Latin America: Future Foreign Policy
Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Earl of Courtown(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]
My Lords, as chairman of the UK branch of Plan International, a charity, for about 20 years, I have regularly visited most of the countries in Latin America. The major problem always was that people obtained all sorts of wonderful things and shelves were stocked but no one knew how to use them. That was rather wasteful and we wanted to do something about that. Can the Government, given that development is now included in the Minister’s portfolio, assure me that the experience of non-governmental bodies that already work in Latin America will be involved in any plans, as their experience is invaluable in providing insight into opportunities and areas of need? The lesson that I learned was that it was important to have someone explain how to use things, not just to present them and then hope that people would be able to put together a prefab school or all sorts of things for educational use. In the light of the—
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I picked up the gist of my noble friend’s question when she began and can give her a very to-the-point response. Of course, the importance of civil society remains part and parcel of the delivery of our programme. As regards my portfolio on human rights, we work closely across the regions, particularly in countries such as Colombia.
Integrated Security, Defence and Foreign Policy Review
Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Earl of Courtown(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Again, I find myself very much in agreement with the noble Lord’s last point. We need to ensure that there is a thorough review of all the challenges we face, whether it is from Mother Nature and pandemics or from sinister actors. Let us not forget that it is not that long ago that we were impacted by chemical weapon attacks on the streets of Salisbury. On the integrated review itself, given the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, we are, of course, keeping all non-related government work under review. The Prime Minister has already said that he will lead the review and bearing in mind his leadership on the current crisis, of course we will look to ensure that the learnings from this crisis can be fed into the review itself.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House I suggest that we adjourn until 2.48 pm to allow noble Lords to leave the Chamber and other noble Lords to move in for the next Question.
Park Homes: County Court Judgments
Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Earl of Courtown
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. There are more than 85,000 park homes across 2,000 sites and such instances occur. That is why the Government are taking steps to tackle site owners who take advantage of tenants and then reregister themselves as another company. Through the changes we are bringing forward, we are ensuring that local authorities will issue licences to directors who apply to set up other companies, therefore giving them greater control over the issuing of such licences to people who have been found to be neglectful of their responsibility to their tenants.
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, is well known throughout the House for his support of park home owners’ properties. What sort of protection and advice can Her Majesty’s Government give to such owners on their heating appliances? I gather that in Cornwall in the past 12 months, four people have died as a result of gases and noxious fumes from their heating appliances. Do the Government have any advice for park home owners to help them with this problem?