Death of Ann Widdecombe

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend and I agree with and wholeheartedly support his wish for the police to be allowed to get on with the investigation. I was just checking my phone because the police are in fact making a statement as we speak. I cannot update the House on the level of co-operation between Devon & Cornwall Police and Counter Terrorism Policing, but both have the same objective, which is to bring to account an individual, at some point and whoever that individual may be, for this crime. I wish them well in their success and I hope they have speedy outcomes to those investigations.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, I send my condolences to Ann Widdecombe’s family. I served as a Member of Parliament with her on the other side and, rather surprisingly, when I stepped down as an MP in 2017, a very kind letter arrived from Ann thanking me for my public service. There was always a side to her that we did not anticipate.

One of the things in the light of this is again quite extraordinary. Apart from the armed services, which other profession could say, as many of us in here have said, that three, four or five of our colleagues have been killed in the performance of their duty? One very concrete thing I ask of the Minister is to take a very close look at our home addresses, whether of Members of Parliament or of Members of this House. This is probably the most vulnerable data, and we need to ensure it is not publicly accessible.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

If the noble Baroness will allow, I will not give an opinion on that immediately. It is important that, through the Robert Buckland review, we look at the security issues for all elected parliamentarians and Members of this House. I say that simply because we can jump to speedy conclusions on a whole range of matters, but ultimately we commissioned a review from Robert Buckland in the light of the murder of Sir David Amess and I am waiting for that review to come back with a general review of security. We will work with the authorities in the House of Commons, and indeed with the House authorities here, to see whether improvements can be made. The bottom line in all this is that every person who holds public office has the right to hold that office free from fear and free to enjoy their property free from demonstrations. The noble Baroness will also know, as I have reminded myself in my comments now, that in the police and crime Act we passed legislation that prevents demonstrations outside the properties of Members of Parliament.

Police Leadership Commission Report

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for bringing his experience of policing at a leadership level to the debate and this discussion. He will know that leadership is critical in delivering high performance and for the public. The recommendations intend to help generate that discussion and to focus on how we improve leadership. Last year, for example, we had significant levels of vacancy for chief constable positions and a relatively small pool, sometimes internal, of people applying for them. We need to encourage better use of senior leadership.

I was a Member of Parliament for 28 years and my local police force probably had around 30 police superintendents during that time. That is not sustainable for continuity and performance. We have very strong leadership at the top of the triangle but a large pool of officers at the bottom end who need to be recognised for the work they do, and encouraged to have training and to have ambition to go through the system in a positive way. We will look at the recommendations and I give my noble friend the assurance that we will report back when we have had a chance to consider them in detail.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the report and I see that the recommendations include the creation of a national academy of police leadership. I declare my interest, as the First Civil Service Commissioner, as a regulator for entry into the senior Civil Service. I argue that, at that level of leadership, the different professions—whether it be the Armed Forces, the police or the most senior civil servants—have a lot to learn from each other and would benefit from each other’s experiences. As the Government respond to that, I urge the Minister to look at other professions and top-level leadership so that they can learn from each other and exchange their experiences.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My noble friend brings great experience from her role in the Civil Service Commission to the matter of recruiting individuals at a senior level. It is quite clear—the report makes this point very strongly—that police officers at all levels must be able to develop skills earlier in their career to enable them to develop and progress. The commission’s report highlights the fact that policing needs a clearer and more coherent system that supports professional development at all ranks. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, mentioned, there are undoubtedly lessons and models that can be looked at in other aspects of society that will help support the development process.

Muslim Brotherhood

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

President Trump is responsible for the policy of the United States. The noble Lord will know that, before Christmas, the United States produced a document on its approach to foreign policy. We are an independent nation and we will look at any issues with the interests of the United Kingdom. In this case, going back to the original Question from the noble Lord, Lord Godson, the evidence President Trump has called for in relation to the Muslim Brotherhood has not yet been completed, so it would be very foolish of us to make a decision on that issue, which we keep under review at all times, without even seeing what the Americans have said. We will examine the issue, and we will always be an independent nation responsible for our own foreign policy.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister said that a range of other tools is available to the Government to deal with particular threats, and he mentioned the Charity Commission. Could I press him a little more on whether this is an area in which they are taking more actions or taking a closer look in relation to the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood and registered charities associated with it?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The Charity Commission has monitored, is monitoring and will continue to monitor the performance of any organisation that meets charitable objectives. I know it is already examining some areas that the noble Baroness has brought forward. It is a matter for the Charity Commission to make a judgment on charitable status; it is not a matter for the Government to suggest or intervene on. I know it keeps it under review and will make recommendations to government if required, which we can act upon.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 12th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, we have had several references in the debate so far to a settled public view: that the public are in favour of this legislation. I briefly revert to my previous existence as a Member of Parliament, when I took part in the 2015 Private Member’s legislation on assisted dying. My constituency was Birmingham Edgbaston, which had some interesting aspects, such as Harborne having the highest concentration of doctors per square mile anywhere in the country. Across the road from the constituency was the Birmingham Oratory, which had very strong Catholic views.

