My Lords, I heartily support Amendment 314 and the others in this group. It is shocking that there is a disparity in the ways that online pornography and offline pornography are regulated. It rather makes a mockery of regulation in the offline sector, since anyone can circumvent it by watching mater…
Will this review—yet another review—take place before Report? The Bill is before us, so once Report has passed, it will be too late to have the review. This is not something that we can leave until it is too late. Can we at least have an assurance that Report will be timed in a way that enables the …
My Lords, as has been said, prisoners have been released in error for decades. I know because I used to advise on sentence calculation in the 1990s in the Home Office legal advisers branch and I was the Prison Service legal adviser. It was difficult then; it is now fiendishly difficult because of al…
I was indeed. The statute book is a total mess as far as trying to calculate when a release date applies for a particular prisoner. Prisoners are all in a different position. Some have additional days; some have served a different remand time. All these factors need to be taken into account. As the …
My Lords, this is obviously a Bill with good aims: to reduce the prison population and put more resources into probation and rehabilitation. However, the problem is that the prison population is going up in the long term because Governments keep coming up with new reasons to lock people up.
We have…
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 502G in this group. This amendment would ensure that Part 2 of the Bill complies with Article 2 in Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which the United Kingdom not only signed and ratified but incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 199…
I quickly respond to a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, made. The wording in my amendment is not my wording; it is already in the convention. I am not trying to incorporate it into our law, because it is already incorporated. That ship has sailed, really. All I am doing is pointing out it…
My Lords, I strongly support the amendment in the name of the right reverend Prelate. We know for a fact that, as we just heard, children who have a parent in prison are at significantly greater risk of suffering mental health difficulties than children who do not, including low self-esteem, depress…
My Lords, like others, I thank the many people on both sides of the debate who have written to me to share their views and deeply personal stories. For the sake of transparency, I will say that, on a personal level, I am supportive of the principle of assisted dying in very narrowly defined circumst…
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 443 in my name. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for supporting it. The amendment would provide that an order or regulations made under or by virtue of any provision of the Bill that would amend primary legislation shall not apply to an acade…
My Lords, at the end of a debate of very high quality, I join with others in commending this report, and the work of the committee, so ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. I thank her for her opening: I hope I will not repeat any of it, but I was heartened to hear that, frankl…
Amendment 154 in my name seeks to remove Clause 113 from the Bill. Clause 113 was tabled at the 11th hour at Commons Report and gives the Secretary of State the power to bring legal proceedings in the employment tribunal, and to do so not because the Secretary of State is directly affected by what t…
My Lords, I am grateful for all the powerful interventions we have heard this evening from very eminent speakers indeed, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, the noble Lords, Lord Murray and Lord Pannick, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Fox, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Falkner. Some re…
My Lords, many of the points that I was going to make today have already been made far more eloquently than I could have made them, so I will not detain the Committee for very long. I have just two short points.
First, I have always been quite impressed with the Government’s argument that they are …
My Lords, I have Amendment 20 in this group and declare an interest as a former landlord. Amendment 20 was tabled in Committee, but I have retabled it because I do not feel I have had an adequate answer from the Government. The amendment would continue to permit rent arrears which arise from non-pay…
I am very grateful for all the support that my Amendment 20 has received. This amendment was genuinely meant. I was concerned about fairness, but above all about workability. The tribunal system, which we will come on to in more detail in later amendments, needs to have before it only the cases that…
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 326 in this group. I begin by saying again how gracious it was of the Minister to meet me to discuss my amendments in advance a couple of weeks or so ago. My Amendment 326 is on the same theme of the need for impact assessments before provisions are brought into f…
My Lords, I think the Minister explained that the reasons against requiring a warrant to be issued by a magistrate included the fact that an employer might destroy documents that were the purpose of the need to enter the premises. In those circumstances, why could the clause not say that, if the enf…
My Lords, I support the comments made, particularly those of the noble Lord, Lord Murray. This is an extraordinary clause; I am not aware of anything else on the statute book like it.
My practical question to the Minister is: if the Secretary of State takes it upon himself or herself to go to court…
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 263A and 279ZZA, which in content are quite closely connected with the amendments that the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, has been discussing. It was gracious of the Minister to meet me to discuss my amendments. This is how the legislative process should ideally work, …
I am very grateful for what the Minister said in response to my amendments. I think she said that the framework document will state that enforcement officers will have complete operational independence from Ministers, which is reassuring to know. Presumably, therefore, it would be possible for the t…
My Lords, I have not previously spoken on the substance of the Bill before, either, but I am very attracted by the noble Viscount’s amendment, for the reasons that he and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, have set out.
I think the Government have accepted that their Bill is not intended to …
My Lords, I strongly support the purpose clause, particularly where it describes the purpose of the Bill as being to
“improve … standards and remove barriers to opportunity in schools in England and Wales”.
I will be very brief and focus on Part 2, dealing with schools. For me, Part 2 should be fi…
My Lords, I hope it is not inappropriate to speak; I have not tabled any amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, suggested a pause, since we are expecting the Gauke review imminently. The Sentencing Council has not so far commenced its guidelines, pending this Bill, but might it agree to continue th…
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in what has been a most moving and inspiring debate. I give my congratulations in particular to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Peterborough on a wonderful maiden speech, and I welcome her. It is always good to have another former y…
My Lords, I am not sure that I am really the right person to talk about the Bill, but I thought it might be worth giving a few reflections. I cannot even count how many education Acts have taken place during my lifetime, but it is a very considerable number. It is absolutely clear that there is no f…