Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, this is the first time I have had the pleasure of being in the Chamber for well over a year. The help and service from all those who have kept Parliament going during the pandemic has been quite splendid. In particular, the IT support team has been more than invaluable to me. Under such pressure, Parliament and government departments have served this country well. The noble Lord,...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, I am sure that the expertise of all our new colleagues will much enrich the deliberations of this House. The Chancellor’s support package during the greatest challenges in our lifetime was a tour de force, but it is now vital that we get back to work as soon as possible, thereby achieving a rapid return to economic well-being. I have stated before that SMEs and the self-employed...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, when we last held a referendum on Europe in 1975, like many businessmen I strongly supported membership. The entrepreneur in me felt that to be part of a bigger bloc would give us the advantages that American companies already enjoyed in their huge home market. In the early 1990s, as president of a group representing European ship owners, I spent a great deal of time in Brussels...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, splendidly keeps up a steady drumbeat of persuasion which, together with those of us involved in autism issues, has resulted in considerable extra support from Governments. Perhaps I may say to my noble friend the Minister that that support is much appreciated. As I said in a recent debate, all the manifestos of the political parties stated strong...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, my involvement in autism over a number of years has been on two fronts. One is through Motability, where we are getting ever more people with an autistic background coming to us for mobility. Then, of course, as some noble Lords are aware, my grandson is on the spectrum but, pleasurably for me and all of us, at a low level. I can only emphasise what I have said so many times. I...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, this subject is larger than telecommunications. After 31 January we will be ready to go global—widening and working together, particularly with the Five Eyes. What the outcome might have been I do not know but the point that has been made is, what was the rush? We have not yet decided our long-term policy and we have not had our discussions on security. Supposing we had said,...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, I appreciate being able to participate in this debate following Her Majesty’s gracious Speech on 19 December. I intend to speak on defence. I totally support the analysis by the noble Lord, Lord West, of the last 10 years. I have decided that what I said after the gracious Speech of 14 October 2019 has not changed in substance but needs serious emphasis, taking into account the...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, when all this happened, I remembered like yesterday the 58 Chinese people who died. Noble Lords might remember that at that time, in July, around 2000, the outside temperature was 96 degrees Fahrenheit. When these trailers come over—in this case, it was on a P&O ship coming from Zeebrugge—of course, they do not have any drivers at all. Let us think of that heat when the air...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, before I start, I shall say how much I and, I am sure, all those in this House who are or have been involved in defence matters, would like to put on record the splendid contribution made by my noble friend Lord Howe in his role as Minister for Defence over many years. His help, advice, briefings and, if I may say so, in particular his style have been highly appreciated by us all. I...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, three and a half years ago, I was asked to put together a team from my old company, P&O, to cover every aspect of transport in every form along the roads. On what is happening at Calais and Dover, Manston Airport will be used for the Dover-Calais runs, and the M40 will be used for the tunnel. One hour before the meeting this morning I was fully updated on the work that is being...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, the defence of the realm is the very first responsibility of any Prime Minister and not a laughing matter. Over history, the frigate has been absolutely key. The old ship of the line, the battleship, gets all the glamour but the frigate is key. Taking into account what happened last week with HMS “Montrose” and HMS “Duncan”, does the Minister agree that, with our global...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, a reverse of the abuse that the noble Baroness commented on was highlighted at a meeting in this House only two or three weeks ago, when we had a whole load of international psychologists around. A couple were there who said that their son, who is a lawyer but is on the spectrum, had a meltdown one Friday night. He was arrested and stayed in prison until Monday night/Tuesday morning...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, in 2014 I commissioned a special document from the London colleges in connection with the value of defence procurement being sovereign and not overseas. The suggestion I read on Monday—that these three ships will be designated supply ships and therefore should be open to competition—is to my mind complete nonsense. In practice, they are supply ships going into action and have to...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, tourists worldwide judge places by the toilet facilities. Vast numbers of tourists come to this country. I have just come back from Australia and I have been all round Europe in the past few weeks; the quality of the toilet facilities in cities there is vastly higher than in ours. Taking account of nearly 50 tours here per day, where people with children need to go to a toilet, this...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, I have been involved with the Ministry of Defence since the Falklands War. Celebrating the 70th anniversary of NATO is more than justified. It has proved resilient because it has the strength and confidence that, as has just been said, are the embodiment of shared interests and values. NATO has worked because Europe and North America are strongly united by far more than what divides...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My noble friend made the observation that a given number of schools have closed down. Of particular interest is what has happened to the children who were at those schools.
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, I declare a personal interest as I have a grandson who is on the spectrum; also, a lot of people who have mental disabilities are joining the Motability scheme through PIP. I completely support the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington: according to the Ministry of Justice, the figure is 89% and the cost was £34 million last year. We are fortunate to have a Minister who is...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, in April last year the percentage of people buying diesel cars was 70.2%; it is now precisely 31%. That answers most of the questions today. Nissan is a very fine company. We have wonderful engineers in this country but if I were the chairman of Nissan today, I would have made exactly the same decision, which is most sensible. We will catch up when we have agreements in the future...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, I thank noble Lords for allowing me to participate: I am afraid that I could not get my name down early enough. Following on from what my noble friend Lord Dobbs said about the Berlin Wall, in 1961 I went to the Staatsoper in East Berlin to see the ballet and then came out. I did not realise until 1979, when I went through with a brigadier-general controlling our brigades over...
Lord Sterling of Plaistow: My Lords, over the years the fire brigade has been a key factor in planning. That has changed dramatically. To what degree has the fire service been involved in looking at not just cladding but electrics—mentioned earlier—and escape methods? Can the law be changed in such a way that the fire brigade will always be brought in at the early stages of planning, when life was a safer bet?