My Lords, I have just returned from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly, where I spent the last five days on behalf of the House. One of the issues that came up was that what is happening here is not unique to us. A number of countries across Europe—not le…
My Lords, by the time you get to your feet and nine people have already spoken, an awful lot of things that you would want to say have already been covered. I repeat again that it was a delight and fun to be on the committee, which was charmingly chaired, and I thank the clerks. Seeing the committee…
My Lords, may I invite my noble friend the Minister and everyone else in the House to join me in 2037—I repeat: 2037—at the opening of HS2 to save 30 minutes getting to Birmingham? At the moment, that has cost us, as we have heard from the Minister, £102 billion. To cancel it would be £58 billion. T…
My Lords, I have £50 billion in my back pocket. In 11 years’ time, my noble friend the Minister and every Member of this House will be able to get to Birmingham 20 minutes faster. Some £102 billion is due to be spent on HS2 going forward. If we cancel this project now, it will cost us £33 billion. T…
My Lords, I ought to declare an interest, in that I do not like electric bikes or electric scooters, so at least noble Lords know where I am coming from. Being stationary at a red traffic light and being overtaken by bikes that do not pay the slightest heed to the traffic signals is really frustrati…
I suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Shamash, may want to think about a team closer to home—there are some very good ones near to where he lives. However, football allegiance apart, it depends on the accommodation that people are staying in. This applies only to commercially let short-term accommodat…
My Lords, can I address the Committee on a personal note? My late brother-in-law suffered from muscular dystrophy, a horrendous progressive disease that many noble Lords may have come across. In the last years of his life, he was pushed around in a wheelchair. It was very difficult for the family, p…
My Lords, in my experience, the fastest and most dangerous group of cyclists are Deliveroo and Uber Eats riders. That would be the case because they have to get as many deliveries in as they can. In my experience, an awful lot of them wear face masks. I would be interested to hear from the Minister …
As I said, I understand the frustration about this, but the core scope of the review was to make sure that we pick up the main risks and issues related to electoral registration and the conduct of elections. A complete review of the electoral system would be a very complex and long-standing procedur…
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shamash. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, speaks with enormous authority based on enormous experience, but we are considering an amendment which seeks to replace “capacity” with “ability”. As Clause 3 of the Bill makes very clear, “capacity” is the term us…
Obviously, the police will have operational independence in the way they both monitor and police the game. We have been very clear from the Front Bench that we have arrived at a sad point when travelling fans of any team cannot go and support their football team in safety, wherever that match is hel…
My Lords, this is a Bill where there is no real argument against what it is doing. The fact you are attempting to get into a ground should be an offence; I believe that was raised in another place. Do we want it? Yes, because the attempt is where the disorder occurs. It is where other offences start…