Childcare Bill [HL]
Debate between Baroness Fookes and Lord Storey(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord described the Delegated Powers Committee’s report as vigorous. That is perhaps a little bit of an understatement. It is true that the Minister is a courteous and honourable person. Those who worked with him on the Children and Families Bill know how anxious he is to keep people together and to get agreement on the things that concern us all. This must be true of the Childcare Bill. It is too important to get it wrong. I am a great admirer of the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton. She and I have served together on a number of local government committees. However, I was slightly disappointed with her disingenuous remarks. Had she looked at the list of amendments, she would have seen that another local government stalwart—the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock—has tabled Amendment 34 on child poverty. Therefore, I ask the Minister: am I right in understanding that these issues will be sorted—to use a common colloquialism—before Report?
Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, I hope that the House and the Minister will forgive me if I intervene briefly as the chairman of the regulatory powers committee. I accept that it was a hard-hitting report; none the less, I think that it was a fair one. On the other hand, I welcome my noble friend the Minister’s offer to postpone Report stage, and the various ways in which he is trying to put right what I think must be accepted as a mistake. However, I think that all this could have been avoided if one of two ways had been followed by the Government in this matter—either by introducing a draft Bill, where all the details could have been fleshed out, or by the time-honoured method of introducing a Green Paper for consultation, followed by a White Paper setting out broadly the regulations and Bill that they wanted to see. In those cases, we would have had no worries at all.
Combined Authorities (Consequential Amendments) Order 2014
Debate between Baroness Fookes and Lord Storey
Lord Storey (LD)
I am very grateful for the comments from my noble friend. I am also delighted to hear the Minister address a number of issues that have caused concern among Members. We are very much in favour of combined authorities—they are an important economic opportunity for local areas. However, the thing that concerned us most was the citation. The word “region” is apparently no longer acceptable, and when in my area there was discussion about what name would be acceptable, it was not possible to come up with an agreed name. The notion of trying to market and get external investment into the Liverpool region using the citation “Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral”, would be rather difficult. I was going to ask my noble friend whether that was purely a legal name and whether these areas could choose whatever name they wanted to get this external investment and marketing which has been so important, certainly in my area, for the past 10 or so years, and she has said—it is quite important—that they can have whatever brand name they choose. That is hugely important.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
My Lords, I am sorry: we now have to interrupt proceedings. We shall reconvene in 10 minutes.