Young Female Racing Drivers

Lord Hain Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I certainly agree with my noble friend that it is definitely a worthwhile investment. As recent achievements in football, rugby and tennis have shown, women’s successes in sport not only bring delight to the viewing public but inspire women and girls to take part and to get more active. As a Formula 1 fan myself, I warmly welcome the creation of the F1 Academy and look forward to its first race in Austria later this month. I am also pleased by the news that its races will align next season with Formula 1 race weekends. It is run by Susie Wolff, who is an inspiring role model. At the British Grand Prix in 2014, she became the first woman to take part in a Formula 1 race weekend in 22 years. With a British team taking part, and with British drivers including Chloe Grant, Abbi Pulling and Jessica Edgar hoping to follow hot on the heels of the three-time W Series winner Jamie Chadwick, it is clear that there are many reasons for British fans to be especially excited.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, is not the problem that initiatives around women’s participation in motorsport begin far too late, when all the best racing drivers start in karting at six or seven years old? Likewise, Ministers need to start promoting more women engineers, beginning with schoolgirls. Could the Government be much more positive towards motorsport, in which, as the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, said, the UK is a world leader? As such, the sport is a great ambassador for British high-performance engineering and talent, including championing sustainable fuels which are carbon neutral.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Lord is right to point to the many ways that women can get involved in motorsports, not just as drivers but as team principals, nutritionists, psychologists, talent scouts and in many other roles. Lots of people have obviously been inspired by the recent Netflix series, “Drive to Survive”, which perhaps did not give enough screen time to all the women who take part. There is definitely a role for the sport itself, as well as for government and parliamentarians in exchanges such as this, to draw attention to that and to inspire people to get involved at every level.

Covid-19: Broadband

Lord Hain Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

On social tariffs, I repeat what I said earlier: Ofcom is absolutely clear that the providers of those tariffs need to proactively market them. However, government is working and meeting with them regularly and encouraging them to do so. Figures are available for the number of households that have been cut off—it is an extremely low number—but I am not aware that it includes details on children. I will write to the noble Baroness with the detail, if it exists.

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, could the Government fund local authorities to establish high-quality broadband hubs with work stations in each community for those citizens, whether school pupils, students or people working from home, who have either terrible or no online access—or, equally importantly, very cramped living conditions—making it impossible to study or work properly? Otherwise, the gaping digital divide, revealed by evidence to the Lords Covid-19 Committee, of which I am a member, will massively accelerate existing inequalities.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government have an incredibly ambitious and currently very successful programme of rolling out broadband across the country. The quickest way to get everyone, particularly those on the wrong side of the digital divide, included is for that programme to progress—both the commercial aspects and the £5 billion that we are putting into Project Gigabit to make sure that rural communities also have good access.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Lord Hain Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 29th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride)]

Following the earlier intervention of the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, have withdrawn. I now call the noble Lord, Lord Hain.

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her gracious and generous intervention—or speech. Having long campaigned for human rights globally, especially against apartheid, where I called for commercial sanctions against the regime and complicit companies, I applaud the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his compelling speech and for co-ordinating Amendment 5 and tabling it on a cross-party basis.

I support, to the point of voting for it if he calls for a vote, its objective, which is to ensure that Huawei has to respect human rights in order to operate within the terms of the Bill. The Chinese state, which sponsors Huawei, has made at least 1 million Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang the victims of mass internment, torture and a brutal assault on their human rights. President Xi is now also, some say deliberately, allowing a coronavirus outbreak to plague Uighur Muslims, who are herded into these internment camps—cramped, with terrible sanitation and medical facilities—and are therefore very vulnerable, in what is an ideal breeding ground for Covid-19. The important point is—I end on this—that, as the German scholar Adrian Zenz shows in his report, Huawei is a part of the security services in Xinjiang; in other words, this giant corporation is complicit in all the horror, and this amendment seeks to end at least that, within the terms of this Bill.

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others have laid out the human rights abuses that are emerging from China, particularly in relation to the Uighurs. The possible complicity of Huawei in this is a charge that it must answer. We cannot turn a blind eye to this, which is why we support the amendment.

I hear what the Minister has said about engaging with the movers of this amendment prior to Third Reading. I look forward to hearing whether the noble Lord, Lord Alton, feels that this is likely to address his, and our, concerns.

Public Service Broadcasters

Lord Hain Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

One difference between this country and Russia is that there is a rule of law. The legal process is being followed, which includes regulation that Parliament has given to Ofcom, independent of government. That will be followed, and I trust that something useful will happen from it.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, will BritBox be available to British holidaymakers in Spain, France and so on, and to British expats who are resident there? I ask because I was approached on holiday in Spain some years ago by a local provider of British television who wanted to negotiate a legitimate fee-paying service with freeview suppliers, including the BBC and ITV. But when he approached the heads of the BBC and ITV, they were not interested. That does not seem sensible.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The difference with BritBox is that it is a commercial service and therefore that it will be in its interest to get as many people to pay as possible. It already exists in America. I cannot answer precisely on whether it will be available in Europe, but there will be different motivations for the BBC and ITV, as this is a commercial service and they will want as many subscribers as they can get.

Mobile Roaming Charges

Lord Hain Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, surely the Minister could agree that “no plans to”—his words—is not the same as a guarantee. In the EU we have a guarantee of no additional data roaming charges or voice roaming charges outside our bundle. He is not providing any guarantee at all, and it is about time he did.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

That is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the position. Currently, we have a guarantee because we are part of the EU single market. If we leave the EU single market, which is what this SI is about, we will not be able to provide that guarantee. Therefore, I am incapable of giving the noble Lord the guarantee that he asks for. We have been completely open about that. That is why I said that the four companies have no plans for increases. Of course there is no guarantee about that, and we would not be in a position to command it if we are not in the EU. The issue is not about the SI but about the consequences of leaving the EU.