Baroness Wheatcroft: ...department of King’s College London wrote: “Coups happen in other countries—they are not something the public would ever expect in Britain.” However, having listed some of the actions of Boris Johnson’s Government, he asked whether what he saw as an undermining of democracy amounted to “a very British coup”. While the Johnson Government’s apparent contempt for Parliament...
Baroness Lawlor: ...and your Lordships, as well as my two supporters, my noble friends Lord Balfe and Lord Black of Brentwood, and my mentor, my noble friend Lady Eaton. I am grateful to the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, for nominating me, and pay tribute to his remarkable achievement in opening a new chapter in Britain’s constitutional and political history. One consequence, this Bill to revoke...
Baroness Fleet: My Lords, it is a pleasure and also a challenge, I must say, to speak today. I declare my arts and education interests as listed in the register, including as a national council member of Arts Council England. It is an honour to follow the noble Earl, who speaks so passionately about the arts and with such knowledge. I congratulate my noble friends Lord Mendoza and Lord Vaizey for setting out...
Lord Collins of Highbury: ...the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, for securing this debate and the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, for his excellent introduction. As my noble friend Lord McConnell said, the Covid pandemic, the global financial crisis, the global energy crisis and the climate emergency show that the world is more interdependent than ever, and our fates more closely intertwined. Development and diplomacy are our...
Jim Shannon: ...Valley (Alexander Stafford), who cannot be ignored—indeed, he was not ignored in the Chamber today by you, Mr Bone. He is certainly a gentleman who sets the scene well on subjects that he is interested in and knowledgeable about. As part of our climate change goals, greening our financial system has become a priority, and the hon. Members for Sheffield, Hallam and for Rother Valley are...
Esther McVey: ...Professor Townsend, Professor Carl Heneghan and Professor Robert Dingwall, who asked those all-important questions. Today, however, our focus is on the economic consequences of lockdown: rising financial hardship; increased poverty levels in the UK; the hundreds of thousands of people since lockdown now classed as economically inactive; the impact on them, their families and local...
Baroness Fleet: ...I am grateful to noble Lords who have put down their names to speak on this important subject. Many will have considerable expertise in this area. I remind your Lordships of my music and education interests as listed in the register. I take this opportunity to welcome back to his place my noble friend the Minister. He is a great champion of music and the arts, and I look forward to...
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: ...were the movies. The BBC put the two together, movies and radio, and it has continued to lead as an innovator—not something that has been much mentioned in this debate—working in the public interest with the likes of iPlayer and BBC Sounds, not just establishing new technologies but setting standards for the whole media industry. It led on rolling out the digital switchover and created...
Kerry McCarthy: ...Member for Bath was right to talk about Putin’s hostile actions in Ukraine, which have drawn energy security to the forefront of people’s minds. It has always been quite difficult to get people interested in energy policy—it is sometimes seen as a very techy issue—but when we put it in the global context of how undue reliance on Russian energy supplies affects our security and the...
Dan Carden: ...call home: living in limbo; never certain of when their time may be up; having to pack up belongings, leave support networks and potentially change employment —all at immense personal, mental and financial cost. Children being unmoored and having to move schools or leave friends and family behind can have a lifelong impact on learning and development. My constituency office recently...
Baroness Drake: ...benefits and who suffers on the journey plan are at the heart of the markets’ and the public’s failing confidence in the Government. The Government have frightened the ordinary people whose interests they were elected to protect. The Government are now so deeply divided that chaos will of itself undermine market confidence in the UK. Borrowers faced paying the price for the market’s...
Catherine McKinnell: .... Concern was heightened by the fact that she received the backing of only 31% of her own MPs in the final ballot. By comparison, in 2019, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) received 51% of votes in the final ballot, and in 2016, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) received 60%. It did not end well for them, so is a Prime Minister with less...
Steve Brine: ...2050. When I was in the Department of Health, we wrote the child obesity strategy. It is fair to say that the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), did not like a lot of it when he was running for the leadership of our party. In fact, I think he referred to the sugar tax as a sin tax, but—let the sinner repent—he came...
Stewart McDonald: I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. I nodded along in agreement with much of what the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) said. I think it fair to say that when the February invasion took place, he and his Government, particularly the Defence Ministers on the Front Bench today, got the calls on Ukraine right. It is important to...
Boris Johnson: ...destroying a Ukrainian shopping centre, killing at least 18 people. This barbaric attack on an obviously civilian target strengthened the resolve of my fellow leaders to provide Ukraine with more financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic backing for, and I quote the communiqué, “as long as it takes”. That is exactly the term later echoed by NATO. The G7 has pledged nearly $30...
Lord Paddick: My Lords, this has been a long and interesting debate, covering many varied and important issues across a range of portfolios. There have been a number of memorable speeches, to which I have listened intently and of which I have taken note—but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, will be relieved to hear that I will not single out any particular revolutionary from the rest of the pack....
...back to the issue: £259 million pounds of investment was pledged and secured by this Government to turn drug deaths around. The other issue that Douglas Ross mentioned was council budgets. In this financial year, the Scottish Government budget—this comes from the Scottish Fiscal Commission—was cut by Westminster by 5 per cent in real terms, but due to the decisions taken by this...
Sam Tarry: ...UK Defence Secretary giving Mrs Chernukhin a private tour of the Churchill War Rooms in Whitehall. Given that influence in the Conservative party is so easily bought, major questions over Russian financial influence need to be addressed urgently. Such actions put our national security at risk and potentially corrupt the very politics and democracy that we seek to uphold. We need to root...
Boris Johnson: ...maximising economic pressure on one that makes up a mere 2%. For our part, today the UK is announcing the largest and most severe package of economic sanctions that Russia has ever seen. With new financial measures we are taking new powers to target Russian finance. In addition to the banks we have already sanctioned this week, today, in concert with the United States, we are imposing a...
Conor Murphy: ...the Members, Chairs and Deputy Chairs who contributed to the Second Stage debate on the Budget Bill. It is very useful to hear the views of the respective Committees and Members on the important financial and economic issues that face us as an Administration. Many of the points were, obviously, specific to the Departments that the Committees scrutinise, and I am not in a position to answer...