Lords
Proceedings
25 June 2026
Healthcare Services: Acute, Primary and Community
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Janke for calling for this important debate, and it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Leaman, who spoke movingly of services for children with ADHD. I support everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, said earlier. The 10-year NHS Fit for th…
Lords
Proceedings
24 June 2026
Clergy Conduct Measure
My Lords, I declare my interest that one of my sons is a priest in the Church of England.
I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester for introducing the Measure to your Lordships’ House today, and the Ecclesiastical Committee for its helpful report on the revised Clergy Conduct Mea…
Lords
Debate
23 April 2026
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, I repeat and echo all the thanks that my noble friend Lady Brinton has just made to the Minister, her officials and all the others who have helped with this Bill. I was going to say this at the end, but I shall say it now—I am also enormously grateful to and in awe of the work of the noble…
Lords
Proceedings
21 April 2026
Infected Blood Compensation Scheme
My Lords, I thank the Government for this Statement, and the technical expert group—TEG—at IBCA for its detailed report, which sits behind the proposed changes to the scheme outlined in the Statement. There are many victims who will be reassured by most, though perhaps not all, of the changes.
It i…
Lords
Debate
16 April 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, the Government are clearly very well meaning. They are very strong on discussion but weak on action. It is very sad that they should be so weak, and I strongly support the speeches that have been made so far.
Lords
Oral Questions
16 April 2026
Southport Inquiry: Prevent Programme
On the Statement yesterday, I responded to the request from the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, to introduce amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill. The Bill finishes its stages in Parliament this week or, potentially, next week or the week after. We have been very clear that we want to examine the …
Lords
Debate
15 April 2026
2 contributions
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, Motion C1 in my name would insist on my amendment from Report regarding the publication of court transcripts. It would require sentencing remarks by the Crown Court to be freely published online, while also informing applicants of their right to request anonymity if they wish it.
Open jus…
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Marks for his comments on private prosecutions, and for the discussions we have had with the Minister, and separately with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, over the course of the Bill. I echo the two important points from our Benches made by…
Lords
Debate
18 March 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I signed this amendment, which was originally laid by my late noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness. I think that he would have been very pleased to hear the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, this evening and would have agreed with every single word. From these Benc…
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, for bringing this amendment back and for her speech, and to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for their detailed exposition. I may be marginally longer than I was in my previous sp…
Lords
Debate
17 March 2026
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, I rise briefly—conscious of my noble friend to my left—to pay tribute to the Minister for how she has handled her first Bill through your Lordships’ House with good humour and considerable judicial skill. It is always slightly challenging to put an amendment or an argument to a Minister wh…
Lords
Oral Questions
12 March 2026
NHS: Heart Valve Disease
I am sorry to hear the experience that the noble Baroness describes. We are indeed seeking to have a whole-team approach to the whole patient. I absolutely agree with her that it should indeed consider where somebody is in their life stage.
Lords
Debate
11 March 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I have one sentence to add to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. The Office for National Statistics, in response to an FoI, said on the collection of data in relation to the “gender identity different from sex registered at birth” category:
“We have to be robust enough to provi…
I am struggling to hear the question in the noble Baroness’s intervention. I repeat the point that the Office for National Statistics and the police data that is currently collected both say the numbers are so low they are insignificant and therefore unusable.
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
11 March 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, the government amendments are welcomed from these Benches. In their scope and depth, they ensure that offenders who have committed the heinous crime of child cruelty will now be required to notify, and will be monitored carefully to ensure that their access to children is supervised to pro…
My Lords, from these Benches, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, for the meeting that she had with my noble friend Lord Marks and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. I gather that the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, had a different meeting. We entirely support the amendment and were very pleased that t…
Lords
Debate
10 March 2026
11 contributions
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, I thank the Minister and her officials for the helpful meetings between Committee and Report and for the correspondence. I have retabled my amendment from Committee, which would place restrictions on parental responsibility, as Amendment 1, and signed Amendments 2 and 3 from the noble Lord…
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this fairly short debate. I think we have managed to get to the essence of the issues remaining from Committee. I am particularly grateful to the Minister for her explanation about children born by rape and conceived pre sentencing. I really welco…
+9 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
9 March 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I have listened carefully to the contributions from the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Young, on their amendments, and to other speakers around your Lordships’ House. I want to return to the difficult and sensitive issues, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, of where the bounda…
The hour is late and I really do not want to get into a debate about that. The point is that the police are going to have to make whatever the new system is work. My worry is that there seems to be a line now that might exclude cases that are important because of the course of conduct which might be…
Lords
Debate
4 March 2026
4 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, for raising the issue about someone who was not deaf. Unfortunately, he has forgotten that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 set out exactly why people with disabilities were disadvantaged in society—and, frankly, still are. That i…
I am very grateful to the noble Lord. He keeps talking about hate crimes, but this is not about hate crimes. This is about offences already on the books in which a judiciary is asked to look at whether it has been aggravated because of the individual’s characteristics. It is not about hate crimes.
