King’s Speech

Baroness Crawley Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved on Wednesday 13 May by

[Baroness Crawley]

That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty as follows:

“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Whitehead) (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to open the fourth day of our debate on the gracious Speech. His Majesty’s Speech recognised the challenges facing our country and set out a clear plan not just to meet those challenges but to build a more resilient Britain which protects people for the long term and spreads opportunity for all. Today’s debate will cover some of the issues at the heart of the Government’s plan, including energy security, education, technology and culture.

I will begin with energy and our response to the second fossil fuel shock in just four years. Almost two years ago, this Government came into power with a mission to take back control of Britain’s energy security. As my predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, set out in our debate on the previous gracious Speech, it was clear then that the only way to bring down bills, drive growth across the country and tackle the increasingly urgent climate crisis was to end our dependence on unstable fossil fuel markets that we have no control over and instead harness our immense potential for clean, homegrown energy.

As someone who has been campaigning and advocating for, and writing on, clean power for just shy of half a century, it is a privilege for me to be part of a Government who are now delivering on their promise. Since July 2024, we have secured enough clean, homegrown power for 23 million homes through two record-breaking renewables auctions. That clean power is already making a difference: new wind and solar saved Britain around £7 million per day in gas purchases during the first month of the Middle East crisis.

We have moved solar power from the margins to the mainstream, making rooftop panels standard for new builds and bringing plug-in solar to the UK for the first time. We have established Great British Energy, our publicly owned clean energy champion, which has already installed solar on hundreds of schools and hospitals, as well as investing in cutting-edge floating offshore wind projects. We are delivering the biggest public investment in home upgrades in British history with our £15 billion warm homes plan to get solar, batteries, heat pumps and insulation into more homes to save energy, cut bills and ultimately lift up to a million households out of fuel poverty—all of which is contributing to record growth in our domestic clean energy workforce, which is set to double to around 860,000 jobs by the end of this decade.

While the Government have made remarkable progress, the House needs no reminding that our mission has taken on renewed urgency and importance following the conflict in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Just as we saw four years ago when Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine sent gas prices soaring, the impacts of 21st-century conflicts are felt far beyond the battlefields. Once again, it is businesses and households here, including, as is so often the case, the most vulnerable in our society, who are bearing the brunt of wholesale price rises. In response, the Government have taken direct action to bring down bills, as well as expanding the £150 warm home discount to 6 million people.

There are those who believe the long-term solution to this latest fossil fuel crisis lies in doubling down on our dependence on oil and gas—the very problem which led us here. This Government believe that would represent a failure to learn from multiple crises going back to the 1970s and an abdication of our responsibility to households and businesses across the country, which would continue to suffer. Instead, as the Energy Secretary has set out in the other place, we are going further and faster for clean, secure, homegrown energy to ensure we are never at the mercy of volatile fossil fuel markets again.

That means bringing forward the next renewables auction to July, exploiting untapped public land for solar and batteries, and working across government to speed up the electrification of our economy. It also means taking direct action to break the link between gas prices and electricity prices, which is responsible for some of the extreme costs that we have seen in recent years. Noble Lords will be aware that successive Governments have failed to address the complex challenge of delinking but, from next year, we will seek to transfer existing low-carbon generators that have renewable obligation contracts and which supply about a third of our power on to fixed-price contracts that deliver value for money for consumers. In doing so, we will safeguard households and businesses from spikes in the price of gas.

The next great step forward on the road to energy security, as set out by His Majesty in the gracious Speech, is our energy independence Bill. This legislates for the powers that government needs to deliver the full benefits of the clean energy transition to the British people. It will underpin action on three core objectives.

