Results 1-20 of 2,250 for speaker:Lord Phillips of Sudbury

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill: Committee (1st Day) (17 June 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Perhaps my noble friend might refer back to what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, asked him, which was whether he objects to Amendment 46, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, which would give the term “matrimony” to a marriage between a man and a woman but would allow marriage to same-sex couples.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill: Committee (1st Day) (17 June 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, at Second Reading I suggested that the term for a same-sex marriage might be “espousal”, but I accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, that it is an archaic or anachronistic word. I also said at Second Reading that I intended to sound out the House on whether there would be much support for that nomenclature, and now I have to say that there was not...

Business and Society — Question for Short Debate (12 June 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I have a sober view of where we now stand as a nation and, in my two minutes, I intend to concentrate on the relationship between business and local communities. I do that from a comparative basis. I am lucky enough still to live in the small town that I was bred in—Sudbury in Suffolk—and the contrast between my first 20 or 25 years and now could not be more stark in...

Care Bill [HL]: Committee (2nd Day) (Continued) (10 June 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, perhaps the noble Earl will tolerate a short intervention. I was for 30 years a trustee of the charity the Public Interest Research Centre. I think I am correct in saying that in the 1970s and 1980s it was the only independent charity carrying out extensive research on the matters under discussion here. I agree with every word said by the noble Lords, Lord Warner and Lord Turnberg,...

Global Migration and Mobility (EUC Report) — Motion to Take Note (6 June 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am not sure how I have offended the powers that be but I speak today as the 17th of 19 speakers, and on Monday night I was the 90th of 91. It does not leave a superabundance of points to make, but I can make one without any fear—which is to thank the committee for the work that it has done. This is an unyielding subject and the report of the committee, under the chairmanship...

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill — Second Reading (Continued) (3 June 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am pathetically open-minded about many aspects of this Bill. I have studied with great care the arguments put forward on both sides of the debate, although you cannot really talk in terms of a single debate with such a complex measure. I have been immensely impressed, as I am sure we all have, by the quality of today’s debate, and the sincerity of the contributions made by...

Insurance: Flood Risk Areas — Question (22 May 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: What assumptions about global warming underlie the negotiations?

Queen's Speech — Debate (3rd Day) (13 May 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I cannot resist asking him, on his second reference to our position in the international markets-he talked about our credibility-whether the most vivid example of where we stand in the eyes of would-be speculators against sterling is not the fact that the rate at which we have to pay on our admittedly massive international debt is little if any...

Queen’s Speech — Debate (2nd Day) (9 May 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I wish to speak to the constitutional aspect of this debate and about the volume and complexity of legislation. I am encouraged to do so because it has preoccupied me since before I came into this House 15 years ago. I suppose that is partly, if not mainly, because I have been a general practitioner solicitor for a great part of my life and was for 24 years what was called the...

Queen’s Speech — Debate (2nd Day) (9 May 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Plymouth. I thank my noble friend Lord Smith very much for that vital piece of accuracy. I rather get the impression that the turnout throughout the country was hovering at around 30%, on average. If you consider that among voters aged under 30, of whom fewer than one in four turned out at the previous general election, possibly only one in 10 cast their votes last week. I do not think that...

Queen’s Speech — Debate (2nd Day) (9 May 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Incomprehensible, as my noble friend says—to lawyers, inter alia. There are number of senior judges sitting here and I am sure that they would be able to relate wonderful tales about the stuff that has come before them. I heard from one justice of the Supreme Court the other day that they were about to give judgment when one of them suddenly thought, “Hey, wasn’t something...

Queen’s Speech — Debate (2nd Day) (9 May 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Indeed, or use it. There is a serious issue of demoralisation in a literal sense—de-moralisation. The more law you have, the more you take from the citizens of the state, in whatever situation, the need to reach their own decisions or to think through the consequences of acting in this way or that. In effect, you provide a rule that all must abide by, and too often the statutory rule is...

Defamation Bill — Commons Reasons (23 April 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I shall talk briefly to Amendment 2B and, in so doing, I echo what has been said about my noble friend Lord McNally. I do not know about McNally's Bill but I certainly knew a Bill McNally, who was one of the finest poachers in Suffolk. I am not happy with Amendment 2C, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, but I have a lot of time for her Amendment 2D,...

Growth and Infrastructure Bill — Commons Reasons (22 April 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, very briefly, in my 26 years as legal eagle on the "Jimmy Young Show" on Radio 2, there was no issue more sensitive and more repeatedly brought up than neighbour disputes relating to the extension of premises. It causes immense angst among our fellow citizens. People have mentioned rights of view and rights of light; there is no right of view, of course, and rights of light are...

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Amendment of Schedule 1) Order 2013: Motion to Approve (27 March 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am sorry to intervene again on my noble friend, but it is not fair to say that the tribunals introduced a lawyer-free zone. The point of this debate is that it is in respect of issues of law in relation to tribunals that advice is plainly needed from lawyers. That is ineluctable.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Amendment of Schedule 1) Order 2013: Motion to Approve (27 March 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Before my noble friend sits down, will he answer the question that I think was put by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, and certainly by myself: namely, what broadly is the cost of allowing advice to be given to those few hundred people who want to appeal on a point of law against a tribunal decision on welfare law?

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Amendment of Schedule 1) Order 2013: Motion to Approve (27 March 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, the speech we have heard from noble Lord, Lord Bach, is very sobering, and although he put it forth in no spirit of partisanship, some of the language was, if I may say so, overcoloured. I do not think that to accuse the Government of spite is reasonable, but I accept that for us apparently to deprive those covered by the Motion, who have suffered at the hands of a First-tier...

Justice and Security Bill [HL]: Commons Amendments (26 March 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I fear that I have to disagree with two eminent judges-the noble and learned Lords, Lord Woolf and Lord Mackay of Clashfern. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, talked about the judges being in the driving seat and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, said that under the amendments to the Bill huge discretions are given to judges which we can safely leave in their hands. I...

Crime and Courts Bill [HL] — Commons Amendments (25 March 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Before my noble friend sits down, and I congratulate him on the legislative equivalent of a marathon, I ask him whether he sympathises with the view that to have 44 important and often complex amendments put together in one group-the third group today contained 85 amendments -is not conducive to the quality of scrutiny that the Bill deserves. I mean no disrespect to him.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL] — Commons Amendments (25 March 2013)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I declare an interest as having been for a few years a member of the appointments commission of the Press Complaints Commission and for 10 years on the Scott Trust, which owns the Guardian, the Observer and other newspapers. I congratulate the three main parties and their leaders on coming to an agreement over what must surely be as difficult a set of issues as one could devise. No...