Lords
Debate
28 January 2026
3 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the powerful and important speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the equally important speech from the noble Lord, Lord Bird. I signed the similar amendment in Committee, but I left a space on this one in the hope against hope that a party less l…
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, who has powerfully made the case for Amendment 119. She referred to the Netflix documentary that we have not yet seen. I am going to go back a little further to a review article that came out in January last year, titled Ef…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Proceedings
26 January 2026
2 contributions
Local Government Reorganisation
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pack, referred to the some 250 councillors who could face seven-year terms under the Government’s plans. Four of the county councils are majority-Tory led, and they last held elections in May 2021. Noble Lords will have to cast their minds right back: Boris Johnson was…
The Minister said, and I very much agree, that the officers, staff and structures of the councils that have asked for extensions are extremely stretched—I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. One of the alternatives would have been for the Government to provid…
Lords
Proceedings
26 January 2026
2 contributions
Water White Paper
My Lords, in responding to the Front-Bench questions, the Minister said the Government are not opposed “in principle” to mutual or co-operative ownership. I am sure that will be delightful news to the Co-operative Party, which of course has been in an electoral partnership with the Labour Party sinc…
My Lords, since there is time, following on from the question from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about science and citizen science, one thing that some of that sampling is starting to expose is the level of contamination from new areas of concern, such as PFAS, pesticide contamination and microplas…
Lords
Proceedings
26 January 2026
Chinese Embassy
My Lords, the Minister acknowledged earlier the concern among Chinese dissidents in the UK about the embassy. She may have heard the comments from Chloe Cheung, a British resident and former Hong Konger—a young woman who has a bounty on her head from China. She has said she feels betrayed by the agr…
Lords
Debate
21 January 2026
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I will speak extremely briefly, having signed the amendment so powerfully introduced and presented by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. I did so after having met Ceri and Frances. I saw that the amendment did not have a second name attached to it and thought that there needed to be a…
My Lords, I have two original points to make that have not been covered at all. We should bring ourselves back to the fact that there is an enormous amount of agreement around this Chamber. I think everyone will say we feel enormous sympathy for the families, some of whom are here today, who have lo…
Lords
Proceedings
21 January 2026
Local Elections: Cancellation
My Lords, my question is asked in the light of the result of today’s Horsley by-election for Derbyshire County Council, in which the Green Party took the seat from Reform with 43% of the vote. Reform had 35% of the vote, the Conservatives 14% and Labour 4%. Given that the political landscape is clea…
Lords
Committee Stage
20 January 2026
6 contributions
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, I feel the need to stress that we should not write off deliberative democracy, where people can access information and ideas and come together to reach new conclusions. Let us also stress that the economy—businesses and jobs—is one part of a much l…
Perhaps I might come back to the issue of food security. In her answer, the Minister talked about access to food, which is obviously a crucial part of food security and very much related to poverty, but I do not think she really talked about food production and local systems of food distribution, wh…
+4 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
19 January 2026
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, as I have many times before on this subject, joining the terrier pack yet again. It is a great pity that that pack still needs to form; all the other occasions were under the previous Government and we were hoping that we mi…
Lords
Proceedings
19 January 2026
2 contributions
Offshore Wind
My Lords, for the Green Party I welcome both this Statement and the decisions that it records.
I have a question about a specific area which is going to need vastly more development. The allocation includes two floating offshore wind projects. They have higher prices but there is a clear strategic …
My Lords, the Minister referred to onshore wind. Under previous Governments, we saw onshore wind come to a grinding halt for reasons of apparent short-term political advantage. Onshore wind has the potential to be part of community energy schemes. Offshore wind inevitably tends to involve large mult…
Lords
Debate
19 January 2026
3 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate. Having signed his amendment in Committee, I did not manage to catch up on Report, and I encourage him to think about putting it to a vote if necessary when it gets to that stage.
I support all the amendments in this group, but w…
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, I supported and spoke to a similar amendment in Committee. Again, I will not be very long.
