Elections Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I too really enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Moore, and I congratulate him on it. I welcomed him earlier when I was introduced to him in the Long Room, and I have to say that he seemed like a very nice man—for a Telegraph editor.

I do not doubt the Minister’s integrity, but his opening speech was full of inaccuracies and presumptions. I will check Hansard and come back to him on all those, but he mentioned the precautionary principle, which is crucial. [Interruption.] He did not? Well, I will come back to him on anything he did say. This Bill could have been an opportunity to improve our democracy so that every person’s vote counts. Instead, the Government are taking a backward step by forcing first past the post on more elections.

London has enjoyed a much more dynamic and engaging political landscape than the rest of England because the system has allowed people to vote for the party and the candidates they actually like, rather than feeling forced into voting for the lesser of two evils. Indeed, Boris Johnson was elected as Mayor using the supplementary vote system—I guess that is actually an argument against PR; I am sure many of us regret that. It is a great shame that the Government want to trample on this vibrant democracy by forcing the dominance of the two-party system. There is no justification for it and no suggestion that voters want their votes to be constrained in this way. We should be moving away from first past the post, not bringing it back.

Many noble Lords, including Ministers, have said to my noble friend and me that, while they disagree with us on almost everything, they are glad that we make the contributions we do to your Lordships’ House. The Minister can just nod if he agrees with what I have just said. It could obviously be flattery, but there are many more Greens who could make a huge contribution to society through being elected, as well as independents and smaller parties. Many people who are really working hard at a local level can be shut out by these changes. Moreover, there are many people who ought to be elected, who would make incredible contributions to public life and represent substantial sections of the public, but who are shut out by first past the post. The Minister said that the justification for reinstating it is that voters find the alternatives too confusing. That, frankly, is very patronising. Rather than saying it is too confusing, why do the Government not improve civic and political education? I cannot see that the Government are making sense on this issue.

I am possibly the only person in your Lordships’ House who has been elected under proportional representation and first past the post, and under the former I represented far more people than I could when elected as a councillor under the latter. So, I can see the value in proportional representation as something that enables more people to feel engaged with politics. The two Greens in your Lordships’ House will oppose the rollback of democratic choice because we think every person’s vote should count.

Another issue we must grapple with in the Bill is the corrupt funding of British politics. Inevitably, any system that allows the rich and powerful to make unlimited donations—noble Lords might say there is a cap on donations but actually, of course, people can make a lot of smaller donations—will result in undue political influence by those donors. We should be curtailing the influence of big donors on politics. More pressing, especially in light of the new Russian sanctions, are the loopholes that allow oligarchs and shady foreign donors to infiltrate British politics. One example that arose in the 2019 general election was the possibility that huge amounts of money could be donated by one donor, as I said, making lots of different donations. These loopholes have to be closed to protect the integrity of our elections. It is big money and corruption that is undermining trust in politics, as well as the Government, the Cabinet and the Prime Minister. Generally, people are concerned about corruption and lies. The big parties rely on big donors, obviously, but we need them to fix the system.

The Green Party’s position on the injustice of prisoners’ voting rights is that there should be no blanket ban on those rights. It is nearly two decades since the UK was declared to have been in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights for the blanket ban on prisoners’ voting rights. Any decision to deny a prisoner their right to vote should be passed in sentencing, taking into account the particular circumstances of the individual case. I feel this is rather important because, of course, there is a possibility I could be arrested during the protests I attend, and I might get sentenced and sent to prison. Then, I would be doubly denied the right to vote, which I find quite oppressive. If people protesting are subject to the sorts of restrictions the Government are already trying to impose through the policing Bill, they are doubly denied.

The Government’s priorities in this Bill are all wrong. I look forward to working with other noble Lords to improve it and, as far as we can, stop it in its tracks.

House of Lords: Appointments

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

No, my Lords, I do not agree with the noble Baroness opposite. I note that the Labour leader has said that he wants

“a democratic second chamber representing the nations and regions of the UK.”

I am sure that that gets fervent support on the Benches opposite. I repeat the point that I made: there is a factor in the way that this House operates. The Government have suffered 164 defeats in this House in two years—well over twice as many as were inflicted on Gordon Brown’s whole Government and more than in the first five years of Sir Tony Blair’s Government.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, in view of the climate emergency and the huge problems facing the world, in which Greens are extremely well versed, will the Minister please suggest to the Prime Minister that in his resignation honours he could perhaps put a few Greens into your Lordships’ House ?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I think the Greens are very capable of making their voice heard in your Lordships’ House.

