Britain’s Conservative/Liberal Democrat government faced a humiliating setback on July 10 when ministers had to cancel a key vote on their flagship plans to reform the House of Lords.

The government wants to replace the present appointed chamber with a chamber whose members are 80 percent elected/20 percent appointed. The legislation is widely seen as the Liberal Democrats’ baby, and it is bitterly resented by many backbench Conservative MPs. Over the last few weeks, more and more Conservative MPs have announced their intention to vote against the bill, and the number of rebels eventually reached 100.

The Labour opposition has committed itself to voting for the bill’s second reading, which is when the Commons endorses the general principles behind the legislation. Because the government controls the timetable in the Commons, a vote on second reading is usually followed by a ‘program motion’ that sets time limits for the remaining legislative stages. But Labour objected to the amount of time that the government proposed to allocate to the bill, and the party decided to instruct its MPs to vote against the program motion.

Without Labor’s support, it seemed highly unlikely that the program motion would pass. In the absence of a timetable, opponents of the bill would be able to filibuster it. Back in 1968, an earlier attempt at House of Lords reform foundered because of just such a filibuster.

The government whips must have gotten spooked, for when the Commons began the second day of the debate on second reading, the Leader of the House, Sir George Young, announced that the program motion had been withdrawn. “For Lords reform to progress, it needs those who support reform to vote for reform and to vote for that reform to make progress through this House. It is clear that the Opposition are not prepared to do that, so we will not move the program motion tonight.”

“We remain committed to making progress on Lords reform, and with second reading behind us we will then consider how best to take this agenda forward and how best to secure progress through the House for reforms that have the backing of this House,” he continued.

In the absence of a program motion, the bill will be in legislative limbo even if it receives a second reading. The government leadership in the Commons face a dicey situation. Finding a timetable that will please Labour could be difficult, but if they decide to go ahead and commit the bill to a Committee of the Whole House without any sort of time limits, it is almost certain that rebel Conservative MPs will do their best to filibuster it. Newspapers are already reporting that the rebels have drawn up extensive plans to table wrecking amendments and fight any subsequent attempts to curtail debate.

If the House of Lords Reform Bill ultimately fails, the coalition will be placed under incredible strain. Bad blood between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats seems to be growing by the week, and many Liberal Democrats would probably see the bill’s loss as a Conservative betrayal. There are already rumblings that, if there is no Lords reform, the Liberal Democrats will retaliate by blocking forthcoming boundary changes that could help the Conservatives at the next election. If the coalition descended to that level of infighting, it is hard to see how it could continue until the next scheduled election in May 2015.

The article UK Government Cancels Key Vote on Lords Reform appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

With the scourge of ‘legal highs’ and party drugs threatening the wellbeing and even lives of young people in the UK, two leading young people’s charities, the Angelus Foundation and The Amy Winehouse Foundation, are uniting to petition the government to make effective drugs education a compulsory subject on the National Curriculum.

In its current curriculum review, the coalition government has abandoned a bill to make the PSHE curriculum compulsory. This will mean that drugs education is not mandatory and schools can choose how much time they allocate to this critical subject, or if they teach it at all.

To urge the government to put compulsory drug education for all children on the National Curriculum the two charities, both dedicated to raising awareness of the dangers of legal highs and club drugs, have launched a campaign calling on parents and the government to Wise Up! The campaign includes a petition on the Number 10 website and a nationwide survey of parents of young people.

The aim of the launch of this Wise Up! Campaign is to alert parents to the increasing dangers their children face by not being aware of the potential dangers of taking drugs, be they ‘legal’ highs, club drugs, or excessive alcohol.

Over 60 per cent of schools spend less than one hour per year on drug education. And as there is no curriculum, it can be delivered by a wide range of people, including police officers, recovering addicts, school nurses, or one of the teachers, all of whom have the best of intentions. Worryingly, research shows that poorly taught drugs education can actually increase the use of drugs amongst teenagers.

The main issue is that without training and a curriculum the messages young people receive about the dangers of drugs and alcohol will by default vary enormously.

Speaking about the impact of well delivered drugs education in reducing harm, The Angelus Foundation founder Maryon Stewart said: “Effective interventions shown to reduce the use of drugs and alcohol by in excess of 50% have been peer reviewed and published in medical journals and are currently being delivered in schools in both Canada and Australia.

To provide drug education to a child costs GBP500 but, according to surveys, the cost per drug-using child is in the region of GBP1M by the time they are 30. Providing effective drugs education would save billions of pounds. I urge all parents to sign the Wise Up! petition and urge the Government to put drugs education on the National Curriculum so that our children can make wise and informed choices, increasing their chances of staying safe.”

Mitch Winehouse added: “The Amy Winehouse Foundation was appalled to discover that drugs education was not being taught in British schools and we are delighted to join forces with the Angelus Foundation to petition the government to make it a core curriculum subject, and to lobby for a separate Drugs Ministry so that we can try to reduce the numbers of deaths from drugs and alcohol, as in France where such a Ministry exists.

We need all the parents in this country to sign this petition to show the government that they have a duty to help the younger generation understand the dangers of drink and drugs.”

The petition can be found at: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/30280

Attending the launch event of the Wise Up! campaign on 5th March at the Houses of Parliament will be the Duchess of Kent, who is the Patron of Angelus; Angelus Founder Maryon Stewart, who lost her 21 year-old daughter, Hester, to a mixture of alcohol and GBL; Angelus Trustee Vicky Unwin, who lost her 21 year-old daughter, Louise, to a ketamine overdose;

Mitch Winehouse, whose daughter Amy died in 2011; musician and composer James McConnel and Country Life Cartoonist Annie Tempest, whose 18 year old son, Freddy, who had been a heavy user of Mephedrone and eventually died from a heroin overdose.

Actors Cherie Lunghi, an Angelus Ambassador, and Felicity Kendall, a family friend, will be adding their support; TV presenter and stand-up comic Jeff Leach, Tim Arnold (The Soho Hobo), who is releasing a single in Louise’s memory, and Zachery Stevenson of the band Special Needs, and who is organizing a tribute concert in aid of Angelus on 7 March, will represent the younger perspective at the event.

Many MPs and members of the House of Lords are expected to attend.

The article Charities Urge to Make Drug Education a Compulsory Subject for Youths in UK appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.