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
2 March 2026
5 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, for outlining her reasons behind Amendment 307. However, I approach this from a somewhat different perspective. I do not sit behind the fact that there is a very low number of transgender people who are convicted of sex offences; I turn it…
I apologise for intervening at this time of night. Surely the key point is that, once someone has been convicted of a sex offence, being on the register, either indefinitely or for a particular period, is the trigger for the monitoring of that offender. Whether they have a gender recognition certifi…
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
2 March 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I have signed my noble friend Lady Walmsley’s Amendments 246A, 248, 248A and 262 in this group. I will not repeat the points that she made in her important contribution, other than to say that it is very disappointing that this Government, and indeed the last Government, refused to impleme…
My Lords, I supported the amendment in Committee, and I echo the thanks given by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, to the Minister for listening. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies, who tabled the original amendment. This is a really important clarification, which will help victims and prevent …
Lords
Proceedings
26 February 2026
Transnational Repression in the UK (JCHR Report)
My Lords, first I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, on his excellent maiden speech. I note that he was a partner at a top law firm that was established in 1769, so he will fit seamlessly into your Lordships’ House, which is another amazing place to work, having also been around for many centu…
Lords
Debate
25 February 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower. I was just checking with another Member of your Lordships’ House before I started my winding-up speech. My apologies for not attracting his attention.
We welcome the Government’s decision to address child criminal exploitation. The range of measu…
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has outlined the amendments and their importance in detail. I want to echo her last point about the need for proper guidance to set out exactly what the many agencies that should be involved need to do. The group of charities that have written to us propose …
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
25 February 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I signed the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell. He spoke eloquently to the detail and, indeed, during the debate that we had in Committee on them. I want just to summarise the key reasons.
We understand why the Government want to see their guidance bed in, but we are …
Lords
Oral Questions
12 February 2026
Post Office Capture and Horizon Scandals
I can confirm to the noble Baroness that the department will work to try to ensure that that comes to its logical conclusion.
Lords
Debate
11 February 2026
6 contributions
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for outlining the detail of the amendments in this group. I was slightly surprised by what he said, because I understood that it was not about whether a prison term was suspended or not, it was the conviction itself that acted as the tr…
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for tabling these amendments and to the Government for the expansion of the Victims’ Commissioner’s powers as set out in the Bill.
However, there are some broader issues that it might be helpful to air here, which are not the subject o…
+4 more contributions in this session
Lords
Proceedings
11 February 2026
Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts
My Lords, I want to return to the question from my noble friend Lord Fox. The Minister referred to the company not having a sovereign right, but the key issue is what the company can do with data. During the passage of the then Procurement Bill, we and Labour—then in opposition—argued for special ar…
Lords
Oral Questions
10 February 2026
2 contributions
Government Website: Registering a Death
The five-day timeframe in England and Wales to register a death starts once the medical examiner has sent the medical certificate of cause of death to the registrar. While the guidance provided on GOV.UK is up to date, the General Register Office for England and Wales will continue to work with rele…
I offer my condolences to the noble Baroness on her loss. She has a point. I have discussed this with officials and we are looking at how we can improve the website and make some changes to it. That will be done, and I will write to the noble Baroness within a month, when it has been completed.
Lords
Debate
9 February 2026
7 contributions
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, I laid Amendment 38, which proposes a duty to commission support services for caregivers of victims of abuse and exploitation. I am grateful to Restitute for its briefing, not just for this Bill but over the years. Cath Pickles from Restitute and her colleagues do an amazing job working wi…
My Lords, I thank all the speakers in this debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for his support and curiosity on how the Minister would respond. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, my noble friend Lady Hamwee and the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, for speaking so powerf…
+5 more contributions in this session