My Lords, members of my family have served in the Armed Forces for some 120 years. Is the Minister aware that in the 55 years since 1969, while some 300,000 members of the Armed Forces served in Northern Ireland over 30 years, the British Army reported that there were very few prosecutions of milita…
The priority has been on sectors, some of which will include a range of those skills. For example, the £1 billion that we are putting into sector skills will cover AI but also engineering, green energy and all kinds of areas that use a wide range of those skills. If the employers need them, we will …
My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 16. I also support Amendments 16A, 114 and 114A because the very general definition in Clause 1 of a terminally ill adult who has the capacity to take their own life does not contain any consideration of those who have been deprived of their liberty under Se…
I thank the noble Baroness for that helpful intervention, but we do not know what the outcome of that meeting will be. I think I have the right to make my remarks.
My Lords, I served on the steering group for Operation Kenova.
The Secretary of State said yesterday of the NCND policy that
“in a small number of cases it has been set aside for particular reasons ”.—[ Official Report , Commons, 9/12/25; col. 172.]
MI5 knew about Stakeknife’s recruitment from th…
My Lords, these amendments seek to prevent and/or identify coercive behaviours and pressure which may fall short of coercion, and situations in which vulnerable people may be encouraged to make what is actually an involuntary decision to end their own life that they would not otherwise have made. Th…
I do not want to interrupt the noble Lord for very long. I just wanted to ask him this: is he aware that this House has the right to reject this Bill should it choose to do so? It is a Private Member’s Bill, and there are no conventions that apply in that situation. It is important that the House fu…
I would like to briefly intervene, because every day of the week there are hundreds of decisions made in the NHS and independent care about life and death. I will give a very brief example. My brother has had renal failure for 40 years. He has been brilliantly looked after by Guy’s Hospital, and, af…
My Lords, this issue was well discussed in the Select Committee, and I want to refer to Professor Sir Chris Whitty, who I think knows a little bit about this. I want also to respond to and endorse the words of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, because she talked about concentrating on the interests o…
+2 more contributions in this session
LordsOral Questions12 November 20252 contributions
Before I respond, I join the Lord Speaker—I am sure on behalf of the whole House—in extending our condolences sincerely to the late noble Baroness’s friends, family and loved ones. We will miss her greatly.
The Government have no plans to extend access to telemedical abortions. As with other matter…
My Lords, the evidence base for telemedical abortion is sound. It has been thoroughly evaluated and it is recommended as safe by the World Health Organization, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and NICE’s evidence-based guidelines. There are no plans to do what the noble Barones…
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her question and insight. I will say up front, as I have said before, that we are committed to implementing the Windsor Framework in good faith and to protecting the UK internal market. We will work constructively with all stakeholders—the EU, the Northern Ire…
My Lords, I speak as a victim of IRA terrorism. As I stand yet again to speak on legacy matters, I feel that trauma rising in me; I feel my heart beating and the distress, and for those who have suffered both outside and inside this House, it is always traumatic when we get to these things. However,…
My Lords, the policing Bill stands as an important framework for how we, as a society, respond to acts that cause harm and undermine our shared values. Among its many provisions, one issue demands our urgent attention: the failure to treat racist comments and abuse as crimes when they go unreported …
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her intervention. I have laid before the House the facts. I recognise that some Members of Parliament say that the Bill was not given proper scrutiny. I wonder if those were Members of Parliament who did not agree with the conclusion—I do not know. I have laid…
My Lords, I was somewhat hesitant to speak today, not because I do not wish to contribute but because I am currently caring for a loved one, which makes my time in this Chamber unpredictable and, at the same time, makes this Bill so much more important and personal to me. I spent much of my professi…
I assure the noble Baroness that the rights to free speech, to protest, and to make a view known about Palestine or Israel, or any other issue before the House, are central to the democratic rights that we all have as citizens. This House, with the other House, made a decision to proscribe Palestine…
My Lords, the reality is that Iran represents not simply a nuclear threat but a much wider threat. Given that the IRGC and military intelligence have been summoning the relatives of political activists who live abroad and telling them that unless those political activists stop their activity anythin…
I tried to answer my noble friend’s initial Question as best as I could. Procurement is another issue we are looking at. In the Government’s forward look to policing, we are considering what areas of work we can bring in centrally in terms of the guidance and support for the 43 police forces current…
The noble Baroness has raised this issue with me several times and, unfortunately, my position cannot change. This is a devolved matter. At the other end of the building today, the Chancellor announced a record £19.3 billion of funding for the Northern Ireland Executive. We were all delighted to see…
My Lords, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, for securing this important debate but, more importantly, for making me aware of the many challenges that thousands of schoolchildren suffer from every single day.
I am taking part in this debate not only as a p…
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, said from the Government Benches that his Government have handled this issue badly. I think he used the word “appallingly”. That is indisputable. The question I have is, why? I suggest that the answer may have been stated by my noble friend Lord Russell of Liverpool. He …
My Lords, I will start by reiterating something I said in my opening remarks to make it absolutely clear to anyone who was not in the Chamber at that time. If we vote on this amendment, one of three things will happen: the Commons can consider the amendment and accept it; the Commons can put an amen…
My Lords, with Stormont up and running, how finances are allocated and spent is a matter for it. That includes the PSNI budget. The noble Baroness will be aware that at the spending review we increased additional security funding for the PSNI for this financial year by £37.8 million. She will be fur…
My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a really important point. As I said previously, fire functions have been transferred from the Home Office to my department. I will work very closely with officials and push them, particularly on the point the noble Baroness raises. I will also have a meeting with t…