Lords
Proceedings
1 July 2026
Farming Road Map and Profitability Review
My Lords, I pay tribute to the Minister for so adroitly finding her way through the document, but are we not rather discussing it in a vacuum? She said clearly that she did not want to stray into issues relating to the EU reset, but is it not the fact that this whole document will be put on to the a…
Lords
Proceedings
11 June 2026
Sustainable Drainage Systems
My Lords, when I was young, some time ago, it was more commonplace that councils cleared out the storm drains on a cyclical maintenance basis. Many councils on discretionary cost-cutting no longer do that; some exemplary councils do. Can the Minister ensure that her good office tells local councils …
Lords
Oral Questions
28 April 2026
RMT Strikes: Impact on Businesses
It is a very interesting dispute. ASLEF is on record saying that it finds the dispute bizarre because of its nature in terms of proposing a voluntary scheme that is not going to be enforced. I hope the discussions will get underneath the issues that the noble Lord mentions. Of course, our sympathies…
Lords
Proceedings
18 March 2026
Digital ID: Public Consultation
My Lords, as ever with many big government ideas, there is a solution that is yet to find a problem.
I am yet to hear a ministerial Statement on the very serious data events that happened at Companies House over the last week. I have not heard a Statement from Ministers at the other end, and I do n…
Lords
Debate
5 March 2026
2 contributions
National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill
My Lords, I am pleased to support my noble friend Lord Fuller, who has similarly reciprocated his enthusiasm for one of my amendments. Quite a few things come to mind in the amendment from my noble friend. One is the normality across other parts of the tax system. It is very normal, because life doe…
This is an important point in many ways. The Minister will be aware that within an owner-managed director business, the director has absolute discretion about how he or she may take their overall package, whether that is dividends, usual PAYE employment or, quite normally, the company making a pensi…
Lords
Oral Questions
26 February 2026
Fire and Rescue Services: Clean Energy Projects
I think that we should get this into some proportion. As I have said, the number of battery fires over the last five years is four. The percentage of fires that you might encounter in an industrial premises or commercial premises is higher than the proportion per thousand of battery fires. Battery f…
Lords
Committee Stage
24 February 2026
8 contributions
National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill
My Lords, let me make my declaration. I am a chartered accountant and chartered tax adviser, so such legislation is the thing I live for on a daily basis.
My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe has laid out the ambitions of pensions. Unfortunately, in the first 18 months of this new Government, pension…
Perhaps I may make some comments on Amendment 33 put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and my noble friend Lord Leigh. My noble friend recommends that there be some Treasury advice on this. I do not think Treasury advice is good enough. Surely we are in the thicket of drafting legislation…
+6 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
11 February 2026
Electric Vehicles: Transition
The most important thing we have to do is work with the manufacturers in this country. The decision under the previous Government to change the target sent a wave of uncertainty through manufacturers. It is absolutely critical that we keep that certainty and have clarity. We are fully committed to t…
Lords
Debate
10 February 2026
Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill
My Lords, I am the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, so the House might believe that I am immediately against all this sort of thing, but that would not actually be true. I am certainly in favour of proper CO 2 accounting, hence my support for Amendments 14 and 15.
We cannot do anot…
Lords
Oral Questions
10 February 2026
Government Website: Registering a Death
I am grateful for that, and I will certainly pass it on to the appropriate authorities. For information, my own mother died a long time ago, on Christmas Day, and we had a very difficult time dealing with that, given the holiday period. The service that was provided, in that case in the Liverpool re…
Lords
Oral Questions
4 February 2026
Think Tanks: Funding
I am not sure there was a question in there, but I will take the opportunity to reassure your Lordships that, just as CC9 guidance for the Charity Commission applies to every charity, regardless of their charitable objectives, and just as the electoral law applies to every third-party campaigner, th…
Lords
Debate
23 January 2026
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I apologise to the Committee for not being fully engaged today. I have appointments elsewhere, and my father’s funeral was yesterday. I remember during the Covid period Ministers stood behind a sign reading “Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives”. My real concern now with the thought of a navigator…
Lords
Debate
12 December 2025
3 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I will speak for just a couple of seconds as I am very mindful of time. I support Amendments 24 and 458 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. We have had very little debate about the issue of pregnancy. I am quite shocked by that, given that there are administrations aroun…
I will just come back on that, if I may. I would also say that the wording in the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, is insufficient, because it is a far more complex issue than that. As I said, there is a world of difference between a very early embryo in the first fe…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
21 November 2025
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, the debate on this matter this morning has been enlightening from all sides, with many with many distinctive speeches that will stay with me, including that of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, who brought a very personal account, though he is no longer in his place.