As the debate was coming up, I thought I would do something very unusual for an elected politician, because if you are elected, your voters want only to hear your certainties; they never want you to go out and say, “I really don’t know what I think about this. Could you help me?”. I organised three public meetings: one was organised by the Birmingham Medical Institute and was attended largely by members of the medical profession, another was organised by St John’s Harborne church and brought in all the faith groups, and the third was a public meeting open to all my constituents or anybody nearby who wanted to come.

The format for all three meetings was the same. I had a lawyer there who would explain what the Bill was about, and I said, “I’m going to make up my own mind, by the way; you’re not going to mandate me on how I’m going to vote, but I really want to test my views and hear what you have to say”. The outcome was very surprising. The one group which was almost unified in its view was the doctors, in that the legislation was about what should happen if you needed medical assistance, and they said, “We don’t think we should go there.” Here, again, we have this argument between choices and palliative care. The group which was most divided—with apologies to faith leaders—was the churches. They were arguing from one end of the argument to the other. The most thoughtful debates were among the public, who, in essence, were making the cases for and against, and, at the end of the meeting, when I asked, “Broadly speaking, what should I do?”, one of them got up and said, “You’ve got a really tough job on your hands, love. Just try and do your best.”

I am explaining this because I think we should be very careful. If you have a survey which asks, “Do you want to reduce pain?”, of course you say yes, but as many speakers here have said, it is about palliative care, where the money goes and the consequences of that. I do not think we have really considered that.

The other thing which I want specifically to address is personal autonomy. To make choices for the few and assume that that will not have implications for society as a whole is deeply misguided. The essence of society is that it is a collective of individuals. We can permit it when we stop criminalising suicide, but to suddenly make it an option, is, I think, problematic.

I want to finish with something which the noble Baroness, Lady Debbonaire, started to address and to quote Bronowski, who in one of the episodes towards the end of “The Ascent of Man” said:

“Science is a very human form of knowledge … Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal”.


In the end, he quoted words by Oliver Cromwell:

“‘I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken’”.


As the noble Baroness, Lady Debbonaire, reminded us, this is one of those occasions when, if we are mistaken, we cannot reverse it.

Iranian State Threats

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I understand where the noble Lord is coming from. We keep proscription under review at all times. It is an option for the Government at any time, in relation not only to Iran but to other agencies and countries as well. It is not a silver bullet: the organisation does not disappear just because proscription has taken place. What we have done—I hope that the noble Lord will bear with us on this—is ask the independent reviewer of terrorism, Jonathan Hall, to look at the legislation generally and at issues to do with proscription in the wider context.

I welcome the noble Lord’s comments on the Jewish community. One of the drivers for this is to ensure that members of the Jewish community have security from any state threats that are made to them. He would wish to know that around £18 million is being provided up to 2027-28 for security measures where members of the Jewish community feel they need them for places of worship. That is, again, a secondary, but very important, measure that the Government are putting in place to ensure that people feel safe in their communities.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, it has been reported that President Putin has been making overtures to the Iranian regime to act as a broker in the relationship with President Trump. May I therefore urge him to talk to his colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to ensure that our Five Eyes partners and all those who work together to defend democracy do not ignore this new threat?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend, with whom I shared time on the Intelligence and Security Committee. The situation with President Putin is one that the Government continue to keep under review. I will draw her comments to the attention of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. It is extremely important not only that we understand the Iranian threat, but that we assess and understand the threat from Russia. Therefore, I take on board her comments and will feed them into the system.

Plymouth Shootings

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her comments. What a truly tragic comment to have to make from her point of view—although, of course, I agree with her. I cannot go into detail as to what the review, and the reports to which we will respond, will say, for obvious reasons: we have not had them all yet. Again, I quote my right honourable friend in the other House, who made it very clear that we will respond comprehensively to the recommendations in these reports. He said that he knows that it

“will include consideration of domestic abuse and domestic violence, which are clearly indicators of substantially increased risk”,

as they were in this case. He said that he

“would be happy to discuss those recommendations as soon as they come out”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/2/23; col. 163.]

I think that we should wait for those recommendations, but I cannot believe that they will not be part of any response. It would seem to me inconceivable that that would be the case.

