Lord Lipsey: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what will be the cost in a full year of the increase in the rate of NHS-funded nursing care to £156.25 per week.
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, the Commons has spoken and we must, as usual, bow the knee, even if it took us twice to get round to it this time. I take some consolation from what the Minister said, because at least the consultation document is something concrete which has an end date. However, we know that Governments can take an awfully long time after the end date of consultations deciding and announcing what...
Lord Lipsey: To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have made an estimate of the revenue that would be raised by (1) a one percentage point rise in the rate of national insurance, and (2) the imposition of national insurance contributions of one per cent on employees who have reached State Pension age; and if so, how much those estimated revenues would be.
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I chair the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Greenwich. It is the nicest job I have ever had in my life. It is a very successful institution and recently received HEFCE’s seal of approval as a world-class teaching institution. We also recently achieved degree-awarding powers after a minute examination by the Privy Council. We are a very international place,...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I have some sympathy with the Minister’s position that this is not a brilliant place in which to legislate on press matters, but we need to put this in a bit of perspective. In the previous Parliament, there was total agreement in both Houses, among the Government and the Opposition, about what needed to be done to bring Leveson into effect. What happened after the election?...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, I sit on the Select Committee on the sustainability of the health service, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Patel. Last week, I came out of St Thomas’ Hospital, where I had had a TAVI—an operation on a heart valve—to sit down to the backlog of papers from the committee. The first paper I picked up said quite clearly that unnecessary treatments...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. We should remember the agreement signed in 2015 with the full support of Parliament and its three pillars: there should be a body to regulate complaints against the press that is based on Lord Leveson’s recommendations; it should not be compulsory for the press to sign up to those recommendations, but there...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister. Will she now give a commitment that there will no withdrawal from Europe without both Houses voting for the repeal of the European Communities Act?
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, on this day in two years’ time, EU exit negotiations are going badly. Growth has stalled; unemployment is soaring. The new “Real Labour Party”, which has an electoral pact with the Lib Dems, leads by 25% in the polls on its sole platform, “Second referendum now”. In that circumstance, what is Parliament to do? I emphasise the word “Parliament” because it barely escapes...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I declare an interest as half-owner of Fearless Fantasy, which takes a chance in the bumper at eight o’clock at Exeter tomorrow, which happens to be my birthday. The House is indebted to the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, for giving the Government a chance to give a straight answer as to what has happened to the racing right. Noble Lords will remember that the racing right made a...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, for safety’s sake, I declare a rather remote interest as a member of the Starting Price Regulatory Commission. For most of my life, I have been the customer whom most bookmakers most want to see walk through their door. And if the House will forgive me, I will do a bit of bragging about the annus mirabilis that has just gone by. First, there was Many Clouds in the Grand National...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I rise simply to read into the record the findings of this House’s Communication Committee. After an excellent inquiry, it concluded that it had not heard “a convincing case” for a significant reduction in the scale or scope of the BBC. It believed that: “The BBC should not be restricted to remedying gaps for which the market does not provide”, but, “must continue to be...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I am grateful, and I hope the House is grateful, to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter—I should have said my noble friend because she has been my noble friend for many years now—for putting down this amendment, because it has led us to have a fuller debate this afternoon than we might otherwise have done. She has ably made her points of substance. However, I will go a little wider...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, any serious organisation takes the defence of its reputation seriously—that is, any serious organisation except this House. I will cite only one example. After one scandal—I cannot now remember whether it was over sex or drugs—it took more than two weeks while the Lord Speaker, the Leader of the House and the then Chairman of Committees argued about who should put out a...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I declare my interest as unremunerated president of SOLLA—the Society of Later Life Advisers. I do not know how many noble Lords had a chance to catch the serialisation of the new book, Alive, Alive Oh!, by the inspirational Diana Athill, on Radio 4 this week. Diana Athill is someone who chose to go into residential care and has never regretted that decision. There is a strong...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, debates in this House are always at their best when we hear the voices of experience, and we have just heard that from the noble Lord, Lord Addington. I am going to make only one political point and it is this. Some of us are very concerned that this change was scheduled to happen last year—these things happened in sequence—but there was a big National Union of Students...
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, this is a very welcome debate tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. In Britain, we spend much too much time denigrating the things that we do badly and too little time advertising the things that we do well. Advertising regulation, I shall argue this afternoon, is a jewel in our crown. Therefore, I welcome the opportunity to deal with some—unfortunately there is such a lot so...
Lord Lipsey: To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether new spending on migrants will count towards the statutory target of spending 0.7 per cent of gross national income on overseas aid.
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, the current roaring debate about the BBC is not entirely edifying. However, thanks to my noble friend Lady Bakewell, we have done a great deal better this afternoon in your Lordships’ House. I will focus on funding. There is no right sum to give the BBC. How much cash it should get depends on two factors: what you want the BBC to do and whether it is using the resources you give...
