Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the financial impact on elderly residents in sheltered housing of the Valuation Office Agency’s Council Tax valuation policy in respect of individual bedrooms in non-registered homes; and whether they have any plans to amend the definition of sheltered housing in the Council Tax (Situation and Valuation of Dwellings)...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, I join other Members of the House in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, for initiating this debate; he introduced it in a very positive way, while at the same time being realistic about the challenges that face us in our relationship with China. We have had two excellent maiden speeches, enjoyable and full of the experience of the two new Members of the House. I wish them well and...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Prosser for arranging this debate today and for the detail that she went into in her presentation. A recent YouGov poll reported that one-half of the working population believe that the coalition’s economic policies are making them feel less secure. That is not a revelation; I think that most of us would understand that from going around and reading...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Touhig for tabling this debate. He has followed and pressed this issue assiduously and he is to be congratulated on that. It is not a closed book as far as he, and indeed a number of us, are concerned. I listened with shock to the two quotations he repeated from the memo from the Ministry of Defence, which I have not seen. However, equally shocking was a...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, I am delighted to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, on her contribution, particularly as, like me, she has a home in the West Country. Her contribution this afternoon was very thoughtful, sensitive and realistic, knowing what is happening on the ground in so many parts of our country. I welcome her and look to forward to listening to many of...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, it is indeed a wonderful pleasure and delight to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington. It is one of the unique benefits of this House that we have the noble Baroness, who worked as part of that team at Bletchley which was, for us, part of our saving in the Second World War. I support this Bill and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, not only for introducing it but for the...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, the gracious Speech referred to the Government bringing forward measures, “to improve the way this country procures defence equipment”. The noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, has covered to some degree the number of questions that that raises. It is shorthand for government-owned contractor-operated, although for some time the MoD, rightly, was considering various models. My...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, Mrs Thatcher, as she then was, was a truly remarkable woman. She was elected in 1975 as leader of the Conservative Party. We need to take into account the fact it was not just the fact that she was elected the first woman leader of the Conservative Party, and what she had to overcome, but her very humble background and beginnings. I can remember quite clearly the impact that had on...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, I, too, support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Young of Norwood Green. I would like to ask the Minister how he justifies this change against the background of a repeated government assertion that we are all in this austerity period together. Even in a straightforward redundancy situation this carves out the salaried or hourly-paid workforce that generally runs the company-we...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: I thank the Minister for the Statement, particularly for covering the continual running sore-as the Armed Forces Pay Review Body report this year confirms yet again-of accommodation. Is he confident that the new and refurbished housing will be ready for our troops and their families when they come home, knowing that this will have to go through the public procurement process-I presume-and...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, and congratulating him on obtaining this debate this evening. Had he been here, the late Lord Corbett of Castle Vale would certainly have been one of the participants. Over his 34 years in Parliament, both in the other place and here, prison reform was at the top of his agenda. Indeed, one of his many...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, we owe a huge debt to Lord Justice Leveson and his report. The press do, too, although it may not choose recognise it at the moment. In retrospect, in the years to come, I think that it will accept that it was very helpful to its industry. After many months of listening to over 300 witnesses and taking over 300 written submissions, paragraph 8 of the executive summary of Lord...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, I certainly agree that our creative industries are not a contentious issue in this House. They are probably at the base of how we will get out of the recession, and will probably provide a lot of our growth in future. What is contentious is the stated intention of the Bill, as expressed in the Explanatory Notes, to promote long-term growth. It does very little of that. It is a...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, I very much welcome the Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote. It is necessary. It is a short Bill. Clause 1 deals with opt-in and Clause 2 with filtering. I think it will be supported by parents in respect of the whole area of what, in many respects, is child ensnarement into sexually explicit services. The article in Child Abuse Review of 2009 demonstrated...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement from the other House. Unusually, I think there is general consensus across the House that this is a welcome move. But, probably, the devil is in the detail. It will succeed or not depending on co-operation from industry. Those of us who have seen the reserves in operation know that it is not the quality of their contribution. Indeed,...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, it is indeed an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord King, in this debate. Unsatisfactory though the circumstances have been that created the space for the debate, I must thank the noble Lord, Lord Astor, for securing this topic. I am sure that there must have been some competing issues but to have secured this very important topic for a debate, which is not timed, enables those...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, I was pleased to hear that the Minister has read the comparative study produced by the Council of the Isles of Scilly, which demonstrates very clearly-and factually-just how poorly the Isles of Scilly compare with the islands of Scotland. The Minister has just said that they are different. They are different because we recognise in Scotland that these services are not commercially...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: Does the Minister agree that discrimination can take many forms? With the repositioning of Armed Forces personnel from Germany over the coming years, one area of concern may well be about the opportunity for their children to have access to the schools that their parents want them to go to and to get on the doctor's list in the area that they wish. Does he agree that we may need to review the...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, does the Minister accept that the statement of commercial viability is a thin veneer that masks the real poverty levels in the Scilly Isles? As my noble friend said, Cornwall has one of the lowest GDPs in the country. The fact that the ferry runs for seven months of the year is due to the tourist trade. However, behind that is the local community, which lives in poverty and depends...
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, I join in congratulating the Minister on not only initiating the debate but on the manner in which she introduced it. She is probably the first Conservative Minister in this House to introduce what has become an annual debate-certainly she is the first coalition Minister. This has become an annual event-it was initiated from the Labour Benches some years ago-but it has never become...
