Lords
Debate
22 October 2025
2 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, nobody, I believe, would want to disagree with members of planning committees, those decision-makers at all levels, being trained. Noble Lords will remember that I tabled an amendment in Committee on Ministers and the Secretary of State having the equivalent training as that expected of co…
I was not making a suggestion about whether climate science is there. There are different levels of science in all manner of different disciplines in planning. Some of it is contested and others are not so. That is why we have planning officials, quangos and scientists. I cannot support this amendme…
Lords
Debate
20 October 2025
4 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, when I moved this amendment, which is now Amendment 25, in Committee, the lamented noble Lord, Lord Khan, went as far as he could at that point to open the door to accepting the principle that when electricity storage systems are planned, it is with the full knowledge, connivance and conse…
My Lords, I came to this debate keen to divide the House on this important matter. However, during the debate a number of issues have come to light, not least the meeting held today by Minister Shanks and the acceptance that we are still owed a meeting where we can discuss this. Rather than detain t…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
20 October 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, so here we are again. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for focusing our minds at the outset on what this Bill is about. It is a welcome amendment because the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has at least attempted to bring some thematic coherence to a ragbag of proposals from a dozen…
Lords
Committee Stage
15 October 2025
Building Safety Levy (England) Regulations 2025
My Lords, I was interested to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller. I note his concerns and hope the Minister will respond to them, but this is such a fundamental issue that it is important that I state that we support the substance of the levy as set out. Indeed, I noticed that the noble Lord, Lor…
Lords
Committee Stage
14 October 2025
3 contributions
National Policy Statement for Ports
My Lords, I absolutely do have an open mind to that. We must not only be open-minded towards the challenges that are faced by battery technology and reducing the weight of batteries, for example, but look at all forms of clean energy that can benefit our international maritime trade. The point that …
If we are really serious about growth in the UK ports sector, I ask the Minister to take a knife to the now-discarded copy-and-paste parts from Part 3 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. A significant rewrite is indicated, and I think there is a consensus on that among noble Lords in this debat…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
17 September 2025
4 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, we are really getting under the bonnet here, looking at the minutiae of the EDP, and we are missing the bigger picture.
I speak in support of the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, on Amendment 307A, and Amendment 256, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Roborough. We find ourselves in this situa…
I have listened very carefully. The developer knows what he has paid for. The developer has bought something. The developer has purchased an 80-year project, but he has not bought anything until year 79. I We have to get our heads around the money side and the financials—we are not going to know. I …
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
17 September 2025
2 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I shall speak to government Amendment 346E in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and Amendment 275A in the name of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe.
I approached this group with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, ringing in my …
My Lords, on the face of it, I welcome government Amendment 245A and the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, because it is clearly right that the public should understand what the sequence proposed might be.
My noble friend Lord Lucas has stolen some of my thunder in identi…
Lords
Debate
15 September 2025
10 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I shall speak also to my Amendments 190 and 192. I welcome the broad thrust of empowering and reinvigorating the development corporations contemplated in the legislation. This is the best part of a complex Bill, although we know that it has already been overtaken by the devolution Bill lau…
My Lords, as part of my research for this series of amendments, I looked at the New Towns Act and I note that it is 80 years since the Minister’s home town of Stevenage was seeded, so to speak; it is now time to bring things up to date. At that time, central government had the power and the finance …
+8 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
11 September 2025
5 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I want to speak to this group of amendments and particularly to Amendments 145, 174 and 175. In so far as Amendment 145 is concerned, which requires there to be an assessment, I am not sure that the amendment is actually needed. I have put many local plans through the local planning system…
Before the noble Lord sits down—
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
9 September 2025
7 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
I had not realised what the noble Lord was going to say from the Dispatch Box, but I wish to support his Amendments 135HZG and 135HZH What he could have said—but did not—was that there is almost an interaction with the previous group, in that sometimes there is a perverse incentive to add delay to a…
I may have misunderstood what he said, but I thought the Minister was saying they were reducing the power of certain statutory consultees. I know we are probably advancing the consideration of the Bill, because we are going to deal with this next week, but the entirety of Part 3 creates entirely new…
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
9 September 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I have not been in your Lordships’ House for that long, but this is the most outrageous amendment possible. It is a baseless smear against somebody. The noble Baroness says that it is a safeguard, but this is a stunt that will do nothing to improve transparency in politics. The last two sp…
Lords
Debate
4 September 2025
10 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I will make two brief points. This debate has shown us that we need to charge fees for planning permission, and one has to understand the purpose. It is common ground that there is a lack of planners in this country, which is one of the reasons why the fee arrangement has to change.
