Lord Horam: My Lords, we all know that we have a serious housing problem in this country. Any serious attempt to increase supply should include modern methods of construction. They do get over the problem of a shortage of traditional skills. They do save time. They improve precision and quality, and they improve productivity. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, said, they are already used extensively in...
Lord Horam: My Lords, I genuinely congratulate the Labour Party on its success at the polls, and I also congratulate our two maiden speakers on their first excellent efforts. My noble friend Lord Petitgas gave the lie to the famous remark by former President Bush that the problem with the French is that they do not have a word for “entrepreneur”. The stated economic aim of the Government is to be the...
Lord Horam: My Lords, this Bill is about high streets. In my early life, I had the enjoyment of a great high street. Although I was born in the small Lancashire village of Grimsargh, from which I take my title, when I was seven my parents moved to the seaside resort of Southport. My local high street was therefore Lord Street, Southport. Lord Street was developed in the early part of the 19th century,...
Lord Horam: The noble and learned Lord quite rightly quoted the views of Sir Jeremy Wright, Sir Bob Neill and Sir Robert Buckland from the debate in the Commons on Monday night. He could also, in fairness, quote the response from the Minister, Mr Tomlinson. His response, if I have it right, was that what the Government were looking for by compensation for whether the Bill was actually working in practice...
Lord Horam: My Lords, as an economist as well as a politician, I have always believed that the economy should work for everyone. As a northerner, I am also keen on levelling up, because I am conscious that the rest of the country has fallen behind London and the south-east over the last few decades. From that perspective, I thought it was a good Budget, and the points were made by my noble friend Lady...
Lord Horam: My Lords, I am concerned about Amendment 9 from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, which on the face of it seems extremely reasonable. If new, clear evidence and facts emerge, they should obviously be presented and tackled appropriately, but I wonder whether we are mixing up what the law can do with operational issues. After all, as was explained at some length from the Front Bench in the last...
Lord Horam: My Lords, the Committee listened with great interest to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, and the honourable part he played in this tragic situation. I was a Minister of Health much later, between 1995 and 1997, and I had to struggle with problems with the Treasury and getting reasonable compensation for the victims—the infected and the affected—as he said. I thank the noble...
Lord Horam: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord German, could not move the amendment in his name. I can tell that House that he is a marvellous chairman of the Parliament Choir and has an unrivalled ability to speak the poetry of Dylan Thomas with all the Welsh fervour that it demands. I understand the good intentions of those who are putting forward the amendments in this group, but I fear...
Lord Horam: She will be deterred because the Bill is designed to send people to Rwanda, with a very narrow area of exemptions for those who cannot be sent to Rwanda. That is the way it will operate. Obviously, it will need to be spelled out, and the Government will have to put behind it all the explanations they can through modern social media et cetera to get across the message to the people who are at...
Lord Horam: I have two points. First, to correct the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, there is precedent in the Australian situation, in that, under the Australian rules, the Government of Nauru make the decisions, with assistance, training and support from the Australian Government. The Rwanda situation is exactly the same. We are trying to bring in training, support and assistance to the Rwandan Government, so...
Lord Horam: The people who are being investigated in Nauru want to go to Australia. Similarly, the people who will be investigated in Rwanda want to come here. The situation is exactly the same.
Lord Horam: The situation here is exactly analogous to that in Australia, which has been working successfully for 10 years. The other point in this debate, in reference to the interesting amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is the importance of the monitoring. I agree with him and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, that the more transparent and obvious this is, the better it will be for...
Lord Horam: I think the noble Lord means “outsourcing”, and it is precisely what the Australians do.
Lord Horam: They handed that responsibility over to the Government of Nauru and the Solomon Islands.
Lord Horam: My Lords, I welcome the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about the tone of this debate, particularly in relation to the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. I warmly welcome her obvious desire to find some way forward in this difficult area, which we certainly need to do, but I am afraid there is a rock—a difficulty—in the way of her amendment. It makes a classic...
Lord Horam: My noble friend raised the question of risk in the Ministry of Defence. Is there not also the question of efficiency, particularly an ongoing question of the efficiency of procurement in the Ministry of Defence? This is a vital issue, given the state of the world at the moment. Will he take this point to his friend the Minister in the department so that we can consider this carefully?
Lord Horam: My Lords, many moons ago I was a staff writer on the Financial Times and occasionally involved in writing leaders. Those of us who wrote leaders for national newspapers were well aware that they were not exactly the first point of interest. I do not know how noble Lords read their newspapers, but I start with the back pages, which were particularly pleasant today, with the reports of the win...
Lord Horam: My Lords, viewed from the position of strict Treasury orthodoxy, this was a highly intelligent Autumn Statement. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court, who spoke earlier, said that it was above average, which I think is high praise in mandarin-speak. It was well thought out. I very much doubt whether it will fall apart, as some have in the past, and expectations in...
Lord Horam: My Lords, has the Minister seen the suggestion of Lord Sumption that the Rwanda scheme would be more acceptable if more of the assessment were done by British officials rather than Rwandan officials? Will he undertake to look into that in any review of the situation?
Lord Horam: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Gascoigne on his maiden speech. He and I come from the Ribble Valley; he will know, as I do, that they speak a lot of common sense in that part of Lancashire. We will hear a lot of common sense from him in future years. I am also delighted, as usual, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Desai, who is a very distinguished economist. I am a much less...