First, it is about standing up for working people by tackling the cost of living crisis. The energy price cap fell by £117 in April because of the decision taken in last year’s Budget to move the cost of some levies from bills to the Exchequer. This Bill will place that change on an enduring legal basis, removing an average of around £90 a year of costs from household bills, as part of the £150 reduction in costs announced in the Autumn Budget. It will also pave the way for the warm homes agency—a dedicated public body that will deliver the warm homes plan and tackle fuel poverty across the country. It will bring in new rules to ensure that landlords invest in home upgrades that cut bills for renters as well as giving the energy regulator the powers that it needs to be a strong consumer champion and stay ahead of a rapidly changing energy system.

Secondly, this Bill will speed up our drive for energy security as well as the electrification of our economy. That means transforming market, planning and regulatory frameworks to get projects, including offshore wind and hydrogen, built more quickly. It means speeding up the buildout of vital grid infrastructure, with a package of measures to reduce unnecessary delays, including reforms to land access rules and networks consenting.

Thirdly, the Bill will deliver a fair, managed and prosperous transition, with the North Sea at its heart. This Government’s view is that neither drilling every last drop nor turning off the taps completely is a realistic plan. Instead, we are led by the science, the facts and the needs of workers and communities, so we are managing existing oil and gas fields for their lifetimes, including through new transitional energy certificates for areas adjacent or in close proximity to existing fields, linked via a tie-back. We are also demonstrating the climate leadership that people expect of us by meeting our manifesto commitment not to issue new licences to explore new fields and the commitment to ban fracking.

At the same time, we will keep investing in the rapidly growing energy industries of the future and help workers and communities take up the opportunities that they offer. Bearing in mind that the green economy is expanding three times faster than the economy as a whole, we are locking in this growth for the future. The Bill will also expand workers’ rights and protections, as we pave the way for a new generation of good jobs in clean energy.

In the gracious Speech, His Majesty also set out plans for the nuclear regulation Bill. It is no exaggeration to say that we are on the cusp of a new age of nuclear power in this country, driven by government investment in the biggest nuclear building programme in half a century—from Sizewell C to our small modular reactors programme with Rolls-Royce SMR.

Nevertheless, according to last year’s Nuclear Regulatory Review, the sector is still held back by a system that is overly complex and “bureaucratic”, and which favours process over safe outcomes. The environmental impact assessment for Sizewell C, for example, was 44,000 pages long and left neither side particularly happy. It is not hard to see why the UK is the most expensive place in the world to build new nuclear.

The measures in the nuclear regulation Bill will deliver a pro-nuclear, pro-nature approach to building, with a co-ordinated system that reduces costs and timeframes. This is not about compromising safety; it is about simplifying a needlessly unwieldy and frustrating system so that we can unleash the potential of this rapidly growing industry. It epitomises everything that this Government are doing to get Britain building things and owning things again. Alongside the energy independence Bill, that is how we will become more resilient and create more opportunities for today’s and future generations.

Turning to technology, the gracious Speech was clear that every path to stronger growth in this country has innovation front and centre. That is why this Government have made a record investment of £86 billion in research and development, as well as launching five AI “growth zones” across the country. In the Department for Energy, we are exploring all of the possible ways in which AI can improve our power system and cut out inefficiencies.

The Government’s task is not only to fuel innovation but to help people navigate and benefit from the changes that new technology inevitably brings. Free AI training is being rolled out to 10 million people—a third of the country’s workforce—in the biggest national training effort since Harold Wilson’s Open University. We are introducing a national digital ID through the digital access to services Bill, which will provide people with a free and optional proof of identity to access services without needing to rely on physical documents that can get lost or be stolen.

It is clear that people need to trust the technologies they use every day and, in particular, that their children are safe online. In the last eight months, we have legislated to make online content that promotes self-harm and suicide a priority offence in the Online Safety Act, and we have stood up to X to stop the spread of intimate deepfakes on its platform. Our cyber security and resilience Bill will better protect our most essential services, such as hospitals and water supplies, from advanced cyber attacks.

We know that parents everywhere are grappling with how much screen time their children should have and the impact of social media. That is why we are running a national consultation on the best ways to protect children’s well-being, including a possible social media ban, overnight curfews and other measures. The question is not whether we will act but how.

