Lords
Proceedings
14 July 2026
National Crime Agency: Reform Party Funding
Notwithstanding the Minister’s honest Answer, perhaps he can advise the House on how many suspicious activity reports the Government would expect to be lodged against political parties annually as a result of political donations. Does the Minister agree with me that it is extraordinary for a party, …
Lords
Proceedings
30 June 2026
Civil Service Pension Scheme
My Lords, I declare an interest in that my wife is a beneficiary of the Civil Service Pension Scheme. She was entitled to her first payment on 1 October last year and she received it on 3 June this year. We can afford to take that hit, but thousands of Civil Service pensioners cannot. What assurance…
Lords
Proceedings
8 June 2026
South East Water: Disruption of Supply
The South East Water company is something of a joke. If I lived in Tunbridge Wells, I would be “Angry of Tunbridge Wells”. The failures in supply in parts of Kent over the last two or three years have been quite profound. What measures can we take to make sure that the company improves its performan…
Lords
Proceedings
3 June 2026
World Cup Ticket Prices
My Lords, some tickets for this year’s World Cup will cost as much as $6,500, and I am told $10,000 for the final, pricing football fans out of watching games. I remind the House that, in 1966, watching the final cost you just 10 bob. This is an absolute outrage. Given that we have the Sporting Even…
Lords
Debate
26 March 2026
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, my task is very simple this afternoon, and that is to thank the Government and congratulate them on bringing forward Amendments 245 and 265, which will ensure that proper enforcement action can now be taken against those who breach parking conditions and park on pavements. This has long be…
Lords
Debate
24 March 2026
2 contributions
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, I was happy to co-sign the government’s amendment, which adds “culture” to the Bill, for one very good reason: I have always thought of myself as a practical politician. I declare an interest that I chair Brighton & Hove’s Seafront Development Board. For our purposes, regenerating our …
My Lords, I rise to speak about this based on my experience and the report I helped author for the Co-op commission on rural poverty some four years ago. What was clear to us then was the growing disparity between our towns and villages and our cities. The disparity manifested itself in the flight o…
Lords
Oral Questions
3 March 2026
2 contributions
Assisted Dying Legislation: Isle of Man and Jersey
My Lords, since receiving the Isle of Man’s Assisted Dying Bill, we have engaged with its authorities, in line with the UK’s responsibility for its international relations. This includes ensuring compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights. Advice on Royal Assent will go to the Lord Chan…
My Lords, as my noble friend knows, the Government have been clear that we are neutral on the topic of assisted dying and the passage of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. It is a Private Member’s Bill and my noble friend the Chief Whip has made it clear that there will be no government t…
Lords
Committee Stage
11 February 2026
4 contributions
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, my Amendment 196EC to Schedule 26 fairly sets out some of my concerns, which, having listened to the noble Baroness, I am sure are shared by others in the Room. I tabled it in part to probe how Ministers will determine the new pattern of unitary councils. I appreciate that, by and large, t…
I thank my noble friend for her response to my amendment. It is worth the Government thinking a bit more about whether it would be appropriate to put in the Bill something that reflects the guidance. I am grateful to all noble Lords who supported what I said. If we are to get reorganisation right, t…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Committee Stage
9 February 2026
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 196C. For me, this is a really interesting group because it is quite wide: part of it is to do with wanting to enable local revenue raising and part of it says, “Hang on. Hold on a minute, we need a bit more accountability here. Should we not put up some guardrail…
Lords
Committee Stage
2 February 2026
5 contributions
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 121A on behalf of my noble friend Lord Blunkett who sends his apologies to the Committee this afternoon. He has a long-standing appointment that he could not cancel, so he asked me to speak to his amendment on his behalf. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has expressed…
Has the Minister finished?
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Committee Stage
29 January 2026
2 contributions
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, I apologise for not being here a bit earlier and hearing more of the earlier debate and discussion about parish councils. My amendment seeks to include all parish councils in the definition of a local authority which has a power of general competence. It would remove the eligibility condit…
My Lords, I will withdraw my amendment. I think the noble Lord’s primary argument was about a potential lack of capacity at local level and the need to have proper oversight and regulation. I entirely accept that. That is a reasonable point to make, but I do not see why we cannot pursue it further, …
Lords
Oral Questions
27 January 2026
TikTok: Bereaved British Parents
My noble friend is right that there are other practices in other jurisdictions. We should absolutely learn from their experience of taking measures to protect children online and how they are enacted, and look at the effect on both the social media space and on children.
