Lord Lipsey: Yes, but that does not relate to the point I was making that just controlling numbers is not enough. There may be a case for local controls in some areas. I will come back to that at the end of my speech, but I think that the numbers are probably falling now. However, if you really want to put money into an FOBT, you are not going to have much trouble finding a machine; there are plenty...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I support the amendment, despite the fact that I have considerable sympathy with the argument put by my noble friend Lady Corston. The status quo has persisted for a good long time. It will inevitably be re-examined on charter renewal—which I will come to in a minute—and it therefore seems to me that we can take a decision on whether decriminalising makes sense when we see...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I should first declare that I am the unremunerated president of the Society of Later Life Advisers, which provides independent advice to older people. I am sorry that I have not taken part in the proceedings on this Bill so far, knowing, as I have, that it is so safe in the eloquent hands of my noble friend Lady Hollis, but I want to intervene in this case to draw to the House’s...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, as the first dissident to speak in this debate, I start by saying that I agree with north of 90% of what has been said so far, particularly the moving remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, about the impact of the aid programme. I am unambiguously for aid, and I am unambiguously in favour of a highish level of public expenditure on aid; the sole question is whether we assist...
Lord Lipsey: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what adjustment they intend to make to the £23,250 non-housing capital asset limit for the deferred payment scheme when the capital limit for means-tested care benefits rises from £23,250 to £118,000 in April 2016.
Lord Lipsey: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the current status of their consultation on the reform of the Horserace Betting Levy in the light of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Autumn Statement announcement of the introduction of a racing right.
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I imagine that the tummies of some noble Lords are starting to rumble, but I must detain the House a little longer. Inevitably, this is a complex matter. Let me start with the history of the deferred payments. I think that my noble friend Lord Joffe, who is beside me, and I were the people who invented them when we were involved in the minority report of the royal commission. We...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I shall be much milder in winding up than I would have been had the noble Earl been in his place. I recognise the care that the Minister put into those remarks, but I am afraid that she inadvertently displayed her lack of background in the field and I am sorry if she was advised to use some of the words that she did. The Minister said that this issue had been discussed frequently on...
Lord Lipsey: I thank the noble Baroness for her reply, which the world will be able to peruse together with my speech in Hansard and judge whether she has answered all the points that I made. She and her department are obviously getting quite different information from local authorities, which is not surprising because local authorities want to tell the department that they can do it but they tell us that...
Lord Lipsey: At last, the big event of the day —the one you have all been waiting for. First, I declare an interest as an unremunerated president of SOLLA, the Society of Later Life Advisers, which is the body that accredits financial advisers who work with the elderly. As there could be some misunderstanding, perhaps I may explain that there will be two separate debates and I will be making two...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, it is desperately dispiriting that nearly all debate about reform of this House concentrates on the single issue of whether we should be elected. I am not in favour of election, but I am in favour of a radical change in the way the House works. I believe such a change is necessary if we are to earn our corn in the troubled political period ahead of us. The pace of change in this...
Lord Lipsey: As I said, there are a few, though I doubt that they would command a majority today.
Lord Lipsey: Thank God we do not have them anymore. The real resistance to change, let us face it, comes from the Whips—from the Government leadership—because they have a sole object, for all the gilded words in which they tend to clad it: to get the Government’s business through with as little trouble, scrutiny and change as they can get away with. That is their fundamental mindset. I do not...
Lord Lipsey: I am happy to allow the noble Baroness to intervene so long as it is not on a point of order.
Lord Lipsey: I am delighted that there are some bullying women as well as some bullying men. I come to my final comment, which reflects a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. It is true that the forces of conservatism that I have described have this House in a strong grip, but they need not be allowed to have that grip. Down in the Commons, people said, “We’ll never get a business committee...
Lord Lipsey: To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will announce the exact rates on pensioner bonds, as promised in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget speech.
Lord Lipsey: I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill, for initiating this debate and for her excellent report. There is another vote of thanks that I want to give, which on my part is even more heartfelt: I want to thank the 700,000 people working in the residential sector in particular for what they do for our elderly people. Of course I know that there are a few bad apples in the barrel. The...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I was a member of the Economic Affairs Committee, whose report, I am pleased to say, has received considerable praise today. When we started on our inquiry, I did not know what fracking was. I would have been hard pressed to distinguish it from another word beginning with “f” and ending with “ing”. However, in the months over which we heard evidence on the subject from every...
Lord Lipsey: Perhaps some noble Lords think that music education is a bit of an airy-fairy subject—a “nice-to-have” but not a “must-have”. If there is one canard which the debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, enables us to quash, it is this. Music is not just a “nice-to-have”, it is central to good education, as central as maths and English. Research evidence is conclusive that...
Lord Lipsey: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the (1) average, and (2) median, earnings of a salaried general practitioner in England and Wales. To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the (1) average and (2) median, earnings of a partner general practitioner in England and Wales.