I want to celebrate this great example of when campaigning works. I pay tribute to Justlife, which worked alongside the Shared Health Foundation for the All-Part…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
19 January 2026
Greenland: Proposed US Tariffs
I watched the Prime Minister’s statement this morning and I would not at all describe it as softly-softly. It was made very clear what the United Kingdom stands for and what we think of this proposal. The Prime Minister stood there publicly and laid it out for people to make their own assessment of …
Lords
Proceedings
15 January 2026
Chinese Embassy
Mine is also a material planning question. Given the human rights abuses in China against the Uyghurs, the Tibetan people, the Hong Kongers and many others, large protests can be expected outside the embassy, and we surely want to facilitate those protests—the right for peaceful protest here in the …
Lords
Oral Questions
15 January 2026
In-game Purchases: Protections for Children
The noble Baroness correctly identifies that sometimes our debate does not necessarily keep up with developments. One of the major protections we have in place is the Online Safety Act, which applies to online services that allow users to share content and interact with each other. As I have said in…
Lords
Proceedings
14 January 2026
Social Media: Non-consensual Sexual Deepfakes
The US Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Sarah B Rogers, an appointee of President Trump, said in an interview that was broadcast on GB News in the early hours of this morning that if the UK Government were to ban X, nothing was off the table, in what were clearly threatening remarks. S…
Lords
Oral Questions
14 January 2026
Boarding of Sanctioned Vessels
I do not know about the Bill, but if the noble Baroness is referring to Greenland, the Government have been very clear that that is a matter for the Kingdom of Denmark and Greenland. There is no change in government policy on that. However, Arctic security is becoming an increasingly important chall…
Lords
Oral Questions
13 January 2026
Official Development Assistance
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the register. I noticed tonight on the news that there is a suggestion that the Government might be announcing another so-called U-turn—that would be the 13th, for those who appear to be counting in the media. I think 13 is a very unlucky number, if I ca…
Lords
Proceedings
12 January 2026
Ukraine and Wider Operational Update
My Lords, my question is also about the national conversation. To put it on the record, the Green Party supports the principle of UK troops serving in a peacekeeping role in Ukraine, following a negotiated settlement with a robust international mandate and standards. We are very pleased that the Sta…
Lords
Oral Questions
8 January 2026
Mining: Pollution
My Lords, I join others in congratulating my noble friend Lord Oates on securing this debate, the powerful way he introduced it and exposing the shame and the scandal of Kabwe. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for his continued campaign in that area, and the Church of England pensions board’s…
Lords
Oral Questions
8 January 2026
AI Systems: Risks
My Lords, I think we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, for giving us this valuable opportunity today. When, within our lifetimes, we experienced the introduction of the world wide web and the internet, we could see the opportunities that that technology brought—but it also brought ha…
Lords
Proceedings
7 January 2026
Middle East and North Africa
My Lords, on Gaza, I very much associate myself with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, about the lack of progress on the peace process. The Statement talks about NGOs being banned, aid being stuck at the borders and the huge continuing humanitarian crisis that is contributin…
Lords
Oral Questions
7 January 2026
Venezuela
No, clearly not. Our position on Greenland has been expressed very forcefully by the Prime Minister and our allies. It is for the people of Greenland and the kingdom of Denmark to determine the future of Greenland.
Lords
Proceedings
6 January 2026
Venezuela
My Lords, the “Bella 1” oil tanker, now labelled the “Marinera”, for which US officials have obtained a seizure warrant for allegedly breaking sanctions, and which they tried to intercept off Venezuela, is now reported to be in the north Atlantic, within striking distance of the US bases in the Unit…
Lords
Committee Stage
6 January 2026
2 contributions
Nitrogen Reduction, Recycling and Reuse (Environment and Climate Change Committee Report)
I just make the point that the whole point of regenerative agriculture is to regenerate those mycorrhizal fungi and the soil. If the noble Baroness is saying that we cannot and should not use artificial nitrogen—I am advocating for using less of it—half the world will starve.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to serve as a member of the Environment and Climate Change Committee and to speak in this debate. I place on record my thanks to the excellent staff who supported us throughout the nitrogen inquiry.
Nitrogen pollution is a vast subject and it is impossible to cover it ful…
Lords
Oral Questions
5 January 2026
Toilet-training: Support for Parents
The whole basis of the policy is that local is best and that these programmes are run through the local communities. I do not have the specific answers that the noble Baroness asks for, but all these considerations need to be taken into account. We need a holistic approach. People will be motivated …
Lords
Debate
18 December 2025
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. But, not for the first time, she will find that I disagree with practically everything she has just said.
I have a few problems with the Bill, which has a number of sensible things in it. I will focus on aspects …