Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 7th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, as this is the first time I am speaking on Report, I should remind the House of my interests as a shareholder in Fidelity National Information Services Inc, which provides services to the financial sector, and as a non-practising member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. I, too, welcome the noble Lord, Lord Pitt-Watson, to his new role, and I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Stockwood, because, when we discussed this clause in Committee, I jokingly referred to the Minister not always being the Minister, for which I apologise.

I have Amendment 9 in this group, which would remove the egregious Henry VIII power from Clause 3. I have also added my name to Amendment 10, which would delete Clause 3 altogether. As I explained in Committee, as someone who lives in a very rural area, my nearest bank branch, now that the last branch in my nearest town has closed, is a 100-mile round trip—so access to banking is a subject with which I have a lot of personal sympathy. I look forward to seeing the Lloyd report once it has been published in October. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, I expect to support an awful lot that will be in it.

The problem with Clause 3 is that it gives the Government incredibly broad and unfettered powers in this respect, including an unlimited power to amend any Act of Parliament. Indeed, there is nothing in the clause that would prevent a Government reducing access to banking if they chose to do so. I do not think I can put it any better than our Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in its report of 17 June, which brought these wide powers to the House’s attention. It concluded that

“the problem with clause 3 is that it confers a wide regulation-making power on Ministers before any key policy decisions have been made, before any problem has been clearly identified and assisted by a power to amend any Act of Parliament ever made. Such a power severely compromises effective parliamentary scrutiny. We consider that the power in clause 3 is inappropriately wide and should be removed from the Bill”.

This Government have form on pushing through legislation before they know what they want to do with it, and this example is particularly egregious. I asked the noble Lord, Lord Stockwood, in Committee when he was the Minister, which Acts of Parliament the Government had in mind to alter using this power. The response, I am sorry to say, was less than illuminating. He said that

“the Treasury expects to use the power if needed to amend relevant legislation, for example, financial services legislation”.—[Official Report, 22/6/26; col. GC 232.]

He went on to say:

“As the recommendations of the independent Access to Banking Services review are currently unknown, it is necessary for Clause 3 to be able to amend primary legislation to respond to any recommendations that are made”.—[Official Report, 22/6/26; col. GC 235.]


In other words, “We don’t know what we want to do, so we’re just going to make it as wide as possible”. My guess is that it is actually highly unlikely that any primary legislation will need to be changed as a result of this, but we shall see.

I think that makes the case against Clause 3. It is not satisfactory for the Government to give themselves the widest of powers, including the unlimited power to change any existing Act of Parliament, when they have no idea what they want to do with those powers.

The Government claim, in the Explanatory Memorandum and elsewhere, that they will narrow the powers once the Lloyd report has been received. But this is Report. We have not seen the report. It will take I do not know how many months for the Government to come up with recommendations based on the report. The Bill will probably already be law by then, so there will be no real opportunity to narrow the powers.

I am sure that the House will support moves to improve access to banking when in due course the Government actually have a plan, and, in the unlikely event that changes are required to existing law, a short, focused Bill can be created to do that, which, as all changes to the law should be, can be subject to the proper scrutiny processes of Parliament. This unfocused clause is too wide and any resulting changes to law would not be subject to proper scrutiny. That is not the right way to legislate. At the very least, the Henry VIII clause should be removed, as I suggest in Amendment 9, but the clause as a whole is too wide, and therefore I urge all noble Lords to support Amendment 10 from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, to remove this unrestricted power.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I want to support Amendment 8, but no one seems to have spoken to it, so is it in order for me to say a few words on it? It is an important amendment because it contains really the only mention in the whole Bill of post offices. The amendment, in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Tyler and Lady Kramer, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, talks about the Treasury considering

“the effectiveness of alternative frameworks, including the Post Office Banking Framework, in providing access to banking and cash services”.

That is an important aspect of all this.

Increasingly, we are seeing that people, particularly in rural areas or areas where there is high deprivation where people do not have access to online facilities and do not particularly want to go online because they do not trust banks enough to go online or they do not trust the internet, are using their post offices. The post offices could be doing so much more to widen access to cash and money.

