Lords
Proceedings
25 June 2026
Waste Management Carriers: Regulation
My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right when she says that the illegal disposal of waste is attractive to criminals. That is because it is lucrative, so what steps are the Government taking to make it cheaper and easier for people and businesses to dispose of waste legally?
Lords
Debate
22 April 2026
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. I thank them for being very constructive in their engagements—possibly more so offstage than onstage, but I am always grateful for and will take whatever I can find. I thank in particular the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady No…
Lords
Oral Questions
21 April 2026
Electricity: Domestic Pricing
The effect of the windfall tax is, essentially, to start returning some of those excessive bill contributions back to bill payers so that their overall bills are less than they otherwise would be.
Lords
Debate
20 April 2026
2 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their questions and comments. I spoke at some length at the start, and I think I answered most of the questions pre-emptively—or tried to—so I will not dwell on them.
On a couple of specifics, and to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and the n…
I beg to move and wish to test the opinion of the House.
Lords
Proceedings
20 April 2026
Security Vetting
My Lords, we have had a lot of discussions in this House over the last year about employment rights and particularly about unfair dismissal. To be fair, a dismissal must have a valid reason—we cannot make a rigid judgment on the dismissal of Olly Robbins at this stage—but it must also follow fair pr…
Lords
Debate
19 March 2026
2 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, when you are trying to solve a problem, it is best to try to understand the root causes of the problem and then resolve those causes—diagnose and treat the disease, not the symptoms. That is why I have repeatedly asked the Minister why she believes UK pension funds have been so reluctant t…
As I understand the noble Baroness’s argument, the focus on cost is the problem. This Bill solves that with the value-for-money framework, so why do we also need the mandation power?
Lords
Oral Questions
12 March 2026
Peatland Restoration
The noble Lord is absolutely right about the action that has been taken in previous years that has degraded our peatland, including, as he said, the planting of conifers. I will have to write to him on some of the detail on that, but I want to be clear that we see the importance of restoring peatlan…
Lords
Oral Questions
11 March 2026
Pension Schemes: Ministerial Powers
My Lords, I have said this many times in Committee, as the noble Lord knows, but I am delighted to explain again for the benefit of the whole House. I have just explained what the Government believe the challenge is. By international standards, we are really very low in aiming for 10%. Canadian sche…
Lords
Committee Stage
11 March 2026
Secondary International Competitiveness and Growth Objective (FSR Committee Report)
My Lords, I point to my registered interests: I serve on the boards of Chevron Corporation, Starbucks and the Oxford University investment endowment, all of which are impacted by the regulatory environment in the United Kingdom. I welcome that we are having a debate about a growth objective for our …
Lords
Proceedings
3 March 2026
Gibraltar Treaty
My Lords, we have the current slightly bizarre situation where British military aircraft flying into RAF Gibraltar are not allowed to overfly Spanish airspace. Is that resolved by this treaty or not?
Lords
Committee Stage
3 February 2026
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I apologise for not being able to be here last week for Amendment 142. I am grateful that the Minister responded to it regardless of that. I have added my name to Amendment 167. I will try to be very brief because the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, has explained it with her usual clarity, an…
Lords
Committee Stage
22 January 2026
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, before I start, I apologise to the Grand Committee for failing to be here to speak a previous amendment. It was unavoidable, unfortunately. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for stepping into the breach. I have had an exciting afternoon moving from R&R to pension schem…
Lords
Debate
7 January 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, we come back to fraud. As the Minister will be well aware, this is not the first time I have raised the issue of ensuring that the technology and telecoms companies take their share of responsibility for the use of their services or platforms by fraudsters and are made to contribute to the…
My Lords, I thank every noble Lord who has taken part in this short debate, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Young, who both pointed out the question of incentivisation, which is core to this. We need to incentivise the people who are facilitating or enabling f…
Lords
Debate
7 January 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, as this is the first time I have spoken on the Bill, I apologise that I was unable to take part in the Second Reading debate due to a clash with other House business.
