the Bishop of Durham: Would the noble Lord, Lord Bach, not agree that, in the light of what has been said-not least by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker-there is a strong case to be made for having more than two options on the referendum paper? Having just two options would seem to close us in in a way that several speakers have said would be undesirable.
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, at the moment this debate is, I think, about sending signals, not fine-tuning an actual law. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for his clear introduction. I am not sure that the Bill is a Christmas tree. A Christmas tree has a clear shape and a warm attractiveness but I do not really feel that about this Bill. However, that is no reason why we should not state clearly...
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, I am sorry that I am not going to be able to keep up the party banter that has so far characterised this debate. I am grateful for the way that the Bill proposes to sort out several issues relating to our future energy sources and needs and the way that they are handled. I am particularly interested in the first part of the Bill, which proposes this financial assistance for...
the Bishop of Durham: From the United States, and elsewhere. It does not take genius to see that there is something wrong with this picture. I thought that this Bill could have been the place where that nettle was grasped. What is to be done? Open-cast digging can be successful on a relatively small scale and in a short timeframe, and can sometimes work for the long-term good of some bits of land, but when...
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, in line with what the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, has said, I think that these words are so slippery that trying to add other words simply makes the whole thing even more slippery. The way in which the words are used means that this is one of those irregular verbs: "I have a faith, you have a religion, he or she is in a cult". One person's use of a particular term may be...
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, from these Benches we would like to express the same pride in the troops who are fighting in Afghanistan and the same sorrow at the deeply regrettable loss of life. My colleagues and I have been pushed by several of those who talk to us to ask why we are in Afghanistan. If the answer is as was given during Question Time—that we are there because we are part of something mandated...
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. One of the glories of this country is that we have not actually lost the local church. We have lost the local just-about-everything-else, but the church is hanging in there by its fingernails. I know that is much valued.
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for his timely raising of this subject, in line with the Green Paper of two years ago, the White Paper of last year and his own Bill of March this year, which subsequent surprising events have shown to be—shall we say?—prophetic. I know that my right reverend friend behind me will join in celebrating the fact that the noble Lord...
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for her Statement, repeated from the other place. Many of us on these Benches and around the country are aware of the problem of all that is going on being seen as simply a party issue. Many people out there are aware of what has been happening, but do not see it in terms of the either/or of ordinary party politics. These are...
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, I was pleased to see in the gracious Speech the promise that the Government, "will work for a co-ordinated international response to the global downturn". I am slightly surprised that I am the first to pick up this theme of the economic statements in the gracious Speech. We urgently need to rethink the structures of our global economy. The unintended consequences of the 1944 Bretton...
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, does the Minister agree that while indeed it is right that we have a representative parliamentary democracy which must decide things, one of the reasons why so many people in this country are anxious about the Lisbon treaty is precisely that they see it leading eventually to an erosion of that parliamentary sovereignty?
the Bishop of Durham: I support what has been said, but I was surprised to see in the amendment the words, "at least one hour of generic financial advice". I know from my diocese people such as those whom we are talking about. They are unlikely to be able instantly to latch on to the technical stuff that will be talked about. Specifying an hour seems extremely arbitrary, so I wonder whether instead there might be...
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Answer and my noble friend for raising this Question. Will she note that the church has a particular interest in this matter, first, because of the concern about the appropriate treatment of human remains; secondly, because of the pastoral care of all those who are related to those who died—I speak with some feeling, since I had a great-uncle who was...
the Bishop of Durham: I hope that your Lordships will indulge one more Bishop speaking. These Benches have just been presented with quite a challenge and I hope that we do not respond in the acerbic language of theology. I was not aware that theological language was acerbic, but that is the kind of language one hears in some places. Rather, I think there are more fundamental issues here than have yet been...
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, does the Minister not agree that a royal commission would embody the principle which many people are anxious to see returned to our public life—that voting is important but that without proper and structural accountability it is dangerously incomplete? Does he not agree that a royal commission would be preferable to what we will otherwise get, which is constitutional change on a...
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, in supporting the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, and in line with the church's enthusiasm for reducing CO2 emissions, I press the question which the noble Lord opposite asked about the progress that has been made on the gasification plants that were promised as long ago as 2003. Will the Minister comment in more detail on the prospect of underground gasification, which many...
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, there are, as we have heard, several potentially controversial aspects of this Bill, to put it mildly, but I will focus mainly on an important lacuna. We in the Church of England and the other Christian churches are excited about this Bill and its prospect of wise and creative developments in the world of further education. We welcome the Bill's raising of the status of FE colleges...
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Knight, for the opportunity to address some urgent issues. I think it would be a mistake to confine our attention today to the Danish cartoons and their aftermath, regrettable though all that is, or indeed to the recent court cases. These fall within a larger moral and social landscape. We are faced with moral climate change, which is...
the Bishop of Durham: My Lords, I am delighted to have this opportunity to express my thanks to the officers and staff of your Lordships' House for their care and kindness in my introduction. Having looked across the street at the Western Front of this House for the four years when I was living at the end of Little Cloister, where I could look out from my window at your Lordships coming to and fro, I have been...