UK Parliament Watch

Vera Baird proved a little rusty on local issues

The election results saw a fair few MPs depart who were associated with legislation of particular despite to Melon Farmers.

Jacqui Smith was Home Secretary seeing through several nasty laws. She was humiliated when seeking re-election in Redditch. More for being an icon of the expenses scandal, than for her disservices to freedom and the enjoyment of life. No doubt the dangers of porn will be uppermost in her mind whenever she reminisces over her failed political career.

In fact it is a common theme amongst the melon farming related departees, that their departure is little to do with their illiberal laws, but more to do with more personal issues. Perhaps Melon Farmers can take heart, that although they seem to get away with treating people like shit with nasty laws, their bad attitude sometimes catches up with them in other ways.

Another Home Secretary with a thuggish attitude to peoples rights was Charles Clarke, who also received the order of the boot. He seems to have wound up people on his own side in his disaster prone term as Home Secretary.

Vera Baird was perhaps the highlight of the departure list. She took a particular interest in issues where enjoyment of life is something to be banned particularly for men. She was always rumoured as being gifted with the legal talent to turn mean minded thoughts into carefully open ended nasty legislation. Perhaps she should have spent a little more time looking after more immediate basic needs in Redcar, where she was well stonked.

The two back bench agitators for the Dangerous Pictures Act, Martin Salter and David Lepper both stepped down at the election. But they can hardly have been pleased at their legacy. Salter was never a great hit as a local MP and Labour got stuffed in Reading West. Lepper's Brighton Pavilion seat fell notably to the Green Party. (Actually Lepper was reasonably well regarded in Brighton).

One voice that will be missed in parliament though is Evan Harris. He spoke out against the dangerous pictures laws and helped stick the knife into blasphemy laws. He was well embroiled in the expenses scandal though, and was accordingly turfed out by the electorate.

The National Secular Society invite you to write to your MP and suggest signing Roger Godsiff's Early Day Motion (no. 1586)  which criticises West Midlands Police for its behaviour over the Channel 4 Undercover Mosque programme. The matter is one of immense public importance going to the very heart of the Justice system.

The motion reads:

That this House welcomes the unreserved public apology given by the West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service and the six figure libel settlement paid by them to Channel 4 over the Dispatches programme broadcast on 15th January 2007 which contained covert filming inside mosques in Birmingham and Derby; notes that the comments and allegations made by West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service had already been dismissed by the industry regulator, Ofcom; further notes that the individuals shown in the programme broadcast were using highly derogatory and racist language against a variety of non-Muslim groups which included Christians, Jews, homosexuals, lesbians and women and were in clear breach of existing legislation in respect of incitement to religious and racial hatred; calls on the Home Secretary to launch an immediate investigation into why the West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service chose to attack the programme makers at Channel 4 rather than investigating and prosecuting the individuals who were shown in the programme; and asserts that incitement to religious and racial hatred has no place in British society.

There is a current storm brewing in the Welsh Assembly over the proposed policing of members blogs.

The Assembly Commission, the body which looks after the day-to-day running of the Senedd is looking to ban Assembly Member's from attacking the views of a rival party.

As Labour'
s Leighton Andrews rightly points out, he can deliver a political speech in the Senedd, which will be broadcast online and on TV, paid for by Assembly resources.

He can then e-mail the speech to the Western Mail, the Rhondda Leader and the BBC, using the Assembly-provided e-mail system. He can post links to his speech in the Assembly'
s Record of Proceedings, and to the online stories about his speech.

But because his speech is political and polemical, he is now not allowed to carry the record of his speech, or the video footage of the speech, or his own press release based on it, on his blog, because the website is paid for by Assembly funds.

How does that make sense? By that logic, the Assembly should stop carrying verbatim records of proceedings in the Senedd on its website as it'
s overtly party political. Or, as Mr Lewis suggests, go one step further and ban parties from making political points in the chamber: We could engage the nation with fascinating discussions of the weather or the sports results instead .

There is one caveat: there doesn'
t appear to be anything in the new rules banning AMs from attacking members of their own party.