Amendment 358 is a very simple extension to what the Bill already does, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cot…
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this short but important debate. I am grateful to the Minister for his detailed response. I think I speak for all of us in saying that we look forward enormously to seeing the long-awaited fraud strategy. I think it will be the third one since…
Lords
Debate
18 December 2025
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, and to take part in this Bill, which is a historic measure proposed by the Government with noble intentions. I need to declare my interests as an adviser to NatWest Cushon and a non-executive director of Capita Pension Solutions. I too …
Lords
Debate
16 December 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I again thank your Lordships’ House for its attentive scrutiny throughout the passage of the Bill. There can be no doubt, as the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, mentioned, that this House has discharged its duties as a revising Chamber. Your Lordships’ House asked the Government to look again, and …
Lords
Oral Questions
11 December 2025
Social Media: Scam Adverts and Fraudulent Content
I am grateful to the noble Lord. He is absolutely right that the banks are effectively subsidising fraud results and are leading to the repayment of an amount of the fraud that is taking place. He is also right that a large portion of that fraud, which is around 44% of all crime, goes through teleco…
Lords
Debate
10 December 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I will speak fairly briefly in support of Motion D1 from the noble Lord, Lord Burns. This has become known as the hokey-cokey amendment—opt in, opt out, opt in, opt out, through the chain of amendments that have been put down. I support the vital role of trade unions, but I find it hard to…
Lords
Oral Questions
9 December 2025
Mobile Phone and Broadband Prices
The issue of fraud and telecoms is very important. My noble friend Lord Hanson of Flint recently launched a telecoms fraud charter to emphasise how important it is for all telecoms companies to take action on that.
Lords
Debate
17 November 2025
Employment Rights Bill
We have had many days of debate in Committee and on Report, so I want to bring matters to a conclusion. Our changes will not prevent fair dismissal. The Government will ensure that employers can operate a statutory probationary period to assess new hires. That is exactly what will be in the Bill and…
Lords
Debate
11 November 2025
Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill
My Lords, I thank all the noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I am grateful that all noble Lords who have contributed have conceded that we have reached a point where we are all now content to move forward with this important Bill.
On the specifics, the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, asked whether …
Lords
Debate
28 October 2025
2 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, noble Lords have mentioned the lack of detail in the Bill. As somebody who has been heavily engaged in employment law over the last 40 years, I am very much aware of the need to ensure that there is secondary legislation to give time to consult on issues. You cannot simply put a lot of det…
I think we need to consider the position of SMEs, as well as big employers such as Tesco. I cannot speak for Tesco any more, but it contributed to a letter that was sent to us all, and everybody was concerned on this point. Some of this probationary stuff has to be written into the Bill, or at least…
Lords
Debate
23 October 2025
Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill
My Lords, I support this Bill and add my thanks to all those who have engaged so thoroughly in its detail. It has been an important learning experience for me in the processes of your Lordships’ House, an experience that I hope I can bring to bear on other business in this place.
In addition, I wan…
Lords
Debate
21 October 2025
9 contributions
Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill
My Lords, the Bill creates a wide range of unprecedented and intrusive powers for both the Cabinet Office and the DWP. Throughout the course of the Bill—and in its previous incarnation under the last Government—my focus has been on trying to ensure that these powers are restricted to what is actuall…
My Lords, as we have heard, this group relates to the measures in the Bill which would give the DWP the ability to require banks and other financial institutions to trawl all accounts that they hold to identify and provide information on accounts that have received certain benefits and which meet ce…
+7 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
15 October 2025
4 contributions
Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill
My Lords, I speak very briefly in support of Amendment 2. Before I start, I would like to echo the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, about the exemplary engagement on this Bill, which has been extremely constructive. I am very grateful to both noble Baronesses for that.
The Bill as it is curr…
My Lords, I rise briefly to add my support for Amendment 3, which would require any information notice to include a statement that the notice does not imply that the person named is guilty of fraud. This is important because a bank that believes a person is guilty of fraud must take actions that may…
+2 more contributions in this session