My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and her introduction to this important and timely debate. I agree with everything she said, and I congratulate her on her work as chair of the Jo Cox Foundation and on this report, which I wholeheartedly support.
Jo’s core belief,…
My Lords, in welcoming the Statement, I also welcome my noble friend Lady Cash to the Front Bench. She brings great knowledge and understanding and, most importantly in this role, compassion, and we look forward to her further contributions. It is a tragedy in modern Britain that care leavers can em…
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and in doing so I draw attention to my role as an officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Sudan and South Sudan.
Last week at the international Sudan conference in Berlin, the Foreign Secretary announced £146 million of new humanitarian funding for Sudan this year, which will reach nearly 2 million people. This includes doubling UK support for local Sudanese responders delivering vital aid in the hardest-to-re…
My Lords, sisters, it is an honour to rise to speak in the House for the first time. Mine will be the last maiden speech today—what a hard act to follow. I do so with deep humility and heartfelt gratitude to all who have welcomed me so generously from across the House. I offer my sincere thanks to m…
My Lords, like many others who have spoken today, I pay tribute to my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith for his superb chairmanship of the International Agreements Committee. In particular, I thank him for his work in guiding us through the process that produced the report that we are discussi…
My Lords, my thanks also go to the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for picking up this really important issue. I too look forward immensely to the maiden speeches.
It is generally accepted that Britain has, in the past, excelled in soft power, punching above its weight. But we live in a world of…
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate and his deep and long-standing commitment to these issues, which serves as a great example to us all in this House.
In one of my unpaid personal roles I chair USPG, a global Anglican mission agency. We are celebrating o…
My Lords, I shall never forget it. It was late morning on 25 June 2017. I was then the Minister for International Development. We were visiting the Al-Sabbah Children’s Hospital on the outskirts of Juba in South Sudan. It is the only functional paediatric hospital in a country five times the size of…
My Lords, the unpalatable truth is that the 25% cut in OECD support, together with the cut in European aid, is proving catastrophic for development and humanitarian assistance in the third world. The Labour Government, having inherited a legacy of economic problems, have had to take some very diffic…
My Lords, I join those welcoming the commitment made in the Statement of £125 million of British taxpayer funding to Sudan and welcome the “life-saving support”, as it says, to over 650,000 people. Is the Minister aware of the comments made today by Jean-Martin Bauer of the World Food Programme, whe…
My Lords, I rise to speak in support of this Bill, at the encouragement of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, who regrets that she cannot be in her place today.
Noble Lords may be aware that we on these Benches have a team of Bishops—the right reverend Prelates the Bishops of Derby, Gl…
My Lords, I am conscious that I am about the halfway point in our debate and therefore I risk some repetition, although repetition lends emphasis. I add my welcome to the majority of the 62 recommendations in the strategic defence review but emphasise that without sufficient and timely funding, the …
My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Pitkeathley, I rise to speak not as a lawyer, a judge or a senior Whitehall insider—I cannot bring the insider wisdom that we have heard so much of this morning—but as a constitutional reformer whose experience has largely been of operating outside, at least until…
My Lords, this is clearly a day for memories: the memories that came to those of us who were around on VE Day. I was 12 years old, and I remember celebrating in the streets of Manchester, in Piccadilly. I am bound to say, had I been a bit older, I would have enjoyed the day even more—I was 12; I was…