My Lords, I welcome this debate into this important matter, but more to help put the record straight than to add further fuel to the misconception about how mainstream political parties raise funds. The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, raised some extremely important points, but the situations he illustra…
My Lords, I thank the main drafter of this report, Samantha Granger, who worked tirelessly to produce this scrutiny document against a very tight deadline. I also thank Dominic Walsh and his team—I am sure I say that on behalf of all the committee—who provide first-class support to the committee. Of…
I thank the Minister for her exceptionally helpful and thorough response. There was one small point that I asked about UK citizens and the processes around that.
My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest. I am invested in AI companies, and I am hoping to go on the board of an AI company, because I think AI is the most amazing thing ever to happen to us. I cannot understand the long faces in this Chamber, the worry, the hand-wringing, about a technology that…
My Lords, I was extremely excited about this debate today. I saw “British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme” and raced to read the Minister’s Statement. But all I see in it is simply a series of taxes that were being levied on businesses being discounted back to them, as my noble friend Lord Gove sa…
My Lords, we on these Benches support this modest improvement. In the late 19th century, the Liberal Party spent a great deal of time campaigning for MPs to be paid, against strong Conservative opposition, on the grounds that we wanted anyone to be able to take part in public life and not limit it t…
My Lords, I speak in this mini-debate in full support of this amendment. I am extremely concerned about the principle of government directing any form of investment. I do not think any Government have a strong record on making investments, and to compel pension funds to make such investments would b…
My Lords, I am loath to repeat what has been said before, but I want to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, for this report and for outlining its principles very clearly, which are, to encompass them in just one sentence, that the current legal framework in which we operate is not good…
My Lords, I come from a different perspective from many of the people who have spoken today, because I am approaching this debate from the perspective of spending nearly two years on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards following the financial crash of 2008, which was due to credit and …
My Lords, there is a Division in the Chamber. The Committee will adjourn and return in 10 minutes.
My Lords, I was giving a great oration to demonstrate my interests and biases towards India, my passion for that great country, my own heritage and how important I felt it was, in the run-up to the India free trade deal, that we celebrated our joint community and shared roots. I am also a passionate…
My Lords, we have had a very valuable debate so far on the practicalities of a generational ban on smoking. I have been particularly intrigued by the journey we have taken. In that journey, a number of people have come to me, and I thank them for the enormous amount of information and support we hav…
I am never quite sure whether I should declare an interest in this debate as someone who has smoked the occasional cigar, but on this set of amendments I declare an interest in that I have teenage children. I see their actions, which chime very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has just di…
My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for her highly engaged approach to these issues facing small specialist tobacconists in the niche handmade, hand-rolled cigar industry. I also appreciated the assistance of her officials at the Department of Health, who have been sitting through a very long deba…
I thank my noble predecessor for the question. We are trying to balance the pressure from the public world to right-size our Civil Service more broadly to make it more effective—technology and information are tools that can help us with that. We are also trying to balance the public purse to ensure …
LordsCommittee Stage17 November 20254 contributions
My Lords, I will briefly follow my noble friend’s comments. We are in danger, with an understandable zealotry to extinguish all types of access to all types of tobacco-related products, of missing the reality of the point that there are millions of people in this country who could be occasional smok…
My Lords, I will speak to the amendments relating to penalties around advertising. As is often the case with legislation—many of us on this side were Government Ministers, too—the catch-all is extremely complex and rather dangerous. I agree that trying to prosecute someone who “has reason to suspect…
My Lords, I am sorry, but we will have to wait a few more moments for the noble Baroness’s excellent speech, which I know is coming filled with logic and reason.
I want briefly to speak in favour of many of these amendments. I echo the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, on the importance of…
LordsCommittee Stage11 November 20254 contributions
My Lords, I support the amendments from my noble friends Lord Udny-Lister and Lord Lansley. I do not know whether any noble Lords in this Committee saw the news item, a few weeks ago, when the BBC went around looking not for under-the-counter illegal cigarette sales but for shops, well advertised wi…
My Lords, I will speak in favour of this group of amendments, especially my noble friend Lord’s Lindsay’s excellent amendments— I commend him on his first-class speech to the Committee—and those amendments in my name, relating to the need for an impact assessment relating to hand-rolled cigars and h…
I do not know if the noble Lord was paying attention for the last 10 minutes, but I have made it extremely clear that I am not going to comment on individual tax measures.
My Lords, I strongly support this Bill. Overall, it is well considered. Importantly, it benefits from the experiences of many other countries that started this journey well before us. In no sense would we be pioneers.
The carefully designed process that the Bill sets out should address the possible…
LordsOral Questions11 September 20252 contributions
Sorry, my Lords, but the noble Lord was not present at the start of this debate.
I agree that this is a key area, and it is one that I am working on. I have worked on it with macroeconomists because it is something that we need to look at. We care about the industry in this country. We have two of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies based here and our largest company is…
My Lords, I apologise for not having spoken at Second Reading, although I have been watching this debate with great interest. As chairman of the Conservative Party, I am delighted that today we announced record donations into the Conservative Party. None of those donations was forced; none of them w…