Baroness Lawlor

57 parliamentary sessions on record in this archive

57 sessions page 2 of 3
Lords Debate 16 October 2025
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I want to start, as lots of people have done today, by echoing the comments about this excellent Bill. I know very well the impact that its many measures will have in many communities around the country. I also want to echo the congratulations to my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt,…
Lords Debate 13 October 2025 4 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I am sorry not to get in before the noble Lord, and I am grateful for the tolerance of the House. I will be as brief as I can. I support Amendment 203I in the name of my noble friend Lord Murray. He has explained the reasons for his amendment, which seeks to restore the initial intention b…
My Lords, I have a short intervention. If the First-tier Tribunal is open, as I understand from my noble friend Lord Murray it is, I see no reason for not allowing publication in the interests of confidence in our tribunal system.
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Lords Debate 13 October 2025 3 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, Amendment 166 from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, would not only oblige the Secretary of State to change the rules under Section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 to accommodate her proposed new clause but would extend the type of relatives who could enter. As well as those allowed under …
I thank my noble friend and the noble and learned Baroness for their interventions. What I was saying is that the country has always been sympathetic and fair and accommodated people fleeing here when their lives or liberties have been in danger. However, mass global movement now poses a threat to s…
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Lords Debate 12 September 2025
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Evans, has indicated, everything has been said—but, obviously, not yet by me. For me, it is a simple matter of choice. I support this Bill. It is a choice to end your life at a time of your choosing, when all hope of survival has gone; a choice to ensure that your p…
Lords Debate 8 September 2025 7 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I will just intervene on this interesting exchange between the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and my noble friends on Amendment 203A. The question this raises—I say this really as a question—is: is it not the case that people in this country who want our borders strengthened and immigration con…
My Lords, this group of amendments proposes the means to make transparent one of the constituent parts of the high immigration levels that the Government aim to reduce. The amendments propose making transparent the data on the numbers granted student visas and the numbers of dependents, capping the …
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Lords Debate 3 September 2025
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I support the amendments of my noble friends Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Murray. They are interesting amendments because they seek to tackle the same problem by different means. The aim is to have accurate information about age and to require that it be secured.
Lords Debate 3 September 2025
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I support Amendment 203J, in the name of my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth, which has been so ably supported by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough. I was glad of the response from other noble Lords in the Chamber to my noble friend’s very constructive suggestion. Across th…
Lords Debate 23 July 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I support the amendments in this group and I will say a word in particular about some of the amendments. On the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Burns, which would remove Clause 59, people in the country will ask, “How can it be that, in a democracy, a payment is automatically deducted …
Lords Debate 21 July 2025 3 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I support my noble friends’ amendments. There are good reasons to exempt small businesses, which make up the backbone of our productive economy, from the measures in Clauses 55 and 56, both for the statement of trade union rights and for trade union access. We know, as we discussed in Com…
Will the Minister agree that it is a bit heavy-handed to require an employer to furnish a new employee, at the same time as giving them the agreed terms and conditions of employment letter, with a statement on their right to join a trade union? I cannot see that that is proportionate.
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Lords Debate 21 July 2025
Employment Rights Bill
Will noble Lords allow me to say a word in support? I was a little late coming in because I misread the screen; I thought we were on Amendment 122. I support my noble friend’s Amendment 125 because it would reinforce the individual freedom of the workplace and the freedom of contract, and it would p…
Lords Debate 16 July 2025 2 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords I support the amendments in this group because they would mitigate the potential damage to employment from the perspective of both the employer and the employee, whether that employee is a jobseeker or someone recently appointed. The danger exists particularly in this clause. As your Lordsh…
Before the Minister sits down, is nine months now the Government’s official position on the initial period? If it is, can they confirm what they are minded to put into their light-touch unfair dismissal arrangements?
Lords Debate 14 July 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I support Amendment 25 in particular, although I also support Amendment 24. This is about the freedom to be represented by people who represent you and your stance. Only 22% of employees in this country belong to a trade union, so surely it is right, as my noble friends Lord Sharpe of Epso…
Lords Debate 10 July 2025 3 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I would like to go back to what the noble Lord, Lord Harper, said in pointing out the problems we have with the amendment. Detention centres are used, as the noble Lord said, for those with no legal right to be here—and whether that is a man or a woman who has come with no legal right to b…
