Lords
Committee Stage
9 July 2026
Contemporary Cultural Boycotts
My Lord, in his great essay The Prevention of Literature, George Orwell wrote:
“imagination, like certain wild animals, will not breed in captivity”.
I think this is a little commented-on reason why the current repression of free speech and freedom in the arts is such a problem. It affects not onl…
Lords
Proceedings
2 July 2026
Political Party Finance and the Electoral Commission
My Lords, it is very good that we are having this discussion today; I want to raise two issues. The first is the role of the Electoral Commission and the second is the composition of the electoral register.
On the first, I cannot entirely agree with the general approval of the direction of travel o…
Lords
Proceedings
25 June 2026
Democratic Institutions: Threats
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for enabling this debate because it gives us an opportunity to puncture the hysteria and moral panic that seem to have overwhelmed most of the British political class in recent years about disinformation, misinformation, foreign interference a…
Lords
Statutory Instrument
23 June 2026
Carbon Budget Order 2026
My Lords, I declare an interest as an unpaid director of the company Net Zero Watch.
It was 10 years ago today that we had the referendum that decided whether we would be governed from Britain or the EU: “Who Governs Britain?”. However, when I look at the carbon budget and the piece of legislation …
Lords
Proceedings
15 June 2026
Teachers’ Pension Scheme: Automatic Enrolment
My Lords, is not one of the reasons why these pension schemes impose such financial burden on universities that they are extremely generous? If effort were to be put into reforming this area, would it not be better put into reforming the generosity of these schemes so that they compare more favourab…
Lords
Committee Stage
4 June 2026
UK Electricity Prices
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, but also a problem, as he has said almost everything that needs to be said on this subject already, and in a style that few of us can imitate.
In the time available, I want to critique one particular argument that we hear quite a lot…
Lords
Committee Stage
4 March 2026
UK-India: Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, for introducing this debate. I commend the committee on its constructive assessment of this highly significant agreement and on situating it within a wider, coherent strategic framework that recognises India as not merely a trading …
Lords
Debate
27 February 2026
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 135 and 436 in my name. These two amendments relate to one of the specific functions just elaborated by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. Amendment 135 would create in Clause 4 a specific duty on the commissioner of ensuring that paperwork relating to individual case…
Lords
Proceedings
26 February 2026
Resetting the UK-EU Relationship (European Affairs Committee Report)
My Lords, it is nearly a decade since 23 June 2016, when I voted to remain, and campaigned to stay in the European Union, partly because I did not want to spend the next 10 years of my parliamentary career having to deal with all the issues that came about as a consequence of Brexit. But I am a demo…
Lords
Debate
30 January 2026
2 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I rise to introduce Amendment 84, which has already been touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer. I am grateful to, and thank, the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, for his support.
This group, as we have heard, is primarily about the definition of terminal illness. My amendment in …
I am coming to my conclusion. It is somewhat safer with the two criteria of autonomy plus life expectancy and of unbearable and irremediable suffering. It limits the scope of the moral and legal change, or regression as I would see it, that we are undertaking here. That is why I have tabled Amendmen…
Lords
Proceedings
29 January 2026
UK-EU Customs Union
My Lords, earlier speeches today have claimed with a straight face that had we not left the EU, our GDP would now be 4% or 8% larger than it is now. The OBR, which was named by the Sunday Times this week as the UK’s joint worst forecaster, has embraced that analysis. Yet our economy has managed the …
Lords
Debate
16 January 2026
4 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I have four amendments which constitute the entirety of this group: Amendments 34, 121, 138 and 153. I am very grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Fox of Buckley and Lady Lawlor, and the noble Lord, Lord Harper, for putting their name to these amendments.
