My Lords, why do the Government need another review to tell us what is obvious: that excluding nearly one in four fathers from our system of paternity pay is unfair and needs fixing? Becoming a new father can be stressful and expensive, as well as wonderful and joyous. But if the Government are comm…
Does the Minister recognise that the lack of proper pay is the number one reason for a lack of take-up of existing rights? Will she confirm whether the new day one right to paternity leave is for paid or unpaid leave?
My Lords, I have been struck by the cross-party tone of this debate. I continue this tone with a short intervention on the closely related matter of how ministerial pay is determined.
In January, Peter Kyle, the Business Secretary, proposed a change to IPSA’s pay setting, with which I heartily agre…
The noble Baroness is absolutely right about the importance of the involvement of anyone who is in a parental position. Involvement starts before birth, in helping to prepare both parents for the huge changes that are about to happen. This is one of the factors that we will look into, to make sure t…
My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 218A. Before I do so, on Amendment 212, the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, made a valiant attempt to square the circle of opposing some forms of mandation while supporting others, but it did not quite get me over the line. So I do not support that amendment.…
LordsCommittee Stage26 January 20262 contributions
My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendments 112, 114 and 117 in the names of my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lady McIntosh of Pickering, which aim to set a cap on asset allocation.
In response to our debate on the previous group, the Minister consistently described the mandation power …
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Younger has asked many of the questions that my Amendments 116A and 130A seek to probe on the rationale for the Government’s timescales in the Bill. They are also intended to shorten those timescales and implement an absolute sunset; I want to be clear to the Minister …
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 91, in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Knight, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, and Amendment 106, also supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron.
I am conscious that I am the warm-up act for the debate on Amendment 94A, in …
My Lords, I will be brief. My only plea to noble Lords, as we take this issue forward beyond today’s debate in the Chamber—as I have no doubt that we will—is that we keep the interests of our very youngest children in mind. If we think that companies and the regulator take this seriously, how can it…
My Lords, we are doing a number of different things. We are engaging in detail with stakeholders. We have already held 12 round tables, and we have engaged with business groups, academics and parent groups, including the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses, the TUC, The Dad Shift, Mumsnet, and M…
Despite discouragement from behind me, I am going to be gentle about this. The noble Baroness makes the important point that there is a lot out there to be learned. We are looking at the international evidence. In Great Britain we tend to be more generous with leave than, for example, other OECD nat…
The whole purpose of investing in this area is to increase access for families generally. It is crucial that the information that the noble Baroness raises is disseminated to as wide a number of people as possible. Evidence suggests that it is not just about the young people and children themselves;…
I rise to address your Lordships’ House for the first time. I want to start by saying a little bit about myself. I am a child of the Windrush generation. My mother came from Jamaica to London aged 19. In fact, my grandfather sold a field to fund her passage. My father arrived as a 26 year-old and th…
This is the last sitting day before we finish. I will look at what I can put in writing before we get to Committee. I have never been asked so many questions in such a short period—and I have talked to church youth groups. I will see what we can do on that front.
LordsOral Questions18 December 20252 contributions
My Lords, the Government recognise concerns about the impacts of screen time on young children. We have produced guidance for the Help for Early Years Providers platform, which refers to the World Health Organization’s screen time recommendations. On screen time specifically, we are continuing to as…
I thank the noble Baroness for our useful and informative meeting, from which we have already taken further action. She is right about, and we particularly discussed in that meeting, the concerns of parents for the advice that they receive. I outlined in my initial Answer some of the action that we …
As I mentioned before, we think it is incredibly important to support parents to navigate the online world and support their children’s access. I mentioned the pilot awareness campaign, which is more targeted at eight to 14 year-olds, but I believe the resources that will be available with the Depar…
I will not ask the Minister to comment on bond markets or to speculate. I will simply ask him whether he agrees with himself when he told this Chamber last year that a freeze on income tax thresholds would be a tax rise on working people costing them billions of pounds.
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lords, Lord Palmer and Lord Hampton, for their support, and all noble Lords who have spoken in this Chamber or outside of it in favour of improving leave for new fathers. I also have Amendments 101 and 102 in this group, the a…
My Lords, given the hour, I shall be brief. The Minister said that the Government have delivered on a manifesto commitment to launch a review, but the manifesto commitment was to complete a review by now. We should have seen the outcomes and be taking action, which is what my amendment seeks to do.
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My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 183CA and 183CB in this group. Before I do so, I will add my support to Amendment 177, from my noble friends Lord Nash and Lady Barran, and Amendment 458.
It is odd that, while we are legislating in this Bill for the provision of breakfast clubs, of which I h…
I will be brief. I really appreciate what the Minister said on early years. I think it goes a bit beyond safeguarding, but I will look really carefully at what she said. On the evidence point, she referred to the Children’s Commissioner’s work on the policies, but we need to know the effect of those…
My Lords, while we are still on breakfast clubs, I hope I can jump in to speak to Amendment 184, which relates to the additional costs of breakfast clubs in primary schools, combined with the quality of food expected. The amendment is tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Agnew, who is sorry th…
I appreciate the detail that the Minister has gone into and that further information about the national rollout will happen in due course, but we have just had the comprehensive spending review, so can I ask whether the funding for the national rollout is included within the DfE’s settlement from th…
My Lords, Amendment 280 is designed to address the use of substitution clauses that allow for illegal working. There are different ways of measuring it, but on some estimates there are 4.7 million gig economy workers in the UK, including around 120,000 official riders at Uber Eats and Deliveroo, two…
Before the Minister sits down, could I confirm what I think I heard, that the amendments to the borders and immigration Bill will cover the use of substitute workers and substitute clauses with the extension of right-to-work checks?
My Lords, today’s growth figures make tax rises in the autumn all the more likely, but one rise that we do not have to wait for is the 5% increase to council tax each year planned for in this spending review. The Minister will know that council tax is a regressive tax. He will also know that this is…
My Lords, when your Lordships’ House debated the original changes to the winter fuel payment, it was suggested that we should not means-test the winter fuel payment but tax it instead. The noble Baroness the Minister rejected that option, saying that it failed on two fronts: it did not meet the savi…
My Lords, it was a privilege and indeed a pleasure to sit on the committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. He is an absolute master of his brief, and with his deep knowledge of all medical matters, he was able to procure witnesses who shared their expertise and experience with …
The noble Baroness makes an important point. We are looking at what further advice we can give to parents. This is a sensitive issue and, as the noble Baroness will understand, we must be careful in how we raise these issues. We all understand that children often have a very different experience and…
The Minister said that this brings paternity leave in line with maternity leave, but for maternity leave, the right to pay is also a day-one right. Does he acknowledge that the Bill does not create alignment between maternity and paternity?
Will the noble Lord clarify whether he just said that there are no day-one rights to parental pay, including for maternity?
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 127, 128 and 139 in my name. Before doing so, I would like to add my support to all the amendments in this group, in particular Amendment 76 of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, to which I have also added my name.
As we have heard already, our current system of p…
My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 64 in my name. This amendment makes a simple change to the right to request flexible working. In 2023, the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act amended the right to request flexible working so that it applied from the first day of employment. Previously, emp…
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their participation and support and my noble friend Lord Ashcombe in particular for his comments, which demonstrated very practically the benefits of flexible working to businesses and in running teams effectively. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Fox.
Just to…