Baroness O'Neill of Bexley — Hansard

Lords Proceedings 9 July 2026

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the opportunity to ask questions on this Statement and thank Philip Rycroft for his thorough review. We on these Benches have consistently supported measures to tackle foreign interference in our democracy and recognise the value of Philip Rycroft’s review. However…

Lords Statutory Instrument 30 June 2026

Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026

My Lords, I rise in support of my noble friend Lord Jamieson; in doing so, I remind Members of my interest as vice-president of London Councils. Most councillors will tell you the value of being able to refer planning decisions to a planning committee for consideration in public. As has just been s…

Lords Proceedings 24 June 2026

Edinburgh Anti-Muslim Attacks

I welcome the noble Lord to his place; I think it is his first time at the Dispatch Box, so welcome. We also associate ourselves with his comments about the Edinburgh incident. The overwhelming majority of people in this country reject hatred and violence. However, recent years have seen increasing…

Lords Debate 15 June 2026

Social Housing Bill [HL]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Curran, on her return to the Front Bench. I declare my interests as vice-president of London Councils—I will be there tomorrow morning—and as a part-owner of a rented property in Bexley. I also put on record that my parents had a right t…

Lords Debate 15 June 2026

Social Housing Bill [HL]

My Lords, this has been a thoughtful and wide-ranging debate. I thank noble Lords who have taken the time to table these amendments. In particular, I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for her diligent work. On Amendment 36, we need to look at where social housing is most effective, but we must also…

Lords Proceedings 11 June 2026

Sustainable Drainage Systems

My Lords, our changing weather is bringing more frequent episodes of surface water flooding, and the importance of sustainable drainage systems in the new developments has been increasingly clear. While the revised National Planning Policy Framework strengthens expectations, what steps are the Gover…

Lords Debate 23 April 2026

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

My Lords, I thank those taking part in this short debate, and I also thank the Minister for her comments. However, I disagree that leaving the consideration of rural affairs to the discretion of strategic authorities and mayors and not including it specifically on the face of the Bill, nor in statut…

Lords Debate 26 March 2026 2 contributions

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

My Lords, I remind the House of my interest as a councillor in the London Borough of Bexley. I was previously Bexley’s longest-serving leader, with associated involvement in London Councils and the Local Government Association. I will speak to my Amendment 83 and to Amendment 84 in the name of the n…

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who contributed to the debate. There may have been few speakers, but they were fairly powerful. The Minister said that the current structure has served London well, yet she has spoken to a member of the GLA and, with all due respect, she has not spoken to the Offici…

Lords Proceedings 25 February 2026

Local Government Reorganisation

My Lords, the Minister said that she recognised the value of the electoral returning officers. I absolutely agree with that, but the fact is that they are always looking at the next set of elections, so the fact that they stood down some elections would have caused a difficulty. The Minister said th…

Lords Committee Stage 11 February 2026

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

My Lords, I rise in support of Amendment 216D tabled my noble friend Lord Lucas about candidates’ addresses. Over my 28 years as a councillor, I have been proud to have my address on the ballot paper, not least because for the majority of that time I either lived in my own ward or it was at the end …

Lords Committee Stage 9 February 2026 2 contributions

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

My Lords, I have a real concern about this group of amendments, which appears to look to tinker around the edges to bring the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority into line with other strategic authorities. We already established in an earlier session that governance in London was the fi…

Were all those whom the Minister consulted inner London authorities, or did they include outer London boroughs as well? My frustration is with the fact that everyone assumes that London is all the same, yet Westminster is certainly not like Bexley; and Lewisham, where the noble Baroness, Lady Dacres…

Lords Committee Stage 29 January 2026 3 contributions

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

My Lords, I know that it was suggested that the Bill would not include London, but I wonder whether this is an opportunity to consider the future governance of London, as well as a chance to put right historic legislative changes. That is what my Amendment 75 is about. I remind noble Lords that I a…

My Lords, I move this amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Gascoigne, who unfortunately cannot be in his place today. Amendments 76, 78, 79, 81, 83, 84, 86, 88 and 89 were tabled by my noble friend to highlight what he regarded, when he first saw the Bill, as an egregious error; namely, the G…

+1 more contribution in this session

Lords Committee Stage 27 January 2026

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

My Lords, I am happy to support my noble friend Lord Lansley’s amendments, but can I probe the Minister, for when she responds, about what happens in London? In London, all 33 boroughs—or 32 plus the City, if you want to be pedantic—would all have their own local plans, and out of those local plans …

Lords Debate 14 January 2026 2 contributions

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Barran on Amendments 6, 13, 17, 250 and 251. I have also added my name to Amendments 11, 15 and 16. I remind your Lordships of my registered interests: I am a councillor in the London Borough of Bexley and was previously leader and a cabinet member for childr…

Will the Minister confirm that all the pilots are not exactly the same, so therefore there will be different evidence from the different types of pilots done? Surely the sensible thing is to find out what works best and what does not.

Lords Debate 17 June 2025

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I would like to support my noble friend Lady Sanderson of Welton on Amendment 134A. Noble Lords will not be surprised to know I shall be championing local authorities around the cost of children’s homes. I want to give noble Lords a bit of a reality check, and to do so I am going to refer…

Lords Debate 9 June 2025 2 contributions

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I rise in support particularly of Amendments 69B and 71. From my experience—and it is an experience that some others in this Chamber would have—kinship care arrangements are often needed as the result of an emergency situation. It is often sad, leaving the young person involved feeling par…

My Lords, I will be even briefer, because much of what I intended to say has already been said. Obviously, I deal with this pretty much on a daily basis, back at the base in Bexley. As explained earlier, kinship care tends to have to be done much more quickly than a foster care placement. A foster c…

Lords Debate 22 May 2025 5 contributions

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, in moving Amendment 29, I will speak to Amendments 31, 39 and 40. In my previous contribution, I suggested that there were many parts of this Bill about which there are major concerns, and the multiagency child protection teams for local authority areas is the most concerning. The main con…

I thank the Minister for her detailed response and all noble Lords for their contributions. They have shown their passion for keeping young people safe. Nobody wants to get that wrong, which is why everyone is making such passionate contributions. To do so, you really need as much information as pos…

+3 more contributions in this session

Lords Debate 20 May 2025

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, as your Lordships will know from my register of interests, I am currently the leader of the London Borough of Bexley. That means I have an involvement with both the Local Government Association and London Councils. What my entry does not say that I am now the longest-serving leader of the …