Select Committee
Parliament

Labour MP Chuka Umunna asks what evidence there is to support claims that Sharia councils follow "a fundamentalist form of Islam".

Elham Manea of the European Foundation for Democracy says "you just have to look at all types of verdicts" reached in Sharia councils.

Mr Umunna suggests that her claim of fundamentalism is a "subjective" one.

But she argues that "progressive", as opposed to fundamentalist, means "equal rights in front of the law".

Select Committee
Parliament

Shaista Gohir from the Muslim Women’s Network UK says a Muslim woman has the right to have the "delegated right to divorce" inserted in a marriage certificate.

She suggests involving mosques in campaigning for that condition to be inserted, which would mean the woman has a right to divorce without involving a Sharia court.

Of Sharia councils, she says: "I feel like they need an education in Islam sometimes."

She claims the councils often insist on a Khul’a divorce - when the divorce proceedings are initiated by the wife - but when domestic abuse is "the fault of a man", the woman can be "released from that marriage very quickly".

House of Lords
Parliament

Oral questions comes to an end and Leader of the House of Lords, Baroness Evans of Bowes Park rises to announce the retirement of David Beamish, the Clerk of the Parliaments.

The Clerk of the Parliaments is the most senior official in the House of Lords and is responsible for keeping official records and offering advice on House procedure.

David Beamish will retire in April 2017. 

House of Lords
Parliament

Lib Dem Lord Greaves expresses concern that the time between leaving the EU and negotiating new trade agreements will lead to "a dangerous limbo arising".

Government spokesperson Baroness Mobarik assures peers that the government is doing "absolutely everything" to achieve a smooth transition.

Conservative Lord Forsyth notes that there is currently no free trade deal between Australia and the EU despite repeated attempts. He adds that it is only once the UK has left the EU that it will be able to reach a trade deal with Australia "without having to satisfy 27 other countries".

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Select Committee
Parliament

Shaista Gohir says Muslim Women’s Network UK is recommending that women "play a key role in the decision-making" in Sharia councils.

Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani says that at present a woman going through a divorce, "who may have been abused at the hands of men", has to then "present her case to another panel of men".

Maryam Namazie of One Law for All says the Iranian Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation has said that "the process of these courts itself is tantamount to abuse".

She claims a council often "justifies very often the domestic violence they faced" and the process is "stacked up against women".

House of Lords
Parliament

Image source, Reuters

The last question comes from Lib Dem Lord Greaves, who asks about the Australian government's announcement that it would not commence trade negotiations whilst the UK remains a member of the European Union.

Austrlian trade minister Steven Ciobo has told the BBC that formal negotiations cannot begin until Brexit has been completed.

According to government figures from 2014 the UK's top exports to Australia include pharmaceuticals, clothing accessories and electrical machinery.

House of Lords
Parliament

Minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe tells peers that good progress is being made on the sale of the bank and says a full report will be made once the sale is completed.

Lord Teverson seeks assurances that the bank's green purposes will be protected and that the bank will continue to invest in UK projects.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe says that the government will ask investors to confirm their commitment to green principals.

She goes on to say that all of the bank's projects are "UK focused" but suggests that there is international potential.

First Minister Carwyn Jones accuses the UK government of a "worrying, piecemeal approach" to post-Brexit trade deals.

House of Commons
Parliament

North East Somerset Conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg says he wants to focus on the 'Leveson amendment' which he says is "fundamentally wrongheaded". 

He says that a newspaper that was protecting a source "would not be able to prove a negative that phone hacking was not involved" in getting a story.

He says it's a "particular outrage" that an outlet could report a story "accurately, fairly, honestly" and "still find that they have to pay the costs of the litigant" if it was claimed phone hacking was involved.

He calls the amendment an "absolute charter for the very rich to bully the press into not publishing stories about them" and that the ultimate outcome of the amendment will be to "get rid of the free press".

Select Committee
Parliament

"We believe that Sharia courts play a very negative role in the lives of women," says Maryam Namazie of anti-Sharia campaign One Law for All.

