Joseph Bloggs

“My Lords, I also welcome this debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, for bringing it and welcome the noble Lord, Lord Pitt-Watson, to his place. As for the tone of the debate, it is inevitable that the conference season, immediately before the Bud…”

“My Lords, I also welcome this debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, for bringing it and welcome the noble Lord, Lord Pitt-Watson, to his place. As for the tone of the debate, it is inevitable that the conference season, immediately before the Budget, is a time when all parties lay out their stall, although I have been particularly encouraged by the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the contribution that we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hill, about some of the thoughtful longer-term structural issues with which we are contending as a nation. The nation’s fiscal challenges are self-evident, and my party in government faces understandable public anxiety. As the noble Lord, Lord Hill, just noted, the party opposite is also contending with some public scepticism about their record in government. As for what that does to our politics, it brings to the forefront the populists: those who peddle easy solutions to these structural challenges and who are determined to convince the country that the answer to our fiscal challenges is to blow up the system. It is not made any easier by the markets being spooked by a US President who, on social media last week, was telling the Federal Reserve in capital letters to lower the rate and who today promised a “cash bung” to those who voted the right way. That creates a challenge for all of us, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, recognised, the real rocket fuel for populism and difficult politics is low growth. Low growth is the root of our fiscal pressures. It is a result of the financial crisis, as we have heard, which was exacerbated in Britain by Brexit and then a series of global shocks: the pandemic, the war on our continent, the rising energy prices and the Iran conflict. There is common ground here that on top of those pressures come spending pressures of an ageing population and the need to raise defence spending. All that requires a Government willing to face up to those headwinds, and I believe that is what we are seeing. Our times demand serious responses. We have heard from the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, about Gordon Brown and I am going to come to that, but I took inspiration this week from the noble Lord, Lord Hague, who wrote: “The old Conservative philosophy … is no longer a convincing governing programme. That is because circumstances have changed. We now face ageing populations, housing scarcity, energy insecurity, technological competition with the US and China, Russian aggression, weak productivity, strained public services and increasingly expensive welfare states”. Those are wise words indeed, and they echo what we have heard in this Chamber today. However, there was also an honest acknowledgement of the new fiscal challenges and an invocation to us all to not be tempted by easy populist solutions. His remedy was growth, particularly innovation and entrepreneurship. Gordon Brown, who wrote 24 hours later in the Financial Times, also urged a focus on growth and innovation, both men arguing for a Budget as an economic event as much as a fiscal one. Encouragingly, the new Chancellor’s inaugural speech on Monday focused on growth and innovation and scaling start-ups in the north. I will put the case for the Government. Despite the headwinds, the Starmer Government delivered the economic stability that we promised. Growth is the best in the G7. I stress that we are cutting the deficit faster than others in any other G7 economy, although I accept that a sustainable long-term path is something we have to find. Productivity is up, wages are up, business investment is rising, with planning delays, judicial reviews and the Green Book all being tackled and young people put back to work. Meanwhile, the Chancellor has reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to fiscal discipline and respect for manifesto commitments, and wisely has made no false promises on tax. I say to the party opposite, we await what the new shadow Chancellor’s prospectus is. The last shadow Chancellor told us that his strategy was not to focus on innovation—indeed, he was proposing cuts to the British Business Bank—but for a rather implausible £23 billion to come from welfare. Welfare spending outside of pensions has hovered around 5% of our national wealth for the last 40 years, so there is scant evidence of where the axe would fall. We have been told that half a million children would be pushed back into poverty by restoring the child benefit cap. That, along with raising VAT on disabled drivers and cutting housing benefits, is not the totality of the solution. Nor is cutting overseas aid. That ship has sailed. We are told asylum hotels will be cut—another ship that has sailed. Legal and illegal immigration are both decisively down. Cutting back on some of the extra 150,000 civil servants employed in the last decade and a half is perhaps wise. My point is that the luxury of opposition should not involve aping the populists, because that is not a governing strategy. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Burns, that the way forward may be to look at tax. We have heard from others, including the noble Lord, Lord Hill, that we should perhaps look at the triple lock. There are legitimate differences around where and how spending might be addressed and where the axe should fall, but I simply say in conclusion that we know from the Chancellor that this Budget will be one that sticks to the fiscal rules, restores the fiscal headroom, as it must, and reinforces the Government’s commitment to growth with a 10-year plan to follow which signals where change is coming on devolution, social care and defence. I believe these are the priorities that resonate with the country.”

“My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships for not being here at the start of proceedings. Noble Lords put me on to the Economic Affairs Committee yesterday; it had its inaugural meeting this afternoon and it demanded my presence. I am so sorry to have miss…”

“My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships for not being here at the start of proceedings. Noble Lords put me on to the Economic Affairs Committee yesterday; it had its inaugural meeting this afternoon and it demanded my presence. I am so sorry to have missed the first two groupings, but I am here for this one. I will speak to the two amendments to which I have added my name—Amendment 117, to which the noble Lord, Lord Young, just referred, and Amendment 136, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Harding. My reasons for supporting them closely parallel the arguments that we have heard. I do not have the distinguished history of having been a Rail Minister, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, was—at least not in Westminster—but I had that role in the Scottish Parliament and I understand the risks of unprotected departments. Therefore, we have a duty in the Bill to consider how to protect the incredible digital innovation that we have seen in the provision of retailing services that have been widely welcomed by passengers across the country. The noble Baroness, Lady Harding, and I share a common interest in the whole area of digital regulation, as she said. The risk of leaving ambiguity surrounding the role of regulator and not putting obligations in the Bill may lead to unintended consequences down the line. I thank the Minister and officials for the recent engagement they had with noble Lords around the intent in these areas of rail retailing. I appreciate that the retail code of practice will be published prior to Report; it will go some way to allow all parties to assess whether the code meets the Government’s stated objective of fair competition in retailing.”

“My Lords, I also thank my noble friend Lady Morgan. When I arrived in your Lordships’ House 18 months ago, I had just become the chair of the body that certifies every electrician—there are 170,000 of them across the country. I immediately encountered…”

