Email SCPO Parliamentary Officer: Rev Graham Blount Phone: 0131 558 8137

SCPO PARLIAMENTARY UPDATE JANUARY 2008

PROGRESS OF LEGISLATION

CHILD MAINTENANCE AND OTHER PAYMENTS (carried over to 2007/08)

Commons: 1R: 7/11/07 2R: 7/11/07 Rep: 3/12/07 3R: 3/12/07

Lords: 1R: 4/12/07 Prov 2R: 18/12/07 Comm: 8/1/08

CLIMATE CHANGE

Lords: 1R: 14/11/07 2R: 27/11/07 Comm: 11, 17/12/07 & 08, 09/01/08 Prov Comm: 14/01/08

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND IMMIGRATION (carried over to 2007/08)

Commons: 1R: 7/11/07 2R: 7/11/07 PBC: 20, 22, 27 & 29/11/07 Prog: 09/01/08 Rep: 09/01/08 3R: 09/01/08

Lords: 1R: 09/01/08 Prov 2R: 22/01/08

DORMANT BANK AND BUILDING SOCIETY ACCOUNTS

lords: 1r: 7/11/07 2r: 21/11/07 Comm: 10, 11/12/07 & 10/01/08 Prov Comm: 15/01/08

EMPLOYMENT

Lords: 1R: 6/12/07 2R; 07/01/08 Prov Comm: No date

ENERGY

Commons: 1R: 10/01/08 Prov 2R: 22/01/0

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION (TRANSFERS AT SEA)

(Introduced by Mark Lazarowicz)

Commons: 1R: 05/12/07 (Not printed) Prov 2R: 25/01/08

HOUSE OF LORDS (Reintroduced by Lord Steel of Aikwood)

Lords: 1R: 07/11/07 2R: 30/11/07 Prov Comm: 17/01/08                                                

HUMAN FERTILISATION AND EMBRYOLOGY BILL

Lords: 1R: 8/11/07 2R: 19 & 21/11/07 Comm: 03, 04 & 10/12/07 Prov Comm: 15/01/07

HUMAN RIGHTS ACT 1998 (MEANING OF PUBLIC FUNCTION) (Introduced by Andrew Dismore)

Commons: 1R: 18/12/07 (Not printed) Prov 2R: 16/05/08

NATIONAL INSURANCE CONTRIBUTIONS

Commons: 1R: 12/11/07 2R: 17/12/07 Prog: 17/12/07 Prov PBC: 15 & 17/01/08

PENSIONS

Commons: 1R: 05/12/07 2R: 07/01/08 Prog: 07/01/08 MR: 07/01/08 Prov PBC: 15 & 17/01/08

REGULATORY ENFORCEMENT AND SANCTIONS BILL

Lords: 1R: 8/11/07 2R: 28/11/07 Prov Comm: 21/01/08

TEMPORARY AND AGENCY WORKERS (EQUAL TREATMENT) (Introduced by Andrew Miller)

Commons: 1R: 05/12/07 (Not printed) Prov 2R: 22/02/08

VOTING AGE (REDUCTION) (Introduced by Julie Morgan)

Commons: 1R: 05/12/07 (Not printed) Prov 2R: 06/06/08

CURRENT CONSULTATIONS

Freedom of Information Act 2000: Designation of additional public authorities (1 Feb)

Human Trafficking (Home Affairs Committee Inquiry) (8 Feb)

The Home Affairs Committee announced a new inquiry into Human trafficking. This will examine progress made by in tackling what the UN refers to as "the modern day version of slavery". The inquiry will cover all forms of trafficking, including people brought illegally into the UK by smuggling gangs to work for little or no money in, for example, the restaurant trade, children used as domestic labour, and women tricked into working in the sex trade.

Consultation on implementing the EU Services Directive (11 Feb)

"Face to Face and Side-by-Side": A Framework for Inter Faith Dialogue and Social Action (7 March)

This consultation paper seeks views on the development of a framework for partnership which will support increased inter-faith dialogue and social action.

Improving specialist disability employment services (10 March)

Visitor Visas (10 March)

This consultation document seeks views on proposals which include: people putting up a financial deposit to ensure any foreign national family members return home following their visit from overseas (the Home Office declined to confirm reports that the figure could be as much as £1,000 but Liam Byrne said that the measure would only be applied where there was thought to be a risk that relatives may not return home); reducing the length of time a tourist can stay in the UK from 6 to 3 months; creating a specific business and specialist visa.

REPORTS, NEWS and EARLY DAY MOTIONS

ASYLUM, MIGRATION & REFUGEES

In a change of policy, Skills Secretary John Denham, said that immigrants who have lived in the country for a number of years but are still marginalised because they cannot speak English will be offered free language lessons. The original scheme to offer all immigrants free lessons had been scrapped after the influx of Eastern European workers made it too expensive.

