Lord Crisp initiated a debate last night on “patient and citizen empowerment” in the NHS, a topic calculated to generate justifiable sighs of despair from patients. He confessed that as NHS chief executive for some years he said that patient empowerment was a top priority but in reality, not a great deal has happened in…
The House of Lords will today debate one of the most pressing and important issues facing Europe, namely the chronic rates of youth unemployment in the EU. It will discuss the recent report from the European Union Committee, of which I am a member of sub-committee B, regarding the sizable numbers of young people out…
After two years of work – and decades of studying and lecturing about the subject – I have finally introduced my private member’s bill, the Divorce (Financial Provision) Bill. It is about the division of money and assets on divorce (and on the dissolution of a civil partnership as well). The basic law on this has…
In response to the threats to busking across London, the Mayor and GLA have launched a new busking initiative -#BackBusking campaign which is great news. Last month I attended a Busking Roundtable organised by the Mayor’s office which drew together, in a very positive way, a number of London local authorities and busking campaigners to discuss…
You probably won’t remember but I said back in 2012 I was taking a break from the Lords, having a sabbatical. I never went away completely but I did get a book done which I’ve been promising myself to write for a long time. It’s due for to go to the publisher 1 July so…
Last week, I was encouraged to see more political parties coming around to the (long-held Liberal Democrat) view that we need to make voter registration easier, accessible and engaging, and allow young people to register from an early age. Only then can we seek to inspire future generations to take a stake in democracy and…
In October 2009, deep in the jungle in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, I visited a small village where 40 brave UN Peacekeepers from India were ‘protecting’ the villagers from the armed groups who were killing and looting across the region, and from their National Army who were, then, probably as guilty as the groups.…
Goldilocks looked at Tony Blair’s Queen’s Speeches, with 30+ bills announced each time, and pronounced, ‘that’s far too much legislation’. Then Goldilocks looked at the Coalition’s final Queen’s Speech and lamented, ‘this is far too little legislation.’ She looked at a perfect, fantasy government of the future and said, ‘that legislative programme will be just…
