Tag Archives: liz barker

Caron Lindsay

LibLink: Liz Barker: We have a crisis in our charity sector

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 21st February 2018 - 8:55 am

Writing for Politics Home about her Lords question on the issues facing charities at the moment, Liz Barker said that Oxfam did not deserve the “monitoring” it was getting at the moment as it had taken action to deal with the unacceptable and inexcusable behaviour of a small number of its members of staff.

The crisis to which she refers, though, isn’t the one you think.

She highlighted failings in the Charity Commission, most notably its senior people being too close to Government and without enough knowledge of the sector:

One might have expected the Charity Commission to know that a charity’s most valuable asset is its reputation and to understand that, whilst Oxfam reported that it was dealing with the matter, the organisation might have been advised by lawyers to keep public statements to a minimum. The events for which Oxfam is now being berated coincided with a period when the Charity Commission’s funding was greatly reduced and its Chair, who knew nothing about charities or regulation, was wont to please the politicians who appointed him, by making sweeping  statements about charities which were full of criticism and short on evidence.

The Charity Commission board is appointed by government and with the imminent appointment of Baroness Stowell, who like her predecessor has no knowledge of charities, it appears to be a grace and favour appointment for people close to government.  This is a worrying development.

She highlighted another problem with the Charity Commission’s plans:

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NewsHound

Lib Dems “most sweary peers in House of Lords”

By NewsHound | Tue 23rd January 2018 - 7:10 pm

Something to amuse you on a dark January evening from iNews:

Our Lib Dem Lords make six out of the top ten profane peers

Six of the top 10 “sweary peers” are Lib Dems, with Baroness Sarah Ludford leading the pack with 51 profanities in 2017. It’s a pretty admirable feat given that peers only managed to score 287 swears between them across the whole year.

They have been joking about it on Twitter:

The Leader of the our Lords group was perhaps upset that he didn’t make the list:

Sarah Ludford was modest:

Liz Barker is such a diplomat:

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The Voice

LibLink: Liz Barker on Trump and his ‘hateful eight’

By The Voice | Wed 22nd February 2017 - 9:33 am

 

Lib Dem peer Liz Barker has written a post on Politics Home titled ‘Trump and his hateful eight are condemning women worldwide‘.

She writes:

So egregious is the Trump administration that it is difficult to focus one’s anger and start to plan a fightback.  The thing which spurred me on was that photograph of Trump and a bunch of old white men – the hateful eight – signing the executive order for the global gag.  At the stroke of a pen, a bunch of billionaires condemned women and girls all over the world to misery, illness and, in many cases, death.

The policy originated in 1984 under Reagan and was reinstituted under both Bush governments, all three Republicans. The policy in the past required non-US NGOs to certify that they would not “perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning” (an anti-abortion lobby standard line), even with non-US funds, as a condition for receiving USAID global family planning assistance

The Trump version of the policy of 23 January 2017 is, predictably, bigger and more insidious.  NGOs who are receiving any US global health assistance will have to sign the Gag Rule, including those running HIV programmes, maternal and child health programmes, infectious diseases programmes, or those dealing with Zika virus – as well as family planning programmes. Moreover, it applies whether the funds come from USAID, as in the past, or from any US government agency or department.

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Caron Lindsay

Some reflections on #IDAHOBIT

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 17th May 2016 - 9:52 pm

Today is the annual International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia as we saw from Team INtogether’s post earlier.

The party has been marking the day in various ways. We’ve been tweeting up a storm. Liz Barker and Jonny Oates recorded this video:

There’s been a series of lovely graphics:

Norman Lamb has resubmitted his motion calling for people who want gender neutral passports to be able to have them. Recently, I saw on social media a teacher who has transgender and non binary pupils under their care object to these proposals. Imagine how that makes their pupils feel and how confident they would feel about that teacher to support them. That brings me to what’s been happening north of the border.

