Lords
Oral Questions
2 March 2026
Forest-Risk Commodities
I shall take the noble Baroness’s concerns back to Defra because they are fair. But the issue is that we must make sure that we get the best regulatory approach to address deforestation in our supply chains. There are a number of factors we are considering, and I will just mention a couple. First is…
Lords
Debate
27 February 2026
4 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, this is a really important clause and a really important schedule. This is the one time when a judge, whether they are current or retired, will be involved in any of this process after the Commons chose to strip judges away from the original proposal. I have tabled stand part notices oppos…
The noble and learned Lord did not speak at all to his Amendment 480 in this group. Is he planning to address it later in group 3? I am conscious that he did not particularly address my amendments, but I assume it is because he disagrees with them, which I understand. However, Amendment 480 has not …
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Proceedings
26 February 2026
Resetting the UK-EU Relationship (European Affairs Committee Report)
My Lords, this is a full and comprehensive report from the European Affairs Committee, although perhaps controversial, as the noble Baroness has just said. I might also say that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and I worked amicably together in the Foreign Office many years ago, and it is good to be spea…
Lords
Committee Stage
24 February 2026
National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill
My Lords, I somewhat understand where the Government are coming from in trying to get rid of salary sacrifice entirely—by the way, it is still available for employees of the House of Commons or the House of Lords for the on-site nursery. One thing that the Government seem to have missed out is that …
Lords
Committee Stage
23 February 2026
4 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 218E, which is about recognising biodiversity risk. In the previous Pension Schemes Act, we introduced additions to the 1995 Act to allow regulations to come forward regarding climate change. The significant difference between that and Amendment 212 is that it in no…
I have been listening carefully to the Minister. She will be aware that this is a replication of what happened in a previous Bill. The two issues that she raises are not identical, although there may be some interlinking in certain ways. I am slightly concerned at the suggestion earlier that more pr…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
12 February 2026
Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill
My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 2. The clerks suggested changing the wording to what is now there. It is a probing amendment, and like those of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, it could be applied to other clauses as well. It is about the principle. My strong view is that we have opened up medical scho…
Lords
Debate
12 February 2026
2 contributions
Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address Motion
My Lords, as the Minister knows, Sir Lindsay Hoyle said that the ISC is completely separate and independent, so there should be no barrier to releasing the information. At the same time, the Minister for the Cabinet Office is supposed to have released a Written Statement today giving more details. A…
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the National Security Adviser, who is not a civil servant and was very deliberately chosen by the Prime Minister to be a special adviser, will have no involvement in the scrutiny of what information is going to be released, and that it will be entirely in the …
Lords
Committee Stage
11 February 2026
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, I have tabled in this group Amendments 222D to 222F, 225A, 230A, 232A, 232B, 234ZA and 234B, and the Schedule 29 stand part notice. I do not want to say that I am against Schedule 29, but it is only by doing a stand part notice that I can get a sense from the Minister of what is really hap…
Lords
Statutory Instrument
10 February 2026
2 contributions
Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedule 5) Order 2026
The Minister mentioned the prospect of maybe producing a draft order but seemed to indicate that the Government would not do so until they had certainty on the Scottish Parliament’s final position on those two issues. Is there not a danger that the Government’s position will create a Catch-22 situat…
My Lords, I will be brief. I am a little puzzled by the proposition that the regulation of the medicines to be employed in assisted dying is to be regarded as the central purpose of the Scottish Bill, while the regulation of those applying those medicines is merely consequential. I would have though…
Lords
Debate
6 February 2026
3 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 73. One of the issues here is whether a disease is terminal without treatment. A simple example is type 1 diabetes. The World Health Organization classifies diabetes as a disease. That means that, under the Bill as it stands, as pointed out by witnesses in oral evid…
My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 110, which is about trying to understand which version of the Mental Capacity Act we are dealing with. Section 2 of the Mental Capacity (Amendment) Act 2019 would replace what was in the 2005 Act. It has not yet been implemented. I do not know the reason for that. I…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
4 February 2026
Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill
I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Roe, on an excellent maiden speech.
I welcome the Minister’s explanation of the Bill’s priorities, which I broadly support, but I have some concerns about the possible unintended impact on the UK’s medical training reputation, especially given recent…
Lords
Committee Stage
3 February 2026
5 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, Clause 49 is quite interesting. Clearly, we have been on a journey for some time. Going back 35 years, Maxwell raided his pension fund, completely screwing over his employees at the time, which led to the 1995 Act as a consequence. There were other items in there as well, but that brought …
My Lords, noble Lords may want to consider Amendment 180A an amuse-bouche before we get back into the real meat and honey, as it were. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for having also signed this amendment. We have already made it clear that the Pensions Act 2008 set out the requir…
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
2 February 2026
6 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I tabled Amendment 461A, which would amend the Abortion Act. It is worth briefly stepping back. I completely understand why people have very different views on whether this is right or wrong or similar, or whether this is a healthcare treatment, but we have a law in place that puts restric…
My Lords, one reason why I have chosen that phrase particularly at this stage—I might reconsider it for Report—is we are talking about a crime. If this happens beyond the terms which the law sets, it is a crime. This is about the change that happened, moving from taking the second pill at home to th…
+4 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
2 February 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
While the noble Baroness finds her notes, I will say that I think Amendment 461K is a really interesting one. How are the Government going to make sure that providers of a variety of abortions actually operate within the law and make those checks? This is something I will be discussing regarding my …
Lords
Debate
30 January 2026
6 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Harper and Lord Empey, for signing this amendment. I will also speak to my Amendment 65 and consider an amendment put forward by the shadow Front Bench.
