Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 29th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 80 I shall also speak to Amendment 103. My name is also on Amendment 140, and I have no doubt that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, will expertly present that. I also support the other amendments in this group.

We experienced, of course, the most extraordinary heatwave last week, made so much more intense because our climate has already changed. It is now anticipated that we will never return to pre-industrial levels, yet, we have gone backwards on climate change and climate risk in this Bill. The Government may say that they have not, and that they want to ensure that the regulators are flexible in how they can tackle this challenge, but Clause 17 strips out all sorts of accountability arrangements in a number of areas. My noble friend Lady Bowles rightly argues that it simply should not stand part of the Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said on day one in Committee that she concluded that in the Financial Services Act 2023, we failed to understand what the lack of EU oversight, as passed into UK law,

“meant for democratic oversight of what the regulators do with the powers that they acquire. We also failed to appreciate the scale of the task of holding the regulators to account.””.—[Official Report, 22/6/26; cols. GC 193-4.]

This has to be a major cause for concern to us across the broad range of powers we are passing to the regulators, especially as we do not even know what new rules will be drawn up for them. As my noble friend Lady Bowles said, again on the first day of Committee:

“Our system is not to delegate unconstrained power to regulators. Parliament sets the framework, regulators operate within it and, when necessary, the court interprets.””.—[Official Report, 22/6/26; col. GC 197.]


I know there will be a number of objections to what Clause 17 seeks to do, but in this group, we focus on the steps backwards that this represents in terms of climate risk, climate change and nature loss. I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lady Kramer, who directed me towards the relevant page in an absolutely enormous tome which details the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, with all the subsequent amendments, so that I could see exactly what Clause 17 does. If you simply read the Bill or the Explanatory Notes, you would never quite know what was being deleted. Knocking out the regulatory principles eliminates the explicit reference to the desirability of sustainable growth in the UK economy in the medium to long term, and the need to contribute to achieving compliance with the Climate Change Act 2008, on net-zero emissions, and with Section 5 of the Environment Act, on environmental targets.

I am sure the Minister will say that when the rules are drawn up, or when the regulators work out their strategies, they are bound to look at climate risk, for example. But as the earlier debates on this Bill have shown, we are removing protections that were in place and handing them to the regulator, when regulators are so often found lacking. That is why I put down Amendment 80, and I am very grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Baroness, Lady Griffin, for their support on this amendment.

Our concern here is to reinsert the desirability of sustainable growth in the economy of the UK in the medium and long term, something we managed to get into the 2023 Act. Of course we should be doing this. These are the industries of the future, and that is what we need to do if we are not to drive climate change further, but we have added climate risk. As I mentioned at Second Reading, we know that a lax attitude to regulation helped to bring about the financial crash of 2008 with all its economic, political and social consequences; so, it is all very well saying that of course the regulators will do this, but we know that that is not necessarily so. Climate change is a current and future risk to the financial sector over both the short and long term. Therefore, we should be strengthening, not weakening, the regulations here.

This comes across very clearly from the report of the Adaptation Committee of the Climate Change Committee. The priority risks in the UK are intensifying heat, growing flood risk and rising drought and wildfire risk. The risk to the insurance industry is obvious. There is a report in today’s Times on subsidence and the likely increase in its incidence. It points out that the summer of 2025 was

“Britain’s hottest on record and also its most expensive for homeowners: insurance companies paid out £307 million for subsidence claims over the year, the highest ever amount, according to the Association of British Insurers”’

Moreover, many insurers are now becoming so risk-averse that they no longer cover subsidence, so that leaves the poor home owners on the hook. The Adaptation Committee points out that flood-related insurance claims are rising and that home insurers have paid out more in claims than they received in premiums for the five years to 2024. It notes that this will put stress on the financial sector as banks face higher default rates on mortgages and business loans, and this will then affect the housing market, just as happened with subprime mortgages. As the report states:

“Actions by FIs are needed to ensure that physical climate risks don’t disrupt the financial system”.


Therefore, it becomes vital that we ask the regulators to assess for climate risk. This should be in the Bill as this issue, sadly, is not going to go away.

For this reason, in Amendment 103—I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Griffin, for her support— we propose that the regulators make annual reports to the Treasury on how they have upheld their climate risk and environmental principles. The reports must explain what action they have taken to ensure that climate risk is embedded in their operations, processes and decision-making, and what rules and guidance they have therefore promulgated. The way this is done takes as its template the proposals in Clause 20. Moreover, it should not be just a matter of “having regard” to these issues; it should be informing their day-to-day work, due to the negative impacts already being witnessed on price stability, financial stability, market functioning and growth.

As I have said, I also support the other amendments in the group—which will be fully explained by others—to ensure that UK-related financial institutions develop and implement credible transition plans, as well as those in the name of my noble friend Lady Sheehan. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 83B and 86A, which appear in my name. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and to agree with a great deal of what she said. It is almost as if in the past week or so, the planet itself has been speaking to us and sending us a message that should direct the Committee’s deliberations on this Bill.

I will restrict myself to my two amendments, in the interests of time. I have been asked to table them by people who are gravely concerned about issues of corruption, dirty money, the “London laundromat” and associated security concerns. These are issues on which I do a considerable amount of work, and that is why I have this focus on this group.

These amendments are related. They seek to add both climate risk and the laundering of criminal gains causing environmental harms to the regulatory principles to which the FCA and PRA must have regard. I can pretty well hear the concerns about to be expressed some time soon about “have regard” amendments, but surely these are things that we have to think about. We have to make sure that we direct the regulators to think about climate and the laundering of criminal proceeds through the City and associated institutions.

I note that the Financial Action Task Force recognises environmental crimes as predicate offences for money laundering. The European Union has strengthened its criminal law framework through the environmental crime directive, requiring member states to publish a national strategy on combating environmental criminal offences by 2027.