Willie Rennie took time out of his short-lived campaign to be First Minister to emphasise the need for all teachers in all schools – that’s the denominational ones, too – to be trained to ensure that all Scotland’s schools are inclusive environments for learning.

He said:

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Paul Walter

What our busy peers will be up to this week

By Paul Walter | Mon 8th February 2016 - 11:21 am

Here are some of the things our team in the House of Lords will be doing this week:

Monday: Roger Roberts will be pushing the Government to take action to relieve the situation of unaccompanied refugee children. Tim Farron has been pushing the Government to accept 3,000 at risk refugee children but David Cameron has recently rejected the proposal. The Liberal Democrats will continue to fight to find a solution which does not leave these children vulnerable.

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Caron Lindsay

Liz Barker questions Government on transgender prisoners after death of Vicky Thompson

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 28th November 2015 - 11:55 am

Last week, transgender woman Vicky Thompson died in the men’s prison where she had been taken to serve her sentence. Ministry of Justice policy is to put trans prisoners in the gender they live as if they have a Gender Recognition Certificate. Obtaining a GRC can be a costly, difficult, bureaucratic process.

Liz Barker outlined some of the issues in an article for the Huffington Post:

In Tara’s case, she was put in a prison with 600 men, many of whom had committed violent offences and was eventually moved after a campaign which highlighted the risk to her safety.

Jonathan Marks, my colleague in the House of Lords and a highly respected barrister, raised this issue in Parliament following the case of Tara Hudson. He pushed the Government to make urgent changes to how they handle trans prisoners, calling for full and careful thought to be given to allocation before sentence rather than after placement. A policy that makes perfect sense.

I am deeply concerned that this wasn’t already common practice, but it is utterly shocking that a few short weeks after Tara’s case came to the public’s attention, action wasn’t taken to urgently review Vicky’s case too. There should now be an urgent review on a case-by-case basis for every trans prisoner in the prison estate to assess their situation

The Minister’s answer was not much more than waffle.

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Caron Lindsay

Liz Barker wins Pink News “Peer of the Year” award

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 22nd October 2015 - 2:30 pm

Congratulations to Pink News on their 10th anniversary. Last night they presented their annual awards. It was fantastic to see Liz Barker’s achievements being recognised as she won Peer of the Year. Here she is being presented with her award by Tim Farron:

Liz Barker gets award from Tim Farron

Let’s just remind you of some of her recent best bits campaigning for LGBT+ equality.

There was that amazing speech during the passing of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill:

Many years ago I had the great good fortune to meet someone. She and I

…

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Caron Lindsay

Stonewall withdraw their inaccurate election graphic – but don’t replace it with one which accurately reflects Lib Dem achievements

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 29th April 2015 - 12:30 pm

Every time you think it’s safe to like Stonewall again, they do something tribally partisan for the Labour Party. As I reported yesterday, they produced a graphic that gave Labour full marks to their questions, but only 2/5 for Liberal Democrats. A cursory glance at the manifesto would have given us full marks, as LGBT + Lib Dems Chair Dave Page and Communities Minister Stephen Williams told Pink News.

I’m astounded by this grossly misleading graphic, suggesting the Liberal Democrats have little to say about LGB&T rights in our manifesto. The opposite is true.

We have seven specific policies including making anti gay chanting an offence, promoting international recognition of same sex marriages and more action on homophobic bullying. As a Stonewall member I am deeply disappointed that they have chosen to spell out Labour Party policies and ignore Lib Dem proposals, which build on our long standing commitment to gay rights.

Liz Barker’s tweets in response were also very informative.

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Caron Lindsay

Two grateful men, one scarf, an angry Baroness and an LGBT organisation that can’t read what’s in the Lib Dem manifesto

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 28th April 2015 - 10:41 pm

Stonewall dropped a huge clanger yesterday by issuing a graphic on its Facebook page that gave Labour a tick for all the policies it had featured and gave only two to the Liberal Democrats. Thing is, anyone who had read the Liberal Democrat manifesto would know that all these things were in fact there.