“My Lords, I also thank my noble friend Lady Morgan. When I arrived in your Lordships’ House 18 months ago, I had just become the chair of the body that certifies every electrician—there are 170,000 of them across the country. I immediately encountered deep concern among employers about the fate of apprenticeships—the bureaucracy, the cost of training and the support needs of the young apprentices. This malaise deeply pained employers who had invariably come up the apprenticeship route themselves. Many noble Lords have mentioned what has happened in the last 18 months. The Milburn report published in May has been seminal. As others have said, it has been uncompromising about the moral scandal of a million NEETs, clear that young people desperately want to work and candid about the multidimensional roots of this crisis. As so often in politics, timing matters. There is not a Member among us who did not have conversations during the Recess about the future of the jobs market. Yet the public fear that politicians, in the parlance of today, “craft the narrative” or “tell the story” but too rarely stick around to solve the problem. So in my remaining time, I will talk about the momentum since the Milburn report—not on the supply side, which has dominated our discussions today about what is happening in the education system, but in stimulating employer demand. In June, it was £3,000 for employers taking on an eligible young person. In July, 22,000 defence apprenticeships were announced. In August, it was £10 billion for new affordable housing, fuelling new construction contracts. This month saw the first of 22,000 extra college places including free apprenticeship training for eligible under-25s. Next month, £2,000 will be paid to small employers for each new under-25 apprenticeship. November will see the nationwide rollout of the Government-backed job guarantee placement scheme for long-term unemployed young people. Altogether, all this ramps up and translates into half a million opportunities to earn or learn over the next three years. It is not the full answer, but it is getting closer to the scale of the challenge. But success will not just come from investment, but from effectiveness. We need to strip back misplaced red tape and substitute it with a single-minded focus on skills. I am delighted that the Government are now scrapping the laundry list of social value demands for contractors bidding for public works. The complexity was trading out to common sense. From January, job creation and skills development will be the only social value requirements on businesses competing for public contracts. The Milburn report highlighted that the Netherlands has changed the trajectory and outcomes for young people. Giving a generation back their future is a battle to be won in our time. It will be done family by family, firm by firm and postcode by postcode.”

“My Lords, I welcome that last answer. It is, of course, just a few minutes ago that we were discussing a Private Notice Question on the events in the Strait of Hormuz and the need for British naval support to try to keep it open. Given that our naval shi…”

“My Lords, I welcome that last answer. It is, of course, just a few minutes ago that we were discussing a Private Notice Question on the events in the Strait of Hormuz and the need for British naval support to try to keep it open. Given that our naval ships, submarines and planes all rely on steel, does my noble friend the Minister agree that, in what is self-evidently an increasingly unstable and uncertain world, acting to ensure the continuation of steel-making here at home is a vital part of our national security?”

“My Lords, this is proving a fascinating and valuable debate, recognising the Bill’s many strengths, what could be tweaked, and what perhaps is missing as we look ahead. To begin with the strengths, we heard from the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, that the B…”

“My Lords, this is proving a fascinating and valuable debate, recognising the Bill’s many strengths, what could be tweaked, and what perhaps is missing as we look ahead. To begin with the strengths, we heard from the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, that the Bill builds on the work of the previous Government and commands cross-party support. We have just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, that national security is the first obligation of government. This is unarguably an important step in protecting the nation against cyber criminals, hacktivists and hostile states. It will quite simply make the UK a better place to live, work and do business in. We have heard already from the noble Lord, Lord Birt, about the economic impact of cyber attacks and from my noble friend the Minister about the 11,000 NHS appointments that are lost to cyber attacks. It therefore seems very timely that we have this Bill, which will cover more essential services, improve regulatory effectiveness, and speed up responses to cyber threats. It is clearly desirable that we have a stronger board level responsibility around cyber. It must be right that data centres are now included in the Bill, helping maintain the UK’s position as a global destination for secure data hosting and for innovation. The focus on high-impact firms means that small companies will not be unduly burdened. As my noble friend the Minister made clear, this is part of a wider national security effort that includes a cyber action plan for the public sector, a forthcoming cyber action plan for business, the Cyber Essentials certification scheme, and free cyber security support from the NCSC. All these measures will help contribute to our cyber security. The 24-hour incident reporting system will mean that regulated entities have to notify customers impacted by incidents. The tougher penalties for breaches will modernise enforcement and, I hope, improve the uptake of cyber insurance in the way that my noble friend Lady Paul has indicated is so vital. We have to hope that, together, this will mean that cutting corners will no longer be cheaper than doing the right thing. Nevertheless, given the speed at which new cyber threats are emerging, the Bill tries to strike a reasonable balance between maintaining parliamentary oversight and ensuring that the Government can act quickly, as required. I turn to the question of tweaks. Many of them have been touched on so I will not dwell further on them. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, about the importance of the workforce and the increasing demand for cyber security skills. Will the proposed codes of practice include a framework for workforce development and training? The second tweak, as many noble Lords have touched on, is to the Bill’s scope. I have some sympathy with the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, about the case for closer alignment with EU regulations when we have British companies operating and complying with EU legislation in the areas that are covered. I also think that a broader scope would drive the sort of behavioural change that my noble friend Lady Paul cited. I note that the Minister already said that secondary legislation is available to expand the scope. I look forward to her comments on why we do not have a broader scope now, given the groundswell already in this debate, perhaps to include public administration, in particular local government, given the scale and sensitivity of data and the essential nature of public services. The third tweak is something else that has been widely noted already: the risks associated with having 12 regulators. I appreciate that the Government’s intent is minimising regulatory upheaval. There is a balance to be struck. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, approached the issue of risk from the desire and need to ensure expertise. I will look at it through the lens of the risk of duplication. At lunchtime today, I spoke at a NED event hosted by a US law firm that counts among its clients a major cloud provider, insurance companies, professional services firms and a board effectiveness practice that works with both public and private sector organisations. The strong consensus in the room was that a common cyber security standard across all regulators, upon which appropriate sector-specific requirements could be layered, merits consideration. This approach is in the spirit of the Government’s amendments, tabled in the other place, to streamline reporting and avoid unnecessary complexity. I hope that issue is given further consideration. In my few remaining minutes, I will touch on what is not in the Bill. As others have noted, technology is advancing faster than government frameworks can keep pace with it. The Bill was published last year, just as it became clear that AI was tipping the advantage to attackers. Attackers need to succeed only once, while defenders potentially need to patch millions of users. There is currently no technology to automate patching at the pace required. The Bill needs to say more on the role of integrating AI tools into cyber defences. The Bill arguably has an AI-shaped hole in it, although I am encouraged that the incoming Prime Minister has signalled a fresh look at AI regulation. Even Sam Altman, faced with a capricious President, has come round, writing in the FT that “citizens and their elected representatives must make the rules”. We have also seen the Five Eyes intelligence partnership warning in a very rare joint communiqué last month that the West’s adversaries were within months of developing cyber attacks that could overwhelm the defences of Governments and companies and noting that frontier AI models will fundamentally transform cyber capabilities. All this is now with us, so raising our defensive capability in the face of this rising AI functionality will be essential. Our spy chiefs are asking western companies to use AI models to strengthen their defences. I fully appreciate that the Government are completely across this threat landscape. The question is: how do we collectively legislate or regulate in such a threat landscape? Some suggestions that we can consider in Committee are, first, that advanced AI providers could perhaps be designated as covered entities under the Bill. Secondly, since the impact of AI in the cyber field is increasingly systemic rather than sector specific, perhaps we need common AI cyber security guidance supporting all regulators in this fast-moving landscape as they then layer on the needs of their sector. Thirdly, perhaps there should be an AI field in the mandatory incident reporting regime. Finally, we should perhaps think about an AI oversight framework giving the NCSC more teeth and the AISI a more co-ordinating role. In conclusion, as widely recognised, the Bill will support our economy and our people and make the country safer. It is part of a package. It is a crucial building block rather than the final destination. I strongly commend it to the Chamber.”

