"My Lords, Kierkegaard tells us that life is lived forwards but understood backwards. What we do today, sometimes with the very best intentions, and what we quite rightly today think is modest and merely a step towards relieving suffering, may in time lay the foundations for things that we neither …..." Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston - View Speech
"I shall be very brief. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak. I declare an interest: I have been involved in arranging lasting power of attorney for a member of my family in the past 12 months. I am therefore slightly puzzled about how the Minister will alert people …..." Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston - View Speech
"Thinking back to personal circumstances of making arrangements for someone, that member of my family is unlikely to go on the Office of the Public Guardian’s website to check whether the new arrangements mean that she is entitled to a refund. Surely the Office of the Public Guardian could write …..." Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston - View Speech
"May I press the Secretary of State further? When she received the report from the independent monitoring board, did she read it and take action, or do we have a situation in which we had the riots and then the warnings from the independent monitoring board, but nothing happened in …..." Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston - View Speech
"May I briefly draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that, for 7/7, there was never any question of a problem with the investigation, but there was such a problem with Hillsborough and with Birmingham? Therefore, unless he now agrees to parity of funding, he will not be addressing the …..." Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston - View Speech
"I, too, declare an interest as someone who was born in 1955. Does my hon. Friend agree that the really objectionable thing is that we know that people need to be able to plan for their pension provision? This cohort of women—we could be talking about factors such as reduced …..." Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston - View Speech
"I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way but, given what he has said, how does he defend the disproportionate hit that is being taken by this small group of women? This group had low incomes and therefore could not build up their pension contributions, then they …..." Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston - View Speech
"When the Minister looks back on these police actions and forms a judgment on whether they were appropriate, will he also look at the actions of Birmingham City Councillor Alex Yip—a Conservative councillor—who, as The Independent reports today, has been accused of helping pro-Chinese demonstrations? As far as I can …..." Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston - View Speech
"I welcome the Secretary of State’s decision, but will he also have discussions with the Foreign Secretary? I listened to Karl Andree’s son on the “Today” programme this morning, and it was clear from what he said that the Foreign Office’s interpretation of “regular visits” was not what he thought …..." Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston - View Speech