All the latest news from Parliament – the House of Commons, the House of Lords and Committees. The Attorney General and the head of the Crown Prosecution Service will face questions, Nigel Farage plans a new Bill to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, MPs question Yvette Cooper and Pat McFadden and debate property services charges and end-of-life care. In the Lords, Peers will hear from hospice and care sector representatives on the assisted dying bill as well as discussing Ukraine. The Employment Rights, English Devolution and Community Empowerment and Sentencing bills reach their final Commons stages, while Peers will debate Ukraine and consider the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
The new Parliamentary Primer, published by the INTER PARES project (led by International IDEA), explores how parliamentary systems deal with crises. Written in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, it looks at how parliaments can protect democratic principles and ensure good governance during crisis. It documents examples from across the world of what parliaments did to: enable their continued functioning including through innovative solutions such as virtual sessions; give governments powers that are necessary during a crisis to respond rapidly, particularly when it comes to protecting public health through measures like social distancing; conduct effective oversight of government actions especially to ensure respect for citizen rights; and learn lessons from a crisis that feed into future preparations.