My Lords, as London Fire Commissioner, I deployed international search and rescue responders many times to a series of catastrophic international events ranging from Nepal to Turkey, with considerable loss of life. As ever, London firefighters and many other firefighters from services around the cou…
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for the Statement and her answers. Having listened to such important strategic questions in this debate, I would like to pose a more personal one. My partner is Lebanese-Ukrainian, with family in both countries impacted by the terrible conflicts that continue to rag…
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Leader of the House for her clarity and for repeating the Statement, as others have echoed. My question is about risk in the wider system. I speak as someone who has been through this system, understands how intensive the questioning was, and is aware that thous…
My Lords, any community that forgets its memory becomes senile. Remembering Grenfell Tower and those who died in the fire, which should have been preventable, will save us from becoming senile. The memorial will be a visible reminder, lest we forget.
At the first memorial service held at St Helen’s…
My noble friend is right to praise the emergency services that responded to the event, because they do not know what they are walking into at the time of an attack. The Government are very keen to support, and are doing a lot of good work through the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Govern…
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for the Statement. I strongly support this action plan. Like my noble friend Lord Harris, I say this in the context of having spent decades on the front line of where cohesion fails. Very few people in this House have had to pick up the bodies at the en…
My noble friend, to whom I pay tribute for his enormous service in the fire service over a number of years, really ought to be the person who knows what he is talking about on this subject. He refers to the fire in North Hyde a little while ago, which, as noble Lords will know, caused considerable p…
My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Roe of West Wickham, and to congratulate him not only on his excellent maiden speech but on the wealth of experience and expertise that he brings to our House. I look forward to a lot more—but I will not be meeting him in a boxing ring.
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