Pink News has a wonderfully sarcastic quote from LGBT+ Chair Dave Page:

It is surprising that an organisation with Stonewall’s resources, if it seeks to appear nonpartisan, did not seem to have taken the time to quickly search through the Liberal Democrats’ main party manifesto (rather than the separate documents published by some other parties).

If they had, they would have found the commitment to tackle hate crime in section 9.3: ‘Change sentencing guidelines to increase sentences available for hate crimes.’

They would have also found the following on overseas aid in section 11.6: ‘Liberal Democrats believe British foreign policy and international aid should seek to advance human rights and democracy throughout the world. We believe all people – regardless of ethnicity, disability, age, belief, gender or sexual orientation – deserve a freer, fairer and more prosperous world.’

Under Ruth Hunt’s excellent leadership, Stonewall have done a lot of work to build bridges and listen to a wider array of voices.

We hope that the days of Lib Dem MPs having to lobby Stonewall to support equality rather than the opposite are behind us all. Unfortunately their rush to issue this ill-researched graphic undermines their reputation for being even-handed advocates of equality.

Lib Dem Peer Liz Barker also took Stonewall to task on Twitter. In a series of tweets parodying Stonewall’s “Some people are gay/trans, get over it” phrase, she outlined the Liberal Democrat record on LGBT rights:

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The Voice

Liz Barker leads first ever Lords debate on Lesbian, bisexual and transgender women’s health

By The Voice | Sun 7th December 2014 - 10:42 am

Last Wednesday, Baroness Liz Barker, who made one of the most fantastic speeches of the entire debate on same sex marriage,  led the first ever debate on health services for lesbians and bisexual and transgender women.

The ignorance and even ridicule LBT women have faced from health professionals in the accounts Liz and others shared during the debate is truly astonishing. There does not seem to be a widespread understanding of even the very basic issues they may face.

The Minister’s reply was a bit frustrating because he basically agreed with everything that was being said but didn’t offer any actual, concrete proposal to make things better.

You can read the whole debate here, but Liz’s speech in full is published below:

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Caron Lindsay

Liberal Democrat amendment making revenge porn a crime to be debated today – watch Hannah’s story

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 21st July 2014 - 2:29 pm

"Frozen Poetry" - Houses of Parliament, LondonThis afternoon, an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill in the name of four Liberal Democrat peers, Jonathan Marks, Olly Grender, Liz Barker and Sal Brinton, will be debated in the House of Lords. Its effects would be to make it an offence to publish a sexually explicit image of a person without their consent, punishable by 6 months to a year in prison.

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Caron Lindsay

Has Stonewall snubbed the Liberal Democrats in their awards?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 9th November 2013 - 11:56 am

Every time I think kindly about Stonewall, they do something to annoy me. Way back in 2010, their opposition to equal marriage reached the fringes of our Liverpool Conference. That came just a few months after Ed Fordham wrote on here that he was no longer able to support Stonewall over its treatment of David Laws.

Happily, Stonewall did eventually come around to supporting equal marriage and attended the vigils outside Parliament which Ed organised when the Bill was being debated. They are also just about to start a brilliant campaign on homophobic bullying to run in anti-bullying …

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Caron Lindsay

Liz Barker is up for a Pink News award for Parliamentary speech of the year – vote today!

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 2nd October 2013 - 8:51 am

In June, we brought you Liz Barker’s moving speech on the Same Sex Marriage Bill. Liz started by talking about her own relationship which is as long as mine, yet she hasn’t been able to get married to her partner in the same way as I did to mine 25 years ago. Her speech very carefully and without rancour demolished the usual arguments against. She said:

Some noble Lords say that allowing gay people to get married is unfair as it leaves other sorts of relationships, such as those of siblings, without the same legal rights as those who choose a marital

…

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