Lords
Debate
24 July 2025
8 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, there are 100 million animals killed for meat in the UK every month, which is quite a statistic. There are 75,000 people who work in abattoirs and associated institutions. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord, Lucas, raises an important issue. Whether this is the right way to address it…
My Lords, I briefly and with pleasure offer support for the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, who is the House’s acknowledged expert and champion in the area of whistleblowing. Reacting to some of the comments made, the noble Baroness said she would prefer to see an overarching system rather than operati…
+6 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
24 July 2025
Voting at 16
My Lords, more widely, a programme of work, including engagement with the Electoral Commission, local authorities, think tanks, academic and civil society organisations, is being done to identify the barriers to participation, along with potential interventions to tackle those barriers. This program…
Lords
Debate
23 July 2025
2 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, aware of the hour, I begin with a promise that I will not test the opinion of the House, although I am afraid that I cannot speak, of course, for the numbered amendments after this one.
Just to explain very briefly—it is fairly self-evident—my amendment calls for a new clause to review th…
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response. The problem is that words such as “reasonable” and “assessed risk” refer to what may happen in well-regulated, well-controlled workplaces; in contrast, it is the most vulnerable workers who are the most vulnerable to that not happening. However, many …
Lords
Proceedings
23 July 2025
Financial Services Reform
My Lords, my question follows on from those of the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Brixton and Lord Sikka, both of whom spoke about financialisation. Earlier this year, the head of UNCTAD—UN Trade and Development —Dr Anastasia Nesvetailova wrote a piece on a path out of the “finance curse”. It offered s…
Lords
Debate
22 July 2025
3 contributions
Universal Credit Bill
My Lords, I declare my interests as president of the Local Government Association and a recipient of personal independence payment.
Like others, I have received many emails from people worried about the proposed changes and I am extremely concerned about how this narrative has played out in the med…
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for introducing the debate with such clarity. I also look forward with great anticipation to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson. I look forward in a slightly different sense—with great regret—to the valedictory spee…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
21 July 2025
2 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, Amendment 127A in my name is a milder attempt to deal with the pressing issue of pay inequality and soaring executive pay in our society than the amendment I tabled in Committee, which was to provide for a 10:1 maximum pay ratio for enterprises. I hope this one has a slightly less inflatio…
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his answer, although I have to express disappointment that none of the other Front Benches wanted to engage with the issue of high pay. The Minister very much acknowledged the issues around low pay and talked about robust monitoring and evaluation of high pay, but …
Lords
Proceedings
21 July 2025
State of Climate and Nature
My Lords, the Statement refers to the legal duty on the Government to halt species decline by 2030—except that is not happening. To take the example of birds, including the starlings, turtle doves and grey partridges the Statement refers to, overall, bird species have declined in the UK by 2% and in…
Lords
Oral Questions
21 July 2025
Official Development Assistance
I think those comments were made by the Minister for Public Health, Minister Dalton, at the International Development Committee last week. I would invite the noble Baroness to look at how we are focusing on function and not form. The decision from the Department of Health and Social Care, led by Chr…
Lords
Debate
17 July 2025
3 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I offer my strong support for the entire presentation from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and her amendments. I cannot top her example of unknown mines underground, but the example that I was thinking of is on a much smaller scale, and it addresses the point raised by the noble Baroness…
My Lords, I will chiefly offer support to Amendment 46A from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey.