Still, there is one, sneaky, roundabout way of avoiding the draconian new rules. AMs could get their own blog and simply pour their anger onto that. Peter Black and Bethan Jenkins already have.

Crisis averted; let the bickering resume.

Ofcom has dismissed claims by a group of MPs that the 9pm watershed is failing to protect young children because they can now access television online.

Giving evidence at a culture, media and sport committee hearing today, the Ofcom chief executive, Ed Richards, denied the regulator had put itself in an "impossible and absurd position" by not doing more to regulate objectionable content on the web.

Richards was responding to claims made by Nigel Evans a conservative MP who argued that Ofcom's powers over broadcasting should be more rigorously applied to internet content.

It's important to remember that the watershed isn't dead, Richards said: Despite the internet, television remains remarkably resilient as a medium. The watershed is still a very important and I think it will remain so for several years.

The cross-party group of MPs raised concerns about services such as the BBC iPlayer, which make it possible for anyone to view post-watershed content at any time of the day.

The Ofcom partner for content and standards, Stuart Purvis, said a lot of the responsibility rested with parents to make sure their children were not watching inappropriate material: If you look at the iPlayer, it immediately asks you if you are over 16. The question that arises is: Are children going to understand that or are they going to override it?

He added that new technology had in a sense disadvantaged parents who might not necessarily know how to use access locks to protect children from post-watershed content.

However, both Purvis and Richards dismissed suggestions that it was the role of Ofcom on its own to encourage parents to become more aware of their children's online activities.

Richards said: We are definitely not the right body to deliver a mass campaign to promote media literacy. We are not qualified enough to do it. We don't have the skills to do it. I think somebody does have to do that, but it's not the duty of Ofcom. That sort of mass campaign to bring parents understanding of literacy issues is not appropriate for us.

Update: Related

15th May 2008

Back bench Labour MP Margaret Moran has introduced a private members bill in the House of Commons calling for online retailers to take reasonable steps to establish the age of its customers when selling adult goods and services.

The Online Purchasing Of Goods And Services (Age Verification) Bill gets its second reading on 16th May.

Update: No Mention

21st May 2008

No mention of the Bill in Hansard on the 16th May so presumably parliament didn't find time to debate it. So presumably it is no more.

The House of Commons voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to support the abolition of the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel. This was the final stage in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, and the amendment was carried by 378 votes to 57. The Bill has received Royal Assent, so the blasphemy law is now officially dead and buried.

In a tetchy and bad-tempered parliamentary debate, Conservatives put in their final bid to block the abolition, arguing that it represented a significant step in the secularising of Britain. Some raised the spectre of it being the beginning of a process that would eventually lead to disestablishment. Government Minister Maria Eagle MP assured MPs that there was no such "hidden agenda".

Other MPs were, though, less shy about hoping that one day the Church of England would be disestablished. David Howarth, Liberal Democrat shadow Solicitor General said: It is the policy of my party to work towards the disestablishment of the Church, and the separation of Church and state. I am fairly comfortable with that position.

Howarth continued: The principle of the separation of Church and state is not about the separation of religion and politics, which I think is impossible. We cannot separate people's moral, religious views from their political views. We are talking about the state, not about society, and about the religious commitments of the state, not about whether people in society are religious or not. In the course of debate we have heard three separate arguments against the idea of state neutrality in religion. One of them; it might be called the "this is a Christian country" argument.

NSS honorary associate Dr Evan Harris, Lib Dem MP for Abingdon and Oxford (the original architect of this amendment), challenged Tory MPs who were arguing for the preservation of blasphemy laws. In an earlier debate that evening on the same Bill they had argued that new proposals to outlaw hatred against homosexuals would unnecessarily restrict the right of religious people to make clear their disapproval of homosexuality. Now they were arguing that the blasphemy law was necessary to protect religious people against offence. It seemed that their defence of free speech was not entirely consistent.

Dr Harris said: When it came to the issue of incitement to homophobic hatred, we heard a number of speeches and interventions from Conservative Members claiming that freedom of speech was critical and that freedom of expression was under threat. Yet when it comes to an issue—blasphemy, as opposed to incitement to hatred—that ca causes individuals themselves no damage, making the case for proscribing it much weaker, those very same people argue that freedom of expression has to go in order to maintain their version of no change. They want to maintain some symbolic law or the safety of the UK constitution, which they fear may be shaken to its foundations by the abolition of these unnecessary and discriminatory laws.