Looking around the world, in 2018 the United States Treasury sanctioned the Zhao Wei transnational crime organisation and listed wildlife trafficking as one of the many illicit activities undertaken by the network. In Zambia, the economic and financial crimes division of the high court recently forfeited to the state a vast array of assets associated with a major illegal logging operation. Diplomatic momentum for a fourth protocol under the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime to address crimes against the environment is also advancing, with the support of the UK.

As a global financial centre, the UK has a particular responsibility to ensure that it is not supporting financial and environmental crimes globally and it should play an important role in achieving a stronger global approach. Evidently, however, although environmental crimes are recognised as serious at present, without an explicit recognition of this in the regulatory principles, the FCA and the PRA will not be equipped or directed to respond with the necessary action.

It is important to stress that this is also very much a security issue. There is clear evidence that environmental crime is not only associated with financial and organised crime but with terrorist and armed groups as well. For instance, the proscribed terrorist group al-Shabaab has historically benefited from the illicit charcoal trade in Somalia, with state actors also being complicit. More generally, Interpol has found that the proceeds of environmental crime have become the largest source of income for non-state armed groups and terrorist organisations. Without sufficient regulatory framework, the UK could be contributing to these very dangerous, deadly, human rights-abusing forces around the world.

So much of what is happening in the world is criminal. Between 2013 and 2019, about 69% of tropical forest agro-conversion was conducted in violation of national laws and regulations. This, of course, is also associated with human rights abuses. Perhaps this is sometimes less considered, but Interpol says that illegal mining generates up to $48 billion annually, frequently breaching environmental regulations and contributing again to deforestation, pollution, biodiversity loss and harm to local communities.

I have already mentioned illegal wildlife products. Interpol found that the black market for those is worth up to $20 billion annually, and up to 100 rangers are killed by poachers each year while protecting wildlife and habitats. It might seem a very long way from the City of London to the ranger desperately trying to protect the wildlife population in a national park in Africa, but those two things are linked. We bear responsibility here. I urge the Government to consider these amendments in order to put this back into the directions for the FCA and the PRA.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and to say that I broadly support the action that she is suggesting in Amendment 83B. Organised environmental crime, including illegal deforestation and wildlife crime, is increasingly acknowledged as a major source of illicit finance and money laundering. It is therefore important that the FCA and the PRA have the ability properly to take account of these risks within their existing anti-money laundering framework. I hope that we will get a positive response from the Government on that.

This group of amendments deals with the gaping hole, frankly, in the Bill on nature and climate considerations. I was going to speak more broadly about the importance of taking these into account—I may still do so in our stand part debate on Clause 17—but the noble Baroness, Lay Northover, did the Committee a great service in setting out very clearly, in her opening speech, the issues that we need to address with some urgency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bridges of Headley (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with all the amendments to which my noble friend Lady Noakes just spoke, but Amendment 99 merits attention. I will speak to it very briefly, as I get a sense that everyone is wanting to get out of this lovely Room to eat something.

This amendment asks an interesting question; perhaps the Minister can answer it when he winds up. I am interested in what is more important. Is it the alignment with global international standards, or is it the competitiveness and growth objective? When one is thinking about these international standards, do we think that it is more important to align with those standards than it is to improve the competitiveness and growth of the financial services sector? I ask this as a genuine question. I can see an argument for saying that alignment with international standards adds to competitiveness and growth, but, if we believe that those international standards undermine growth, what is more important?

I ask that because—once again, I draw your Lordships’ attention to my entry in the register—every day, I am seeing, as my noble friend Lady Noakes alluded to, the fragmenting of international standards. Noble Lords may take very different views on that, but it is undeniably the case that the overall approach of the large financial sectors to adhering to those standards, if they ever really existed, is now under enormous pressure. Therefore, if we want to retain the competitiveness of the City and its contribution to the growth of this country, we need to be very mindful of that. If we want to continue to attract high levels of global capital here, we cannot, to my mind, just blindly say, “We must align with international standards”, without being fully cognisant of the consequences.

The amendment moved by my noble friend asks a very big question, which I look forward to hearing the Minister address.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to speak against all of these amendments, but the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, has asked an interesting question here: are we making this legislation for the City or for the country? My question to the Minister, therefore, is: does aligning with international standards mean that we can actually set higher standards? That is certainly what I would like us to do in terms of money laundering and the other issues that I raised earlier, but I think that the assumption in this amendment is that we might set lower standards.

One of the things that aligning with international standards would do is improve our international standing in this uncertain geopolitical age. Undercutting standards would be severely damaging to our international standing in the world. That is a much broader question than just the City.

I will cover all these amendments collectively. It is no secret that throughout all the previous financial services Bills I have worked on, I have opposed competitiveness and growth objectives. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, will be delighted to know that it was his earlier contribution to the clause stand part debate that helped me to see clearly that what we are doing here is singling out the growth and competitiveness objectives from everything else. One of the ways in which noble Lords tried to deal with that in earlier groups was by adding crucial issues such as climate. The other way of approaching the problem, which I may well be tempted to do on Report, is by proposing that Clause 20 does not stand part.

It is important to raise the issue again now, given that just this week the Bank for International Settlements has spoken about the financial risk associated with big tech’s AI spending spree—in its terminology—which could lead to a prolonged investment bust that could have significant impacts on financial markets and the global economy. It produced the figure that the five biggest hyperscalers expect to invest more than $1 trillion from 2025 to the end of 2026. We are in a position of risk, so I believe we should look at growth and competitiveness again.

Amendments 102 and 104 seek to extend further than the Government have gone on the growth and competitiveness agendas. That is an extraordinarily bad and extremely risky idea. I am happy to carry forward that idea and keep saying it on Report.

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

My Lords, we have come to the end of the time available for Grand Committee today. Although it is unusual, I beg to move that the debate on this amendment be adjourned. We will return to this debate on the next day in Committee. Only those noble Lords present at the start of this group can speak when the group resumes. I have asked the clerk to circulate a list of those present in the usual channels.

Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, this is very much a probing amendment, but I thought that we ought to raise this issue; the Bill seemed an appropriate place to do so. Frankly, it is an issue on which we have hardly touched in Parliament.

Private credit markets are a phenomenon that has surged since the crash of 2008. Market-based finance accounts for around half of the UK and global financial sector assets, according to the Bank of England. Global private market assets were estimated at $18 trillion in 2025. As Sarah Breeden, a deputy Governor of the Bank of England, said in a speech made this year:

“They have not yet been tested, at that scale and complexity, by a broad based macroeconomic shock in a higher rate environment”.


At the same time, public debt is close to post-war highs, not just in the UK but globally, making it more difficult to respond to any financial shocks.

People sometimes see the private credit sector as distinct from other parts of finance. In the UK, the banking sector has lent to private credit funds at a scale to provide them with liquidity, with pretty much no transparency to evaluate the quality of funds. There is clearly co-investing and interconnections through derivatives. I cannot find good data to work out where the exposure lies, but there have been enough articles raising warning signs to convince me that there is something serious here that must be looked at.

UK pension funds have invested heavily in private assets. The Universities Superannuation Scheme has £7.8 billion in private credit exposure. Institutional providers such as TPT Investment Management have launched schemes specially for the use of UK pension schemes, and the Mansion House Accord encourages even more investment into these private markets. As I listened to the Pensions Minister during the passage of the then Pension Schemes Bill, I heard what sounded like claims that these private assets are high-return, low-risk assets and perfect for pensioners with very little savings. It is because of such a naive understanding of private credit, among other things, that that Bill was so important. That is why protecting the fiduciary duty of pension trustees dominated its passage; the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and my noble friend Lady Bowles were instrumental in making sure that that fiduciary duty remained primary.

The insurance companies are deep into this, too. According to the Bank of England, in evidence given to the Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee:

“The interconnections between private markets and the life insurance sector have grown considerably, with analysis by the IMF … showing that approximately 35% of assets held by US life insurers and approximately 23% of those held by UK life insurers were allocated to private credit”.


It is clear that if the private credit market goes wrong, it goes wrong for the whole financial sector. It is not an exaggerated fear: the sector has serious liquidity issues. Anyone who picks up a newspaper can see that firms such as Blackstone, Oaktree, Apollo and Morgan Stanley, to name but a few, are now limiting or refusing redemptions. We cannot ignore the canary in the coal mine.

The Lords FSR Committee published a report on this sector in January, entitled Private Markets: Unknown Unknowns. At the end of that process—I give some credit to the committee—the Bank of England announced that it would conduct a system-wide exploratory scenario that will involve the banks, insurers, private equity companies and pension fund investors, but on a voluntary basis. It will report in 2027. The committee is to be commended for focusing on the issues in this sector, but I do not think that this satisfies a reasonable standard of parliamentary scrutiny or reflects a parliamentary responsibility to the public to make sure that we avoid another major financial crash. Therefore, my amendment is designed simply to put pressure on the Bank of England in order to get proper answers. I am still disturbed that it thinks it will do so only on a voluntary basis. I hope that the Bill as a whole can be amended to restore proper democratic oversight, and then Parliament could engage with finding a solution. One of the reasons so few people in both Houses are aware of the concerns about the issue is that there is virtually no vehicle for a debate, for consideration and for action.

The second part of my Amendment 78 addresses a problem that I have never heard widely discussed. If the private credit market goes bad—and the banks, because they are entangled with that market, begin to divest loans—what happens to small businesses dependent on bank credit? We saw this behaviour in 2008. After the crash, banks continued to fund the big companies but found every way possible—many of them legal but I would consider unethical—to call in loans to small companies. In loan agreements that were being paid in full and on time, there would be a covenant somewhere in the documents that said that if loan-to-property values fell below a certain level, the loan could be called. I am pretty sure that the small business never really thought that that was a significant paragraph in its loan agreement, but it proved the trigger and we saw basically every major bank exercise it.

The FCA refused to act and has always held the line that the regulatory perimeter means that it cannot offer protection to small businesses and that, instead, caveat emptor applies. To me, this is untenable in the complex world of finance that we have today. I want the regulators to take a proper look at the whole issue of the regulatory perimeter, if we are to go into a cycle of financial shocks.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, on what may be the most important amendment that we will discuss in Committee, and I hope we might discuss it on Report as well. As she said, there is a huge lack of discussion of this issue in Parliament, whereas if you go to the pages of the Financial Times, for example, you will see, pretty well every day, alarming reports and strong headlines expressing concern about the issue. I am aware that we are operating under heatwave conditions, as is the rest of the nation. As with our credit system, we have all been puffed up by a lot of hot air, much of which has indeed been financed by our financial system, so I will be quite brief, but I want to pick up a couple of points that the noble Baroness made.

The powerful argument about a voluntary engagement with the stress test is just laughable—with a sick kind of laugh. We know what voluntary regulation has done in so many different areas of our business sectors, and that is not the way to go forward. The noble Baroness also talked about pension funds, particularly about investing in private credit and the grave concerns that it raises. There is quite a bit of research that indicates that the people profiting from this are the managers and companies, and pension funds are getting the same or lower returns as they are from other investments.

The most useful way I thought I could add to this was to go through the Financial Times private credit headlines for this month alone. I will give a representative selection of them. The first is:

“Are insurers becoming dangerously addicted to private credit ratings?”


It is a question-mark headline, to which the answer is clearly given as “yes” in the article. Here are some of the others:

“Apollo’s flagship private credit fund hit by 17% redemption requests”,


“BlackRock private credit fund honours less than 40% of redemption requests”,


“Partners Group limits withdrawals at private equity fund for wealthy individuals”,


and

“Cliffwater’s flagship private credit fund redemption requests hit 17%”.


