The audience responds with a laugh as Brett Hennig suggests in his TED talk to replace all the politicians in Parliament with randomly selected people. Brett, like many others, believes that in this proposition lies the answer to key modern-day issues. These include climate change, the refugee crisis, and rising inequality, but most of all it provides a solution to what he calls our “broken [democratic] system”.

It isn’t as easy as putting a group of random people in a room. Brett is referring to a citizens’ assembly, a deliberative and structured process where the power of policymaking is given to the people. “A citizens’ assembly is essentially bringing together a randomly selected but representative sample of people to talk about a political topic,” says Brett, director of the Sortition Foundation that helps select people for assemblies.

The past year has seen an “explosion” of citizens’ assemblies in Europe. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an international organisation that assists with policymaking, is calling it the deliberative wave. The assemblies are being utilized by councils, governments, and public bodies.

This deliberative wave can be traced across the UK. Some of the many places include Birmingham, London, Leeds, and Edinburgh. The citizens’ Assemblies tackle topics from transport to health services. The list of locations and issues goes on. The Sortition Foundation alone has helped set up 20 assemblies in the past year.

One of the three demands from climate campaign group Extinction Rebellion is to institute citizens’ assemblies on ecological issues. Their website says that the assemblies are a “fair and transparent” method to achieve “climate justice”.

The key to a successful citizens’ assembly lies in the process. Caroline Pakel, Extinction Rebellion co-ordinator for people’s assemblies, says: “There’s an input stage, a deliberative stage and then an output stage.”

The input stage is where the group hears from experts to inform their discussion, these could include scientists, doctors, or even people who have had personal experience with the topic. Caroline highlights the need for professional facilitators in the deliberative stage as they impose rules of a “reasoned discussion” to help the participants arrive at a joint conclusion. The group presents their findings in the output stage, where it is recorded and presented to the rest of the group.

Caroline finds they often come to similar conclusions, as the assemblies create what she calls a “collective intelligence”.

Caroline says: “We can all do it together but none of us can claim that I had the idea because it’s been moulded by our sharing. So, when it comes to the consultation at the end… it comes very naturally. So, we don’t fight over ideas. It’s very organic, very collaborative.”

One of the most successful examples was the Irish citizens’ assembly held on abortion. With criticism coming from the United Nations, and politicians anxious about receiving backlash, Ireland gathered 100 people to discuss whether the ban should be lifted. They heard the medical and legal position to inform their deliberation and concluded that there should be unrestricted access to abortion in Ireland. A referendum was given to the public and 66% agreed with the recommendation from the assembly.

Siobhán Fenton, a freelance reporter on Irish politics, says: “The fact that the citizens’ assembly supported it put pressure on the government to set a referendum, pick a specific date in the near future, and make sure it actually happened.”

The abortion assembly was held in November 2016, with the referendum in 2018, and the law was finally brought into action in January 2019. Despite its success, Siobhán says that citizens’ assemblies are not fit for time sensitive issues “as there could be lots of irreparable damage” whilst the assemblies are taking place.

As such a widely experimented process, there are various ways in which they have been utilised. Last year, a council in East Belgium set up a permanent citizens’ assembly that tackles a variety of issues. Their conclusions are presented to parliament, which is enforced to engage with them. Parliament announces their position a year later, whether they decide to pursue the recommendations or not.

Citizens’ assemblies have encountered another problem, one that is very familiar to global politics; underrepresentation of women. Despite using a representative selection method, Siobhán says that women are more likely to drop out because they have “caring duties”.

“It’s the majority of men who tend to take part in the citizens’ assemblies… and that does mean that unfortunately, women tend to be blocked out from quite an important democratic process,” she says.

A skew towards male participants is not the only bias that lies in citizens’ assemblies. The Sortition Foundation has noticed that higher educated and wealthy people are more likely to respond to a citizens’ assembly invitation. Brett’s theory is that “the more highly educated you are, the more confident you are in expressing your opinion”.

To combat this skew, the Sortition Foundation sends 80% of the invitations to randomly selected households and the other 20% to impoverished areas of the country using the index of multiple deprivation.

