder Zones. Drink Banning Orders will enable the police and local authorities to stop an individual coming into a certain area because of their ‘criminal or disorderly behaviour’. The trouble, as ever, with Labour legislation is that it is overweening and undefined – that it could easily be abused. For instance – the bill uses the term ‘disorder’. This is very broad and could mean that rather than the powers to ban people being concentrated on just those cases where they are really needed to tackle persistent and serious problems arising from drunkenness, instead that the powers end up being abused to ban people for all sorts of other reasons.
My task is to argue that there needs to be more definition. An example of where this could all go horribly wrong is when one Labour member said something like – you might get someone late at night shouting as they ran down the street drunk. Well – if a single instance of high spirits is all it needs to take away someone’s freedom of movement, then we are going too far. So the challenge is to try and make the Government legislation more exact, more robust and to ensure that the powers given cannot be misused in such a way.
The Government is not minded to listen to reasonable argument – at least not really in this public session. As I understand it they use all the stuff we give them and then bring it back as their own at a latter stage. Which is fine – if a little aggravating. In fact they have already ‘listened’ in that they themselves have brought forth an amendment removing their proposal to imprison an individual who breached a Drink Banning Order. Even they realised that to end up with a 5 year prison sentence for skipping down the street drunk and shouting might be seen as a little over the top.
Later we move onto Alcohol Disorder Zones. These are areas that can be designated by a local authority and the police where there is so much trouble from drinking establishments that they have become no go areas at night. The idea is that establishments within the zone to be designated have an opportunity to put forward a voluntary action plan, and if it works the zone isn’t imposed. But if it fails, it is. An imposed zone means establishments within it will be charged for extra policing or whatever.
The points of contention – given we agree with the principle of the polluter pays – are that good landlords will be treated same as bad, that there are perverse incentives for local authorities to view this as a way of raising money, that anywhere can be designated a Disorder Zone, that designating an area will stigmatise (or even worse, glorifying it for some?) and many, many other arguments about the proposals.
The Government seem not to be interested in anything other than sloganising that ‘we serve the lawful and that this legislation is targeted on the lawless’. Well yes – statement of the bleeding obvious in terms of what everyone wants as an outcome because we all have the same problems. But slogans aren’t the same as effective action. We already have so much legislation that the Government is not using properly regarding drinking and alcohol. It is already illegal to sell drink to the drunk (they never virtually prosecute). Local Authorities can revoke licenses (they rarely do). And new powers which come into force next month give police the powers to shut down premises.
But saying we want a new law gets cheap publicity points in a way that working to use existing laws properly don’t.
Liveliest moment of the day is when Labour MP Stephen Pound exits the backbenches of the Committee to find out who has gone through (or not) in the Tory leadership election that is taking place in the Committee Room next door – very noisily. He comes back and does a little mime – indicating a pregnant stomach and then slitting of throat – it is clear that Ken Clarke has got the chop!
Anyway – leave Parliament around 11pm having had one drink in one of the bars. A Labour member of the Committee was in there and called me over to say how well he thought I was handling it considering I had been thrown in the deep end – which I thought was very kind!
Future of Wood Green
Apart from preparation for the Violent Crime Reduction Bill’s committee stage, this afternoon I met with the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) to discuss a number of issues that might come up when various bills passing through Parliament this session.
Main highlight today was the Wood Green Area Assembly in the evening at the Civic Centre. It was webcast – for the first time! Maybe that’s why it was so packed – or maybe that was because the Council had hired consultants to come up with a ‘master plan’ for improving Wood Green. Wood Green desperately needs love and attention – and resources! However, despite pretty presentations and all that – still clear to me that whatever the promises or the master plan unless Haringey Council stops giving permission to ugly, ghastly blocks of flats and puts some pressure on developers to raise their game – master plan, shmaster plan.
Any Questions
Surgery ’til lunchtime and then – after a bit of paperwork – off to Norwich for Any Questions. I catch the 4pm train from Liverpool Street with newspapers, briefings and blank paper and pens and spend the journey trying to work out what the questions might be.
When I get up to get off, I discover my co-panellist, Shami Chakrabarti from Liberty, is in the seat just in front. A car is there to meet us and take us to the restaurant – where Jonathan Dimbleby and John Bercow (Tory) are already seated for dinner. He now bears the ‘moderate’ tag in the Tory party and is a keen Ken Clarke supporter. David Miliband (Labour, minister) is not yet there. About three quarters of an hour into the dinner – Miliband arrives with assistant in tow. We are all strictly told not to bring assistants to the dinner – but Ministers and power and status you know. The atmosphere changes immediately. There is something quite chilling about Labour automatons – natural conversation diminishes and careful phrasing and tones take over. Strangely enough, in the anteroom when we arrive at the venue for the show, the coldness disappears just briefly and the human being can be glimpsed – completely charming.