It is disappointing that the Justice Minister is not in her place on the Front Bench today, because in disc…
My Lords, this has been quite a revealing debate in many ways. In trying to go with the spirit of getting on with the Bill, I could have easily broken that group into just consideration about what should be physically in the country and what should be face to face. However, I thought bringing that d…
+4 more contributions in this session
Lords
Proceedings
30 January 2026
Arrangement of Business
My Lords, I suggest to the Chief Whip that, in addition to the clerks’ seminar, noble Lords might want to speak to the noble Lord, Lord Spellar. His Private Member’s Bill did not proceed in this House, so he used the Parliament Act, or started the process that would trigger the Parliament Act if nec…
Lords
Debate
23 January 2026
7 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 287A, 287B and 771ZB. I call the noble Lord, Lord Birt, my noble friend. We went to the same school, although admittedly not at the same time. I am conscious that he has come at this with an approach of a lot of research, as he set out. The noble Lord knows that…
I understand where my noble friend is going with that. I intend to come back to some aspects of this when we get into informed consent because I was somewhat struck by what the noble Lord, Lord Winston, said, about declining to give treatment because he wanted people to, in effect, accept that they …
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Committee Stage
22 January 2026
5 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
This group of amendments is quite interesting in starting to sketch out what is important in the value-for-money approach that is being adopted through the Bill. I did not know when the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, would speak to Amendment 49 and I will be interested to hear what he has t…
My Lords, this is an interesting group of amendments. My noble friend has explained the importance of clarity in who decides whether something is fully delivering. I want to ask about the different assessments being made at this point. We are now, effectively, on Clause 15 onwards. We have the ratin…
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
16 January 2026
2 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I have Amendment 68A. I am conscious that I asked the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, whether lasting power of attorney can be used. I am pleased to say that, in the debate, he said no. However, I am concerned that we may start to see quite a lot of case law emerge with …
My Lords, I tabled Amendments 56 and 57. Amendment 57 is to do with
“acting for the primary purpose of avoiding physical pain”,
while Amendment 56 is about someone
“acting for their own sake rather than for the benefit of others”.
The two amendments are distinct, although they are linked somewha…
Lords
Debate
16 January 2026
Rare Cancers Bill
I thank the sponsors of this Bill, Dr Scott Arthur and the noble Baroness, Lady Elliott of Whitburn Bay, for bringing it to this House. Noble Lords must excuse me if I am a bit emotional after listening to the stories, because I too have experienced grief recently due to rare cancer.
I support this…
Lords
Debate
9 January 2026
4 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I am interested in the noble Lord’s view of the panel. I appreciate that he is discussing Schedule 2, but there are parts of this Bill where a unanimous decision of that panel is not needed, so it is quite possible that the medical person could be overruled by the others.
May I probe the noble Lord a little further? In the evidence given by witnesses to the Select Committee, it was said that somebody should not be allowed simply to abstain; and that, if these people are being appointed as professionals to these panels, they should express a view. At the moment, expre…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
18 December 2025
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and to hear nature-positive sentiments from the Conservative Benches. We are hearing a wide range of perspectives in that space, and I am glad to hear those. I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Associ…
Lords
Committee Stage
16 December 2025
3 contributions
Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill
My Lords, Defra is attached to about 160 global treaties regarding various aspects of the environment, several of which have been discussed today. I want to support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, regarding environmental principles. I am hoping the Minister will say that these wil…
My Lords, I have amendments in this group that are pretty straightforward. In essence, it is somewhat frustrating to see that further regulations or commencements need to be made. Candidly, these would have to be done before ratification anyway, so why do we not just get on with it? We have been wai…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
15 December 2025
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
I support Amendment 416B, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, and signed by my noble friend Lord Ashcombe. There is no real justification for any vehicle to be on the highway and uninsured. There will be a variety of reasons for it be uninsured—car insurance is very expensive,…
Clearly, the intention of noble Lords is to bring this forward because the feeling is that the power is not being used very often. Will this road strategy put in place the existing data or encourage its use to its full effect if this amendment is not required?
Lords
Debate
12 December 2025
2 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, should we not hear from the noble Lords who have tabled the amendments before we—
My Lords, I really had hoped that we would get to the next group but, as it is clear that we will not, I will raise a couple of points and some questions. The increasing number of older prisoners has already been mentioned. This is largely driven by sexual offences, particularly those of historical …