Immigration: Eurostar

Debate between Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Henley

Monday 23rd April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I am a little disturbed at the Minister’s complacency that we have got three years to sort this out. After all, the Government have had two years to sort out a range of problems, and the problems are getting worse rather than better. It is a very serious concern to all of us that a service that we are all proud of, the Channel Tunnel service, may in fact prove to be less advantageous to the travelling public in future because of these difficulties over passport checks. I hear what he says about additional expense, but if the expense is not borne by the service, it is borne by the travelling passenger having to wait for hours at the receiving station, St Pancras. Can he look at this issue with some urgency and produce a solution to it?

[Lord Henley]

I commend the noble Lord on the urgency with which he got to his feet, along with his colleagues on the opposition Front Bench. They have obviously been well rested by their three weeks off.

We are not complacent on this issue. All I am saying is that there is a serious problem. Part of the problem relates to the design of St Pancras and getting the passport checks done there. We would therefore like to have the checks done at the point of exit. Obviously that problem is going to be made more difficult once one has trains coming in from Germany and other places. At that point, we might have to look again at having checks done on the trains. As I said—although the noble Lord has not been that speedy—we have three years to do this because we are not likely to see trains coming in from Germany until the end of 2015.

Phone Hacking

Debate between Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Henley

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend makes a very good point. All the matters she referred to are against the law, and we should always be very loath to pass new laws purely because we see a problem happening when there are existing laws that serve that purpose very well. The important matter is to make sure there is proper enforcement.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, why was the Minister so reluctant to comment on that part of the question asked by his noble friend Lord Fowler about concentration of press ownership? I thought the Minister belonged to a Government who were showing some concern about the wilder excesses of capitalism. Is not excessive concentration of press ownership a clear illustration of that?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I think some of the concentration of press ownership happened during the Government of whom the noble Lord was such a distinguished member in former years. I do not think it would be appropriate, as I said, to comment in advance of the inquiry that will be concluded in due course, in his time, by Lord Justice Leveson.

Japanese Knotweed

Debate between Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Henley

Thursday 24th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, a great deal has been done about it. I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, is laughing, because he has had to address these questions before. I am grateful for the work that the previous Administration did in this area in introducing research into the said psyllid, the—let us get the name right again—Aphalara itadori. We hope that it will do the appropriate job in due course.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, we on this side wish the Minister well in the attempt to control Japanese knotweed. Will he emphasise that it is not just gardeners and people who own cultivated land who are concerned about it, but our public services? Knotweed represents a heavy cost on our railway system because of the threat that it represents.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right to emphasise the costs, as did my noble friend in her supplementary question. It can cause major structural damage. We estimate that the costs of managing it are about £150 million a year but, as the noble Lord will remember from when he had to deal with the matter, back in 2003 the cost of total eradication was estimated at £1.5 billion. Now, obviously, it would be a great deal more. We should wait to see what this psyllid can do and whether it leads to a much better control of Japanese knotweed.