Anyway – there is a warm up question on Pinter (not broadcast, but done to get us all into the swing of things) and then we are on. First up is the judgement on the Zimbabwe asylum seeker. Although he lied in his application, the courts have found the Government wanting and in neglect of their duty as they returned people to places without worrying enough about the human rights situation in the place they’re returning them to. Shami, John and I all welcome the decision – and Milliband mutters about a rethink. Jonathan Dimbleby asks me if I am encouraged by the Minister’s concession to ‘rethink’ and I say I am always encouraged when the Government says it will rethink. Of course – later I thought of a much better retort, as one does.
Drugs and Cameron! My take was that David Cameron should have just admitted whatever he had done at college and left it there. The BBC license fee (not surprisingly) was on the menu and we all paid tribute to the hand that fed us and then went onto the real heart of the matter on civil liberties. I am not going to bang on through the whole program (because you can listen to it on the BBC’s website for the next week – and because readers of this blog will know my views well by now!).
The show always finishes with a quirky question. On the train up and looking at the papers I thought it might be who would the panel choose to play the new James Bond. I carefully hone by answer (settling on Jonathan Ross in the end) but sadly – this isn’t the question that comes up!
Violent Crime Reduction Bill – first committee stage
I left at the crack of dawn on Thursday to get to Commons at least an hour before having to go into committee for the first session on the Violent Crime Reduction Bill. I drive in today – thank goodness – as the radio gradually makes North London aware that the Northern Line is completely closed today.
Preparatory work done, I go to the committee and introduce myself to the Minister (Hazel Blears), who I shadow for the Lib Dems, and the chair – Eric Forth MP. And then we are off. Having had the sense to look how others have started off the sessions, at least I know that I have to stand – or rather indicate that I want to speak after the current speaker by half-shifting out of a sitting position so that the Chair will call me next.
The Minister moves the Programming Motion – which in fact we have agreed anyway the night before – but this is an opportunity to talk about absolutely nothing important for as long as the Chair will tolerate. At least that was my reading of it. The Minister was brief and to the point. The lead Tory was rather more fulsome – and to my surprise made an unprovoked attack on the Liberal Democrats referring to something a colleague had said some time back in another debate on another bill. Aha – I thought – so much for scrutiny of the Bill without the usual political nonsense. But it was just a tiny swipe – not worth worrying about really in the scale of attacks unleashed on us – the increasing scale of which I put down to our increasing success. Then I rise to do my bit – and welcome the Chair, look forward to a rigorous debate, express some concerns about the timing though welcome the Minister’s indication that she will be flexible about it.
Into the debate – and I am moving the first two amendments. In the section of the Bill on Drink Banning Orders (DBO) – which would mean an individual can be banned from a locality for between two months and two years – is to make sure that DBOs are not served on people such as those with mental health issues that mean they are not able to understand the orders and so would be liable to break them because they’re not able to understand them.
I suggest that the court should receive a report on the individual in question’s state of health – so that they can assess whether this falls into extremely vulnerable category. The Conservatives were supportive – though wanted more discretion for the court. My concern was that more discretion would result in the power not being used when it should. The Minister’s argument against us both was basically that it was too much paperwork and bureaucracy. What I hope – and what the Minister promised – is that this element will now be included in the guidance to the legislation when passed. And this is quite common in committee – you put down an amendment to prod the Government, the Government responds (hopefully sensibly!) and then you “ask leave to withdraw the amendment”. This means you don’t have a vote on the amendment itself, but you can submit it again at a latter stage – which is useful if, say, the Government says it will go away and think about an issue so that you know you can return to it latter.
We trudged on for a while longer working through the amendments – and then the time beat us and we had to adjourn until the next session next Tuesday. I know it may not be riveting stuff – but this is how legislation is made. There had been quite a few attacks on the Lib Dems from the Labour back benchers and the Minister during the arguments – mostly trying to suggest that only Labour have drunks lying in their streets and want them cleaned up. Of course – we have lots of problems here in Hornsey & Wood Green that we want cleared up – so that is completely ludicrous. I would have thought the purpose of all this arguing line by line was exactly that – to make sure the legislation is totally effective in targeting those who should be removed from an area – and leaving along and supporting those who might inadvertently be swept up by poorly written laws.
And that’s kind of how it works.