I draw attention—although I am sure most noble Lords will have seen it—to the National Federation of SubPostmasters 18-page report on the access to banking services review, which shows statistically just how much more post offices are being used by people and how they could be used to provide even more services. When banks close in areas now, it is usually the post office that picks up a lot of that business.

I welcome the Minister to his position, and I hope he will say whether the Government are serious about increasing the use of post offices, not just for some of the issues to do with banking. You can no longer pay your television licence—if you still want to pay it—in the post office. So many services have been taken away from the post office, but such services would make it much easier and more accessible for people, particularly in rural communities. People trust their local post office. They find that it is somewhere they can go and get the advice and reassurance that they cannot get in a local bank because they do not ever see a bank. I have already mentioned the lack of trust.

I ask the Minister to respond to this amendment and say whether he is willing to talk directly to the National Federation of SubPostmasters to discuss these issues further and how we can make our post offices more vibrant and involved with the local community by being able to offer them the services that they want.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. As this is the first time I have spoken on Report, I declare my technology interests as set out in the register, as adviser to the Crown Estate and Simmons and Simmons LLP and as non-executive director at Avalanche Foundation and Avalanche (BVI) Inc. I shall speak to Amendment 8, which I had pleasure in signing.

How many brands or businesses have we in the UK that have been on our high street for over half a millennium? That is what we have with the post office, which rode into our lives in 1511 and continues to have just shy of 12,000 branches up and down the country. Whatever happens with digital—and finance certainly is going to become, and already in many areas is, digital—we need, and must support, physical presence and human access to, and interaction with, finance, not least for those who find themselves at the sharpest end of financial exclusion. As I have already mentioned, financial inclusion often and perniciously goes hand in hand with digital exclusion, compounding both of those exclusionary forces.

The post office has a unique role. Of course, it has had well-known difficulties recently, but that does not diminish the potential role it can play as other financial services providers retreat, and have already retreated, from so many of our high streets. It can be the core of the community with inclusive, accessible finance at that core and rippling out all kinds of other financial, digital and small “s” social services. It has such positive potential. We have seen this with the hub model, and I would be interested in the Minister’s response as to whether the Government believe we have enough hubs, whether the plan for hubs is ambitious enough and whether we need to bring other players into this hub model to ensure that, wherever you are, whoever you are, in the country, in socioeconomics, you can have effective access to finance and through that meaningful, sustainable and often physical access to cash and financial services. I very much look forward to the Minister’s response to this amendment.

Windsor Framework (Retail Movement Scheme: Plant Health) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, these regulations were imposed without any discussion with parliamentarians in Northern Ireland, and I think this is totally unacceptable. Of course, the Government are now saying that this is better for the internal market, which is just not true, because it is based on a deceit. If imports are moving from GB to Northern Ireland, they must comply with customs paperwork. This is not a UK internal market system but a GB/EU/Northern Ireland international trade border. The Government are really misleading on this. Why can they not be honest? Why can they not say that, yes, the customs forms may be shorter, but an internal market for goods is not created by demands for shorter customs forms but by there being no requirement for such forms in the first place? The shorter forms are offered in return for businesses having to accept separate additional border frictions, including the costs of needing to acquire and maintain trusted trader status, to demonstrate that goods do not reach the EU and to carry “Not for EU” labels. None of these border frictions applies in an internal market.

Will the Minister be honest and admit that if GB submits to EU law regarding imports under these regulations, what is on offer is not a movement from GB to Northern Ireland in the UK internal market but movement, as I said, through an alternative GB/EU/NI trade border system? This arrangement is unsustainable and it is unjust because, as has been said over and again in this House, it involves accommodating the desire of 27 other states to disrespect the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom, in violation of international law, as was said by the noble Lord, and undermining our democracy. It is not sustainable. I just wish that His Majesty’s Government and the Minister would be honest about what this regulation actually does, in further dividing Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom.

