Lords
Debate
15 January 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I am a bit taken aback by what I have just heard. I shall be travelling to the United States shortly, and I carry with me not only my phone but an iPad. Those two hold virtually everything that matters in my life, apart from my address book: everybody I know, and so on. The “keyhole surger…
Why should something as significant as this, raised by the Supreme Court and by the very man the Government speak to about how counterterrorism should be dealt with, not be in the Bill, rather than in statutory guidance?
Lords
Oral Questions
15 January 2026
Exercise Pegasus 2025
We are very grateful to the noble and learned Baroness and her inquiry into Covid-19. Exercise Pegasus came out of one of the recommendations in module 1 of the inquiry, so we are reflecting on its recommendations as they are made. We have guaranteed that there will be one major tier 1 exercise per …
Lords
Debate
14 January 2026
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, in 1987, I chaired an inquiry called the Cleveland child abuse inquiry. One of the aspects of it was the deliberate refusal in those days to provide information about 120-odd children. This had disastrous consequences, because they were removed from home and many had to be sent back, wheth…
My Lords, I agree with every word of the noble Lord, Lord Meston. One of the rather sad aspects of a minority of families who cannot get on and separate is that they so often do not recognise that the children love both of them. It is all too common for one parent to say, “The child won’t want to se…
Lords
Debate
13 January 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
I very much support what the Minister is saying. The only question is: will the police have the power not to require this person to take his mask off if they accept his view that that would cause some danger to him or his family in Iran?
My Lords, some months ago I was trying to get to Oxford Street and at Oxford Circus a large number of people were sitting on the ground, making it impossible for either end of Regent Street or Oxford Street to move. I believe they were there for several days. All I can say is that, as an ordinary me…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
9 January 2026
2 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I am the only person in this House who was President of the Family Division. I did the final part of the Bland case, to allow him to die. I very much prefer the idea that we should have a court-based decision, for the reasons that have already been given. I am rising only to answer some of…
To pick up on what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, has just said, he is absolutely right. In the Bland case, that was exactly what happened. This was a permanent vegetative state. No one had ever had that case come before the courts. A High Court judge dealt with it; I was in the Court of …
Lords
Debate
8 January 2026
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I rise, after a very heavy day of debate, because it is important to reflect on what I have heard, not only in interactions with colleagues and friends across your Lordships’ House but, more importantly, from the public. They are looking to us to do our role: to scrutinise legislation. I h…
Lords
Oral Questions
7 January 2026
Computer-generated Child Sexual Abuse Material
The consultation has been completed and Ofcom is now drawing up a response to give to Ministers. We have set a date of April 2026 for that information and we expect to act extremely speedily once we have had the report back from Ofcom. With due respect, it is fair to have a consultation and look at …
Lords
Debate
6 January 2026
Sentencing Bill
My Lords, some years ago I visited a local prison twice in about three years. The first time, I heard that local businesspeople had put together a workshop so that prisoners could learn how to make furniture and do a lot of other similar jobs. I went back three years later. It was closed. I asked wh…
Lords
Debate
15 December 2025
Crime and Policing Bill
Does that mean that if somebody changes a name and does not inform the police, the new name can be put on the sex offenders register?
Lords
Oral Questions
15 December 2025
Breast Cancer
I do not know if I dare comment about vested interest, but why not? I am not aware that there is a final limit. It is on request.
Lords
Debate
12 December 2025
4 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, for the reasons given by the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and the Lady Berger, I support all these amendments.
