Lords
Debate
18 November 2025
4 contributions
Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, not least because my Amendment 59 comes from a similar position to her Amendment 23, in that it is a probing amendment. Indeed, looking across the range of amendments in this group, there is a considerable similarity between them; they …
I know the Minister was not attracted by the charms of the Front Bench, so I will try slightly differently. I suppose what we are trying to establish first of all is the percentage breakdown between the FCDO and the MoD. It matters because if this is not additional money, there will be a level of op…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
18 November 2025
Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill
My Lords, I will be brief. I was going to intervene on the speech from the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, but we reached a point at which there was a triangulation of interventions such that, for a brief period, perhaps the only person who was unable to contribute to that speech was the noble Lord, Lord H…
Lords
Proceedings
18 November 2025
Budget: Press Briefings
My Lords, given the answer that the Minister has given on a number of occasions that he is not prepared to comment or speculate, could he perhaps outline to the House which matters he is prepared to comment on?
Lords
Debate
14 November 2025
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Coffey’s amendments in this group. As I looked at the title of the Bill, “terminally ill”, and then saw clause after clause talking about the patient and the doctor’s involvement, I was clear that this was a medical Bill. We had the Secretary of State for Hea…
Lords
Debate
4 November 2025
Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill
I thank the Minister for her patience in hosting this debate and welcome the Chagossians who have joined us this evening—they are very welcome in our House.
I start by noting that some matters are not obvious because they are not obvious, and this one is really quite a complicated story to explain.…
Lords
Statutory Instrument
30 October 2025
Control of Mercury (Enforcement) (Amendment) Regulations 2025
My Lords, I will briefly make a few comments on this regret amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey. I am grateful to her for tabling it, as it allows a debate on this important issue, which has caused concern in Northern Ireland about access to NHS dentists and not having massive exp…
Lords
Oral Questions
22 October 2025
Rules on Duty-Free Goods
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. I will clarify this for him. The original Question asked about flights from Belfast to the European Union, so that is what this Question is about. I will be very clear. If we have duty-free, we have to have allowances. If we have allowances, we have …
Lords
Oral Questions
20 October 2025
Healthcare Provision: Inequalities
The 10-year health plan has tackling inequalities at its very heart, and that is the big driver throughout. Health inequalities are strongly associated with deprivation, and it cannot be right that healthy life expectancy at birth for a girl born in Wokingham is 70.8 years, but 52.6 years for a girl…
Lords
Oral Questions
13 October 2025
Alzheimer’s Disease
In addition to the points that I have already made, I add that our work through the life sciences plan will be of great assistance in ensuring that we remove obstacles and make the route to which the noble Lord refers as quick as possible, so that we can move from development to delivery for the peo…
Lords
Debate
16 September 2025
3 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I start on this group of amendments by declaring an interest as a board member of the Education Authority in Northern Ireland, which is responsible for around 90% of education spend in Northern Ireland and, most pertinently as regards these amendments, has direct responsibility for all spe…
My Lords, at this late hour, I sound a slight note of caution and concern over Amendments 465 and 471. I do not have any particular problem with Amendment 463, which is something all of us should be able to embrace, in terms of ensuring education around prevention of sexual violence and promoting re…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
12 September 2025
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I will not try to match that story. All I will say is that this has been a brilliant debate on an extremely controversial subject. Some people have opposed the Bill on principled grounds. The first point I make is that, in practice, on a number of the areas of principle—and I agree on this point wit…
Lords
Proceedings
1 September 2025
Middle East
My Lords, I think we all see the appalling humanitarian crisis. I welcome the Government’s intervention in terms of the medical support they are providing and propose to provide via this Statement. However, I wish to go back to the issue of recognition and an earlier point made about why there are n…
Lords
Proceedings
17 July 2025
Post Office Horizon Inquiry: Volume 1
My Lords, I join others in welcoming the first stage of this very important report into an appalling scandal which has blighted so many lives and which we know has, sadly, actually cost lives as well. Sometimes we are faced with a scandal, such as we debated yesterday, that has been caused by a sing…
Lords
Proceedings
7 July 2025
Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life
My Lords, I welcome the Statement. The Government are right to identify education as being the great life changer for many young people. It is right to place emphasis on the power of development through reading and to focus on early intervention. It is often the case—sometimes Governments can be rel…
Lords
Statutory Instrument
3 July 2025
Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025
My Lords, the suggestion that Palestine Action is somehow helping the cause of the Palestinians is, I am afraid, rather nonsensical. The sort of damaging activity in which it is engaged serves only to further damage the cause of the Palestinians.
I speak here as a Zionist, but as a Zionist who supp…
Lords
Statutory Instrument
30 June 2025
Marking of Retail Goods Regulations 2025
My Lords, I first want to congratulate the Minister on her frankness and honesty; we do not always get that from Ministers or government. She has made it quite clear that they going to do Europe’s bidding. They will not be listening to what the politicians of Northern Ireland or anyone else says. It…
Lords
Proceedings
30 June 2025
UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago
My Lords, the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization, which has been a major driving force behind these legal attacks on the British Indian Ocean Territories, was founded in November 1961 and was dedicated to erasing the phenomenon of non-self-governing territories. It had important work…
Lords
Debate
23 June 2025
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I support the group of amendments before us, which are well judged. I appreciate that they are essentially probing in nature, but I will make a couple of brief observations.
First, the amendments are important because they focus our minds on long-term strategy. It is often the complaint a…
Lords
Oral Questions
12 June 2025
Cardiovascular Illnesses
My Lords, I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Booth, on securing the debate. After listening to his story, I am rather glad that we were able to listen to him today. I have also listened to grieving families, passionate campaigners and dedicated cardiologists, each of them urging us to act more…
Lords
Oral Questions
11 June 2025
Disorder in Ballymena
The noble Lord is absolutely right that there is a responsibility on the British Government to work with police forces across the United Kingdom. That does not just include money, it is about sharing best practice and about funding that has been made available for public sector transformation works.…
Lords
Debate
6 June 2025
Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill [HL]
My Lords, I join others in apologising for not being here at Second Reading—on medical grounds, in my case—which seems to be a consistent theme in this debate. In looking at the amendment and legislation today, it is important that we actually focus on what is there rather than debating—I appreciate…
Lords
Proceedings
6 June 2025
Preterm Birth Committee Report
My Lords, when the House of Lords Preterm Birth Committee released its report in November last year, it was an important contribution to our national conversation about preterm birth. It brought overdue attention to a complex but urgent challenge that affects over 45,000 babies born prematurely in E…
Lords
Proceedings
21 May 2025
UK-EU Summit
My Lords, whatever the claims and counterclaims of any deal by any Government, and whatever concerns may be raised today—I share some of those concerns, although some of us see the irony in that some of those raising concerns were very happy, only a short time ago, to see exactly the same conditions…
Lords
Proceedings
14 May 2025
Trade Negotiations
My Lords, the deal that has been struck is clearly limited in scope. However, it is clear that the Government see this as part one of a wider package that will develop and will be particularly significant in terms of pharmaceuticals, in which I think we will show a good deal of interest. It is also …