My Lords, this is an interesting group with two distinct parts. I must confess that I am not immediately drawn to Amendments 184 and 185 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. They would, in effect, incorporate the refugee convention into the domestic law of the UK, as identified by th…
The noble Lord says, rather speedily, that it would undermine the intention of Article 31. How does he know what the intention is if it uses the words “coming directly”?
My Lords, I, too, have received and acknowledge many emails and letters. What surprised me is that the vast majority expressed deep reservations and anxieties. I wish to record my appreciation of and thanks to all those who have been in touch with me; it has affected my own thinking.
A wish to help…
My Lords, I once again declare my interest as a practising barrister and mediator in a set of chambers which specialises in public and planning law.
The Government’s objective, and the overriding objective of the Bill as I understand it, is to speed up the planning process and build more homes. One…
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his support of the amendment. I rather agree with the questions that he asked. I look forward to seeing a copy of the letter which I am sure the Minister will write in response to the questions posed by the noble Earl. I am also grate…
My Lords, I was devastated to see the injuries that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has suffered—he sent me a photograph. I send him my very best for a swift recovery. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for stepping in and introducing this debate.
If I am a Daesh fighter who engaged in the massa…
My Lords, I declare my interest as a barrister, specialising in public law, including in immigration cases. I will speak to my Amendment 158—and I hope my amendment is not what has caused the Minister to vacate the Front Bench.
The amendment would expand the UK’s interpretation of Article 33(2) of …
I thank the Minister for that considered reply, and I am glad to say that I agreed with at least part of what he said. There is much to welcome in Clause 48. I concur that it is appropriate for a person who is convicted of an offence listed in Schedule 3 to the Sexual Offences Act to fall within the…
My Lords, I had better rise at this stage to introduce my Amendment 203H. As with my last amendment, the mysteries of grouping have left me slightly confused, because this amendment does not actually relate to the Illegal Migration Act. This is an amendment which I offer to the Home Office as a sens…
Forgive me for intervening. I should clarify that the National Age Assessment Board is not using scientific methods, so my amendment has nothing whatever to do with scientific methods. The National Age Assessment Board is using conventional social work methods to identify age.
I will address Amendment 203J. I declare my interest as a barrister practising in public law and in the immigration space.
As noble Lords will have noticed, Amendment 203J does not sit happily with the other amendments in this group. It is not directly about the inadmissibility of an asylum claim, …
I am grateful to the Minister and I appreciate the difficulty of the position from which he speaks, and the difficulty of the position of the Home Office in this regard. The point of my amendment was not to breach international law. As I hope I made clear, the wording of the convention in Article 31…
My Lords, first, I declare an interest as a barrister who occasionally practices in employment law. Secondly, in Committee on 18 June, Hansard recalls that I described the Bill as
“a complete Horlicks … truly bizarre”
and
“absolutely beyond belief ”.—[ Official Report , 18/6/25; col. 2048.]
I am…
Perhaps the noble Lord could explain how it is envisaged that the Secretary of State will know that such a worker has a claim and should win.
The previous Government introduced the end of custody supervised licence scheme, which released over 13,000 prisoners without any impact assessment. It is clear that this Government inherited a prison system on the verge of collapse. We introduced SDS40, which was safely implemented thanks to our ha…
The noble Lord has obviously been studying the plans that we have been looking at, especially the Texas model, which I think he refers to. There are two ways of looking at how we can incentivise prisoners to behave when they are in prison and engage with purposeful activities and education. One is t…
The noble Lord is a stickler for accuracy. I quoted Hansard from 3 June when the noble Earl, Lord Minto, said that the Conservatives had tabled a fatal Motion.
My Lords, I am speaker number 60, and this has been a long and wide-ranging debate. I thank all noble Lords who have raised important and pertinent issues for the House to address at the next stage. Some have been new issues, and I look forward to hearing about mediation processes within the plannin…
My Lords, I support the amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom. Looking at Clause 113, I am put in mind of the pre-exploration exhortation of Colonel Kurtz: “The horror! The horror!”. As an employment lawyer looking at this clause, I can say that it is a complet…
My Lords, before my noble friend speaks from the Front Bench, I wonder whether I might contribute. I apologise to the Committee that I did not leap to my feet prior—
I was—I was sitting over there. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for speaking after him. I am sure he is welcome to speak after me if he disagrees with anything I have to say.
Obviously, I am a barrister, as are many of the contributors this evening. I practised in the employment tribunal a…
My Lords, I support the amendments in the names of my noble friends Lord Sharpe and Lord Hunt. I notice that Clause 9(3) inserts a subsection into the Employment Rights Act which allows for the refusal of a flexible working application in conditional circumstances under two criteria:
“only if … the…
I share much of what the noble Lord, Lord Fox, says. But the point I was making was that the answer from the Government is, “We’re going to provide imprecision in this legislation, and we’re going to let the employment tribunal sort it out and tell us what it means”. My point was twofold. First, tha…