Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, which, besides its other virtues, was continent in the time it took given the richness of the debate. I thank everybody who took part; I honestly think that it is—and will read as—one of the best debates I have heard in this House. Its blend of expertise, eloquence and passion could act as a tutorial on the main issues facing us to anybody who...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, to tell your Lordships the truth, I feel like an imposter. This report was shaped, inspired and given its passion by Lord Puttnam, the chairman of the committee, who I am delighted to see sitting on the steps of the Throne. I was merely one of the team of Peers who he charmed, argued and occasionally cajoled into unanimously endorsing his vision: trust in democracy resurrected by...
Lord Lipsey: I do not want to take up the Committee’s time on this. Perhaps we could have an exchange of letters.
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I am sorry to come back to something the Minister said just before the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, but I think the record will show that the Minister said that, when we have passed such amendments as we do, we send them back to the other place for it to determine. I do not think that is the procedure. I thought they came back here, and then we decided whether we...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I will briefly make a point about these proceedings. As I understood it, when we debated the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, the Minister said, “We should not have these general arguments; we should be focusing on the specific amendments.” In a corner, as he was, I can see that that was the best sort of argument available to him. Now we have nearly...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I am doing my best, on the basis of only 20 years’ experience in this House, to follow the Minister. Is he saying that he is going to try to improve a clause in Committee, when later we are going to have an opportunity to choose whether to reject the clause as a whole? Of course, we must do both. I hope that it is rejected eventually but in the meantime, the amendment of the noble...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, when the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, came into the Chamber, I do not think that she was expecting to have to move any amendments, and when I came into the Chamber, I certainly was not expecting to speak on any of them. But in a few sentences I would like to inject a broader perspective. At the moment, we see a conflict between democracy and totalitarianism in Ukraine such as we...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to follow the noble Lord who sat on the Dilnot committee. I think it was a first-class report, which, at the time, I was prepared to endorse as the least bad solution to the social care problem. But I have changed my mind since then. Why? Because the facts have changed. I set out some of those facts when I spoke in Committee, and they include the large...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Moore, if he did not know it before, will now have the feeling that this is a slightly peculiar House. We have had a wonderful debate this afternoon with magnificent points made. I have to say I have found most of them critical of the Bill, but nobody has quite dared to call a spade a spade. This is a partisan measure; the great majority of it is partisan and...
Lord Lipsey: To ask Her Majesty's Government what consideration they are giving to mandatory number plates for cyclists.
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, this is a rather strange grouping. In the earlier debates we were dancing at times on the heads of pins, and now we have the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, with her proposals for a lower cap, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bull—with whom I agree—largely exempting people of working age with a disability, and it is difficult to cover the whole field. However, I will attempt to...
Lord Lipsey: To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the proposals set out in their consultation document Banning conversion therapy, published on 29 October, whether the ban will apply to attempts made to change a person from being transgender to not being transgender.
Lord Lipsey: To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they will take to prevent two separate Winter Fuel Allowances being offered to a cohabiting couple who own two properties.
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, in my 20 years in the House I have heard every possible excuse from Ministers for not doing what they obviously should do: something will cost too much money, there is not the legislative time, or it breaches international obligations. Anybody in this House could recite such a list. However, I have come across very few Bills that seem to be proof against such excuses. The Bill which...
Government assessment of the possible role of the private sector in helping individuals pay for social care – Lord Lipsey.
Lord Lipsey: To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage of care recipients aged 65 or over are funded (1) wholly, or (2) partly, by local authorities.
Lord Lipsey: To ask Her Majesty's Government, for each year from 2014, how many people used deferred payment schemes that enable older people to avoid selling their houses to pay for care.
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I am a complete unbeliever in religion. I raise the fact that in this long and very distinguished debate, religion has been the Banquo at the feast. We have hardly heard anything about religion, even from the Bishops’ Bench. Like all noble Lords, I have received a tsunami of emails putting forward arguments why I should oppose the Bill. Some of the arguments are valid; some are...
