Arrangement of Business

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Thursday 18th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

I endorse the comments of the Leader of the House about Question Time. I have always said that the clue is in the title: it is Question Time.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I suggest that the Whips could be a bit more assertive when people go over time, because often they sit there while the time goes on and the rest of the House is getting agitated, but they do not intervene. Please can they intervene rather more?

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Lords Hansard - part two & Report stage
Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I speak in support of the amendment. I thank the noble Baroness for bringing it forward. As she said, we met many years ago in her office upstairs, with representatives of the trade union USDAW to discuss these issues. We rightly pursued this point.

Many years ago, when I was about 14, I became a shop worker; I started working in a shop on the Walworth Road. It got me talking, and I have not stopped talking since. Meeting people gave me confidence. Equally, over the many years I worked there, there were often incidents when you were abused by customers. In those days, when someone paid by credit card you had to phone up if you were a bit suspicious. You had people legging it for the bus—there were all sorts of incidents. There were always issues. You would sometimes be abused by people who were seeking to do wrong: to shoplift or cause other problems. So I have first-hand experience of some of the problems that shop workers have experienced.

I was a member of USDAW. It is a fantastic trade union. It understands its members and the issues they have, and puts them forward persuasively to government and local authorities. It always did that. One of its long-running campaigns is called Freedom from Fear. You have the right to go to work, do your job, be paid for your work and not live in fear. Many shop workers have that issue; they are in fear of what will happen to them there. During the pandemic we have all seen some appalling stories of how shop workers have been treated. USDAW has been really good in standing up to that.

I pay tribute to John Hannett, the former general secretary of USDAW, to Paddy Lillis, the present general secretary, to the staff and to the many hundreds of thousands of USDAW members who have not let this issue rest. I also pay tribute to some really good employers, the supermarkets that understand the problems their staff have. The Co-op, Tesco and many others have stood up and backed the union and its members. This amendment has also been led by the work of Daniel Johnson MSP in Scotland. He got his Private Member’s Bill through last year.

What is really good about this amendment is how wide it is; it covers anybody delivering a service to the public. In some senses it is wider than my noble friend Lord Coaker’s amendment, which I think is great, and a better amendment. It is really good and we should do it.

I am really pleased. We all hear many stories about what goes on. My good friend Elaine Dean, the vice-president of the Central England Co-op, will tell you about some of the appalling incidents it has had with its members and with staff over the pandemic. I genuinely thank the Minister. She listened, understood and went back to the department and argued in support of the campaign, and we have come out with a good amendment. I thank her very much for that.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, I call the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, who will speak remotely.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 8th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I call the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon. We do not seem to have him, so we will go on to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, the opposition to Clause 69 standing part, and Amendment 191, both in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, have enabled us to debate the whole issue of mandatory polygraph tests, and the fact that such tests could be made a licence condition for domestic abuse offenders.

I certainly want to see effective action taken against offenders, and effective punishments given to them. I have some concerns about the use of the polygraph test. If we rely on it further and further, it should be piloted in the way set out in Amendment 191, and we must be convinced of its reliability. As the noble Lord set out in his amendment, a report evaluating the trials must then be laid before Parliament and debated and a positive resolution passed by both Houses. I have had no involvement in this technology and I have no understanding of it—apart from what I have seen on television—so I believe that we must be very careful to get this right.

I was concerned by the comment made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, which seemed to suggest that we would not have our own standards but would import them from another country—America. I would much rather that as a country we had our own standards, in which we had confidence, than import them from elsewhere. But polygraph testing is not widely used in this country and before we go much further, we need to be confident that it is reliable, and an effective and useful tool in the management of offenders.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, shall we see if we have the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, on the call? I do not think we do, sadly, in which case I call the Minister.

Enterprise Act 2002 (Specification of Additional Section 58 Consideration) Order 2020

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op) [V]]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Stevenson’s regret Motion. The essence of my noble friend’s Motion is that, while broadly welcoming the intention of these orders, there are grave concerns about the controls available and when temporary becomes permanent in all but name. It all seems very unsatisfactory.

I concur with many earlier speakers’ concerns about our ability to protect the population’s access to sufficient supplies of vaccines and PPE. The record of the Government in the present pandemic is nothing to be proud of. With the horrific death rate, which is the worst in the whole of Europe, the Government have to do much better and should be ashamed of their record. I recall SMEs which produce PPE in the UK being unable to find markets in the NHS and instead selling their goods abroad.

A number of noble Lords have raised concerns about the CMA, its perceived weakness and when we can expect its new chair to be appointed. I share those concerns. Will the Minister address those points in his reply and, in particular, comment on the resignation of the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, from his position as chair? I agree with my noble friend Lord Mann’s comments that many other countries in Europe, such as Germany, have done a better job of protecting their businesses than we have in the UK.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, has withdrawn from the debate, so I now call the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond.

Business and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Kennedy of Southwark

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate, and anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division should make that clear in the debate.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, in my first contribution I should have declared my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and as president of National Pubwatch.

Amendment 76 in my name is a solitary amendment and was first raised in the other place by my good friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch, Meg Hillier MP. The intention is to allow Parliament to consider the impact of the measures introduced by the Bill and to repeal them should unintended consequences occur. I very much agree with my honourable friend in the other place that it is particularly important for Parliament to take a power to repeal measures since so little time has been given for the Bill to be debated. Are noble Lords satisfied that we have had sufficient time to scrutinise the Bill? I suggest that we have not had enough time, but there is a lot of pressure to get it agreed. It is therefore important to ensure that we have a mechanism to deal with issues.

There is one important difference between my amendment and that which was debated in the House of Commons. In the amendment before the House of Commons it was for the Commons to conduct the review, while my amendment gives a role for the House of Lords. That is in recognition of the expertise in this House. For me, that was an omission in the discussions in the other place.

I expect I will shortly be told that this amendment is unnecessary as the Bill includes a provision for the affirmative procedure for draft regulations, but that affords little scrutiny, especially in the Commons where only a small number of MPs have the chance to raise concerns. This amendment would allow Parliament to review the impact of the provisions in the late autumn. If the Minister is unable to accept it, perhaps he could explain how the Government will allow the House otherwise to repeal aspects of legislation should the concerns around provisions prove founded. I beg to move.