20 Lib Dem Lords file Private Members’ Bills
By Caron Lindsay in Liberal Democrat Voice
Originally published by South Lincolnshire Liberal Democrats
Liberal Democrat peers have secured an impressive 20 slots out of 51 for Private Members' Bills for the Parliamentary session ahead. Talk about punching above our weight!
The Bills cover all the sorts of subjects that you would expect Liberal Democrats to be talking about. On Monday Olly Grender and Judith Jolly introduce theirs on Renters' Rights and Register of Arms Brokers respectively.
Later on, we have Antony Lester's on preserving the independence of the BBC, Lynne Featherstone on reducing carbon emissions, John Sharkey on student finance, Brian Paddick on online privacy, Meral Hussein-Ece on addressing the BAME pay gap, Paul Tyler on party funding, Emma Nicholson on humanitarian support for genocide victims and Claire Tyler attempts to secure an entitlement to Carers' Leave.
Roger Roberts wants students to be automatically registered to vote - like we were in the olden days when I was a student.
The other peers with bills are:
Kishwer Falkner with the interestingly titled Armed Forces Deployment Royal Prerogative Bill, Susan Kremer on budget responsibility and national audit, Dominic Addington on teacher training for children with special educational needs (a bugbear of mine as so few seem to understand Autism), Dick Newby wants to amend the Opticians' Act, Navnit Dholakia on the age of criminal responsibility, Jonathan Marks on cohabitation rights, Lorely Burt on economic strategy, Don Foster on energy efficiency and Sally Hamwee on guardianship for missing persons.
Chances are that most of these won't become law, but they do provide a valuable opportunity for us to raise awareness about certain issues and build campaigns on them.
You can read the whole list of bills here.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings