Downgrading the upskirting bill

To The Times

The way in which the cry of “object” by a single MP has sabotaged the progress of the upskirting bill in spite of wide support for it by MPS (“New upskirting law is blocked by veteran Tory MP”) highlights the need for reform of the procedures for private members’ bills. The obstacles to the enactment of such bills are excessive and arbitrary.

There are obstacles enough in the need for the support of at least 100 MPS on a Friday, when they are sparse in attendance, and the difficulty in securing enough time through the successive legislative stages. The cry of “object” should be abolished, as should the iniquitous way in which a bill can be “talked out” by one opponent. Furthermore, the selection of private members’ bills for potential enactment should be by an initial vote by MPS, not a ballot. These absurdities do not help Parliament’s somewhat tattered reputation. Edmund Gray, Oxford

To The Daily Telegraph

Christopher Chope has a point when he objects that a government bill creating a new criminal offence should be properly debated in government time and not private members’ time.

Elsewhere in the same issue, The Telegraph reports that 3,171 cases of online grooming of children have been committed in the 12 months since a new law was introduced, more than 50% higher than the NSPCC predicted; and that mosque attacker Darren Osborne’s legal aid bill has reached £28,000. Meanwhile, less than 5% of all burglaries and street robberies are solved, and even the Home Secretary has had his phone stolen in broad daylight.

Chris Chope and I were both junior ministers under Margaret Thatcher. She drummed into us that before we proposed anything, we must consider all the implications and how they were to be paid for.

Call us old-fashioned, but that still seems like common sense to me. Edwina Currie Jones, High Peak, Derbyshire