The Conservatives accused the Government of failing to deal with cases of human trafficking in the UK. David Davis launched a Conservative Party paper on the issue and said that, despite signing the European Convention on Action Against Human Trafficking last year, the Government did not have a plan or a timetable for ratification. Mr Davis called for the Convention to be ratified immediately. However, a Home Office spokesman said that the Government did have "a comprehensive end to end strategy in place" to address the problem.

The Conservatives would like to see an increase in the number of places at safe houses and said support groups should be able to offer services to 16-18 year olds, and for Operation Pentameter - the national anti-trafficking campaign - to become permanent.

The Centre for Economic Performance published a report stating that there is little evidence that immigration is having a negative effect on wages and employment for people born in the UK, although they said that there might be some downward pressure in the low wage labour market where many new immigrants tend to find work.

BENEFITS

In response to the Welfare Reform Green Paper, Peter Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, announced the Government’s proposals: single parents will be required to "actively seek" work once their youngest child is 12 or over from October this year, from 2009 it will be once the youngest child is 10 or over and from 2010 once the youngest is 7 or over.

David Cameron unveiled his party’s welfare reform package. Proposals include a "3 strikes and you're out" rule for unemployed people who turn down job offers. Under the scheme, any benefit claimant who received a reasonable job offer (as defined by Government guidelines) would be expected to accept it. If they refuse they would lose one month’s out of work benefits, a second refusal would cost them 3 months’ benefits and a third would result in payments being lost for up to 3 years. The long term unemployed would also be forced to join community work programmes if they want to carry on claiming benefits.

The Conservatives would also subject all incapacity benefit claimants to an assessment of whether they really are unfit for work. They said that as many as 200,000 people could immediately be moved off sickness benefit and into work.

DEBT

The cross-government annual report on tackling over-indebtedness in Britain laid out a number of initiatives that will be carried out over the coming year including completing a new review of evidence on the causes of problem debt and publishing an action plan looking at ways of improving consumers’ financial capability.

EMPLOYMENT

The Government announced that the Pathways to Work programme will be extended to the whole of the country by April. Contracts were awarded to public, private and voluntary sector groups to deliver welfare to work schemes in the remaining Jobcentre Plus districts. Charities Minister Phil Hope said that the announcement of awarded contracts was "an important endorsement of the role that third sector organisations can play in delivering innovative public services such as this".

ENERGY & TRANSPORT

The Government gave the go-ahead to a new generation of nuclear power stations. Business Secretary, John Hutton, outlined the energy plans to MPs and said that nuclear provided a "clean, secure and affordable" energy source. Mr Hutton has asked energy companies to bring forward plans to build new nuclear stations. The Energy Bill published alongside the Secretary’s statement addresses funding concerns and ensures that the costs will be met by energy companies and not the Government. Ministers hope that the first new nuclear power station will be completed before 2020.

A group of scientists and energy economists criticised the methods used by the Government to gather public and expert opinion on new nuclear power stations. The Nuclear Consultation Group claimed that questions about the risks from radiation, the disposal of nuclear waste and vulnerability to a terror attack were not addressed in the process.

Oxford academics published a report claiming that greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 19% since 1990, rather than fallen by 15% as the Government claimed. The study included aviation, shipping and the carbon content of imports – all of which the UN leaves out of its calculations.

FAMILY

An attempt to stop scientific research into human-animal hybrid embryos failed in the House of Lords. Ministers say that hybrid embryos are vital for research into life-threatening and debilitating diseases but critics say that the development is unnecessary and morally wrong. Under the plans, embryos will be kept alive for 14 days but not implanted into the womb. A proposed amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill to prohibit the creation of inter-species embryos was defeated by 268 votes to 96.

The Department of Health announced that the contraceptive pill will become available over the counter in chemists across Britain. Health Minister Lord Darzi told the House of Lords: "We recognise that pharmacies could play an increased role in the provision of contraception and other sexual health services because of their accessibility and convenient opening hours".

The Prime Minister’s childcare researcher (Prof Jay Belsky) called for tax breaks for parents to help them bring up children at home.

FINANCE

In a bid to avoid a repeat of the Northern Rock collapse, Alistair Darling said that the Financial Services Authority (FSA) will have greater powers to intervene if another bank runs into trouble. The new legislation will allow the FSA to seize and protect customers’ cash if their bank gets into difficulty.

INTERNATIONAL

The Prime Minister signed the European Reform Treaty (he has ruled out a referendum on it) - although he missed the official signing session in order to appear before the House of Commons Liaison Committee.

