Baroness Walmsley — Hansard — Westminster Brief

Lords Committee Stage 13 November 2025 5 contributions

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

My Lords—

My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend Lord Russell’s Amendments 195 and 196. As he said, they intend to support the core principles of the Bill and ensure effective delivery. It is one thing to legislate; it is quite another to deliver and even to implement. I am currently involved in followi…

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Lords Committee Stage 11 November 2025 2 contributions

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 81 and 83, but as this is Committee I also note the virtues of Amendment 89 from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. We will soon find out which one the Minister prefers, if either of them. My amendments would ensure that the money from the fixed penalty notices go…

My Lords, we have had a great debate. Those noble Lords who know me know that, like the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, I am a great supporter of this Bill, and I would not want to do anything to weaken it. Noble Lords who know me also know that I am a great supporter of evidence-based policy. I therefore…

Lords Committee Stage 3 November 2025 6 contributions

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

My Lords, these amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, from whom we will hear later, address the details of a licensing scheme, which could, I believe, be better worked out during consultation and are bett…

My Lords, just to clarify on the previous group and to quote myself, I advised caution about the idea of combining the two kinds of licences, specifically because of the strong possibility of fundamental change to the remit of the alcohol licences. On this group of amendments beginning with Amendme…

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Lords Committee Stage 30 October 2025 6 contributions

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

My Lords, on behalf of our Benches, I have added my name to my noble friend Lady Northover’s Amendment 12. I also support Amendment 148, of course, although my name is not on it yet; I have a bit of a track record on changing “may” to “must”, so I am very much in favour of that amendment. As my nob…

I ask for a brief clarification. Is the Minister claiming that Amendment 12 is not necessary because she will accept Amendment 148?

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Lords Oral Questions 28 October 2025

Plant-based Diet

I am sure that I could fill up the whole of Question Time trying to address all those questions. I thank the noble Baroness for her interest and for the work that she undertook with the committee. Many of the recommendations from that report are being taken forward through the Government’s 10-year h…

Lords Committee Stage 27 October 2025 4 contributions

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

My Lords, I just make a few points that have been raised in the debate. Noble Lords will soon find out that I do not take the same view as my noble friend Lord Scriven; I take the same view as my noble friend Lady Northover. Some of the aspects of this Bill are indeed a free vote for my party. In t…

My Lords, we were talking about the issue of one person almost the same age as another person having less freedom of choice. The point is that once you are addicted to nicotine, your freedom of choice is extremely limited, as we have just heard from my noble friend Lady Northover. She gave the examp…

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Lords Oral Questions 24 July 2025

Minimally Invasive Cancer Therapies

The noble Baroness makes an incredibly important point. It is not just in this area that we have shortages in specialisms. The Government are committed to creating a much better environment for resident doctors moving through the process into specialisms and to giving them support. There is a whole …

Lords Oral Questions 14 July 2025 2 contributions

Advertising Restrictions on Less Healthy Food

My Lords, on 22 May, the Government announced that we will bring in restrictions on junk food advertising in January 2026. We have secured a unique agreement from advertisers and broadcasters to comply voluntarily from 1 October 2025. A new impact assessment is not needed, as brand advertising was a…

First, I commend the work done by the noble Baroness, the committee and everyone in this House who is passionate about this agenda. We are not weakening our stance on this. It is absolutely imperative that everyone understands that we are determined to tackle this issue. We felt strongly that there …

Lords Proceedings 9 July 2025 2 contributions

NHS 10-Year Plan

My Lords—

My Lords, we have had three Cross-Benchers; perhaps we could hear from a Liberal Democrat.

Lords Oral Questions 3 July 2025

Housing Associations: Financial Assistance

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. We went into a bit of a decline in the modern methods of construction industry. I am a great supporter of it; it holds great potential for the future. We will support and encourage developers who are taking that approach. There is no difference in the sa…

Lords Oral Questions 24 June 2025

Baby Foods: Nutrition and Marketing

I hear the frustration in the noble Baroness’s comments every time she raises this issue, and I would love to have a conversation with her about it. While recognising the frustration, I emphasise that we are challenging industry to improve the nutritional content and labelling of baby foods, includi…

Lords Debate 23 June 2025 3 contributions

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I too support the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, on this. She was asked whether this affects the child’s well-being, since the money does not go to them. Of course it affects their well-being. I can tell your Lordships of a family that I know. I know that hard cases make bad law, but theirs…

