Speeches by Sewards.

“13. What steps he is taking to introduce statutory regulation of the funeral sector.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) on his opening remarks, and I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to his place. Earlier this year, I held a surgery with Hongkongers living in my constituency, alongside A…”

“More than 20 positions are available already and, as time goes on, more will become available. It will be up to the Leader of the Opposition to make that decision.”

“The right hon. Gentleman’s point is well made and I will be following the work of the Select Committee closely. We have already heard names mentioned of people who are over the age of 80 and still making great contributions, so I will follow the Committee’s work closely before making a final judgment on the issue. More…”

“The hon. Gentleman chunters from a sedentary position. When it comes to Scotland, the figure is about 2% or 3%—I cannot recall the actual figures, but I will check. The point remains that we have to make the House of Lords more representative of our nations and regions. We could address this issue in a piecemeal way, i…”

“The Labour party has a moral obligation to fulfil our manifesto pledges, and I am confident that during our five-year term we will make great progress on everything that we set out in that document. I have argued that Lords amendment 1 undermines the core purpose of the Bill and is entirely inconsistent with our commit…”

“My hon. Friend made the point extremely well. I have had to deal with this on a number of issues, including introducing VAT on private schools, for example, where Members came to this place, argued the point and said that we had no right to do it—yet it was in our manifesto, so we have a moral obligation to pass this l…”

“The principle I am talking about applies specifically to the two Chambers that make and scrutinise our laws, submit amendments and so on. The idea that some people should be allowed a say in that process because of the family they were born into is alien to me. The House of Lords should have been abolished years ago. I…”

“All I would say is, “Long live the King.” What we do with our hereditary peers today does not affect what we do with our monarchy. As I was saying, no one should serve in the other place and make our laws simply because of the family that they were born into. No one should—not them, not me, not my children and not thei…”

“I congratulate the hon. Lady for having so many friends in the other place. I could not agree with her more—it is almost as if she has read my speech and hence made her timely intervention.”

“I rise to speak to all the Lords amendments, but I will go into more detail on Lords amendments 1, 2, 3 and 8. I am pleased that the Bill is making progress, and I look forward to seeing it on the statute book as soon as possible. We are one step closer to fulfilling yet another manifesto pledge. I welcome Lords amendm…”

“Will the Minister join me in encouraging parents in my constituency of Leeds South West and Morley to take advantage of everything this Government have done to make the lives of parents and children easier?”

“Listening to the Conservative Front Bench spokesperson, one would think that everything was fine and rosy in education before the previous election, and that everything would have been fine if only the Conservatives had been given one more chance. Compare and contrast that with what we have delivered in our first year …”

“Cody Townend and Zoe Ward are two mums from Leeds who tragically lost babies in different circumstances. Cody lost Macie-Mae earlier this year, and Zoe lost Bleu four years ago. They both went to the same funeral director who, to their horror, kept their babies’ bodies in her private home without their consent and did …”

“I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and reiteration that we will always support the people of Ukraine. Given Russia’s despicable attack against civilian targets in Kyiv, costing the lives of over 20 civilians including children and damaging a British Council building, it is quite clear that Vladimir Putin has …”

“You will have heard me asking the last panel about the now statutory guidance, “Working together to improve school attendance”. What is your view of that guidance? Should any changes be made? I will start with Dan, for obvious reasons.”

“Very good. Any further answers?”

“Is the expansion of free school meals and the introduction of breakfast clubs likely to have any impact on attendance from low-income families?”

“Those are very helpful suggestions—thank you.”

“That is incredibly pleasing to hear. Any further contributions?”