Baroness Browning: My Lords, I too declare an interest as a vice-president of the National Autistic Society—I am always pleased to work alongside my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, on these matters. Very often, parents, in desperation, particularly want an autism assessment when their teenagers get to the stage where they are leaving school and going on to further education or other types of study....
Baroness Browning: To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of personal independence payments (PIP) to support the financial needs of people with Parkinson's disease since the introduction of PIP 10 years ago.
Baroness Browning: My Lords, the number of autistic children and adolescents at the Tavistock clinic was greater than the number of those in any other group. Would my noble friend just clarify his reply a little? I think this is going to require more than normal counselling, because there is a trait within the autistic mind that often focuses very strongly on a particular issue and, once an autistic person...
Baroness Browning: My Lords, I declare a family interest in this Question. Over the next two years, people with long-term disabilities who currently receive employment and support allowance will be moved to universal credit, and there is already an acknowledgement that there will be some differences in the amount of money they will receive. What analysis has my noble friend the Minister and his department done...
Baroness Browning: To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Murray of Blidworth on 8 March (HL Deb col 797), for how long they have recorded changes of name by individuals following conviction; and how such data is (1) collected, and (2) recorded.
Baroness Browning: To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to change the law applying to those individuals who change their name to avoid being brought to justice.
Baroness Browning: My Lords, what monitoring is undertaken by the Home Office of those who have been convicted of either sexual offences or domestic abuse who subsequently go on to change their names?
Baroness Browning: Can my noble friend confirm that, when the results are published, the contingency plan brought forward by the Government will include, quite clearly, what will happen with care homes in future situations? We are all concerned that this was very last-minute. Can I ask my noble friend to reflect on my own circumstances? My aunt Vicky, aged 99 years and nine months, died in April 2020 in a care...
Baroness Browning: My Lords, I am pleased to contribute to a debate that addresses six key areas, all of which address public safety. I also look forward to hearing the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady O’Neill further on in the debate. With my noble friend at the Dispatch Box, I attended an all-party briefing meeting on the Bill two weeks ago, and I recall him saying, in the discussion about the Bill,...
Baroness Browning: Some 25 years ago, I co- chaired the Women’s National Commission as the government co-chair, in which over 100 women’s organisations were represented. As I am sure my noble friend the Minister knows, this is not a new problem, whatever the state of the economy. Among those over-100 women’s organisations, there was everything from Army wives to the English Collective of Prostitutes, so...
Baroness Browning: I confess to my noble friend that I am a cynical old politician. Recently, there has been the practice of split ticketing. It takes me two hours to come here and now I get two tickets, one for the first hour and one for the second hour. I do not need to change trains; the price is the same. Can she reassure me that this is not some device to show that more people take short journeys and...
Baroness Browning: When people are transferred, either to home or residential care places, part of the delay is caused by the need, quite rightly, for a proper and appropriate assessment of their needs before a transfer is made. What work have the Government done to assess who is going to carry out those proper assessments, either at the hospital or the care home end, and what the likely delay at that stage...
Baroness Browning: I advise my noble friend that I was the Minister who put police and crime commissioners on to the statute book in this House, opposed by all the Benches opposite at the time. I ask a question that has been asked previously in courts around the country: is this what Parliament intended? I do not think that Parliament ever did intend the current problem, clearly identified by my noble friend...
Baroness Browning: In my noble friend’s Answer to our noble friend Lord Vaizey, he said this had been decided at a round-table meeting in the Treasury. Could we know who the people around this table are? Are they shoppers? For the record—please do not take offence at this—I would like to know the gender of this circular table.
Baroness Browning: Conversely, following on from what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has just said, what about imported animals? How will they be assessed in terms of the legislation before us?
Baroness Browning: My Lords, I had scarlet fever twice as a child, two years running. I seem to recall a doctor called at my home, diagnosed and prescribed. Also, at that time—it was the late 1950s—my library books were taken away for fumigation, and I was kept in isolation. Why can we not have that sort of service today?
Baroness Browning: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for bringing this very important debate to the Chamber today. I begin by paying tribute to all those reporters and newsgatherers around the world who risk life and limb, and very often the safety of their own families, to deliver the news in a format which not only we can trust in this country but is trusted and respected globally. It is...
Baroness Browning: Does my noble friend accept that many disabled people in residential and nursing care are of an age such that there are no parents or close relatives left and there is no one with a lasting power of attorney? How can that vulnerability be coped with by the state in a way we would all approve of?
Baroness Browning: Three weeks ago, I asked my noble friend what was happening to change building regulations to reduce the volume of water needing disposal, which would thus be an advantage with things such as storm overflows. My noble friend told me that there were discussions going on, but I realise that this is a cross-cutting matter between departments, and that always makes me nervous. I wonder whether my...
Baroness Browning: My Lords, the medication for mental health conditions, including addictions, can be vastly improved in outcome and the proper use of that medication if the doctor is able to test the DNA of the patient to marry up the correct medication. When is genetic testing going to become an integral part of the NHS?