I will begin by making a purel…
Yes, they are intended to clarify what the Bill actually provides for. I will explain further. The provision of medical help to commit suicide by the provision of lethal drugs is what the Bill does. That is what it does and that is what it should say that it does. I would say in passing that it is p…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Proceedings
11 December 2025
The UK’s Demographic Future
My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend on this report, on the debate and on a lifetime of public service. The report makes it absolutely clear that we will continue to need high-quality, highly skilled individuals who, above all, can contribute directly to economic growth, but every country in…
Lords
Proceedings
13 November 2025
Economic and Taxation Policies: Jobs, Growth and Prosperity
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell on securing this important debate, on his penetrating criticism of the Government’s economic policy, echoed by so many of the speeches of my noble friends, and, not least, on having a positive alternative to put forward in this deb…
Lords
Debate
16 October 2025
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, in introducing a Bill described as challengingly broad. It is not easy, however, to identify an overarching theme, so I shall speak rather generally about children who are the subject—or, if you like, object—of much of the Bill.
I declare an inte…
Lords
Debate
19 September 2025
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I do not bring to this debate any medical knowledge or expertise. My relevant experience is in having cared at home for both my first and my second wife as they faced the terminal stages of metastatic cancer. Noble Lords will have memories of my second wife, Baroness Maddock, and her work …
Lords
Oral Questions
4 September 2025
2 contributions
Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures
We will hear from the Cross Benches.
My Lords, I have not seen that piece of advice. I assure noble Lords that, as those discussions continue, we will continue to keep Parliament updated, no doubt in your Lordships’ Chamber as well as through our standing parliamentary committees.
Lords
Debate
2 September 2025
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I support Amendment 234 in particular, to which I have put my name, and, more generally, endorse the views that my noble friend Lord Lucas and the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, just set out.
I have just begun to engage with home education as a concept and as a community, and it is clear right f…
Lords
Oral Questions
17 July 2025
Online Communication Offence Arrests
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lebedev, on securing this short but crucial debate on free speech. Usually, when I talk about the concerns that my organisation, the Academy of Ideas, has about the erosion of free speech as a key factor in the public’s distrust of state institutions…
Lords
Committee Stage
14 July 2025
Contracts for Difference (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 3) Regulations 2025
My Lords, before I turn to the SI, I will respond to a couple of the points the noble Lord, Lord Frost, has made. We shared a Select Committee, so I absolutely respect the noble Lord’s right to say what he wants to say. The noble Lord argued for the need to include all costs, but part of the calcula…
Lords
Debate
3 July 2025
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
I want to underline the points made by my noble friend Lord Lucas on Amendments 205 and 206, which I have also put my name to. Section 47 is obviously a very difficult area for the reasons the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, just underlined, and it obviously needs to be taken seriously. At the same tim…
My Lords, I have similar doubts and concerns about Amendment 211—or rather the problem it is designed to deal with—to my noble friend Lord Lucas. To elaborate, the principle that parents have the primary responsibility to provide education for children has been in statutes of various forms for the b…
Lords
Debate
3 July 2025
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I rise to support Amendments 202C and 227A, in my name and the name of my noble friend Lord Wei. We are now, at last, beginning consideration of the large number of amendments on home education. It is a pleasure and an honour to be able to kick off what I think is going to be a lengthy and…
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this discussion. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for her support on the flexi-schooling amendments and the Minister for her response and her comprehensive statement earlier in the debate, which was helpful. The brief discussion that we ha…
Lords
Statutory Instrument
9 June 2025
3 contributions
Official Controls (Plant Health) and Phytosanitary Conditions (Amendment) Regulations 2025
My Lords, the regret Motion standing in my name tonight is on a very technical piece of legislation, but one that raises huge matters of principle for this country. That is why I thought it right to ensure, however belatedly, that the issues are debated and are not lost from public or parliamentary …
My Lords, I will address principally the arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, used in the third part of his speech—the ones that relate more generally to the SPS agreement that on 19 May our Government and the European Union agreed to negotiate.
When I listened to the noble Lord introducing h…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
1 May 2025
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
I declare that I am a vice-president of the LGA.
My 35 years as a teacher, working in such diverse areas as south London and south Wales, give me a little insight into this subject. Despite the differences in the demographics of London and Wales, there is a golden thread that runs through that expe…