In response to the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who said that of course the Government would not do this, I am afraid that we hear that very often in your Lordships’ House. The noble Lord may …
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Proceedings
17 July 2025
Sudan
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, referred to the extreme levels of sexual violence happening in Sudan, particularly against women and girls. As a result of a lack of funding, the UNFPA—the sexual and reproductive health agency—has been forced to withdraw from more than half of the 93 health fac…
Lords
Oral Questions
17 July 2025
Tackling Unsustainable Debt
That is exactly what our approach is designed to do. As I have said, multilateral action is the right way forward. The G20 common framework remains the best available tool for us to tackle debt vulnerabilities, bringing together traditional and newer creditors to co-ordinate on debt treatment, which…
Lords
Proceedings
16 July 2025
Resident Doctors: Industrial Action
My Lords, I gave prior notice to the Minister that I want to ask a couple of questions about the Leng review into physician and anaesthetist associates which was published today, dealing with issues of high relevance to the concerns and the levels of dissatisfaction among resident doctors. Indeed, t…
Lords
Debate
16 July 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I rise briefly to offer the strongest possible Green support for this amendment, and the support of many others who cannot be here today. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, has outlined the reasons for this amendment very clearly, and I am just going to make a couple of additional poi…
Lords
Committee Stage
15 July 2025
2 contributions
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Amendment, etc.) Regulations 2025
My Lords, we are very supportive of these measures and I very much welcome the Government bringing them forward as part of addressing an ever-growing problem. As the Minister rightly highlighted, e-waste is the fastest-growing waste stream in the world, with the 50 million tonnes currently generated…
As the noble Baroness knows, most legislation is reviewed after five years, so three years is a fair time. It would become fairly obvious if the legislation were completely failing and not working. Presumably, any legislation that is not working needs to be reviewed and looked at in that context. I …
Lords
Debate
14 July 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I will speak very briefly. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, who very powerfully made the case for Amendment 48. I am going to focus on Amendment 47. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, has already made the case for that very powerfully, but I will a…
Lords
Proceedings
14 July 2025
Road and Rail Projects
My Lords, my question is about the accuracy of the Statement. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure me that it is accurate. I refer to the third page, under the headline “Major road network”, and the Government explaining
“why we extended the temporary cut in fuel duty at the last Budget”.
…
Lords
Oral Questions
14 July 2025
Advertising Restrictions on Less Healthy Food
As I said in my Answer, that was not in scope, so we cannot have an impact statement. That is the point we are trying to get over. Things are changing, and we know that there will be attempts to bring in other products, and so we have to be vigilant. That is why we are updating our nutrient profile …
Lords
Debate
10 July 2025
Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]
My Lords, I will say a few words about Commons Amendment 2—I am grateful to the noble Lord for introducing all the amendments and referring to the purpose of that amendment. As he clarified, Commons Amendment 2 takes Clause 9 out of the list of those parts of the Bill which will in due course be sub…
Lords
Oral Questions
8 July 2025
Forest Risk Commodities
I absolutely agree that we need to take action on this. The Government are looking at the best way to do so in order to be most effective. The EU reset is also part of that because the EU’s deforestation programme that it is working on is ambitious and we need to look at how we align with that. Also…
Lords
Proceedings
4 July 2025
2 contributions
UK Constitution: Oversight and Responsibility (Report from the Constitution Committee)
Probably.
My Lords, I join others in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Beith, for introducing this debate and for the work of the Constitution Committee in another excellent report. I will focus my remarks on chapter 4, paragraph 46, and the role of the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee—PB…
Lords
Statutory Instrument
3 July 2025
Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025
Forgive me, my Lords; I think I was nodding off.
No matter how passionately any of us may feel about the unfolding tragedy in the Middle East, we all remain bound by the law. Activists cannot expect to waltz into a high security Ministry of Defence base and escape without consequences. The Liberal …
Lords
Debate
3 July 2025
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Parminter. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, just made an extremely powerful case for Amendment 202A, to which I attached my name. In the interests of time, I shall mostly focus on the two amendments that appear i…
Would the Minister care to address my point about the fact that we have great concern about pupils not in school, yet we are excluding them for this reason? It is reducing the amount of education that pupils are getting.
Lords
Proceedings
2 July 2025
2 contributions
Welfare Reform
My Lords, in continuing the cuts to the health element of universal credit and denying it entirely to people under the age of 22, the Government are offering in recompense the fast-track £1 billion support plan to get people back into work. Yet in a BBC report on 27 June, a senior DWP official was q…
It was universal credit.
Lords
Oral Questions
1 July 2025
Plastic Pollution
We are trying to move forward on a global scale while bringing people with us. This treaty will have more impact if every country is signed up to it. Because of that, we were very disappointed that we were not able to conclude negotiations last time around. However, behind the scenes, a lot of work …