Topic Archives: Business, industry and consumers

Website Operators and the Defamation Bill

Lord Hodgson 14/02/2013 – 10:54 am

One of the pieces of legislation currently completing its passage through the House is the Defamation Bill. The Bill aims to bring the law in this specialist but important area up to date to reflect modern social conditions. But I fear in one significant area the legislation has missed an opportunity – in considering the special position of website operations. Individuals have had their car […]

Lords fast track bill to tackle metal theft

Lord Faulkner of Worcester 20/01/2013 – 1:30 pm

On Friday the House of Lords took a huge step forward in tackling the scourge of scrap metal theft.  We agreed to pass without amendment an excellent private member’s bill originally introduced in the House of Commons by Richard Ottaway MP, and skilfully steered through our House by Baroness Browning, which will completely rewrite the out of date and discredited Scrap Metal Dealers Act of 1964. […]

Financial Services Bill

Lord Hodgson 09/01/2013 – 3:38 pm

December saw the final stage in the passage of the Financial Services Bill through the HOL. The behaviour of certain people in the City of London has clearly been unacceptable but there is no doubt that a buoyant financial services sector contributes greatly to the country’s general prosperity. There is a real danger that the new regulatory bodies will want to “have a go” at firms to show […]

Exporting our Way to Recovery…..

Lord Bates 07/10/2012 – 1:04 pm

Monday 8th October I have an Oral Question to the government on small business development: With the domestic market slugging exports could provide the turbo boost for the recovery, however only 1 in 5 small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) exports its good and services overseas. How can government encourage this figure to grow? Broaden horizons: At present of those small businesses which […]

All work and no play……

Baroness Lister of Burtersett 20/08/2012 – 12:08 pm

I was depressed over the weekend to read leaked reports of a new book by five 'rising stars' of the Tory party in which they accuse Britons of being among the worst 'idlers' in the world.  Apparently they contend that we work among the lowest hours and argue that, instead, we should model ourselves on the workers of South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. Not surprisingly immediate comment has f […]