Downing Street Christmas Parties

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My noble friend is entirely right—he perhaps put it more elegantly than I did—that there is a political strand to this. In this country, there is an ancient presumption that people are innocent until proved guilty, and I believe that it would not be appropriate to comment on or prejudge the outcome of an ongoing investigation. I will hold to that position.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords—

House of Lords: Appointments Process

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

There is so much wrong with this House that sometimes it is hard to know where to start, so I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, for giving us a starting point, which is membership. Of course, the current system is not just not democratic but anti-democratic, and I am afraid we have to sweep away the hereditaries and, forgive me, the Bishops. It is totally inappropriate in the 21st century that we have positions held for those groups.

Personally, I want a peaceful revolution. This House should be elected, but not under first past the post, and it should be completely representative of society in Britain. That would include, of course, having a selection of Cross-Benchers: there would be a section of the vote that allowed Cross-Benchers to come in, with all their expertise in all the areas they currently fulfil. It would probably be a good idea to put in a maximum amount of time for Members—say, 10 years—and then we would have an election of half the Members every five years. In that way we would get fresh blood, but also the expertise and the continuity. I was voted into this House by the Green Party by one member, one vote. I take a bit of pride in that, because our party thinks about democracy and practices what it preaches.

One other problem I have—there are so many problems—is that so many Members of your Lordships’ House are actually trying to push us back into the 18th century with these late starts and late nights. It is no way to run a country and we should be fighting it all the time.

I close by saying that this House, strangely, does work. We are the opposition to the Government and, however much it infuriates me, I am also proud to be a Member here. Finally, I would just like to say that the words of the noble Lords, Lord Hannan and Lord Balfe, show that you cannot trust the Conservatives to be complete bastards all the time.

Covid-19 (Public Services Committee Report)

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, and all the members of the Select Committee. Although I put my name down for this debate, I seem to be one of the few people speaking today who did not sit on that committee. When I put my name down, I did not think the report would be this good—I had not read it—so I would like to say that it is an absolutely amazing report and I thank the committee for achieving it. It is wonderful to see such excellent cross-party working, which is often true of Select Committees.

It is good that the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Davies of Gower, mentioned the positives about the Government because, quite honestly, looking through this it is hard to pick out the positives. The way that homelessness was dealt with was one of them, but unfortunately homeless people are now being thrown out and are back living on the streets—I see evidence of that every day. I hesitate, being one of the few speakers today who was not on the Select Committee, to comment on every issue, but there are three areas I want to speak to, because they seem so important.

The deep, ongoing inequalities in our society are well documented and clearly had an impact on our ability to deal with the disease, for individuals and for organisations. From a green point of view, we always argue for less inequality, because if people cannot feed their children, clothe themselves, pay their bills and their rent, it is very hard for them to care about other issues, such as the climate emergency. We are better as a nation if we are more equal. That has always been true, and it is something the Government have not grasped and acted upon. The report says:

“People … who live in unhealthy social, economic and physical environments are at higher risk of dying from COVID-19.”


The greater the inequality, the more people will die from a disease such as Covid-19. The Government have to be aware of that and change their actions on this issue. Their job, as a Government, is to care for us all, to reduce inequality, to lift people out of poverty and to prevent worse poverty in the future. What part of government is actually working on a plan to reduce inequality, now and for the future? Of course, many children are likely to be disadvantaged in the long-term by the first lockdown, possibly—probably—leading to much worse life outcomes for them. As a nation, we lose their potential, their skills. So, what do the Government plan to do to make sure that those children catch up as quickly as possible?

I do not get the feeling that the Government understand just how important the National Health Service is and how they need to resource it better. Better resourcing does not mean selling bits of it off. I do not know whether this is still true, but earlier I read that there was going to be a 3% pay rise for NHS staff, and it was going to come out of national insurance. Obviously, that was a few hours ago and the government policy could have changed in that short time, as it sometimes does; however, I want to know why that 3% rise might come out of national insurance when it should come out of tax, so that everybody who is on a higher income would pay more and people on a lower income would pay less. That seems much fairer to me than what the Government are planning to do.

