Lords
Oral Questions
13 January 2026
Youth Guarantee Scheme: Evaluation
The noble Baroness, even when partly incapacitated, is always forthright in her questions—I wish her good luck with her recovery.
If it were the activities of this Government that were responsible for youth unemployment and the numbers of young people not earning and learning, we would not have inh…
Lords
Committee Stage
12 January 2026
3 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, we come to another group of largely probing amendments, which I welcome. A good deal of the process on the Bill will be about unpacking what the Government intend, how these provisions will work in practice and what the industry can anticipate. Certainly, those are the questions that have …
I know how frustrating it is when Members keep getting up to ask questions, but I have to do this. The Minister referred to a backstop. For what purpose? In what circumstances would it be used? Can the Minister help us understand that?
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
18 December 2025
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I join the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, in saying how much I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady White, especially since I too live in Tufnell Park.
It is always a pleasure to follow the Minister. We welcome an important set of proposals f…
Lords
Oral Questions
20 November 2025
Private Equity
My Lords, as I have disclosed in the register of interests, I serve on Oxford University’s endowment investment committee, which allocates capital to private equity. There is always a risk that a debate on the role of private equity will be based on dated views of the industry, characterised by asse…
Lords
Proceedings
13 November 2025
Economic and Taxation Policies: Jobs, Growth and Prosperity
My Lords, the Government have spoken about growth as their priority from day one and, to be fair, they are doing a few good things. They have carried on the Help to Grow: Management programme, which was started by the previous Government. Some 10,000 businesses have already gone through the programm…
Lords
Oral Questions
13 November 2025
Jobs Market
My Lords, we have made clear what our ambitions are with Get Britain Working and that we will have metrics and publish regular data on them. One thing I want to take the opportunity to say at the Dispatch Box is that I have seen headlines this week suggesting that large numbers of people are flowing…
Lords
Debate
10 November 2025
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I support the amendments in this group, so ably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Russell.
Amendment 27 asks for a statute of requirement for police officers to undertake an anti-social behaviour impact assessment when a victim reports three incidents of anti-social behaviour in a six-mo…
Lords
Oral Questions
15 October 2025
Equality Act 2010: Meaning of “Sex”
I do not accept the noble Baroness’s assertion. The department received the final draft code on 4 September. It is 300 pages long. That code needs detailed consideration because, as my noble friend pointed out, we want to avoid uncertainty. We want to ensure, as the Equality and Human Rights Commiss…
Lords
Oral Questions
11 September 2025
Youth Unemployment
My Lords, the noble Baroness commented on vacancies. She is very aware, as I am, of the facts of the economy and will know that vacancies have been declining steadily since spring 2022, when they reached a historic high. The decline in vacancies is a continuation of longer-term trends, but the noble…
Lords
Oral Questions
10 September 2025
Sickness Benefits: In-person Interviews
The noble Baroness asks an interesting question. I do not know whether it was on her watch but she may remember that, in 2022, under the previous Government, the department ran a trial to evaluate whether health assessments conducted by different channels led to different outcomes—that is, did it ma…
Lords
Oral Questions
10 September 2025
Child Poverty Strategy
I thank the noble Baroness for her kind words. I am very grateful and I agree with her very much indeed on that—I am very glad to be here as well.
She makes a really important point. One of the reasons we have taken our time and been thoughtful about the child poverty strategy is that it cannot eve…
Lords
Debate
22 July 2025
Universal Credit Bill
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her typically comprehensive response within the limits of the time available. I thank everyone who has contributed to this extremely rich debate.
Your Lordships’ House has done what we can within the limits of the procedure allowed us, and I particularly note the …
Lords
Oral Questions
21 July 2025
3 contributions
Weight Loss Medication
My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I declare something of an interest, in that I have used them and they work.