“My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, I am going to start with a personal anecdote, but it will not be either as moving or as consequential as the ones we have heard from her today. I pay tribute to her campaigning work on this issue; I…”

“My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, I am going to start with a personal anecdote, but it will not be either as moving or as consequential as the ones we have heard from her today. I pay tribute to her campaigning work on this issue; I am sure that sentiment is shared by other Members of the House. On a Friday, when I get to Euston and am heading north, I yearn for the toilets to work, effective wifi and a quiet coach. By the time I get back to London on a Monday, as a commuter, I am looking at “Am I going to get a seat? Is it reliable? Is the price fair?” Of course, a top-class railway that is spending £22 billion annually—with more than half of that taxpayer subsidy—arguably can and should provide all these things and more, and I have not even mentioned the other neglected priorities of electrification, extreme weather resilience, modal shift, new services, safety, speed, fresh sandwiches and so on. All these competing ambitions make a wider point in that they concern the choice of priorities, yet the essence of the claim in the Bill is that the delivery of future policy priorities can follow only from getting the basic underlying structure right. The Bill is a fresh start. It legislates for an outcome that the Conservatives recognised the case for but did not act on: the need to end the fragmentation and to bring track and train together. The noble Baroness, Lady May, graciously hinted at the value of bringing track and train together. I share her concern for passenger voice as a live issue and regional influence, but I am mindful that I am to be followed by the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, who I anticipate having a slightly more ideological engagement about the merits of privatisation versus nationalisation; I promise to say a word on that later. I think that the public’s first concern is simply a service that works. The Bill builds around an evidence case that fragmentation is holding our railways back. The Minister noted that we have 17 different bodies, so unifying track and train under a single organisation is designed to work for passengers, freight and the taxpayers. For the first time in a generation, we will have a single arm’s-length body that is unambiguously accountable for making the railways work. Of course, a new structure could potentially drive out the very large existing inefficiencies, and it is the prerequisite for dealing with the prevailing culture, which is one of blame, then negotiation and then compensation. Despite those vital changes, the trade-offs between affordability and reliability, and between subsidy reduction and network upgrades, will remain, so I welcome that, when it comes to setting priorities, the Government have given us a flavour. They are about to publish a long-term rail strategy that will have five core objectives, two of which will deal with long-term economic growth and reducing regional inequality. We need to reorientate our railways to our long-term ambitions for the nation. Two hundred years ago, railways were the new general-purpose technology of their day. Today’s general-purpose technology is AI, and quantum will follow. Again, we face as a country the creative destruction that is changing our economic geography in the same way as railways first shaped our economy, our geography, our leisure and our landscape. Great British Railways should be tasked with supporting a faster-growing economy. This is a time of profound change. We need it to break down barriers of opportunity, reduce journey times, improve connectivity and stimulate regeneration and housebuilding next to stations. Let me come beyond the rhetoric, to the relief of the other side, to the challenges that come with establishing a single organisation. Great British Railways, when it is fully established, will employ 100,000 people. It will be the country’s largest arm’s-length body. The stakes are high. On the plus side, public ownership avoids the siphoning off if dividends and profiteering. However, we must also mitigate the known risks. Monolithic organisations can be deaf to key interests, captured by other interests, slow to innovate and risk averse. These are not insuperable challenges. Many nations manage to have fast, reliable, successful railway systems, and so should the nation where it all began. The structural changes will need to be coupled with political and organisational leadership. To meet public expectations, we will need better regulation rather than more regulation. To encourage the self-sufficiency of the system and manage the burden on the taxpayer, the House of Commons Transport Select Committee suggested that we should be setting a passenger growth target to incentivise commercially minded improvements. When it comes to nurturing innovation, the Minister will be aware of the ongoing anxieties, notably from the open access operators. They account for only 1% of services but they are responsible for 19% of the new train orders in recent years, so we need to make sure that they find their place. They have been successful in securing modal shift on the Edinburgh to London route and elsewhere. In my few remaining minutes I come to the issue of devolution of decision-making, clear accountability and speed of decision-making. This touches on some of the anxieties that the noble Baroness, Lady May, raised about regional input. Britain’s devolution landscape is complex, highly varied and very fast evolving. Others have referenced the new Member for Makerfield. I welcome that the Bill provides for the devolved Governments in Wales and Scotland and the combined mayoral authorities to have a statutory role in the rail network, but I would welcome reassurance on how this will work in practice. Can we expect to see any of the mechanisms for clear accountability, locally and nationally, during Committee? As a signal of intent of their commitment to working with the devolved Governments and mayoral authorities, will the Government look at developing shared evidence bases that will allow for the stronger business cases that will allow us to move over time to local commissioning? Finally, on ticketing, I will say only that it must be right to consolidate 55 million different ticket types that are allegedly available and make it easier for the passenger to find the most affordable fare. In conclusion, I say that this Bill is a bold statement. That is important. It is not always that Members on this side can stand and say, “This is a bold statement about the way forward”. We as a Government have been accused of timidity. This is a bold statement to fix a problem that has frustrated passengers, railway staff and the railway industry for too long. It begins a process of evolution from today’s semi-privatised rail network to a nationalised railway, but the essence is to bring track and train together and end 30 years of experimentation, unlocking growth and delivering efficiency in the network. I commend the Bill and look forward to Committee.”

“As some noble Lords know, I have some experience in my own family of the challenges around gender dysphoria and the difficulties for the trans community. I also have the experience of my mother, who was a haematologist at a time when there were great con…”

“As some noble Lords know, I have some experience in my own family of the challenges around gender dysphoria and the difficulties for the trans community. I also have the experience of my mother, who was a haematologist at a time when there were great controversies surrounding that discipline. I was struck by what the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, said: there are GPs, psychiatrists and paediatricians—all sorts of medical professionals—wrestling with what the evidence may or may not show. While this is an extraordinarily difficult area, does the Minister agree that, in a world where there have been difficulties in the recent past, the responsibility of legislators is to try to equip all those professionals in the future with a clinically approved and evidence-led approach? It is only by having a highly safeguarded trial that we will move forward in a way that supports professionals operating in this area. If we demonise those individuals, the risk is that we never secure the evidence we need for the future.”

“My Lords, I also welcome the Government’s Statement, their commitment to cross-party working on this and their recognition of the importance of enforcement. I have a question about enforcement. The Statement indicates that Ofcom’s chair and CEO have been…”

“My Lords, I also welcome the Government’s Statement, their commitment to cross-party working on this and their recognition of the importance of enforcement. I have a question about enforcement. The Statement indicates that Ofcom’s chair and CEO have been asked to carry out an urgent review of its enforcement capabilities. Given Ofcom’s rather patchy record, will there be any external input into its capabilities review? Will it be published? Thereafter, when Ofcom publishes an enforcement strategy, will the initial strategy be published prior to the regulations coming into force in the spring of 2027?”

