Baroness Verma: My Lords, I would like to ask the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, where she gets her information from. I am with minority communities day in, day out, and we discuss voting and elections because I want more people from my community to be engaged. I am afraid that this ruse, which I hear in this Chamber over and over again, that they will not want to contribute and participate is a load of rubbish.
Baroness Verma: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his summarisation of this wonderful debate and pay tribute to the two maiden speeches we have had the pleasure of hearing. All noble Lords have given such valuable commentary on so many different areas of mutual sharing that we have with India. I look forward to a really strengthened relationship. I am so glad that we were able to find a way...
Baroness Verma: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who are contributing to this important and timely debate today. The number of noble Lords speaking demonstrates the importance that is placed on our relationship with India. As the UK and India continue the important work of negotiations on the free trade agreement, there is of course far more to the relationship between the two countries than the trade deal....
Baroness Verma: I knew I was going to screw it up somewhere. I am really looking forward to the valedictory speech of our wonderful noble Lord—my noble friend—Lord Soley. He is a brilliant example of where we do not share the same politics, but we share courtesy and the trust and confidence of the House. I beg to move.
Baroness Verma: My Lords, I spoke in Committee on the Elections Bill on this issue because I was offended then, and am still offended today, by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, saying that black and ethnic minority communities will be marginalised and will not want to be part of this process. I have spoken to lots of people from my community and not one has said that they would be offended by having a voter...
Baroness Verma: I also come from a very mixed community: the city of Leicester. We have very boisterous elections there too, but that does not stop people wanting to have something that will make it easier for them not to have those boisterous discussions.
Baroness Verma: My Lords, can the Minister assure me that the number of women who are not able to communicate, as English is not their first language, is also collected in the data that my noble friend mentioned? How are we monitoring whether women from communities that cannot communicate fully in English are fully supported by the systems?
Baroness Verma: My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. First, carers need respite, so will the Government focus on ensuring that carers’ families are given respite so that they can have some quality of life, which, at the moment, is not readily available to them? Secondly, will my noble friend the Minister please look yet again at the minimum that councils can pay providers for delivering...
Baroness Verma: My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Gadhia on his current appointments and my noble friend Lord Popat for initiating this very important debate today, and all noble Lords for the wonderful speeches we have heard so far. I contribute as the child of an Indian immigrant who settled in the UK in 1938. My grandfather came here, invited...
Baroness Verma: My Lords, I welcome my noble friend’s response to the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, but I encourage her to have discussions between our Ministers and other Ministers at COP 27 on getting businesses to help the less developed countries be able to respond better by investing in them, and countries helping to support that through business. Will my noble friend comment on that?
Baroness Verma: My Lords, I pay tribute to all noble Lords’ speeches, particularly those of the Front Benches when they started this afternoon. I had the privilege of meeting Her Majesty the late Queen when I was made a Government Whip and became a Baroness in Waiting. For all of us who meet Her Majesty for the first time, it is one of the most daunting and frightening experiences, especially when you are...
Baroness Verma: My Lords, what will the Government do to ban or reduce the use of lightening creams? Among the south Asian and black community, we have an issue around the push for lightening creams, which affects the well-being of a lot of young people who desperately want to fit in.
Baroness Verma: My Lords, I would like to pick up on a couple of comments. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, spoke about the objection to grouping all BAME communities together and believing that they will not be in favour of an ID card. I have spent weeks talking to people from all communities, including BAME and poor communities, in my own city of Leicester, which is one of the most diverse cities in the...
Baroness Verma: My Lords, I am only saying that I have had no objection to it being a photo ID. The implication seems to be that we, as communities, would object and become disenfranchised but I have not found that. This is the only point I am trying to raise.
Baroness Verma: My Lords, I want to raise one thing that may be an unintended consequence of telemedicine abortion pills. In communities such as the one that I come from, having a girl is still seen as not a good sign of family life. I hope that when we discuss this, we discuss it in the round. There are communities in this country that may take advantage of the facts that women do not have to have a...
Baroness Verma: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for the Statement. I am celebrating that, finally, we are discussing race across all parties in this House and the other place. My noble friend said that it is difficult to get employers to put reporting on a legal footing. Maybe my noble friend would suggest that we start with the public sector, where a lot of entrants come in from minority communities but,...
Baroness Verma: My Lords, I did not want to be here either today, because of my fractured foot. The noble Lord, Lord Woolley, and I go back a long way, fighting on the same side on many things. However, I am worried that we are pulling everybody together and thinking that wanting to clean up the system is disenfranchising people. I have worked so hard locally engaging with people, and the thing I hear back...
Baroness Verma: I am tired of this divisiveness that keeps coming up. We have been in this country for a very long time. The divisiveness that has been caused has been caused because we have refused to allow people to be fully engaged. I am going to stand here and say that over and over again. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, can shake her head, but I have heard it over and over again that minority...
Baroness Verma: My Lords, alongside the Ukrainian people, people who are not of Ukrainian descent will also be stranded. Could my noble friend tell me what is being done to help those people, so that they are not left in danger and isolated?
