Lords
Proceedings
14 July 2026
National Crime Agency: Reform Party Funding
My Lords, on the subject of alleged dodgy donations, can the Minister update the House on whether the Cabinet Office or the Electoral Commission is able to commence or conclude inquiries into the £740,000 of secret, undeclared donations generated by Labour Together and funnelled to Labour Party memb…
Lords
Proceedings
8 July 2026
Rochdale Grooming Gang: Offender Deportation
My Lords, the Minister has been commendably robust and consistent on this. There are reports in the media today that the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is bringing forward legislation. Can he be more precise on the expected timescale to expedite that legislation? Is his department having discussio…
Lords
Proceedings
22 June 2026
2 contributions
Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office
My Lords, I raised the issue of the new proposed Japanese super-embassy—
—sorry, the Chinese super-embassy—on 29 January 2025 and articulated the very serious concerns that a number of us had about the efficacy of the decision to let that go ahead. The Minister will know that since then, there are still very considerable concerns about the impact of the embassy with resp…
Lords
Statutory Instrument
16 June 2026
Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2026
My Lords, I concur 100% with the comments from my noble friend Lord Hayward. I am going to take this statutory instrument at face value and discuss the issues that it raises on the alternative vote and first past the post. As noble Lords will know, when proportional representation was tested with th…
Lords
Debate
15 June 2026
Social Housing Bill [HL]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to take part in this debate in Committee. I will not reiterate the comments I made at Second Reading, because I talked then about family provision in social housing and we will discuss that specific issue in later groups. I begin by congratulating m…
Lords
Proceedings
9 June 2026
Lord Mandelson Humble Address
My Lords, how many other individuals in wider public service are effectively dismissed for gross misconduct yet receive a golden goodbye of taxpayers’ money to the tune of £77,000?
Lords
Proceedings
20 May 2026
Youth Justice
My Lords, I am disappointed by the somewhat discordant tone of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, with respect to my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench, who made some sensible points. We all agree that children should not be warehoused through crime academies, we all agree that they should be we…
Lords
Oral Questions
23 April 2026
Office for National Statistics Labour Market Data
We have taken action on business rates for businesses in that sector. Positively, just last year we introduced foundation apprenticeships for young people in targeted sectors. In the retail and hospitality sector, we introduced a sector-based work academy programme pilot, which was launched in partn…
Lords
Debate
27 March 2026
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Shinkwin and the amendments of my other noble friends, and others. “Verba volant, scripta manent” means “Spoken words fly away, written words remain”. There is a reason that other noble Lords have pressed the issue about the colle…
Lords
Debate
20 March 2026
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I shall touch briefly on two points prompted by both the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and my noble friend Lord Blencathra. In a sense they are a challenge to the sponsor, the noble and learned Lord. I think I am right in saying that he was a lot more definitive in his language …
Lords
Debate
18 March 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I support the excellent amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe. It is timely, given the unstable nature of our world, particularly with regard to China and Russia, and the fact that, ever since the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline bombings, the idea of hybrid warfare or asymm…
Lords
Debate
13 March 2026
2 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I think the debate that we have had for the last two and a half hours shows this House in a very positive light. It goes to the very essence of what some of us who are sceptical about the Bill believe to be the most crucial issue: how the Bill will impact the most vulnerable people in soci…
As usual, the noble Lord makes a very apposite point and reinforces my arguments.
Time is pressing, so if I can beg the indulgence of your Lordships’ House, I will just develop slightly my support for the points that my noble friend Lord Shinkwin made at the beginning of this debate. The danger tha…
Lords
Proceedings
11 March 2026
Middle East: Defence
My Lords, I say at the outset that I hold the Minister in great regard and see him and his Secretary of State colleague, the right honourable John Healey, in the same tradition as great Labour patriots such as James Callaghan, for instance. But I take him back to the very interesting question put by…
Lords
Debate
11 March 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, the amendment was tabled by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe and I have attached my name to it. Before I move on to it, I want briefly to indicate my support for the excellent amendment in this group tabled by my noble friend Lady Buscombe, Amendment 387A, which would give regulatory aut…
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this very interesting debate, and thank in particular my noble friend Lord Goschen and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, with his interesting intervention in the debate. I reassure my noble friend Lord Hailsham that these are perm…
Lords
Debate
4 March 2026
7 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I am returning to a theme I raised in Committee in moving my Amendment 360. Amendment 360 is straightforward: it would remove the word “alarm” from Sections 4, 8 and 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. In Handyside v the United Kingdom, the Strasbourg court reminded us that freedom of expressi…
It gives me inordinate pleasure—it warms the cockles of my heart—to listen to the Minister praising the legislation of the late Baroness Thatcher in her pomp. We do not often get that, but we should be grateful for small mercies.
