Lord Mawson — Hansard — Westminster Brief

Lords Proceedings 20 May 2026

King’s Speech

My Lords, in response to the gracious Speech, I want to focus on health. This Government’s policy to move more services out of hospitals and into local communities is the right direction of travel. However, NHS England’s neighbourhood health centre guidance deserves a clear-eyed response. After thre…

Lords Debate 3 March 2026

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Young. Supporting a smoke-free society is the right direction of travel, in my view, but I also worry about contact with reality. A road map should also include the potential unintended consequences of cannabis smoking in a smoke-free coun…

Lords Committee Stage 11 February 2026

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

My Lords, size really does matter. Big is not necessarily beautiful. I am a practitioner, as many know, looking up the telescope from place-making projects we are working on across the country, I declare my interest as such. I am a voice, I suppose, from the charitable and voluntary sector and the s…

Lords Committee Stage 4 February 2026 3 contributions

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

My Lords, I support Amendment 133 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best. I was involved in the London Olympics for 19 years, from day one. Our first meeting was at the Bromley by Bow Centre, with three of us, in 1999. These projects take a long time, and it was only after that first meeting that …

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, as well as what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, has just shared with us. Earlier, I mentioned “learning by doing” cultures. What do they actually look like? We have been engaging in depth in east Londo…

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Lords Committee Stage 29 January 2026

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

My Lords, I support this amendment because it opens up some interesting thoughts. Some years ago, I worked in east London on what had been for many years a dysfunctional housing estate in Tower Hamlets. As some noble Lords will know, Tower Hamlets has, over many years, experienced the dysfunction of…

Lords Debate 23 January 2026 3 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

I love your Lordships’ House because it is the place where all this detail comes on to the Floor of the House. Debates like this, even though they are complicated and difficult, are always encouraging to people like me. The people involved in this, even though they take very different positions, I l…

I was just going to do that. I address the amendment because I worry that, while the amendment and the idea of a navigator seem very straightforward intellectually, I am trying to suggest that in the real practical world out there, when you engage with it, as my colleagues and I have done over the l…

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Lords Committee Stage 20 January 2026 2 contributions

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

My Lords, in this discussion, there is a lot of confusion between what I call the two Ds: democracy and delivery. I have spent over 40 years working in East End housing estates. Around the time I first arrived, I sat in a room with a youth worker, who asked a group of young people, “What do you want…

I know that the Minister cares a lot about these issues around community engagement, which is always encouraging to people such as me. As a social entrepreneur, I have spent my life at the other end of this telescope. I now operate with a team across this country, in some of the poorest communities,…

Lords Debate 17 December 2025

Crime and Policing Bill

The Minister talked about taking action. Those are very fine words, but every day, many of us watch e-bikes and ordinary bikes going past the outside of this building, driving through red lights. Many of us have experienced driving up and down roads with people coming down one-way systems at us in t…

Lords Debate 21 November 2025 2 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord knows, I have spent a lot of my life working with people in housing estates in the East End of London. Research we did some years ago discovered that virtually every nation on earth is represented in the housing estates where I worked. I have spent a lot of my…

Will we have enough people from these different cultures with the skills and knowledge to enter into that kind of understanding, whether they are doctors or on the panels? It is really difficult to understand how that practical proposition will work in the real world—in the East End of London.

Lords Debate 11 September 2025 3 contributions

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

My Lords, before I speak to my Amendment 185SG, can I thank colleagues from all parties across the Committee who have supported me, including the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who is in Birmingham today? I declare my interests relating to this amendment. I am the chairman of the 360 Degree …

I am just about to finish. The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, told us on Tuesday that there is a rising tide in this space. My suggestion is that we all need to grasp the moment or we will lose it yet again. The foundation stones need to be laid now. Let us take the first step together. I beg to move.

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Lords Debate 17 July 2025

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

My Lords, I wish to say something about the housing regulator, because it is absolutely as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is saying. As I explained earlier, in our practical experience, we have built a very successful housing company with local residents, which is trying to join the dots between housing…

Lords Debate 17 July 2025

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

My Lords, I am sympathetic to these amendments, but I am also very sympathetic to what the Government are trying to achieve in getting things built. My colleagues and I have been at the other end of this telescope in communities trying to build things and get things done. We are now at year 41 and …

Lords Proceedings 17 July 2025

Post Office Horizon Inquiry: Volume 1

My Lords, this is a very sad story about the failures of a very large business, the Post Office—which many years ago I used to work for—and its culture, and about the failure of the machinery of the state, which has had very serious impacts on the lives of many human beings and their families. It ha…

Lords Proceedings 9 July 2025

NHS 10-Year Plan

My Lords, I welcome this plan. As some will know, my colleagues and I have been working in this space for over 40 years, trying to encourage a move into our communities of a more joined-up approach. Are colleagues in the health department talking to colleagues about the Planning and Infrastructure B…

Lords Debate 25 June 2025

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

My Lords, I declare my environmental interests in the register. I think we all recognise the need for changes in the planning system to deliver really important infrastructure and housing, but we need to recall that the planning system is there to do more than “Dig, baby, dig”. It is a system where…