Rather than expound at length, I refer noble Lords to a single book: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff.

There is no reason to think that what we are doing now will be different from where we have been before. Private credit is a new structure of a very familiar form, and we have seen what happens with these new financial-engineering structures. The noble Baroness is doing an important job here of at least starting a discussion on this. That discussion should be held at much greater length in the main Chamber, and its subject should worry us all.

Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 22nd June 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

I shall speak to Amendment 23 in the name of my noble friend Lord Sikka. He very much regrets not being able to be here, but I hope that the Minister will still respond to the point that it raises.

The key issue is that there is a public service element in banking. It goes beyond commercialism; it is reasonable to ask that the review which is taking place should consider that issue, and specifically whether it requires an amendment to the Bill to effectively pre-empt the issue and say that villages, towns and districts need some form of banking services. I think there could well be broad agreement on that—the issue is that banks are competitive commercial organisations and so are not going to do it. They will do it only if there is some sort of collective scheme, funded by a levy, that provides good services for people where they live. I very much enjoyed the contribution of the right reverend Prelate, and indeed churches have closed down far less frequently than banks and post offices. I hope my noble friend will respond positively to that point on the public service element.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I speak for the first time in Committee on my third Financial Services and Markets Bill. I reflect on the curious circumstances in which we find ourselves and offer reassurances to those who do not like Clause 3 in particular. Surely under the new regime, which we expect to see in a month or so, we are unlikely to see the Bill in anything like its current form given that it aims overall to deliver the so-called Leeds reforms of Chancellor Reeves. Those intend to give the financial sector a boost of growth, at an inevitable cost to the real economy—a boost to London and the tax havens at a cost to the rest of the country—and to reduce the regulations which were brought in as protections for all our security after the last financial crash. However, there is still a point in all of us going through the Bill in detail as we are doing now, because we are also making bids for what a future Government will look like.

On that basis, I will speak in particular to Amendment 22, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and Amendment 23, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. We are expressing very important issues, as the right reverend Prelate put so well. He was speaking about religion but also about humanity and human need, which these amendments particularly address. Your Lordships do not need to listen to me with my radical voice; reading around this, I found an article in March from the Civil Service Pensioners Alliance. It quoted figures which state that about 53 bank branches close each month, and pointed out that this was forcing older people in particular into digital exclusion, stripping away their independence and leaving them highly vulnerable to scams. No one has yet brought that up, but speaking to local persons in a local branch can be an important prevention against scams, and there is also the premium on having to pay more for things because you are poor.

Picking up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, the pensioners alliance talks about circumstances of bereavement or the need for a power of attorney, which are circumstances that can happen to any of us. They will continue to happen, and technology cannot make them disappear. On that, I take issue with a couple of points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. The noble Baroness said that we can get rid of branches when cash users drop to an insignificant number. First, we should not be treating anyone in our society as insignificant, but more broadly, that assumes that we are heading—both as individuals and collectively—only in one direction. You may, at a certain age, be able to cope very well with digital banking and be perfectly comfortable with it, but that is not to say that later in life you might not want to use a different system. You might not be able to see the screen of your phone or manipulate its buttons, or you might not be able to hear on the telephone anymore. At that point, cash being available is an absolutely crucial thing.

Finally, I will pick up a point from the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, which the right reverend Prelate also discussed. It is not the case that customers have to pay for the provision of these services. I point out that the big four UK lenders made £14 billion total profit in the first quarter of this year, and their profits last year were £46 billion. The financial sector depends on government support to survive. That is a licence, and we can comment on the conditions under which that licence is held. If this legislation goes forward, surely we can add a provision on local banking services—having a person to speak to when you really need it. Whatever future legislation comes in, there clearly needs to be action in this area.

Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 8th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and to agree with her warning. I add the phrase “carbon bubble” as a further financial risk. I also must cross-reference her contribution to the words in the Minister’s opening speech about increasing the insurance business in London. This seems like a very bad idea indeed in view of the risks we face in the climate emergency and nature crisis. I note that, at this moment, we are facing the risk of an extreme El Niño, with impacts we should well understand.

But here we are again: I join a small but merry band of financial services Bill veterans—this is my third—and I welcome the Minister to our group and look forward to our deliberations. I say “look forward” genuinely, because this is the most positive start to such a debate that I have heard. There was a great deal in the speeches thus far that I agree with, and more determination than I have heard previously in your Lordships’ House to at least start to tackle what economist Ann Pettifor has termed the “global casino” of which the UK financial sector is a significant part. We did not hear those powerful words just from the noble Lord, Lord Sikka—always welcome as they are—and that makes a welcome change.

When I first took part in the debates on what became the Financial Services Act 2021, I was new enough to be shocked at the narrowness of the debate, with a Conservative Government reducing regulation and controls, while the Labour Front Bench just nodded along. Amendment after amendment in Committee and on Report came from those who wanted the Government to go further and faster in deregulating, in letting the financial sector rip, even though it was little more than a decade since we had seen the cost of that in 2007 and 2008.

Today, though, we have heard from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester powerful words not just about the financial sector’s failure to meet the needs of many parts of our society but also about the damage the sector does to many of the vulnerable. I have not yet persuaded the House’s champion against child poverty, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, to take part in one of these debates, but I hope one day she and others will, because finance is far too important—and damaging—to be left to the bankers.

Today, the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, was speaking up for the interests of consumers of financial products, so often the victims of predatory practices not just by the fringes of the sector but by the highly profitable giant organisations at its heart. I associate myself and the Green Party with those remarks, while declaring my membership of the APPG on Investment Fraud and Fairer Financial Services.

We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge of Barking, well known for her championing of action against corruption, about the need to tackle the rampant corruption and fraud. However, I do not agree with the noble Baroness’s conclusion that we are talking about a few “rotten apples” rather than structurally embedded corruption, with roots going back centuries.

