This week in Parliament there is a planned event to debate ‘Domestic abuse offences – Josh Babarinde’ scheduled for today. Recently on 9th January 2025 Mr Babarinde stated “If we do not have the data that we want on domestic abuse offences, how can we measure whether we are halving violence against women and girls over this decade, and whether our interventions designed to reduce reoffending among domestic abusers are working?” He also mentioned it on 10th December 2024 “There are no specific domestic abuse offences in law, so abusers hiding behind convictions such as actual bodily harm are being let out early under the SDS40 early release scheme.” In connection to this important subject there was an earlier question from Mims Davies the Conservative MP for East Grinsted and Uckfield on 22nd January 2025 “To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether her department’s sentencing review will include domestic abuse offences.”
Another item for today is a debate for the ‘e-petition 700765 relating to compensation for women affected by state pension changes’ published by Roz Savage the Liberal Democrat MP for South Cotswolds. This e-petition is named ‘Introduce a compensation scheme for WASPI women’ created by Jane Cowley last Novemberand is currently supported by 160,000 signatures. The initial text is “We call on the Government to fairly compensate WASPI women affected by the increases to their State Pension age and the associated failings in DWP communications.” All locations of Sussex have endorsed it but the two that are the largest are both in East Sussex, Lewes, Bexhill and Battle. It will be interesting to see if any Sussex MPs might take part. So far, there have been four Sussex MPs who have responded to a few other e-petition items since the Government lifted the restrictions last November. First Andrew Griffith, Conservative for Arundel and South Downs in January. Alison Bennett the Liberal Democrat for Mid Sussex twice, John Milne the Liberal Democrat for Horsham and Sian Berry the Green for Brighton Pavilion both once.
On Friday 7th March, Peter Lamb, Labour for Crawley was scheduled to speak ‘Free School Meals (Automatic Registration of Eligible Children) Bill: Second Reading’ and Josh Babarinde the Liberal Democrat for Eastbourne, ‘Domestic Abuse (Aggravated Offences) Bill: Second Reading’, but sadly neither of them took place. However, a procedure of ‘Prayers’ called by John Grady, the Labour MP for Glasgow East, “I beg to move, That the House sit in private.”. Only John agreed it but 75 MPs rejected the call which included 47 Labour, 24 Conservatives, 3 Liberal Democrats and one Independent. Andrew Griffith and Mims Davies voted to reject the call.
The next listed bill item is very important and Mims Davies has spoken about it, ‘Protection of Children (Digital Safety and Data Protection) Bill’ that has been proposed by Josh MacAlister, the Labour MP for Whitehaven and Workington. Initial comments from Mr MacAlister began:
“I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I began my career as a teacher. I first entered the classroom in 2009. At the time, we were just beginning to see the use of smartphones among teenagers—there was the odd phone in the classroom and the odd instance of a child being bullied through their device—but neither I nor any other teacher at the time could have imagined the impact these devices would come to play in childhood. From speaking to children and parents today, it is clear that children’s excessive screen time and unhealthy social media use are fuelling family disputes, childhood unhappiness and parental concern the length and breadth of our country. The problem is growing and voices of concern are getting louder. It is now time to act.”
A little later Mims Davies, commented: “This week, in the education centre at Michael Hall school, I met A-level students who were very concerned about the addictive nature of what they are seeing. They absolutely want to see action. I applaud him for listening to UK Youth, Girlguiding and others who feel exactly the same. They want action now. All power to him—we need to push the Government for change, because a year or three months in childhood is a long time for that addiction to grow and not be challenged.”
Mr MacAlister responded: “I completely agree that there is an urgency to this issue, and the strength of feeling out in the country among not just parents but children themselves shows that we should take action.”
Helen Hayes, MP for Dulwich and West Norwood and Chair of the House of Commons Education Select Committee had previously spoken and Mims responded to her
“The hon. Lady’s speech is fascinating. What she is saying is reflected by correspondence in my inbox from parents saying, “We need help,” and from youngsters saying, “We know our concentration levels at school are affected. We know it’s an addiction.” This issue is uniting families in that way, and I hope that the hon. Lady, who chairs the Education Committee, can push the Government, on behalf of both parents and children, for a change in outcome.”
Helen Hayes then said “The Education Committee will certainly continue to take this issue extremely seriously and to monitor what happens. We know that screen time is quite literally rewiring young brains, resulting in lower cognitive abilities and affecting language acquisition, critical thinking, social skills and attention span.”
ianchisnall 