Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 19th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Amendment 75 not moved.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

I cannot call Amendments 75A, 75B or 75C, as they are amendments to Amendment 75, which has not been moved.

Amendment 76 not moved.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

I cannot call Amendments 76A, 76B or 76C, as they are amendments to Amendment 76, which has not been moved.

Clause 32: Delivery of knives etc

Amendments 77 to 121 not moved.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendments 124 to 131 not moved.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

I cannot call Amendment 131A, as it is an amendment to Amendment 131.

Amendments 132 and 133 not moved.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendments 190 not moved.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

I cannot call Amendments 190A and 190B, as they are amendments to Amendment 190.

Amendment 191 not moved.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

I cannot call Amendments 191A and 191B, as they are amendments to Amendment 191.

Amendment 192 not moved.

Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Amendment 15 withdrawn.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

My Lords, if Amendment 16 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 17 for reasons of pre-emption.

Amendment 16 not moved.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 17 agreed.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

My Lords, if Amendment 18 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 19, 21, 22, 24, 32, 56 and 59 for reasons of pre-emption.

Amendment 18 not moved.

Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 26th February 2025 Lords Chamber

Amendment 2 in particular gives the House an opportunity just to say, “Enough—no more. Please go back and find a better way of proceeding in this vitally important area of law”. I beg to move.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

My Lords, I must inform the House that, if Amendment 2 is agreed to, I will not be able to call Amendments 3 and 4 by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

My Lords, I rise not to support the noble Lord, although it is a pleasure to follow him, but to address government Amendments 44 and 61 in this group, which I have signed, together with government Amendment 55, which will be for another day.

The Constitution Committee has already been kindly mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe and Lord Hunt. As a member of that committee, I register my appreciation for the fact that the Government have not only listened to the committee’s concerns and to those developed with impressive persistence by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee but have reacted constructively to them. The Henry VIII powers have been greatly reduced in scope and a credible explanation has been given for the small remainder. While the Bill continues to contain uncomfortably wide ministerial powers to make significant policy decisions, the broad duty of consultation in Amendment 61 is a welcome mitigation. The third part of the package—an extension of the affirmative procedure—is another positive step.

It might have been possible to go further, as the Delegated Powers Committee has rightly said. But, for my part, I would not go so far as to support the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in his—I am tempted to say “wrecking” —Amendment 2. How to avoid the unconstrained use of excessively broad delegated powers is a problem that will not go away. It was raised by this Bill in a particularly acute form. The Government have grappled with it conscientiously and they deserve credit for that.

I have one final thought. It is rather a dry one, I am afraid, but what do you expect from the Cross Benches? I hope that, some day, the relevant committees of this House might have occasion to discuss the constitutional issues around framework Bills and delegated powers with the Government, not only Bill by Bill, as we do at present, but in a more structured and strategic way. Such discussions would give proper weight to the constraints on government but could also draw on the guidance provided by our committees and bodies such as the Hansard Society over many years. Perhaps the Minister will agree, after his generous and productive engagement on this issue, that the goal of a more consistent and principled approach on both sides of the fence might at least be worth pursuing.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 20th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

My Lords, before I call Motion B, it may assist the House if I say that Amendment 3B in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, would be in lieu of Lords Amendment 2, and that his Amendment 3C would be in lieu of Lords Amendment 3.

Motion B

Moved by

Operation Conifer

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, in October 2018, the then Home Secretary, Sir Sajid Javid, wrote to Lord Armstrong following a meeting with him and other Peers to discuss Operation Conifer and related matters. In that correspondence, the then Home Secretary wrote:

“As I think you would agree, the real issue here is not so much Operation Conifer itself, but the inconclusive nature of its findings and what you describe as ‘the cloud of suspicion that … continues to hang over Sir Edward Heath’s memory and reputation’ … it is not clear to what extent a further review of the existing evidence by a judge or retired prosecutor would resolve this. It remains my view that the handling of this is properly a matter for the local PCC and that it would not be appropriate for me to seek to persuade him how he should go about it”.


That largely remains the case, and the current Home Secretary wrote in answer to a Parliamentary Question on 7 February that

“the Government has no plans to commission a review of either the conduct of the investigation … or the findings”.

We are aware of no direct precedent for the type of review that my noble friend calls for. However, I am happy to ask officials to look into this to see whether it is either possible or viable, and I will report back in due course.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is taking part remotely. I invite him to speak.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, why perpetuate the existence of these allegations by refusing to establish the independent review we have all called for for years? No one has ever produced a shred of evidence. The allegations are based on the early ranting of Carl Beech, a proven liar now languishing in prison. What possible benefit is to be gained by leaving on the table accusations that tarnish the reputation of a former British Prime Minister, over which historians will argue? I simply cannot understand the Government’s hesitation, and neither can anybody else I speak to.