After all, the City of London, and with Crown dependencies—so disturbingly highlighted last week in an exhibition in Portcullis House that, unsurprisingly, attracted a great deal of negative attention—is, as the then deputy Foreign Secretary Andrew Mitchell said in 2024, a conduit for nearly 40% of the world’s dirty money. As the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, said in 2022, in a debate on corruption secured by my noble friend Lady Jones,

“we have clearly, as a matter of policy, turned a blind eye to the perpetrators of corruption overseas using London for business or leisure purposes”.—[Official Report, 13/10/22; col. GC 156.]

That of course is being helped by those enablers to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge, referred.

Looking back to 2020, if fellow noble Lords had expected me to take part at all in the debate, they probably would have predicted I would make comments resembling those powerfully made today by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Northover, work on which Peers for the Planet has been so prominent, in pointing out there is no financial sector on a dead planet, and that the economy is a complete subset of the environment.

However, the House was in for a shock in 2020—perhaps not for the last time. When I spoke then about corruption and the City of London’s place at the heart of it, I got more than the odd gasp, and fervent head shaking and opposition. This was when, for the Government, the noble Lord, Lord Agnew of Oulton, said:

“The UK is internationally recognised as having some of the strongest controls worldwide for tackling money laundering and terrorist financing”.—[Official Report, 28/1/21; col. 1880.]


Well, on these subjects, we have come a long way, as indeed the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, has in his views. The debate has shifted far closer to where the Green Party has always been, saying, as the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, said, in the relationship between society and the financial sector, the settlement is not working. The financial sector is not providing the appropriate support to the real economy and is extracting excessive profits from its traditional sectors and from parts of our society in which it should have no place, such as children’s social care, aged care, water companies and many other public services. Excessive pay is also being extracted, as the High Pay Centre has been so prominent in highlighting, and the sheer size and risk-taking threatens the security of us all. We have too much finance, so the Bill should not be seeking to grow more—as well as of course, too much corruption and fraud. There is another way, as the Global Justice Report by Thomas Piketty’s World Inequality Lab demonstrated this week.

There is also an issue not yet raised by others: the cost of the speculation in the prices we all pay for the basics of life, for food and for fuel, and the impact of the financial sector’s bulking up of lending on house prices. Food security, as the Green Party is trying to get the Government to understand, is a huge and present issue in the UK, and the financial sector is a significant part of the problem.

The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, said risk aversion has its uses—I can only agree. He questioned, however, the cost to the sector of regulation, but the cost to all of us in getting it wrong is of course enormous and possibly existential. We must not forget how close we got in October 2008 to total collapse.

It is customary at Second Reading to mention issues that one wishes to raise in Committee, and I have pointed to my areas of interest: making the financial sector work for the real economy; tackling corruption and fraud; protecting consumers; of course, nature and climate; and tackling the cost of speculation to us all. But I will raise one final issue, which I will be tackling within the Bill if I can find a way. It is an issue that politicians around the global North have been facing for a long time. I go back to US President Roosevelt in 1936:

“Business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking ... had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob”.


We have, just down the road from us, the City of London and the City of London Corporation, which have a unique, archaic and dangerous place outside the rules that apply to the rest of society—rules about democracy and rules about transparency. This is a place where organised money rules. I mentioned the APPG on Investment Fraud and Fairer Financial Services, which I am working with now on a survey, asking for views on whether the corporation should be maintained as it is, reformed, or abolished, as a royal commission recommended in 1894.

We have come a long way in our understanding of the issues in the financial sector. We will have to see how far we can go, because we need to grasp, as I respectfully say to the Minister, that the City is not one of our greatest economic success stories but an entity that needs far tighter, stronger controls from the Government for the security of us all.

UK Steel Strategy

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

We engaged carefully with the industry in constructing these tariffs, and we will review the measure after 12 months to ensure it remains effective.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Statement says:

“Britain can recycle more steel. Making better use of scrap steel is fundamental to the sector’s future growth”.


However, I am sure the Minister is aware that, currently, four-fifths of the UK’s scrap steel is exported, primarily to non-OECD countries with far lower environmental standards than us. I looked carefully at the strategy, but I could not see any actions planned by the Government to ensure that scrap steel stays in the UK to be recycled. I also could not find a target for the level of recycling that we expect of that scrap steel; I hope that it will eventually be 100%. How long will that take? If I have missed any actions and targets, I would love to hear about them.

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that there is a strong emphasis on the importance of scrap steel. The move to using some of the electric arc furnaces will increase the demand for that scrap steel in our supply chain. Our move towards the aim of getting the domestic market share back to 50% will drive much more demand for domestic scrap steel.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his questions. On the effectiveness of electric arc furnaces, there are a couple of points. First, at Sheffield Forgemasters, we see the technical capability to produce steel to the highest quality, for the nuclear industry, aerospace and defence. Independent experts’ view is that any grade can be made by electric arc furnaces, so that addresses the question about the quality of steel that can be made by this technology. On the other point about the benefit to Wales, we have already invested £500 million in the electric arc furnace for Port Talbot. We are working with the Secretary of State for Wales and the private sector to see what investment can be unlocked under the £2.5 billion that the National Wealth Fund will have allocated for steel projects.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, since there is time, I note that the Statement talks, I am happy to say, about the shift to “greener, decarbonised steel production”. However, will the Minister acknowledge that there is a rather great irony that when the Statement comes to consider the potential markets for this British-made steel, it talks about the third runway at Heathrow requiring 400,000 tonnes of steel? This is the third runway that, according to the Government’s own figures, uncovered by Politico last year, will result in an addition 2.4 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent being released into the atmosphere each year by 2050. This is at the same time as the Joint Intelligence Committee is warning what a great threat to our security the climate emergency is.

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right: there is a great market for green steel. Hatch estimates that over 90% of steel demand in the UK in 2050 will be steel produced with low emissions. The transition to net zero is across the entire economy, and we will take that forward across all sub-sectors.

