My Lords, I will speak particularly to Amendments 211 and 212 in this group, which are in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock.
On the return to this vexed question of election postponements and cancellations, as we have covered that several times already on various previous occasio…
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 219 and 220. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has indicated, they attempt to achieve something very similar to Amendment 218 but go a bit more broadly. All three of the amendments in this group get at the idea that it is reasonable—in some carefully defined …
LordsOral Questions10 February 20262 contributions
My Lords, ambassadorial appointments go through an extensive process, which includes national security vetting. This is a robust process to which thousands of civil servants are subject each year. As noble Lords would expect, it is none the less kept under continual review to ensure that it remains …
I have no reason to believe that there are any other such issues— I think we can all accept that this was an exceptional situation—but that does not mean we should not review our processes and make sure that any changes that ought to be made are made. As the noble Lord suggests, this may not be the …
My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right that this was discussed by the Public Accounts Committee last year. Following that, and the assurances we got before it went live, the Paymaster-General met with Capita and it confirmed 194 full-time equivalent staff put in place to mitigate delays in aut…
LordsCommittee Stage2 February 20262 contributions
My Lords, Amendment 236 in this group is on perhaps a slightly more niche issue than the others raised so far in this group, but it is a detail of relevance which raises some important wider issues. The crux of it is the centralised control over the installation of cattle-grids due to the powers res…
The answer is largely yes, although the provisions under the Highways Act get into the use of adjoining land and the circumstances in which adjoining land might be used, particularly for bypasses related to cattle-grids. However, the intent of the amendment is absolutely to tease out where the Gover…
My Lords, the noble Lord raises an interesting point, and I will write to him about the details of it. Obviously, one of the basic tenets of the British values I have talked about is free and fair elections. Making sure that the Electoral Commission can facilitate those across the United Kingdom is …
My Lords, the Government are presenting this latest round of election cancellations as an unexceptional administrative move that is justified by precedent, but I think that is fundamentally wrong. Cancelling elections should be a matter of last resort, triggered by global war or a domestic catastrop…
My Lords, it is disappointing that the Government appear set on disregarding the Electoral Commission’s views, which were that
“we do not think that capacity constraints are a legitimate reason for delaying long planned elections”.
However, as that seems to be the course that we are set on, can th…
My Lords, last week the Government stated in this House that 10.8 million families use X as their main news source, which obviously would be many more people in total, but Ofcom’s data shows that only 3% cite X as their primary news source, which is under 2 million people—such a small number, in fac…
My Lords, happy new year. The Government use an audience-first approach, assessing all communication channels against the GCS SAFE framework. Paid advertising on X has been suspended since April 2023; the platform is used only for organic content. We continuously evaluate all channels’ value for mon…
My Lords, I genuinely do not agree that we prioritise the use of X, but 19.2 million British citizens use X. It is incredibly important, in an age of misinformation and disinformation, that facts are available on the platforms people are using, as opposed to the platforms we wish people were using, …
LordsOral Questions18 November 20252 contributions
My Lords, we recognise that electoral law is complex and I am grateful to the noble Lord for his persistence in pushing that point. However, consolidation would take longer than the time available in this Parliament. We have set out our strategy for elections, which represents a way to make real pro…
I do understand the impatience that the noble Lord pushes. We did a recent review of electoral registration conduct to improve resilience, reduce risk and support administrators and voters alike. We are now taking the key priorities from that review and enacting them to make sure that our election s…
LordsOral Questions16 September 20252 contributions
My Lords, implementation of the 2025-26 GP contract changes is still under way. GP practices have recently been issued contract variations, but the changes have not yet taken full effect. The changes, agreed with the British Medical Association for the first time in four years, will improve access f…
That is an interesting assessment of where we are; it is not one that I was about to speak of, but I hear what the noble Lord says. Let me say that, in implementing contract changes, it is absolutely usual—and, in my opinion, correct—that regulations are important and are consulted on. There is a wh…
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare my interest as the author of email newsletters, which, in theory, may be subject to the legislation in question.
The consultation on the foreign state influence regulations was published on 9 May 2024 by the previous Government. This made it clear that individual responses and organisation names would not be published, but their content would be summarised in the Government’s consultation response. This was pu…
Well, I query the interpretation of what my honourable friend in the other place said. He said “show, and tell”. We have told: we have updated the Ministerial Code; we moved the Nolan principles into the Ministerial Code for the first time; we have added the concept of service, which is incredibly i…
My Lords, the Government committed in their manifesto to protect our democracy by strengthening the rules around donations. We are currently considering a series of policy interventions, such as enhanced checks by recipients of donations and tighter controls on donors, including more restrictions ar…
My Lords, I know the noble Lord has done a lot of research in this area, and we welcome that research. But, as I said in my previous Answer, we are committed to strengthening the rules around donations, improving our democracy and protecting our democracy from foreign interference. That will all be …
My Lords, I want to intervene briefly just to agree with my noble friend Lady Coffey and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I will not repeat their points, but I think it is important for us to ask the question of whether it is right to use a debate on statutory instruments to try to revisit arguments tha…