I confess that I am slightly confused. The Minister rightly referred to the Data (Use and Access) Act, and we spent a lot of time then discussing the introduction of digital verification services. At the time, those were described as having pretty much the same benefits as are described in this Oral…
The noble Lord makes an important point. I share with noble Lords that in the UK ransomware is considered the greatest of all serious and organised cybercrime threats and is deemed a risk to the UK’s national security by the National Crime Agency. In January 2025, the Home Office launched a consulta…
My Lords, I, too, am delighted to be able to welcome the Minister back to his place. I should have done so earlier, in the Chamber, but I am very pleased to see him there. I am grateful to him for introducing these three important instruments and for so clearly setting out the Government’s rationale…
My Lords, I will be brief. I am sure that noble Lords feel that they have heard enough from newspaper editors already. As another former newspaper editor, I was going to sit quietly, but I must take issue with the comment from the noble Baroness opposite that Rupert Murdoch was always an unseen infl…
My Lords, I have two amendments in this group, Amendments 50 and 67, which, like the amendments the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, has just spoken to, which I have also added my name to, relate to day-one unfair dismissal rights. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Leong and Lord Katz, for making time to discus…
The noble Lord makes a very interesting point. Let me just give your Lordships an insight into what Companies House has done since the Act came into force. We have been cleaning up the Companies House database, and we have a five-year timeframe to really clean it up. The first thing we will do is to…
We have scrapped a number of the medical record requirements to get rid of some of the silly things—for example, around dental records. Alongside that, we are making sure that, in the recruitment process, there is electronic access to GP’s records. That means that instead of days or weeks or months …
My Lords, I want to take this opportunity to thank the noble Lords, Lord Vaux, Lord Collins and Lord Mackinlay, for being our members on the programme board. I endorse the noble Lord’s words about the work that is being done. All of us should take the opportunity, if we have not already done so, to …
My Lords, I hope to be even more brief. I have sympathy for this amendment, but it is backward-looking, as it relates to situations that have already happened. We also need to stop them happening in the future. These problems have arisen because of a very badly designed benefit. It has a cliff-edge …
Am I not right in thinking that that is about to change under the new Data (Use and Access) Act?
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 326A on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, who apologises that she is unable to be here.
The amendment is simple: it would require the Secretary of State or the relevant devolved counterpart to have regard to the impact of any regulations made under the Bil…
My Lords, I shall be brief. When we discussed a previous group on Part 1 that was similar to this, I believe the Minister stated that those using search or other powers would always be accompanied by a police constable, so I suppose I am looking for confirmation that that is the same in this case. I…
Can the Minister explain why the DWP needs that power but the PSFA does not? The two clauses in the Bill are otherwise identical and differ only in respect of the reasonable force element. If the PSFA does not need it, I do not understand why the DWP does.
That is a good question, and the Government keep this under review at all times. We find ourselves in very difficult times; since the fuel crisis in 2022, we have been dealing with a very difficult situation, and this is under review all the time.
My Lords, my Amendment 77 is, as the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, has just said, slightly different from the others. I thought about degrouping it, but I decided that life was too short.
Amendment 77 would introduce a reasonableness test—a discussion we have had before—so that an authorised officer must…
I understand the noble Baroness’s point. It was because it said “reasonable grounds” in the first half that the fact that it was missing in the second half—paragraph (b)—stuck out: you have to have reasonable grounds, but then you just have to consider. But my point is more than that. Let us imagine…
My Lords, I was not going to speak on this group, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, proved the other day, Amendment 60A is not necessary because Clause 12 sets out clearly that these orders can be used only where there has been a final determination of the amount owing by the court or where…
My Lords, I listened to the Minister, and I listened to her the other day on the same subjects regarding DDOs. A question occurs. In many cases, the amount owed is set by the court. Why, then, does the court not decide how that amount should be repaid? Why do we have to go through all these processe…
The noble Baroness mentioned a moment ago that a direct deduction order can be made only when a person has already agreed that an amount is recoverable. Could she point out where that is in the Bill? I cannot find it anywhere.
On Amendment 55, I understand that 24 months may not be the right number, but it cannot be right that an order can stay open indefinitely so that, 10 or 15 years later, the PSFA can suddenly start taking money from the account again. There must be some sort of drop-dead point; I wonder where that sh…
I beg the noble Baroness’s pardon but, if the PSFA can charge more than it recovers, is that not a massive disincentive for the public authority to ask it to come in to begin with, given that it has to ask ?
My Lords, I will very quickly make a couple of comments on Amendments 9 and 10. First, on Amendment 9, I have an amendment later in Committee that inserts a reasonableness point in a similar way, so I support this. However, I wonder whether this amendment is actually in the wrong place; I suggest th…
Again, I totally understand that frustration. What is important to motorists is that it is transparent when they arrive, so that they are able to make their own choice about whether they wish to use that car park. When you have a sign 12 feet up from the ground that you cannot read from your car, or…
My Lords, the Minister mentioned the recruitment gap earlier. I had the privilege last week of spending the week with the Royal Gurkha Rifles, and I must say how impressed I was. We take only 250 Gurkha recruits every year, out of 12,500 keen applicants. I suggest that there is a potential opportuni…
My Lords, we now come to the general subject of unfair dismissal rights from day one, which we have just touched on in relation to apprentices. Many of the same arguments are going to apply more widely. For me, this is most damaging part of the Bill because the unintended, but well understood, conse…
Does the noble Lord accept that these are not simply arguments that people around this Chamber are putting forward but matters that are in the Bill’s impact assessment? It is the Government’s own statement that the Bill will have these impacts. It is not being made up by any of us: the Government ac…
My Lords, I am very glad to see the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, on the speakers’ list for this debate; I look forward to her maiden speech and her future contributions to this House.
We all need to acknowledge the understandable frustration, felt from government downwards, about wast…
Through regulation, including the Online Safety Act, companies are now required to stop fraudsters abusing their business models. All parties with a role to play should prioritise tackling fraud, including the tech and telco sectors, which are key partners in the prevention of fraud. However, more c…
I will certainly look separately into the noble Lord’s question in regard to BT and so on. He will be aware that since March 2025, Ofcom’s illegal content code of practice has come into effect. That means that platforms such as Meta and the others he has mentioned, which contribute through hosting i…
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Fox, I am a little puzzled by the groupings between this and the previous amendments. I have gone the opposite route and decided to speak to this group rather than the last one, but everything that I say in this group applies equally to Amendment 75, which would h…
My Lords, I have to say that I appreciate the explanation that we have just had from the Minister, but I and others remain disturbed by the Government’s decision not to accept the amendment, which was not just rational but well crafted, introduced by your Lordships in this House. The underlying Bill…