International Women’s Day

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Friday 6th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I congratulate all our maiden speakers today, and I hope they continue along the lines we have heard from them.

I want to start in Geneva, where I recently spent a week visiting various United Nations organisations. I saw how much they have been hollowed out, degraded and cut back by funding withdrawal, particularly from the United States, but also from the UK cuts to official development assistance. This is an issue particularly for women. I heard and saw first-hand how the World Health Organization has been slashed. Its African regional office is majorly affected, losing 638 of 2,500 posts. In Geneva, we heard how maternity services, care for victims of sexual violence and nutritional provision for malnourished children—a disproportionate number of them likely to be girls—will be cut back.

I thought of that yesterday as I was at Porton Down at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Antimicrobial Resistance talking about AMR. I was thinking too about an inquiry we conducted jointly with the WASH APPG—that is water, sanitation and hygiene—about how many maternity facilities, particularly in Africa, lack the most basic facility of running water. That means risk of infection and the need to use antibiotics prophylactically, which risks speeding AMR.

As we talk today, we might think about the women at this moment in labour in those maternity clinics—their lives and their babies’ lives at risk because of inadequate resources, because some people in this world are taking far more resources than they should have the right to while those women suffer. The cutbacks will mean only that that situation continues, which makes not only those women and babies less safe but all of us less safe.

I turn now to how the closing down of international public spaces and actors has opened up a space for forces with interests other than global well-being and human and natural flourishing—corporate interests, and dubious interests. I am not, on this occasion, talking about President Trump and his so-called board of peace.

We have, I am afraid, seen today in our debate a practical demonstration of this. The slogan for International Women’s Day is “Rights. Justice. Action”, as has been noted by, among others, the noble Baronesses, Lady D’Souza, Lady Goudie and Lady Smith of Llanfaes. You can find that on the dedicated page on the UN Women website, where it notes correctly that this year’s event

“comes at a time when justice systems are under strain. Conflict, repression, and political tensions are weakening the rule of law”.

We have today, however, heard another slogan, “Give to gain”. It is a very different slogan, a very neoliberal slogan, one focused on the individual—focused on making a sop to our current system, rather than acknowledging the need for radical change. It is a slogan that originates with an opaquely owned website that appears to be a corporate shill. It is suggestive of the philosophy infamously promulgated by the cryptocurrency billionaire, Sam Bankman-Fried, who is now of course in jail: so-called effective altruism. That has helped to build a political culture that practically invites the most egregious forms of capture of our public global spaces by the rich. The haves give; the have-nots receive. The have-nots have to avoid challenging the status quo if they are going to get a few crumbs from the table.

If you want to find out more about the origins of the “Give to gain” slogan, the Women’s Agenda website has a detailed account of the origins of the URL internationalwomensday.com—that .com should be a giveaway. It makes no declaration of its ownership or origins. It is, of course, a name that can simply be bought by anyone. Women’s Agenda says—as far as I can establish, rightly—that this is the creation of a “London-based marketing firm”. The “about us” part of the website says nothing. There is no mailing address. The digital regulations require that it says that it is owned by Aurora Ventures (Europe), which is apparently based in London. That is what we know. What we are seeing is the impact of search engines, tech companies and maybe artificial so-called intelligence tools enabling corporate capture.

I turn briefly to what I wanted to talk mainly about today, the situation of many women in war zones. We have had considerable accounts of the women in Afghanistan, and I commend those who have talked about that. I think about the women in Sudan—the women of El Fasher, many of whom now head households because their male partners have been killed—and the women in Iran who have been fighting against the regime and are now in jails under the most hideous conditions, with the assaults that are being made on Iran. There are the women in Palestine, Myanmar and the central African states—and, of course, women in the US. System change—that is what those women need. As UN Women says, they need rights, justice and action.

UK-India: Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and the committee for all their important work on this free trade deal. I echo the comments of both the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Frost, in expressing concern about the serious democratic deficit of the extremely limited scrutiny the UK Parliament has over trade matters, in contrast to the European Parliament, of course. It is one of the many losses of Brexit.

However, I respectfully disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, about the EU-Mercosur deal. That is not something we should want to copy. As the European Greens have highlighted, it raises grave concerns about food safety, food quality and animal welfare standards, and the likelihood of contributing further to deforestation, which the world and its climate cannot afford.

However, I agree with the approach taken in this debate by the noble Baroness, Lady Gill, in particular, who sees this trade deal as part of a much broader aspect of our relationship with India, which is crucially important. We are two of the middle powers that, in the model set out by Mark Carney in Davos, need to work together with other compatriots and smaller states to seek to stabilise a world in which the larger powers present a major threat to the security of us all.

Long-term strategic connections depend on economic and cultural ties and on our state’s capacity, in the UK, to co-ordinate internally between all arms of government. This means careful consideration of the treatment of Indian migrants to and residents of the UK, particularly in the context of the continuing hostile environment at the Home Office, which impacts so heavily on so many people. That feeds into, and is apparently fed by, the far-right political forces that are at play in our society, which are far too often funded and supported by external actors.

Building on that relationship means appearing to be a good partner not just to the Indian Government or even to major Indian economic actors but to the Indian people. That demands a recognition of the disastrous history of the British Empire in India—domination, forced starvation and abuse. It means acknowledging what the Indian people bring to the table in historic skills and traditional knowledge, and the enormous capacity of today’s young and educated population. I declare my membership of the APPG on Indian Traditional Sciences. Enabling the UK to be regarded as a constructive force demands acknowledging the past and building new foundations.

The Green Party brings a different view of trade from that of most of the other speakers in this Room. Our desire is for fair trade rather than a focus on free trade, for which so many have suffered while a few have benefited. It means trade that makes sense in terms of mutual benefit and minimal damage. I am afraid I very much disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Johnson. Trade should prioritise environmental sustainability, social justice and building strong, local, resilient communities, both here in the UK and in India, where that should be supported.

