Lords
Proceedings
29 June 2026
Palantir: Public Service Contracts
My Lords, I am grateful, as ever, to the Minister for his lucid and authoritative response. When I was a Minister, I saw how Palantir’s technology helped to save lives in the NHS. I saw how Palantir helped to ensure that those fleeing persecution from the Ukraine war could have a safe home in this c…
Lords
Proceedings
2 June 2026
Steel Import Restrictions
My Lords, I was delighted to hear from the Minister a brief summary of just some of the benefits that being outside the European Union has brought this country. Not only do we have an independent trade policy that allows us to protect steel jobs, but, just before the Recess, the Chancellor of the Ex…
Lords
Proceedings
21 May 2026
Offshore Oil and Gas: Venting and Flaring
My Lords, whatever improvements might be made in dealing with the consequences of extraction of oil and gas from the North Sea in environmental terms, it is undoubtedly the case that the environmental and economic benefits are greater if we extract from our own native resources than if the resources…
Lords
Proceedings
28 April 2026
Pension Schemes
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Reid, made a very valid point. Capita was the organisation in charge of Army recruitment. It did such a bad job that even the MoD decided to dispense with its services. The Ministry of Defence has long experience with Capita. Capita was the principal delivery organisat…
Lords
Proceedings
22 April 2026
British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme
I congratulate the Minister on the beautiful complexity of a scheme that picks winners and allocates taxpayers’ money to those winners so that they can avoid paying a subsidy to other winners that have been picked in the energy sector. Tony Benn would be proud.
My home city is Aberdeen. Given how c…
Lords
Debate
20 March 2026
5 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, the inference from some comments during the course of this debate has been that somehow the issues raised in Wales and by the Senedd are peripheral to the centre of this legislation—not at all. The issues that have been raised by the debate are absolutely central to the legislation, as we …
I had concluded my remarks but I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising this point. Precision medicine, and the advances that it potentially holds for all of us, is a wonderful potential breakthrough, but changes not just to the legislation but to the regulations governing it will be brought forw…
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
16 March 2026
2 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
Before the Minister sits down, he said that Amendment 4 is unnecessary because the Bill does not do what the promoters of Amendment 4 argue that it does. He did not say that it would be malign, that it would frustrate the efforts of the Government, that it was wrong in any way; he merely said that t…
My Lords, I am afraid that that answer is completely inadequate.
Lords
Proceedings
29 January 2026
Business Rates
Of all the U-turns that have been executed since the Minister joined the Treasury team, whether on the family farm tax, business rates or the winter fuel payment, which is his favourite?
Lords
Debate
23 January 2026
4 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I am wholly in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and my noble friend Lord Deben, that greater clarity, both from the promoter of the Bill and from the Front Bench, would assist the Committee in making sure its mind could be made up on these delicate issues.
The noble Lord, Lord …
I am grateful to the promoter of the Bill for that, but that is a broad defence of the legislation as written and it takes us to the critical question for the Minister, which relates both to resource and timing.
The Government have committed additional money for palliative care, for hospices, which…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
16 January 2026
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I will take just a minute or two. Words matter. In America, in legislation similar to that which we are entertaining, it is known as “medically assisted suicide”. Similar terminology is used in Switzerland. Those are both jurisdictions that have informed this debate. Recently, in the Briti…
Lords
Debate
9 January 2026
2 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I speak because I was persuaded by the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, but I recognise that there are inevitable questions that his case provokes, which have been reflected in the debate.
Of course, not everyone has been convinced. I am reassured by the strength of the noble Lo…
I look forward to hearing what the Government believe the appropriate definition would be and what they understand that means in terms of the pressure on resources for the profession.
Lords
Debate
8 January 2026
4 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
The mover of the original Bill, as well as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, have written to all Members to say that their door is open, offering to discuss a way forward. The offer has been there, and the noble Lord should accept that.
No.
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
16 December 2025
3 contributions
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, I say at the outset that, as far as the speakers in the gap are concerned, the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, need not fear to intervene in the gap, as he has done on other occasions before my speaking. He is always very welcome. It was very good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Gove, speaking in t…
The noble Lord, Lord Gove, did not say it now, but in the past that used to be said. We have moved on.
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Proceedings
10 December 2025
Restriction of Jury Trials
My Lords, I have enormous sympathy for the Minister in facing the huge backlog that exists in our criminal justice system. I am grateful to her for laying out the thinking behind the Lord Chancellor’s position more clearly than the Lord Chancellor himself has been able to do. Can she update us on wo…
Lords
Proceedings
10 December 2025
Ajax Armoured Vehicle
My Lords, I have enormous sympathy for the Minister, given the situation in which he finds himself. More than £6 billion has been spent on a fighting vehicle that is more dangerous to our own troops than to the enemy. What steps are being taken to pursue redress for malefaction on the part of the co…
Lords
Oral Questions
10 December 2025
Universal Credit: Two-child Limit
My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord knows more than I do about the state of the economy that this party inherited when we came into government. We have dealt with all the challenges that his Government left behind. Chief among those was the state of—not just support for children—the welfare state. We h…
Lords
Debate
21 November 2025
4 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords—
My Lords, I support Amendment 52, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. I do so as the Government Chief Whip who helped ensure that the Serious Crime Act 2015 was placed on the statute book, and as the Justice Secretary who was responsible for some of its provisions thereafter.
I a…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
14 November 2025
6 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My understanding is that the Senedd is undertaking its usual processes around legislative consent, with reports from the health committee and the justice committee to be published soon. A date for agreeing legislative consent has not been set, but it is likely to be either shortly before or immediat…
My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said that some people were suffering from insomnia. I think this House is suffering from collective amnesia. All of a sudden there is a great hurrah about the Sewel convention and respecting devolution. I gently remind this House that it had no hesi…
+4 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
5 November 2025
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
I sympathise with the Minister, because obviously the judiciary has reassured him—or perhaps not reassured him but told him—that this will add to its burden. But given the clear view across this House that it is in the interests of strengthening confidence in our system, might he have a word with th…
Lords
Debate
27 October 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I am hugely in sympathy with the noble Baroness in her aim but, as the author when I was in ministerial office of the responsible actors scheme, which was stoutly resisted by housing developers, I had to strike a balance between putting the squeeze on them—by making it clear that unless th…
Lords
Debate
15 October 2025
Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill
My Lords, I listened with the close interest to the Minister’s response, which it seems to me can be crystallised in a few words: that my noble friend Lady Finn is absolutely correct; her amendment is on the button, but officials in the Cabinet Office regard it as simply too much work to implement a…
Lords
Oral Questions
13 October 2025
Chinese Espionage: Parliament
The noble Lord asks a series of questions—at Question Time there is typically just one—which I suggest that we discuss when we have the Statement repeat from the other end, because my honourable friend the Security Minister will be on his feet on this very issue within the next two hours.
Lords
Oral Questions
13 October 2025
School Fees: VAT
The noble Lord mentions crazy mathematics—I think he was one of the leading proponents of Brexit, so he would know all about crazy mathematics. This measure raises £1.7 billion to spend on state schools. He will have seen in the previous SR settlement for schools that, to raise school standards for …
Lords
Debate
16 September 2025
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I rise—briefly, I hope—to urge the Minister to reject all three amendments. They come, I am sure, from the very best of intentions, making sure that disadvantaged children, children who labour under the additional difficulty of having a special educational need and children whose parents a…