Christine Grahame: ...this Government, are caught up in the electoral vagaries of the Tories and Labour, as Rishi Sunak panders to the right in order to compensate for Sir Keir Starmer moving, in the footsteps of Tony Blair, into what was previously Tory electoral territory. Until we are independent, big steps are not ours to take.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale: I thank the Minister for that Answer. In 2005, when the millennium development goals were off-track and falling behind, then Prime Minister Tony Blair convened the G8 at Gleneagles in order to get the millennium development goals back on track and to ensure that the wider global community committed to action to deliver them. In 2015, then Prime Minister David Cameron chaired the group that...
Baroness Blackstone: ...Lamont, was suggesting—and I think the noble Lord on the Liberal Benches was also a bit pessimistic. As background, it is also worth noting the results of an opinion poll commissioned by the Tony Blair Institute in which respondents were asked their views about the EU and UK in the post-Brexit environment. Some 53% now think that we were wrong to leave the EU and only 34% still believe...
Lord Mawson: ...the regeneration and community partnerships committees on both bodies for many years and helped to write the structure for the Olympic legacy company for Hazel Blears, the then Minister in the Blair years with responsibility for the legacy programme. At that time, a Labour Government accepted that the legacy could not be relied on to be delivered by a collection of local authorities;...
Kit Malthouse: ...in the system and the ability for police forces to do this properly? When this SI lands, will we see some action out there on the street? I am concerned we will see broadly what happened after the Blair-Brown reforms to cannabis possession. If the House remembers, at the tail end of that particular period in our political history, the notion was brought in of a cannabis warning, and then a...
Baroness Blake of Leeds: ...future energy needs. It is interesting to reflect back on when the Labour Government came in. As we have heard, there was an interregnum, if you like, in commitment in this area, but in 2006 Tony Blair, addressing the CBI as Prime Minister, made a very prescient comment: “The facts are stark. By 2025, if current policy is unchanged, there will be a dramatic gap on our targets to reduce...
Lord Snape: ...ought to give us concern. Back in 2007, I had an exchange in your Lordships’ House with Lord Tebbit. At that time, my noble friend Lord Browne was being attacked for holding down two jobs in the Blair Government. He was both Secretary of State for Scotland and Secretary of State for Defence. Lord Tebbit said, in his forthright way, what an impact it was having on morale in the Armed...
Baroness Hoey: ...’s past. Government Ministers have not mentioned this precedent for their current Bill, but they could well have cited this attempt to further the process, conducted by then Prime Minister Tony Blair and Jonathan Powell on behalf of the Government, and by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness on behalf of Sinn Féin and the IRA. The political situation in 2005-6 was not unlike that...
Lord Bassam of Brighton: ...of protection that we need and that consumers and workers alike require. We need to adopt the precautionary principle. What sort of regulatory framework does the Minister see for the future? The Blair/Hague report set out the parameters of the debate, but where will the Government settle? That has been one of the key questions focused on in this afternoon’s debate. While we welcome the...
Edward Leigh: ...say that they are nationally significant infrastructure projects and therefore must be considered by Whitehall rather than by the local authority. That is their point of view, although when Tony Blair brought in the new planning system, it was designed for nuclear power stations, not for one little company making numerous applications and subverting the local planning process. On the other...
Lord McNally: .... I like to think that Mr Attlee would not have gone. I am not sure that my old boss, Jim Callaghan, would have gone. I do not think that either would have flown half way around the world, as Tony Blair did, to treat with him. The truth is that, over the last decade or so, in some ways the situation has got worse. Politicians are more cowed by the press. When I was a Minister and we...
Siobhan Baillie: ...I qualified as a solicitor. I had no debt and I had years of experience under my belt. However, I hid all of that for a long time, because I was embarrassed. Most lawyers go to university, and Tony Blair had rammed it into all of us that university was the only way forward. I was wrong to be embarrassed and he was wrong to have such a narrow focus. I did not understand that all my...
Edward Leigh: ..., with an ageing population, the health service will not be able to provide for them in future. May I commend to the Minister the excellent paper published by the former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, which suggests things such as co-payments and personalised apps? Would it not be ironic if a former Labour Prime Minister were more radical on reform of the NHS than a Conservative Government?
Jim Shannon: .... Hon. Members should not just take my word for that; they should listen to Bertie Ahern, who has indicated that we cannot sideline Unionists when it comes to finding an agreement, and Tony Blair, who has said likewise. If we want an agreement that moves forward, do not ignore Unionism; make Unionists part of the agreement. It seems logical to do that, but sometimes that seems to get lost....
Lord Horam: ...not. None the less, the basic bones of this—safe and legal routes on the one hand, and some means to deter illegal migrants on the other—will be there whatever we try. Over a year ago, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change said that, whichever way you look at this, those two elements will probably be there in any solution. I want to raise a separate point with my noble friend the...
Lord Godson: ...by the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998. There were also 187 comfort letters issued to those on-the-runs between 2000 and 2014. The issuing of these letters was further pressed on Tony Blair as Prime Minister by Bertie Ahern as Taoiseach in December 1999, along with the cessation of extradition requests. There has also been widespread use of royal pardons: 418 were issued in Northern...
Lord Liddle: ...mistakes were made in the post-2010 period—but I am an advocate of stability. We have to prioritise stability. If there is a parallel, it is when I first started working as an adviser for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. It was in the 1992 Parliament, when the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, was Chancellor, and there was tremendous pressure from Back-Bench Labour MPs for us to support a great...
Scott Benton: ...of our history the numbers of those coming and going have more or less been broadly in balance, as my right hon. Friend said. Sadly, for much of the past 25 years, that has not been the case. The Blair Government famously admitted to sending out search parties in an effort to bring immigrants here, and they deliberately engineered mass immigration to change the fabric of our society....
Baroness Hoey: ..., I played a small part in that in 1994, with an amendment to keep Northern Ireland in line with the rest of Britain on the gay age of consent. I was helped by the then shadow Home Secretary Tony Blair, who helped me whip sufficient support from MPs across the parties, enabling my amendment to win by 254 votes to 141. The particular reason that the experience of the gay community needs...
...Hill Top Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Baroness Bakewell Baroness Barker Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Beith Baroness Benjamin Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Baroness Blackstone Lord Blair of Boughton Baroness Blake of Leeds Baroness Blower Lord Blunkett Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted Lord Bradley Baroness Brinton Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe...