“My Lords, I begin with my register of interests. I chair the Joint Industry Board of the electrotechnical sector, which brings together employers and unions operating in the electrotechnical, engineering services and built environment sectors. Our employ…”

“My Lords, I begin with my register of interests. I chair the Joint Industry Board of the electrotechnical sector, which brings together employers and unions operating in the electrotechnical, engineering services and built environment sectors. Our employer members are a critical part of the construction supply chain, and many have felt the burden of late payments and retentions. I therefore begin by congratulating the Government on the Bill. Noble Lords will be familiar with Ronald Reagan’s lampooning remark: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”, and will know that new regulation often engenders business scepticism. However, when it comes to tackling late payments, there is broad consensus that it is past time to update the well-intentioned but, in practice, ineffective legislation put in place at the end of the last century by the previous Labour Government. SMEs have been calling for further government action for more than a decade. This Bill will now deal with outdated and ineffective legislation. To echo my noble friend the Minister, a shocking quarter of all firms are impacted by late payments. The Bill will bring relief to 1.5 million small businesses every year. Shockingly, late payments currently lead to more than 14,000 businesses closing each year, and the total cost of late payments is estimated to be a whopping £11 billion each year. The Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, graciously acknowledged from the Benches opposite, is a valuable economic pro-growth measure. When the Bill reaches the statute book, it will advance the Government’s ambition for Britain to be one of the best places to start a new business, and Britain will then have the most effective late-payments regime in the G7. Knowing that payments will be made on time means that British businesses can rely on, or indeed bank on—for that is the right word—better cash flow, thereby releasing income for investment in capital and people. By delivering enforceable penalties, the Bill can change our payments culture. I mentioned that 1.5 million small businesses are impacted each year by late payments. Some 900,000 of them are in the construction industry, so, as the Minister has made clear, the Bill will also tackle retentions in the construction industry. Retentions are justified, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, made clear, as security against defects, and high-quality, on-time performance matters, but retentions, as the noble Lord recognised, are not a neutral accounting mechanism. In practice, they starve supply-chain small businesses of cash. They remove cash from companies that are often working on very thin margins. The practical impact of retentions is to remove liquidity from businesses that need that cash to pay staff, apprentices, suppliers, and tax and financing costs. Retentions expose small businesses to insolvency risk and impose a costly recovery burden that is often disproportionate to the sums at stake. These retentions are not a marginal issue. In the impact statement and in evidence to the other place, retentions were estimated at up to £8 billion a year. Some 50% of construction supply chain contractors experience partial or full non-repayment of retentions, and the construction industry experiences the highest number of insolvencies of any sector in the UK economy. This Bill, as the Minister acknowledged, goes to the heart of building a resilient construction supply chain. It will stop dominant players using market power through contractual complexity, payments delay and retention practices to fund their own working capital at the expense of smaller firms. The Bill, if properly implemented, can tackle these issues once and for all. No longer will money earned by small companies become free working capital for larger firms. The Bill can deliver not simply legal change but a significant productivity boost. However, as noble Lords have noted in all the opening speeches so far, the devil is in the detail. So, in my remaining time, I shall ask the Minister about issues to which I hope we can return during the subsequent stages: my queries relate to enforceability, avoidance and remedies. First, on enforceability, as the Minister is aware, while the Small Business Commissioner has been an excellent advance, construction disputes are outwith the commissioner’s powers due to the separate existing statutory construction adjudication arrangements. However, this existing construction adjudication regime is largely inaccessible for lower-value claims, so I invite the Government to consider measures to ensure that the enforcement ban that they are proposing will also be available to small construction supply chain companies. Is this the moment to consider whether the Small Business Commissioner should also have some jurisdiction in construction, or could the commissioner have a supporting role in construction payments behaviour even if the formal adjudication regime remains under the construction Act? I turn to the second issue, which is avoidance. If the Bill is to fulfil its promise, it must prevent disguised or backdoor retentions. So does the Minister agree that the definition of “retention” in the Bill should be widely interpreted by the courts to ensure that contractors do not try to reimpose retentions by another name? In that service, will the Government commit to monitoring avoidance behaviours, including where main contractors seek alternative forms of security, which could be more expensive, more complex or simply unavailable to small companies? I encourage the Government’s commitment to use the secondary legislation powers in the Bill expeditiously when new backdoor retention practices emerge. Thirdly, and finally, I come to remedies. The construction industry’s payment regime is already highly complex. It involves five dates and two notices. As the Minister has acknowledged, the Bill proposes to layer on top of that a further two-year transition arrangement. I encourage the Government to consider simplifying these transitional arrangements to ensure that small businesses can follow the changes without having to pay for specialist lawyers. The Bill is a significant development in the Government’s plans for supporting growth. It will improve Britain’s payment culture and support all small and medium-sized enterprises. It will improve supply chain resilience, reduce insolvency pressures and support a more productive economy. I commend it to the Chamber.”

“My Lords, I declare my interest as deputy chair of the British Council. On current plans, it is likely that this Covid-era loan will be paid down for the next 15 years plus. Can my noble friend the Minister say why the Government have not accepted the Br…”

“My Lords, I declare my interest as deputy chair of the British Council. On current plans, it is likely that this Covid-era loan will be paid down for the next 15 years plus. Can my noble friend the Minister say why the Government have not accepted the British Council’s offer of using its art collection in lieu of the loan, given that HMRC regularly accepts artwork from private estates in settlement of tax liabilities? Why can a comparable arrangement not be found for the Government’s own soft-power agency? I am aware of the complexities of the matter, so I invite my noble friend the Minister to write to me on the specific issue of the art collection paying down the loan and to place a copy in the Library for other noble Lords.”

“My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for securing this debate. I will echo some of his themes. Cross-sectoral regulation will come. The question is simply: when? This week, the Trump Administration issued an executive order compelling ne…”

“My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for securing this debate. I will echo some of his themes. Cross-sectoral regulation will come. The question is simply: when? This week, the Trump Administration issued an executive order compelling new AI frontier models to be submitted for review. All general-purpose technologies require regulation—electricity, rail and nuclear. Like nuclear, AI is both a general-purpose technology and a dual-use one. But unlike early nuclear, AI innovation is occurring in private companies and not in government labs, which partly explains the regulatory squeamishness. The US fears falling behind China; the UK fears impeding growth and points to Europe, where regulation has damaged innovation. As the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said, into this debate stepped the Pope, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and a host of lesser luminaries, including the head of MI5, the founders of Anthropic and military chiefs—all agitating for action both locally and nationally. Regulation is not antithetical to growth and to realising the upsides of AI. The Government are delivering cross-sectoral legislation on cybersecurity but have hesitated on a comparable approach to AI safety. I invite the Minister, when summing up, to share when the Government will launch their consultation on AI regulation. Will they consider regulation at the point of development and not simply at the point of use? Will they mandate pre-deployment testing of high-risk AI, as the US has now done? Do they accept the case for an AI regulatory oversight body? These are robust questions for my own Government. Yet these issues are too big for us to play politics with. I note that I am to be followed by the noble Lord, Lord Harper, who is unquestionably the master of robust challenge. Yet his Government also wrestled with the growth versus regulation dilemma; Rishi Sunak counselled caution as recently as last week about us being a first mover. I welcome the call of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for a cross-party approach. The nation and the world are looking to us for actions that match our moment. This requires an inclusive discussion, debate and direction. It is time to act.”