British Industry and Services: Public Procurement

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I wonder who the noble Lord is talking about. He will be very aware that we have to operate within a contractual framework; we follow the rules and always will, but he raises an incredibly important point. The way in which we procure all contracts has to be considered in the round. That is why we are changing the social value test to make sure that other factors beyond pure cost are considered as part of any negotiations. But also, as the world changes, we are making sure that appropriate AI tools and others are used not only as part of the contracts but to deliver on the contracts too—they are used by government as well as by our contractors.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, can the noble Baroness explain how it can possibly be right that Transport for London has bought 500 electric buses from China, when Wrightbus in County Antrim produces wonderful electric buses that go all over the world? How is this supporting British business?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The Department for Transport has recently published its 10-year pipeline for zero-emission buses, covering procurement through to 2035. That will give British manufacturers, including Wrightbus in Antrim, the long-term certainty they need to plan ahead and invest in their workforce, which is key for delivery. In addition, the UK bus manufacturing panel, which is cross-government, recently agreed on a number of mayoral commitments, including a minimum 10% social value rating in all future bus procurement tenders, bringing it in line with the social value policy applicable to central government departments. That should assist Wrightbus.

Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address Motion

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises an important and valid point. In this instance, it was considered a sensible move to remove Lord Mandelson from the payroll as quickly as possible.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the Minister quite rightly referred to Epstein as a despicable person, as did the Prime Minister and other members of the Government. However, was he not a despicable person the first time he was put in jail for the appalling abuse of young women? Peter Mandelson stayed in Epstein’s house in America after that, which the Prime Minister knew. A lot of the public will think that that must have been enough to make it clear that he could not be appointed as our ambassador.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that Mr Epstein was a despicable and horrendous human being. The Prime Minister was genuinely not aware of the depth of their continuing relationship, which did not become clear until after the publication of the Bloomberg papers.

Windsor Framework (Retail Movement Scheme: Plant and Animal Health) (Amendment etc.) Regulations 2024

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Hoey]

That an Humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that the Windsor Framework (Retail Movement Scheme: Plant and Animal Health) (Amendment etc.) Regulations 2024 (SI 2024/853), laid before the House on 9 August, be annulled.

Relevant document: 3rd Report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for kindly meeting me last week to discuss these regulations and for having a larger meeting with all the Peers from Northern Ireland on where aspects of the Irish Sea border are affected and where Defra has responsibility. I am very grateful for her time and consideration.

I am deeply concerned by these regulations which we are discussing tonight. Part of the reason for praying against this statutory instrument is to ensure that your Lordships genuinely understand just how important they are, not just to Northern Ireland but to the whole of the United Kingdom.

Ever since the broadcast of the recording of the private meeting where Michel Barnier said that the policy was to use Ireland in order to secure the broader Brexit purposes in relation to the United Kingdom, many of us have felt strongly that the people of Northern Ireland are being used as pawns in a bigger game. We have always worried that the European Union would use the imposition of EU standards on Northern Ireland—as a result of the protocol and the Windsor Framework—to pressurise the rest of the United Kingdom not to diverge from EU standards and so miss out on some of the benefits of having a competitive advantage from leaving the European Union.

The regulations before us tonight provide a very clear articulation of this strategy, but in a form of smoke and mirrors. They impose on Great Britain the same entry requirements for rest of the world goods as to the European Union. This is supposedly in order that those goods should be able to move freely from Great Britain to Northern Ireland without the interference of the Irish Sea border, because the whole of the United Kingdom—not just Northern Ireland—has, in this regard, submitted to EU standards for these areas. This is being presented as some kind of trade off: GB submits to EU standards and then the border, for that purpose at least, can disappear.

This is where the regulations before us are particularly telling. Your Lordships might have expected, given this so-called trade off, that the border that has been imposed, dividing our United Kingdom, would be removed to deal with the rest of the world goods, allowing their genuinely free, unfettered movement from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, but that is just not the case. Under the terms of these regulations, even with our negotiators agreeing to adopt EU standards, the goods still cannot move freely from Great Britain to Northern Ireland: they still have to cross an international customs border and an international sanitary and phytosanitary border.

Some of your Lordships may say, “But surely they can move now, within the UK Internal Market Scheme”—this new title for what used to be called the green lane. It is true that they can move via what the Government call the UK Internal Market Scheme but it is not what anyone else in the world would call an internal market system and it is certainly not what EU regulation 2023/1231, which defines what our Government have called the UK Internal Market Scheme, calls it either. In the real world, an internal market is defined, as we all know, as a market where goods can move freely without having the expense of having to cross an international customs border and an international SPS border. It is what we used to enjoy in this country until 2021, as goods moved freely from one part of the UK to another.

