The recess provided the opportunity to catch up with some reading. I thought I’d pass on the main conclusions from a recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report because it’s highly relevant to the Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill, which will be debated in the Commons tomorrow. That Bill will extend the real cut in the value of…
Happy New Year. For the first quiz of the year, I thought I would focus on departed friends – the law lords. They left the House of Lords for the Supreme Court – just across the road in Parliament Square – in 2009. They had carried out the judicial role of the House of Lords…
This week saw an interesting and lively debate in the House of Lords on recent developments in the European Union. While Members’ contributions were varied and focused on a range EU issues, I chose to highlight the impact of the Union as a driving force for poverty reduction and peace in some of the…
I have taken a few days to mull over the statement made by David Cameron last week, expressing shock, admission and apology over the assassination of Patrick Finucane in 1989. As with his Bloody Sunday and Hillsborough statements you would have to be super-cynical not to admire the PM for the forthright way in which…
I spoke this evening to the all-party parliamentary group on the constitution. My subject was parliamentary reform. My thesis was that we rarely discuss parliamentary reform, even though we think we do. We discuss changes to one or other House, sometimes at length, but rarely look at Parliament holistically and do not define what we mean by reform. …
I have just returned from a most inspiring visit with the Select Committee on Science and technology to the California Institute for Regenerative medicine. They were voted $3billion (Yes, billion!) to conducy stem-cell and genomic research to be translated into real clinical outcomes. And – they are doing it! – in diabetes, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimers and…
The report from the Home Affairs Committee on Drugs: Breaking the Cyle is a serious contribution to the debate about tackling drug use. It deserves to be read and it certainly does not merit a knee-jerk response from Government. I particularly welcome the recommendation (para. 132) for a Royal Commission to examine the issue. As regular…
Baroness Deech has already commented about the Select Committee on Misuse of Drugs (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmhaff/184/18402.htm). While I agree with much of her argument I take rather a different approach. I do not believe we should be ‘soft’ on drugs, on the contrary I think we should give an evidence based approach more serious consideration than we…
A Select Committee (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmhaff/184/18402.htm) has proposed the establishment of a Royal Commission to consider the effect of decriminalising certain drugs. The use of marijuana has been legalised in the states of Washington and Colorado. Is it not odd that those states that are the fiercest guardians of the environment – no smoking, curbs on alcohol, taxes…