I look forward to the noble Baroness’s testimony. The obesity medicines Wegovy and Mounjaro are already available to eligible patients attending NHS specialist weight management services. In June, the NHS began making Mounjaro available through primary care. Around 220,000 adults will be considered …
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Proceedings
2 July 2025
Welfare Reform
My Lords, I apologise for the repetition, but for 32 years I dedicated my working life to helping people into work, not just by finding them jobs but by opening their eyes to the opportunity, purpose and dignity that meaningful employment brings. I do not rise today to lecture the Minister on the ch…
Lords
Oral Questions
26 June 2025
NHS and Social Care: Joint Working
The noble Baroness is quite right in her observations on the need to move to much better services here. First, on her point about discharge letters, appointment letters and so on, the Government have already committed funding and direct support to local areas that are not currently providing what we…
Lords
Oral Questions
24 June 2025
Social Care
It will come as no surprise to the noble Baroness that I cannot give her the detail on that question, but I will be very happy to get back to her with an update on where we have got to. Obviously, the whole area of digitalisation is another of the pillars in moving the health service forward. So man…
Lords
Debate
23 June 2025
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I support my noble friend in her endeavours with this amendment. We worked on child maintenance together in the department. It became a real campaign. We were turning every stone to ensure that money that was due to children got to them. I could keep your Lordships here all night with the …
Lords
Debate
19 June 2025
3 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 151. My friend—the noble Lord, Lord Addington—has done my job for me, but I will not be done out of my few moments to speak.
I am absolutely thrilled that the Bill seeks to strengthen the support provided to looked-after children and care leavers. I seek to ad…
The noble Lord’s point about resources and stretching people too far is well made. I would never want to do that, but these people are doing it now. I sat with a lady who has worked for the jobcentre for 25 years. People she has helped still come to her before they get into trouble, and I just think…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
12 June 2025
4 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 80, which
“seeks to include career and employment opportunities as a part of educational achievement”.
I have spoken many times in this Chamber, and will probably do so again, about the need to ensure that we an educational system that prevents young people …
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 97 and 99 in the name of my noble friend Lord Farmer, who cannot be here today. His support for Amendment 99, and mine, is grounded in—
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
11 June 2025
United Kingdom Jobs Market
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. She is right to identify the huge personal impact of long periods of economic inactivity and joblessness, as well as the obvious deleterious economic impact. The Government’s Get Britain Working White Paper sets out a bold and comprehensive vision to tack…
Lords
Proceedings
10 June 2025
2 contributions
Winter Fuel Payment
My Lords, I rise with a sense of relief, although not without regret: relief that the Government have chosen to reverse a policy that has caused distress and fear among our oldest and most vulnerable citizens, and regret that such a policy was every pursued in the first place. This reversal gives us…
That is not true.
Lords
Debate
20 May 2025
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 3 in my name, which is cosigned by my noble friend Lord Effingham. The Bill states that
“the authority must offer a family group decision-making meeting to the child’s parents or any other person with parental responsibility for the child”.
In moving this amendm…
I thank the Minister for her reply, which was very encouraging, as especially was the spirit in which the debate happened. Things seem to have calmed somewhat.
I did not quite get what I wanted, so I will reserve the right to think about it for Report, but I hope we can keep the dialogue going. For…
Lords
Oral Questions
20 May 2025
Healthy Life Expectancy
I congratulate the noble Baroness on being an example to us all. She referred to learning from international examples, including Japan, and indeed we do. We know that some 12 million adults and approximately 2 million children are not physically active enough, so we are developing targeted plans to …
Lords
Debate
15 May 2025
Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to today’s thoughtful and decidedly not-at-all dull debate. Committee will be some fun indeed. It was a particular pleasure to hear the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, whom I welcome to the spreadsheet fan club. Frankly, I co…
Lords
Oral Questions
12 May 2025
Autism Employment Review
Well, that is an offer I cannot refuse. When I used to work with families with children, there was a saying that every child deserves to have at least one adult unreasonably committed to their flourishing. In this House, I think those adults are particularly ever-present, and I can imagine that Olli…