Lord Fowler: Should not the Minister go a little further than what he has said? Should not the Government follow the example of the Times and set up a full-scale royal commission, with adequate financial support and powers of investigation, so that it can take through an independent look at the state of the health service today? Surely the Minister will agree that no one can be happy with where we are at...
Lord Fowler: I very much agree with what the noble Baroness just said. To start, I will say something which I hope has the unanimous approval of the House: it is very good to see Andrew Mitchell back in the Government as Minister for Development. He did so much in the past, as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, mentioned, and we look forward to what he will contribute in future. In all conscience, he has...
Lord Fowler: My Lords, is it not a tragedy that, although we now have all the means to eliminate AIDS, unlike at the time when I was a Minister, the annual figures still show 650,000 annual deaths worldwide, including, very significantly, over 200,000 deaths of women and, worst of all, 100,000 deaths of children? In the light of this continuing emergency, how can it be justified that the Government have...
Lord Fowler: My Lords, that is a disappointing reply. Does the Minister remember that the all-party committee which I set up when I was Lord Speaker in 2016, under the noble Lord, Lord Burns, proposed a maximum for the House of Lords of 600 Members? The latest list brings the total not to 600 but to 825, with resignation honours still to come. Also, on this occasion, the system has enabled the appointment...
Lord Fowler: My Lords, I agree very much with what the noble Lord has just said about the Government and their role. One of the more misleading statements in the general debate so far—not in this debate this afternoon, but outside—has been that it is all a decision for Parliament. That is patently not the case. If Parliament was to make a decision on financial spending which went over the accepted...
Lord Fowler: In my position as a Cross-Bencher, I think that it is a very odd position for the Conservative Party. I do not believe that it is in our national advantage. I gently say that it might be better for the Government to go down the privatisation route in this area rather than in one or two others that they seem to support. That brings me to my second point about the joint report. Frankly, I did...
Lord Fowler: My Lords, does the present political interregnum not give the Government the opportunity to think again about their whole broadcasting policy—and not just for television? If they are pushing ahead, will the Minister say what the Government’s future policy is on supporting BBC Radio, which still has a massive audience in this country—and abroad, for that matter—and today serves us well...
Lord Fowler: My Lords, following up the question of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, surely the transitional process can be quickened up; it is not written in stone that it should last for three months. It must be possible to allow the constituencies to have their say much more quickly—it is very important that they have their say. It is much better to do that than to try to find some substitute figure to...
Lord Fowler: My Lords, I was with the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, almost up to the end, when he proposed a retirement age for the House of Lords.
Lord Fowler: My interest is well known. Seriously, first, I thank and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Norton, on the way he proposed the Motion. I also congratulate him on the way that, over the years, he has fought, week by week for a long time and consistently, for the importance of this House. His contribution has been extraordinarily important. After the Great Fire in 1834, there was year after year...
Lord Fowler: My Lords, I would like to ask a question about hereditary by-elections. Can it be right that membership of this House can be by an exclusive back door marked “hereditary Peers only”? Why will the Government not introduce the kind of legislation that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was talking about? Reforming legislation to remove anomalies like that would be widely welcomed, not least by...
Lord Fowler: My Lords, I declare an interest as an unpaid ambassador for UNAIDS. I would like to concentrate upon health, particularly public health. I remember intervening on a Question on HIV/AIDS three or four years ago. As I sat down, the Member next to me on those Benches said, “Of course, no one dies from AIDS any more”. The campaign of the 1980s was a distant memory, and AIDS no longer...
Lord Fowler: My Lords, I apologise for being premature, but I wanted to congratulate the noble Baroness on what she said, which my noble friend repeated. I have no objection whatever to re-examining the basis of the licence fee. That is a sensible thing to do, but what concerns me is the accompanying statements made by the Secretary of State for Culture, which seem to suggest that this has been more about...
Lord Fowler: My Lords, I agree with a great deal of what—
Lord Fowler: My Lords, perhaps I may intervene briefly as the last Secretary of State who had responsibility for a major epidemic, that of AIDS. It is in no way exceptional that there should be profound differences in view among politicians and others of the way in which an epidemic or pandemic should be handled. In my day, we had chief constables openly attacking the patients and the Government. We had...
Lord Fowler: My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice. I declare my interest as an ambassador for UNAIDS.
Lord Fowler: My Lords, this is World AIDS Day and the international position is anything but encouraging. Has the Minister seen the reports of the serious setbacks in the fight against AIDS over the past year, with testing figures down by 40% and an annual death toll of over 660,000? Will he join me in paying tribute to the many non-governmental organisations and volunteers around the world whose efforts...
Lord Fowler: The Minister mentioned me. I said it should not be the formative reason why someone is appointed to this House. Making a political donation should not be an automatic passport into the House of Lords. That is the—I think for most people unexceptionable —proposal that I made.
Lord Fowler: My Lords, I would love to follow up the noble Lord’s points, but time does not really permit. There is something entirely typical about this debate: here we have one of the most important issues facing this House, but it is relegated to a one-hour debate on a Thursday afternoon, with speeches of no more than two minutes. Nevertheless, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, not only on...
Lord Fowler: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and indeed to everyone else who has spoken so far. I gently point out that privatisation has often been to the benefit of the public and the organisations being privatised. In the first privatisations of the Thatcher years, in which I was involved, we achieved the first employee buyout of a major company and the ability of British companies, who...