We are talking about co…
Lords
Oral Questions
20 November 2025
South Western Railway
There was not a question in there but, now that Southeastern is run by a managing director who is responsible for both the operations and the infrastructure, I will get Steve White to talk to the noble Lord, and he can make his complaints in person on Rochester station.
Lords
Debate
14 November 2025
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I declare my interests in this debate: I chair Sport Wales, which is an arm’s-length body of the Welsh Government; I am the president of the LGA; and I am a director of Living and Dying Well. I also spoke recently at a fundraiser event for a hospice in Wales.
A fundamental part of why we …
Lords
Debate
3 November 2025
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, it has been a fascinating debate, and I support the amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Jackson. This is the type of debate that we need to have in this Chamber. These are wide moral issues that go to the heart of what we do with our justice system.
Something…
Lords
Committee Stage
27 October 2025
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
My Lords, I support these amendments in the names of my noble friend Lord Murray and others, which concern substituting the age of 21. I do so not because I think 21 is the perfect age but because it becomes a workable solution in trying to prevent the young smoking.
I am—like many noble Lords in t…
Lords
Debate
22 October 2025
2 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Jamieson was quicker to his feet than I was. I will make a few comments on Amendment 87F, standing in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey.
I served as a councillor for eight years on the unitary Medway Council, working for some of that time on planning, and had th…
I thank my noble friend for his clarification. As I said, I was only guessing that the figure was in the hundreds of thousands; I am glad to have the clarity that is 1.1 million. There we have it: there is the potential for the growth that we are looking for and for the supply of housing within a lo…
Lords
Debate
19 September 2025
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, there is nothing easy about confronting mortality or dealing with suffering. The number of us who have chosen to speak at this Second Reading is a reflection of the importance of these issues and how universally relevant they are. Every one of us in this place has been touched and shaped b…
Lords
Debate
1 September 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Swire’s application that these things should be buried. I am the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation; that is not relevant to this debate, but it is somewhat relevant to the discussion about renewables.
My noble friend raised a few points about …
Lords
Oral Questions
1 July 2025
Migrants: Hotel Accommodation
I am grateful to the noble Lord, and I would be grateful if he could write to me with the details of his friend’s hotel, because that is a great surprise to me. We are not opening new hotels; we are trying to reduce the number of such hotels and reducing the bill, under his Government, of £9 million…
Lords
Proceedings
2 June 2025
Independent Sentencing Review
My Lords, I sat as a magistrate for some 10 years and remain on the supplemental list. I have to say that it is a grave mistake to take away the ability, as a norm, to give out small and shorter sentences, for the simple reason that we magistrates did so to keep bad people away from good people. It …
Lords
Oral Questions
1 May 2025
2 contributions
Prosthetics for Amputees
My Lords, I have declarations to make. These are TASKA hands, and they are on long-term loan from Steeper Group. Similar, Steeper Group paid for me to attend a prosthetics conference in France just a couple of weeks ago. As ever, we owe thanks to our library facilities—both the House of Commons Libr…
My Lords, it is an honour to follow my noble friend Lord Mackinlay of Richborough. I thank him for securing this important debate and draw courage from the example that he sets, as someone who also lives with a disability.
As he may know, non-disabled people often use the term “inspirational” to ex…