Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Deben

Monday 8th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

My Lords, of course Parliament may decide to create an exception through this amendment. I am explaining why I could not support it. The first reason is that it would legitimise discrimination by public officers who are performing their statutory duties. My noble friend Lord Deben says, “Let’s show a bit of generosity”. I reply, yes, let us show a bit of generosity to those who would be the victims of this practice, who would find that they could not have a civil marriage registered by a public official—that is all it is—because of his or her conscientious objection.

[Lord Deben]

I am sorry, but surely that cannot be true, because the case would never get to that. You would know that if a same-sex marriage had been offered, there would be a registrar who would be willing to do that. It would be privately arranged; there would be no victim in this. That is clearly different from what my noble friend says.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I apologise, but we are moving away from brief questions of clarification and on to debate, which is permitted in Committee, but we are now on Report. Noble Lords will have a chance to speak if they have not already done so.

Global Hunger

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Deben

Monday 21st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The right reverend Prelate is quite right and I am sure he has noted that transparency in this regard is going to be on the G8’s agenda. One important development is the risk to companies and banks these days related to what they do in various countries. The spotlight is potentially on them. We have seen the backlash in the United Kingdom about the paying of tax. We need to get across very clearly the need for transparency, to highlight what is happening in different countries and to point out to companies that they incur risks thereby.

[Lord Deben]

Does my noble friend accept that the urgency of these matters is increasing all the time because of the world food shortage that will clearly be a part of our future? The effect of climate change and the like means that we have to live in a world where, if we are to feed 9 billion people, we really have to get more urgency in this whole issue. What worries me is that there are constant statements about debates, discussions and further targets, when actually this is far too urgent for us not to have it at the top of our agenda.

[Baroness Northover]

It has been suggested that global food production might decline by 7% by 2050 because of climate change and in some areas of the world by 20%. I emphasise that the United Kingdom takes this extremely seriously. One of the issues that came out of the hunger events that were hosted at the time the Olympics was a focus in the United Kingdom on agritech business. Defra, DfID and BIS are taking that forward because clearly investment in research, in which we have great strengths in the United Kingdom, should and could help to relieve some of these problems.

Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Deben

Monday 24th January 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I do not think we ought to take it quite as simply as that. One of the things we learned from the Warm Homes operation—which I had the privilege of introducing—was that many people live, as far as their heating is concerned, to the level that they can afford. If their house becomes better insulated, what happens is not that they have a lower bill: they merely warm the house better than they were able to do before. In other words, this is not as simple a mathematical equation as one might think.

I am worried about the concept of a sort of holiday. If someone enters a tenancy where the agreement has been made already, they will know the terms of the tenancy: it will be part of what they are offered. It does not seem possible that anyone can have a holiday in those circumstances, because that is what they joined in the first place. I realise that we have chosen to concentrate on people at the bottom end, with perhaps little choice in the tenancy they have. I very much agree with the comments made about some landlords. However, in my experience of having had a lot of landlords in my former constituency, a good number were decent. In those circumstances all I am suggesting is that when people enter into an agreement, they know what the situation is, and there certainly should not be a holiday.

The only circumstance seems to be the first one, where people are actually able to control the heating bills. If you have better insulation, you can decide whether you are going to continue with the amount of heating you had before—in other words the price you had before—but get more benefit from it because the house is better insulated. Alternately, you may decide—and many people do—that you would prefer to get even warmer. I am sure people who have gone canvassing know that there are certain houses where you bang on the door and cannot stop yourself stepping back from the wave of heat that hits you. It is not always true that we are sensible about our heating. The fact is that these things are within the control of the tenant, and I find it difficult to understand why we are going down this line. Tenants have a good deal here, paid for by the state, and it is absolutely right; but do not let ourselves get into a position in which we find that tenants are able to turn up the heat and then ask for a holiday because it does not work out as they thought it would.

[Baroness Northover]

Before I get dispatched back to DfID, justice, and all the other areas I am supposed to be covering, I think I had better pull myself back and make sure that the whole area is reported on in due course. As I mentioned before, we will be looking at this review in a bit more detail in a later grouping, and no doubt my noble friend Lord Marland will be able to put everybody—including me—absolutely straight as to what the situation is. I very much welcome the noble Lord, Lord Davies, trying to stop me going down roads I should not go down, and I very much welcome the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, explaining with such clarity how the golden rule works so that it should indeed be to everybody’s benefit and so that, I hope, we will not find ourselves in difficult situations.