"My Lords, I support the right reverend Prelate’s nice, short Bill. In my five minutes, I shall talk about the history of why welfare states are always cruel to their claimants. That is a long tradition. I have a book coming out very soon, which I wrote during the pandemic, …..." Lord Desai - View Speech
"My Lords, let me concentrate on the problems and not the virtues of the Commonwealth because I have only five minutes. First, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, and others, there was a great constitutional change when India became part of the Commonwealth, as a republic could …..." Lord Desai - View Speech
"My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, for introducing this debate, but it seems that for a while we were fighting not just the Ukraine-Russia war but the EU war as well, between Brexit and no-Brexit. Let us suspend that war for the time being and concentrate …..." Lord Desai - View Speech
"My Lords, one of the great advantages of being a non-affiliated Peer is that I am always placed last on the list. I want to take a different stance from that taken by most noble Lords. I agree with all noble Lords that this is an excellent report and I …..." Lord Desai - View Speech
"My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. At least I will not feel lonely talking about the economics of gender inequality. First, the title of the debate says
“furthering and protecting the equality of women”.
"This is not the first time one of my proposals has bitten the dust. The fact that I taught the noble Baroness at LSE makes me proud that she has finally sorted me out. That being said, I think I should conclude...." Lord Desai - View Speech
"My Lords, once again, I thank the noble Lord for introducing this topic and, once again, I am sorry to say that I am not going to join in his idealistic, very sincere and moral teaching. I do not think that the second part of his proposition, that we should …..." Lord Desai - View Speech
"My Lords, I must declare that for much of my academic life, I studied development and have written a lot about it. I did a lot of work on human development. Coming from India, I have also been observing over the last 60 years the course of development aid.
"My Lords, we have been hearing lately that the House of Lords is a rather useless body and that the other place is better—but twice recently your Lordships’ House has asserted that it cares more for the people than the other place. The noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, stood …..." Lord Desai - View Speech