Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Bill [Lords]

It is a pleasure to open this debate. I wish briefly to remind Members why this is such an import...

The pandemic has underlined the contribution made by the public sector workforce to this country....

I rise to speak to new clause 1, which is in my name. The new clause empowers the Secretary of St...

May I just probe the right hon. Gentleman’s last point a wee bit? My bank account is stuffed full...

I shall come on in a moment to my own personal views with respect to boycott, divestment and sanc...

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

I would like to make some progress, but I will give way.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that, only this morning, Hertfordshire County Council was consideri...

Yes, I do, and I will give some other examples of local authorities considering the same actions ...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I will make a bit of progress and then I will return to the hon. Gentleman.

All too often, ...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman. I appreciate his interest.

The latest example of th...

The right hon. Gentleman said earlier that this is public money. He will be aware that the Suprem...

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The Supreme Court raised two central arguments. One ...

I am one of those fortunate Members who sit on a local pension board. One of the issues that is o...

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support for this new clause, as I am to all those hon...

rose—

rose—

I will give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) and ...

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech and I commend him on how he has gone about bring...

My right hon. Friend makes a series of powerful points, which I entirely agree with. In particula...

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The founder of the BDS movement is, of course...

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention and for the work he does on antisemitism. He...

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech and I commend him on tabling this new clause. ...

I agree strongly with both my hon. Friend’s points. On his second point, the motion before Wirral...

As I said on Second Reading and in Committee, the SNP supports the intention behind this Bill and...

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concerns that the new clause tabled by the right hon. Member for...

The hon. Member is absolutely right. If the new clause was intended purely to limit the activitie...

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting argument about why the new clause is too wide. Is the...

I will come on to that later. We need to remember, in all of this, that the trustees of any pensi...

I am listening closely to the hon. Member’s argument, but I am afraid I just do not accept the po...

I certainly cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman. As I have made perfectly clear, how the B...

Will the hon. Member give way?

I will give way once more, but I am aware of the time.

As a matter of law, what the hon. Member is saying is not correct. Pensions within the public sec...

Order. I am keen that we do not just have a whole debate about BDS. I want the amendments to be a...

I made the point much earlier that the amendment is not about BDS; BDS is not mentioned anywhere ...

I declare an interest in that I am a member of the local government pension scheme. I want to add...

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the clumsy way in which new clause 1 has been worded will cr...

I agree with the first point, but let me take up that last point, because I just want to explain ...

If this new clause had been in legislation in the 1980s, it would have covered South Africa, and ...

I was chair of finance at the Greater London Council at that time, and I would regularly turn up ...

On the right hon. Gentleman’s point about his own pension fund, I do not think there would be man...

I was once, in my callow youth, an adviser to the mineworkers pension scheme, and then I was an a...

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Yes, but then I want to move on to my amendments.

Is there not a problem with this, in that it leaves the Secretary of State to decide what the for...

I would also come out fairly pragmatically and say that there may be some countries that, accordi...

This is an important Bill, but Liberal Democrats believe there are still several serious concerns...

I rise to speak to new clause 1. The year was 1985. After a campaign lasting decades, 123 council...

The Israeli Labor and Meretz parties, our sister parties in Israel, have both written to the lead...

Yes, it does, and I was proud to stand on a Labour manifesto committed to that policy, too.