It is a common view that the Government completely messed up on the pandemic. We have heard about a few areas where they did not, but they were incredibly lucky that the NHS did the heavy lifting, made them look better and saved many lives. Of course, the NHS is still saving lives. There are still people with Covid-19, the numbers are rising once again, and the Government have instituted a “Freedom Day”, which is essentially the freedom to get a nasty disease and possibly die.

The third area is why the Government did not send anybody to the Select Committee to give oral evidence. That seems to me to be a derogation of duty and it shows a lack of respect for the House of Lords, which clearly does immensely good work, time and again. It also fits with the Government’s refusal to launch an inquiry. They keep saying, “Now is not the time, because it would distract people”, but of course it will not be the same people dealing with the pandemic at the moment who would be looking into what actually happened. The committee has said that it is not trying to look at all the failings but to set out a road map for the future, which is fair enough. As people dealing with the inquiry would be different from those coping with the pandemic, why are the Government still resisting? Are they hoping people’s memories will have faded? Why cannot an inquiry start immediately? Why not tomorrow?

We cannot afford to deny that this has been a disaster. This report is an excellent way forward. I think the Government should learn from it and accept that the road map being offered is an excellent one. I urge the Government to follow it.

Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con) [V]]

My Lords, wherever, if ever, corruption exists, it should be mercilessly rooted out and dealt with; I think that would be the united resolve of your Lordships’ House, of the Government and the whole of Parliament. All central government departments are required to publish datasets, including central government contracts, tender opportunities and contract award notices over £10,000, central government spending over £25,000, the gender pay gap data—I will not prolong the list, because other Members wish to ask questions. However, I stress to your Lordships that a great deal of information is voluntarily published by the Government and that we do and will adhere to the law.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am absolutely thrilled to hear that the Government are, in the words of the Minister, committed to transparency. A few Members of this House—I do not know how many—have been told that MI5 has files on them. Can the Minister therefore, in this spirit of transparency, get those files for us so that we can see exactly what information is held on us? I cannot believe that any of us is a threat to national security—apart from, obviously, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes.

[Lord True (Con) [V]]

I could never conceive that the noble Baroness would be a threat to anyone and I rejoice in her kindly words always. The reality is that Parliament agreed in 2000 that it was appropriate to protect sensitive information from inappropriate disclosure and legislated for exemptions in some areas, including absolute exemptions for information relating to security and intelligence agencies and communication with the sovereign. That decision was taken by Parliament, and in the spirit of adhering to the law, the Government continue to follow that provision.

House of Lords Reform

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I always pay tribute to the noble Lord opposite, who has been a distinguished servant of this country, this House and the other House. When we are looking at the role, future and reform of your Lordships’ House, perhaps we need to look a little wider than the speck of dust to which the noble Lord referred.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

The Minister has been in his Cabinet Office post since February 2020, so was it he who told the Prime Minister that it was perfectly okay to ignore the Burns committee report on the House of Lords, which was trying to reduce the size of this House? It was a two-out, one-in policy. Did he tell the Prime Minister it was okay to just keep on putting Peers here?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, it is perfectly reasonable, given the House’s membership—not least the fact that its average age is 70—for it to be refreshed from time to time. I repeat an answer I gave before: neither the previous Prime Minister nor this one has accepted that the House of Lords should be able to impose a cap on its own size.

Ministerial Code and Register of Ministers’ Interests

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the independent adviser has independence and authority. Indeed, the noble Lord opposite has underlined the authority that attaches to his record. In our constitution, the Prime Minister is responsible for hiring and firing Ministers. At the end of the day, that has been the case under Labour and Conservative Prime Ministers. The responsibility lies with the Prime Minister for hiring, firing and ultimately making judgments on the performance of Ministers.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, in an average year, 4,000 women are sent to prison for not paying their television licence of £159, with consequent disruption to them, their future lives and the lives of their children. Does the Minister think that not paying your television licence is a greater or lesser crime than those contained in the allegations against our Prime Minister, members of his Cabinet and many Ministers?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I try to make it a habit never to comment on the BBC, but I take note of what the noble Baroness says about television licences. She used a very important word in her question: “allegations”. Some are allegations; I believe some are smears. Most of them have been answered, and they are also being investigated. I suggest that we see what happens.

Budget Statement

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Khan, and look forward to working with him on climate change—speaking of which, as a Green, I was intensely disappointed by the Government’s Budget. It is clear that they do not understand the climate emergency that we are facing, and they put in pathetic action on moving forward.