The process that the UK Government call the UK Internal Market Scheme is, frankly, a deceit because it is anything but an internal market system—rather, it is a means of managing its opposite: the international customs and SPS border that now divides our country into two. In essence, what the misnamed UKIMS—or green lane, as it used to be called—offers is a redistribution of the border burden, rather than its removal. On the one hand, the international customs and SPS border requirements are simplified; on the other hand, you have to submit to additional burdens, such as successfully applying for and keeping trusted trader status and submitting to “Not for EU” labelling requirements. In return for GB submitting to EU standards, the EU is not offering that the border be removed for the purpose of those goods, but rather that the border remains and those bringing the goods be subject to an alternative border experience, but a border experience it remains just the same.

First, you can cross the border only with an export number. Secondly, you are subject to customs and international SPS paperwork. Thirdly, you are subject to 100% documentary checks. Fourthly, you are subject to 5% to 10% identity checks at border control posts, which have already cost £190 million and they are not even half finished. Fifthly, you have to successfully apply to become a trusted trader and keep that status. Sixthly, you have to submit to “Not for EU” labelling.

Another striking thing about these regulations is that they put us in a position of complete dependence on the EU. The regulations make sense only because of a prior piece of legislation, which I have already mentioned: EU regulation 2023/1231. This is not a piece of UK legislation but an EU regulation. It is quite impossible to scrutinise these regulations without simultaneously scrutinising EU regulation 2023/1231, because without it the regulation before us would be null and void.

It is important to note some things about this EU regulation. First, it was passed in June last year, more than two years after we were supposed to have left the European Union, and yet its title makes it clear that it not only applies to the UK but to the UK and the movement of goods within it, as if we are some kind of EU colony. Secondly, in this regulation the EU makes it absolutely clear that it governs the border that divides our country in two, reserving to itself the right to pull the alternative border experience that the UK Government have ridiculously called the UK Internal Market Scheme, and default back to a 100% red lane, if it wishes. This means that while we can pass these regulations today, they could be rendered entirely null and void at any time, not because of a decision of this Parliament but because the EU uses its Article 14 powers.

At the end of the day, these regulations are about perpetuating a deep injustice: the division of our country into two by 27 other countries which have chosen to disrespect the territorial integrity of the UK, not just by claiming the right to make some of our laws but through the imposition of an international customs and SPS border. This disenfranchises 1.9 million United Kingdom citizens in relation to not just one area of law but to some 300 areas. I cannot understand how any Government, past or present, who supposedly support the union could have gone along with this.

--- Later in debate ---

I have focused very much on the statutory instrument that is in front of us. However, I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, has wider concerns. I thank her and other Peers for having had a very constructive and helpful discussion last week. To noble Lords who represent areas in Northern Ireland, I say that I want to continue to work, going forward, in the constructive manner that we had in the meeting last week. I would be very happy at those meetings to pick up the many wider concerns that have been mentioned tonight and which lie outside the scope of this SI.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response. It has been a very wide-ranging debate, as these narrow debates on Northern Ireland tend to be. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. I also thank the two GB Lords, as I might call them, the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, and the noble Lord, Lord Frost. In most debates on Northern Ireland it is just Northern Ireland Peers who take part, so their contributions were encouraging and very welcome.

As well as general support, there was at least a recognition that there is an alternative. Mutual enforcement, which was mentioned by a number of Peers, is something that we are going to hear a lot more about because of the Private Member’s Bill in the other place. I welcome what the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, said about the importance of setting up again some kind of scrutiny committee for what is happening in Northern Ireland.

Also important, perhaps, is a wider debate. I am aware that many Members have been held back tonight, because I did say that I probably would not press this to a vote, so I welcome that there are so many here. As I said earlier, it is very useful for people to understand why many of us feel so strongly about the Windsor Framework and its effects, and not just on Northern Ireland—I reiterate that.

It would be helpful if those who think that the Windsor Framework has been a benefit, because of the dual access, listened to what Invest Northern Ireland said last week. There has been no benefit whatever from any of the so-called joint access because we have lost direct access from Great Britain. So many businesses are not sending things to Northern Ireland any more. But that is for another debate.

