Stalking

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Lib Dems.

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, coercive control can sometimes be so subtle and perpetrators so manipulative that victims may not even be aware of it themselves. Does the Minister agree that compulsory sex and relationship education is an essential part of keeping young people safe from this type of offence?

Trade Bill

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th January 2019 Lords Chamber

In addressing Amendment 63, on legal services, my noble friends Lady McIntosh and Lady Hooper drew from their experiences. The Government are committed to supporting the legal services sector to continue to grow. The Government are planning—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

Keep it going.

[Lord Bates]

I reassure my noble friend the Chief Whip that I have no problem in keeping it going for as long as he indicates is necessary—such has been the quality of the debate.

I have had a note passed to me which might be important. On Amendment 39, on mutual recognition of professional qualifications, I may have said “Ireland” but I meant to say “Iceland”. I thank the officials for being so attentive.

Brexit: Security

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

I think it is my turn this time.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

Order. The House will hear from my noble friend Lord Cormack.

[Lord Cormack]

Can my noble friend assure the House that, although it would be very much a second best, bilateral negotiations are already taking place with all the countries of the European Union, particularly the larger countries—France, Germany, Italy and Spain—to ensure that we have bilateral agreements if we have the very unhappy result of no deal.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

That it be an instruction to the Grand Committee to which the Offensive Weapons Bill has been committed that they consider the bill in the following order:

Clause 1, Schedule 1, Clauses 2 to 34, Schedule 2, Clauses 35 to 44, Title.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

In the absence of my noble friend, I wish to move the Motion standing her name on the Order Paper—I have been wrong-footed by all that is going on.

Motion agreed.

Venture Capital Funds (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, with very great respect, the noble Lord has not answered the question, which is about the impact assessment. It is not about the wider issues to do with the—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Adonis]

I am not giving way to the Chief Whip until I have completed the point.

[Noble Lords]

No!

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

This is a point of order. In debate it is customary for Members to speak only once. The noble Lord has made a point. The House has listened to his point. If he wishes to press his point, he has to press his point. I ask him to accept that, on what has been approved by the committees and has been presented to the House today, he should be prepared to accept the word of the Minister.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, the noble Lord was intervening on me. It is not a question of accepting the word of the Minister; the Minister has not replied to the point. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, has added further confusion because he said that the impact assessment is available and it has just not been laid before the House, whereas I took the Minister to say that the impact assessment was not available. He told the Grand Committee last week that it would be published shortly. He is clearly still not in a position to lay it before the House. The House is being expected to agree a statutory instrument that will have a vital impact on a major national industry and we do not know the basis on which we are agreeing it. There is confusion between the noble Lord who chairs the relevant committee and the Minister as to whether an impact assessment is even available. The point that my noble friend Lord Rooker made seems to be completely correct. Essentially, we are legislating in the dark this afternoon, and that is a wholly unsatisfactory situation.

Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill [HL]

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th January 2019 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

That the House do now resolve itself into a committee on the bill.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move.

Amendment to the Motion

Tabled by

Asia Bibi

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, the Conservatives have not had a chance to ask a question on this subject so I think it is their turn.

[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, I fully endorse the comments of the right reverend Prelate. I believe that it is not just time for those blasphemy laws not to be operated in a harsh way, it is time for those laws to be brought to an end. There have been press reports that Asia Bibi, if granted asylum in the United Kingdom, would potentially not be safe from some communities here. I wish to give my noble friend and this House full confidence. As someone who is deeply connected to British Muslim communities, I assure her that they are fully supportive of any asylum claim that Asia Bibi may have and that our country may afford her, and that she would be supported as she would be by all other communities in this country.

Brexit: European Union Police Databases and Extradition Arrangements

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, was first to rise in his place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am sure that the House would like to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett.

[Lord Blunkett]

My Lords, I was Home Secretary when we entered the European arrest warrant as part of the negotiation at the time. I reinforce the points made by the noble Lord, Lord King, and my noble friend Lord Anderson. But I make a little offer. It is entirely right that we have to persuade Michel Barnier and others that it is in everyone’s mutual interest to retain our facility and access to the EAW, but in 2014 many of us had a real task in persuading the coalition Government, I think probably because of the Liberal Democrats, that remaining in or re-entering—because we had the opt-out—the EAW was essential. I offer my heartfelt skill in negotiating with Michel Barnier, as we had to do with the coalition Government.