The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act has completed its 3rd reading in the House of Commons and has received Royal Assent so becomes law.

According to BBC Newsbeat, the Dangerous Pictures clauses will be enacted from January 2009.

John Beyer, Director of Mediawatch UK, and supporter of even stricter measures on pornography Said: It is important for there to be clear divide between what is legal and what is not. People need to know. Contrary to the views expressed by protesters, he feels the new law provides that clarity on extreme material. But there may be a need for an amnesty, during which the public are able to hand in any material that could be considered a crime to possess. The last thing anybody would want is for the police to be raiding people's homes.

The maximum penalty for obscene publications has also been raised from 3 years to 5 years in prison.

The Dangerous Pictures clauses went unamended but the Government backed down and allowed a free speech protection to be written into its proposed 'homophobic hatred' clauses.

The decision came after the Government was defeated for a second time in the House of Lords. Peers voted 178 to 164 in favour of the protection.

This marks the end of a lengthy battle to make clear that the new criminal offence should not interfere with free speech or religious liberty.

The amendment says, for the avoidance of doubt, the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred.

Words or behaviour which are threatening and intended to stir up hatred will be caught by the offence, which carries a maximum seven year prison sentence.

Speaking in last night's debate, Lord Waddington said: My understanding is that the Government do not wish to see discussion stifled and people harassed, bullied, interrogated and sometimes arrested for expressing their views. However, if that is so, it really is time that they did something about it.

Senior judge and 'gay rights' sympathiser, Dame Butler-Sloss, agreed that free speech needed protecting. She said: ...there are religious groups, not only Christians, not only bishops, but many Jews and Muslims, which share strong views that they gain from the Bible, the Old Testament in particular, or the Koran. Those people are potentially at risk.

She continued: It is those people who will potentially be intimidated; they will certainly be bothered and may go through an extremely unfortunate experience before calmer heads point out that under the new clause, as under older clauses, they have not committed any offence.

The Government said the issue could be made clear by publishing guidance instead of inserting a free speech protection into the Bill. But Lord Clarke said: If we mean that we are to maintain the principle of free speech, we should make sure that it is in this Bill and not leave it to the interpretation of guidelines, which would become another lawyers' paradise.

Following the Lords vote, the Government backed down and the measure was passed by a substantial majority in the Commons. The offence will become law with the free speech protection included.

The House of Lords passed the Dangerous Pictures Act, within the Criminal Justice & Immigration Bill, last night with no meaningful amendments whatsoever.

As usual, a surreal debate with most Lords who spoke pointing out the nastiness of law. But the votes cast against a helpful amendment was telling at 134 to 91.

The bill is now likely to be rubber stamped at a guillotined 3rd reading in the Commons.

Amendments to the Criminal Injustice Act have been tabled for the 3rd Reading

Baroness Miller and Lord Wallace have suggested that dangerous pictures should be defined as both violent and legally obscene. They have also proposed reducing the maximum sentence from 3 to 2 years.

The evil Lord Hunt has proposed a minor exemption. Those participating in the dangerous pictures and hence knowing that they were produced legally would be exempt. Surely a recipe for injustice as the same images would be legal for some to own and illegal for others

Clause 62

BARONESS MILLER OF CHILTHORNE DOMER
LORD WALLACE OF TANKERNESS

Page 49, line 31, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—
"(b) is obscene as defined by section 1 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 (c. 66) (test of obscenity)."

After Clause 64

THE LORD HUNT OF KINGS HEATH

Insert the following new Clause—
"Defence: participation in consensual acts
(1) This section applies where—
(a) a person ("D") is charged with an offence under section 62, and
(b) the offence relates to an image that portrays an act or acts within paragraphs (a) to (c) (but none within paragraph (d)) of subsection (7) of that section.
(2) It is a defence for D to prove—
(a) that D directly participated in the act or any of the acts portrayed, and
(b) that the act or acts did not involve the infliction of any non-consensual harm on any person, and
(c) if the image portrays an act within section 62(7)(c), that what is portrayed as a human corpse was not in fact a corpse.
(3) For the purposes of this section harm inflicted on a person is "non-consensual" harm if—
(a) the harm is of such a nature that the person cannot, in law, consent to it being inflicted on himself or herself; or
(b) where the person can, in law, consent to it being so inflicted, the person does not in fact consent to it being so inflicted."

