Socioeconomic Equality Duty

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Baroness Verma

Thursday 18th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Perhaps I may remind noble Lords to make their comments as brief as possible so that we can fit in as many people as possible.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Baroness asks a lot of questions and I am not sure that I will be able to answer them all. We are looking at how we can manage the budget deficit so that the most vulnerable are least of all affected. That is why we have taken 880,000 people out of the tax system altogether and that is why we are introducing increased child tax credits for the poorest families to mitigate some of the things that they are going to have to face, because for the 13 years that the party opposite was in government poverty increased. We did see an increase in the numbers. So I am sorry to say that this is not an issue on which the party opposite can boast, say that they addressed it and that we are not now addressing it. We are all trying to address this serious problem.

We supported the Child Poverty Act and we were committed to implementing it. The Labour Government repeatedly missed their targets. It is very easy to sit here and say that what we are doing is gesture politics and that what the previous Government did was right. What we have to take on board is that we have huge deficits that we must respond to. We have a duty to support the most vulnerable people and we as a Government take that very seriously. In her speech yesterday morning, my noble friend pointed out that local authorities are best placed to know where and how to spend their resources. They are best placed to know how to react to the needs of their local communities. I do not think that we need a diktat from central government through some clause that will force local authorities into a tick-box bureaucracy that, to be truthful, does not answer any of those questions.

UNESCO: Equatorial Guinea

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Baroness Verma

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, on the specific point about Equatorial Guinea, I should say that we have no presence there, although the high commissioner to Nigeria, Bob Dewar, visits twice a year. However, we completely agree that there needs to be transparency in what Equatorial Guinea is doing on human rights. That is what we will urge through all the multilateral agencies through which we supply our funds.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

What consultation process has the UNESCO director-general set up to find a solution to this prize?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, my noble friend asks a serious question. We have asked UNESCO to ensure that all the principles and criteria in setting these prizes are open and transparent and that the board undertakes, with other agencies that are involved in setting these prizes, to look seriously at ensuring that prizes set in one sector comply with prizes set in others.