Gordon Brown said that the UN development targets set for 2015 are currently a "long way off track" and called for this year to be known as a "development year". Mr Brown said that he will use a series of events in 2008 – a private sector conference, the G8 meeting in Japan and a UN session in the US – to focus on meeting the UN goals.

International Development Secretary, Douglas Alexander, announced the UK’s largest ever contribution to the World Bank’s International Development Association at £2.134bn over the next 3 years.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee published a report examining the Department for International Development’s attempts to help the rural poor in developing nations. The report warned that targets would be missed unless the department produced and monitored better information on the costs and benefits of its aid programmes. According to World Bank figures, around 75% of the estimated 1.1bn people living in extreme poverty live in rural areas, but MPs found that DfID’s funding was often focused on the urban poor because of the way it channelled its support. The Committee Chairman, Edward Leigh, said it should also "include the department’s own professional staff spending less time at their desks and more actually out in the more remote areas where the rural poor live".

Commenting on a deal between Britain and Libya, which could see the return of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, First Minister Alex Salmond said that the Scottish Government was disappointed that the Lord Chancellor had failed to secure the exclusion of anyone connected to the bombing from the Prisoner Transfer Agreement.

JUSTICE

Both the Commons Home Affairs Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights reported on the Government’s plans to increase pre-charge detention for terror suspects from 28 days to 42. The Home Affairs Committee said that there was no evidence for such an increase and as such the Muslim community could regard the pre-charge detention period as a form of "internment"; the Committee’s report called on the Government to consider alternative options for securing convictions without raising the limit and described as "ridiculous" that intercept evidence was not permitted in court. The JCHR report dismissed the Government’s supposed civil liberties safe guards as "virtually useless" and felt the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service said in their evidence that they had managed within the existing limit was "devastating" to the Government’s case.

There is speculation that Gordon Brown is less enthusiastic about ID cards since the recent Government data losses. In response to a question from David Cameron on his personal view on ID cards, Mr Brown said that it was the Government’s policy to move ahead with them. He denied that compulsory cards were inevitable and that it would be for Parliament to decide once a voluntary system was in place.

PEOPLE AND PARLIAMENT

Nick Clegg was elected the third leader in less than 2 years of the Liberal Democrats, by the narrowest of margins. Mr Clegg received 20,988 votes to Mr Huhne’s 20,477.

The Telegraph reported that the Prime Minister will allow Labour MPs to vote against reforming fertility laws which could conflict with their Catholic faith.

The Commons Public Administration Committee published its report into the cash for honours affair, and called on Gordon Brown to end the role of party leaders in appointing members of the House of Lords. The MPs backed putting the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which currently vets nominations for propriety, on a statutory footing. Parties would be limited to publishing "long lists" of their preferred candidates, with explanations of why they deserve to sit on the Lords. The report also argues for stronger powers for the Electoral Commission and a mechanism to allow peers to resign from the Lords – or to allow disgraced Lords to be "compelled to leave".

Gordon Brown appeared to welcome the conclusions of the Committee as he said that he did not think that the Prime Minister should have the final say over appointing new members to the House of Lords.

The Government said that they would consult the Church of England and others before making any changes to the blasphemy laws.

On 22 January, the UK Government asked faith communities for views on this by 31 January.

John Austin MP put down a motion calling for the disestablishment of the Church of England.

SCOTTISH AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

The Scottish Affairs Committee published their Poverty in Scotland report, in which they concluded that they do not believe that the Government is doing enough to poverty-proof all of its policies. They said that the setting of an appropriate rate of the minimum wage needs further investigation but that in principle "pay should be fixed at a level so that no-one in full time work is living in poverty" and that the "tax and benefits system must, at a minimum, ensure that no-one in full time work is living in poverty". The "relatively poor progress" made in the area of poverty amongst single adults of working age was highlighted. The Committee said that it is essential that the UK Government produce a national poverty strategy to co-ordinate the cross-cutting issues inherent in issues of multiple deprivation.

They also said that there is a case for Courts to be empowered to impose an interest rate cap in order to prevent severe poverty or destitution.

Due to the considerable evidence that the Committee received on child poverty they have decided to produce a separate report on the subject, which they "expect to publish shortly".

SOCIAL EXCLUSION

In the past year, an initiative to increase free access to cash machines in low income areas throughout the UK has delivered 337 new free access cash machines with a further 206 locations for free access cash machines identified and planned for the first half of 2008.

The Chancellor requested an urgent meeting with industry leaders and Ofgem in response to soaring energy bills (Npower announced increases of 17.2% for gas and 12.7% for electricity). Ministers cannot order price cuts by private companies, but the regulator has a role in determining whether consumers are being overcharged when companies pass on higher fuel costs.

SNP MP Mike Weir called for lower "social tariffs" for poorer families and pensioners.