Lords
Committee Stage
27 January 2026
3 contributions
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, this group has a number of amendments in my name: Amendments 50A and 51B; Amendment 53A to Schedule 3; and Amendment 196A. There are two separate issues involved in these amendments; I will speak first to those that relate to the restrictions on the number and roles of commissioners.
Last…
My Lords, this has been an absolutely fascinating debate. It has made me think a lot about the history of local government and how it has changed over 150 or 160 years. There was a time when we had aldermen, but they were abolished. We have had two-tier government, county boroughs and so on, but thi…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
26 January 2026
2 contributions
Grass-roots Music Venues
My Lords, we are introducing permanently lower tax rates for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties, including grass-roots music venues, worth nearly £1 billion a year. As part of the changes to business rates, we announced a £4.3 billion support package to protect those facing higher b…
I am grateful to my noble friend for the question. I am very happy to meet the groups that he mentioned. He is absolutely right to say that the creative sector is extremely important to the UK economy. It is a major employer and a significant part of our economy. It has been included as a priority s…
Lords
Proceedings
21 January 2026
Local Elections: Cancellation
Does the Minister agree that there seems to be some form of collective amnesia on the Benches opposite? I well recall, as an employee of the Greater London Council, that the 1985 local elections in Greater London, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Merseyside, the West Midlands, et cetera were all …
Lords
Committee Stage
20 January 2026
2 contributions
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, I want to speak to the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. I became leader of Brighton council in 1987. One of the first things that we did was triple our spending on the Brighton Festival. At the time it seemed like a fairly minor thing, but it triggered a lot of inward investm…
My Lords, I support these amendments. I am absolutely fascinated by this debate. For most of my life I have lived in a city, and most of my friends think I am a city slicker. The truth is, however, that I was brought up in a rural community in a fairly remote part of north-east Essex in a rather lov…
Lords
Debate
12 December 2025
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I want to ask a question about timing. I have read that, somehow, in the calculation of time allocated for Committee, it is expected that we would have one and a half times the number of Committee hours on a Bill than the other place. My understanding when I was in the usual channels was that we tri…
Lords
Proceedings
18 November 2025
Independent Football Regulator
My Lords, it is a shame that the Opposition are sniping away at something that they first supported when they were in government. They proposed a regulator to ensure that the game became more sustainable, that owners were genuinely fit for purpose and that clubs thrived at the centre of their commun…
Lords
Debate
14 November 2025
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I will respond to that. I do not know the answer about the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy. However, I say to the Committee and to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, that amendments have been made to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 that have not been enacted by this Government. Therefore, we are not even sure ex…
Lords
Oral Questions
5 November 2025
2 contributions
Online Safety Act 2023: Online Hate and Racism
My Lords, online platforms must now protect users from illegal content and activity, including hate crime, under the Online Safety Act. Ofcom can impose strict penalties for non-compliance. The Act safeguards free speech and does not ban legal content even if it is offensive. It also makes threateni…
I thank my noble friend for the question, and indeed the long-held interest he has had in not just promoting football but helping to tackle the dark and ugly side of the beautiful game. I repeat: where there is a robust legal framework in place to deal with the perpetrators of racism, and other form…
Lords
Oral Questions
11 September 2025
Merck Research Site
There is no doubt that Brexit had an effect on the entire sector. It also had an effect on academia and led to us ending up with a very much reduced income from the Horizon Europe programme. There was a significant effect there. It is true that NHS uptake of new medicines as a percentage of the tota…
Lords
Oral Questions
3 September 2025
2 contributions
Football Governance Act 2025: Implementation
Every effort is being made to ensure that the independent football regulator is up and running as soon as possible. This includes consultation with industry and passing essential secondary legislation required for the regulator to carry out its functions. There are some important milestones coming u…
Alongside millions across the country, I was really proud to watch the Lionesses’ victory this summer, and I hope this continues to grow the game and inspire girls across the country. Karen Carney OBE led an independent review of domestic women’s football, published in July 2023. We agree with the r…
Lords
Oral Questions
14 July 2025
2 contributions
Tourism Levy
My Lords, the Government have no plans at present to introduce visitor levy powers in England. The spending review allocated place-based funding that aims to benefit many seaside and coastal communities.
I am grateful to my noble friend for his question. I pay tribute to his consistent campaigning on this issue and on behalf of these communities in general, and to his expertise in this matter. He has led several reviews into it. We have been engaging with stakeholders to understand their proposals a…
Lords
Oral Questions
23 June 2025
Business Rates Reform
I am very happy to take that away and discuss it with my colleagues in MHCLG.