Schools Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 98 in this group is in my name. I will also speak to Amendments 106, 107, 110, 113 and 114, and to support my noble friend Lord Storey on Amendment 103. I think we all need to try to speak as briefly as possible if we are not to have a totally hideous day on Wednesday, when we will be expected to finish Committee on the Bill.

All these amendments are at the request of home educators. Amendment 98 reflects that home educating may be undertaken by a single parent; the other may be estranged or simply not interested in the education of the child. Requests for the name and address of each parent may not be appropriate, and the alternative wording proposed—

“the parent or parents responsible for the education of the child”—

is much more relevant.

My noble friend Lord Storey will be proposing Amendment 103, but I recognise the value of a unique pupil number in ensuring that children can be identified as being secure and educated.

Amendment 106 reflects the concerns of home educators that all sorts of irrelevant information will be requested of them, so inserting “relevance” is important. Again, this follows on from some of the words of my noble friend Lady Brinton. This is also reflected in Amendment 107, where what the local authority may “consider appropriate” may not be universally appropriate. We do not need those two lines.

In Amendment 110, there is concern about the register being published, with too much information being put into the public domain. We want “publication” to be deleted, because this is not necessary.

Amendments 113 and 114 would both insert “reasonably”. Once again, the concern for all sorts of information to be requested and recorded surely needs justifying in some way.

The home educators are very concerned about the Bill. They have sent me rafts of material, which they consolidated into amendments. I have tried to reflect this. We are naturally concerned about those who claim to home educate but are using it as a cover to abuse, indoctrinate or otherwise do damage to children. However, we are also aware of the amazing work that most home educators do and wish to ensure that they are not unduly disadvantaged by the Bill.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am going to speak briefly as well, for several reasons: first, because I want to get home tonight; secondly, because I am cold; and, thirdly, because I quite agree that we do not want a terrible day on Wednesday.

Part of the fallacy on this children not in school register is the idea that local authorities do not already have the information about children who are not in school, but that is not true. For the most invisible children, who have had no contact with any service at all, of course it might apply; otherwise, the truth is that local authorities have a great deal of information about almost every child, whether they attend a school or not. Instead of adding yet more data collection, there should be an overhaul of how local authorities collect and process this data, and perhaps some sort of universality about it. That overhaul should be made in a code of practice, as set out in my Amendment 171S.

I have three other amendments in this group, which are basically probing because I feel that the legislation just does not have the detail that we need to understand exactly what it is going to do. Turning to the new registration requirements, I think the Bill really ought to be clearer about what information must be provided by home-educating parents to the local authority. We are left at the moment with “other information”, which leaves a large void of worry for the parents who will have to provide this information, which could be very probing and intrusive. I would much rather see such broad wording removed altogether or made subject to being necessary and in the child’s best interests. This group contains a range of possible ways forward, but the general gist is that the Minister must convince your Lordships’ House that any of this intrusive bureaucracy is needed in the first place.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 8th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am absolutely delighted to be a signatory to this long overdue amendment, which I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and the other co-signatories for bringing forward. It relates to a policy that I have advocated for years—that we should make misogyny a hate crime.

Part of the problem is that misogyny and sexism are deeply embedded in our society. The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, talked about a protective kindness from men towards women. Quite honestly, we do not need that. Misogyny and sexism can be covered up by teasing and even flattery, but it is totally inappropriate and it is time that men learned that. We have enshrined our condemnation of racism and homophobia in law, but we are not treating sexism as the same kind of priority and it is time that we did.

According to statistics, 90% of British women experienced street harassment before the age of 17. Street harassment is being shouted at. We are not talking about wolf-whistling; we are talking about men shouting at women, making them embarrassed and perhaps making them feel less free to walk down a street. Eighty-five per cent of women aged 17 to 24 have been subjected to unwanted sexual advances. Can your Lordships imagine that—that 85% of women have been groped by people whom they do not want to be groped by? Therefore, it is time to make misogyny a hate crime.

The amendment is long overdue and I hope that the Minister will say that she accepts it completely. Several noble Lords have talked about Nottinghamshire Police being trailblazers on this. It has seen a 25% increase in the reporting of misogynistic crime and a very high level of satisfaction among the people—mainly women—who have reported those crimes, because finally they have been taken seriously. As noble Lords have also said, only 11 out of 43 police forces in England and Wales have made misogyny a hate crime, have trialled it or are actively considering implementing this.