We have had a short and interesting debate. I take in good faith the …
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
4 March 2026
2 contributions
Ballot Secrecy Act: Breaches
My Lords, I understand that the allegations have been reported to Greater Manchester Police, which is considering the matter. The Electoral Commission is in close contact with Greater Manchester Police and the returning officer. If coercion at the polling stations had occurred, it would have been a …
I fundamentally dispute the tenor of the noble Lord’s question. The Representation of the People Bill, which we will discuss thoroughly in this House, had its Second Reading in the Commons on Monday. The point about the Electoral Commission is that it will set its own strategy, which is a step towar…
Lords
Debate
27 February 2026
3 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Before my noble friend sits down, he might be interested to know that we have been here before. He will know that, in 2012, as a result of replies to freedom of information requests about the discredited Liverpool care pathway, it was revealed that £12 million was promised to various trusts across t…
My Lords, I will focus my remarks on Amendment 462B, in my name, and support Amendments 463, 464 and 465, to which I have attached my name. Like my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth, this is the first opportunity I have had to contribute to this Committee’s deliberations and, like him, I last sp…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Proceedings
26 February 2026
Resetting the UK-EU Relationship (European Affairs Committee Report)
My Lords, I join in the congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, on the excellent report he has produced, which is exactly what I would expect of a committee which he chaired. However, our debate today has shown the difficulties he had in producing a consensus, because there are clearly man…
Lords
Debate
25 February 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group, particularly Amendment 20, to which I have attached my name. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, and the exemplary speech made by my noble friend Lord Goschen.
I have a more positive story that I read in the Times —I think …
The noble Lord is absolutely right and that point was very strongly made in trenchant remarks by my noble friend about the issue in Kidlington. He is right that fly-tipping disproportionately affects farmland and farmers have, as he knows, very little legal recourse. It also affects deprived urban a…
Lords
Proceedings
24 February 2026
Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal for her answer. I make the point that the then Opposition moved and invoked an humble Address on a number of occasions during the Brexit negotiations, at very critical junctures. At that stage, it was not necessarily in the national interest t…
Lords
Debate
12 February 2026
2 contributions
Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill
My Lords, I am delighted to have the opportunity to support my noble friend in her excellent amendment. Broadly speaking, this is a very welcome Bill. I congratulate the Government on bringing it forward to address what is becoming an acute issue, but it could be better. My remarks fall into two sep…
I accept that the Minister is not predisposed to accept the amendment from my noble friend Lady Coffey, and she has made a clear case for that, but is she in a position to reassure the House that the issues raised by my noble friend and others about the relative take-up of specialty training places …
Lords
Debate
12 February 2026
Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address Motion
Will the Minister confirm that legislation to do with bringing the House into disrepute will not cut across differences of opinion, differences of political views, and the absolute principles of freedom of speech and parliamentary privilege?
Lords
Proceedings
11 February 2026
Court Reporting Data
My Lords, it is worth saying that there has been a substantive rebuttal by the CEO of Courtsdesk, to which I understand the Government have not responded. I have no vested interest in this issue, but it is a matter of fact that Courtsdesk has gone to extensive lengths to protect victims’ personal da…
Lords
Debate
5 February 2026
6 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I oppose this amendment. I have to concede that, as usual, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, made a beguilingly attractive case for the amendment, but in essence this would be a legislative overreach. This activity is not being undertaken with impunity. We have checks and balances, alt…
I will give way a little later as I want to develop my point, if the noble Baroness will be so kind as to allow me.
I think there are two sides to every story. When I was first a candidate and then Member of Parliament for Peterborough, I remember the sight every week of animal rights activists at …
+4 more contributions in this session