My Lords, the virtue of the Bill is the flexibility that it gives the Secretary of State, allowing him or her—depending who is there—to take action swiftly on the basis of security advice. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and my noble friend Lord Cryer that it is now time. I hope t…
My Lords, after a week of fixation on personalities and personal ambitions, we can now return—I almost said “to sanity”—to the process of policies and the political direction of the Government. I am sure that they will want to make sure that their policies do not hinder but promote growth, and that …
My Lords, after a week of fixation on personalities and personal ambitions, we can now return—I almost said “to sanity”—to the process of policies and the political direction of the Government. I am sure that they will want to make sure that their policies do not hinder but promote growth, and that …
My Lords, I declare an interest in the area of cyber security. First, we should congratulate the Government, despite the seriousness of this, on their swift response. Admittedly, it was after the event, but the Government acted on this occasion swiftly and effectively. Secondly, although this was no…
My Lords, I thank the Minister. She has pointed out some signal failures in this case; they are now pretty widely known. What puzzles people, including those who are very sympathetic to the Government, is why, when there is such a failure of one particular company—of course, it is not just Capita; t…
My Lords, I first welcome this Statement. It is not only important but long overdue in the face of the facts the Minister gave, including the fact she confirmed that take-up of apprenticeships has fallen by 40% over the last decade. If we are going to address that issue, I urge her to avoid what has…
My Lords, in the context of media reports over the weekend, can the Minister tell us the most recent assessment that has been made of the adequacy of the UK’s current gas storage capacity to meet demand in the event of a prolonged supply disruption and the absence of an imminent return to a negotiat…
My Lords, for precisely the reasons outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, I have great suspicions about this amendment. It underestimates the operational difficulties of what is proposed, not least because the catchment age of this Chamber does not really allow us fully to experience or understa…
My Lords, the conflict in Yemen has now been going on for, I think, more than 12 years, with tragic consequences. Those of us who have observed this over the past decade or so have always regarded it as both a tragedy and a very complicated issue, all the more so because of the recent clashes betwee…
Of course we have to give scrutiny to any international agreement, but I am sure that, throughout this House, there is wide agreement that this is good news for the young people of this country—there is no question about that. In that context, will my noble friend the Minister reconfirm, in case of …
My Lords, I have a considerable sympathy for the Minister. I am certain that under previous Secretaries of State for Justice and Home Secretaries, including me, there have been frequent inadvertent releases of prisoners. My noble friend is right that the past 14 years and the cuts of thousands of pr…
Ensuring that the UK is prepared for a future pandemic is a top priority for this Government. We are already embedding lessons from Covid-19 within our pandemic preparedness. I have already mentioned Exercise Pegasus, so will not go through it again, but the DHSC has committed to publish a new pande…
I thank my noble friend for his comments. What is important is that the Parole Board is doing a fantastic job; its staff are fantastic public servants. The release decisions are steady: 45% of hearings over the past five years have led to a positive release. The reason why I think that this is going…
I will not get into whether it was or was not that, but I say again that we have no plans to bring ARIA under the Freedom of Information Act, which I think is important. If we go back to the origins of ARPA—the organisation in the US that led to DARPA, IARPA and many other such organisations on whic…
I am going to either pass or fail this exam. As it stands, we have 41 F35Bs, and by March 2026 we should have 48. That is what is called the first procurement phase. The F35As will be brought within the second procurement phase, which will take the whole F35 programme from 48 to 75. That is an addit…
My Lords, I had not intended to contribute to this debate until the noble Lord, Lord Harper, spoke. First, I should make my credentials known, since everyone else seems to have done it. For 40 years I have been a member of Labour Friends of Israel. I am married to a Jewish lady. My first interest in…
I said “move”.
My second point is on the comments that were made about the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, who I have known for many years. I do not speak with the authority that others have—I have only been Home Secretary, Defence Secretary, Northern Ireland Secretary and Armed Forces Minister—but let m…
My noble friend is absolutely right. His experiences of bringing people from across Northern Ireland together are one of the reasons we are now in the position we are with peace in Northern Ireland. We are talking about appalling disturbances in the UK but that are not of what happened during the Tr…
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, for his second very fine strategic defence review. He has done a service to all of us on that. I want to ask about a very specific point. In response to the changing nature of conflict, the review includes plans for several things, including a new digital warf…
My noble friend, as ever, makes a series of excellent points. He is absolutely right. He knows better than I do, as he served our country in government in numerous roles at Cabinet level, that the police have complete operational independence. We owe all those who operated as politicians in Northern…
Neighbourhood policing is the bedrock of British policing, and it is the right model for us. We lost 20,000 police officers under the last Government, but we expect up to an initial 3,000 neighbourhood officers in neighbourhood policing roles by the end of next year. Every community deserves visible…