Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, much of what I intended to say has already been said, and said very well. Nevertheless, I will add further testimony that reaffirms the comments of my committee colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. The experience of serving on the Energy and Environment Sub-Committee of the European Union Committee has highlighted a crisis in government that affects both politics and...
Viscount Hanworth: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential in the UK for additional pumped storage hydro electricity generation; and whether such facilities can be accommodated within the capacity mechanism without the need for further legislation.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, it is extraordinary that the Minister refuses to discuss the details of the case in question. In my opinion, the decision of the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, to deprive Shamima Begum of her British citizenship is profoundly flawed. It is wrong from an ethical perspective, it flouts international law and it is the wrong decision from the point of view of expediency. International law...
Viscount Hanworth: I have already posed a question.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, this debate has been rich in its detailed treatment of particular issues but I shall talk only in general terms. At its inception in 1948, the NHS was an expression of the egalitarian philosophy of the Labour Party. At that time, it had the support of many Conservative politicians, but gradually they changed their opinions. They began to favour a health service in which consumers...
Viscount Hanworth: I thank the noble Baroness for that interjection. I do not think the two issues are mutually exclusive; I think there was a very strong consciousness on his part, which may be commendable, that the NHS was very popular in public opinion. Be that as it may, the covert plans nevertheless proceeded, and the Health and Social Care Act 2012 was indeed intended as a precursor to privatisation. The...
Viscount Hanworth: I am sorry, I am going to take a little more time because some of this was pre-empted.
Viscount Hanworth: No? Okay.
Viscount Hanworth: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have for the future of nuclear power in the United Kingdom following the collapse of the NuGen consortium, and given the continuing uncertainty regarding the project for a small modular reactor.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare that I have recently been in China on a trip organised jointly by the Nuclear Industry Association and the China General Nuclear Power Corporation to inspect the HPR1000 nuclear reactor at Shenzhen.
Viscount Hanworth: I must thank the Minister for that Answer but, notwithstanding his assertion, the Government’s support for the nuclear industry has been half-hearted at best. They have missed the opportunity to establish a joint Anglo-French nationalised nuclear industry in conjunction with EDF, which would have had a global reach in the area of decarbonisation. Moreover, the Government have failed to give...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, artificial intelligence is a concept that is not amenable to a precise definition, albeit many have been attempted. In a narrow sense, AI denotes the ability of machines to mimic the cognitive skills of human beings, including learning and problem-solving. In a broad sense, it denotes any decision-making that is mediated by the computer. The popular concept of AI has been greatly...
Viscount Hanworth: In 2014, we witnessed an heroic corporate battle when the American drug company Pfizer mounted a hostile takeover bid for the Anglo-Swedish company AstraZeneca. The bid was successfully resisted. Many politicians were aghast at the prospect of such a large component of the British pharmaceutical industry disappearing into the maw of an American competitor. Some of the leaders of the...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, the crisis of the Open University, which has entailed a massive loss of income and a halving of student numbers, is rooted in the Conservative Higher Education Act 2012. The administration of the Open University has reacted to the financial crisis by declaring large-scale staff redundancies. It has also attempted to make savings by closing seven out of nine regional centres, which...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I will deal with only one or two aspects of energy security. The present state of the electricity supply industry in the UK has been determined by two major and virtually contemporaneous events: the discovery and exploitation of North Sea gas, and the privatisation of the industry. These events have determined both the predominant technology of the electricity supply industry and...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, the scrutiny of these regulations, which are consequential on the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, provides an opportunity to take another look at the developments in the governance of UK universities and to consider where they are taking us. The education Act of 2017 encapsulated a modern view of the purpose of universities that is greatly at variance with a conception that...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I am inclined to clap a hand on my head and express my utter amazement at the absurdity of this aspect of the Brexit agenda. We are at present attempting to mitigate the deleterious consequences of a wholly unnecessary programme of the Government for leaving the Euratom consortium. The present amendment, which is supported by all other parties, foreshadows an inevitable outcome. The...
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I discern from the letter sent on 20 February by the Minister to the Lords who have participated in the various stages of the Bill so far that the Government intend to impose most of the costs of a nuclear safeguarding regime on the civil nuclear industry. It is clear that the regime will deal mainly with matters that are remote from the everyday concerns of the civil industry....
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, these amendments propose an associate membership of Euratom. In effect, they propose a deferment of our severance from Euratom and possibly even an indefinite deferment. There is a marked contrast between the bland assurances we have received from the Government that everything regarding nuclear safeguards will be in place by March 2019 and the anxieties expressed by other parties,...
