Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, I shall say a brief word. Having taken over from my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts of chair of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, I would like to support his words and the words of my colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, with regard to Amendments 73 and 74. As we have heard, under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 the committee was charged...
Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, I speak in my capacity as chair of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, already referred to the report that we have published on the regulations that we are debating. In our report, we raised a number of issues. First and foremost, we wanted to alert the House to the fact that this instrument did, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has...
Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, I will speak briefly to the Procedure and Privileges Committee’s recommendation that the terms of reference of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which I am privileged to chair, should be extended to include scrutiny of proposed negative instruments laid under the retained EU law Act. In 2018, the committee was given a similar sifting function in relation to the...
Lord Hunt of Wirral: I thank my noble friend the Minister for commending our air traffic controllers on their very impressive record. When we have discovered the cause of what happened—preliminary reports seem to indicate that a rogue flight plan, out of many thousands of flight plans, was fed into the system and that that seemed to cause this disruption—can we just focus on the pride we have in our own air...
Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, I draw attention to my interest as a practising solicitor and those declared in the register. Although I am no longer a member of the Select Committee, I am none the less delighted and proud to follow the noble Baroness and to be associated with a notably unanimous report on so contentious a subject. It is now more than 50 years since I incurred the wrath of many in my own party...
Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, given that we all believe everyone is equal before the law, there have been some troubling statistics on criminal charges against ethnic minority groups. Would my noble and learned friend the Minister like to update us on the work that the CPS is doing in that direction?
Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, I declare my interests as a partner in the global commercial law firm DAC Beachcroft, and as an independent director of LINK and of Brown & Brown (Europe) Ltd. What an interesting debate this has been. It is a privilege to follow the brilliant speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. He is right to remind us that this whole debate has been overshadowed by the...
Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as set out in the register, particularly as chair of the financial services division of the global commercial law firm, DAC Beachcroft. Like many other speakers, albeit in varying degrees, I warmly welcome the Autumn Statement. I have known the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, for many years and I am confident that the economy is now in safe...
Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register, in particular as a past chair of the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation. I join the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, in congratulating my noble friend Lord Lexden, not just on securing this debate but, as the noble Lord said, on his sheer doggedness in pursuing justice and on the eloquent and comprehensive nature of...
Lord Hunt of Wirral: I am very grateful to my noble friend. Several obvious witnesses were not contacted at all, including our former colleague and friend in this House, Lord MacGregor, who ran Ted Heath’s private office in the 1960s, and my noble friend Lord Sherbourne, who held the same position a decade later. Diaries held in the Bodleian Library, which would have disproven several of the allegations, were...
Lord Hunt of Wirral: Does my noble friend the Minister share my concern about the gender pay gap in pensions, which just accumulates in historical terms to create a very serious problem in the future?
Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register and, in confessional spirit perhaps, remind noble Lords that I was the founding chair of the Independent Press Standards Organisation. I strongly support the Bill in principle and am delighted to follow my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood, who is an indefatigable campaigner for press freedom. Like him, I welcome the fact that my...
Lord Hunt of Wirral: I commend my noble friend the Minister for his wise words today. Yesterday in this Chamber, we spent some time talking about the importance of the freedom of the press. Against a background which we all accept as pretty serious and worrying, it is vital to maintain freedom of speech. People should be able to express their thoughts clearly. I speak as somebody who started on life at Hyde...
Lord Hunt of Wirral: I recognise now that my noble friend the Minister is aware that the mood and will of this House is very much behind my noble friend Lord Lexden and his call for justice. Whatever his briefings may say, there really has been no independent investigation of the flawed processes of Operation Conifer. As the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, has just said, perhaps there is at last an...