The gracious Speech set out plans for an “education for all” Bill, based on the principle that every child should be supported to achieve and thrive. The measures include national inclusion standards, with tools to help teachers identify and support those with additional needs. For those with the most complex needs, new specialist provision packages will be designed with experts and tested with parents to set out exactly what support is required.

We will set clear expectations of public services and hold them to account. For the first time, Ofsted will inspect nurseries, schools and colleges to see how well they include children with additional needs. We will regulate independent special schools, ensuring that children get the right placements without unnecessary costs. We are investing billions of pounds across the system to support early intervention and make it easier to access specialist expertise. We will also invest in the transformation of local SEN—special educational needs—services, including £1.8 billion to bring experts, such as speech and language therapists, into settings.

Finally, let me touch on culture. This Government are determined to maintain the UK’s reputation for world-class events, while ensuring that working people up and down the country can both enjoy them and feel the wider economic benefits in their communities. The new sporting events Bill will ensure that events such as the 2028 European football championships can be delivered as efficiently as possible, while securing the jobs and world-class facilities that our regions deserve. It will also strengthen our claim to host future global events and tournaments, including the 2035 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

We also need to ensure that real fans have fair access to matches, concerts and other major cultural events. For too long, fans have been ripped off by touts buying large volumes of tickets online at an industrial scale and reselling them for vastly inflated prices. We are introducing secondary ticketing laws to end the scourge of touting, by making it illegal to resell a ticket for more than its original cost. In this context, I pay tribute to the work of Robert Smith of The Cure, who has done exactly that with his ticket prices and world tours and has encouraged many other artists to do the same—I thereby out myself as a dedicated Cure fan in the process. This will support our world-leading creative industries by diverting profits back into our live events sector and the pockets of hard-working people. This could save fans £112 million each year and result in a £37 reduction in the average ticket price on the resale market. Therefore, Robert Smith’s efforts will become just the norm as far as tickets are concerned, with all the consequences that that involves.

I began by setting out some of the challenges we face as a country in a world which is more volatile and dangerous than many of us can remember, but as the expression goes, necessity is the mother of invention. As we face up to these challenges, we have an opportunity to strengthen our foundations, and not just get through hard times but build something stronger from them: by getting off the rollercoaster of fossil fuels and embracing the security of clean, homegrown energy; by putting science and technology at the forefront of economic growth; by ensuring every child gets the support they need to succeed; and by making the UK one of the best places in the world for sporting and cultural events, with British citizens feeling the direct benefits. That is how we will make our nation more resilient while ensuring everyone has the platform they need to go forward and thrive.

Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Baroness Crawley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 20th November 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 133, to which the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, has just spoken and to which I put my name. This evening’s inaugural Lord Judge memorial lecture in legal history will address the early modern practice of legislating by proclamation without Parliament. According to the advance publicity for the lecture, Professor Sir John Baker will say that this practice

“may be compared with those resulting from our ‘elective dictatorship’, Parliament having become an instrument whereby a modern Government can exercise more absolute power than that formerly attributed to the King’s prerogative”—

a point often made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, himself. The truth of those words is demonstrated by this Bill, about which the Constitution Committee remarked—with our customary understatement —that

“several powers in the Bill are widely drawn and could facilitate the making of law that goes beyond the updating of existing rules to involve the making of new policy”.

When the EU makes new policy, as it did with the general product safety regulation, which will come into force next month, the process is properly and appropriately democratic. A road map and a public consultation in 2020 were followed by a Commission proposal in 2021, the usual substantive reports by parliamentary committees, a provisional agreement between the Council and the Parliament, approval by COREPER and IMCO and, eventually, adoption of the GPSR by both Parliament and Council in 2023. The process was more extensive, but so is the end product. The GPSR contains a detailed list of factors to be taken into account when assessing the safety of products. It sets out the obligations of manufacturers, authorised representatives, importers, distributors and—a difficult one—online marketplaces. It outlines a traceability system and makes provision for market surveillance, reporting and recalls. Detailed powers, of course, are delegated to the Commission, but the guiding principles were decided on by the legislature at an appropriate level of detail for a legislature.

