"My Lords, I rise to agree and disagree with a variety of noble Lords. I am sad to say that I often do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, but on one particular thing he said, I strongly do, which is that since this Bill was …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"On that point, briefly, it is good that we have the surcharge. It was brought in under one of the pieces of legislation I was responsible for in a former life. We can argue about the amount. For younger people in their late teens and early 20s, it is probably …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"My Lords, there are two amendments in this group, Amendments 175 and 176, and I will speak briefly to both.
On the first, in my spirit today of agreeing with people where I can agree with them, I do not think there is a massive disagreement between us on the …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"My Lords, on this amendment I had not decided whether I wanted to say anything about it until I listened to the debate. I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, will recognise that I see some positive things in it and some areas where the Minister can perhaps work on …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"Having listened to the Minister, I am not sure that there would be much of a gap. However, this is what I was driving at: based on what rights would be put in place by this amendment, compared to what is already delivered, what will the gap be? Listening carefully …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"My Lords, I want to say a few words on this issue as the introducer of the £2 bus fare cap and the person who wrote the relevant sections of our manifesto, which committed to keep it for the duration of the Parliament and fund it, importantly, from savings that …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"I was not aware of that, but I am not sure it changes my argument. As we have just discovered by listening to the debates about Article 31 of the convention, part of the issue here is that the interpretation of the words is contested, as we heard from the …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"My Lords, I am perhaps not as warm towards this amendment as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, just was. It seems to me that it does give away its intention in the title,
“Primacy of the Refugee Convention”,
which fundamentally is an assault on whether we think Parliament has …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"Parts of the Act are still in force, obviously, but, if what the noble Baroness says were true, there would be no need to have her amendment. The fact is that, if you say that the courts can decide that the convention—as they interpret it—can override legislation, that is damaging. …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"I had sat down but, given that the noble Baroness intervened on me, I will make a brief response since we have gone over the time—although that was largely to do with her rather than me.
I was not saying that the noble Baroness was in favour of imprecision; I …..." Lord Harper - View Speech