Fracking
Debate between Baroness Verma and Lord Tebbit(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Verma
My Lords, I think that the noble Baroness recognises that this Government have been responsive to concerns raised by the public. That is why we have taken those decisions to look carefully at legislation that is going through both this House and the other place. However, to say that our regulatory organisations are not robust would be unfair, because we have among the most stringent regulatory frameworks in the world.
Lord Tebbit (Con)
My Lords, could my noble friend contemplate for a moment what our Victorian forebears would have said if those who are now opposed to fracking had been present in those days to oppose coal mining? It would of course have avoided the coal miners’ strike, which was about keeping open our uneconomic pits to dig more coal.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend has made some very important points in that contribution. On going forward and ensuring that we become less dependent on external factors, I agree with my noble friend that we need to make progress.
Green Climate Fund
Debate between Baroness Verma and Lord Tebbit
Baroness Verma
My Lords, in case I was not clear in my initial Answer, I repeat that the Prime Minister, like leaders from a number of other countries, will pledge our support in November.
Lord Tebbit (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend say whether this money, if it is produced and paid out, will be from some magic source of which we are not yet aware, or will it be simply more borrowing to add to the deficit and to our debt?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, with other countries, we pledged to ensure that £100 billion will be made available to tackle global climate change issues. Our contribution to that thus far is £3.87 billion.
Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011
Debate between Baroness Verma and Lord Tebbit(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Tebbit
My noble friend waxed almost lyrical on the even-handedness of the regulations in relation to religious discrimination. Will local authorities be required to report on whether schools serving meals to Christian children can serve halal meat covertly without the parents of those children being told?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, my noble friend asks a question that I may not be able to respond to straight away. I assume that it would be up to the school and the school’s policy to inform parents of what they are doing in activities including school meals.
The noble Lord, Lord Low, has pressed the Government to replace these regulations with the draft published in January. I must stress from the outset that I wholly share the noble Lord’s wish that the equality duty should produce tangible, positive equality improvements for people who experience discrimination and disadvantage. His record on pressing for such improvements for disabled people is to be respected and admired, and I can assure him that we seek to achieve the same ends. We differ only on the best means of achieving them.
As I explained at the beginning of this debate, the equality duty set out in the Equality Act 2010 is a stronger and broader duty than the previous equality duties on race, disability and gender. By providing a clear explanation of what it means to have due regard to the need to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations, the new equality duty is designed to focus the attention of public bodies on the aims they need to consider when carrying out all their functions.
In addition, in respect of disability, the equality duty also makes clear that consideration of the need to advance equality of opportunity for disabled people includes considering the need to take steps to account for their disabilities. This important and helpful clarification was the result of an amendment put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell. Noble Lords should be assured that the equality duty will be an effective lever for delivering equality improvements for those who still regrettably experience discrimination and disadvantage.
On the detail of the concerns that the noble Lord expressed, the January draft regulations were not implemented so we cannot know exactly what effect they would have had. The regulations that the Government now propose are the right approach and will help public bodies perform the equality duty better. There was a full public consultation on an earlier draft of the specific duties last year and a further public engagement exercise on them earlier this year. The Government are grateful for the many responses they received and have carefully considered them. Plainly the regulations—
International Labour Organisation
Debate between Baroness Verma and Lord Tebbit(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Verma
My Lords, the noble Lord does not seem to understand. The point I am trying to get across is that we had the multilateral aid review because many programmes were not delivering the work that they were supposed to deliver. Therefore, particularly in these constrained times, we need to make sure that every penny we spend is spent well. The multilateral aid review considered the ILO to be one of the organisations that was not performing to its best.
Lord Tebbit
Will my noble friend consider setting up a discretionary fund, run by the Government, into which noble Lords who want to give more money to the ILO can contribute? It would be a very agreeable experience for noble Lords opposite to put their money where their mouths are.