Tag Archives: tom brake

The Independent View: And then there was one… (Unmasked! The only backbench Lib Dem MP 100% loyal to the Coalition)

By Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart | Published 18th November 2011 - 9:45 am

When a quarter of the parliamentary Conservative party rebels, everyone sits up and takes notice. On 24 October, 2011, 81 Conservative MPs defied a three-line whip to vote in favour of an EU referendum: cue a blaze of negative publicity for David Cameron and the Tory party whips.

But a week or so later one-quarter of Lib Dem MPs rebelled, and (almost) no one noticed. In nine separate votes on 1 and 2 November, a total of 14 Lib Dem MPs voted against various aspects of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. The largest …

Posted in News, Parliament, The Independent View | Also tagged david laws, featured, legal aid, lorely burt, simon hughes, tuition fees, whip | 13 Comments

Opinion: Criminalising squatting

By Alex Marsh | Published 1st November 2011 - 4:54 pm

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offender Bill has returned to the House of Commons this week. The problems with the Government’s proposed Legal Aid reforms have been apparent for a while. Some people will see their access to justice seriously curtailed, while the courts are likely to silt up with inexpert litigants-in-person. The chances of any money being saved – when considered in the round – are limited. In this context it is good to see reports that Liberal Democrat MPs Tom Brake and Mike Crockart are tabling amendments to seek to address some of the most …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged crispin blunt, housing, ken clarke, legal aid, mike crockart | 4 Comments

PMQs: Nadine Dorries asks question. No-one dies.

By Paul Walter | Published 26th October 2011 - 6:54 pm

Today was the fiftieth anniversary of Prime Minister’s Questions. And it was a fairly typical session. As always, it was in two parts.

Part one: Lots of jeering, cheering, knockabout, winding-up and prepared lines exchanged between the PM and opposition leader.

Part Two: Generally hum-drum but important questions from various back-benchers, largely heard in earnest silence.

The bit that most people will see will be the short bit on the telly, which will be a few seconds of ya-boo politics. In itself, that is a good piece of democracy in that it highlights the weaknesses of the government and the opposition. The longer …

Posted in Europe / International, PMQs | Also tagged david cameron, duncan hames, economy, ed miliband, european union, stephen lloyd | 5 Comments

Opinion: Lib Dems need to wake up to drastic implications of legal aid cuts

By Alex Paul | Published 28th September 2011 - 2:55 pm

Lib Dem Voice last week featured a brief post on the Coalition’s plans for legal aid reform. But this is an important change that’s been passed with barely a murmur from any Lib Dem MPs, when in fact it strikes at a principle at the heart of the party – civil liberties.

The bill in which this change is contained, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, is currently making its way through the House of Commons. For something that will have fairly drastic effects on many people’s access to justice there has been relatively little talk …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged legal aid, liberty | 11 Comments

LibDem Conference passes drugs motion

By The Voice | Published 19th September 2011 - 10:15 am

From a party press release:

Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference [Sunday] passed Protecting Individuals and Communities from Drug Harms, which calls for an independent panel to review current drug laws.

Commenting, Co-Chair of the Home Affairs Parliamentary Party Committee, Tom Brake MP said:

“Drugs can have a devastating impact on individuals and families and can fuel organised crime. Evidence shows that our current drug policy is costly, ineffective and it is the poor and marginalised who suffer most.

“Today, Liberal Democrats reaffirmed our support for an evidenced based drugs policy, calling for an independent panel to review current drug laws.

“We want to ensure the Government …

Posted in Conference, News | Also tagged drugs | 6 Comments

A little problem with police procurement…

By Mark Pack | Published 13th September 2011 - 8:25 am

From Tom Brake on Twitter:

Posted in News | 5 Comments

LibLink | Tom Brake MP: Yes, we are bringing an end to the detention of child refugees

By NewsHound | Published 11th August 2011 - 1:30 pm

One of the Lib Dems’ key 2010 election manifesto pledges was that child detention in immigration centres would be ended. A year after Tom Brake MP welcomed this Lib Dem policy being adopted by the Coalition government, he has written for The Guardian to highlight how the policy is improving the lives of those young and innocent victims who were treated so disgracefully by the Labour government:

The current practices with regard to children awaiting deportation cannot be – and should not be – in any way compared to the shameful past. Children are no longer held for weeks,

…

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged child detention | 1 Comment

Opinion: Access to justice – why Liberal Democrats should not sit on the sidelines

By James Sandbach | Published 9th June 2011 - 1:21 pm

Next week the Government will announce legislation to reform legal aid, following a Green Paper published last November to which the Ministry of Justice received an unprecedented 5,000 responses. Whilst “legal aid reform” was in the Coalition Agreement, the scale of proposed changes has taken many aback – in order to cut the legal aid budget by £350million, Justice Ministers propose taking whole categories of law related problems out legal aid entitlement – housing and debt problems, welfare benefit issues, employment law issues, immigration cases, consumer law problems, education cases and private family law issues (eg divorce and …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged alan beith, citizens advice bureau, julian huppert, legal aid, stephen lloyd | 3 Comments

Two wins for the Lib Dems in government: human trafficking and visas

By Mark Pack | Published 22nd March 2011 - 9:43 pm

Two pieces of good news today where a combination of Liberal Democrat and some Conservatives in government have won out over the right of the Conservative Party.