I am sorry, but what I meant was the community frameworks about which the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, spoke.
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Lords Debate 9 July 2025 3 contributions
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill
My Lords, I am intrigued by my noble friend’s amendment. Yes, it would make good some of the failings of the Government, who have not honoured their 1998 pledge to bring forward their proposals for reform before they remove the hereditary Peers. Nor have they delivered on their promise in the manife…
My Lords—
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Lords Debate 9 July 2025
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill
My Lords, I support these amendments because arrangements in a free economy involve an exchange of labour in return for payment. Since time immemorial, we have accepted that the labourer is worthy of his hire. Not only does payment represent a benefit to him for work done, but it reflects the obliga…
Lords Debate 24 June 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I will pick up on a few of the points made by my noble friend Lord Hunt to support Amendment 335 wholeheartedly. In principle, I am in favour of sunset clauses because they help us to focus on a Bill not once but twice, as they will pass legislative scrutiny twice over, and they encourage …
Lords Debate 24 June 2025 3 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I support this group of amendments in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Hunt of Wirral, calling for an impact assessment requiring an independent analysis on different measures. I have added my name to three of them. Amendment 310 asks for an impact assessment on b…
My Lords, before the Minister sits down, may I just clarify whether he said that 90,000 jobs were created in the first quarter of 2025, or was it 290,000? I missed the exact figure. It is my understanding that, in the first quarter of last year, with which the comparison has been made by the Ministe…
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Lords Debate 18 June 2025 2 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I support Amendment 279GA for a sunset clause. I perfectly understand the reason for extending the period in which employees can make claims, but I am quite sure it will increase the burden on the tribunals. We have heard about the very long delay, with even preliminary hearings not schedu…
The Minister made reference to the number of judges that the Government are busily recruiting so as to help the backlog, and this is part of the Government’s response. Of the 35,000 extra civil servants recruited since March 2024—these are the March 2025 figures—how many are judges, and how many of …
Lords Debate 18 June 2025 5 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
I support the lead amendment in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom to exempt a new Government, for up to three years, from the labour market enforcement strategy of their predecessor for the reasons set out so ably by my noble friend Lord Hunt. I also support Amendments 2…
Just because one side of the House or the other—or, indeed, both—brought it in does not necessarily mean it is the right policy. Does the Minister not agree that, if we have a chance to review some of the weaknesses in inherited policy, it is a very good time to do it? The 2017 Taylor review, on whi…
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Lords Debate 16 June 2025 2 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I support the amendments from my noble friends Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Hunt of Wirral to require an impact assessment on the effect on the emergency services. That is proposed in Amendment 254, which seeks to insert proposed new subsection (4) to Clause 75; and in Amendment 255, on t…
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Sharpe’s amendment to ask for an impact assessment that details the number of days lost to strikes in the 12 months since the Act was passed and in the previous 12 months. He spoke about the repeal of elements of the 2016 Act and about the ONS statistics. Pa…
Lords Debate 10 June 2025 2 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I will say a few words in support of Amendments 215AZZB to 215AZZD, tabled by my noble friend Lord Sharpe. These are to Schedule 6 and I am responding to the Government’s amendments to this schedule, which qualify who may take part in a ballot, to ensure that those workers in the union bef…
My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the amendments seeking greater transparency for trade union members on where their money goes. I support the retention of the status quo—so that people have to opt in—and maintaining the changes we saw made in 2016. I do so becaus…
Lords Debate 6 June 2025
Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill [HL]
My Lords, I do not support the noble Baroness’s opposition to Clause 1 standing part of the Bill. My noble friend Lord Moylan has mentioned the 2023 analysis by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. It based its evidence solely on NHS England statistics: the database of admissions, A&am…
Lords Debate 5 June 2025 4 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I support the amendments in this group that seek to mitigate the impact of Clause 55, which amends the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 by inserting a new section with a “Statement of trade union rights”. I support, in particular, Amendment 205 by the noble Baron…
I thank the Minister for giving way, but I do not know that a mandate of 33% of the electorate is indeed a very strong mandate for overturning the reforms that have brought stability to the workplace.
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Lords Debate 3 June 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I am against Clause 31 standing part of the Bill. The 2010 Act protects against gender and other types of discrimination. It replaces earlier Acts, as your Lordships will know, including the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995…
Lords Debate 3 June 2025
Employment Rights Bill
I support my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral’s amendment and have little to add to what he and my noble friend Lord Moynihan have said. I emphasise that we ought to support such amendments for reducing the levels of collective consultation for companies involved in insolvency proceedings. We should…

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