My point is not that we should or should not follow the substance of what the EU has done. It is that where such wide-ranging matters of policy are engaged, it is not appropriate for Parliament to abdicate its power to the Government as entirely as this Bill proposes to do. Matters that in Europe are decided upon by the Council and the Parliament are here reserved to unamendable and, in practice, unblockable statutory instruments under this Government as they were under the last.

The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, like the Constitution Committee, quoted the Attorney-General’s recent Bingham Lecture, in which he criticised excessive reliance on skeleton legislation and expressed the view that,

“the new Government offers an opportunity for a reset”.

I believe that the Attorney-General has talked the talk with complete sincerity about this issue, but his words do not sit happily with this Bill. The practical question is how are we going to walk the walk? A comprehensive solution would be to adopt the Hansard Society’s proposals for a new system of delegated legislation, a concordat agreed between Parliament and government to reset the boundary between primary and delegated legislation, and a new Act of Parliament to ensure that Parliament can calibrate the level of scrutiny to the content of a statutory instrument.

Limiting ourselves to this Bill, two other solutions are possible, short of the wholesale omission of clauses that was recommended by both the Delegated Powers Committee and the Constitution Committee. The first would be to copy the amendments to what is now Section 14 of the retained EU law Act 2023, tabled in the names of the noble Lords, Lord McLaughlin and Lord Hamilton of Epsom, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and myself. These would have provided for a sifting committee of both Houses, or of the House of Commons, to identify proposed regulations that are particularly deserving of parliamentary attention, and for regulations falling into that category to be amendable by agreement of both Houses under a power modelled on Section 21 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. Those amendments were passed by large majorities in your Lordships’ House in May and June last year, with the support of Her Majesty’s Opposition, and drew support from all parties in the Commons before eventually falling at ping-pong.

The second solution, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, in his Amendment 133, is, by comparison, gentle indeed, and if the noble Lord were a fast bowler, he might describe it as a loosener. No power of amendment is claimed for Parliament. A joint sifting committee would simply have the authority to refer a statutory instrument to a process requiring parliamentary approval if the regulations made a substantive change to the law, or if they had not been consulted upon. A substitute for European levels of democratic engagement I am afraid it is not but a pragmatic improvement to the Bill it is, and I look forward to seeing whether the Minister sees merit in it or whether, as I fear, this is an issue to which we will have to return with renewed energy on Report.

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

My Lords it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. I have an amendment in this group, Amendment 126, which I shall speak to. It is in my name and those of the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, who cannot be in his place today, and the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, reflecting its cross-party support. It requires the Secretary of State to conduct,

“appropriate consultation on draft regulations made under this Act”.

Like other amendments in this group, it is all about more effective scrutiny processes for this Bill. As it stands, this enabling Bill allocates significant powers to the Secretary of State—too many, according to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Constitution Committee.

As this is the first time I am speaking in Committee on the Bill, I say that I support it and the need for it to improve the safety of UK consumers, as do most consumer-facing organisations in this country. However, the Bill, to put it mildly, has received a pounding from the Delegated Powers Committee and the Constitution Committee. I quote paragraph 36 of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report. It states:

“We consider that … the Government have failed to provide a convincing justification for the inclusion of skeleton clauses in the Bill that give Ministers such wide powers to re-write in regulations the substance of the regulatory regime for products”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fox (LD)]

I am not a student of parliamentary history, so I do not know if it is an unprecedented letter, but that was a helpful intervention, and I thank the noble Lord for that.

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

I believe that the sentence that was just read out was in the report from the Government to the Delegated Powers Committee as well. It is not unprecedented is what I am saying.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I feel that I am standing in the middle of a perfectly good debate between the noble Baroness and the noble Lord. Perhaps we can reconcile it in some other way.