My Lords, I was a member of the committee. The committee noted that we did not take evidence from terminally ill people. That was not a decision that we took as a committee. Suggestions were made and the clerks did not, in the end, manage to provide us with witnesses who were terminally ill, but it …
The difficulty we had was of course with time. We did not take a lot of evidence. The Committee will know that there was a request that we should take written evidence. It would have been possible for us to take written evidence from a number of jurisdictions, which could then have formed a body of …
My Lords, I feel that I am a veteran of this issue, like many other Members of your Lordships’ House. Indeed, I was a Health Minister in 2009 and 2010, and I think that might have been the first time I had a huge row with civil servants because they would not let me say sorry. That is something that…
My Lords, the Government have pledged to halve serious violent crime, rebuild public confidence in policing and strengthen our criminal justice system. In my judgment, the Crime and Policing Bill represents a significant step toward these vital goals.
Reflecting on the Bill, I am reminded of my ear…
My noble friend is right. As the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who is in her place, acknowledges in her letter, it is important that the Secretary of State can take a fully informed decision. That is also why, although the letter was received today, officials have approached the…
My Lords, the House will know that I have a moral position on this, but I am not going to talk about that.
This has been a most remarkable debate, and all of us from both sides have learned from what has been said. What has come out of it seems to be, first, that this is a very difficult issue. Sec…
LordsOral Questions18 September 20252 contributions
My Lords, as set out in the 10-year health plan, this Government have an ambition to offer newborn genomic testing as part of routine NHS care, subject to evidence gathered through the Generation Study, which is using whole-genome sequencing to test 100,000 newborns for over 200 rare conditions. Wit…
My Lords, the Generation Study is particularly designed to inform policy of the type that my noble friend is rightly concerned with. These are extremely important issues, and I am glad to have spoken to our noble friend Lord Winston about these matters. Perhaps I could give the assurance that the st…
My Lords, I will make very few remarks. I am an active humanist and I would like to identify my support for the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and my noble friend Lord Watson. I hope that the Government will take heed of what these rather modest amendments propose. If there…
I do not feel that my noble friend the Minister has answered the questions asked by my noble friend Lord Watson asked about why this is a change. I do not expect to make any progress right now, but I do think that, before Report, we will need to discuss it further.
My Lords, Friendly WiFi provides certification showing that public wifi meets essential safety standards by filtering harmful content. Parliament places the upmost importance on ensuring the online safety of all who use its wifi. Given that the highest level of filtering and blocking technology is i…
My Lords, it is my understanding that Friendly WiFi certification is designed to reassure the users of publicly advertised wifi networks that essential safety standards are met and harmful content is blocked. It was intended primarily for retailers, hotels and transport companies, which advertise th…
On the increased protection, there is provision already on the statute book, in Section 3A of the Female Genital Mutilation Act, which is about a failure to protect girls under 16. On the civil side, the family court also has a power to impose protection orders that put in place, for example, restri…
My Lords, I recently had a major operation by robotic surgery. It was very successful; I was out and at home within two and a half days. How will the rollout of this happen? For example, I happen to know that the Royal College of Surgeons at the moment offers only one online module on robotic surger…
At the moment, family hubs can provide language support for parents from two years through the home learning scheme. Will the Government consider ensuring that that policy covers children from birth? A great deal of good can be done, as many noble Lords have said, for children’s language development…
I would like my noble friend to expand on why it is so important that we tackle the issue of ill and disabled people being disproportionately out of work, looking not only at universal credit and the broken system of access to work but at ingrained prejudice and broken mental health services, partic…
We raise these issues with the Indian Government, as my noble friend would expect us to. Clearly, it is for India to make its own choices, and it has been many decades, thankfully, since we were in a position to do otherwise, but we continue to have the appropriate conversations that she would wish …
My Lords, the strength of feeling around legally recognising humanist weddings is clear. I assure my noble friend that the Government understand the issues, including the key importance not just of weddings but of marriage itself, and we are looking at them with the utmost care. As the Parliamentary…
As I think my noble friend acknowledges, this is indeed a very complex issue which goes far beyond humanist marriage. The Law Commission highlighted the complexities of the law in this area and concluded that exercising the order-making power, which is what I think my noble friend wants us to do, is…
My Lords, I have put my name to this amendment in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Young of Cookham, though not because I believe my Government are not doing a great deal about early years—I am sure my noble friend the Minister will be armed with information about what…
I invite the noble Baroness to acknowledge that this Government, since they were elected, have committed £1 billion to school meals. It would be nice if she would mention that, as well as everything else, which I am sure we all agree about.
My Lords, in many ways the test of the Government’s success in reforming public services will be whether we can crack the tough nut of children’s social care. It has been quite clear from the debates on the last three groups that this is a major challenge. I declare my interests as the founding chai…
How does the noble Lord feel that we need to make the transition to the kind of system that we want, if he is so worried about the reduction in capacity? How do you deal with the profit gouging that has gone on? If you sort of say you do not have profit gouging, what happens when the suppliers walk …
My Lords, it was a great honour to listen to the last debate. I commend my noble friend Lord Patel for leading a wonderful debate. However, we move on, and I shall explain to the Committee why I am opposing this clause standing part.
First, I have always understood that a Private Member’s Bill in e…
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. Like everyone here, I thank my noble friend Lady Bull for her strenuous efforts to get this important topic debated and her thought-provoking opening speech.
As ever, I must declare an interest in that I still teach week…
My Lords, here we go in Committee and here we have had, probably, our first Second Reading speech from a colleague. I will not make a Second Reading speech; I will address this amendment, which I think is unnecessary. We have a perfectly sensible, comprehensive description of what this Bill seeks to…
This is a Second Reading speech, but it is very interesting. Does the noble Lord accept that the charitable sector and social enterprises probably have quite an important role to play in the delivery of residential care for children and that flexibility will help with the finances of that because th…
My Lords, I declare an interest as a non-executive director of the Whittington Hospital, which is my local hospital. It has a very strong volunteer scheme and is recruiting volunteers all the time. Can my noble friend the Minister assure me that this is about enhancing the work that is done locally,…
This is an important point, and I am sure something that the EHRC will consider as part of its upcoming consultation, which I am sure my noble friend and others will engage with. It will be for event organisers such as the English Chess Federation to consider the implications of the ruling and the E…
My Lords, it is an honour to speak in this debate. I declare my interest as a governor of the Shoreditch Park academy in Hackney. I will focus on the proposed measures that I think threaten academies. Many noble Lords have already made brilliant, passionate speeches based on deep knowledge and exper…
I think I have been clear to this House, both today and last week, that the statutory code of practice that the EHRC is responsible for producing will be the legal basis on which there will be interpretation of the judgment. I welcome the noble Baroness the chair of the EHRC’s commitment to ensuring…