"We think that women should have access to one secular law for all."

She argues that Sharia courts owe their origins to "the rise of the political Islamic movement" in the 1980s.

Civil divorces are accepted in many Islamic countries, she says, accusing Sharia courts of presenting themselves "as the solution to the problem that they've created".

House of Lords
Parliament

Image source, AFP/Getty Images

Labour’s Baroness Lister of Burtersett now gets to her feet to ask about improving integration of asylum seekers granted refugee status.

Children with family links to the UK have been brought to the country from Calais's "Jungle Camp" under the Dublin regulation. 

Vulnerable children have also been brought to the UK under the Dubs amendment to the Immigration Bill.

House of Commons
Parliament

Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott says she's "baffled" at the government's announcement of a "landmark consultation" on the need for the full implementation of powers called for in the Leveson Report. 

It is a "stalling exercise", she says.

She says it is "reprehensible" that the government is resisting the implementation of the recommendations of the Leveson Report, especially so since the provisions are already in law in Section 40 Crime and Courts Act 2013.

In fact, she says, this amendment is an improvement because Section 40 requires ministerial approval before it comes into force, whereas this legislation will come into force as soon as it becomes law.

Failing to keep a garden tidy or having a dog which barks excessively could land people with a criminal record under powers introduced by Theresa May when she was home secretary.

Thousands of Community Protection Notices have been issued by councils since they were introduced in 2014.

Daily Politics presenter Jo Coburn heard from Josephine Appleton from the Manifesto Club campaign group, behind a report saying powers are being abused and can be an attack on privacy, and Conservative MP Royston Smith, a former leader of Southampton City Council.

They started by watching a 2012 clip of Mrs May about the introduction of the powers.

House of Lords
Parliament

Baroness Randerson worries that Brexit will threaten the right to travel and asks the government to prioritise protecting the UK's access to the European Aviation Agency and the EU-US Open Skies Agreement.

Minister Lord Ahmad assures the baroness that the government is prioritising aviation and notes that maintaining access to such agreements benefits EU nations as well as the UK.

Select Committee
Parliament

"Many women of Islamic faith are left in a system that more or less abuses them," says   Elham Manea from the European Foundation for Democracy.

She argues Muslim women "are pushed to use a parallel system of justice", in which the type of Islamic law "is taken out of its context" and disregards developments in Islamic countries which have benefited women.

She further argues that this means a woman is looked at "as a perpetual minor", who always needs a "guardian".

The European Foundation for Democracy describes itself as "a policy institute based in Brussels that is dedicated to upholding Europe’s fundamental values of democratic governance, political pluralism, individual liberty and religious tolerance". 

House of Lords
Parliament

Image source, Getty Images

First up is Lib Dem Baroness Randerson who asks about the importance of aviation to Britain’s International trade.

An approximate 29% of the UK’s exports and imports come through Heathrow each year. 

Proponents of a third runway at Heathrow says failing to expand will mean handing export growth to European competitors.

Those opposed to expansion say the extra runway would mainly bring more transit passengers and that the economic case for Heathrow has been overstated.

Select Committee
Parliament

"What we should really be talking about is Sharia divorce," says Shaista Gohir from the Muslim Women’s Network UK.

She says divorce makes up about 90% of the business of Sharia councils and the majority of clients are women.

While women can obtain a civil divorce, they and many in the community "want the Islamic stamp of approval" of religious divorce.

She says her organisation takes calls from women who have had negative experiences, and says people need to work out "why Muslim women can go to the same service and some get a good service and some get terrible treatment".

House of Commons
Parliament

MPs are now debating amendments to the Investigatory Powers Bill. The first group of amendments to be discussed includes the controversial "Leveson amendment".

Minister Ben Wallace says that the bill was "never meant to provide for the regulation of the press" and that the amendment is a "distraction from the very important aims of the bill". 

He wants MPs to reject it and send it back to the Lords.

The amendment would bring into force legislation to require media organisations to pay the costs involved in bringing claims against them.

The Investigatory Powers Bill is intended to update the powers held by the police and security services to intercept communications.