One r…
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 103, which was tabled in July but has risen to the top only today. The aim of this amendment is really simple, although I must congratulate the Public Bill Office for also making it comprehensive. “Comprehensive” is the appropriate word here, in the week when s…
+8 more contributions in this session
Lords
Committee Stage
3 September 2025
3 contributions
Local Audit (Amendment of Definition of Smaller Authority) Regulations 2025
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for explaining the statutory instrument. I share many of the perspectives of the noble Lords, Lord Sikka and Lord Fuller. I hope the Minister, in replying, will be able to meet some of the concerns expressed. The context, as we have heard, is the abolition of …
I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. It may be that RPI is the right way of doing it. I do not know why he took RPI there and not CPI. However, the issue is: why, in fact, are the Government not going to peg the £15 million to inflation? At what point will that figure then be adjusted becau…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
1 September 2025
5 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 92 in my name. The amendment is simple and straightforward: it recognises that solar farms have a role to play in our energy security, but that that must be balanced with an effective use of our best farmland for food security. I observe that the lack of Labour Party B…
True. The noble Lord makes a good point, and so I sense even further a degree of consensus on both sides of the Committee on this matter. If we take the fact that the grid capacity is not there to accept all the solar that has been promoted, because it is diurnal and seasonal and comes in very big f…
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
1 September 2025
3 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I support Amendment 79A in the name of my noble friend Lord Swire about the presumption in favour of burying cables as the default method. He spoke of insanity, but I did not think I was going mad—I believed and agreed with every word he said. Not only is burying cables less visually intru…
My Lords, I will not detain the Committee greatly with this amendment. It seeks to ensure that, when electricity storage systems are planned, it is with the full knowledge and consent of the local fire authority, so that fire and public safety risks are understood and mitigations are put in. Surpris…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
21 July 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I will speak to all the amendments in this group. I approach it from the perspective that democracy is always about cherishing minority views and making reasonable allowances, with the proviso that the minority do not hold the majority over the barrel. If you allow the minority a veto or s…
Lords
Debate
7 July 2025
6 contributions
Renters’ Rights Bill
My Lords, I shall speak on Amendment 47 in the name of the noble Baroness, Baroness Miller. I speak as a landlord of rental properties in Norwich, as declared in the register. Naturally, we should consider the rights of people who own companion animals, but that must go hand in hand with the rights …
We can bandy around the distinction regarding the superior landlord with the offshore pension fund and hundreds of thousands of dwellings, but what about the small charity that owns a listed building held in trust for possibly hundreds of years? It surely must be entitled to its head leaseholder lay…
+4 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
1 July 2025
2 contributions
Renters’ Rights Bill
My Lords, I rise briefly to try to understand what the definition of rent is if we are going to control rents or somehow curtail them or attenuate the increases.
One can see the base rate just by googling property websites. It is a good idea to get a feel for the cost of a basic, low-cost, unfurnis…
My Lords, it feels as if we are going back to Amendment 1 at the start of this debate and the theme of that essential freedom to contract between consenting parties, which had support on both sides of the House from the noble Lords, Lord Hacking and Lord Truscott, and others. Amendment 43 is a pract…
Lords
Debate
1 July 2025
3 contributions
Renters’ Rights Bill
My Lords, I shall speak strongly in favour of Amendment 1. I declare my interests as I rent properties in Norwich and commercial properties in Great Yarmouth through a directorship.
We live in a free-market economy, which is underpinned by the law of contract, a codified agreement between consentin…
My Lords, I declare once more my interest as a landlord who rents properties, often to students. Your Lordships will be delighted to know that I will not be jumping up and down on every group today, but I do want to challenge the quite obstinate prevention of fixed tenancies for students—and, import…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Proceedings
30 June 2025
UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago
My Lords, I join the joyful congratulations to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Prentis, on her maiden speech, and perhaps sadder congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, on his valedictory speech.
Much has been made in this debate of what the previous Government did, and what they migh…
Lords
Debate
25 June 2025
2 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, this is a crucial Bill. It is a key enabler of this Government’s programme to get Britain building again, tackle the housing crisis, and build the infrastructure that levels up the country and enables it to grow while at the same time achieving our net-zero commitments.
Strangely, I rathe…
I understand exactly the point the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, is making and there are measures in the Bill which will ease that pressure. We are looking at stat cons and how that process works but, overall, we need to make sure that we get a very smooth process, where we speed up the whole application…
Lords
Debate
16 June 2025
3 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, this nation must earn its place in the world, and, regrettably, we are losing to some of our industrial competitors, particularly in energy-intensive industries such as steel, aluminium and so on. We must live by our wits, and that means increasingly leaning on highly skilled, knowledge-ba…
My Lords, I support this amendment, but not for the reasons my noble friend gave. Many years ago—Members on the Government Benches may realise quite how long ago this is when I give the names of the unions concerned, which are long since consigned to history—I was the director of a small haulage fir…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
21 May 2025
2 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 104, 105, 106 and 107, but particularly Amendments 107A and 108, relating to day-one rights.
Getting into work helps people make the best of their lives and reach their full potential. It is good for them and their families, and, of course, employment helps bus…
Or the most vulnerable.
Lords
Statutory Instrument
30 April 2025
Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2025
I preface my remarks by thanking my noble friend Lord Rooker for his comments. They resonate so much with me in terms of how this Government have approached the farming sector, which is to be regretted. I will go on to say much in support of my noble friend here on the Front Bench.
I always remembe…