My Lords, Amendment 193 in this group is also in my name. I say again how pleased I am that the Labour Government have broadened the eligibility for free school meals. However, much still needs to be done, particularly on the quality of the meals and the enforcement of the standards, which needed re…

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Lords Debate 19 June 2025 2 contributions

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 190 in my name and one or two other amendments in this group. Amendment 161 would allow auto-enrolment of families entitled to the Healthy Start prepaid card. The Healthy Start scheme provides extra cash for families on certain benefits when the mother is mo…

My Lords, I have really enjoyed this debate, which has covered many aspects of the well-being of children, including good food and exercise and the effects they have on their health, learning and ability to socialise. I particularly enjoyed a phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie…

Lords Debate 17 June 2025

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I support Amendment 117, in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Tyler and others. The decision on where a child is cared for in the system is crucial to the child’s life, so we should listen to children with care experience. As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, it may …

Lords Debate 17 June 2025

Holocaust Memorial Bill

My Lords, one has to congratulate the Minister and the department on their patience and persistence, and indeed perhaps on a record. Rarely can a one-page Bill with three clauses have achieved the potential of doing so much damage to the environment, to local facilities, to restoration and renewal, …

Lords Proceedings 12 June 2025

Spending Review 2025

My Lords, the Minister mentioned pride in place recently. It is understandable that people have pride in the place where they live. One of the indications of that is the number of volunteers who come forward to work in the Britain in Bloom scheme, but some volunteers have told me that there has been…

Lords Debate 11 June 2025 9 contributions

Holocaust Memorial Bill

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment so I would like to speak next, if noble Lords do not mind. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has said, this is no ordinary planning application and I will say why I think that is. The proposer is the Government. The Government are in a special position…

There are four gates to the park. Thank you for that correction. One of them is very near the playground. We feel it necessary to put horse guards on horses in Whitehall outside Horse Guards and at various other buildings around Westminster and this city. Are we going to have armed guards outside th…

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Lords Debate 11 June 2025

Holocaust Memorial Bill

My Lords, I feel that I should restate, as I did in Committee, that this Bill is a free vote for our Benches. We feel that it is a conscience issue, so I make my remarks about my own opinions—and I feel very strongly about this. I strongly support the right and honourable decision of the noble Lord…

Lords Debate 9 June 2025 3 contributions

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I strongly support this amendment and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for tabling it. I would like to quote from a speech I made on 26 June 2014, soon after the terrible crimes of Jimmy Savile had been analysed in the Lampard report. Our campaign for the mandatory reporting …

My Lords, I am very sorry to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough. I believe he totally misunderstands the point of the amendment so ably introduced by my noble friend Lady Finlay. He used “smacking” quite a lot. I will never use that word myself, because it trivialises wh…

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Lords Oral Questions 4 June 2025 2 contributions

Young Children: Convenience Foods

My Lords, good nutrition is essential to our goal of raising the healthiest generation of children. Foods for infants and young children have to meet regulations on nutrition, composition and labelling standards. More widely, we are committed to tackling the child obesity crisis and government actio…

I hope the noble Baroness will be pleased to know that I recognise the view she states. I realise that this has gone on for some time and I am grateful for her work in this area, including through chairing the Lords committee that produced a very helpful report. I recognise that the current situatio…

Lords Debate 22 May 2025

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 53 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Tyler of Enfield. It is designed to ensure timely implementation of the single unique identifier, otherwise known in the Bill as the consistent identifier. Timely access to high-quality and personalised education, he…

Lords Oral Questions 22 May 2025

Social Care Reform

Unpaid carers are key because they provide care and support to those who require care. The needs of unpaid carers will be very much part of the commission. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, will be speaking to relevant organisations and those with lived experience.

Lords Debate 20 May 2025

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, as one of the many qualified teachers in your Lordships’ House, I will speak to Amendment 14 in the names of my noble friend Lady Tyler—who cannot be with us today—me and others. Before I do so, I warmly welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, to this Committee. I know that as the Chil…

Lords Proceedings 20 May 2025

NHS and Care Volunteer Responders Service

Where will the current funding for this programme go? Will it go into the new scheme the Minister has mentioned, or into community services or support for vulnerable groups, or will this result in some kind of cut to services?

Lords Debate 1 May 2025

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, most measures that come before your Lordships’ House are a curate’s egg: good can always be found. There is wide, cross-party support for many of the measures in this Bill that aim to improve child protection and safeguarding. Some of these measures, such as introducing a single, unique id…