Green Party policy is that taxation, including a carbon tax, can incentivise the transition to a low-carbon economy while reducing inequality and supporting vital services. Corporation tax is one of the most powerful levers Governments can use to adjust the way the economy works. The argument about tax should not be about good and bad; tax should be used strategically to manage an economy for the common good. Allowing companies to avoid their tax responsibilities to pay for infrastructure and health and education services is short-sighted when they depend on those very services to function effectively. We would support a windfall tax for those companies that have seen profits spiral during the pandemic.

Our Budget proposals headline a range of environmental taxes that can provide incentives to speed up the transition to sustainability. The first and foremost is a high and rising carbon tax. We propose £100 now rising to £500 by 2030. It is a radical move, but one that reflects the existential climate crisis that we are facing and lives up to the climate rhetoric that, from the mouths of other politicians, turns out to be only hot air. Our carbon tax proposal is matched by a proposal to ensure that money is generated to compensate citizens as fossil fuel companies increase their prices to absorb the cost of the tax. We would use it to fund a universal basic income that would provide a safety net during the pandemic and after, which will be needed in the rocky times ahead. That is a Budget for a safe future.

Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 22nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am going to use the formula: “It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack.” He always makes me smile. The Government have got themselves into a real pickle on this one, have they not? The Minister might be surprised to hear that I am going to give him a bit of wiggle room, because I very much support what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is trying to say here. The erasure of women in public life, in literature and in all sorts of ways has horrified me. The debate has become so toxic and so unacceptable that many of us keep our heads down and try not to engage at all. That is quite often what I do, simply because I work on so many issues, and that becomes difficult when I get distracted by the vileness and hate.

However, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said that only women get pregnant. Legally, that is not true anymore because trans men have pregnancies and they have babies. I have held a baby by a trans man. Perhaps the Minister would like to put “women and trans men” into the Bill: that might be an acceptable way forward for all of us. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, spoke about “woke Brighton”. I come from Brighton; when I was living there, in the 1950s and 1960s, it was not woke. The whole thing about chest feeding was absolutely ludicrous because, of course, men have breasts; they get breast cancer. The whole thing is utter stupidity, and you have to wonder who thinks these things up. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, also made an interesting point about the wording being at odds with other drafting. That seems a little bit strange these days, but that is something that I gather the Minister is going to expand on.

Most of the speeches in this Chamber today have been very, very concerned with the depiction of women and how we are treated in our society. One thing that we can do is make misogyny a hate crime. That is something that we should do urgently, and we should raise it at every single opportunity so that people who treat women in that sort of way are actually brought to justice.

On the wider aspects of the Bill, it is, of course, utterly unfair. I can see why it is being brought in, but why is it not for all women? It is absolutely appalling that this is only for a tiny section of very privileged, elite women. It should be for all women. Why is there discretionary power for the Prime Minister? That is awful, because the Prime Minister is most often a man, so it has to be a man’s discretionary power.

In the other place, the MP Stella Creasy wrote to Penny Mordaunt, the Paymaster-General, and I will read a few lines from that letter because it exemplifies why this Bill is so inadequate. She wrote:

“The Equality and Human Rights Commission recently described instances of pregnancy and maternity discrimination as one of the most urgent and immediate threats to equality during the pandemic. A survey by Pregnant Then Screwed found that 46% of women who have been suspended from work because of their pregnancy have been suspended on incorrect terms, including 33% on furlough and another 13% on sick pay, or told to take holiday or to start maternity pay.”


We do not have equality in Britain. We are meant to be a foremost democracy in the world and we do not have equality for 50% of our population. It strikes me that there must be many, many women who have been held back by this because misogyny is so entrenched in our society that we do not even notice it; we do not see it when it is happening. Many thousands of women—millions—have been held back from doing all that they can to improve society. Again and again, we hear that when you have women on boards, for example, or when you have women as part of work teams, the work is better. The thinking is better because it is a different perspective.

Quite honestly, this Bill is perfectly acceptable in its very narrow, late way, and while we cannot blame the Minister for it being this late, we can perhaps blame him for it being so narrow, so that is a message that he could take back. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said in her opening remarks that it is a tiny step. Dear me—it is a tiny step on the right path, but we really need to see a few more giant steps.