Perhaps your Lordships, and particularly the Whips, will forgive me if, very briefly, I go slightly wider. I am one of the oldest Members of this House. I do not like the Bill b…
My Lords, I am currently a patient, in a very minor way, at an excellent medical practice where the nurses know me well. There are five GPs; I have met two of them briefly, but they do not really know me. I have huge sympathy with these amendments, but I think this is unrealistic. Over the years tha…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
9 December 2025
Crime and Policing Bill
Picking up what the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said about licensing sex workers, I wonder whether the Minister knows what goes on in Holland, where each individual woman is licensed as an individual business. I walked through the red-light district of a small town and saw women in all the windows, and…
Lords
Proceedings
9 December 2025
Armed Forces Chaplains (Licensing) Measure
My Lords, we welcome this Measure to further enable the important work of Anglican chaplains to His Majesty’s Armed Forces. Chaplains provide unique pastoral care and the 195 Anglican Armed Forces chaplains are there for the benefit of service men and women of all faiths and none. His Majesty’s loya…
Lords
Debate
9 December 2025
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I support all these amendments for the reasons which have been given, and do not propose therefore to go through them. I want to give one extreme example of what happens when people watch a pornographic film and go on and carry out what the film did. I happen to have dealt with the case of…
I was spiked at the age of 16 at a dance by a cousin of the hosts where I was staying. He said afterwards, “I don’t know why I did it. I didn’t intend to hurt anyone”. So there are such situations—having listened to what the Minister said, I note that no one could prove that he had been anything oth…
Lords
Debate
26 November 2025
Sentencing Bill
My Lords, as a judge who did not sit very often in crime but had to do it from time to time, I have been listening with increasing dismay to what has been discussed in these increasingly elaborate proposals. I hope that the Minister will listen to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, because tha…
Lords
Proceedings
24 November 2025
Ukraine: Forcible Removal of Children
As far as I can see from the press on what is happening in Geneva, and indeed from the States, no mention of children was made as one of the situations that should be regarded. Has the UK put this forward?
Lords
Oral Questions
24 November 2025
Fair Funding Review
The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, may be aware that the Government have allocated an unprecedented £39 billion of funding for a new social and affordable homes programme. Our ambition is to deliver around 300,000 social and affordable homes over the programme’s lifetime, with a targ…
Lords
Debate
21 November 2025
2 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I do not like this Bill, but I am here, like many other Members of this House, to agree on amendments that will make this a better Bill, and I hope it will be effective.
When my father died, the family nanny, who had also been his housekeeper, needed somewhere to live, and my brothers and…
My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, there are two separate situations here, and I wonder whether she agrees. One is that there are many of us who do not like the Bill, but there is a real probability that the Bill will pass, and if it passes, we want it better than it is at the moment. Co…
Lords
Oral Questions
19 November 2025
Road Injuries and Deaths
Yes. It is a really bad thing to do. I will write to the noble and learned Baroness rather than riffle through these papers. Increasing the ability of local authorities to deal with what look like minor transgressions of behaviour but actually badly affect vulnerable people and their confidence and …
Lords
Oral Questions
18 November 2025
Election Law
We are looking very hard at expanding the identification forms that we can use to make sure that nobody who is entitled to vote is excluded, including bank cards and so on, so that we make sure to give the widest possible spectrum of ID that people can use to exercise their vote.
Lords
Debate
17 November 2025
2 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
I beg to move Motion C1.
My Lords, I add my support and thanks to the Government for this amendment.
Lords
Debate
14 November 2025
5 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, in my modest experience of six departments in both Houses of Parliament, I have always come to the conclusion and repeated that Whitehall does not do devolution. By the way, I declare an interest: I live in England but within 10 miles of the border of Wales. Therefore, I commend the noble …
My Lords, I of course enormously respect the experience of the noble and learned Baroness and her ability to make these judgments. I am sorry that she had to sit until 1 am. But does she feel that those decisions would have been more or less complex and difficult if she had been judging them on the …
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
11 November 2025
2 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, we listened to the right reverend Prelate talking about coming to this country, as indeed did the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu. Just think for a moment: the right reverend Prelate and her parents arrived in this country as refugees from a place they could not go back to, and…
My Lords, I very much deprecate people who come to this country and commit crimes. The sooner they are deported, the better. However, I do not really understand why we need these amendments. I am hoping that the Minister is going to tell us, as he previously said he would, how the Government are goi…