Results 1-20 of 359 for (in the 'Commons debates' OR in the 'Westminster Hall debates' OR in the 'Lords debates' OR in the 'Northern Ireland Assembly debates') speaker:Lord Desai

Financial Regulation: EUC Report: Motion to Take Note (10 Nov 2009)

Lord Desai: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in welcoming these two reports. They are both excellent, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, said, we should make them more widely available to universities, economic analysts and whoever needs to be educated in the details of this matter. I start my observations on a very different note by saying that crises not only happen, but are a natural part of...

Policing and Crime Bill: Report (2nd Day) (5 Nov 2009)

Lord Desai: My Lords, I want to say a brief word in support of the amendment. It seems perverse that, on the one hand, we say these children are exploited by someone else—that is, they are not in that situation willingly—and, on the other hand, we criminalise them for doing something that they have unwillingly done. That is a contradiction. Therefore, if we believe that these children are...

Swine Flu — Statement (2 Jul 2009)

Lord Desai: My Lords, I, too, join my noble friend in thanking all those in the NHS and the Health Protection Agency who have helped. The way in which the WHO has maintained vigilance and has been able to call each stage before the pandemic has also been remarkable. I found that very reassuring compared with the reaction to the financial crisis, in which economists have said different things and not all...

Policing and Crime Bill: Committee (2nd Day) (1 Jul 2009)

Lord Desai: I shall make a third attempt at this. This time, since I am going to support my noble friend, he might like what I say, although I am not changing my text. By adding the words about exploitative acts and gain from exploitative acts, my noble friend has made the distinction that I was trying to make. Exploitation consists of the producer who hires the worker making a gain. The consumer may...

Policing and Crime Bill: Committee (2nd Day) (1 Jul 2009)

Lord Desai: When you say that a person is paying for sex, you are already presuming his guilt. That is the problem. It is not an offence in this country thus far to pay for sex with a consenting partner. Therefore, if you say, "Ah, but this man has paid for sex, therefore the rest follows", you have to be very careful. Some of us may not like prostitution and would like to reduce it, but moral...

Policing and Crime Bill: Committee (2nd Day) (1 Jul 2009)

Lord Desai: Before my noble friend replies, I add one element that is not moral but may be more economic. My noble friend uses the word "exploitation". Normally the consumer is unable to exploit; the producer may exploit the consumer, but it is very difficult for the consumer, with monopoly power, to do that. The Government want to punish the consumer for having exploited, because the exploiter is the...

Policing and Crime Bill: Committee (2nd Day) (1 Jul 2009)

Lord Desai: I support Amendment 45. I apologise to the Committee. I did not take part in the Second Reading debate. We know that trafficking is bad. It deals with a supply of women who go into the sexual services business. The answer seems to be that if we reduce demand, something will automatically happen to the supply, leading to a reduction in the number of women offering sexual services and,...

Health: Tuberculosis — Question (30 Jun 2009)

Lord Desai: My Lords, I recall that the Chief Medical Officer announced a TB strategy five years ago. What has been the effect of that plan?

Iraq — Debate (18 Jun 2009)

Lord Desai: My Lords, perhaps noble Lords will permit me to say that this is the 18th anniversary of my maiden speech in your Lordships' House. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for allowing us an opportunity to debate this question. I was, and continue to be, supportive of the decision made by the Government to invade Iraq. Many of the reasons have already been described by my noble friends...

Iraq — Debate (18 Jun 2009)

Lord Desai: My Lords, yes, indeed, but what about the number of Iraqis killed under the regime of Saddam Hussein? If the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, was in her place she would describe how the ecology of the Marsh Arabs was destroyed so thoroughly that it has taken years to restore the marshes in southern Iraq. People do not realise. We somehow have this prejudice—especially towards countries...

Sri Lanka — Question (17 Jun 2009)

Lord Desai: My Lords, are Her Majesty's Government making any effort to consult the diaspora Sri Lankan groups here to try to form a Sinhala-speaking and Tamil-speaking people's reconciliation group? That could help with reconciliation back home in Sri Lanka.

Police: Funding — Question (17 Jun 2009)

Lord Desai: My Lords—

Police: Funding — Question (17 Jun 2009)

Lord Desai: My Lords, is it not likely that capping will lead to beheading if there is a 10 per cent cut across the board—and especially in the Home Office budget—if we have the misfortune of the party opposite coming to power?

Constitutional Renewal — Debate (11 Jun 2009)

Lord Desai: My Lords, they say in Hollywood that you should never act with children or animals. The rule here is: never follow a right reverend Prelate. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on getting a sort of Second Reading on his Bill without actually having a Second Reading. As the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, said, while it is not as bad as the Coroners and Justice Bill, it is a sort of...

House of Lords Bill [HL]: Committee (1st Day) (19 Mar 2009)

Lord Desai: I will tell my noble friend Lord Dubs what the point of all this is. In a marvellous scene in George Bernard Shaw's "Man and Superman"—the Don Juan in Hell sequence—the old man says to the young man who has just arrived that, "instead of merely killing time we have to kill eternity". We are here because every year we have a Bill and we debate it; and we shall go on debating it...

Postal Services Bill [HL]: Second Reading (10 Mar 2009)

Lord Desai: My Lords, I support the Bill quite enthusiastically. I spoke on the topic seven years ago in a debate initiated by the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, when the company was called Consignia and Postcomm had just put forward its first proposals for liberalising the trade. Similar sorts of statements were made at that time: "Yes, it was bad but it will get better"; "Just have patience"; "We...

Banking: Money Supply — Question (10 Mar 2009)

Lord Desai: My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that, in the way he stated, the velocity has dropped to a very low level and is about to hit zero and that there is therefore no danger that the creation of extra money will create inflation, which is the fear expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Higgins?

Health: Disease Control (Intergovernmental Organisations Committee Report): Motion to Take Note (24 Feb 2009)

Lord Desai: My Lords, it is a great privilege to thank my noble friend Lord Soley for having initiated and having led this inquiry in a most efficient and charming manner. We finally got to grips with what is really an enormously complex subject. Before I turn to the topic of the report itself, let me reflect that today we are going through another global pandemic, a financial one. If only there were as...

Inequality — Debate (29 Jan 2009)

Lord Desai: My Lords, it is a formidable task to follow the noble Baroness, who has a distinguished career as a philosopher, when I am a mere economist. But since economists have sunk capital into the notion of choice, I thought that I had better speak in this debate. Before I go any further, let me say that a House of Lords that can hold two debates—one on climate change and one on the level of...

Wealth Distribution (18 Nov 2008)

Lord Desai: My Lords, does not the fact that a severe stock market crash has reduced wealth inequality show that we have a somewhat false way of calculating true wealth? Perhaps we ought to revise our consideration and include houses not at current prices but at the long-run supply price: that would give us a more realistic account of what wealth is. We cannot have wealth being high one day and low the...