Lords
Proceedings
14 July 2026
3 contributions
State of Climate and Nature
My Lords, I welcome the Statement, and I very much agree with the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on much of what he said about the issues that face us. We have some enormously difficult issues to face. We have seen some of the immediate ones in in our hospitals, schools and workplaces and in the death ra…
I am going to ask a question in just a minute or two. We have some very difficult decisions to make on issues such as the North Sea, employment, how we get the new skills in, how we get the modular reactors in, what the pace of change is and how we make the transition.
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Proceedings
13 July 2026
Climate Change: Housing Insurability, Mortgage Lending and Financial Resilience
My Lords, the Minister is obviously correct that we really do need to step back from this divisive and completely unsubstantiated move away from the consensus on the need to do something about the changes in the climate we are seeing around us day in, day out.
What the Minister said about systemic …
Lords
Proceedings
20 May 2026
Self-employed: Paternity Leave
My Lords, the Minister is of course right that there are complexities, and the review will have to look at all of those. However, there is the very uncomplex issue of the right of self-employed men to some sort of paternity leave. It would be reassuring to know that the Government recognise that thi…
Lords
Proceedings
19 May 2026
El Niño: Impact
My Lords, returning to the debate we had about adaptation to climate change, would the Minister agree with me that, as well as having the plans in place for how we respond to an immediate emergency, we have to look at the longer term? This has happened already, and it will happen more. Does she agre…
Lords
Proceedings
18 May 2026
Local Government Pension Scheme
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, made valiant attempts to provide clarity on the issue of fiduciary duty and systemic risk during the passage of the Pension Schemes Bill. She was defeated by the combined opposition, for reasons I still do not understand, but the Government are now saying…
Lords
Oral Questions
22 April 2026
Low-carbon Heat Networks
The noble Baroness makes an excellent point on the need to run the expansion of facilities such as heat networks, and indeed many other green and low-carbon technologies, alongside an assurance that the skills are available to put those into place and the workforce is available to do those things. T…
Lords
Debate
26 March 2026
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I will say a word or two at this stage about government Amendment 4, because I understand it relates to Amendment 156, which the Minister moved on Monday. That Amendment 156 had wide Cross-Bench support, coming as it did after an amendment in the other place that was supported across parti…
Lords
Debate
23 March 2026
3 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, when I came into the Chamber today, a Cross-Bench colleague congratulated me on the way in which my amendment has been handled; it is an absolutely perfect example of how the House of Lords should operate. We are all very aware, I think, that sometimes we are not operating at our best at t…
Tempting though it is to reinitiate the earlier debate, I will not move Amendment 167.
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
23 March 2026
Onshore Wind Farms
I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for all her work in this field and for introducing that Bill. As far as getting on with it is concerned, there is nobody who wants to get on with it more than I do. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has drawn attention to the fact that we have probably 10.7 gigawatts…
Lords
Oral Questions
19 March 2026
UK Energy Sources and Cost of Energy
The noble Baroness is exactly right. As she will know, part of the price increases that are being suffered at the moment go into the market-making price of gas that secures the general price of electricity, for example, in our markets by marginal cost pricing. Certainly, the renewed and continuing v…
Lords
Debate
13 March 2026
3 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I have found some of this discussion quite difficult to compute with my own very limited—non-doctor—experience of end-of-life care and relatives who have been dying. The noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, spoke as if there was a very binary division between assisted dying care and palliative car…
It is very important that the doctor should listen to the wishes of the patient. I certainly think that a doctor should not be able to force-feed a patient in those circumstances.
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
27 February 2026
2 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, not least because I often do not agree with her but I did agree with several of the things she has just said. She started off by talking about the dangers of intricacy in what we lay down in the Bill—about how the panels shoul…
Will the noble Baroness accept that we would have to define “support” and how it is different from “bereavement services”? Then we will have more of these complications.
Lords
Committee Stage
23 February 2026
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I declare my interests as a director of Peers for the Planet and a previous chair of that organisation. In this group of amendments, we address long-term systemic risks and how pension schemes both assess and manage them. All three of the amendments that we are discussing recognise that it…
Lords
Debate
6 February 2026
2 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, the noble Lord says that we should understand the ordinary meaning of words, and I agree with him. I must say to him, however, that my own mother—who turned her face to the door and stopped eating and drinking—did not commit suicide. We did not feel that. She was at the end of her life, sh…
I understand that, and I understand that my mother would not have been considered to have committed suicide. What I am trying to say is that her desire for her life to end, and the method that she took to do that, was not assisted dying. That was not available to her and it did not come into the equ…
Lords
Proceedings
5 February 2026
2 contributions
US Department of Justice Release of Files
My Lords—
My Lords, I welcome what the noble Baroness the Leader of the House said about looking at whether the Code of Conduct needs to be strengthened. But would she agree with me that in this House we do have rules of behaviour, an independent investigative process, and sanctions available when those rules…
Lords
Debate
30 January 2026
2 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I will briefly follow on from the noble Lord on the issue of overengineering. I had great sympathy with the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and I suspect that there is widespread support in the Committee that face-to-face consultations should, in general practice and in the n…
I understand that the noble Lord was talking about a subset of consultations, but this is my point: I think he accepted that there might, in any process, be exceptional circumstances where a consultation was not in person. I am just saying that, even in that narrow subset, there might be a reason fo…
Lords
Debate
9 January 2026
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
The noble Lord is of course completely correct that there is nothing in the Companion . It is however difficult for many Members, when they have spoken in a debate, not to be able to hear from the Front Benches because they have arrangements for another occasion. I say gently to the last two speaker…
Lords
Debate
18 December 2025
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady White of Tufnell Park, who is not in her place, on her excellent and well-informed contribution. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, who just made a most interesting and informative speech.
I thank the Minister for …
Lords
Proceedings
12 December 2025
Arrangement of Business
My Lords, very briefly, I am extremely grateful to the Chief Whip for what he has said. Enforcing the Companion is obviously a prime responsibility of the Whip, the Front Bench and the Government Whips, but it extends further. Would he confirm that any of the Whips can intervene and point out when t…
Lords
Debate
14 November 2025
4 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I think the key difference is that, when this Bill started, it was going to be judge-led. Now it is not and, as a consequence, we are talking about one of the most experienced judges we have ever known; so I think we are comparing apples and pears.
I have an enormous degree of respect for the noble Baroness, particularly given her position as a former Lord Speaker. I am a relatively new Member of your Lordships’ House, but I have interacted with it. I look around and there are a number of noble Lords here—such as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—w…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
28 October 2025
3 contributions
Offshore Oil and Gas: Venting and Flaring
My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I declare my interest as a director and past chair of Peers for the Planet.
In 2020 the UK committed to the World Bank zero routine flaring by 2030 initiative to end routine flaring and venting by 2030. The UK’s oil and gas sector has one of the lowest upstream methane emission intensities globally, but the North Sea contains a lot of ageing infrastructure, including much w…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
21 October 2025
2 contributions
Education in Prisons
My Lords—
I completely agree. Stability is really important. That is one of the things that I am trying to get into the system. The Sentencing Bill that will come to your Lordships’ House has a real focus on stability. The noble Baroness will know from her fantastic work in prisons that you want to be able to…
Lords
Oral Questions
18 September 2025
Road Pricing
As I say, there is a great deal of expertise across the House on this matter, and the noble Baroness is no exception. She knows a great deal about the topic. I think I have said what I was going to say on this matter: we have no plans to introduce road pricing.