Viscount Ridley: My Lords, I fear that the Bill is flawed. I accept that we may need to tackle the “tease and squeeze” culture and that this is a manifesto commitment, but price capping and rent controls often turn out to be ineffective or even counterproductive, especially with respect to the most vulnerable. They tend to treat symptoms rather than causes and in this case I fear that they pass the blame...
Viscount Ridley: I shall come to that point in a minute. The recent low bid prices for offshore wind were, frankly, a bad joke. They were a play on the optionality that the Government have created and tell us nothing about what is really happening in the market. Onshore wind, far from being the lowest cost generator, remains one of the most expensive when its systems costs are taken into account. That is the...
Viscount Ridley: My Lords—
Viscount Ridley: I am most grateful to the noble Baroness. Surely her speech and many other speeches would do very well as submissions to the consultation. The supporters of this amendment asked the Government for a consultation and they got a consultation. If they have criticisms to make of what has been proposed in the consultation, let them submit them to the consultation. Is that not how it is supposed to...
Viscount Ridley: My Lords, does my noble friend welcome the proposal from Ben Houchen, the Conservative mayor of Teesside, for a free trade zone in that area, and other exciting ideas that are being developed for the north-east?
Viscount Ridley: I had prepared an enormous speech on this amendment which your Lordships will be glad to hear I will not give, but after all that we have gone through so far on this Bill it is appropriate that some of us put on record our admiration for the endurance, patience, diligence and good manners of my noble friend Lord Callanan.
Viscount Ridley: To ask Her Majesty's Government how much UK Overseas Territories Blue Belt programme funding was spent with (1) the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, (2) the Marine Management Organisation, and (3) UK Overseas Territory governments, in the financial years (a) 2016–17, and (b) 2017–18.
Viscount Ridley: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what contribution schools can make to the policies outlined in their Integrated Communities Strategy green paper.
Viscount Ridley: I thank my noble friend for that encouraging reply. Given that the Integrated Communities Strategy commits to supporting schools, “to increase diversity to ensure they are more representative of their wider area”, and in light of the evidence that religious selection by schools divides children along not just religious lines but ethnic and socio-economic lines, with potentially worrying...
Viscount Ridley: My Lords, is the Minister aware that many parts of the world envy Britain’s strengths and opportunities in AI, particularly in the health area, and that government procurement could turn this early lead into a golden opportunity for the UK?
Viscount Ridley: My Lords, many of the arguments we have heard on these amendments almost boil down to saying that nothing can ever be changed for the better. This is, indeed, a peculiar psychological quirk of human beings, but it is not borne out by history. As my noble friend Lord Lamont said, if this amendment is passed and we are in a customs union but not in the European Union then the UK will be obliged...
Viscount Ridley: I thought there were to be no interventions.
Viscount Ridley: The European Union has an external tariff. It applies to not all products from Africa, admittedly, but to a considerable number. It also applies to Caribbean and Asian countries: there is a 20% tariff, for example, on tomatoes. I beg those who have not yet made up their minds how to vote to recognise this amendment for what it is. It is an attempt to wreck the Bill and to prevent Brexit.
Viscount Ridley: My Lords, I commend to my noble friend the work of Genomics England and the 100,000 Genomes Project, where 100,000 people are willingly and enthusiastically giving their consent to the use of their data because of extremely well-designed guidelines on how that data will be treated. Is this not an example of how, if we get these things right, as set out in the ad hoc Select Committee on...
Viscount Ridley: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that Northumberland is one of the few counties without a university in it and that the Conservative-controlled county council has ambitions to put that right? Does he think that that should be encouraged?
Viscount Ridley: To ask Her Majesty's Government what lessons they have learnt from Norway's success in reducing its smoking rate among young women from 30 per cent to 1 per cent in the last 16 years.
Viscount Ridley: Is the Minister aware of a new poll showing that, by 65% to 35%, the British people oppose a second referendum, the flagship policy of the Liberal Democrat party?
Viscount Ridley: My Lords, given that the remain campaign spent considerably more than the leave campaign—not even counting the £9 million spent by the Government—and that the vote leave campaign has been investigated twice over these issues already by the Electoral Commission, does the Minister agree that it is important that the Electoral Commission is not put under significant political pressure on...