First up, human trafficking – where the opposition of Conservative Euro-sceptics to Britain opting in to the new EU directive has been overcome. Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs, Justice and Equality, Tom Brake said:

Posted in News | Also tagged immigration, nick clegg, vince cable | 5 Comments

Freedoms Bill published: now you can marry at 6:01pm

By Mark Pack | Published 11th February 2011 - 10:25 pm

Earlier today, the Protection of Freedoms Bill was published which, in the words of Lib Dem MP Tom Brake, “brings to fruition proposals which were first drawn up by Nick Clegg four years ago, and demonstrates our commitment to rolling back unnecessary and intrusive laws introduced by Labour”.

Key provisions of the Bill include the enactment of some previously announced decisions alongside some new, additional proposals:

an end to the routine monitoring of 9.3 million people under the radically reformed vetting and barring scheme
millions of householders protected from town hall snoopers checking their bins or school catchment area
the scrapping of Section 44

…

Posted in News | Also tagged civil liberties, freedom bill, lynne featherstone, nick clegg, vetting and barring scheme | 38 Comments

Liberal Democrat responses to anti-terrorism legislation review

By Mark Pack | Published 27th January 2011 - 8:55 am

Here’s a round-up of responses from Liberal Democrat figures and blogs:

Tom Brake MP (Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs and Justice)

Sanity and justice have been restored to British life.

Today is a victory for those who have campaigned to restore the historic freedoms that Labour spent 13 years destroying.

Control orders are gone, 28 days detention without charge is gone, indiscriminate stop and search is gone and the abuse of anti-terror powers by councils to pursue petty offences is over.

There will always be a balance to be struck between freedom and security and these proposals

…

Posted in News | Also tagged anti-terrorist legislation, caron lindsay, control orders, ken macdonald, paul crossley, richard baum, zoe o'connell | 10 Comments

ID cards to be scrapped at midnight tonight

By Helen Duffett | Published 21st January 2011 - 10:31 am

From midnight tonight, ID cards may no longer be used to prove identity or to travel in Europe.

The documents are to be scrapped by the government under the Identity Documents Act 2010.

Tom Brake MP, Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Policy Committee on Home Affairs, Justice and Equalities told Lib Dem Voice,

After yesterday’s annoucement of the cut from 28 to 14 days pre-charge detention, this is the second really big step in restoring the balance between civil liberties and security concerns.

This delivers yet another Lib Dem commitment in Government.

All personal information supplied during the process of applying for an …

Posted in News | Also tagged id cards, identity documents act 2010, lib dem achievements | 8 Comments

Detention without charge to be cut from 28-days to 14-days

By Mark Pack | Published 20th January 2011 - 9:55 pm

It’s long been a Liberal Democrat demand, and it was in the party’s 2010 manifesto, so good news that detention without charge is set to fall back to 14-days. The current 28-days limit expires on Monday and today the government has confirmed that it will not be trying to renew the limit. The 28-day increase was brought in by the then Labour government in 2006.

The BBC adds:

Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake, who campaigned to reinstate the 14-day limit, said the move would speed up the justice system. “If the time frame is longer I’m afraid that there is less

…

Posted in News | Also tagged anti-terrorist legislation, lib dem achievements, pre-charge detention | 17 Comments

The Royal Family, freedom of information and the rest of the story

By Mark Pack | Published 12th January 2011 - 1:25 pm

At the weekend The Independent ran a piece very critical of the Liberal Democrats in government:

The Royal Family is to be granted absolute protection from public scrutiny in a controversial legal reform designed to draw a veil of secrecy over the affairs of the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William.

Letters, emails and documents relating to the monarch, her heir and the second in line to the throne will no longer be disclosed even if they are in the public interest…

The decision to push through the changes also raises questions about the sincerity of the Liberal Democrats’ commitment to government transparency.

And …

Posted in News | Also tagged freedom of information, journalism, robert verkaik, the independent | 14 Comments

Ending detention of children for immigration purposes: details and dates published

By Mark Pack | Published 16th December 2010 - 7:53 am

Today (as predicted) Nick Clegg is announcing the details of how the government will end detention of children for immigration purposes.

Since the government review started on 1 June, the number in detention has dropped sharply – 78 compared to 594 in the same period under Labour in 2009. Now the government is committed both to ensuring that no children are in detention over Christmas and that the policy is completely abolished by May. As previously announced, the family wing at Yarl’s Wood being shut. (More details here.)

Tom Brake (Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs …

Posted in News | Also tagged child detention, yarl | 52 Comments

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