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Amendment 156 withdrawn.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

My Lords, I must inform the House that if Amendment 156A is agreed, I will not be able to call Amendment 157 by reason of pre-emption.

Amendment 156A

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

My Lords, I cannot call Amendments 159 and 160 by reason of pre-emption.

Amendments 159 and 160 not moved.

National Security Bill

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 21st December 2022 Lords Chamber

I thank noble Lords for Amendments 43 to 45A, which seek to introduce reporting arrangements around disinformation and would require further controls on political process. I will set out in my closing remarks that it is the Government’s position that these amendments are not necessary. I look forward to the debate on these important issues but, for now, I beg to move.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

My Lords, if Amendment 38 is agreed to, I will not be able to call Amendment 39 by reason of pre-emption.

Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

I again join the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Paddick, not only in paying tribute to the family of Daniel Morgan but in their appreciation of the work of the panel.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked when the Metropolitan Police Service will respond to the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary has undertaken to update the House by the end of the year, so the answer to his question is “swiftly”. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, talked about the obstruction in obtaining documentation. On the production of documentation and the funding required to carry out the work of the panel, the Home Secretary feels that the money and resources were sufficient to carry out the investigation. To date, some £16 million has been spent on this investigation.

On the relationship with the Home Office, I do not think that it has been smooth sailing. The previous Home Secretary, my right honourable friend Theresa May, set up the inquiry and it was never the intention that the relationship with the Home Office should be difficult. The Home Office has tried to assist the panel in whatever way it can.

I do not have to hand the terms of reference for the inspectorate, but I assume that that they would have been set up for the precise reason of ensuring that there is a full inspection. On the point of the term “and others”, I presume that one of the “and others” is the IOPC. On the duty of candour to be taken forward, as I said earlier, the Home Secretary will want to speak to the family and to progress matters after that.

I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, whether the Government will ensure that such a tragedy and miscarriage of justice never happen again and that the police cannot get away with impunity. I said earlier that Section 35 of the Inquiries Act 2005 makes it an offence to commit acts that are intended to have the effect of distorting, altering or preventing evidence being given to a statutory inquiry, although this was not a statutory inquiry, and I understand that. However, it is an offence intentionally to suppress, conceal or destroy a relevant document.

On recent measures, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, talked about historic failings. The investigations may be historic, but police corruption is something that the Government have focused on. The introduction of the code of ethics in 2014 went some way towards correcting it, as did the establishment in 2015 of a specific criminal offence of police corruption. I recall, because I took the legislation through the House, that measures to ensure that officers cannot resign or retire to evade accountability were brought in in 2017, as well as a barred list to prevent dismissed officers rejoining policing.

There are also last year’s reforms to ensure that misconduct investigations are more transparent and swift. Much work has been done by national policing to tackle corruption, particularly through the national action plan on abuse of a position for a sexual purpose. I know that HMICFRS is currently undertaking a follow-up inspection of all forces’ counter-corruption and vetting capabilities and, as I may have said earlier, the Home Secretary has asked HMICFRS to ensure an urgent focus on the Metropolitan Police Service.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Non-Afl)]

We come now to the 20 minutes allocated to Back-Bench questions. I ask that questions and answers be brief so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.

Davies Commission Report

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, it is sensible that the Liberal Democrat Benches should have an opportunity.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, I declare that I have lived for 20 years under the Heathrow flight path and that I am a member of HACAN. Could the Minister tell us what the anticipated impact is on Manchester and Birmingham airports? The business plan for Heathrow includes a proposal to divert direct flights into those two airports to the third runway, which will have an impact on the northern powerhouse. In addition, my neighbours and I were told when the fourth terminal was approved that there would be no further expansion at Heathrow. There was then an effort to get a fifth terminal, and we were promised that there would be no expansion beyond the fifth terminal and no third runway. Within six weeks of planning approval, a campaign began for the third runway. Would the Minister tell me whether I am a fool to have believed those assurances from both the airport and the aviation industry, and whether I would be a fool to believe again promises about there being no plans for a fourth runway or indeed about the rather minor mitigations promised, many of which could have been implemented already?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rowe-Beddoe (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I apologise, but we cannot have two noble Lords standing at the same time. The Cross Benches have not made a contribution as yet.

[Lord Rowe-Beddoe]

Could the Minister confirm that in his opinion Her Majesty’s Government have taken into adequate account the increased security implications for this capital city of increased flights over its administrative centre?