“My Lords, I will be finished in a moment. I too thank the Minister for the tone that he has struck today. We are touching on an important issue. The code leaves us in a position where someone who has a gender recognition certificate has no additional…”

“My Lords, I will be finished in a moment. I too thank the Minister for the tone that he has struck today. We are touching on an important issue. The code leaves us in a position where someone who has a gender recognition certificate has no additional protection under the Equality Act. The Gender Recognition Act was designed specifically to remedy trans people finding themselves in an intermediate legal zone. Given that, do the Government envisage that we may need to honour the commitment that Parliament made to trans people in 2004 when it passed the Gender Recognition Act?”

“My Lords—”

“My Lords, decarbonising energy and deploying AI are the defining technology challenges of our times. They are fundamental to growth and are intimately linked. The greatest constraint on technology deployment in the United States is energy availability. I…”

“My Lords, decarbonising energy and deploying AI are the defining technology challenges of our times. They are fundamental to growth and are intimately linked. The greatest constraint on technology deployment in the United States is energy availability. In the UK, Ofgem has 140 data centres on its books, so the energy independence Bill will scale up renewables, accelerate the deployment of clean power and build out the grid. As we have heard, the nuclear regulation Bill will speed up new nuclear and deal with the damaging delays. I turn to technology and AI in particular. The UK is the world’s third-most important hub for AI start-ups. We are an AI maker as well as an AI taker, so the Government’s streamlining of planning, the new UK compute road map and the AI hardware plan are all vital infrastructure fundamentals, but they must be matched by pace in deploying AI. I welcome the AI growth opportunities plan, the funding of start-ups and the growth labs to train new UK AI. Regulating for growth will create new sandboxes, relaxing existing rules for new AI products that can transform lives. The UK is raising its game around innovation, and regulators will be required to support growth, boost investor confidence and speed up the time to market. All these actions signal a new, largely cross-party consensus that Britain should prioritise outcomes over processes. It is hard to overstate the long-term impact of AI, as we have heard already: two-thirds of jobs exposed to some form of automation and many entry-level jobs will be changed for ever. Let me conclude on the security challenges that have already been touched on. The cyber security and resilience Bill will strengthen our cyber defences, but post Mythos, we have to ask whether it is enough. Mythos, of course, found severe vulnerabilities in every major operating system: the systems that run our electricity grids, retail networks, military systems, emergency services and hospitals. The US Administration have been compelled to act. Project Glasswing gave leading firms a head start in patching vulnerabilities. However, the American media is now awash with talk of executive orders, bipartisan Bills and co-operation with China—all moves towards greater oversight. Balancing AI growth and security is complex. As with climate change, we need to balance national and international action. International co-ordination matters: 80% of Europe’s digital services are provided by non-European companies. The European Union’s own attempt at legislation was too broad and created disincentives. In the UK, our AI Security Institute operates without statutory authority or parliamentary oversight; indeed, some have argued that that very ambiguity has been the key to the trust it has built. So what do we do? Many AI company CEOs talk sincerely about balancing growth and safety, but profit invariably takes precedence in corporate cultures. That is why some risks—the Economist calls them “externalities” —are better overseen by citizens. We can draw lessons from other sectors: more transparency, safety by design cultures and corporate liability as a potential lever. That is what lies ahead of us. The technology has huge potential, and Britain has great potential in that for realising the upsides. As other noble Lords have noted, this Chamber is well equipped to discern the public interest. That is the opportunity before us and the really interesting times that we live in.”

“My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their participation in this debate. It is my first QSD debate so I will be looking to the Deputy Chairman of Committees—I assume that we do not make reference to the Woolsack—to correct me if I make a procedural faux pas…”

“My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their participation in this debate. It is my first QSD debate so I will be looking to the Deputy Chairman of Committees—I assume that we do not make reference to the Woolsack—to correct me if I make a procedural faux pas. I can promise that there will be no cricketing analogies because they are definitely beyond me. This debate is a serious matter. It follows a recent Question in the Chamber on which several noble Lords who are present here today contributed. Since then, Ministers have helpfully provided Written Answers confirming that His Majesty’s Government expect the Pakistani authorities to respect fundamental freedoms, including due process, humane detention and access to appropriate medical treatment for all detainees, including the former Prime Minister, Mr Imran Khan. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Chapman of Darlington for participating in this debate and sharing the Government’s current thinking on this issue. Our debate is timely in view of the deteriorating welfare of Mr Imran Khan. The concerns span his health, conditions of detention and access to medical care, the denial of family access and recurring questions concerning access to justice. In raising these matters, I recognise that noble Lords can range more widely in the breadth of their concerns than Ministers may. For example, Ministers have confirmed in recent Answers that they would not advocate for specific medical arrangements for an individual prisoner in another jurisdiction, however distinguished they might be. However, this debate allows the airing of overlapping concerns that span health, welfare and access to justice and the relationship of those concerns with universal principles concerning human rights, due process and democratic concerns. Other more expert noble Lords may comment on the wider context, but I simply note that, in any country, the recurring incarceration of political opponents generally damages rather than advances the cause of democracy. This debate is not to endorse any one politician’s programme or past record. Mr Imran Khan, like every politician—past, present and future—has made mistakes. This is about making our voice heard around the concerns that have been raised. In 2024, Amnesty International, reviewing Imran Khan’s conviction and sentencing, found several fair trial violations that resulted in arbitrary detention and denial of his right to liberty. Worryingly, it “noted a pattern of weaponization of the legal system to keep Imran Khan under detention and away from all political activity”. The former Prime Minister is not just any other prisoner: the issue before us is that countless people of good will who care about Pakistan and its future and democracy are deeply concerned about Imran Khan. Let me turn to three troubling specifics. The first is family access. Despite previous assurances, some of Mr Khan’s immediate family remain effectively barred from seeing him. I understand that his sons, Sulaiman and Kasim Khan, who are British citizens, have not been permitted to visit their father since December. They should have the right to visit their father in a way that does not impact their right to British consular protection. Moreover, such humanitarian access becomes more acute when a detainee’s health is in question. The second concern is medical care. There seems to be agreement that Mr Khan’s medical condition has reached a critical stage. I understand that the Islamabad high court recently formed a medical board to oversee his treatment but rejected the request to include his personal physicians. His family have also indicated that they feel kept in the dark regarding his treatment protocols. The third concern is fair treatment. Mr Khan recently indicated that his wife, Bushra Bibi, is being kept in isolation except for a rarely granted 30-minute weekly meeting. These allegations concern the rule of law and fair treatment. The targeting of family members to pressure a detainee is a violation of international norms. Each of these three challenges, around family access, medical care and fair treatment, concerns the conduct of authorities in Pakistan, so His Majesty’s Government properly tread very lightly. I therefore turn my remarks to the Minister. On 25 February, she helpfully confirmed to the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, that the UK consistently advocates for family access. That is very welcome. However, given the continuing obstacles surrounding access and the ongoing concerns about the former PM’s welfare, will the Minister help secure a meeting with the relevant FCDO Minister, Hamish Falconer, for a small cross-party delegation of Peers to explore humanitarian access for Imran Khan’s sons, to help secure the visas that would allow for full diplomatic protection, so that they can visit their father without risking their safety? The Minister will also be aware of the concerns surrounding the detention of other current and former politicians. We look forward to learning how His Majesty’s Government can best support demonstrable improvements in human rights, specifically the humane treatment of political detainees, their access to legal counsel and the importance of not pressurising family members. Time does not permit me to dwell—at least, not for long—on Britain’s shared history with Pakistan, its geopolitical importance and the hopeful aspirations of its young people. I have observed all of these things in my own visits to the country to deepen educational links and through my work with the British Council. Pakistan is a valued member of the Commonwealth and an important trading and security partner. It is a nation that is navigating the rising aspirations of many alongside a recently rising poverty rate. It is a country that experiences the impact of climate change, alongside border conflicts, and wrestles with the balance between military power and control by civilian authorities in democratic systems. The consequences of all these forces resonate globally, and we have a shared interest in the country’s lasting stability, prosperity and co-operation. Finally, every participant in this debate is aware that the United Kingdom has deep people-to-people ties with Pakistan. Britain is enriched by 1.5 million British Pakistanis, friends and neighbours, many of whom take a close interest in these matters. We all share an interest in Pakistan’s future, the welfare of its citizens and the upholding of democratic and judicial norms. So the ask today is simple: for the British Government to use their undoubted influence, where they can, to uphold the principles that this country holds dear—those of fairness, justice and compassion.”

