Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, I am very pleased to have the opportunity that this Bill offers to put in place protections for those couples who choose not to marry and not to have a civil partnership registration—although I trust that civil partnerships will soon be available to straight couples—but choose simply to live together. The reasons couples do that are manifold. Not everyone believes in marriage,...
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, and the honourable Tim Loughton MP for bringing this legislation forward. It is about time. I want to say simply to the right reverend Prelate who has just spoken that I find it unbelievable that there is or ever has been any hesitation about putting the mother’s name on the certificate. However, I am often shocked by the way the world...
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on securing this important debate, and I acknowledge the work that she has been doing on this over many years. I first met her when I was DfID Minister for two years; I was also the ministerial champion for tackling violence against women and girls overseas for all five years of the coalition Government. I was also the Minister responsible for...
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government when the bio-economy sector deal will be published.
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to establish separate mandatory food waste collections in England by 2025 as recommended by the National Infrastructure Commission in its National Infrastructure Assessment 2018, published in July; and if so, when.
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the recommendation of the National Infrastructure Commission that mandatory food waste collections should be introduced in England to support the production of biogas.
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the figure provided in the National Infrastructure Commission's National Infrastructure Assessment 2018, published in July, that introducing mandatory separate food waste collections in England by 2025 would save (1) up to £400 million in capital costs, and (2) £1.1 billion in operational costs for local authorities in total...
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage local authorities who have waste contracts to renew in the next three years to introduce mandatory separate food waste collections following the recommendations of the National Infrastructure Commission's National Infrastructure Assessment 2018, published in July.
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government when they will respond to the National Infrastructure Commission's National Infrastructure Assessment 2018, published in July.
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the recommendation by the National Infrastructure Commission to introduce a target of 65 per cent recycling of municipal waste by 2030.
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, on the Bill and taking up the cudgels of the late and great Lady Ruth Rendell, who raised the issue of FGM for many years. I think that this is the first time I have spoken on FGM in this House; I have been here only a couple of years. It is an interesting history. I was at the Home Office when I first heard about FGM. A young girl,...
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, the legal obligation to retain specified classes of information and samples and specifying when such obligation ends is important, and these regulations will deliver that obligation clearly. What it also indicates, I hope, is that it is important to make the samples and analysis public, as opposed to keeping them hidden. That means that the exemptions such as commercial sensitivity...
Baroness Featherstone: I was not sure; I have written “billion”, but I thought that was an awful lot.
Baroness Featherstone: It is an industry that probably works in billions—way above my pay grade. We have no particular comments on the regulations per se. They seem fit for purpose and the consultation responses appear to have been taken note of.
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, obviously, we welcome the extension of the warm home discount, which has been successful. It has been in operation for seven years, and it benefits those in fuel poverty, so a further three years is welcome. I noticed what the Minister said about energy efficiency. We on this side could not agree more that energy efficiency is massively important, and we welcome all and any measures...
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for bringing this important debate to the Chamber and associate myself with the remarks of my noble friend Lord Scriven and the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and the interesting and informative contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. I find myself in the position of welcoming the Government’s approach to this, particularly on...
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government what will be the process for the local community to access the Hinkley Point C Community Fund once it becomes operational.
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the Building Regulations Establishments research finding that no boilers sold in the UK meet the minimum Energy Related Products efficiency requirement of 92 per cent as legislated for since the beginning of April under Boiler Plus.
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the accuracy of gas meters and smart meters.
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government what consideration is being given by the Office for Product Safety and Standards to the measurement of the ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure in gas meters, to ensure more accurate readings.
