4 July 2014

Whats Coming Up

Monday: Lord Storeys improved Code of Practice about the responsibilities of
schools will be debated in Grand Committee. The code assists those looking after
students with medical conditions or allergies. This will prevent cases such as those
where the parents of a young diabetic boy had to quit work in order to be on hand
to administer his insulin as the school refused to help.

Lord Stoneham will be talking about potential new rules to allow
charities and small organisations to sell alcohol at community
events. Removing a lot of the hoops that small groups face when
they put on small scale events in their local community.



Tuesday: Lord Wrigglesworth & Lord Stoneham will
be bringing their expertise to the debate on the
Government strategy on Industrial Policy.




Wednesday: Lord Thomas, Lord Palmer, Baroness Garden & Baroness Suttie have
added an amendment to the Armed Forces Bill that will ensure the proposed Armed
Forces Ombudsman will have the power to deal with systematic abuse if it is in the
public interest. The amendment, along with a number of others, will be debated
before committee today.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer will be leading a debate on the role of books
in promoting a civilised society.

Thursday: Lord Dykes will be asking when the Government
expects to announce the name of the next UK member of the EU
Commission.

Baroness Bonham Carter & The Earl of Glasgow will be speaking
in the debate on the contribution of the World Service in
promoting British values and interests across the World.


Full schedule here

Quote of the Week

The decision in 2005 was made
by the board of the Student
Loans Company, BIS and the
Minister responsible for the
area at that

Following Lord Paddicks
question, Lord Ahmad reveals
that Labour signed off on
allowing the Student Loans
Company to chase debts by
posing as fake law firms.


Tweet of the Week





Baroness Hussein-Ece neatly
sums up one of the human
races greatest problems



Next weeks bills

Deregulation Bill
(Second Reading)

Serious Crime Bill
Committee Stage

Armed Forces Bill
Committee Stage

Last Weeks Business
The End of Revenge Porn
Following a hard-fought campaign by Julian Huppert MP, Lord Marks & Baroness Grender
tabled an amendment making revenge porn a criminal offense. The amendment has since been
supported by Baroness Brinton & Baroness Barker.
Lord Marks added: Julian Huppert has been leading on this vital and we are
more than happy to support his campaign by bringing forward an amendment
to the Criminal Justice & Courts Bill. We hope to work closely with Ministers
within the Ministry of Justice to ensure that this offence reaches the statute
book.
The amendment seeks to ensure that images of an identifiable person which are of an intimate or
pornographic nature, published online without consent are viewed as criminal acts. An offence will
only be committed where at the time of the images being taken the person had a reasonable expectation that the
image would remain private. The offence will carry a maximum sentence of one year in prison.
Julian Huppert says: I do not often call for new criminal sanctionsit is not my natural style. In this case, however, I
think we need to make a criminal sanction available when people share indecent images in the knowledge that
consent would not have been given.
Recognition of International Widows Day
Lord Loomba gave a passionate opening speech for the debate to mark International Widows
Day, which took place on 23
rd
June. As Chairman of the Loomba Foundation, established in
memory of his mother who herself was widowed in 1997, Lord Loomba has worked hard to
receive international recognition for the problems that widows face, especially in Africa and
India. His speech highlighted the problems that these widows still face:
Lord Loomba said: In South Asia, widows suffer because of stigma and religious beliefs, and in
many countries they are considered to be evil and inauspicious people. They are uneducated,
cannot find a job, and depend on their relatives and community, who abuse them physically,
psychologically and sexually. They are deprived of their possessions, which means that they cannot pay to educate
their children; many of them are driven to factory labour and prostitution to support their families.
In Africa, unjust customary laws persist in many communities, even when national laws and constitutions appear
to proffer justice and equality. Apart from losing their wealth, widows can face degrading treatment and find it
impossible to earn a living. The fate of widows magnifies the problems of poverty and disease.

Chilcot over a decade on
Lord Dykes used a Question for Short Debate to again question the reason for the various delays in publishing the
Chilcot Inquiry. He reminded the House of the work of the Liberal Democrats and others in trying to prevent the UK
going to war in 2003, and highlighted the subsequent importance of the Inquiry in unearthing the truth behind Tony
Blairs decision.
Lord Dykes said: we in this debate today have a public passion collectively for getting at the truth of the delays to
Chilcot. To make matters worse, with all these delays and no proper explanations coming from government circles or
anybody else, and allowing for the fact that Cabinet Secretaries are inhibited in anything that they might do or say.


On the blog this week:

o Paul Tyler: a fairer way of redrawing constituency boundaries

o Lib Dems table revenge porn amendment

o Ben Stoneham: scrutinising the Consumer Rights Bill

o Jonathan Marks: Criminal Justice and Courts Bill comes to the lords

See all the work that the Liberal Democrat Lords are doing at libdemlords.org.uk
Follow us on Twitter @LibDemLords and on Facebook facebook.com/LibDemLords