Lord Bailey of Paddington: ...people voted for a Labour party that promised the same. Since 1966, all parties have promised leasehold and commonhold reform in election manifestos. Once we understand how important this has been to most people in this country, it is astonishing that we have not yet been able to deliver the changes that many, if not all, leaseholders want. Freeholders have no incentive to get the best...
Virginia Crosbie: ...lifeboats at Moelfre and Holyhead, and two with inshore boats at Trearddur and Beaumaris. Between them, those four stations have given over 500 years of service and their brave volunteers have been awarded more than 100 RNLI medals for gallantry. Those volunteers include the late Moelfre coxswain, Richard Evans BEM. Dick served for 50 years and was involved in the saving of over 250 lives....
David Davis: ...the agencies of Government to be able to peer into all that data? It belongs to people who are, remember, entirely innocent of any crime. Our entire approach to law and order in this country has been to focus on people against whom there is a reasonable expectation or a reasonable suspicion, not to monitor everybody. It seems to me that this intrusive surveillance is a dangerous route to...
David Davis: ...the agencies of Government to be able to peer into all that data? It belongs to people who are, remember, entirely innocent of any crime. Our entire approach to law and order in this country has been to focus on people against whom there is a reasonable expectation or a reasonable suspicion, not to monitor everybody. It seems to me that this intrusive surveillance is a dangerous route to...
Ben Bradshaw: It is clear that Prime Minister Netanyahu has not taken the slightest notice of anything the British Government or even the Americans have been saying. Mrs Thatcher suspended arms sales to Israel in 1982, and Tony Blair did the same in 2002. What on earth would it take for this Government to follow their example?
Michael Ellis: ...law”. With great respect, there seemed to be a collective amnesia that it is Parliament that is sovereign and that Parliament secured sovereign authority over generations from what had previously been an absolute monarchy. It probably stems from the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Parliament for centuries now has had sovereign authority to pass any law whatever. No law that Parliament...
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted: ...trusts from their advice or portfolios because “It’s too complicated to explain that the high costs aren’t true”. Some £7 billion-plus a year of critical funding into UK infrastructure has been wiped out, with projects being starved, sold and bust, and jobs lost and businesses closing in the real economy. I am sure the Chancellor would have liked to announce £7 billion a year of...
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay: ..., and spreading opportunity across the country to a record number of organisations. The Department has agreed to commence a full-scale review into Arts Council England, and Dame Mary Archer has been appointed as the independent Lead Reviewer. She will work with a Review Team composed of officials from the Department and an Advisory Board of people with a range of experience in the arts and...
Lucy Frazer: ..., and spreading opportunity across the country to a record number of organisations. The Department has agreed to commence a full-scale review into Arts Council England, and Dame Mary Archer has been appointed as the independent Lead Reviewer. She will work with a Review Team composed of officials from the Department and an Advisory Board of people with a range of experience in the arts and...
Steven Baker: ...myself, it gives me some pleasure to respond to this debate. I had the pleasure of travelling to Northern Ireland for some years before my appointment to the Department, and since then I have been grateful for the opportunity to travel both to Northern Ireland and the Republic. As the hon. Member for Putney said, many people will get to be just a little bit Irish for one day only, and she...
Baroness Goldie: ...is unrecognisably different: there are enhanced devolved powers, increased competences and, of course, the consequences of Brexit, with Northern Ireland being a particular example, as has already been so eloquently described. I now see devolution as a distribution of powers across the union, not a cascade of powers down from one part of the union. Westminster is, of course, still a...
Kevin Foster: I beg to move, That this House has considered the duty solicitor scheme. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. In preparing for this debate, I have been particularly grateful to Rob Newman, a retired solicitor who lives in my constituency, and Tony Steiner, the chief executive of the Devon and Somerset Law Society, for their thoughts and guidance on the subject. It...
Lord Garnier: ...that IPP prisoners are not a subject to be spoken of once every six months, with sympathy and wringing hands. They are a living, constant problem, and indeed, as the late Lord Brown, said, what has been done to them is a stain on our justice system. We should all be very grateful, as I think a number of us have already indicated, to the late Lord Brown for the work that he did. We should...
James Wild: I think we have probably all learned a bit more about Rochdale, and I am sure that we all at least agree with the comments of the hon. Member for Rochdale (George Galloway) about his predecessor, Tony Lloyd. When I asked my constituents what they wanted, ahead of the Budget, their answers were very clear: taxes cut, help for small businesses, action to grow the economy, and support for our...
Baroness Chapman of Darlington: ...legal battles after calling academics “extremists”. None of this helps harness the power of our higher education sector, which can do so much to help the UK move forward. Sadly, there has been no coherent strategy for this for years now. I declare an interest as Chancellor of Teesside University, which is a northern powerhouse all on its own. It is global university based in...
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton: ...Lord, Lord Balfe, and I have known each other for many years, but I just do not accept the idea that countries that are close to Russia are not allowed to choose. I remember a conversation that Tony Blair once reported to me—that he had sat down with Putin and said, “Well, of course it’s up to the Ukrainians to choose. If they want to be in the Russian orbit, that is their choice,...
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton: ...Lord, Lord Balfe, and I have known each other for many years, but I just do not accept the idea that countries that are close to Russia are not allowed to choose. I remember a conversation that Tony Blair once reported to me—that he had sat down with Putin and said, “Well, of course it’s up to the Ukrainians to choose. If they want to be in the Russian orbit, that is their choice,...
Lord Hain: .... In the end, the solution has to be political. Palestinians of whatever political stripe cannot defeat Israel militarily; nor can Israel defeat Palestinians militarily. As Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s chief of staff, wrote compellingly in his book, Talking to Terrorists, such conflicts can be resolved only by negotiation. By the way, Arafat had previously been labelled a terrorist with...
Lord Hain: .... In the end, the solution has to be political. Palestinians of whatever political stripe cannot defeat Israel militarily; nor can Israel defeat Palestinians militarily. As Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s chief of staff, wrote compellingly in his book, Talking to Terrorists, such conflicts can be resolved only by negotiation. By the way, Arafat had previously been labelled a terrorist with...
George Freeman: ...best practice for agri-environment schemes. I recently visited a flagship project with Natural England: 20 or 30 people had come up from London, having bought their wellies at the garage; and Tony Juniper was preaching rewilding. I went to look at some land that, as a farmer’s boy, I would think you could probably get two hectares or an acre out of—and the finest minds in the land were...