Earl Russell — Hansard — Westminster Brief

Lords Committee Stage 15 December 2025

Oil and Gas Authority (Carbon Storage and Offshore Petroleum) (Specified Periods for Disclosure of Protected Material) Regulations 2026

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations. As has been explained, these are technical measures designed to update the periods during which information relating to carbon storage licences and offshore petroleum wells remain confidential, and to ensure a more consistent and time…

Lords Committee Stage 15 December 2025

Heat Networks (Market Framework) (Great Britain) (Amendment) Regulations 2025

My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out the purposes of these regulations. We welcome them, so I shall not overburden him with questions beyond those already asked by previous speakers. It is somewhat frustrating that I did not spot the error in the amendments to Regulation 56 in the current …

Lords Debate 10 December 2025 5 contributions

Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness’s support. I am sorry to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, cannot be here, and I wish him and his family well. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harper, for speaking to his amendment. My Amendment 18 in this group is on UK SAF production. I thank my noble fr…

My Lords, my Amendment 10 and my consequential Amendment 12 are in this group. This amendment to Clause 6 would replace subsection (3) with a requirement for a standardised levy on aviation fuel, uniform across suppliers, publicly displayed on invoices and expressed in pence per litre. At the outse…

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Lords Oral Questions 10 December 2025

Drax

We did that because the conclusion of a contract for 2027-31 ensures that Drax continues to produce a very large amount of energy, which is very important for the country; that it does so under enhanced sustainability requirements; and that it moves from being a baseline producer to a dispatchable p…

Lords Debate 20 November 2025

Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

My Lords, I declare my interests as a chief engineer working for AtkinsRéalis and co-chair of Legislators for Nuclear. I look forward to the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester. I support the Bill, with the caveat that costs to consumers of these measures must always be…

Lords Oral Questions 19 November 2025 2 contributions

Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Industry

My Lords, it is the turn of the Lib Dem Benches.

I thank the noble Earl for that question as well. Obviously, we will publish the strategy when we are ready to do so, and we want to press ahead with that. We want to make sure that the money we spend on investment takes the industry in the right direction. We are offering surety, first, by looking …

Lords Debate 17 November 2025 3 contributions

Crime and Policing Bill

My Lords, I will respond briefly to this group of amendments. Fly-tipping is out of control and a very serious problem. As we have heard, farmers and innocent landowners often end up paying the cost for other people’s criminality. The Government’s own statistics show that around 20% of all waste gen…

My Lords, in moving Amendment 43, I shall speak also to Amendments 44 and 45, all on serious and organised waste crime. By chance, I found myself involved in this since those from the save Hoads Woods campaign came to me. That resulted in a ministerial direction and resulted in the clean-up of Hoads…

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Lords Committee Stage 13 November 2025 3 contributions

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 195 and 196 on reviews and compliance; I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley for adding her name in support of them. We support this Bill and its core intention of creating a smoke-free generation. More than that, we support the fact that this Bill is making…

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 146 on vaping devices, and I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for adding their names in support of it. I have been slightly outed already but, to be clear, this is a probing amendment. However, it touche…

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Lords Committee Stage 11 November 2025

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

My Lords, I will briefly respond to these amendments on cigars. It is clear that the parliamentary cigar club is out in force today, and the noble Lords have made their case very well. I will speak on snuff, because every argument made for cigars is undermined by including snuff within the amendment…

Lords Oral Questions 4 November 2025 2 contributions

Energy Market Reforms

My Lords, the review of electricity markets arrangements has concluded. This Government have decided to retain a national electricity market pricing regime and have established a programme called reformed national pricing. The purpose of the new programme is to deliver a cohesive package of reforms …

Delivering lower bills and a secure energy supply for families and businesses is absolutely at the heart of what we are trying to achieve through these reforms, particularly with moving towards renewables—that homegrown renewable energy sprint, as we are calling it—in order to get where we can as qu…

Lords Committee Stage 4 November 2025

Power Struggle: Delivering Great Britain’s Electricity Grid Infrastructure (Industry and Regulators Committee Report)

My Lords, I thank the members of the committee for taking part in today’s debate and pay tribute to the committee for its report. As noble Lords across the committee know, the Government’s unilateral clean power 2030 target is putting extreme pressure on the electricity system. Let us remind ourselv…

Lords Committee Stage 3 November 2025 2 contributions

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 34 in this group, which is on cigarette filters and health warnings. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and my noble friend Lady Walmsley for their support. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to make provision “prohibiting the man…

Before the Minister rises, I welcome the response to this amendment, but the point is that most people still litter their fag butts in any case and believe that they are already biodegradable, so I press the Government to take further action in this area.

