Lords
Debate
12 December 2025
5 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Could I be vulgarly practical about this, because of a point the noble Baroness mentioned, which is the parallelism with the deposit return scheme that got into terrible trouble? I declare an interest as chairman of Valpak. We had to work through that, so it is burnt into me how extremely damaging i…
My Lords, we are supposed to be making the Bill more practical; it does not make it more practical to ask for something that is manifestly impossible. I could not demand assisted dying, because I have not seen my registered practitioner in Suffolk for many years. I do not have a particular practitio…
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
11 December 2025
Business Improvement Districts: Town Centre Renewal
The Chancellor is committed to making sure that our small businesses are supported. As I said, we have produced our small business plan, which has a huge number of measures to help small businesses. We continue to work with the small business sector to make sure both that we find out what is getting…
Lords
Oral Questions
25 November 2025
Wales: Further Devolution
My Lords, I used to represent Stoke-on-Trent. The noble Lord will find that the Barnett formula ensures that the people of Wales receive 20% per capita more than my former constituents. The Welsh Government received a record-breaking settlement of £21 billion this financial year, which, because of t…
Lords
Debate
21 November 2025
3 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I am not a lawyer, and it is dangerous to follow the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, but I think on this occasion he is mistaken. The fact that this kind of protection is not there until this Bill does not actually mean anything—perhaps it should have been there in any case—but, if we are going …
My Lords—
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
14 November 2025
2 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I speak definitely not as a lawyer or as part of the medical profession in any way. It appears to me that the Mental Capacity Act uses the balance of probabilities when making a decision, rather than “beyond reasonable doubt” as, in my understanding, the criminal court does. For such a def…
I thank my noble friend for saying what I wish I could have said myself. I will end, because we have had a very long debate on this. I just want to emphasise that from my experience of dealing with people, with families, versus what professionals think, it is a very different landscape when we compa…
Lords
Debate
11 November 2025
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
I wonder whether that is quite reasonable, given this amendment. I do not think anybody would suggest that I am an extremist on this, but it seems a sensible amendment to me because it is carefully written. I hope that the Minister will take it very seriously. The reason is this: if we are going to …
Lords
Debate
3 November 2025
2 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I do not think I could be accused of being extreme on these issues, and therefore I want to apply a very serious matter here. This is an issue that most disturbs people in Britain. There are those of us who are determined to protect a multiracial society, who strongly believe in people liv…
I hope the Minister will accept that we are discussing a Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. What he is saying is what the Government are going to do. The problem for some of us is that this Bill ought to have had this in it, and as a result, we have two unsatisfactory amendments; but the …
Lords
Debate
29 October 2025
3 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster. I am appalled by the statement read to the House by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. Noble Lords have to understand that it is very embarrassing for me to be on the side of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and the noble Baron…
Before he sits down, will my noble friend accept that he has not made the position clear? The Benches behind want to know why we are not supporting this but merely giving the Government yet another chance to get off the hook. Can we not be a bit tough and actually do what we are here for—to oppose t…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
22 October 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I remind the House of my registered interests, particularly that I chair a company that advises people on sustainability, and water is central to that.
I want to encourage the Government to move on this subject. I hope that they will allow me to do so by pointing out that the previous Gov…
Lords
Debate
21 October 2025
3 contributions
Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill
My Lords, there are moments when you hear a speech on a subject of which you are in general support that brings home very clearly the key issues; I think that the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, produced that speech just now.
It is extremely dangerous for us to put ourselves in the hands of AI. It is partic…
If that is so, what is wrong with making it statutory? The issue is that what the Minister says is what now happens. We are concerned about what could happen if it is not in the Bill.
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
20 October 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I support this amendment. It seems that all the experience we have is that there is not coherence where there ought to be. I thank the Minister for her earlier willingness to react to the House and show that she was able to make the changes the House asked for. I hope she will say to her c…
Lords
Debate
19 September 2025
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I support the intent of the Bill to increase personal autonomy for those with life-limiting illnesses, but good legislation must provide adequate protection for the vulnerable, including those with eating disorders. The malnutrition that accompanies anorexia means, as the noble Baroness, Lady Debbon…
Lords
Debate
18 September 2025
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, this is a rather crucial amendment. The reason is that we are a nation that is inclined to talk about education as if it is always academic education. If I have criticisms of previous Governments—and I have of those from both sides—they are that we have emphasised education as if it is the…
Lords
Oral Questions
17 September 2025
Deforestation
It is a very good question. We have to look at what waste from forest is used for. We are supporting the timber industry in this country; that is important, because at the moment we import an enormous amount of timber. It needs to be easier, quicker and more financially viable to grow trees in this …
Lords
Debate
15 September 2025
2 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
I very much want to support this amendment, because it is asking for information, and one of the problems we have in this country is that when we do not like the answers, we do not ask the question. That seems to me to be the fundamental issue here.