I hope that I will not have to have many more of these. However, the consent issue and the vote that is coming up are very controversial. I hope that noble Peers understand how people in Northern Ireland feel about the fact that, on this one crucially important issue, a reason has been found to make it majority voting and not cross-community. Many who support that are doing so for reasons that not many of us in this House would agree with. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: Follow-up Report (European Affairs Committee)

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jay, has done what he always does: he has managed to get a diverse group of members to agree something. He has a report that has probably not upset anyone at all. Of course, there is quite a lot of “On the one hand, and on the other” in it, but it is a really important, detailed analysis of some of the real problems with the Windsor Framework. I thank him and all of the committee for their work.

One thing struck me when I reread the report at the weekend: not a single person who gave evidence said that what the Prime Minister said when he launched the framework was absolutely correct. I looked up the Prime Minister’s speech when he came to Parliament. It was very clear that he was launching with great fanfare something that, when you look at it now, was not accurate. When you read it now, you wonder whether he really understood what he was saying. Two or three times, he talked about how wonderful it is that we are removing

“any sense of a border”

for goods destined for Northern Ireland. He reminded the House:

“We have achieved free-flowing trade, with a green lane for goods, no burdensome customs bureaucracy, no routine checks on trade, no paperwork whatsoever for Northern Irish goods moving into Great Britain”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/2/23; cols. 571-76.]


Even a slight reading of the report shows that is just not accurate. So many people said how wonderful the protocol was, how we all should rigorously implement it and how we were really ridiculous even opposing it, but a year on they have all become wonderful supporters of the Windsor Framework. I suggest that, in a year’s time, we will be back discussing how this cannot work and needs to be radically changed, because the fundamentals have not been changed: Northern Ireland is being gradually moved away, drip by drip, from the rest of the United Kingdom.

I will raise three or four real-life examples on the ground in Northern Ireland, where I now live. There is a very large manufacturing company there. Three-quarters of its components come from Great Britain. Recently, the European Union withdrew the general system of preferences, so it now has to pay 4.2% duty on everything while its competitors in Great Britain do not. That is hardly a level playing field. That is a direct result of the Windsor Framework.

On horticulture, the Prime Minister said:

“The same quintessentially British products like trees, plants, and seed potatoes—will again be available in Northern Ireland’s garden centres”.


That is just not happening. Yes, there have been some changes, but the reality is that individuals who normally would have got their seeds and plants directly from a garden centre or a retailer in Great Britain are not getting them. Sometimes it is because the company has deliberately decided it cannot be bothered with the hassle, but that is not giving a level playing field for people in Northern Ireland.

On farming, and buying cattle from markets, I have a friend who came over just last week to buy some animals in a market. On the morning he was buying them, he was sent an email saying that the holding period has now gone up from 30 days to 45. Of course, that brings huge extra costs. They have to feed the animals, and store them for that time, and again, that is a direct result of the Windsor Framework. Cattle now come over to Northern Ireland with an ear tag; as I am sure noble Lords know, each calf gets a tag in each ear, plus the farm’s herd number, and once the cattle get from the mainland to Northern Ireland, the two tags which were in their ears have to be cut out and replaced with the next available number with the herd number on it. That is just another example of the extra bureaucracy that is affecting farmers, and of course we do not have any real clarity about veterinary medicine, where there is a real worry.

There is no mention of duty free in the report, which is disappointing, yet the Prime Minister said in his wonderful speech:

“When I was Chancellor, it frustrated me that when I cut VAT on solar panels … those tax cuts did not apply in Northern Ireland … That means zero rates of VAT”, —[Official Report, Commons, 27/2/23; col. 572.]


and added that the Government would now ensure that all excise duties are the same. They are not. I fly from Belfast to Faro or from Belfast to the EU, I do not get duty free, and the answer I get back over and over again is just a nonsense. No one is honest. The headline today in an article by Owen Polley in the News Letter, is “London Still Not Honest About Windsor Framework Debacle”. That is the reality.

Finally, what really made me angry is that just this week, someone travelling from Cairnryan to Larne on a boat—an ordinary person—gets an email, which includes at the bottom, under “Check-in times for the Cairnryan-Larne route”:

“Please allow plenty of time for border checks, which take place before check-in”.