I have spoken before about food and animal welfare standards in relation to Mercosur. I have concerns about this deal on that basis, but I also want to stress that it is not just this deal; I expressed exactly the same concerns about the Australia trade deal, and I have very grave concerns about any US trade deal in that context.

Regarding the relationship with the Indian people and what our trade with them might do for the whole of Indian society, it is interesting to look at the Indian fashion industry, where this could be a real positive. In recent years, clothing exports from India have declined sharply as well-known fashion brands have moved production to places such as Morocco and Turkey, simply because of cost. India’s internal migrant workers have been particularly hard hit, often waiting outside factories for days for the chance of a single shift of work. It might appear that steadier employment and a more competitive sector are positive outcomes, but we have to acknowledge that the nature of this deal shapes the nature of the Indian labour market. Whether we are talking about denim mills in Karnataka or knitwear and spinning hubs in Tamil Nadu, the reality of the fashion industry in India is one of low wages and limited job security. With many of the workers being women, we are also talking about situations of gender-based violence, harassment and unsafe working conditions.

We have to ask: what is this deal doing? I have to acknowledge that there are positives in the deal. There are commitments, and there is a whole chapter on this issue, but it is there on paper as guidance, not as commitments. There is a familiar gap between commitments to decent work on paper and what really exists on the factory floors. I would appreciate a response from the Minister about how the Government will ensure that what is in the deal will be transferred to real action on the ground.

Looking briefly at that chapter, I draw on an interesting report from ODI Global, which I strongly recommend to noble Lords if they have not seen it. I do not have time to go into it here, but it looks at the issues of systematic barriers to women’s participation in trade. It acknowledges, as does chapter 23 of the deal, the diverse roles that women play in trade as workers, business owners and entrepreneurs. But the report suggests that the deal does not sufficiently recognise the differential impact of trade on women, not just as consumers of traded goods and services but as participants in local, national, regional and global supply chains.

The trade deal simply does not contain the mechanisms to do this. It mandates the establishment of a trade and gender equality working group and it creates a monitoring and evaluation system, but it is not strong enough. The words are there on paper, but we do not see a guarantee of delivery. There will be a joint committee overseeing the working group, but there is no specification of female membership of it. Will the Government ensure that we do not see a committee of men advising on women’s involvement in trade? I would love to hear something very firm on that. As for data analysis, data collection and research analysis, this is an area where the deal could be world-leading if it is delivered.

I said that we have to think about our relationship with the people of India. This has to be a deal that sets a foundation for a new kind of relationship, which means that it needs trade relationships and diplomatic relationships that are different to those of the past.

Social Media: Non-consensual Sexual Deepfakes

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

I have responded to this question before. I understand why people feel strongly about it. As I mentioned, the Government keep participation under review, but it is important that we can communicate with people wherever they get their news from. We have things to say about our violence against women and girls strategy, about what is acceptable in terms of social media, and on many other topics. It is important that we reach all people.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

The US Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Sarah B Rogers, an appointee of President Trump, said in an interview that was broadcast on GB News in the early hours of this morning that if the UK Government were to ban X, nothing was off the table, in what were clearly threatening remarks. She said that the political valence of the British Government is antagonistic to that of X. Given what we are talking about, one would really hope so. Will the Minister confirm that the British Government will act in the interests of the well-being of the British public and the country, stand up to such threats to democracy and not allow themselves to be bullied by the Trump Administration?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The Government’s motivation is to take action to protect users in the United Kingdom and to support Ofcom in implementing UK law. That is what we have made very clear. We have made it very clear that Ofcom has our full backing in implementing compliance with the Online Safety Act and that we have given Ofcom tools that it can use, and the Secretary of State and others have made it clear that it has our support in using those tools. I hope that clarifies our motivations in these areas.

Trade Act 2021 (Power to Implement International Trade Agreements) (Extension to Expiry) Regulations 2025

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations. This is my opportunity to express a personal welcome to him on his new ministerial responsibilities. I hope he enjoys them. For those of us who are veterans of the Trade Act 2021, such as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and I—perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, also counts in that category—the abstruse nature of the debates that we take part in can always be characterised as having a certain fellow feeling and enjoyment. This debate will doubtless be one of them.

As veterans of the Trade Act 2021 will recall, Section 2(10)(b) confers the power to extend the operation of the Act by a period of up to five years from IP completion date—31 December 2020—and, on more than one occasion, as specified under Section (2)(11). The Act provides for the powers to implement “an international trade agreement” or “a free trade agreement”, but it applies only to agreements to which the European Union and a counterparty were signatories prior to exit day—31 January 2020—so it applies only to those agreements that we referred to at that time as continuity agreements.

Those involved in the original legislation will recall that the regulations were expected to apply principally to procurement agreements and mutual recognition agreements for conformity assessments, as well as similar agreements known as agreements on conformity assessment and the acceptance of industrial products. That was in reference to what my noble friend Lord Grimstone—he of the famous Grimstone rule—enunciated in the passage of that legislation on 29 September 2020. I think it is correct to say that, since the passage of the Procurement Act 2023, further powers are available separately to the Government to include further countries to have access to the government procurement agreement by adding to the list in Schedule 9 to the 2023 Act, so there should be no further need for regulations under the Trade Act 2021 in relation to procurement.

I do not believe the same is true for mutual recognition agreements. One can see that powers in the Act have been used for this purpose. I found three: SI 2021/730, which was the mutual recognition agreement for the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the Republic of Korea and Japan; SI 2021/1332, which extended the Canadian agreement to construction products; and SI 2022/1400, which applied to Switzerland. Are those powers still needed? I conclude yes, in so far as I can see there are three continuity agreements that include the potential for a mutual recognition agreement or an ACAA, but where such agreements have not been concluded between the European Union and those counterparties. They are the association agreements between the European Union and Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia respectively. Will the Minister say what, if any, ongoing work is being conducted to reach any agreement with any of those three states, or am I correct in thinking that we would implement such an agreement only if or when an MRA or ACAA is concluded between the European Union and one of those states?

