Lords
Proceedings
11 June 2026
Antisemitism
My Lords, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an antisemitic hoax purporting to detail a Jewish plot for global domination. It was published in imperial Russia in 1903 and exposed as black propaganda, but it is still widely available and quoted as if it is true. Does the Minister agree that moder…
Lords
Proceedings
8 June 2026
Health-related Benefits Assessments
My Lords, can the department cope with more face-to-face assessments? How long will it take to put that into effect? Has the department come up with any other suggestions of how assessments can be made, particularly for people suffering from health issues which may make face-to-face assessments quit…
Lords
Proceedings
4 June 2026
Fertility Treatment Regulation
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for bringing this matter to the House. At present, the HFEA regulations are under a law that is over 35 years old, as identified by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the legislation is unfit for the purpose in many areas. The HFEA has no flexibilit…
Lords
Proceedings
4 June 2026
Young People and Work
My Lords, as we have said, the Milburn review found that one million young people are now classed as NEET—the highest level for 12 years. The report warns that without further action, one in six young people could be in this position within five years. Hospitality vacancies alone have halved in four…
Lords
Proceedings
2 June 2026
Breast Cancer Screening: Women Over 70
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that, but I am not sure that I want to wait until 2027. The facts are compelling. Early detection of breast cancer significantly boosts survival rates, especially of older people, some of whom might not last until 2027. I disagree with the policy of not sending out…
Lords
Proceedings
27 April 2026
Antisemitic Attacks
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, for his views. As a member of the Jewish community, I am grateful for all the speeches of sympathy that have been and are being extended to the Jewish community. I am personally grateful that between the First and Second World Wars my late mother was a…
Lords
Debate
20 April 2026
5 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
Motions D and D1 are the opening Motions of the next group.
Not yet.
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
26 March 2026
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I warmly acknowledge the collegiate and genuinely cross-party approach that has characterised the passage of the Bill through your Lordships’ House. I know I also speak for my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie in expressing our sincere thanks to colleagues across the House for their cons…
Lords
Oral Questions
26 March 2026
Golders Green Ambulance Attack
First of all, I share the noble Lord’s concern about the attack and about the damage that was done. In response to that damage, the Government have replaced those four ambulances that were burned and will help support that organisation in future to rebuild the types of services that the noble Lord r…
Lords
Proceedings
24 March 2026
2 contributions
Youth Unemployment
My Lords, I thank the Minister very much—she did not repeat the Statement, but we have read it—and the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, for raising so many questions the answers to which I look forward to hearing.
We have 739,000 young people aged 16 to 24—nearly 100,000 more than last year—unem…
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but perhaps at this point she could tackle the point I raised, which she touched upon, which is the matching of vacancies with jobs. I gave the example of the Leicester jobcentre, which is doing this. My question, which I hope she answers, is: how are we going t…
Lords
Debate
23 March 2026
6 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, in leading once again on this Bill, I say that this group is bound together by a simple question: is the pensions system working as it should for its members and do we have the evidence to judge this properly? The proposed review is on consolidation, access to impartial pension advice, inj…
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply—and she got to the crux of the matter. We are trying to make sure that there is information and advice for people who do not have easy access to that information and advice. I take her reassurances that the Government are looking to give that information …
+4 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
19 March 2026
3 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, in a less confrontational way than the noble Lord Fuller, from these Benches, I confirm that we support Amendment 49. The Government should not fail to support this. It is in the name of noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and it would increase the time before a pot was considered dormant in ord…
My Lords, I think that everybody in your Lordships’ House wants good investment, whichever side of the House we are on. If you are investing, with apologies, sometimes faith is not enough—you have to see what happens in the market. It is about the choices that are made.
These amendments would allow…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
16 March 2026
2 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, first, I have to declare an interest because after 28 years as a councillor in the London Borough of Barnet, I am in receipt of a modest local government pension. I sometimes forget to declare that and I do so now. We have been lucky to have incisive speeches from the noble Lord, Lord Full…
My Lords, this group asks for greater transparency around Local Government Pension Scheme valuations by requiring benchmarking against insurer pricing and gilt-based discount rates, with clearer explanations where more prudent assumptions are used. There is value in greater openness and comparabilit…
Lords
Oral Questions
16 March 2026
2 contributions
Antisemitism on University Campuses
We will hear from the Lib Dems. Thank you.
Can I be very clear? I hope noble Lords were listening to what I said. I was not conflating the two. There has to be a clear separation. Let us not confuse the two. I have been a strong supporter of the State of Israel for many years and I was an active supporter of Poale Zion, so my views are clear…
Lords
Debate
12 March 2026
Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill
My Lords, in winding up for the Opposition, I say that we have had three remarkable maiden speeches this afternoon. I will make a few comments about each.
I am so pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Teather, has recovered and regained her voice. I have no doubt that we will be hearing much of it.…
Lords
Oral Questions
5 March 2026
Access to Work Fund
My Lords, the noble Lord makes an important point: the scheme helps people to get into and stay in work. It is incredibly wide-ranging, covering anything from a customer applying for a single one-off grant of £100 to buy a piece of equipment, which they might keep for the duration of their work in t…
Lords
Committee Stage
2 March 2026
Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2026
I thank the Minister for her masterly summation of these most welcome regulations, yet again—some of us here are the usual suspects in debate—for having some little insight as to what they mean for our communities and from whence they came as legislative devices.
In a long Westminster stay in both …
Lords
Oral Questions
2 March 2026
Child Poverty Strategy
I will say two things. Children did not fall into poverty overnight and they will not all come out of it overnight. Poverty has a range of drivers. We are determined not simply to address this problem now but to find a way of tackling it in the long term. However, since the noble Lord wants examples…
Lords
Committee Stage
23 February 2026
5 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
That is always best.
My Lords, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that no apology is needed.
This is a wide-ranging set of review and process amendments. The noble Viscount, Lord Younger, explained what I think he described as his “modest” amendments—indeed, they are. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, said that this wa…
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
5 February 2026
2 contributions
Jobs Market
My Lords—
I am, of course, very much a glass-half-full type of person, but one of the core reforms that the Government put through in the Employment Rights Act was to ensure that zero-hours contracts do not drive standards to the bottom. We are about rewarding good employers and ensuring that they are not und…
Lords
Oral Questions
5 February 2026
2 contributions
Youth Unemployment
My Lords—
This is precisely one of the questions that Alan Milburn will consider in his review. There appears to be a growing number of young people who are out of work for whom mental health issues are part of the reason. For many of those young people, it may well be that they would be better off in appropr…
Lords
Committee Stage
5 February 2026
5 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, this amendment has the distinction of being in a grouping all of its own, which obviously shows how important it is. The proposed new clause in it would require the Secretary of State to publish a report within 12 months on
“the impact of consolidation in the occupational pensions market”…
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that; it gives me some reassurance, and I am always happy to say when that happens. The aim of the amendment is to improve the Bill, not to undermine it. Some of the things that the Minister has suggested may happen are already happening. When figures are quoted qu…
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
3 February 2026
Child Poverty: Faith-based and Voluntary Sector Organisations
That is a great question, if I may say so—there are some good questions coming out today. We absolutely are not interested in talking solely to large charities. We are interested in talking to them too, but we need to engage locally. As I am sure the noble Lord knows, one way that this Government ar…
Lords
Oral Questions
3 February 2026
Two-child Benefit Cap: Foreign-born Children
My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right about the effects of this. The Labour Party in government pledged to tackle child poverty. What this Government have brought forward is a child poverty strategy which, including removing the two-child limit, will bring another 550,000 children out of pove…