“To ask His Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the government of Pakistan regarding the protection of the rights and the welfare of former Prime Minister Imran Khan during his imprisonment, including access to medical care and fam…”

“To ask His Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the government of Pakistan regarding the protection of the rights and the welfare of former Prime Minister Imran Khan during his imprisonment, including access to medical care and family visits.”

“My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak on a three-clause Bill. I commend the Government on their brevity. It is a welcome change this week after the 220 clauses of the Crime and Policing Bill, the 178 clauses of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill and the 1,200 amen…”

“My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak on a three-clause Bill. I commend the Government on their brevity. It is a welcome change this week after the 220 clauses of the Crime and Policing Bill, the 178 clauses of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill and the 1,200 amendments that we will be wrestling with again tomorrow in the assisted dying Bill. As every noble Lord who has spoken so far has noted, the Bill does not change policy, only financial thresholds. That narrow focus accounts for the broad cross-party consensus. More fundamentally, industrial assistance and trade policy remain a rarity in modern politics. They are matters of broad common ground. Like the noble Lord, Lord Empey, I served as a Trade Minister, for Labour in Holyrood, and then as a trade envoy for a different Government—proof that trade and industry can be common ground, at least in domestic politics. Of course, updating the financial thresholds after 16 years is eminently sensible, likewise using secondary legislation to raise the limits in the future. I want to use my time to make one substantive comment on each theme. First, on the industrial assistance aspect, my own interest here dates to 1997, when I was working on the devolution settlement in the early days of the Blair Government. I can reliably report to the House that in all those years of campaigning for a Scottish Parliament, the minutiae of industrial aid rules had not caught the attention of even the most assiduous policy wonk, so in government it proved quite tricky. How do you devolve powers over trade and industry without undermining the financial level playing field within the UK? Today, rightly, financial selective assistance and export finance remain reserved matters but in an elegant constitutional arrangement, Scottish Ministers can prepare cases for financial assistance of up to £10 million for a single project, subject to a Commons resolution. Last night, after we finished, I took a look at the most recent Industrial Development Act annual report, laid before Parliament in July, on Section 8 spending, which is what we are discussing today. It reported that neither the Scottish Government nor the Welsh Government had any Section 8 spending, compared with £2.9 billion of live schemes in England. There are complexities about the coverage of Section 7 and Section 8 areas and I appreciate, given that I am the last speaker in the debate today—at least from the Back Benches—that the Minister will not have had time to digest material from his officials on this matter. However, I would be grateful if he could write to me about the factors that he believes are influencing the uptake of Section 7 and Section 8 spending in the devolved Governments. These complex distributional issues should not detract from the value of industrial assistance, which is supporting thousands of jobs across the UK and leveraging in billions of pounds of private capital. I therefore turn to export finance. The Government can take pride that their export finance portfolio is larger than at any point in history. At 70% current utilisation and with a strong pipeline of commercial opportunities, it is right to provide ongoing certainty to British businesses around future export support. Here, I echo the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Pitkeathley, and others: on export finance, the devil is in the operational detail of the specific working capital and insurance schemes, and the ease of access to them by companies. I place on record that the Minister spent his entire pre-parliamentary life in the private sector, so he is well placed to ensure that bureaucratic creep does not diminish the effectiveness of support for exports—particularly, as others have recognised, for small and medium-sized enterprises. They are, in fairness, 88% of the beneficiaries of UK export finance, but we have to watch the opportunity costs for small firms caught in long, complex, unsuccessful applications that are deemed too high risk. I come to my final substantive point. I ask the Minister to comment on the success of UK Export Finance in delivering its underlying mandate, which is to support exports at no net extra cost to the taxpayer over time. Therefore, echoing the question from the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, I invite the Government to comment on their attitude to risk. Are the higher thresholds that we are being asked to approve a choice to adopt a higher risk appetite with respect to the likely return, or are they simply an attempt to anticipate greater demand in the pipeline and in the future? I welcome any guidance on that point. In conclusion, I welcome the steps announced by the Government this week to crack down on sanctions-busting. This is a point that the Opposition raised in the other place. The Minister has responded this week with a new licensing scheme where there are any high-risk exports that could be used in sanctions-busting situations. Finally, I commend the focus of UK Export Finance in helping British business to be part of supporting the reconstruction in Ukraine. On that basis, I support the Bill and look forward to the Minister’s response.”

