Essential Skills Enrolments and Outcomes in Northern Ireland from 2017/18 to 2021/22
The Department for the Economy has today published a statistical bulletin: Essential Skills Enrolments and Outcomes in Northern Ireland from 2017/18 to 2021/22.
Green peer urges Lords to delete “pre-crime” from Public Order Bill
27 January 2023
Green Party peer Jenny Jones has urged the Lords to stop the government’s “pre-crime” laws in a vote on the Public Order Bill on Monday.
The government has proposed late amendments to the Bill that give the police power to ban protests, or a series of protests, ahead of them being held. It doesn’t matter if the organisers have never been convicted of a crime and what’s planned is non violent, the intention is enough for the police to judge it as illegal, if they feel it will ‘seriously disrupt’ someone’s life.
A protest only has to be “more than minor interference” to be counted as “serious disruption” under a government supported amendment. The judgement over what is minor, rather than “more than minor interference”, will be left to the police to predict, ahead of the proposed protest.
As these pre-crime amendments have been submitted late and in the Lords, it means the Lords can vote them out of the bill.
Green Party peer, Baroness Jenny Jones said:
“The Lords have a rare opportunity to stop the draconian shift towards pre-crime. Under these proposals, the police will be able to ban protests that they think might cause more than minor disruption.
“A government that bans strikes, introduces voter suppression and stops effective protest is destroying democracy from within. I hope the Labour peers will pull out all the stops and join with the rest of us who aim to stop pre-crime and these other draconian proposals from becoming law.”
“The practicalities of enforcing pre-crime are fraught with problems for the police. For example, the million strong protest against the Iraq War caused serious disruption, but there has never been a law that allows the police to ban such a gathering.
“The police might have to guess at the numbers attending a demonstration and what the protestors might, or might not, do. Pre-crime laws give the police a huge discretionary power to decide what is a good or a bad protest. It puts the police in the position of making political choices with government Ministers applying pressure to ban protests that are embarrassing to them.”
ENDS
For more information or to arrange an interview contact Ian Wingrove on media@jennyjones.org
Farm payment reforms “represent a handful of lifeboats launched in the face of an oncoming tsunami”
26 January 2023
Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay responds to the government’s farming payment reform announcement [1].
Adrian Ramsay says:
“The government’s long-delayed replacement for EU farm payments represents an admission of failure.
“Government has failed to grasp the scale of the nature emergency, the climate emergency and the food poverty emergency. These seismic crises threaten the very existence of our farmers and the security of our food supply.
“Never has farming been more important and yet the government has yet again failed to grasp the opportunity to make the radical yet pragmatic reforms that would help the agricultural sector meet its environmental obligations.
“Farming and food produce nearly one-third of greenhouse gases and are the biggest driver of wildlife loss. Rising food prices worsen the cost-of-living catastrophe.
“The Green Party’s joined-up vision would use the billions of pounds we already spend in subsidies to tackle these related crises, and ensure farmers are valued and supported.
“For instance, we would refocus farm subsidies to help farmers transition to more sustainable, diverse and environmentally friendly forms of land use, including organic farming, agroforestry and mixed farming, and away from intensive livestock farming.
“We would provide farmers with grants to allow replacement of old high-emitting carbon farming machinery with low carbon machinery, and we would legislate to give farmers greater security of tenure, so that they can invest in sustainable improvements.
“The government’s national food strategy ignored the recommendations of its own advisers [2] and we ended up with a fragmented and diluted response to the needs of farmers and consumers. Now, after months of unforgivable delay, we have a repeat performance on payments.
“Farmers want to do the right thing for climate and nature – but they need a vision, and they need sensible, targeted support – and that is what is missing. Too many of the small, innovative farmers are already on the brink of bankruptcy.
“Of the 280 measures announced today, there are a few welcome individual steps, but they do not lead to a sustainable future. They represent a handful of lifeboats launched in the face of an oncoming tsunami.”
NOTES:
Green peer seeks to block new genetic engineering legislation
25 January 2023
A Green Party peer has accused the government of using a ‘marketing slogan’ to push genetically modified foods on the public ‘by the back door’.
Natalie Bennett, former Green Party leader and now Green peer, says that the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill [1], which passed through the Commons and is in its final substantive stage in the Lords today, would allow genetically engineered foods to be marketed without labelling. A government consultation showed that 88% of the public and 65% of businesses were against the proposals.
Natalie is offering a last chance for the House to exclude animals from the Bill, or to exclude non-food plants and animals (like dogs and cats) from the Bill.
Natalie Bennett said:
“‘Precision Breeding’ is a marketing slogan, not a technical or legal term and has no place in the title of the Bill or future Act. It may sound clean and targeted, but look deeper and the dangers and potential unforeseen consequences of genetic modification are there. This is genetically engineered food by the back door, and with none of the labelling that allows consumers to make a choice.
“The science of gene editing is still far too uncertain and has been insufficiently considered or understood by the government, or adequately scrutinised by parliament. The public and businesses understand the risks better than the government – a majority showed overwhelming opposition to this dangerous legislation when the government consulted on the Bill.
“After detailed, substantive and critical debate earlier in the House of Lords, we’ve seen only extremely weak amendments put forward by Labour. My final attempt to offer the government a constructive way forward is to propose a process of deliberative democracy, to allow careful considerations of the issues that the parliamentary process has failed to address, including the labelling the public so clearly wants to see.”
AHP Research and Innovation Strategy Northern Ireland
The Department of Health recently launched the Allied Health Professions’ Research and Innovation Strategy for Northern Ireland.