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…
Lords
Oral Questions
10 November 2025
2 contributions
Financial Provision on Divorce
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for this debate. I feel humbled to follow the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I have spoken on many occasions in your Lordships’ House about the urgent need for reform in relation to ancillary relief in divorce. Rather than go…
It is very difficult to resist the noble and learned Baroness, with all her experience, but I am afraid that I will have to do so.
I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Shackleton, who is greatly admired and respected, not just because of her expertise and experience. The points she raised were…
Lords
Debate
5 November 2025
5 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I think that, across the House, most of us are not supportive of illegal migration and would want those who should not be here to be removed. Equally, therefore, we tend to be supportive of deportation. But we need to look at those who are here and going through the various processes. I su…
My Lords, I have sat with increasing interest listening to the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, finding that I agreed with every word he said. My view is that Amendment 46 goes too far. It is excessive that we should get rid of existing courts. Perhaps everybody would expect me to say that, although I never…
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
5 November 2025
Online Safety Act 2023: Online Hate and Racism
The noble and learned Baroness raises a really important point. We know from the Speaker’s Conference that the security of MPs, and indeed candidates and other representatives both running for and elected to office, is a concern. Concern about that is at an all-time high. Among MPs who have experien…
Lords
Proceedings
4 November 2025
Sudan: Protection of Civilians
I watch the news every day. Sudan is almost never on the news, particularly yesterday and the day before, despite what is happening in El Fasher. Would it do any use to try to get better publicity in this country?
Lords
Oral Questions
4 November 2025
Elon Musk
I fear that I will be a star of Twitter, or X, before the evening is finished; I will probably be retweeted to thousands of people who will take a different view from me. I stand here not because I am me but because I am a representative of an elected Government who have won a clear majority and who…