Danny Alexander MP has been appointed the Liberal Democrat Shadow Social Exclusion Secretary. He will replace Matthew Taylor MP in the Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet, who yesterday announced he will stand down at the next election.
Danny said “I am delighted to have been appointed to this position. Britain faces a huge challenge in tackling poverty and social exclusion.
“The Government’s policies are bogged down in mass means-testing and bureaucracy, creating dependency not opportunity.
“The Liberal Democrats are the only party that puts fairness and opportunity for all at the top of the agenda, and I look forward to taking the fight to the Government on these critically important questions.”
Danny Alexander recently caused a little ripple of debate when he suggested that churches should be exempt from rules preventing discrimination against homosexuals in the workplace, though it has been suggested that the law in fact already allows this. Party members can find a discussion on this here.
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5 Comments
“Danny Alexander recently caused a little ripple of controversy recently when he suggested that churches should be exempt from rules preventing discrimination against homosexuals in the workplace.”
No, Rob, he didn’t. As he makes clear, the exemption he suggested was related solely to the hire of religious buildings, something which was already contained in the regulations anyway.
And I would suggest in future that you don’t just accept what our political opponents say about us as being the truth. Show some common sense.
Slightly unfortunate timing there – I had in fact re-written that (I agree, badly phrased) line before you posted.
But here’s a couple of questions if, as you say “the exemption he suggested was related solely to the hire of religious buildings, something which was already contained in the regulations anyway.”, why did he suggest it in the first place?
On a wider point, why should churches have the right to exclude gay people? If my reading of Leviticus is correct, churches should also be demanding the right to refuse use of their facilities to people who wear clothes made of more than one cloth – that’s anyone wearing George ties out. But more seriously, if a gay couple living in a village want to hire the only hall available to them – the church hall – to, say, throw a birthday party (as a couple of friends of mine have just done), why should the church have the right to deny access to a church hall, which is hardly a sacred edifice?
I think this is actually part of a fairly subtle debate.
All LIb Dems would think that we should be able to reject a class of people (e.g Conservative party members) from our homes and other private spaces without the law intervening.
Similarly most of us would agree that public spaces, including private businesses, should not be able to discriminate on entrance requirements.
But it seems obvious to me to say that a space only frequented by a specific group (e.g. a private members club) is somewhere between a fully private space and a fully public one. Much as I deplore the homophobia of some religious organisations there are clearly a lot of grey areas. Should a gay rights organisation have to hire out a facility to the BNP? Or vice versa? It seems to me that the law is both wrong in those circumstances and completely unenforceable.
“But here’s a couple of questions if, as you say “the exemption he suggested was related solely to the hire of religious buildings, something which was already contained in the regulations anyway.”, why did he suggest it in the first place?”
I believe he was asked his view in an interview, that’s all. I don’t think he proposed a formal amendment.
Sometimes MPs don’t give legislation intensive scrutiny – not perhaps suprising given the volume and the way in which amendments are made late in the process. AIUI the commentary to these regulations – both official and Home Office – suggest something different to the “black ink” of the actual regulations.
There was an example of something similar a bit back when a few MPs complained about the “organ pipes” directive. Yet no-one raised any objections when the relevant SI was agreed to put it into UK law.
There is quite a bit of legal criticism of the quality of recent legislation (rather than its objectives). “Yet again the courts are faced with a sample of the deeply confusing provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003” as one judge put it.
One of my lecturers said if that act had been submitted as a piece of work by an LPC student it wouldn’t have been graded as competent.
Regardless of your views on the objectives of changes to the law it is not good to be in such a situation where the legislation passed doesn’t make sense.