I am rather in favour of properly placed solar fa…
The Minister has said “the Government do not believe” three times now. Would it not be a good idea to check whether or not their belief was true? She also said something really frightening. She said, “Because this Act is in addition to other things, it is impossible to see what its effect would be”.…
Lords
Debate
11 September 2025
2 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, this is a crucial amendment, not least for the reasons the noble Baroness, Lady Young, put forward. We are going to go on about this until we have an overall demand that this is how we think about matters. We have to recognise that unless we make all our decisions in the context of recover…
The noble Lord mentions the local authorities that are doing the job but he does not mention the local authorities that are not. It would not do any harm to increase the pressure on them—it would do a great deal of good. I was a Minister for 16 years and I know the case he is putting forward. It is …
Lords
Debate
8 September 2025
2 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
I do not understand why one should object to protecting people with these four protections in circumstances in which it appears that the Home Office has made a mistake. It seems to me that the most unsuitable moment to remove the protections is when the Home Office has made a mistake. Indeed, if the…
My Lords, in an earlier debate on the Bill, my noble friend Lord Cameron of Lochiel reminded me that it is the purpose of the Opposition to oppose. That is why I find it impossible to understand why the Opposition are not opposing this clause. I thought that Conservatives were wholly against Governm…
Lords
Debate
3 September 2025
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I will just ask for two things. First, I hope that the Government will take and answer these amendments seriously. Secondly, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, will accept that it is not proper for the previous Government, who failed to answer this problem, constantly to …
Lords
Debate
24 July 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
Does my noble friend not still agree that it would be much better to have primary legislation that listed who and where it is than always having to wait for secondary legislation, which we know we cannot amend, as we discovered only earlier this week? Why can we not have proper primary legislation, …
Lords
Proceedings
21 July 2025
State of Climate and Nature
I congratulate the Government on this report and remind the Front-Bench spokesman that every previous Conservative Prime Minister, including Mrs Thatcher, would have understood that what the Government have said is right. The cheapest way to proceed is to go green. That is where the jobs will come f…
Lords
Debate
8 July 2025
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, perhaps it is possible to bring both sides together on this issue. I have a long history of being attacked for my views on this. I was the Member for Lewisham West when we brought in the east African Asians, and I remember the appalling attacks that one had for supporting Ted Heath and the…
Lords
Debate
7 July 2025
Renters’ Rights Bill
My Lords, the Minister just said that the situation has changed. I have listened very carefully to the debate. The Government thought it was necessary to have insurance; they now say it is not necessary. Therefore, the Government have already admitted that there needs to be something additional to p…
Lords
Committee Stage
7 July 2025
2 contributions
Sheep Carcase (Classification and Price Reporting) (England) Regulations 2025
Or from Norfolk to Manchester.
My Lords, I start by thanking the Minister for introducing this set of much-needed regulations, which are aimed at bringing the sheep sector in line with the beef and pork industries through the introduction of mandatory carcass classification and price-reporting schemes. These schemes, long establi…
Lords
Debate
26 June 2025
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I remind the Committee that I am a small organic farmer and therefore have an interest in this. I also was the Secretary of State and Minister of Agriculture in the key area when we were trying to deal with BSE.
Looking back, it is amazing how we got through that period. Part of the reaso…
Lords
Debate
24 June 2025
3 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I remind the Committee of my interests in both consultancy and the hospitality industry. I have really come to help the Government on this bit of the Bill, because the problem they have is that very few of those who are working on the Bill run businesses. I have run businesses all my life,…
I am very pleased with all the research that was done before the Bill and all the research that has been done with it. The only question is: when the Bill goes through, why do not we do the research to make sure that we were right? I cannot understand why we draw the line the moment the Bill is pass…
+1 more contribution in this session