One of the reasons why citizens’ assemblies have been experimented with is because there is not one singular formula. Laurie Moulton-Ulrich, a member of the Extinction Rebellion citizens’ assembly working group, says: “Looking across the world and experience, there’s no cookie-cutter approach to citizens’ assembly.”

Laurie adds that assemblies are used so differently for different purposes and a variety of topics, that there cannot be one fit-all version of the process.

This also means that Brett’s suggestion to replace all the politicians with randomly selected people is an unrealistic one. Laurie argues that citizens’ assemblies aren’t a method to replace those in power, but a tool to help put people at the forefront of democracy.

Siobhan says: “It can help give politicians a certain amount of momentum or legitimacy, but I don’t think it would work if you are having citizens’ assemblies on every single topic.”

Environmental prosecutions have been declining since 2007 in the UK and are currently at an all-time low. However, waste management has been the least affected sector, as it has not seen such a stark fall in the number of prosecutions.

Emma Tattersdill, partner in Freeths’ specialist environment team, says one of the reasons for the decrease of prosecutions is awareness. She says: “Businesses have become more aware of the need to comply with environmental regulation.”

Despite this, waste management has seen the least decrease in prosecutions. It saw a decline of 71% of cases since 2007, whereas all other prosecutions decreased by 98%.

Anne Brosnan, Chief Prosecutor at the Environment Agency, says: “We continue to see high levels of criminal activity in the waste sector which it remains appropriate to deal with by formal interventions such as prosecution.”

Emma says: “The waste sector has been a real hot topic for environmental regulation over recent years. The reason for that is, it’s one sector that has been identified in the past as having a financial incentive to non-compliance.”

One of the costs in this sector is permit fees. This involves paying a permit fee, an annual fee, and the costs to ensure the business complies with the permit.

Nearly 80% of the waste management prosecutions that took place last year was because of non-compliance with these permit fees.

Last year, Winters Haulage, a waste management company, was fined £480,000 for storing thousands of tonnes of combustible waste without a permit. This was the fourth largest environmental fine that year.

Emma says: “The regulators have been keen to demonstrate that they are really hot on taking enforcement action against people in the waste sector who weren’t properly compliant.”

Changes to the landfill tax in 2018 saw regulators having greater legal powers when dealing with offenders not paying the tax. According to Emma, it introduced a penalty for those depositing waste illegally.

Waste management prosecutions have been declining since 2016, two years before these new laws. Although not as sharp as other sectors, it has seen a decrease of 67% of cases between 2016 and 2019.

Louise Smail, a corporate risk consultant, says: “Prosecutions are only the tip of the iceberg.”

She says that undertakings are one of the reasons for this fall. Instead of being prosecuted, undertakings allow companies to pay towards an environmental project, organisation, or charity.

In 2019, Whitehouse Centre, a farm in Northhumberland, was found breaking the permit regulations. They agreed to donate £1,500 to the local wildlife trust.

Undertakings may not be the only reason for this decrease. An Unearthed investigation last year revealed department cuts to the Environment Agency. Since July 2016, nearly 1,000 of their staff had been transferred to other departments to help with Brexit.

They also revealed the number of site inspections by the Environment Agency decreased by over a third in the past four years, which correlates with the decline of waste management prosecutions.

With law changes to landfill tax, the increase of environmental fines and companies utilising enforcement undertakings, both Emma and Louise are unsure of how this will affect the future of waste management prosecutions. This uncertainty coincides with the environment agency experiencing unprecedented cuts.

Patsy screamed into the microphone, fuelling the crowd of drunk metalheads. Heavy guitar riffs backed the growling of demonic and violent imagery. She sings: “I can’t help myself, but enjoy your demise”, before erupting into a false chord scream. For their second gig, Inferno Noir weren’t holding back. Patsy admitted this gig was better than the first, “mainly cause I was drunk so I wasn’t as nervous”. They announced their last song, as the crowd exploded into a moshpit.

Just like her red and black mane, there is more than one colour to Patsy Collins. I’m greeted by a calm English accent in a rowdy pub, as we make small talk about her wedding plans for the Summer.

