My Lords, does the Minister agree that parents who look after children with 24-hour needs, and who cannot get to work, need as much support as everyone else?
My Lords, I declare my interest as chairman of Team Domenica. The Alan Milburn review on young people and employment states that for every £25 spent on benefits, £1 is spent on supporting employment. The Access to Work supported internship scheme, which was for 39 weeks, has been reduced to 26 weeks…
My Lords, my Amendment 424 seeks to remove Clause 208. As my noble friend Lord Hailsham said, this clause passed the Commons without any evidence, scrutiny, public consultation or impact assessment, although it is momentous. It is a radical proposal with implications for the mental and physical heal…
Dr Alison Wright, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, has written to Peers protesting that women may continue to face police investigations and criminal charges solely for ending their own pregnancy unless this clause is supported. She, speaking on behalf of the colle…
My Lords, Amendment 205 is in my name, as well as those of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. I declare an interest as founder of Team Domenica, and as the mother of a young woman with Down syndrome. As several of my points have already been covered by other noble Lor…
My Lords, I oppose Clause 191 standing part of the Bill.
Our role as parliamentarians, especially in this House, is to ensure that laws that make it on to the statute book are safe. Good laws require careful thought and prior consideration regarding any unintended consequences. Clause 191 fails to …
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to lead this important debate. I declare my interest as a non-executive director of the Watches of Switzerland Group plc, a FTSE 250 company, and as founder of Team Domenica, a charity based in Brighton which owns and operates a pub—the North Star.
I see …
My Lords, it is a great honour to rise in this House for the first time. I would like to thank noble Lords across the House for their warm welcome.
I speak today as the noble Baroness, Lady Dacres of Lewisham, a title I hold with enormous pride. Lewisham is where I serve as the directly elected may…
My Lords, all these amendments address motivation, one of the areas that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, identified as a key area in his email sent to some noble Lords on Wednesday. This therefore feels an appropriate moment to make some short observations on general matters arising from …
My Lords, I rise very briefly to support my noble friend Lady Berridge’s Amendment 30A on EHCPs, and I declare my interest as founder of a special educational needs college. All our students have EHCPs, and all of them, in their various ways, are vulnerable. What I have learned in the years that I h…
My Lords, I am glad to be able to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton. I declare my interests as a past president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and I have a parliamentary scholar, a psychiatry trainee who is appointed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists to work one day a week with me…
I understand the need for training, as the noble Baroness rightly outlines, but I would emphasise that AI chatbots are in scope of the Act, as I mentioned just now to my noble friend. What matters is the fact that they actually search the live internet. The point the noble Baroness raises is very im…
I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I declare my interest as chairman of Team Domenica.
My Lords, notwithstanding the valuable role that volunteering plays in helping people prepare for work, we want disabled people and people with health conditions to be able to secure sustained employment. That is why we are funding local authorities to open our supported employment programme, Connec…
My Lords, I welcome this Licensing Hours Extensions Bill. It is a sensible, straightforward change that will enable the public to support our hospitality sector with cross-party support. I hope it helps to mitigate the unnecessary strain put on local licensing authorities by preventing the current p…
My Lords, this Bill presents a unique opportunity to close long-standing accountability gaps in the UK’s universal jurisdiction laws and will ensure, if the amendments are received, that perpetrators of the world’s most serious crimes can be brought to justice on British soil. The House has heard me…
I agree, and I would broaden that out to the whole emphasis on housing generally. Housing is a critical factor in the ability to thrive, to live independently and to move forward, but it is also about place and making sure that everyone has the opportunity to live near their supporters around them. …
My Lords, I feel pretty humbled by the debate so far and by the many people who wrote to me; I thank them for doing so. I feel certain that the nation is looking to us here today in this House to deliver on this final liberty—that of being able to decide how, in certain specific circumstances, one l…
My Lords, I support the amendment from my noble friend Lord Parkinson. “Peer” comes from the Latin word par, which means “equal”, and in this House, wherever we sit, we are all equal. We have a shared experience; we are here with a common purpose to scrutinise legislation and serve our country. Ther…
My Lords, we recognise the vital role that learning disability nurses play in supporting those with learning disabilities, and we are committed to developing that workforce. We continue to work with partners to attract people into the profession through various routes, including apprenticeships, and…
I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for her work as a campaigner in this area, particularly through Team Domenica. I know that through my office she will be meeting the Minister for Care next month to discuss all these important issues. It certainly is the case, and is totally unacceptable, that peo…