Lords
Proceedings
9 July 2026
Holding the Line Against Tyranny and Anarchy (Constitution Committee Report)
As the first person to speak this afternoon who can claim no part whatever in the production of this report, I independently express my view, and the views of many to whom I have spoken, on its excellence and that it needed doing and that what it said needed saying. All those who produced it deserve…
Lords
Proceedings
8 July 2026
Police Leadership Commission Report
My Lords, the Minister has explained over and over again the number of changes that are occurring. I welcome them all, just as I welcome the noble Lords’ report. However, there are various ways in which these changes can be implemented. Can we have in the autumn a broad strategic overview, pulling t…
Lords
Proceedings
17 June 2026
Thames Water
One of the problems in regulation is that those who are regulated are able to pay substantially greater salaries and employ better experts. Are the Government going to look at properly funding the new regulator so that the ability of those employed by the regulator is greater than that available to …
Lords
Debate
9 June 2026
Commercial Payments Bill [HL]
I too welcome the powerful, lucid and passionate way in which the noble Lord the Minister introduced, based on his own experience, the need for this Bill and the principal purposes behind it. It is also a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and his exposition of some of the problems …
Lords
Committee Stage
4 June 2026
AI Regulation Bill
My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for obtaining this debate, and more so for his singular and determined leadership and focus on this issue. The need is becoming even more urgent for the Government to end their current policy of “just wait and see”. They should go for an overall sc…
Lords
Proceedings
1 June 2026
Devolved Public Services: Funding
Will the Minister be able to outline the steps that are being taken by the Government to review the intergovernmental structures for co-operation between Cardiff, Westminster, Edinburgh and Belfast, and to ensure that these are strengthened over the next few months?
Lords
Proceedings
18 May 2026
King’s Speech
My Lords, in the gracious Speech, there are two matters where constitutional principle relating to our justice system requires particular scrutiny, and they also require scrutiny in relation to the strength of our union.
First is lay participation in our Crown Courts. The jury and the magistracy ha…
Lords
Proceedings
18 May 2026
King’s Speech
My Lords, in the gracious Speech, there are two matters where constitutional principle relating to our justice system requires particular scrutiny, and they also require scrutiny in relation to the strength of our union.
First is lay participation in our Crown Courts. The jury and the magistracy ha…
Lords
Debate
15 April 2026
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, on the Motion that has been proposed as regards private prosecutions, it is very urgent that this is brought into effect as soon as possible. If the proposal goes ahead for an extensive consultation of the kind envisaged, together with impact assessments and responses, I fear this would be…
Lords
Debate
25 March 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. I will not repeat what others have said eloquently. I will just speak quickly to my amendments, which are procedural. I have tabled Amendments 15 to 17, which I should have formally moved on Report—human error there, apologies. Th…
Lords
Debate
23 March 2026
2 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I shall make a few brief remarks in support of the Government. I declare an interest as chairman of the Financial Markets Law Committee, which issued a paper about two years ago now to try to explain the very complicated problems. This would be an easy matter to solve if lawyers were not p…
Before the noble Lord sits down, can I ask him a question? The instrument says, “on the law”. We know that English law operates so that there are some obligations that are performable only by His Majesty’s Government, and other obligations that are accorded only into domestic law. He surely is not s…
Lords
Debate
20 March 2026
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I hope I will be permitted to say something about Wales. I was going to make a much longer speech but my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, made an excellent argument on the merits of the issues relating to Wales.
The short point to which I wish to draw attention is the i…
Lords
Debate
11 March 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
When we had a debate in Committee, Wales was squeezed into the very short time we had on the Thursday afternoon before a debate had to start. It is no one’s fault but Wales is being squeezed again. It is now 11.30 pm and this is serious—it is no-one’s fault, and I am not blaming anyone; it is the wa…
Lords
Debate
10 March 2026
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, I have a brief observation about Clause 12. The costs of private prosecution mean that money disappears from the overall Treasury contribution to the justice system. I think we should pause long and hard before we remove the power of the Government to control those costs. My own experience…
Lords
Oral Questions
26 February 2026
Public Office (Accountability) Bill: Exclusion
My Lords, I join with everybody in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and thanking her for raising this issue and for the powerful and eloquent way in which she opened the debate and presented her arguments.
As we have heard, the question that the debate raises is whether it is right th…
Lords
Committee Stage
23 February 2026
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I briefly rise in support of the aims of the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. I urge that we get on—as the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Penn, have so eloquently said. Listening to the debate, I do not think that there is any dispute that trustees have a f…
Lords
Debate
11 February 2026
5 contributions
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, I will make one or two brief observations about this, if I may. First, I must declare an interest, in that about 10 years ago I was made an honorary vice-president of CILEX. In case it is thought that I am speaking with the interests of CILEX in mind, I wanted to make that absolutely clear…
My Lords, the issue of costs in private prosecutions is an extraordinarily serious one. The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, has spoken of the position of charities, the RSPCA being one example. One can well understand the position of a charity conducting a prosecution through a small solicitor where cos…
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
9 February 2026
Victims and Courts Bill
My brief observations draw on my experience of what happened about 20 years ago when the statements were being developed. For more serious cases, such as murder and manslaughter, there was an attempt to give the victim’s family an advocate. It had transpired that drafting these statements was not ea…
Lords
Debate
9 February 2026
4 contributions
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, I will make a brief observation about the amendment. The exercise of this power by a judge is never going to be easy, and we should be very cautious about the way this is introduced. Let us first see how it works with people who have the experience of handling what, in the circumstances, w…
My Lords, I shall make two observations. The first relates to the remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, in relation to how judges will exercise these powers and whether guidance will be given. No doubt the Lady Chief Justice will consider whether to give guidance, or such guidance might be …
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
5 February 2026
4 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.
It is important to recognise the very important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, in relation to the problems of gangs in London, bu…
We have indeed.
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
22 January 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the amendments, to which I have put my name. As the noble Lord, Lord Hain, has made such an eloquent speech in relation to youth justice, I will concentrate on the police because the arguments are identical. The reason I say they are identical is that the…
May I ask the noble Lord whether his staff have read the report that contains all the evidence? To say that this is put forward without evidence is not correct.
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
6 January 2026
4 contributions
Sentencing Bill
My Lords, the last Government and this Government have done a great deal to help those who were sentenced to imprisonment for public protection and released on licence. I welcome the amendments tabled by the Government and other noble Lords in relation to the position of those on licence. But we hav…
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, in which the views, save that of the Minister, have been unanimous across the House. The unanimous view is that something needs to be done in the interests of justice.
It is justice that lies at the heart of this debate. One of the ca…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
6 January 2026
Sentencing Bill
It was indeed a pleasure to give way to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, after all the work he has done in relation to prisons.
Noble Lords may wonder why this amendment about Wales is in in a group about transparency. I wondered too but I think there is an answer, to which I shall come. I had first th…
Lords
Debate
26 November 2025
4 contributions
Sentencing Bill
My Lords, I hesitate to intervene on this matter, but I wonder what thought has been given by the Ministry of Justice to simplification. The Sentencing Code is now a very lengthy document. The way in which the title of the clause has been put is very sensible: it says that there is a presumption for…
Perhaps I might ask the Minister about the way he ran his business. One of the important roles of a legislature is to get things technically right. There is no disagreement, as I can see, on the view that that the policy is right, but can we not do things more simply? Throughout the Bill, I have ask…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
14 November 2025
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, bearing in mind that this is a Private Member’s Bill, it seems to me, as an Englishwoman, that whatever efforts are required, we should be, at the end of the day, removing Wales from it.