Visas: European Union Students

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

It is pleasing to note that the number of students from EEA and non-EEA countries who come to this country to study continues to rise. There is no suggestion that those on courses longer than three years will be unable to complete them. Those with Euro TLR will be able to make an application under the student route before their leave expires.

[Lord Tomlinson (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister share my concern at the report in the Times today about the number of students coming to independent schools and colleges from Vietnam who seem to have disappeared after they have attended for one term? Apparently paying one term’s fees and then disappearing is cheaper than paying the traffickers.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord highlights that it is very important that the student sponsor route is a secure one. For that reason, certain universities have a much easier process than others. Of course, we did in the past root out and close down bogus colleges which were responsible for a huge amount of illegal migration.

Freedom of Expression

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I say to my noble friend that the conventions and rules of this place and the other place have been upheld for hundreds of years and I agree that we should have the time to be able to consider such huge matters before us at this time.

[Lord Tomlinson (Lab)]

If there was objection on the grounds of the language used, what was the offensive word? Was it bollocks or Brexit?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Probably both.

Asylum Seekers: Students

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I said earlier, officials are proactively looking at these cases that might inadvertently have been caught out where the imposition of study bans have happened as a result of immigration bail. The answer is that it is immediate and I hope that this issue will be sorted out very quickly. In addition, new guidance has also been issued.

[Lord Tomlinson (Lab)]

When the Minister was replying to the noble Lord, Lord Christopher, she referred to cohorts of students. Can she tell us how that word creeps into the answer, as it implies that there is some group of students for whom there is a collective exclusion?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the noble Lord might like to check Hansard. I was referring not to cohorts of students but cohorts of individuals who might be prohibited from studying.

Financial Services: Regulation

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We have to recognise that the review that took place in light of the situation that occurred 10 years ago, with the financial crisis, necessitated a wholesale reform of consumer protection and also of the strength and stability, including the systemic strength, of the financial services industry. That was why these radical reforms were brought forward: to put consumer protection at the heart of this and to improve the conduct and authority of the mechanism by which that is done. That comes at a cost, and the cost has to be borne, ultimately, by consumers. That is one reason that it is important that the FCA pays attention, which it does, to the fact that it is required, as well as protecting consumers, to create an efficient and effective market for consumers so that they get good value for money as well as protection.

[Lord Tomlinson (Lab)]

Will the Minister undertake to tread very carefully in this area? We all know what we have been through in the last decade; it was as a result of being seduced by appeals for lighter-touch regulation, and we do not have any desire to go through that sort of process at all. Any change will have to be justified, not just because the industry wishes it but as a way of respecting the needs of consumers in this country to have a properly regulated financial sector.

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. Virtually every adult in the United Kingdom is a consumer of financial services, be it for mortgages, credit cards, loans, insurance products or pensions. It is essential that consumers continue to have confidence in the institutions that provide those services so that they continue to do those things, which are very much a social and economic good for this country.

Overseas Development Assistance

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tomlinson (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that his view on the Secretary of State is a view on her present pronouncements about development, not on her former pronouncement that the department ought to be abolished?

[Lord Bates]

I think it is always best to judge politicians by their actions. When you look at what the Secretary of State is doing, what she has announced, the places she has been and the focus she has given to economic development, disability rights and family planning, in all these areas she has been at the forefront of humanitarian aid. The fact that she does so with an edge of demanding realism rather than sentimentality in approaching these things strengthens the delivery of the product.

Young People: Democratic Participation

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

Yes, I am well aware of the fact that young people often get involved in all sorts of campaigns. One of the things which comes through in citizenship education is how the links can be made between those sorts of issues and how you effect change through voting. For example, if young people are encouraged by Comic Relief to be concerned about the plight of children of their own age in another country, actually voting and trying to ensure that there is a commitment to international development is part of how they take that forward.

[Lord Tomlinson (Lab)]

Does the noble Baroness agree that however good the curriculum is on citizenship, most young people will be singularly unimpressed by what they witness as the practice of government in Parliament? Yesterday’s Prime Minister’s questions in the House of Commons was a thorough disgrace, which most people who were watching will disapprove of, in which they saw a Prime Minister personally abusing the leader of the Opposition while trying to change policy half way through PMQs.

[Baroness Northover]

I am afraid that I did not see PMQs yesterday. However, when I go and listen in the Commons, I find myself grateful that I was never elected there—even though I tried several times—and that your Lordships’ House is a more tolerant place. There are more women in the House of Lords, and I think that also makes a difference.

