Lords
Oral Questions
11 November 2025
2 contributions
Airport Expansion
My Lords, the Climate Change Committee, CCC, is the independent adviser to the Government on climate change commitments, including aviation. The Government have committed to routinely engaging the CCC as part of the Airports National Policy Statement review on how expansion can be made consistent wi…
This Government are making huge efforts to make the aviation industry more sustainable. There is a Bill before the House on the sustainable aviation fuel policy. The Government are also pursuing airspace modernisation and providing up to £2.3 billion over 10 years to extend the Aerospace Technology …
Lords
Debate
10 November 2025
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, these are powerful amendments and it is hard to see how they can be argued against. We have all heard of cases where victims have had a very tough time demonstrating the persecution that they have experienced, and they often get challenged in court, unreasonably, I think. These amendments …
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 55A, which is supported by StopWatch, a campaign organisation that is concerned with the use of stop and search. I disagree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra.
Amendment 55A would require the Home Office to publish quarterly data on the issuing o…
Lords
Oral Questions
10 November 2025
River Pollution
The noble Baroness is aware that the Cunliffe review made a number of recommendations, and we are acting very quickly on nine of them. She will also be aware that it is our intention to bring forward a second water Bill in order to tackle properly so many of the issues that we still see in our water…
Lords
Debate
3 November 2025
2 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, these are meant to be helpful amendments and, if they are read with a favourable eye, they might be seen as such. To start, I remind your Lordships that freedom from executive detention is the most fundamental right of all. It is not only an international human right but a national one, re…
I thank the Minister for his reply. I deeply regret that I did not come to him with these amendments before to discuss them a little bit more. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, even the noble Lord, Lord Harper, who started to raise deep, dark political waters that I definitely do not agree wi…
Lords
Debate
29 October 2025
3 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, it is absolutely pointless voting for this, because Natural England cannot do the job it has at the moment. Unless it is better resourced and has better structure, it is completely pointless giving it any more jobs. However, I stand here in the throes of two very strong emotions. I signed …
I am so sorry—I do not know whether I am allowed to shout at the noble Lord again. What are they revising? Tell me what they are revising. They are not revising anything: they are intransigent. They refuse to listen, so why are we even trying?
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
29 October 2025
Water Companies: Private Ownership
I can only repeat what I have already said. It is very simply the case that we are absolutely continuing the regime and approach of the previous Government, but we have done more. We introduced new legislation last year to ensure that we can block executive bonuses, which we have done. We will conti…
Lords
Debate
29 October 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I support Amendment 130 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown. It is supported by those champions of nature, the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Young and Lady Grender. I only wish I could have signed it myself.
I am not particularly inter…
Lords
Debate
27 October 2025
3 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 118. I am slightly at a loss, because I expected the Conservative Front Bench to do a blinding speech on Amendment 96, to which my amendment is more or less similar. Obviously, I think mine is better because I mention biodiversity, reuse and such things, but I …
My Lords, this amendment was debated last week, but I would like to remind the House what it was about. Basically, it is about not losing—[ Interruption. ] Am I not allowed to say that? The Whip is shaking his head at me. I will rattle on until he stands up and shouts. In essence, this is about the …
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Proceedings
27 October 2025
Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund
My Lords, it has occurred to me that the noble Baroness might not have seen the Oceana report, Deep Decline . It is absolutely excellent, if a bit depressing, but it gives some very good recommendations, so perhaps I could make sure that she gets a copy.
Lords
Debate
22 October 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I speak in place of my noble friend Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. She is unable to be here today as she is hosting something that was set up months ago. As a former archaeologist, I am so annoyed by the Government’s attempt to do this. In fact, I have to warn noble Lords that I am going to…
Lords
Oral Questions
21 October 2025
Great British Railways: Rolling Stock
The noble Baroness is right. The reason it is entitled the rolling stock and infrastructure strategy is that, with modern technology—including, mainly, batteries—for the first time we can look at bi and tri-mode vehicles. Of course, that is exactly what we need to do. In fact, very few manufacturers…
Lords
Debate
16 October 2025
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, as ever, I declare my interest as a teacher in a state secondary school in Hackney—a place that my noble friend Lord Birt was rather unfair about earlier.