Queen’s Speech

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and I congratulate him on a very significant maiden speech. After a distinguished career in local government, he was an outstanding chief executive of the Homes and Communities Agency before going on to be both Permanent Secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government and head of the Home Civil Service. These are impeccable credentials for contributing to our deliberations and his speech today assures us that he will be a wise, influential and most welcome addition to this House.

My comments in this debate take forward some of the points on the forthcoming housing Bill made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and other Peers, including the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. I am sure that there will be some helpful and positive ingredients in the new housing Bill since I believe that the Government are sincere in their stated aim to increase housing supply and, indeed, to meet their target of adding some 275,000 affordable homes over the lifetime of this Parliament. The problem is that a key component in the Bill is likely to completely undermine their good intentions if it is not greatly modified.

The Bill’s problematic ingredient has two related parts: first, a requirement on charitable housing associations to sell their properties at substantial discounts—up to more than £103,000 in London and £77,000 elsewhere—to tenants who have lived there for three years or more; and secondly, a requirement on local councils to sell their most valuable properties on the open market in order to raise the money for those costly housing association discounts. I see that I am in good company in questioning the wisdom of this two-part policy: the Economist, the Spectator, the Telegraph and the London Evening Standard alongside the Mayor of London are among the critics, as is Martin Woolf in the Financial Times, under the heading:

“Tories wrong to buy votes with housing”.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has called this right-to-buy extension a “substantial giveaway” and warns of harm to the UK public finances over the longer term.

I shall summarise the objections to this policy initiative. First, in relation to housing policy, there are hundreds of thousands of households that are unable to buy but are crippled by the cost of open market renting. For all these, the target of 275,000 extra affordable homes by 2020 is essential and, with government backing, definitely achievable. However, the National Housing Federation estimates that about 221,000 households, out of 1.5 million identified by the Government as eligible, are in a position to buy—and why should they not take advantage of this sudden lucky windfall? If these tenants purchase over the next five years, and if councils over that period are required to sell thousands of their best properties to raise the funds to pay for the housing association discounts, then the social housing providers will have tried to fill the bath with the plug out. At the end of this Parliament, instead of increasing the stock of affordable homes that the country needs so badly, all these efforts will have been in vain and, at best, we will be back where we started.

Moreover, the whole process of selling some social housing and building elsewhere will have grave consequences. With councils having to sell in the best areas and having to build in cheaper places, a divisive segregation results, separating the better-off and the less affluent, in contradiction to the universally preferred alternative of mixed communities. As the London mayor has pointed out, replacing the homes sold in London with homes built outside will deny London the key workers on which this city depends, while affordable homes sold off in rural communities will often be quite impossible to replace.

Secondly, the financial considerations of this double measure are alarming. The National Housing Federation estimates that the cost could be around £11.5 billion. Do these payments to a relatively small number of people represent the very best use of several billion pounds? A windfall grant to those already in decent affordable housing seems strange indeed when the money could help thousands of others in severe housing need. According to the National Housing Federation, this level of funds would, for example, secure no fewer than 660,000 shared ownership homes, helping three times as many aspiring owner-occupiers.

Moreover, what happens if selling good council housing as it falls vacant fails to raise all the funds to cover the cost of the new discounts, let alone pay for the councils to replace the homes they sell off? Can the Minister confirm that whatever the cost, housing associations will be guaranteed reimbursement for the loss of their assets? Will the taxpayer pick up the bill, regardless of the impact on the public finances?

Thirdly, and finally, there are some serious legal and practical objections to this policy. In the 1980s this House very firmly rejected the extension of the right to buy to charitable housing associations, principally on the grounds that government should not be ordering independent charitable bodies to dispose of their assets to the benefit of some tenants of today but at the cost of diminishing the charity’s capacity to help others in need in the future.

On the practical side, there are worries about the response of lenders to the new uncertainties that this measure creates. There are also concerns about planning agreements, which have required a proportion of rented homes in private developments to be retained in perpetuity for those on lower incomes, never to be sold. Are these planning agreements now to be torn up, and will the housing associations be forced to renege on promises to landowners who have given land or sold cheaply, on rural exception sites, for the benefit of their local communities? If so, this is surely an end to such concessions in the future.

Clearly there are serious housing policy, financial, legal and practical difficulties to this multibillion-pound initiative. It looks incredibly fraught. I conclude by asking the Minister: will there now be extensive consultation on the new policy, not least with Members of this House, before it is taken to its next stage?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, I ask for noble Lords’ indulgence and assistance. Our timings are such that if we continue to have the length of speeches that we have had, the House will sit very late indeed. The advisory time of seven minutes is to ensure that the House rises at a respectable time, and I am sure that your Lordships would wish me to be helpful in that regard.