Lords
Proceedings
8 July 2026
Maritime and Coastguard Agency
My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s total budget last year was £450 million, of which coastguard volunteer allowances cost under £6 million—around 1%—for which we, as a public, get a 24/7, 365-day emergency response network covering 11,000 mile…
Lords
Proceedings
30 June 2026
University Student Finance
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that Answer, but surely the student finance system inherited from the Conservatives is an utter shambles: there is mountainous student debt, averaging £70,000, compounding at extortionate interest rates; the Treasury is left with ginormous liabiliti…
Lords
Proceedings
27 April 2026
Antisemitic Attacks
My Lords, I strongly support what my noble friend the Minister said. The virulence and violence of these attacks on our Jewish citizens is completely unacceptable, and the Government need to use all their agencies and power to clamp down on them. Does he agree that what is particularly dangerous abo…
Lords
Oral Questions
15 April 2026
Zimbabwe: Constitution
I thank my noble friend. We recognise the economic reforms undertaken by the Government of Zimbabwe and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, including—this is an important point that I have not made before—the signing of the IMF staff-monitored programme, as an important step towards greater macroeconomic …
Lords
Committee Stage
25 March 2026
Northern Ireland After Brexit (Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee Report)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hain. Noble Lords will understand that I do not agree with everything he says. In fact, he does not always agree with me either. I declare my interests: I am member of the Ulster Farmers Union and a farmer. One day, he questioned about …
Lords
Debate
23 March 2026
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I strongly support what the noble Baroness said and commend her for her work with the Pensions Action Group. I was Secretary of State in the DWP at the time and was lobbied effectively by her in a very good campaign. I managed to persuade the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in favour of…
Lords
Oral Questions
18 March 2026
Strait of Hormuz
My noble friend is right about UN Article 51. That has been used for our activities in the region, not just most recently, but against the Houthis, the Iranian proxies in Yemen. To be clear, the use of our bases in Fairford and Diego Garcia that he refers to are about defensive action. We have been …
Lords
Oral Questions
2 February 2026
2 contributions
Prisoners for Palestine: Hunger Strikes
I am, of course, very concerned for every prisoner refusing food. Our highly experienced staff work with prisoners to encourage them to end their refusal wherever possible. Unfortunately, these incidents are a weekly occurrence in our prisons, with hundreds of cases each year. We have long-standing …
Let me be very clear. I do not want to see any person in our prisons die, and I am very grateful for the hard work of healthcare and prison staff throughout the estate to make sure that those refusing food are receiving appropriate treatment. Any prisoner who feels that they have been treated unfair…
Lords
Debate
22 January 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I have not added my name to Amendment 433, but I have to Amendment 434. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for having tabled it.
Lords
Debate
13 January 2026
4 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
They went on hunger strike.
My Lords, I agree with and endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Polak, said about Bondi and the Manchester synagogue, because those terrible attacks were modern examples of the persecution and pogroms that Jewish communities have suffered for centuries. He was right to remind us about that.
I wish to …
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
8 January 2026
Mining: Pollution
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Oates, for his excellent introduction, because stories touch both the heart and the mind, harrowing as those stories of the people of Kabwe were that he shared with your Lordships.
This debate is timely because of the geopolitical tensions that we face current…
Lords
Debate
6 January 2026
Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Armed Forces Recruitment and Retention
My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend the Minister in what he is saying. There is no moral equivalence between any member of the security forces and a terrorist. There is no question about that, and he is right to say that. I remind the House, as I am sure he will, that while nobody wants to …
Lords
Oral Questions
29 October 2025
Corruption: Low and Middle-income Countries
It is not my job to speak for the Deputy Prime Minister, but our resolve on this remains unchanged and is shared by the newly appointed Foreign Secretary. My noble friend is right to raise the issue of the overseas territories. My colleague, Minister Doughty, recently met the overseas territories. T…
Lords
Proceedings
20 October 2025
Northern Ireland Troubles
My Lords, I welcome the statement that my noble friend has just made, as well as the Statement from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the primary legislation that the Government are introducing. The previous legacy Act was never going to be sustainable. I never thought that the noble L…
Lords
Oral Questions
14 October 2025
Prisoners: Reoffending
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I beg to ask the Question standing on the Order Paper in the name of my noble friend Lord Hain.
Lords
Oral Questions
10 September 2025
Gaza Protests: Anti-terrorism Legislation
My noble friend and I have worked in Northern Ireland and on terrorism-related issues. If he received a report from the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre saying that Palestine Action had met a threshold for terrorist activity, I doubt very much that he would not have signed that order as my right hono…
Lords
Oral Questions
9 September 2025
Ukraine: Negotiations
I agree absolutely with that, and I think the majority of people do so too. For any ceasefire or any agreement to be meaningful, it has to be such that the security of Ukraine is guaranteed and the integrity of whatever settlement is reached is guaranteed. One thing we are sure of is that, in any pl…
Lords
Oral Questions
8 September 2025
Gaza City
I, like many others, ask myself this more and more frequently, but I come back to everything that my noble friend mentioned making it harder and less viable, which is one of the reasons we are taking the decisions we are, but what else is there? We have to hold on to the prospect of a two-state solu…
Lords
Oral Questions
23 July 2025
2 contributions
Palestine Action Protests: Arrests
My Lords, this Government uphold the democratic right for people to be free to express their views, but they should do so within the bounds of the law. The proscription of Palestine Action does not diminish the right to lawfully protest or support Palestinian rights. The use of police powers and the…
As I have said to the House, both at the time of the proscription order going through this House but also now, peaceful protest around the issue of Palestine is entirely legitimate if people wish to make that protest. The question is what is defined under the proscription order. The proscription ord…
Lords
Oral Questions
17 July 2025
Syria: Druze Community
I completely agree with my noble friend. He has been following these events and has himself been involved at various points over the years. With regard to what he said about Assad, we were all glad to see him go. We now face a situation where a nascent Government have formed a Cabinet that is plural…
Lords
Oral Questions
8 July 2025
Companies House: Filing of Annual Accounts by Small Companies
My noble friend makes a very important point. The cost of economic crime and financial opacity is staggering. It costs something like £350 billion a year to this country. Tackling illicit finance has been a top priority for this Government from day 1. We welcome the progress that has been made by ma…
Lords
Statutory Instrument
3 July 2025
6 contributions
Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025
Of course democracy did not exist in South Africa at the time and women did not have the vote at the time. I concede that point but, frankly, Palestine Action members spraying paint on military aircraft in Brize Norton seems positively moderate by comparison with what the suffragettes did, and those…
I totally agree with the noble Lord, but it is like that that they have been charged. There are plenty of other criminal offences that such activity could attract rather than treating young people as terrorists because they feel frustrated about the failure to stop mass killings and bombings of Pale…
+4 more contributions in this session
Lords
Proceedings
25 June 2025
2 contributions
Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal
My Lords, the expectation is that the R&R client board, which is the commissions of both Houses, will publish costed proposals on three options—full decant, continued presence, and enhanced maintenance and improvement—by the end of the year, to enable both Houses to decide the way forward. Subje…
My Lords, the Joint Committee at the time stated that full decant was the cheapest option and in 2018 both Houses endorsed this approach. Since then, in 2022, both Houses endorsed a new mandate for the R&R works to explore a wider range of options, as I mentioned. Fire safety is of critical impo…
Lords
Proceedings
24 June 2025
Middle East
My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend the Minister in his position and observe that the stance taken by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, is at complete variance with what his Government did in 14 years of power—which was not to start nuking everybody and seeking to attack aggressively, but to p…