My Lords, the closure of bank branches presents a case study in increasing regulation and declining service. The regulations were put in place to preserve access to retail banking. Will the Minister commit to reviewing the overarching settlement for banks in the UK to ensure that retail banking does…
My Lords, it is a pleasure to close this debate on the spring forecast and the Second Reading of the Finance (No. 2) Bill. I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions, which I have enjoyed listening to. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, for his valedictory speech …
My Lords, I should start by declaring an interest. By background, I am an investor, and I teach a course and run an initiative at Cambridge that focuses on the purpose of finance, thinking about what are the aspects of the finance industry that allow it to perform its purpose well. Of course, regula…
My Lords, I thank the Minister for listening so carefully, as ever, and considering the comments made by our Benches. The amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, are well written and would ensure that, before regulations are made to implement the cap, the Government must publish t…
I thank the Minister for his usual courtesy in hosting the debate. The amendments in this group all underscore another substantial shortcoming in how the Bill has been approached: its effects and impacts have not been properly assessed in advance. I suspect that the Minister does not have the inform…
I thank the noble Lord for his speech and for the points that he has raised on this order. A lot of his points are outside of the scope of these SIs, but I will address them.
First, on inflation, it is in fact on the way down. These upratings have been with CPI for many years now, since 2011. Using…
LordsCommittee Stage24 February 20264 contributions
I thank the Minister for his customary courtesy in hosting our Committee and for his patience with us as we move to group 3. I will open on this group, which is on contribution limits and indexation, and comment on those after the Division.
I thank noble Lords for their patience. I will resume the opening of group 3, on contribution limits and indexation, and will comment on Amendments 6, 13, 19 and 25 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe. We also have a wide range of other amendments, many of which speak to the sa…
I actually said that I was looking forward to discussing it further in Committee. It certainly does require our attention.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to close this Second Reading debate. I am grateful to all noble Lords for their expertise, their contributions and questions, particularly at this late hour.
The Bill before your Lordships’ House legislates for reforms announced in the Budget last November. It was a Budge…
My Lords, I very much support the amendment of regret and I am pleased it has been tabled. I find the word “regret” not nearly strong enough, because for me this will be a very sad day if the Bill goes through from the House of Lords to the other place.
I thank my noble friend Lord Monks for securing this debate and all noble Lords for their contributions this afternoon. It has been an energetic debate that has covered all bases in the discussion around private equity. The role of private equity is a salient issue for the UK economy, and it is impo…
I thank the Minister for her patience in hosting this Committee. I will comment on my Amendment 52 and the other amendments in this group with specific reference to the financial agreement, where there seems to be ambiguity regarding the cost of this project. There clearly has been some ambiguity in…
My Lords, there is general agreement about the importance to the UK’s defence security, and to the USA’s, that a stable and legal arrangement should be agreed. The 100-year and more period of this treaty makes some valiant assumptions about the longevity of the relationships between the countries in…
LordsOral Questions11 September 20252 contributions
My Lords, too many young people are at risk of being left behind, without the right skills, opportunities and support to get started in work. This Government are determined to change that. We are developing a new youth guarantee with the ambition to give all young people access to high quality learn…
My Lords, the noble Lord is right to flag that youth unemployment has been rising over the last three years. It is probably worth noting that there is always a higher rate of unemployment for young people than for older age groups; they tend to have higher rates of unemployment mainly because they a…
The OBR is aware of the Government’s policy. It is for it to certify the costings of that policy in its next forecast. As I have said, we will ask it for that forecast in time for the annual Budget and make decisions based on that.
My Lords, I happily join in congratulating the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Prentis, on a remarkable maiden speech, and I express sadness at seeing the departure of her father, who is a good friend; indeed, our late wives were very close friends in the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship. So it i…
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, for securing this debate and for his thoughtful and comprehensive contribution on the future of the SME sector. I am also grateful to the right reverend Prelate for his contribution. I look forward to receiving a copy of the report that he men…