Part of the problem is that, just as the police are representative of society, there will be police officers who are sexist and misogynistic. This means that they need training. I have in the past mentioned the sort of domestic abuse training that some police forces are already getting. It makes the officers aware of exactly what happens and creates more empathy for the people who are being abused. For me, domestic abuse training is part of what will help to solve this problem that we have of misogyny. I hope that standing up and talking about it here will also help.

It would be a real shame for this amendment not to be accepted on to the statute book, but will the Minister at least promise to open a debate on this issue among police forces? It is in her power to do that. I would be very pleased if she accepted this amendment but, if not, could she take it forward in any way that she can?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Lucas.

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 11th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. She mentioned complacency in the speeches of a few noble Lords, and it seems that people are missing the point of the measures in this Bill. The Government make a great play of “This is all to catch paedophiles and terrorists”, whom obviously we all want to catch, but they ignore the human rights legislation that will inevitably be transgressed. We know the long history of abuses by undercover police, and the thought that humans can change is absolutely ludicrous, in the sense that human nature will always involve a group of people who think that they can get away with doing things that the rest of us should not. I am afraid that in the past officers have been allowed unlawfully by senior officers to do things, and this does not mean that they will not do it again: they will do it again. For example, the undercover inquiry has taken years to reach a point at which there is a judge in control—one who, I would argue, is not doing a very good job. The progress is incredibly slow and survivors of this sort of abuse should not have to wait so long for justice.

This group contains important amendments on two issues: ensuring that these powers are used only against serious offending and ensuring that they are not used to encourage offending. I have signed only one amendment in this group, but they are all sound. I wish that I could trust the Government and the authorities enough to make Amendment 11 an absurdity, but history shows that this state can and does misuse power in order to undermine and stifle dissent and opposition. The face of the Bill should make clear beyond any doubt that agent provocateur conduct is illegal and can never be authorised, otherwise we can be sure that sooner or later this power will be used for that purpose.

Law Enforcement and Security (Separation Issues etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Thursday 26th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, but I disagree quite strongly with him. We have had a lot of these statutory instruments coming through, some of them excruciatingly boring, and we use them as an opportunity to talk about much wider issues. Some are actually quite dangerous and some—this is one—are really quite messy. The Explanatory Memorandum admits as much. The statutory instrument jumps around dozens of different areas of law enforcement co-operation with the EU and makes little tweaks here and there to try to fix deficiencies for when we finally leave the EU. I accept that we need this sort of statutory instrument but, quite honestly, I do not see the clarity here.

One thing we saw throughout the last few months of the pandemic was the confusion, particularly for the police, over the advice from the Prime Minister and the later comments and suggestions from Ministers interpreting it, versus the rules and the actual law. There was a lot of confusion and the police overstepped the mark quite a lot. I basically feel, although I do not have much confidence in our law enforcement agencies, that they were not to blame—it was actually the Government. They presented so many confusing scenarios that the police did not really have much chance to enforce the law. What will the Government do to make sure that this is a clear law, properly understood by the police and security services, so that we do not see the abuses we have seen over the past nine or 10 months? What plans do the Government have to bring consolidating legislation—to put it all in one place and reduce the chaos? It simply is not fair on the police that the Government throw out this stuff and do not give them the time, as the noble Lord, Lord Reid, suggested, or the clarity to be sure that they are not breaking the law when they try to apply this.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick.

Enterprise Act 2002 (Specification of Additional Section 58 Consideration) Order 2020

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I want to focus very specifically on facial recognition and other biometric recognition systems. When I led a Question for Short Debate in your Lordships’ House on facial recognition, many of your Lordships voiced concern, or at least expressed the need for wider debate, on this topic. Some drew special attention to the capabilities of the private sector, which are frequently much more advanced than any system used by our police and security services.

For that reason, will the Minister confirm that facial and biometric recognition will fall under the category of artificial intelligence in this order and will therefore be subject to enhanced scrutiny in any potential takeover or merger? Will facial and biometric recognition be specifically addressed in the upcoming national security and investment Bill? In addition, can he make clear what is being done to prevent these technologies being used by state or non-state actors who might wish to do us harm?

[The Deputy Speaker]

The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, has withdrawn from the debate, so I now call the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock.