Lord Faulkner of Worcester: To ask the Senior Deputy Speaker on how many occasions, and when, the Leave of Absence Sub-Committee has declined to recommend that leave of absence be granted.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I declare my interest as chairman of the Great Western Railway stakeholder board. GWR is of course a FirstGroup member, so it is proper that I should declare it. I thank the Minister for the letter she sent earlier today. In that letter, there is no reference anywhere to Great British Railways. How does the new contract for Avanti fit in with the Government’s plans for Great...
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I also added my name to Amendment 258 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. I commend his speech and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. I will also say, in passing, how much I support the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, when moving his amendment and speaking to his others. The need to protect the users of pavements is great and it is...
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I second the good wishes from the Government Whip. The Motion is that the House do now adjourn. House adjourned at 3.10 pm.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, there can be very few other investment projects that have such enormous environmental benefits as the Ely enhancement. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred to 98,000 lorry journeys that would transfer to rail on 2,900 extra freight trains, but the benefits extend to passenger services. It is almost inconceivable that the Government will refuse to do this, because the rate of...
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: The Minister will have heard strong support for the establishment of Great British Railways across the House. This is an innovation that I think would survive a change of government, if one were to occur next year. Would it help her if she took a look at the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994, and the establishment of an SI under that Act, which would enable the department’s...
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, the Minister has rightly referred to the excellent work of the Sports Grounds Safety Authority, which is, of course, operated from his department. Can he give an assurance that, instead of the rather hand-to-mouth funding arrangements with which the SGSA operates at present, he will be able to give longer-term funding so that it is able to do even better work than he has described?...
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I must advise the House—this will not surprise the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—that, if this amendment is agreed to, I will be unable to call Amendment 26.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: To ask the Senior Deputy Speaker how many Private Members’ Bills introduced in the House of Lords in each of the past five sessions completed all their stages in the Lords and were sent to the Commons.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Callanan, on 17 April (HL Deb, col 518), what are the “existing licensing arrangements” in relation to the domestic demand for coal in heritage railways.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I am conscious that we have a lot of business to consider today, so I shall be brief. I remind the House of my interests as president of the Heritage Railway Association and co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Heritage Rail. I am most grateful to the HRA and its members for the help they have given me in drafting this Bill and preparing for the debate. Your Lordships...
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I express my warmest thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for his kind and extremely generous remarks, which are not entirely justified, I am sure. It is very kind of him to say all those nice things. I also thank my noble friend Lady Sherlock for her generous comments. The response from the Minister is all right as far as it goes—but there is a “but”. I accept absolutely...
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I should advise the Committee that if this amendment is agreed, I will not be able to call Amendments 34, 34A or 35 for reason of pre-emption.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I am unable to call Amendment 17, as it is an amendment to Amendment 16. Amendment 18 not moved. House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 2.25 pm.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I declare a historic interest as the vice-chairman of the Football Task Force more than 20 years ago. The Minister will know, though he obviously was not active in politics at that time, that many of the recommendations in Tracey Crouch’s report were ones the Football Task Force put forward, particularly in its final report when the recommendations were largely overthrown by the...
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: To ask His Majesty's Government whether they keep archive records of all train operating company franchise agreements since privatisation; and if so, what is the archive and disposal policy for privatised railway related documents.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: To ask His Majesty’s Government when they intend to publish their Tobacco Control Plan; and whether it is still their intention that England shall be smoke-free by 2030.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I think this is the first time the Minister has answered a Question about tobacco control; I welcome him to this debate. He will know that this House has led the way in putting forward and implementing measures that have led to a significant drop in smoking levels, certainly since 2002. There is cross-party consensus that we should go on in this way. The Minister’s predecessor,...
