Lord Lucas: My Lords, I declare interests as proprietor of the Good Schools Guide and having sent my children to both state and independent schools. I do not think taxing education is right, but we do. If I spend £20,000 on holidays, I will pay £3,333 in VAT. If I spend that same amount on schooling, I will forgo twice the value of that, and the state will benefit by twice the amount for the cost of...
Lord Lucas: To ask His Majesty's Government how many responses they received to their consultation Review of the Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education statutory guidance, which launched on 16 May and closed on 11 July; and when they intend to publish their response to the consultation and summary of responses.
Lord Lucas: To ask His Majesty's Government, further to their plans to lower the voting age to 16, whether they also intend to lower the legal age for (1) applying, or (2) qualifying, for a Gender Recognition Certificate to 16.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, it is a great honour to follow three such powerful speeches from noble Baronesses. I am duly put in the shade. I have very happy memories of facing the Labour Front Bench on these issues in its last incarnation. I mention in particular Lord Williams of Mostyn, for whom I had the highest possible regard, and the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, in their roles as Prisons Ministers. I...
Lord Lucas: My Lords, will the Government look carefully at whether the burden of funding homelessness could be more equitably distributed between councils?
Lord Lucas: To ask His Majesty's Government, in the light of the risk posed to workers by fake job advertisements, whether it is their policy that Government jobs should only be advertised on websites which are members of an industry-led anti-fraud certification scheme which is compliant with the Online Safety Act 2023.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for the chance to have this debate. I work very closely with the Better Hiring Institute, an organisation I recommend to noble Lords. A trend that we are increasingly seeing is for skills-based hiring. That is where, rather than listing qualifications or CV items, a company gets down to the core of what skills it needs for a particular job and...
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his replies. I am much more grateful to the many midwives who have helped my family over the years. They give an extraordinary service. If we are not to have an inquiry, will my noble friend make sure that his ears and doors continue to be open when things are not going as well as they should? The NHS has a habit of closing doors on things and...
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 127 in this group. I do not hold, in any particular way, to my choice of wording, but I am fairly sure the Government’s choice of wording is not right. We all receive a huge quantity of emails; we do not want multiplicity—we want effectiveness—and to demand that these emails come separately is a mistake. I hope the Government will see this as...
Lord Lucas: My Lords, since we have made such progress in dealing with the gender pay gap, might we also turn our attention to trying to persuade employers of the importance of helping parents, most of them women, who have taken time out from their careers to bring up children, to get back into the workforce with the same status at which they left it?
Lord Lucas: To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Davies of Gower on 12 February (HL1997), whether rules similar to Network Rail's code of acceptance for commercial advertising apply to non-commercial displays of political messaging.
Lord Lucas: To ask His Majesty's Government when marketplaces and online retailers collect VAT under legislation introduced in 2021, how does HMRC ensure the VAT collected is actually handed over to HMRC; and what audit process and checks and balances are in place for allowing this proxy arrangement.
Lord Lucas: To ask His Majesty's Government what policies and guidance are in place for Network Rail concerning whether political statements are permitted in advertising or otherwise displayed in their stations.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Northbrook on bringing forward this Bill. He is right to say that I am unaffected by it, as I have a Scottish title, which in connection with the previous debate, was granted by James I to his first boyfriend, who then married—fortunately. I have an English title, the barony of Lucas, which was procured by Margaret Cavendish, in honour of her...
Lord Lucas: My Lords, this is Second Reading: we are not time limited. I hope that noble Lords who need more than five minutes will feel free to take it. I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, just said in quoting Theresa May. I share Room 23 with my noble friend Lord Hayward, and he has discussed with me the conversion therapy experiences of his friend, Matt Hyndman. He says of him,...
Lord Lucas: My Lords—
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I think the noble Lord makes a most serious accusation that there are people who have spoken today who do not honour LGBT people as full members of society, worthy of respect at all times. I have no evidence of that in my conversations with anybody who has spoken today or, indeed, those who are going to speak. I know that this is not a universal society but, within this House, we...
Lord Lucas: To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the statement on the NHS webpage 'Can I access someone else's medical records (health records)?' that "children aged 12 or older are usually considered to have the capacity to give or refuse consent to parents requesting access to their health records, unless there is a reason to suggest otherwise".
Lord Lucas: To ask His Majesty's Government whether it is their policy that police officers assigned as male at birth who now identify as women should be allowed to strip search female suspects and, if not, what advice they will offer to the National Police Chiefs’ Council and to police forces which currently allow this practice.
