Debt Advice Services

Debate between Baroness Smith of Newnham and Lord Bates

Thursday 6th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Certainly these are causes for concern. That is why we had a gambling review and followed the recommendation to introduce a £2 limit on fixed-odds betting terminals. That is why we put a cap on payday loans, abolished surcharges on credit and debit cards, and why we are currently undertaking a review through the FCA into high-cost credit. All those things are necessary for the reasons suggested by my noble friend.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I think I heard the Minister say that demand for advice has gone up since the end of the crisis, yet household debt is falling. In light of the comments this morning by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky—he said that the next crisis is a case of not “if” but “when”—what are the Government doing to create resilience so that we have provisions in place to ensure that if another crisis comes, household debt will not rise further, and that such advice will be in place ahead of time?

Brexit: Financial Settlement

Debate between Baroness Smith of Newnham and Lord Bates

Monday 13th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend has great experience in this area. He draws my attention to a significant part of the setting out of the principles which the Prime Minister’s speech of 22 September chimed with exactly. Some of the comments coming from the other side do not necessarily recognise that, so it is good to be reminded of it.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, in light of the fact that sterling has fallen yet again, does the Minister agree that EU denominated liabilities will increase the greater government uncertainty and instabilities? Is anyone in control? Is it not time for the Prime Minister to get a grip?

[Lord Bates]

She has a grip. That grip was demonstrated in her Florence speech, where she set out our negotiating position, which is very strong and fair. Any settlement would of course be denominated in euros as the currency—we recognise that—but that, too, needs to be taken into account as we agree what the final settlement should be as part of the wider negotiations.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Baroness Smith of Newnham and Lord Bates

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I may briefly follow my noble friend Lady Williams. I declare an interest as a Cambridge academic and a fellow of Robinson College, where I am a graduate tutor and director of studies. I am also, across the university, senior treasurer of the European Society. We do not really expect a great deal of extremism in that society; it is probably a relatively straightforward society to be involved with. However, the person who was key to setting it up was a visiting French student. She was 22, dynamic and really wanted to get something going. She had far more bright ideas than I had at twice her age. I still think that I am young; as an academic, I am probably seen as middle-aged by my students and as relatively young by some of my colleagues. But this young woman came with a set of bright ideas and established an organisation. To impose duties on that organisation without any consultation is not necessarily helpful.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, said earlier, we need to engage in discussion and debate. If it is about Europe, it may be in some ways uncontroversial and not lead to extremism—but in a whole range of other societies, the debates might be controversial or difficult. However, the people who will best be able to say how they can deal with that are not academics, far less administrators, telling students what to do. It will be the students themselves coming up with ideas as to how to engage. I ask that we think through how to engage young people.

The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, asked who responded to the guidance consultation. Of the 160 people who responded, probably none was young. If we can bring those people in and engage them, partly through university structures but partly directly, we will get better decisions and ideas—and, ideally, a better way of implementing the Prevent duty in a way that engages young people and takes them with us, rather than a top-down approach which preaches to them in an unhelpful way.

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this brief debate. There have been some excellent contributions. First, I want to clarify something I said earlier which might have sent people down the wrong track. I talked about 42 responses which my noble friend Lord Phillips rightly pulled me up on as being a paltry number. That was the number of academic institutions which responded. In fact, the consultation produced 1,792 responses. Five consultation events were held—in Manchester, Cardiff, Birmingham, London and Edinburgh—that reached a further 300 delegates from specified authorities, including representatives of higher education. So there have been some additional responses. Of course, it would be excellent to see more contributions.

The point that was made eloquently by the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams and Lady Smith of Newnham, on the importance of engaging young people is absolutely right. It would seem perfectly within the spirit and letter of both the guidance and of what we are putting forward here for academic institutions to engage with student bodies and societies; in fact, they should. They should ask, “What is the best way of implementing this within our institution?”. This would be entirely in keeping with the type of approach that we want. We are not talking about the European Society at Cambridge—unless there are instances there in which people could possibly be drawn into acts of terrorism. That would be unexpected and a surprise. We are talking about how to prevent people being drawn into terrorism—so a wider debate, crucially one involving young people, is very important.

Another element, which relates to what my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury had to say in moving his amendment, is the impact of this. We have produced an impact statement on the Bill. My noble friend said that he does not accept what it says on page 7, but it does make some estimates as to the cost of implementing this across 2,000 higher and further education institutions in the UK. This is standard practice. For illustrative purposes, we assume that each institution requires one week of a junior officer’s time—a BIS liaison officer, working with the university—at a cost of £573. Also, it is not—