User suggestion: voting topic on civil liberties

[MyfanwyNixon]

I was wondering if there is sufficient voting or other basis to reflect/highlight a politician’s positions on civil liberties issues? Privacy, freedom of the press, freedom of speech etc?

[RichardTaylor]

We do already cover matters which would come under "civil liberties" eg.

• mass retention of information about communications
• mass surveillance of people’s communications and activities
• ID cards

it's probably more informative and useful to cover issues more specifically rather than to have statements specifically on "civil liberties", though we could combine those subjects into "civil liberties" - it is an option. We want to be careful about having too much duplication.

Collecting civil liberties matters together under a heading on MPs' voting record pages is something which could be done, currently they're under "Home Affairs" which is actually probably a bit of political jargon rather than a heading which is generally understood. We could split the "Home Affairs" heading into "Policing and Civil Liberties" and "Immigration and Asylum"; that would leave "allowing ministers to intervene in inquests" without an obvious heading to sit under though.

As always what we track depends on what MPs vote on.

There have been votes on encouraging membership of press regulator https://www.publicwhip.org.uk/policy.php?id=6768

we could, and might, show that on TheyWorkForYou, but it's not so clear cut as the positions we usually show - it's not for/against "freedom of the press" or "press regulation".

Some key motions on press regulation passed without a vote eg. https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2013-03-18c.752.2#g763.0

we have an issue for dealing with such motions at: #629

I can't see any votes on "Freedom of Speech"