Lords Committee Stage 30 October 2025 8 contributions

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

My Lords, my Amendment 194, on a tobacco industry levy and new industry obligations, offers a vital and practical mechanism to make the Bill stronger, fairer and more effective in public health and social justice terms. I am sure there is not a Member present whose family has not been impacted by ni…

I appreciate the noble Earl’s point about duties versus levies. Might he be open to considering a percentage of duties being hypothecated for smoking cessation? Might that be a way of squaring the circle?

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Lords Debate 29 October 2025

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 206 and apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, as I might add more ad nauseam to the debate. I very much take his point on biodiversity; of course, climate change and biodiversity are not either/or. They are interlinked, interconnected and completely dep…

Lords Oral Questions 28 October 2025

Built Environment Sector

The noble Earl makes an extremely important point. He will recall that, at the Spring Statement, the Government announced a £625 million package to boost construction skills. This aims to deliver up to 60,000 additional skilled workers and includes everything from foundation apprenticeships, the exp…

Lords Oral Questions 28 October 2025

Offshore Oil and Gas: Venting and Flaring

On transparency, the regulator benchmarks performance asset by asset across UK infrastructure for oil and gas rigs, and shares findings with operators to encourage sharing of best practice. The NSTA publishes data publicly on our website on flaring, venting and the methane performance of different a…

Lords Debate 27 October 2025 2 contributions

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

My Lords, this group of amendments on green spaces, the green belt and playing fields is one of the largest groups of amendments that we will debate today, which reflects how important these issues are held to be in your Lordships’ House. Wild places have always played an important part in my life.…

My Lords, in this group of amendments on the EDP consultation process, we are broadly in support of Amendment 87, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. We appreciate Amendments 163 and 163B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Banner, but we have rather more care in relation to these and will ask so…

Lords Oral Questions 27 October 2025

Undersea Cables: National Security Threat

I am grateful to the noble Earl for pointing that out. In answer to all these questions, the Government are doing a lot to tackle the threat that we face. He specifically references the meeting that took place between the Defence Secretary and Defence Minister Pistorius from Germany at Lossiemouth. …

Lords Debate 22 October 2025 3 contributions

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

My Lords, this group is on the principles of planning. I speak to Amendment 69, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Murray, to which I have added my name; I also added my name to this amendment in Committee. This amendment seeks to place mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution at the …

I welcome that question. It is not that mediation would be mandatory. I strongly believe that mediation should be a voluntary process. The idea is to have guidance to make sure it is available and consistent where it is required.

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Lords Oral Questions 22 October 2025

International Maritime Organization: Net-Zero Framework

If we are to play the role in the IMO that we should, we have to respect the policy positions of other IMO member states. That means working with people who support our position and trying to persuade those who do not that they are wrong and that they should change. Following last week’s decision, t…

Lords Debate 22 October 2025

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

My Lords, I rise briefly to respond to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. It was moved in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne. It aims to remove the size and complexity tests currently required for awarding a water infrastructure project licence. While this is a te…

Lords Oral Questions 21 October 2025

Amazon Web Services

The noble Earl poses an interesting point. At the end of the day, businesses have to take upon themselves their responsibilities towards future cyberattacks and whether, as I said, their infrastructure and digital framework are secured from any such attacks. I am a firm believer in that. Before I ca…

Lords Debate 20 October 2025 7 contributions

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 46 in this group on local area energy plans, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for his support. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, moved an amendment calling for government guidance, and I moved an amendment which was pretty mandatory on…

My Lords, Amendment 25 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, is very similar, as he noted, to the one he tabled in Committee. In Committee, we welcomed the debate on these important topics. We take fire safety and the safety of large-scale energy storage systems extremely seriously, and I kno…

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Lords Debate 20 October 2025

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

My Lords, I support Amendment 20A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. We welcome this amendment; it is a well-judged and timely proposal which will give practical effect to the commitments Parliament has already made in law to achieve net zero, protect biodiversity and promote sustainabl…

Lords Oral Questions 15 October 2025

Modular Nuclear Programme

The noble Earl asks an interesting question. We want to expedite the introduction of SMRs. If we can possibly bring them forward to 2030 then we will do that. The way to deal with this, to keep prices down, is to keep out of the market for fossil fuels and ensure that we have a variable field of ren…