This is an extensive and wide-ranging Bill—you know you are in trouble when they have to treasury tag it rather than bind it—but there…
Lords
Oral Questions
15 October 2025
Waste Crime
The Government are working hard on reducing waste, particularly through the circular economy strategy that we are developing at the moment. We are committed to reducing the amount of plastic waste, and the noble Baroness will see progress and development on that as time goes on.
Lords
Debate
13 October 2025
Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]
My Lords, I want to say a few words on this issue as the introducer of the £2 bus fare cap and the person who wrote the relevant sections of our manifesto, which committed to keep it for the duration of the Parliament and fund it, importantly, from savings that we were going to make in rail services…
Lords
Debate
13 October 2025
2 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I signed Amendment 166, though there are several amendments here that I could have supported because I feel that they are common sense.
How can this Government be so heartless as to not accept that families have to be together? Surely that is basic humanity. Why are this Government so hap…
My Lords, I signed the two amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, not because I have any legal training but because I trust her judgment on this. I was hoping that some of our estimable Cross-Bench KCs and former judges would stand up and say, “This is rubbish; you can’t do …
Lords
Debate
5 September 2025
Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill
My Lords, I welcome this Bill, so ably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Trees. His veterinarian background gives him great knowledge of and expertise in animals and animal welfare.
I declare an interest as a lover of animals and the proud owner of two dogs and a horse. The thought of animal cruel…
Lords
Oral Questions
4 September 2025
UK Defence and Aerospace Facilities: Protests
That is an example of what I have been saying: the noble Baroness, in terms of freedom of speech, has been able to get up and say something in this Parliament about Palestine—this is something that we should point out—and to challenge the Government on what they have done with respect to this in an …
Lords
Debate
3 September 2025
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
I have listened to so much claptrap from this side of the Chamber, I cannot bear it any more. Could we please stop the right-wing nonsense you are all spouting? Could we perhaps hear just how many people who arrive by small boat are actually given asylum because they have a justified claim?
Lords
Debate
2 September 2025
6 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I am very sorry I was not here earlier today when Clause 33 was debated. The Green Party has had a very exciting morning electing a new leader, and that is where I was. I very much hope I am not going to make a Second Reading speech, but with so many amendments in the Bill, it is at times …
May I say something? I was late to the debate, so I have no right to speak.
+4 more contributions in this session
Lords
Proceedings
23 July 2025
Independent Water Commission
My Lords, the Minister will know that Sir Jon Cunliffe was not given the option to look at renationalisation. In the other place, the Secretary of State for Defra has twice replied to Green MPs Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, saying that his department looked at the cost of renationalisation and it …
Lords
Oral Questions
23 July 2025
Palestine Action Protests: Arrests
Absolutely, we do. I assure the noble Baroness that the Government take the way in which this is interpreted and executed by the police very seriously. But what I am saying is that it is not the responsibility of this Government to make judgments on the ground, which police officers are trained and …
Lords
Oral Questions
22 July 2025
Great British Energy: Nuclear Development
I appreciate that point of view, but I think it is a bit on the fringe of what this House and people in the industry think. We have to remember that once Sizewell C is geared up and producing energy, we expect it to make a saving. The noble Baroness can turn her nose up at this, but once it is onlin…
Lords
Oral Questions
17 July 2025
Train Operators’ Revenue Protection Practices Review
The long-term answer is that the railway deserves to be run by competent, professional people. The involvement of Ministers in decisions about timetables and fares is extremely unusual in world railways outside North Korea. I am doing what I am doing now because I think that changes need to be made,…
Lords
Oral Questions
17 July 2025
National Accident Prevention Strategy
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the powerful remarks—we have a problem; it sounds as though my mic is reverberating—of my noble friend Lady Crawley. She laid out the scale of the challenge that we face in accident prevention. I will not repeat her words, but I hope to try to reinforce them. Th…