Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I should like to talk about the financial circumstances of our water companies, but first I must describe some of their recent history and its relevance to their prospects. From the middle of the 19th century for a period of 100 years, the water utilities in the UK and elsewhere became progressively concentrated under public and municipal ownership. Then, in the UK in 1989, the...
Viscount Hanworth: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what regulations govern the right of police cars, ambulances and other emergency vehicles to pass though red traffic lights; and whether any special dispensation governs the liability of the driver of such vehicles if passing through a red light causes a traffic accident.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, we have been told that the Energy Bill has two purposes. The first purpose is to secure the much needed investment in new plant for generating electricity. The second is to decarbonise our electricity supply. Amendment 105, which has been rejected by the Government, was closely aligned with these two purposes. Its effect was to ensure that if there were major upgrades to coal-fired...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I begin by expressing my dismay at the obtuseness of many of the analyses that attempt to quantify the economic benefits of increased expenditure on our education. Such studies are well represented in the literature, emanating from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. They are typically cast in the form of economic cost/benefit analyses. The costs are expenditures,...
Viscount Hanworth: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that United Kingdom suppliers will be called upon to provide the components that will be required in building any new nuclear power station in the United Kingdom.
Viscount Hanworth: I thank the Minister for that reply. Recently, one of the EDF executives called into question the competence of the UK to supply high-tech equipment for the Hinkley C power station. This contradicts a current capability report of the Nuclear Industry Association, which maintains that, apart from a few large-scale items, the UK could supply almost all of the mechanical and electrical...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 61A in my name and that of my esteemed colleague, my noble friend Lord Berkeley. According to common testimony, the Bill is an extremely complex affair. It seems to have been designed by lawyers and parliamentary draftsmen to render politicians incompetent to assess its intentions and to predict its likely effects. There is a suspicion that the...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, the description of the Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, bears no relationship to what I and many others understand to be its nature. It is a curious document that is suffused with the free-market ideology that accompanied the privatisation of Britain’s energy industry in the latter years of the Thatcher Administration. The Bill contains evidence of the dangers of global...
Viscount Hanworth: The Minister is bound to acknowledge that since the Government came to power there has been an unprecedented hiatus in investment in the energy industry. This must be due in large measure to the mixed messages that the Government have given in regard to their energy policy. She is also surely aware that, among the big six energy companies, those that have reaped the largest profits have had...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, this Energy Bill is the product of economic doctrines that have misled a generation of Conservative politicians and have penetrated deeply into the Civil Service. For a while, they also strongly affected the thinking of Labour politicians. The project of energy market reform, which the Bill promotes, is an ongoing attempt to subject the circumstances of energy production and supply...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I concur with much of what the previous speaker said in the second part of his speech and nothing of what he said in his first part. On Wednesday 10 April, the House of Lords met to pay tribute to Baroness Thatcher. Most of the tributes were the anecdotes of those who had participated in Thatcher's Governments, and we should not begrudge them the opportunity to reminisce. However,...
Role of nuclear power – Viscount Hanworth.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for introducing this debate and I thank the members of the Science and Technology Select Committee for the very substantial report that we are considering today. The Government have responded to the report at length, which suggests that they fully recognise its importance. The reason so few students pursue the STEM subjects in universities is...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for introducing this debate. I should begin by saying unequivocally that I am in favour of the open access to academic journals for anyone, without distinction or qualification. Having said as much, I declare that I am not in favour of the proposals of the Finch report. I shall voice my severe misgivings later. The backdrop to these...
Viscount Hanworth: To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to foster nuclear research and development in the United Kingdom.
Viscount Hanworth: I thank the Minister for that Answer. She will have observed how closely the nuclear research agenda of the European Union is aligned with the interests of France's nuclear industry. Does she not agree that it would be timely and appropriate to establish a British directorate of nuclear research to guide and co-ordinate our research efforts? Does she not also recognise the virtue of providing...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, a particularly worrying aspect of the figures that have recently become available is the fall in the numbers of overseas postgraduate students that they record. A reality of UK universities is that postgraduate courses in all subjects are largely sustained by overseas students. There are very few native British postgraduate students. There is virtually no provision for the support...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I, too, welcome the noble Lord, Lord Deighton. I must also express my condolences to him for the frustrations that he will inevitably face. There is a level of exasperation that is liable to render one speechless and that is how some of us on these Benches have been reacting to the Government's economic policies. Others have been able repeatedly to highlight the failures and...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I would like to reaffirm some of the points we have just listened to. The provisions of Clause 5, which seek to limit the power of local planning authorities to require information in association with planning applications, seem to be not only unnecessary but pernicious. I am at a loss to understand their provenance. As has been suggested, the key word that reveals the drift of the...
