My Lords, I was heartened to hear the Minister at least partially endorse the fact that the price mechanism is a far better way of valuing goods than government diktat. However, does she also agree that the politics of envy, while it may on occasion attract some votes, rarely has good outcomes? Does…
My Lords, I revert to the amendment from my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe. I thank her for this important contribution and welcome the contributions from various noble friends, the news from the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, that he would be minded to support this amendment, and even the super news fro…
I am putting the same contribution in that is made by employers—by the Government—right now. If you carry on doing it, you have a bunch of obligations for past promises. In the future everybody has a defined contribution scheme but you have the defined benefit scheme up to now. By 2060, as my noble …
My Lords, what a heroic task this Chamber has undertaken in us having seven minutes to explore 560 pages of the Finance (No. 2) Bill, 481 pages of Explanatory Notes, 131 pages of related OBR analysis and 152 pages of Treasury statements and related policies. On top of that, there is a Spring Stateme…
My Lords, those of your Lordships who were in Committee will recollect that, as my noble friend Lord Herbert suggested, I tabled an amendment seeking to remove all aggravating hate crimes.
One of the points that I thought that I made quite well was to show the utter incoherence of aggravators at th…
I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention. I was just about to get on to that in my second point, which is that the whole idea of an aggravated crime increasingly weaponises and politicises the concept of hate.
In the previous debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, made some very affecting…
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, and the committee, for the report and the noble Lord for his clear, calm introduction to it. As he said, and as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, agreed, President Trump has broken the bonds of trust and we can no longer depend on the US as our…
LordsCommittee Stage23 February 20262 contributions
My Lords, defined benefit schemes have been described as an immoral bet upon an uncertain future. Long service in the public sector can mean getting, as my noble friend stated, a pension of two-thirds of lifetime salary. That is inflation adjusted, and for as long as ye shall live. Some noble Lords …
I hope the noble Lord will withdraw that word. I do not recognise what he is saying. My noble friend was talking about the NHS. Was it NHS workers who were required to put in that extra money?
My Lords, we have been hearing different versions of economic and political reality in this debate. I want to focus in my short speech on two issues that lie behind negotiating a customs union: the question of sovereignty and an EU reset; and the foreign policy, security and defence aspects of again…
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Katz. I will make three very brief points. The first is that the Supreme Court judgment had a logic behind it, and it is very difficult to see how that logic does not roll out across a whole bunch of issues such as this one. So this amendment relates very strongly to tha…
My Lord, I congratulate my noble and homonymous friend on his new position, which I am sure he will occupy with distinction. The Minister asked a question about dirty energy and how could we possibly promote it. In fact, the truth is the reverse. The Minister is promoting dirty energy. Having deindu…
My Lords, I was hesitant as to whether to speak here, but some years ago I had very close acquaintance with facial recognition software, so I thought it might be useful to say a couple of things.
First, I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, that this is an extremely good technolog…
Shifty is a great description—the noble Baroness could have said far worse than that.
I was given a hard time and then let go. We have to accept that there will be errors, but we have to understand where this is going. We can less and less afford to have police on the streets—we have seen that prob…
My Lords, while I broadly welcome this Bill, I do not welcome how large it is. Its scale and complexity were referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, and even the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, with whom I find myself agreeing. It is in, a sense, a testam…
My Lords, I rise to introduce at this late hour Amendment 184A in my name. I refer to my registered interests as an employer and investor. I thank the many noble Lords on the Labour Benches who have kindly stayed to hear the noble Lords, Lord Freyberg and Lord Clement-Jones, and myself; it is very d…
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 130 in my name. It is purely an amendment to rectify a small perceived mistake in the legislation, whereby a trade union can, in theory, put in a demand to meet its members in a company immediately, without any delay or warning. This means that a company’s managem…
Noble Lords should read the Bill. Payments will be made if the Central Arbitration Committee decides that a request to meet was unfairly refused. I checked it all this afternoon. I did not really expect noble Lords to challenge me on it.
My Lords, in moving Amendment 108, I will speak to Amendment 109, also in my name. My declaration of interest is that I have worked in my career with hundreds of companies, many of which had to create redundancies at one time or another and a few of which had to go into liquidation. I am not an inso…
I apologise for intervening, but is the Minister saying that R3 stated that it was against this amendment?
Time is late, so I do not want to go through the whole history of Bolton Wanderers, but the noble Lord’s facts are not quite correct. What we are concentrating on here is that all clubs should have a better business approach to football and not just rely on wealthy local individuals or people who co…
I point out to the noble Lord, who lauds the market, that an important part of the impetus for the Bill was that a number of Premier League clubs were going to exercise market forces to break away and destroy the Premier League.
My Lords, I support this very important amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, and endorse everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, said. Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that they covered so much of the ground that needs to be covered that I will not have to spea…
My Lords, I am embarrassed to keep your Lordships even a few minutes more, but I stand to support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, and my noble friend Lord Jackson in his opposition to Clause 69 standing part, and to introduce my own opposition to Clause 66 standing part. Thus, …
The noble Lord and others keep referring to the 2016 Act, but the amendments that we have been addressing in this section are all amendments to the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.
My Lords, what a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Lawlor. I support the amendments introduced by my noble friend Lord Jackson. I am assured by my noble friend Lord Leigh that he believes that Hansard will record that he referred throughout his speech to “the noble Lord, Lord Jackson”.
Employ…
I thank the noble Lord for his intervention, but I hope I am forgiven for thinking he has not been listening to what I have been saying. As I understand it, this clause is about reducing the number of people down to more or less nothing who are necessary in a company in order for a bunch of trades u…
My Lords, good evening. I rise in support of Amendments 141BA, 141C and 142B, and it is a pleasure to support the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on these amendments. I declare an interest as a businessman and as one who wishes to see the wheels of commerce and thus the economy moving smoothly and not unnece…
I support this amendment, and I hope to illustrate to the Government that this proposed purpose clause will help them and will be of benefit to the debate in reaching an effective and clear Bill. Like the noble Lord, Lord Meston, I do not have a Second Reading speech; I am focusing only on this amen…
My Lords, I welcome back the Minister and the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe and Lord Hunt, for another day on this important Bill.
To some extent, we are thrown back to the previous day’s debate, when we talked so much about flexibility. These amendments are designed to try to give more flexibility to t…
My Lords, I would like to add to what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said. We are having a good debate and I very much hope to keep it friendly. What the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, said, was really rather flying pigs.
I, obviously not like most of the Committee, a…
My Lords, this is a really important occasion for the House of Lords, and for the world to see that the House cares about children’s well-being. We have such great speakers in this debate. We have had some brilliant introductions but, in my experience, policies fail when you are not clear about the …