NHS Mandate: Health Inequalities

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tomlinson]

Will the Minister accept that the proposals to close the excellent and much-admired accident and emergency hospital in Lewisham, and to downgrade its maternity services, have been made not because there is anything wrong with the hospital but because a government-appointed administrator has said that that should be done in order to help the neighbouring National Health Service trust, which has run up £130 million-worth of debt? Will she accept that closing and downgrading good facilities is an act of almost criminal stupidity, which leads to nothing but increased health inequalities when the Government’s objective is to reduce them?

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord might have heard his noble friend Lord Darzi comment on the difficulty of reorganising services so that they are as efficient and effective as possible. I would ask him to have a look at that.

[Lord Tomlinson]

What is your answer?

[Baroness Northover]

My answer is that, as I have said, the Act puts reducing health inequalities at the centre; that is a responsibility at every level, and those things will be monitored in certain ways. As the noble Lord, who is winking at his colleague and perhaps not looking at me right now, might remember, the Secretary of State is answerable to Parliament and will be answerable for all these areas. If the noble Lord is right, and actions that are taken do not reduce inequalities, there will be an opportunity to hold the Government to account.

Health and Social Care Bill: HIV/AIDS Programmes

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

Yes, indeed, the UK National Screening Committee will remain as an independent advisory body and will continue to advise the Government and the NHS on all aspects of screening. The NHS constitution, which was drawn up by the previous Government, commits the Government to providing screening programmes as recommended by the UK National Screening Committee. The NHS Commissioning Board will commission national screening programmes on the Secretary of State’s behalf.

[Lord Tomlinson]

Will the noble Baroness explain how what she said about frameworks in the early part of her rather lengthy answer to my noble friend Lady McIntosh differs from having targets in the National Health Service?

[Baroness Northover]

I have been allocated much more time for this Question than my colleague was for the previous one, so I apologise if I am taking too long to answer. The noble Lord will have to wait to see how that transpires.

Burundi

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 5th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness has just heard, we believe that we are better placed to put some of our funding through the EU and the World Bank, where we are large contributors. Our funding programme that will end in 2012 was only a small programme of £10 million. We believe that putting in an agency that will actually help Burundi grow through its economic development will benefit that country far more than the £10 million that we were giving.

[Lord Tomlinson]

Will the noble Baroness accept my congratulations on the fact that in her answers she has suddenly made multilateral aid through the EU respectable? Thank you very much.

[Baroness Verma]

I thank my noble friend.

European Union Bill

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, when Labour won the 1997 election, it very much looked as if the many years during which this country would agonise about its relationship to the European Union had come to an end and that we were beginning as a country to take our full place in Europe with our European partners. Now I fear that this Bill is setting the clock back and that we will return to those agonising years in British politics, unable to settle on what basis, if any, we are members of the EU. It is a very retrograde step for that reason, if for no other.

I wonder what our European partners must be thinking of us if they are listening to this debate or, above all, to the debate that took place in the Commons, seeing legislation going through that casts doubt on the very European Union that east European countries have struggled for so many years to join. There is such a contrast between the Euroscepticism and downright hostility to Europe that we hear sometimes in this country and the passion on the part of countries that threw off communism, wanting to be members of the European Union, not just because there might be in the short term financial benefits for them but because they believe ideologically that they have turned their back on communism and want to become part of a western democracy that believes in human rights and the rule of law and all that sort of thing. Then they see us, as one of the founders of democracy, saying that we are not sure about this European Union that they have aspired to join. That is a slap in the face for them and does not send out a very good signal about the sort of country that we are likely to become if we go on down this path.

The test of any Bill is clearly the difference that it will make. At its very best, this Bill will not make too much difference. After all, if the Government do not intend to bring about any changes in the lifetime of this Parliament in transferring powers, they do not need the referendum option anyway. At worst, the Bill is harmful, partly for the reasons that I have mentioned—it sends the wrong signal to the countries that have just joined or wish to join the EU. It also sends the wrong signal about what sort of country we are and what our relationship is to be with the European Union, whether we are going to be good partners or not. I fear that our partners will see that we have turned the clock back.

Why are the Government doing this? Clearly, these measures might bind a successor Government, but a sunset clause will put a stop to that. In any case, the next Government in this country will surely say that they are not going to have this provision and reverse it. So it does not seem to have much point. As for placating the Eurosceptic wing of the Tory party, the Bill may have missed the mark as well. Certainly, to judge by some of the comments made by Tory MPs in the Commons, it has not succeeded in placating them. In a way, I feel for the Lib Dems, who are sitting there looking incredibly glum.

[Lord Tomlinson]

They are the goodies!