Clause 65

BARONESS MILLER OF CHILTHORNE DOMER
LORD WALLACE OF TANKERNESS

Page 52, line 3, leave out subsections (2) to (4) and insert—
"(2) A person guilty of an offence under section 62 is liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years."

LORD HUNT OF KINGS HEATH

Page 52, line 8, leave out "depict" and insert "portray"

MPs have blocked a bill that would have banned the advertising of junk food and drinks to children. The Food Products (Marketing to Children) Bill aimed to make it an offence to promote "less healthy" foodstuffs to children.

Introduced by Labour MP Nigel Griffiths last year, it would also have introduced a 9pm watershed for television advertising of unhealthy food. However, the bill failed at its second reading in the House of Commons.

On 1st January Ofcom introduced a ban on television adverts for foods high in fat, salt and sugar during shows aimed at under-16s.

Nutters say an increasing number of MPs are joining their fight to give local authorities greater power over lap-dancing clubs.

Sandrine Leveque, a spokeswoman for the nutters of Object, said efforts were under way to build support for a 10-Minute Rule Bill to be introduced by the Durham MP Roberta Blackman-Woods at the end of May. She said the campaign had the backing of about 35 MPs, a third of the number they are hoping to attract: We have received some really good feedback from local authorities since we drew attention to the loophole. This is a cross-party issue and one which affects men and women of all walks of life. We are hoping to gain support from at least 100 MPs.

An early day motion by Lynda Waltho, MP for Stourbridge, which supports empowering councils to license venues as sex encounter establishments, has gathered 26 signatures from predominantly Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs over the past four days.

Since the first mainstream club, For Your Eyes Only, opened 13 years ago, the number of clubs countrywide has risen to 300, more than doubling in the past four years. Five local authorities which have attempted to block new establishments have been defeated on appeal.

The campaigners want to categorise the clubs as sex encounter establishments, giving local authorities the same power over them as they do with sex shops and cinemas. They are calling for a change in the law to give councils the right to reject applications for pole-dancing venues.

The Lap Dancing Association (LDA) retorted this week that, while it was concerned about the practices of irresponsible operations and potential links with prostitution, classifying clubs as sex encounter establishments would only drive such operators underground. It urged the campaign group to work with it to improve standards, claiming that much of the literature on the subject was inaccurate and sensationalist.

Comedians and church leaders have claimed a victory for free speech after Government plans to ban jokes about homosexuals were rejected in the House of Lords.

Peers inflicted an overwhelming defeat on the Government by amending the Criminal Injustice Bill to protect the freedom of speech of comics, rap artists and those who criticise other people's sexuality.

The television stars Rowan Atkinson and Christopher Higgins, who is himself homosexual, are among the prominent figures to have spoken out against the proposal to create a new offence of incitement to “homophobic hatred”.

Following the amendment, the offence will apply only to those who incite violence or harassment against homosexual men and lesbians, rather than jokes or broader criticism about alternative lifestyles, such as lyrics in rap songs.

Religious groups had campaigned against the Government proposal, saying it would criminalise those who voiced concerns on a range of issues, from the teaching on sexual orientation in schools to depictions of homosexuality in film and television.

Peter Tatchell, the prominent homosexual rights campaigner, also spoke out against the measure, arguing that freedom of speech should be sacrosanct.

Peers backed the amendment, tabled by the former Conservative home secretary Lord Waddington, by 81 votes to 57. He was supported by the Labour peer Lord Clarke of Hampstead, who told their lordships that critics of homosexuality should be able to speak freely without risk of police action.

If it is accepted by MPs, the new freedom of speech protection would prevent prosecutions such as that currently under way against the Oxford University student, Sam Brown, arrested after he called a police horse “gay” during a drunken conversation with two mounted police officers.

