Baroness Freeman of Steventon

26 parliamentary sessions on record in this archive

26 sessions page 1 of 2
Lords Proceedings 10 June 2026
Working From Home (Home-based Working Committee Report)
My Lords, one of the greatest challenges that the committee faced when writing this report was the lack of good data on how we work in the UK. I would like to expand on some of the points made by our excellent chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. Without knowing who works from home on how many da…
Lords Debate 13 April 2026
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, I add my support for Amendments 255 and 257. I will not repeat what has been so eloquently said by my noble friend Lord Freyberg and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, but, as the Minister pointed out in Committee, environmental assets can be included in the register of assets …
Lords Debate 26 March 2026
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, I support these amendments. I spoke to Amendment 132 in Committee. I will not repeat what I said then, but I just want to say that the Minister said in Committee that the reason why the Government want to stick with their own wording on Clause 44—a clause that we all support very strongly—…
Lords Debate 27 February 2026 2 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I will introduce Amendment 144A in my name. It is related to my other Amendments 726A and 728A, which are grouped much later and to which I do not expect to speak. I draw attention to my registered interests. When I was at the Winton Centre in Cambridge, I led a team that produced informa…
I am sorry, but the noble and learned Lord has not addressed Amendment 144A.
Lords Committee Stage 11 February 2026
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, my Amendment 225 is supported by my noble friend Lord Freyberg and many outside this Room, including the Wildlife Trusts. Similar amendments were tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, will speak to in a moment. When the Government first talked a…
Lords Committee Stage 9 February 2026
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
At the end of the clause, in the list of health determinants, there is a particular exclusion for genetically inherited characteristics. Is that supposed to exclude people suffering differences in health due to the colour of their skin?
Lords Committee Stage 4 February 2026 4 contributions
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, Amendment 241E is in my name. I hope that it does not need much introduction, because it pretty much does what it says on the tin. Where a spatial development strategy involves a national park, the national park authority should be involved in the development of the strategy. That sounds s…
My Lords, I will introduce Amendment 141B in my name. This amendment is designed to help address perceptions that economic growth and environmental growth are in competition with each other. Tony Juniper of Natural England said it as eloquently as anyone could: “we need to ensure that Nature and th…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords Debate 30 January 2026
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I will make a very quick point. I was not expecting to speak on this, so I apologise for not being prepared. When I was at Cambridge, I worked on many risk communication tools that were used by doctors to help calculate somebody’s prognosis, particularly of cancer, and to communicate it to…
Lords Oral Questions 12 January 2026
Heritage Craft and Building Sector
I recognise what the noble Baroness said about the issues faced by some craftspeople in taking on apprentices. That is why I met my noble friend last year and why we are working with the sector to make sure that what we put in place, and what is put in place by the sector and supported by government…
Lords Oral Questions 5 January 2026 2 contributions
Toilet-training: Support for Parents
My Lords, we are committed to giving every child the best start in life. As part of this, we are investing in Best Start family hubs across the country. These hubs will offer wider parenting and home-learning environment support, and are well placed to support parents needing advice on toilet-traini…
I wondered where the first Question would lead. Given the noble Baroness’s background, it should not come as a surprise that the environment is involved. This is an important issue, for the children involved and for parents, and the cost of nappies is important. But I am not in a position to give th…
Lords Debate 24 November 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
I have not made an approach to these organisations, so I do not want to commit them to doing this, but if the Environmental Audit Committee or the Office for Environmental Protection wanted to get involved in the scrutiny of EDPs, we would be very happy to facilitate that.
Lords Oral Questions 10 November 2025
Office for National Statistics
I believe that all my colleagues are very clear on their responsibilities under the Ministerial Code, and we have updated it since we came to office. We have no plans to update it now, but obviously it is always under review.
Lords Debate 3 November 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her constructive comments in the debate. I think we all want to find proportionate ways to stop 30 million birds a year being killed on our windows in the UK. I was very interested in her suggestion that a targeted measure for commercial developments might be a way…
Lords Debate 29 October 2025 2 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, we should make our homes and houses and gardens as supportive to the lives of other species as is feasible, especially where the solutions are so low-cost. I was very happy to add my name to Amendment 140, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. I refrained from wading into the s…
I rise briefly, because I spoke already on these matters on Amendment 130. All the concerns that I had about the scientific evidence and its basis are covered very nicely in this amendment. I would support the noble Baroness if she decided to test the opinion of the House.
Lords Debate 29 October 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, given the time, I will be brief. I support Amendment 130 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis; that is because I went to some of the very useful briefings on how EDPs will be prepared. A couple of things stood out to me. One is that Natural England proposes to base its EDP prepa…
Lords Debate 27 October 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I will speak specifically to Amendment 84, to which I have added my name, although I support many of the amendments in this group. We know how important public green spaces are to communities, and for nature, and that there is widespread public support for their protection. That is why, a…
Lords Debate 15 September 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I also support all the amendments in this group, which I think would support the Government’s stated aim to help nature in this Bill by making sure that the places that we build for humans at least minimise harm to wildlife and, in the case of swift bricks, actually help it. I speak to Am…
Lords Debate 11 September 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I speak in support of Amendments 152ZA and 261A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger. She and the Animal Sentience Committee raise the important point that the lives of individual animals seem to have been overlooked in the Bill. When we work in policy-making, we alw…
Lords Debate 24 July 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I support the amendments in this group. I declare my interest as the owner of a listed building and thank the Heritage Alliance for its briefings. Other noble Lords have already, much more eloquently than I could, put the problem of this clause to the Committee. I highlighted exactly the …
Lords Debate 25 June 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I will focus my remarks on Part 1, Chapter 3 of the Bill, which addresses transport infrastructure—a vital sector for our country’s connectivity, economy and environmental ambitions. I welcome His Majesty’s Government’s overarching goal to modernise and streamline the planning framework fo…
Lords Oral Questions 12 June 2025
Craft Industry: Support
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, for initiating this debate in such a powerful way; he is a trained craftsman himself and a staunch supporter of craft. I also thank Daniel Carpenter from the Heritage Crafts Association, of which I have the honour to be a vice-president. How sobering …
Lords Debate 11 June 2025
Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]
I support the Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. I declare my interest as an artist member of DACS. It is no secret that Governments have built AI policy around the views of those with the deepest vested interests: companies whose business models rely on opacity. The noble Lord’s amend…
Lords Debate 6 June 2025
Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill [HL]
My Lords, as part of my work in Cambridge, which is in my register of interests, I was involved, and still am, in the making of decision aids to help NHS patients make decisions about their healthcare treatments. Part of my work was to find the evidence about the risks and benefits of different trea…
Lords Debate 14 May 2025
Renters’ Rights Bill
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 222, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. This Bill is very big and has wide-ranging impacts. Some are certainly planned, and others are possibly unplanned. It is vital that those impacts are evaluated. It is unfortunate that, at this stage, …
Lords Debate 12 May 2025
Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]
I shall make a very brief speech. I stood up when the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, stood up, but unfortunately, as so often in my life, he completely ignored me, so I will just slip in after him and just before our Front Bench. I declare my interest in the register as an adviser to ProRata.ai, wh…

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