Baroness Hanham: My Lords, in view of the terrible disturbances that such developments have caused to neighbours, is it not time for the Government to look at some statutory compensation scheme for people who live beside them? I declare an interest as somebody who has been sitting in the middle of developments on either side of me for the past eight months and been nearly driven mad. My daughter is about to...
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I think I said on Report that I felt really sorry for the Minister having to respond, because it is clearly not an easy clause or schedule to respond to. There is absolutely no rationale to it whatever. The fact is that whatever the Minister has been told to say, this is a much more protracted procedure than is going to go ahead nationwide. Most local authorities will deal...
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I do not think that I need to delay the House too long on this, but I want to draw attention again to an issue that involves overriding what London is doing, which is becoming quite a concern. It relates to how waste disposal penalties are going to be put forward. London has been running its own waste penalty system since the London Local Authorities Act 2007; it has its own system...
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, my name is also on this amendment, and I would like to draw attention to the declarations I have made in the past of being a joint president of London Councils and also a former leader and member of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which will be affected by this legislation. The noble Lord has set out very clearly the amendments that we think are necessary to make this...
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, my name is also attached to this amendment and since the start of the Bill it is one of the areas of this legislation that I have been most concerned about. Nobody could have failed to be moved by the television programmes that we have seen, the reports that we have heard, and the work done by Kalayaan, which has been very much hampered by the fact that the changes to the visa...
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I have added my support to all the amendments in this group. The anomaly between the treatment of zig-zag lines at school gates and those by pedestrian crossings is ridiculous. Both involve strong safety issues, and the Government should be able to see their way to including pedestrian crossings, at the very least. They also need to review the regulations about the amount of land...
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, for clarity, my amendment said 30 days. In speaking to it, I did not support the situation about the seven days’ notice, nor did I do anything other than say that we would want a short, light-touch registration, which could be up to as much as a year—very much supporting what the noble Lord said. It is important to get the nuances, which are slightly different, and I tried to...
Baroness Hanham: I hesitate ever to come in on a point of principle but my noble friend Lady Gardner said that she wanted Amendments 47 and 48 to be grouped, and that is what we have done. Have we spoken to Amendment 47 separately? Is there any way in which we can get this settled? I have spoken to the group commencing with Amendment 48, not Amendment 47. I was waiting for the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, to...
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, with my noble friend Lord Tope, I have three amendments down on this matter. To start with, I point out to the House that this is a very small clause with a very large impact. It consists of six subsections, four of which require regulations. As my noble friend said, not only have we not seen any sight of these regulations but, apart from the Written Ministerial Statement that...
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I originally put the question to my noble friend of whether he would be prepared to meet us. He said he will and I thank him for that. I will take up his offer as soon as we can so that we can try and get some sense into this before Third Reading. I have stood in the same position as the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and I have at times thought that the brief in front of me was...
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 19 and in doing so remind the House that I am co-president of London Councils. It is on behalf of London that I shall speak this evening. Clause 44 changes the penalties on a national basis for waste collection. It amends provisions in the Environmental Protection Act 1990 on waste collection and waste receptacles. It changes the system from one which...
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I greatly regret that I have not previously been able to take part in this Committee, having had conflicting commitments, but I very much hope to be able to rectify that on Report. I wanted to be here today for this amendment. What we have heard illustrates quite clearly what a desperate situation this is. In the debate on the previous amendment the Minister referred to “hidden...
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I am very conscious that I am following on from two excellent maiden speeches, and there is a third one to come. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, who is not in her place, and congratulate them on the speeches they have made today. It was a great privilege to be part of the Joint Committee on the draft Modern Slavery Bill. As other noble...
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, as chairman of Monitor, which is one of the signatories and contributors to this document, may I ask the Minister to confirm further that the Government will not see any wholesale managerial reorganisation in the health service, which is not what the document is looking for, but that they will see change coming about in the way that services are developed? Will they ensure that...
Baroness Hanham: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that local people are aware of, and are using, the new community rights created under the Localism Act 2012.
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. He will recall that there are a number of community rights within the Localism Act. May I refer particularly to community assets and the acquisition of those and ask my noble friend what progress is being made and whether he has any examples of good practice that could be passed on to others?
Baroness Hanham: What progress has been made on individual electoral registration? It is very important for young people to know about the democratic process, but as part of that they must also know that they have to register in order to vote.
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I will be slightly out of line with other speakers, all of whom have local government experience as well. I have been listening carefully to the debate. As a former leader of a council and a former Minister who did not take a pension—I declare that interest—I am very conscious of the work that is done by local councillors and the extra amount that they do as a result of the...
Baroness Hanham: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the recommendations in the final report of the Electoral Commission Electoral fraud in the UK.
