King’s Speech

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My noble friend Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield has been a fine mentor to the whole House. That was evident today. As we proceed without him, we must not let him down. Laws send social messages. Candour and individual accountability must improve in all sectors. Human nature and fear intimidate people from admitting when decisions—often taken in haste—have been wrong. For the bereaved fighting for years to reveal the truth, truth is essential in coping with their grief. Financial compensation does not stop the pain, but being misled and cover-ups make grieving much more painful, burning into people’s soul as they search for honour, facts and peace. Legislation is long overdue.

In court modernisation, magistrates’ non-custodial sentencing powers must widen. Let us take alcohol-fuelled crime and alcohol abstinence tags—I declare that I chair the Commission on Alcohol Harm. The initial pilot in Wales was impressive, with recent data suggesting that recidivism when tagged remains low. Will the Government now use probation’s longer-term data from the alcohol use disorders identification test—AUDIT—to gain further insights to guide magistrates’ sentencing? Drink-related harm costs the country around £21.5 billion a year, with alcohol playing a part in four in 10 serious crimes. Some 20% of offenders on probation misuse alcohol, so sobriety sentencing longer than four months could improve long-term outcomes. The increase in drink-drug crimes calls for urgent development of drug detection tags linked to treatment, not only alcohol detection tags.

The cycle of criminality is broken only through adequate prevention. The links between health and criminality are stark. Women make up 4% of the prison population. More than half are neurodiverse or have trauma-induced brain injury. Many had experienced domestic or sexual abuse and coercive relationships, needed mental health treatment, were drinking out of control, often with a drug problem, and some had overdosed—before sentencing. Around one in five had been in the care system. Each year, around 600 pregnant women are incarcerated, with missed antenatal care, pre-term or precipitate labour more common, and insufficient prison mother and baby units. Trials and sentencing must recognise that better prison health for one can alter an entire family’s trajectory, as prisoners’ children experience higher rates of emotional distress, disrupted attachment, poorer educational outcomes and future vulnerability.

Clean water legislation crosses England and Wales, as Welsh Water supplies into England, whilst the Severn impacts both England and Wales. Can the Minister confirm that, as intended, the Senedd is intricately involved in legislative control of water companies, stringent enough to ensure that water companies comply, rather than just meet a minimum standard? Planning regulation must be linked; we need food production, not concreted-over land and gardens that increase surface water run-off into drains and affect the water table. Our inadequate water treatment and sewerage plants require urgent investment, leveraged through regulation. Farmers need incentives to decrease ammonia and other fertiliser use, and to undertake muck spreading, as in Ireland, with nutrients absorbed into the soil rather than running off into waterways.

Comments on the Health Bill are for another day.