I have one further question. Is it the Government’s intention to legislate for a power to implement mutual recognition agreements in free trade agreements in the future? The Trade Act applies to continuity agreements only, and clearly there is a wider question. Will the Minister explain what we might agree with Switzerland or Turkey that is covered by the Trade Act 2021 and regulations under that Act? I am not sure I understand what that would be.

Going outside continuity agreements, the UK-India agreement includes commitments to work on the joint development of technical regulations and can include the acceptance of conformity assessments, but it is not a full mutual recognition agreement. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership states, at Articles 8.5 and 8.6, that each party shall give positive consideration to accepting the results of conformity assessment procedures conducted in the territory of another party and may do so through a mutual recognition agreement; and that, at the request of another party, a party shall enter negotiations for the conclusion of agreements for the mutual recognition of the results of conformity assessment procedures. Among the member states of the CPTPP, Japan, Canada and New Zealand already have mutual recognition agreements in place with us, but other countries may request them. I take this opportunity to ask whether they have done so. On the assumption they have not, were they to do so, would the Government consider implementing legislation for the purpose of bringing mutual recognition agreements into force through statutory instruments, rather than waiting for primary legislation for the purpose?

The conclusion I reach is that these regulations may be needed, if for no other purpose than that the European Union might fast-track agreements with Ukraine and Moldova, although probably not Georgia for the time being. If they are fast-tracked towards EU membership and would be compliant with conformity assessments for industrial products, we may arrive at a situation where we could extend our continuity agreements with them in like fashion. I therefore see the purpose, potentially, for an extension for the next five years.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, in thanking the Minister for the introduction and repeat his welcome. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who led us so skilfully and bravely through some truly obtuse bits of the Trade Act in 2021, including questioning his Front Bench very strongly. I will aim not to be obtuse and to be brief. Just the existence of this SI reraises some of the big questions that we discussed in 2021 in the context of what has happened since then.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 23rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

184B: After Clause 150, insert the following new Clause—
“Review of the impact of high temperatures on workplace health and safetyWithin 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must publish a review of the impact of increasing temperatures on workplace health and safety.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure the Government is considering the impact of increasing temperatures due to climate change on the safety and health of workers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, aware of the hour, I begin with a promise that I will not test the opinion of the House, although I am afraid that I cannot speak, of course, for the numbered amendments after this one.

Just to explain very briefly—it is fairly self-evident—my amendment calls for a new clause to review the impact of high temperatures on workplace health and safety. Of course, this is in consideration of the rising issue that this presents for the rights of workers in the climate emergency. I did not table a comparable amendment in Committee. I tried to table a broader amendment which was ruled out of scope and I never managed to get back to it, but I feel it is really important to bring this amendment here today, in light of events between Committee and Report.

Noble Lords may be aware of a novel by Kim Stanley Robinson called The Ministry for the Future, which features a mass mortality event as a result of extraordinary high temperatures and humidity. If we ever get to that stage in Britain, we will be beyond deep trouble. None the less, what we have just experienced at the end of June is what one expert described as a “quietly devastating” heatwave across Europe, which killed 2,300 people in 12 major cities and, it is estimated, will have caused several hundred deaths in London alone. The climate emergency means that, through that period, the temperatures were four degrees higher than they would have been otherwise, and one of the important things that has happened is that we have seen a large increase in so-called tropical nights, when the temperature does not drop below 20 degrees centigrade, people struggle to rest and that then has a cumulative effect on workers’ health.

We have not just seen the heatwave. We have also seen the TUC launch a large-scale, serious campaign to ask the Government to look at this and, in fact, to go further and set a maximum working temperature. It is worth stressing that, unlike other countries such as Spain—which might not surprise noble Lords—and Germany, we do not have a maximum working temperature. There is an obligation on employers to provide a safe workplace, but without that maximum temperature, and with circumstances arising that neither workers nor employers have encountered before, we really need to set some guard-rails for the safety of workers.

The TUC did a recent study on this and produced some horrifying examples, starting with what is happening in schoolrooms. It surveyed almost 6,000 teachers; some 94% reported they worked in excessively high temperatures during the summer, with 42% doing so regularly. A union rep reported on 27 telephone exchanges, in which the highest temperature was 36 degrees centigrade. A chicken factory reported high temperatures leading to incidents of tiredness and dizziness in a place where there was a lot of hard physical activity—that sounds like hell. In tissue culture and virology rooms, the temperature was 32 degrees and the room was full of ethanol fumes, which is another issue all to itself.

I am acutely aware of the hour, but I hope I will hear from the Minister that this is something that the Government will look at very seriously and consider the TUC’s call for a maximum temperature. That would obviously vary according to the circumstances. When we think about working outside, we have the issue of sun exposure, which also has longer-term risks for health and skin cancer, et cetera. I hope that I will hear something positive from the Minister and that the Government will take this seriously, listen to what the TUC is saying, acknowledge that the climate emergency is making this a fast-rising problem and take action. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response. The problem is that words such as “reasonable” and “assessed risk” refer to what may happen in well-regulated, well-controlled workplaces; in contrast, it is the most vulnerable workers who are the most vulnerable to that not happening. However, many of the cases I cited were very mainstream workplaces, such as schools.

As promised, I will withdraw my amendment. Before doing so, I finish with an apology to the staff. We should give thanks to them for supporting us right through the Bill and throughout all the time it has taken. I also note that we should think about the impact of heat on their health and well-being in our workplace. We might want to think, as employers ourselves, about what reasonable adjustments we might need to make for them, as the temperatures in this workplace change. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 184B withdrawn.