“I thank my noble friend the Minister for her Answer. As she will be aware, there are a number of parliamentary Questions outstanding on this matter, given the deterioration in Imran Khan’s health recently. I am aware that the FCDO has been particularly r…”

“I thank my noble friend the Minister for her Answer. As she will be aware, there are a number of parliamentary Questions outstanding on this matter, given the deterioration in Imran Khan’s health recently. I am aware that the FCDO has been particularly responsive to the case of Jimmy Lai and his family. In that context, it would be helpful if my noble friend would commit to meeting with Imran Khan’s family and specifically raising his case with the Government of Pakistan.”

“To ask His Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the government of Pakistan regarding the imprisonment of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, particularly with regard to his access to medical care.”

“Follow that, as they say. I begin my remarks by congratulating my noble friend Lady Hyde on an excellent maiden speech. I also look forward to that of the noble Lord, Lord Barber, whom I have known and admired for many years, and who shares a comparable…”

“Follow that, as they say. I begin my remarks by congratulating my noble friend Lady Hyde on an excellent maiden speech. I also look forward to that of the noble Lord, Lord Barber, whom I have known and admired for many years, and who shares a comparable commitment to public service. My noble friend Lady Hyde has shared with us something of her own rich hinterland, and I want to take a moment to reflect on what she brings to this House. There are many noble Lords who know the pleasures and the pain of leading a think tank, and my noble friend has led the oldest and most venerated of them all in the Fabian Society. But there are very few noble Lords who can match her long experience of our prison system, a prison PhD and working with and for the most vulnerable in our communities. My noble friend’s expertise has been honed by years of working alongside those trying to rebuild their lives. She has lived the how of tackling human trafficking, preventing suicide, reducing violence against women and countering addiction. I suspect that she is not a woman who is going to allow casual claims about a broken Britain to pass unexamined in this place. My noble friend’s love of the arts and their liberating potential will be a welcome tonic to our sometimes philistine instincts. I feel certain that Sara—not Sarah but Sara—with her own deep commitment rooted in her rich faith life, her values and her convictions, will both challenge and inspire your Lordships’ House in the years to come. I know I speak for the whole House when I say that my noble friend Lady Hyde is very welcome indeed. I thank the Liberal Democrats for tabling this Motion. The Minister replying today, the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, is a former distinguished deputy chair of the British Council. I currently serve in that role, and it is what I want to focus on today. This morning the Prime Minister met the Chinese President, so it is fitting to start with that familiar Chinese proverb about tree planting: the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the second-best time is now. Soft power is like a tree. Its success is measured in decades and not in a single season. The British Council is a tree that we planted 90 years ago to nurture soft power. But today, by simply focusing on the season, we risk allowing it to wither. This tree has weathered the storms of fascism, war, the rise of the United Nations, the Cold War, the fall of Berlin, the pandemic and the fracturing of the rules-based order. The tree bends with the winds of geopolitical change, but the soft power purpose remains connection, trust and understanding. The British Council is not about military power or high diplomacy; it is about links that last. Our British history—the history of empire, its rise and fall—makes this country a place of fascination, frustration, anger and fidelity for people around the world: people who want to know Britain better. We used to know this. Our enemies and our friends know this, but since the crash, the council has had a miserable time. In the last 20 years, the government grant to the council has, in essence, been flat, so it has halved in real terms. Meanwhile, the budget of its sponsor department, the FCDO, has grown by more than 50%. In a global context, the financial support for the council’s French and German counterparts is four to six times what we see in this country. However, during Covid, the Conservative Government extended a loan. Conservative Ministers knew that that loan was not repayable from income; that is why no repayment plan was set at that time. Five years on, and many years of qualified accounts later, the Covid loan is still unresolved. The council offered its art collection—worth £200 million—to the Government to pay down the loan. There was no response. The council has therefore shed 17% of its staff, and the remaining 8,000 at home and around the world worry about their futures and the redundancies to come. Meanwhile, the council carries on as a tree whose roots are constantly being pulled up by the Government. Last January, the then Permanent Secretary said, “Come up with a recovery plan, work with the Treasury and we will then sort the loan”. In August, the council delivered the plan and officials said, “Sorry, we need another report. We’ll commission EY”. In November, they said, “Sorry, we need another report; this time, we we’re going commission Deloitte”. By December, the NAO had decided that it wanted to get in on the act, and it is commissioning a report, too. Rumour now has it that yet another consultant’s report is to be required before we agree a recovery plan. I commend to the Government what their own official of choice—the noble Baroness, Lady Casey— recently called the “grip and fix” theory of governing. Gripping is the task of Ministers, and fixing means dealing once and for all with that Covid legacy. If the loan remains, it simply kicks the can down the road. I conclude with three possible solutions for disposing of the £200 million loan. The first is that the Government accept the art collection in payment. After all, HMRC is for ever doing this for artwork in lieu of tax liabilities. Secondly, the FCDO could use its underspend to pay down the loan. Two years ago, it was over £1 billion; last year, it was more than £380 million. Thirdly, the Government could allocate a fraction of the £1.5 billion extra package for the arts that they announced last week. None of this requires cannibalising development assistance. So far, we have landed nothing, so a significant resizing of the British Council is coming. That is inevitable, but my plea is, let us grip and fix. I want to close by thanking the many noble Lords in all parts of the House who have been part of those efforts. It is time for the Government to nourish the soft power tree that this country planted 90 years ago.”

“My Lords, the events of last week and this week demonstrate to us the difficulties of managing superpowers and the challenges they present, as well as the opportunities. So, while the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, is right to suggest that China presents are…”

“My Lords, the events of last week and this week demonstrate to us the difficulties of managing superpowers and the challenges they present, as well as the opportunities. So, while the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, is right to suggest that China presents areas where we must oppose, there must also be areas where we seek to co-operate when we can. Does my noble friend the Minister recognise the need for expert advice to guide embassy location decisions, and is that the way to avoid the sort of ricocheting we have seen from the golden age that has already been referenced tonight to the ice age that we have also been presented with? Can my noble friend the Minister also just confirm that the heads of MI5 and GCHQ stated that “this consolidation should bring clear security advantages”? Did she have the opportunity, exactly a week ago today, to hear this point reinforced by the director-general of MI5, speaking in this place, when he reiterated and dwelled on the fact that the greater threats surrounding espionage come not from within an embassy building but often from activities beyond an embassy that dominate much of the work of our security agencies? Finally, does my noble friend agree that, as we go forward on the question of embassy locations, we should be led by the UK’s most senior intelligence officers in our decision-making?”

“My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister. It seems wholly appropriate to have a Question this afternoon on defending democracy and democratic elections, although that is, of course, entirely coincidental. The Defending Democracy Taskforce is the ma…”

“My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister. It seems wholly appropriate to have a Question this afternoon on defending democracy and democratic elections, although that is, of course, entirely coincidental. The Defending Democracy Taskforce is the main mechanism for tackling foreign interference in our elections. It is concerning that there has been no action to date by Ofcom under the foreign interference offence in the Online Safety Act. In this fast-moving arena, will my noble friend the Minister consider enhancing the status of the Defending Democracy Taskforce by bringing an annual Statement to Parliament about its work and key findings, and, as a signal of intent prior to any elections, consider publishing an overview of key threats identified to date to the UK’s electoral processes?”

