Baroness Finn: My Lords, Brexit means Brexit. Unfortunately, Brexit has come to mean all things to all people. This is as true for our UK politicians and their electors as for our European partners. But now it is time to move beyond it. There are, after all, many things we do know about Brexit—and indeed it is our democratic duty to see it through. We know that in the referendum itself, the vote was...
Baroness Finn: My Lords, I apologise to the Chamber and to my noble friend Lady McGregor-Smith for entering the Chamber just after she had started speaking. I thank her for bringing this important debate here and congratulate her on her excellent and well-researched review. My noble friend has been a champion of diversity for many years and deserves admiration for her dedication to ensuring that talent...
Baroness Finn: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made by the Hampton-Alexander review on increasing the gender balance in FTSE companies.
Baroness Finn: Does my noble friend agree that the private sector has much to learn from the pioneering work we led in the Cabinet Office in the coalition Government, when the proportion of women newly appointed to the boards of public bodies rose from 36% to over 48% by 2015? The key barrier that we broke down was an excessive insistence on previous track record and experience in similar roles, which meant...
Baroness Finn: My Lords—
Baroness Finn: My Lords, I do not see the need for any requirement for impact assessments in the Bill, because the need does not arise. As my noble friend Lord Forsyth has said, the Bill is not taking us out of the EU but simply enabling the Government to trigger Article 50. There is no impact to assess from that enabling. This is not the place to get into detail over the negotiations or the structures...
Baroness Finn: My Lords, the debate both before and after the referendum has been passionate and, at times, heated. However, I will briefly restate three points. First, the decision to call the referendum to ask the people whether they wished to leave or remain in the European Union was endorsed by both Houses in this Parliament and was based on a manifesto commitment of this Government. Secondly, the...
Baroness Finn: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, for calling this important debate on the challenges posed to the liberal international order. I should say from the outset that I am a firm believer in that order and in a rules-based international system; indeed, I am here today because of it. My father defected from communist Czechoslovakia. He arrived in the liberal West as a refugee and went...
Baroness Finn: My Lords, I welcome the Neighbourhood Planning Bill as an important next step in tackling the problem of housing shortages. I am not sure that it is a huge exaggeration to claim that a failure to tackle this problem may lead to a social explosion further down the line. Home ownership is simply moving beyond the reach of millions of families, and that risks undermining one of the key...
Baroness Finn: My Lords, I speak against Amendment 90 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and other noble Lords. The purpose of this amendment is to devolve in part legislative competence for employment and industrial relations to the Welsh Assembly. The noble Lord and others argue that this is consistent with the Supreme Court judgment in respect of the Agricultural...
Baroness Finn: My Lords, I begin by thanking my noble friend Lord Farmer for securing this timely debate. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, on an excellent and incisive maiden speech. The noble Lord was among the very best of officials and we all appreciated his dry wit as well as his brilliant mind. I also pay tribute to my noble friend the Minister, whose dedication and public service...
Baroness Finn: My Lords, at Second Reading, I spoke in support of the maintenance of the single legal jurisdiction in England and Wales. I argued that the body of Assembly legislation can be accommodated for now within that single jurisdiction and that a separate jurisdiction would impose significant upheaval and unnecessary costs on the people of Wales, and that remains my view. There has been a lot of...
Baroness Finn: My Lords, the Higher Education and Research Bill contains some very important reforms. There are so many learned and distinguished voices in the debate today that my contribution will focus primarily on the research councils, with which I had some involvement in government. Before I begin, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Sugg on her excellent maiden speech. I worked with and indeed...
Baroness Finn: To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether exit payments may be made to councillors when a councillor loses office or is no longer required to undertake specific duties within a local authority.
Baroness Finn: My Lords, the key purpose of the Wales Bill is to provide clarity over powers and accountability of those powers. The introduction of the reserved powers model makes clear what is devolved and what is reserved so that people in Wales know who is responsible for what. It is worth emphasising that the need for clarity lies at the heart of the Bill. Employment law and industrial relations law...
Baroness Finn: My Lords, Wales can play a pivotal role in the rewiring of the UK electricity system, which of course means that the rewiring of the UK electricity system can play a pivotal role in the renewal of employment, industry and infrastructure investment in Wales. Larger energy projects by their very nature must be assessed against a complex set of UK-wide system, strategic and security objectives....
Baroness Finn: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley for introducing this important and timely debate. It is an honour to lend my voice to the incredible array of expertise in the Chamber today. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Gadhia on his excellent and moving maiden speech. I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments he so powerfully expressed. Navigating through the noise,...
Baroness Finn: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Ashton for bringing forward this Bill to put National Citizen Service on a permanent statutory footing. NCS is a remarkable success story. It has been rightly described as the fastest growing youth movement of its kind, and has gone from strength to strength since the pilot projects introduced by David Cameron as leader of the Opposition in 2009. It has...
Baroness Finn: My Lords, I welcome the Wales Bill, which brings a new era of devolution for Wales by delivering a clearer and stronger devolution settlement. It is a particular honour to speak after the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon. I knew him as a child growing up in Swansea; he was a great friend of my step-grandfather, Sir Alun Talfan Davies. He will recall that Sir Alun sat as a...