As I went out of Committee Room 12 to make my way to the Commons chamber I looked at my phone to find masses of missed calls. So I sit down outside the room to work through them. Many from TV stations asking me to come and discuss the issues around getting more women into politics. Not surprisingly, this is because of yesterday’s kafuffle. Finish round of calls and go to numerous other meetings including briefing for Any Questions the following night.
MPs, babysitters and cleaners
Just one of those days yesterday (Wednesday)! As I walk into Portcullis House (one of the office blocks for Parliamentarians and staff) my Head of Office hands me a copy of the Evening Standard.
The article was based on an attack by a local Labour councillor. He had taken a line from a training session I gave for women at our Blackpool Conference. What I had basically said was that as these days councillors get paid an allowance, women could think about using it to hire a cleaner or a babysitter – helping to free up their time so they have enough hours to do the work of a councillor on top of all their other commitments. Lord knows it is hard enough for a woman to get out of the house if she is a single parent, on low or no pay – and we need a much more diverse range of people to get into politics.
Cllr Richard Milner apparently wishes to keep women chained to the kitchen – and rather than supporting efforts to bring more women into politics, he preferred to try and score cheap shots about me advocating becoming a councillor in order to get a ‘free cleaner’. Labour should hand their heads in shame over this one. Clearly they don’t believe in equality of opportunity.
Of course he can choose to spend his councillor allowances on anything he likes. He just doesn’t believe women should have that right too! It’s true I can afford help without which I couldn’t do the job I do – but I am out there fighting so that women who cannot afford any help can also enter public life. We need more councillors and MPs for all walks of life and all ranges of personal circumstances, including more women. I had hoped that sexism was dying out – but apparently it’s alive and well in Labour Haringey!
Anyway – I am on the run – and go straight into our Home Affairs team meeting where we run through all the home affairs legislation pouring through Parliament at the moment. Run to Prime Minister’s Questions – unedifying exchange between Blair and Howard. Oh yes you will – oh no we won’t – sort of thing. As I come out and look at my mobile for messages – loads and loads. The Evening Standard sets the hare running – and then everyone wants to know about cleaning ladies and babysitters I am doing all this sitting in the Members’ lobby outside the chamber – and not a woman in sight amongst the comings and goings. I rest my case!
Then it’s Westminster Hall where hundreds of pensioners have gathered to lobby their MPs on the appalling levels of state pension compared with ever-rising outgoings – like Council Tax – hiked up by many more percent than a fixed income can cope with.
The guy on the desk shouts out through the microphone that I am here for any lobbyists from Hornsey & Wood Green. I am retrieved by a group who have come to make their views known. Of course I agree with almost everything they say and will raise the issues they bring to me with the Minister and with our own Work and Pensions Shadow Secretary – David Laws.
Then it’s the ‘Programming Meeting’ where the MPs from all parties who are taking the Violent Crime Reduction Bill through Parliament meet to decide how long the committee stage will be and how many sessions it will comprise. Both opposition parties make the point that the Government itself has put down loads of amendments to its own Bill and both of us have tabled loads too. So the seven sessions allocated may not be enough. However, we are all co-operating and the Minster agrees to be flexible if we need more time.
There has been no time for lunch today. But it’s off to my sister for dinner and when I get home – I have to pour over the Bill and clauses and amendments and arguments – so that I won’t make a fool of myself in Committee the next day…
Does the government know how search engines work?
Letter to the Guardian:
The call by the Government for a clampdown on information about suicide on the internet has all the signs of a typical New Labour panic (11 October).
First, there’s the exaggerated anonymous quotes from an official. In this case, it’s the implication that if you search for “suicide” and “UK” that you find information on what to do with a car exhaust and a hose pipe before you find information about the Samaritans.
This isn’t the general experience – for example, searching google.co.uk for UK sites on the day the quote was published for “suicide UK” gave a help group for suicides relatives first, then a counselling help site including the Samaritans’ number. And so on down the list, including the Samaritans’ own site coming up in the top ten results. The closest you get to the sort of sites the nameless official is trying to scare us about is in fact the Guardian’s own site, which gets a story in the top ten about euthanasia.
Then there’s the gut Government instinct that the way to progress is to regulate and interfere. In fact, the answer is much simpler – get high profile websites (like the Government’s very own) to link more to the Samaritans, and up the rankings it will go to. Encourage MPs, councils and others too to link through, and bingo – job done without the need for central control freakery. Going with the flow on the Internet and utilising its own strengths is much more likely to be successful.
There is much other serious work to be done, as the Guardian’s story explained with heart-rending examples. But the government hardly helps its case with such misleading exaggeration nor with proposed solutions which logically point to banning the Guardian’s news stories from coming up in search results.
Yours,
Lynne Featherstone MP
Lynne Featherstone 