With the Windsor Framework, individuals are now very affected.

I will simply say that people in Northern Ireland are confused, frustrated and angry, but, most of all, they are very sad that their Government seem to be neglecting them.

Electoral Commission: Data Breaches

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Preventing interference in future UK elections is an absolute priority for the Government—we have to protect our democratic processes. The Government have set up a Defending Democracy Taskforce to drive forward work to protect UK democratic processes, which I hope will be of some comfort to the noble Lord. The taskforce works across government and with Parliament, the intelligence communities, the devolved Administrations, local authorities, the private sector and civil society—a whole of society approach. It has recently set up a new enduring election security capability: the joint election security and preparedness unit. This will make sure that we are fully prepared for the next general election and that there are not attacks on the integrity of our systems.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, data breaches in public life are hugely worrying, particularly if people’s lives are at risk. It might be slightly outside the Minister’s recall but is she aware, and have the Government taken an interest in the fact, that there was a huge data breach in Northern Ireland which actually put the lives of police officers at risk? We have just heard that the chief constable has resigned as a result of that. Would the Minister please ask the Home Secretary to look very seriously at this and at some of the other issues that are now coming out about the impartiality of the Police Service of Northern Ireland?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising that point, not least since I raised it myself about 10 minutes ago when I was being briefed for this Question. There was some comfort to know, for today’s purposes, that it was not a cyber incident, but it was a very unfortunate security breach, linked, as she will know, to an FoI process error. We must learn from this. As I said in answer to the previous question, there is a combination of things that we must do to try to prevent this kind of thing ever happening again and to ensure that the impact is minimised, if and when there are breaches of the system. Obviously, that is what they are trying to do in relation to Northern Ireland.

Strike Action

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The Government have done a great deal to try to move things forward. On rail, which the noble Lord referenced, a new and improved deal, backdated, at 4% this year and 4% next year, has been offered. But although we want pay deals to be fair and affordable, and want independent pay review bodies to help with that process, our number one priority must be tackling inflation, which currently stands at 11%.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, does the Minister understand that Royal Mail is being destroyed by the current management, and that although it would be very disappointing that the strike may stop some Christmas cards getting through, the vast majority of the public, particularly in rural areas, realise that the working conditions of ordinary post men and women across the country are being changed deliberately? This is not a dispute about pay; it is about how the Royal Mail wants to destroy letter posts throughout the country.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I have a great deal of admiration for Royal Mail. The way that it kept going and delivered all our mail through Covid, and has changed its operating model to do parcels and compete with others, is amazing. We are in touch with Royal Mail. It has well-developed contingency plans for strikes and will continue to do what it can to keep services running through December. We continue to monitor the dispute closely, and obviously urge people to post early for Christmas. There is a wider process of change within Royal Mail, and the noble Baroness makes some important points.

Older Persons Commissioner for England

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

Now the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has an agent for the job. I take my noble friend’s point.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

Is the Minister concerned about the way many older people these days are being forced to open a bank account, following the ending of the Post Office card? It is so difficult for someone living on only a very small pension. Would she look into this? It might be something an older persons’ commissioner would do if we had one.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I am going to be absolutely straight; my knowledge about the change to bank accounts and the Post Office card is not as sharp as it should be. I thought we had put different things in place so that people did not suffer as a result. I will go back to the department, find out the exact position, come back to the noble Baroness in writing and place a copy in the Library.

Retained EU Law

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes an extremely good point, and it is our wish to widen this debate as far as we can. One of the ways of doing it, we hope, will be the standing commission on deregulation, which I referred to in my Statement of 16 September, on which I hope to be able to update the House fairly shortly.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the Minister talks repeatedly about stability in Northern Ireland, which is very important. How can he possibly think there will be stability in the future if Northern Ireland, under all these retained laws, will not get the benefit of them? Will he say now whether he actually contemplates Northern Ireland remaining under the EU’s VAT rules, for example?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, we set out our position in the Command Paper of 21 July on VAT and many other points. Having two different systems of lawmaking on important points within the United Kingdom is likely to build up tension and divergence and create difficulties over time. We are trying to design a system in these negotiations that will resolve that. I wish we were making a bit more progress, but we will keep trying.