Patsy spends her Sunday afternoons “Instagram whoring”. She takes pictures to build her personal page, and publicise Inferno Noir

Before securing a permanent nine-to-five job in beauty therapy and then health-care, Patsy worked as a freelance makeup artist. For a moment her excitement drained, she revealed: “I used to be a starving artist, I know what it’s like to constantly be worrying about where my next pay check is coming from.”

Her routine as a nine-to-five worker and an after-dark metal front-woman is not the only noticeable contrast. Patsy’s singing style alternates between growling and clean vocals, as she appreciates the dynamic of the two vocal styles. She explains: “I’m not always one kind of person, there’s two sides of the same coin.”

It took the band four years to finally get on stage

After relentless persuasion from the drummer and her now fiancé, Ed Pool, she gave in to sing on his tracks; forming Inferno Noir.

Patsy finally had an outlet, being able to write lyrics of what inspired her, “instead of going off what everyone else wanted to do.”

The making of their debut album could easily be described as a tragedy. It involved the lead guitarist leaving because “his heart wasn’t in it”, a two-year failed search for a drummer, and Ed suffering chronic migraines halting all progress for 6 months.

A guitarist and a bassist later, Ed finally agreed to drum. Patsy emphasised over football cheers in the pub: “Heavy metal drummers are really hard to find in London.” Sitting next to us, Ed raised his hands and cried: “We’re a dying breed, man.”

Having sung in bands which failed to take off, Patsy was determined to not let Inferno meet the same fate. Aged twelve, she started a pop-punk band with friends from her Thai temple. Smiling, she reminisces: “We just enjoyed rock music, we were twelve and thought yes let’s form a band, let’s go for it.”

Metal is known as a male dominated genre in a male dominated industry. Currently, Amy Lee and Jen Majura of Evanescence are the only female musicians in the top 40 metal and rock chart. However, when asked about being a female in a pre-dominantly male genre, Patsy frankly responds with: “I don’t give a shit. I literally don’t give a shit.”

The “don’t give a shit” attitude is reflected within the band. Ed explained: “We always had the mentality that if people like it then that’s fantastic, but if people don’t then they can fuck off.”

Having only been in the scene for a short time, Patsy realistically predicts: “I imagine that we will definitely face some sexism, in which case I’d probably throw some shit back at them, cause I don’t give a shit.”

“I was a freelance makeup artist from age of 18,

I’m used to having to prove myself all the time.”

Raised as a Buddhist and having attended two Christian schools, Patsy does not have the “greatest relationship” with religion. Being told what to do was not appealing, because “the alternative is I’m going to burn in hell.” She bluntly said: “I don’t give a shit what you do with your life, just don’t tell me what to do with mine.”

Patsy clarified she’s not a religious person, before revealing a fascination for biblical stories and their “pillars of culture”.

The religious poem Dante’s Inferno had lyrical influence on a few of their songs. ‘Existence is Futile’ is based on the opinion of immortal beings on humans. She asked: “Do they think we’re being petty, are they playing a game with us or do they not give a shit?”

Succubus was a monumental song for the band, both lyrically and musically. Written from the perspective of a female demon, the song describes her taking hold of someone, “basically fucking about with their mind”.

It also explores how mental illnesses were seen as demons, and the sufferers were thought to be possessed. Patsy revealed she suffers from anxiety, and the song acted as a personification to help her cope with it. She recalled some of the lyrics: “They see me crawling, scratching inside your head. Is the voice not enough, do you need me to scream instead?”

Succubus also defined the genre of Inferno Noir. It turned the originally planned hard rock/blues band, into a heavy metal outfit.

A family photo of the band before releasing their debut album

Heavy metal is a genre riddled with sub-genres. However, asking where Inferno belonged resulted in a cry of “I don’t know”. Patsy explained that this was partly due to the various inspirations of the band members. Her inspirations drew from nu-metal bands such as Machine Head, whereas the guitarist Maro is inspired by death metal. The band does not even come under female fronted metal, Patsy explained, “because that tends to be symphonic”. She ended her unsure response with a burst of nervous laughter.

The future of Inferno Noir had already been mapped out. Patsy repeated an urgent need to perform more live shows, for “experience of how our live set pans out”, and how different audiences react. She honestly admits: “This is all very very new to us, we’re not sure what we’re doing, we’re just trying to make the best of what we can.”