Passport (Fees) Regulations 2018

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

With respect to my noble friend—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

Sit down.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

--- Later in debate ---

[Noble Lords]

Not content!

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, we seem to have got ourselves into a pretty pass about something that the Minister is not required to answer today. Noble Lords know that order in this House is constructed in such a way that they can get proper answers to questions that are troubling them. I suggest to noble Lords, who are obviously much better informed than I am about a particular issue, that if they wish to challenge a decision that the Government have made or might make or whatever, there are methods for doing so. They could put down Questions or they could put down Motions for debate, and I am sure that the House will try to facilitate those where it can. Really, we have a lot of business to do; a number of us want to be in Westminster Hall to pay proper tribute to the victims of the attack a year ago. I ask noble Lords, please, not to press this further.

Motion agreed.

Creditworthiness Assessment Bill [HL]

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 24th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bird]

I thank your Lordships very much for that interesting discussion about what we all agree is an irregularity that happens when you live in poverty. It is one of the many irregularities there. What I found quite interesting about the Minister’s response is that when it comes to a market-based solution, which the Conservative Government would obviously love to promote, there is a bar on operating in the market healthily. People say, “I have a mortgage, therefore I am much more reliable and bankable than if I am a tenant who pays rent”. What is so interesting is that there are probably millions of such people who the lenders would love to lend to, but they do not have the information. They do not have the key to the door. If it was a true market-based solution, it would be a matter of turning to tenants and saying, “Show us how reliable you are by showing us the data you’ve collected over the years by paying your rent”.

The Bill opens up the possibility of enfranchising a whole group of people who are disfranchised now. Fintech goes towards the idea that you can gather your own data and share it with a third party, which may or may not choose to lend you the money. There are ways towards a solution and the fintech will come along, irrespective of whether we see it in, but there is this entrenched idea. The work of the Big Issue has proved that the evidence is there that millions of people are being disfranchised, and that it is affecting the health of the market. If we really want to find a market-based solution let us look at a true one that includes those people, who are not able to participate in the market.

The Bill is also a bit broader in its base; it is not exclusively about people getting mortgages. I think there was a kind of wrong-footing—not intentional, because I trust the Government to be noble in all things—that we are talking about mortgaging and housing. We are actually talking about, for instance, people moving into social housing. When you go into the apartment, what have you got? You might have a gas oven or an electric oven, but where are the white goods? You move in, you are on universal credit and you have to wait until you can buy the goods that enable you to feed your family. What happens? You then have to turn to BrightHouse. You have to turn to BrightHouse because you are desperate to feed your children and therefore you have to go to a very narrow sector of the credit market, and that sector knows that you are hoist by your own petard when it comes to your poverty and it is going to charge you through the nose. That is a disreputable thing masquerading as a part of democracy. You take it or leave it. We need to recognise that somebody’s credit score should begin to liberate them and enable them to begin the process of their own reconstruction. It is about people reconstructing themselves, irrespective of how hard and tirelessly we work to extend the franchise that we need to extend around credit.

I thank noble Lords for taking part in this debate, which I enjoyed very much. I very much enjoyed the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Davies. I can see he is not a pusillanimous man. He upped the game. I enjoyed the contributions of the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton, Lady Grender and—unfortunately I did not get her name.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

Lady Wilcox.

[Lord Bird]

God bless you. I am only a new boy. When, or if, we get this Bill through the House, it will benefit all political persuasions in the House because we will all be able to do our job around poverty a little better, but we will also have to make sure that in the detail, where we know the devil is, we do an awful lot of work for people who are left out and whose credit is damaged.

I was out last night talking to some homeless people. A big problem is that they have no credit references. One of them, a young woman, had been driven out because of problems around credit and her ability to respond to it. When you see those things, you know that we have an emergency on our hands and we need to do something very desperate. One of the ways we can do that is by helping people with their credit while making sure that people who are not the low-hanging fruit do not get left behind. We have to ensure that there are all the safeguards so that people can opt out and not be punished in the process. I thank all noble Lords.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.