Air Quality: London
Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My noble friend is right: there is work to be done on road design, road junctions, local planning and the design of buildings, all of which can have an impact on air pollution. Certainly traffic calming measures sometimes cause pollution to rise, but that is part of the constant review to find different ways of cleaning the air.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, given that the mayor is now worried about air pollution in London, has the Minister had any conversations with him about whether his decision not to proceed with introducing congestion charging in west London has helped to improve the health of people in London or make it worse?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I have not had a conversation with the mayor. That answers the first of the noble Lord’s questions. Congestion charging has had some effect, but not a great deal, on air pollution. We use a combination of factors such as encouraging people to use bicycles, to walk or to drive vehicles which do not use the worst kinds of fuels—all play a part. We need to use a combination of factors.
Gambling Commission: Health Lottery
Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My noble friend makes a very valid point that, so far, the legality has been in the matter of the fact of the law. However, as I have mentioned, there will be ongoing monitoring and, as he so rightly says, all these things can be changed if it turns out that the spirit of the law is not being respected.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
My Lords, are the Government content with the system that they have in place for monitoring the operations of the Gambling Commission and, if not, what can they do about it? Are they content that Mr Desmond is a fit and proper person, given what was said at the Leveson inquiry last week and the failure of his organisations to associate themselves with the independent press commission, and that this is the way forward given some of the issues which now surround the operation of this lottery?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, as I say, it is for the Gambling Commission to look at this. We recognise all the issues around Mr Desmond and his other organisations, but those are not perhaps directly relevant to this. One thing that the Government have done is to merge the Gambling Commission and the National Lottery Commission, which we expect will make regulation easier and create cost savings but also help to produce a more robust form of monitoring.
Sport: Rugby League World Cup 2013
Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I thank my noble friend for that—in rather more robust language than I would have used. Indeed, Rugby League has a tremendous lot to commend it as a sport. It would be ideal if it could penetrate the south of the country as much as the north. It is a parallel sport, if you like, to Rugby Union, and both codes of the sport should be equally supported and have equal merit.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
Would the Minister confirm—I welcome this—that £25 million of underwriting is going into Rugby Union but that for Rugby League the amount is only £625,000, which is substantially less than the amount of money that it sought from the RDAs to put in its bid for the 2013 Rugby League World Cup? Will she say why there is such a wide variation? She used the phrase “parity of treatment”. Will she define what the parity of treatment is because, prima facie, it does not look like fair treatment, especially given that the £25 million underwriting for Rugby Union has not changed, yet that for Rugby League has?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
The noble Lord will be aware that the systems for putting in bids for Rugby Union and Rugby League are different and the government response is in proportion to the requirements for both those bids.