Viscount Hanworth: I am not reassured by the Answer the Minister has given. To await the completion of a generic design assessment of a proven technology is to impose an unnecessary delay. There is an international market awaiting small modular reactors. Unless the Government provide full and immediate support for the SMR of Rolls-Royce, foreign producers will capture the market and we may have to depend on...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, the opening speaker in this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Mair, has filled the foreground with much important detail. I shall confine myself to the background. Catapults were first established in 2011 with the purpose of fostering industrial research and development and bridging the gap between universities and industry. They were intended to address the fact that Britain had been...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, in the time that is available to me, I wish to make a wide-ranging and cursory review of our education system, comprising secondary education, further education and higher education. There is distress at all levels, which is quite apart from the effects of the pandemic. In secondary education, there are ongoing disruptions caused by the policy initiatives of the Government and the...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, we should soon be admitted to the Horizon Europe programme for funding research and innovation if the Government were to undertake not to invoke Article 16. However, what progress can the Government report in their endeavour to seek collaborative research arrangements with other countries, in particular with the Swiss, who have also not been readmitted to Horizon?
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 1. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, disposed of the previous version of this amendment most effectively in an eloquent speech in Committee, yet the Liberal Democrats persist in asking for an unequivocal value-for-money assessment of any project to build a new nuclear power station. It is not clear on what basis such an assessment should be made. They may be...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I am a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and I can assert that the committee is supportive of the purposes of this statutory instrument. However, the committee has been critical of the presentation of the instrument, as indeed it has been of the presentation of a large number of instruments. I find the objections of the anti-GM lobby to this statutory...
Viscount Hanworth: Can the Minister explain why the MoD continues to sanction the slaughter of Canadian brown bears to produce ceremonial headgear for our soldiers when there are perfectly viable alternatives?
Viscount Hanworth: Before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him to clarify how he proposes that we should accommodate the variability of wind and solar power, which I believe are the sources of power that he prefers or proposes?
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, the recent history of the nuclear industry is evidence of the failure of the Government’s energy policy. The coalition Government of Clegg and Cameron recognised the need to renew Britain’s fleet of nuclear reactors. In 2010, it was agreed that the construction of eight new nuclear power stations should be called for. Several contactors expressed willingness to undertake the...
Viscount Hanworth: I fully accept that the Bill has adopted the same definition of science found in previous legislation. However, this is not a reason for continuing to accept an obtuse and damaging definition. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, my Amendment 13 does not differ greatly from the previous amendment. Indeed, it differs in only one word: “pure”. In proposing my amendment, I have been mindful that mathematics is in danger in universities from an attempt by administrators to reduce its presence. At the University of Leicester, where I am an emeritus professor, a considerable number of staff described either as...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, the Government believe, despite compelling evidence to the contrary, that private investors can be relied on to create and maintain our industrial infrastructure. This delusion is threatening our energy security and it may subvert the attempt to staunch our emissions of carbon dioxide. The belief is due, in part, to the Government’s political ideology, which favours private...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, the teaching profession is highly esteemed in many European countries. I have witnessed this in France, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. It is not so in Britain, where the status of teachers has suffered a steep decline since the 1960s. In the perception of the public at large, the status of teachers is equivalent to that of social workers. It is no exaggeration to say that...
Viscount Hanworth: I do not intend to make a detailed assessment of the outcomes of the COP 26 conference; I wish to say only that I share the disappointments and anxieties that others have expressed. Instead, I propose to examine the achievements of the first country in the world to declare net-zero targets for carbon emissions, which, of course, is the United Kingdom. In agreement with the recent...
Viscount Hanworth: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the extent of departures of early career teachers from the teaching profession; and what plans they have to address the causes of such departures.
Viscount Hanworth: I am thankful for that Answer. Yes, the Government’s own statistics show that 20% of new teachers leave the profession within the first two years of teaching, and 33% leave within the first five years. I imagine that, far from being seen as a benign approach to their induction into a school, the early career framework could be regarded by teachers as a further burden. One of the principal...
Viscount Hanworth: Many of the firms to which the functions of local authorities have been outsourced are motivated by considerations other than public service: the profit motive is dominant. I am aware of one firm, to which the traffic and parking services have been outsourced, that has been issuing spurious penalty charge notices for traffic offences. Their operatives are working under an incentive scheme....
Viscount Hanworth: Britain has three major manufacturers producing zero-emission buses, including hydrogen fuel cell buses. If those manufacturers are to be able to compete in international markets, they need the stimulus of a large domestic market. The Scottish SNP-Green alliance has proposed a target to scrap half of Scotland’s diesel buses by 2023, to be replaced by zero-emission buses. Would Her...
