King’s Speech

Baroness Grender Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, it is a delight to follow the speech of my noble friend Lady Leaman, of Chipping Sodbury. I congratulate her on setting out with her customary clarity the important case of neurodiversity in children. They will have a great new champion in this House. I also welcome the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Hobby and Lord Blackwater.

Having worked with my noble friend for over a decade, her dedication to SEND issues comes as no great surprise. Our collaboration started with a request from her for mentoring. To be honest, she showed such political know-how that I have never quite been sure whether it was me doing the mentoring or her. My noble friend Lady Leaman has political intuition, tenacity and a level of drive that leaves most people who work with her sprinting to keep up. Being a chief of staff to a party leader, as many on these Benches and others know, is one of the toughest leadership roles in any political party. To take on that challenge at a point when the question was whether that party would continue to exist, helping to deliver the best general election result in a century, shows extraordinary strategic leadership and skill.

My noble friend Lady Leaman worked alongside Sir Ed Davey and told his story of care, humanity and love with something that everyone involved in caring recognised. She managed to make it moving, human and just a little bit of fun too. Her ability to put care and social care at the heart of politics, alongside her experience working for Save the Children, means that I look forward to her future work in this House with some relish.

I also look forward to hearing the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Dixon. I should declare an interest, in that he was my boss for three years when I was director of communications for the Liberal Democrats. He was a brilliant chief executive and friend. I thank him, my noble friend Lady Leaman and Dave McCobb, our campaigning guru and Hull luminary, for being part of a leadership team that was one of the best experiences of my life.

Sadly, we are seeing the opposite of teamwork at the moment in the House of Commons, and I fear for its programme. These plans lack the ambition and urgency we seriously need. For too long, communities have suffered while water companies profited, polluted our rivers and seas and let their customers down. The water Bill is therefore welcome. But the Government already hold many of the powers they need to act. Stronger enforcement of existing rules should accompany any new legislation.

We continue to believe that the Government should go much further on transparency, stronger regulation and ending the broken financial model that has failed customers and the environment and simply rewarded the shareholders. The Government’s own environmental improvement plan points to important work on water farming, land use and food. However, the gracious Address—and debates this week—had a lack of information about the all-important issue of Defra, and the Government do not yet show the urgency or ambition needed to deliver.

The Address is also striking for what it leaves out on food security, at a time when affordable food and domestic production matter more than ever. There is still no clear plan to back British farmers or strengthen our resilience. That matters, because food security is national security. Urgent measures are needed on sustainable food production, food affordability and farming resilience. Unfortunately, for years the Conservative Government neglected British farmers. Subsidies have fallen by 20% in real terms since 2015, and now Labour is cutting further. Our over-reliance on imports, alongside continuing energy price pressures, leaves food inflation as a real danger. Who is exposed? It is the poorest families who are exposed. In February of this year, these risks were raised in a joint letter from 100 food companies that called for a White Paper and legislation to confront these problems.

The Government promised to legislate to end peat sales, but without a timetable. That is not good enough. We need to meet environmental commitments and restore business confidence to UK horticulture. On water, farming, food security and nature, the Government must move at the speed of the current crisis, not at the glacial pace of their own internal wrangling. We on these Benches will be on their case on these issues.