“To ask His Majesty’s Government what recent progress the Defending Democracy Taskforce has made on protecting democratic institutions.”

“I thank my noble friend for his Answer. Since I tabled this Question, there have been changes to the planned settlement arrangements for the UK. It is encouraging to see that there are no changes for the global talent visa and high earners, but there are…”

“I thank my noble friend for his Answer. Since I tabled this Question, there have been changes to the planned settlement arrangements for the UK. It is encouraging to see that there are no changes for the global talent visa and high earners, but there are changes for their spouses. It is now clear that they will be decided separately, potentially meaning that a high-earning applicant could receive settlement within three years, yet a stay-at-home spouse might never be eligible. Such a move would obviously have a detrimental impact on talent attraction and growth. Will the Minister look again at the eligibility of spouses for settlement in the forthcoming consultation?”

“To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential impact on economic growth of trends in the number of visas granted to highly skilled people.”

“My Lords, I refer noble Lords to my registered interests. I welcome the Minister’s statement, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, about the establishment of a task force, which has happened since the Statement was made in the other place. I declare…”

“My Lords, I refer noble Lords to my registered interests. I welcome the Minister’s statement, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, about the establishment of a task force, which has happened since the Statement was made in the other place. I declare an interest as a former Industry Minister in Scotland, where there has been experience over the last 25 years of how to respond to closures such as these. Those sorts of task forces, to work well, need to be quickly established, as we have seen in this case. However, they also need to focus as broadly as possible, including on opportunities for outplacement, retraining, preferential access to local colleges, dedicated pathways into other employment opportunities and on the future of the site itself, involving remediation and the possible identification of other investors who would be interested, if not in plastics production, then in associated activity. For all these reasons, can the Minister confirm the breadth of the scope of the task force? Can she also confirm that His Majesty’s Government will work very closely with the Scottish Government, which have their own PACE initiative—the partnership for continuing employment—in cases such as these?”

“My Lords, I declare my interests as on the register. My noble friend the Minister will have the sentiment of the House on this matter and the overdue delay in resolving a Covid-era loan. Remembrance Day is the right day to remember that the British Counc…”

“My Lords, I declare my interests as on the register. My noble friend the Minister will have the sentiment of the House on this matter and the overdue delay in resolving a Covid-era loan. Remembrance Day is the right day to remember that the British Council was founded 90 years ago, to fight fascism. It is the greatest soft power asset that this country has, and it is envied by friends and foe alike. The reality is that it is financially imperilled by a loan from the Covid era. Will my noble friend commit that the Foreign Secretary will now finally grip this issue and meet the leadership of the council to resolve the financial issues and allow it to continue to be the credit to this country that it has been in the past and should be in the future?”

“My Lords, my noble friend the Minister referenced the Government’s food strategy that was published in July. We are still waiting for the implementation plans. In the development of those plans, will the Government undertake to look at the highly authori…”

“My Lords, my noble friend the Minister referenced the Government’s food strategy that was published in July. We are still waiting for the implementation plans. In the development of those plans, will the Government undertake to look at the highly authoritative EAT-Lancet commission that published earlier this month, which demonstrated that globally a move to a more plant-based diet could reduce preventable deaths by 15 million a year, one-quarter of all such deaths globally?”

“My Lords, I too welcome the Statement. I want to probe the issue of franchising in the higher education sector. I am delighted to see the Government take action, but, as the Minister will be aware, there is some anxiety that, by requiring only the larges…”

“My Lords, I too welcome the Statement. I want to probe the issue of franchising in the higher education sector. I am delighted to see the Government take action, but, as the Minister will be aware, there is some anxiety that, by requiring only the largest providers to register, we may miss some of the bad actors in this area. Will the Government keep the case for universal basic registration of all providers under review? Secondly, as the Minister is aware, there have been excess profits made. Can she assure us that the department will be monitoring these returns, to mitigate the profiteering with public money and tackle the inadequate teaching that there has been for some students involved in this sector? Finally, will she keep under review the risks of keeping the student loan book open to high-risk providers in this area?”

“My Lords, it is not easy to be speaker 108, but it is presumably even harder to be speaker 168. As a relatively new Member of your Lordships’ House, for me, last week’s debate was a privilege: arguments about choice, autonomy and the sanctity of life, le…”

“My Lords, it is not easy to be speaker 108, but it is presumably even harder to be speaker 168. As a relatively new Member of your Lordships’ House, for me, last week’s debate was a privilege: arguments about choice, autonomy and the sanctity of life, leavened throughout by extraordinarily moving personal experiences and stories. For this Lords novice, it seemed in every sense a classic Second Reading. Yet today’s debate seems to call for something slightly different, and to focus on what is being asked of us as legislators. For its supporters, the Bill provides choice, alignment with public opinion, respect for the other place and no compunction on anyone to do anything they do not wish to do. But for the 40-plus opposing speeches, it was more nuanced. The opposing speeches fall into two main categories. First, there are those who oppose the Bill in principle because they believe in the sanctity of life as a universal value in all circumstances, and it is an honourable position. Yet more opposing speeches focused on the Bill’s details. These noble Lords professed no philosophical objection to the right to end one’s life under agreed conditions, but they nevertheless expressed profound concerns about the Bill’s provisions. For those whose concerns lie with the details, a week has indeed been a long time in politics. We now have a new and exceptional Select Committee—a space to probe whether the protections for the vulnerable are the right ones; whether the safeguards against coercion are appropriate; whether any of the processes are over-complex; and time to interrogate those 42 delegated powers. As a Scottish resident, I will not be subject to the Bill. The sister Bill making its way through the Scottish Parliament has different safeguards—for example, it also involves two doctors, but no panel and different timelines. As a supporter of the Bill, I recognise that all these aspects and more will be up for scrutiny in the Select Committee and at Committee and Report stages. Our scrutiny really matters because our postbags are heaving with legitimate but also misplaced anxieties. It is proper to be awed by the responsibility of scrutiny—of interrogating the detail and making the Bill as good as it can be in our less than perfect world. I say to noble Lords with practical reservations: please do not kill off the Bill because the details are demanding. Has the time not come to bring together all those who recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, the former DPP, did last week, that our current laws are not being enforced? We no longer prosecute family members for offering support and we permit indefinite sedation. As we have just heard, people take their own lives, and those who can afford to do so go overseas. It is time to bring the law up to date. To conclude, I recognise that, for some, the Bill is a personal moral red line, but I believe that, for most noble Lords, for the Commons and certainly for the country, it is time to make the choices currently available to the few available equitably. In the service of a quiet and loving end, it is time to do what this place does best: interrogate, scrutinise and improve. It is time to move forward with compassion, care and kindness.”