On enhanced psychiatric monitoring, if we can call it that, it is again too early for me to speculate, but, clearly, GPs are not always going to be qualified to make some of those judgments—or so I would assume. I think that the noble Baroness makes a very good point, and I will make sure that it is well known in the Home Office.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, I will continue on the subject of the involvement of GPs but will look at it slightly more systematically. The Minister referred to NHS Digital and markers in GP records, but he also referred to inconsistencies across police forces. As we come to the review and we look at how data and the system are shared, can he assure the House that the various police forces, the police and crime commissioners, and GPs across England and Wales, which are much more shared systems, are consistent in how they approach these matters?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her comments; that will certainly be part of the approach we will take. Obviously, the tone of this discussion has to be very gloomy, but there are a number of things that would suggest that firearms licensing is being carried out safely in other forces. I will refer to that, because it is important that we do so. Immediately following the tragic shootings, the then Home Secretary asked all police forces to review urgently their licensing practices, and, in particular, to carry out a full review of all the certificates that had been seized, refused, revoked or surrendered in the previous 12 months and subsequently approved by the police. The main points from that review, which were announced on 1 November 2021, were that, collectively, a total of 6,434 firearms and shotgun licences had been surrendered, seized, revoked or refused over the previous 12-month period across England, Wales and Scotland. Of those, a total of 908 licences had been subsequently returned or issued following further checks or appeals decided by the courts. As a result of that review of returned licences, in eight cases the original decision was overturned, and licences were resurrendered or revoked. Those findings ought to provide some reassurance that the police have in place robust processes for issuing and reviewing firearms and shotgun licences—which is not to say that we could not do more and perhaps introduce a bit more national consistency, as discussed.

I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, because, in my opening remarks, I neglected to refer to the article that he mentioned. I have seen the article; I have not studied it in detail, but I will come back to him on it.

Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

As I said to other noble Lords, the ACRS will prioritise those people who have assisted UK efforts in Afghanistan and who face particular risk from the Taliban because of their stance on democracy and human rights or because of their gender, sexuality or religion.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, quite rightly pointed out that, with Afghan women MPs being helped to come out of Afghanistan, some of their networks have been broken up, as have some of the family structures. Could the Government undertake also to work with the diaspora in this country to ensure that some of these networks and families are being reunited and brought to work again?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

That is a very good point, and I will certainly take that back.

Police: Sarah Everard Vigils

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his kind words, and of course PCCs have our full support. It is absolutely crucial that the various agencies communicate with each other when such events are to take place and that PCCs are fully keyed into those events. For the most part, the events held over the weekend went very peacefully.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, vigils were held outside London, including one in Victoria Square in Birmingham. More than 100 people attended and the West Midlands Police responded in a peaceful way. It reinforced its commitment to policing through explanation, engagement, encouragement and using force only as a last resort. When it comes to this kind of operational decision, could I urge the Minister that we should learn the lessons of more peaceful demonstrations and find out why things so clearly went wrong at Clapham Common last Saturday?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question because it segues quite nicely from the points that I have just made. Yes, most of the events and vigils went peacefully with people socially distancing and the police having no problems at all. I think that the review by Sir Tom Winsor will give us a greater insight into why some things went wrong on Saturday at one particular event.

Operation Midland

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, as I said, the IOPC has declined to investigate in certain areas. I know that certain cases have been given to Merseyside, as a separate force, to investigate, but it is sad that Lord Brittan did not get to see his name cleared and I understand the grief that his widow will be going through.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I take the Minister back to the question asked earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. It was quite clear that different evidence was given to Wiltshire Police from later on. Experienced police officers should therefore have noticed a difference in the reliability of the witness much earlier. We have here an institutional as well as an individual failure. Although the person referred to at that stage as Nick has since been prosecuted, why has no officer been held accountable for their failure, which was so clear, obvious and well documented?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I have given that answer several times now. Obviously, disciplinary action against an individual officer is a matter for forces; we have IICSA’s current inquiry into institutional failures and we have had a number of inquiries into different matters regarding the issues raised this afternoon.

Health Measures at UK Borders

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Obviously, there are travel bans from certain countries, but in terms of transit—which is what the noble Lord is talking about—we ask anyone who arrives at our borders to fill in the forms. We do follow up on those forms and we are, to some extent, relying on the good will and honesty of people in doing so. People will always try to find a way around the system, but I think we are relying on people’s honesty to a certain extent.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, it seems that international arrivals in the United Kingdom will be under certain common rules. Will the Minister make sure that, in her discussions with the devolved Administrations, we do not end up with a system of divergence just for divergence’s sake? If we have compulsory quarantine requirements, surely they ought to apply in the same way to the whole of the United Kingdom if they are underpinned by rational scientific decisions.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I think the noble Baroness makes a really good point. We might be four nations, but we should be acting as one nation. That is the most effective and efficient way to try to control the virus and save lives.