Ministers are now considering whether to seek to fight the amendment when the Bill returns to the House of Commons.

A spokeswoman from the Ministry for Justice said: We are disappointed by the outcome of the vote in the Lords on Lord Waddington's amendment.

Campaigners say they are confident the amendment will not be thrown out, as the Government is keen to rush other measures contained in the Bill, including a ban on strike action in prisons, on to the statute books.

In the light of sheer intransigence by Lord Hunt on the part of the Government being totally unwilling to even consider the first set of amendments (ie incorporating the Sexual Offences Act, the Obscene Publications Act and the "consent" defence), Baroness Miller has withdrawn those and, instead, they are now voting on the Amendments to remove the Extreme Porn clauses entirely.

Unfortunately this amendment was defeated by 66 votes to 30.

There are further opportunities to vote eg at the 3rd reading but the feeling is that wider groups of Lords are even more likely to support the Dangerous Pictures clauses.

It looks like Britain will soon become an even more unpleasant land.

Update: A New Defence

Lord Hunt conceded there should be a new defence, which he will lay before the Third Reading: I am aware that the noble Lord has concerns about individuals who keep a record of themselves freely and willingly participating in bondage, domination, submission and sado-masochistic practices in which no unlawful harm occurs. I recognise that it would be anomalous for a person to be committing an offence by possessing an image of an act which he undertook perfectly lawfully. We intend to introduce at Third Reading a defence which addresses precisely that situation.

Comment: Says it All

From IanG on the Melon Farmers Forum
See also parliamentary transcript from TheyWorkForYou

Doesn't this say it all?

Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Labour):

My Lords, I, too, expressed reservations about these clauses in Committee and took very much the same line as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, did on that occasion. I looked carefully at the amendments that my noble friend brought forward and I said in Committee that I thought that they represented an improvement on what was there before.

I think that I am the only Member of your Lordships` House who took up the invitation of my noble friend to visit Charing Cross police station to view some of what one might call the exhibits that underlie the Government`s thinking on this matter. A variety of adjectives comes to mind, such as "bizarre", "unpleasant", "distasteful", even "repulsive", but the images were not in any sense sexually arousing. At the end of the visit, I was left with the question whether their possession is so threatening to society that it is worth turning people into criminals and sending them to jail if they happen to have them on a computer screen at home or have obtained them some other way.

I suspect that, like me, many noble Lords have had a fair number of submissions on this subject from a variety of organisations. Some of them are very articulate and well argued. The main point that comes through was expressed by an organisation called backlash, which said: The proposals are still, despite the recent amendments, worded in such a way as to risk inadvertently criminalising hundreds of thousands of British citizens.

He went on to say:

Equally importantly, people will be deterred from exploring their sexual preferences for fear that their research may lead them into illegal territory which in turn can cause both distress and mental health issues as well as being a fundamental breach of their human rights".

The point is also made by a number of these organisations that most of the scenes to which my noble friend introduced me at Charing Cross are not real scenes but are faked for the benefit of their creation or are the product of an entirely consensual activity, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, pointed out. I am at one with my noble friend Lord McIntosh and, I suspect, with the Minister in wanting to prosecute illegal activity that has taken place in order to create these images. However, if no illegal activity has taken place and we are concerned about merely the possession of the images, I really cannot imagine that any useful purpose is served by creating criminals out of the people who possess them.

My worry is that the wording of the Bill is still much too vague and could cover all sorts of light, consensual and safe imagery which many people enjoy and practise and which at present is perfectly legal but which as a consequence of these clauses will certainly become illegal. In Committee, I finished by asking my noble friend a question. I did not get an answer on that occasion and I therefore put the same question to him now. As a new offence is being created by these clauses, what will be the position of people who have already downloaded material on to their computers that until now has not been illegal but henceforth will be? Will the possession of that be regarded as a criminal offence and, if it is, what advice are the Government offering to help people to get rid of it? This is an important issue. This House cannot pass legislation that inadvertently turns people into criminals, particularly when the activity in which they are engaging is not doing anybody outside their own homes any harm.

Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

Elaine Smith (Coatbridge and Chryston) (Lab): I note that the legislative consent memorandum refers to three specific areas of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. I was concerned when I saw it last week—I understand that the motion does not include clauses 113 to 120, which relate to pornography. I would be grateful if the minister could confirm that the issues around possession of extreme pornography, which are covered in the Westminster bill, will be dealt with by Scottish legislation, as was indicated by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing in response to an oral question from me. She stated:

We have consulted on new law to prohibit extreme pornographic images, and will now work to implement the outcome of the consultation "

Women's organisations in Scotland and organisations with an interest in tackling violence against women would welcome having input into the implementation of that process and are keen to ensure that the issue will still be dealt with as a devolved matter.

The Cabinet Secretary for Justice (Kenny MacAskill) : I am aware of Elaine Smith's track record in quite correctly pursuing the matter. The point that she raises is perfectly valid, and it is appropriate for me to explain clearly that, as is mentioned in the legislative consent memorandum, we are seeking to address various gaps, for example relating to violent offenders doing something significantly wrong. I refer to actions that are taken—as is sought south of the border—regarding those people if it is felt that they might escape punishments or requirements by moving north of the border. Clearly, people have been seeking to do that.

There are matters under the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill that are being legislated on south of the border that relate to pornography. As Elaine Smith has correctly said, legislation that will apply south of the border is being introduced in that regard. As was mentioned and has been dealt with by my ministerial health colleagues, there was a joint Scottish Executive and Home Office consultation on extreme pornography. We have legislative competence on that area here in Scotland.

We are working on proposals and are more than happy to meet Elaine Smith because of the valuable input that she and the people with whom she has communicated and whom she has represented can give. We intend to legislate on the matter in due course, rather than introduce measures that have been decided on south of the border and which are predicated on the situation there. To an extent, the member answered her own question. I can say that, in due course, we intend to address the matter that she correctly raises, but we will do so within the competence of the Parliament and in a manner that is appropriate for Scotland.

Keith Vaz (Leicester East, Labour)

When can we have a debate on the excellent Byron review, which was published this morning? It accepts finally and for the first time that children can be affected by violent video games and access to the internet, that that process needs to be monitored carefully, and that we need a new partnership between parents and the industry. Will the Government accept the recommendations in full? If they are prepared to accept the recommendations, when can the House debate the matter, as so many Members on both sides are keen to do so?

Harriet Harman (Lord Privy Seal, House of Commons)

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his long-standing work on and concern about these issues. That would be a good subject for a topical debate, and I accept what he says as a proposal for such a debate. I thank Tanya Byron for her work. It is common sense that there should be clear labelling so that we can understand the different levels of videos and games. She is absolutely right that there needs to be joint work and that responsibility lies with the Government, the industry and parents, who all need to take action and work together on this.

I want, too, to acknowledge the work of the Internet Watch Foundation, which works with the industry and provides a hotline for parents. The Government accept the findings of the Byron report. We will produce an action plan, but before that it would be a good idea to have a debate in the House.

Simon Hughes (North Southwark & Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)

May I follow the last exchange by joining the tribute to the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee? I support the call for a debate on the labelling of videos and also on the management of amusement arcade machines, which often have equally violent scenes. It is obvious nonsense that we have never managed to get a grip on the sort of violence youngsters can see in places to which they have easy access. If we can debate that soon, it would be welcome.

Early Day Motion 1271

See full article from Parliament

Byron Review

Submitted by Keith Vaz

That this House warmly welcomes the publication of Tanya Byron's report Safer Children in a Digital World; notes that it accepts that violent video games do have an effect on children and therefore their availability to children needs to be properly controlled; considers that it is only through a partnership between parents, retailers and the video games industry that these issues can be tackled; and calls on the Government to implement the recommendations immediately in full.

Signed by

Keith Vaz, Peter Bottomley, Glenda Jackson, Chris McCafferty, Mike Hancock, Katy Clark, Jeremy Corbyn, David Taylor, Martin Caton, Andrew Dismore, David Drew, Mark Durkan, Robert N Wareing, Brian Jenkins, Elfyn Llwyd, Alasdair McDonnell, Hywel Francis, Rudi Vis, Janet Dean, Betty Williams