Gambling Legislation

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government absolutely understand that different addictions are interrelated and interconnected. The Department of Health is leading on a cross-issue addiction strategy.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.

National Trust Acts

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review the National Trust Acts.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, the National Trust is independent of the Government. Its activities are overseen by its board, the Charity Commission is the regulator and the scope of its work is set out in legislation. While it would be possible for the Government to review the National Trust Acts, we do not believe that it would be a proportionate approach at this time. In the first instance, the trust should be accountable for its activities to the Charity Commission as the trust’s regulator.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, the trust’s director of volunteering recently declared:

“At the National Trust we have a duty to play a part in creating a fairer, more equitable society”.


Is that compatible with the statutes under which the trust operates? Was it not an act of folly for the trust to rush out a tendentious report on slavery and colonialism —insulting the memory of Sir Winston Churchill in the process—in order to demonstrate its good will to a movement that is interested not in securing a deeper, more accurate understanding of colonialism and the past, but only in advancing an extremist political agenda in the present? Unless it changes course, is there not a danger that this important institution, admired by so many for so long, will forfeit the nation’s trust?

Historic Statues

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises important points, but I feel that they are for Parliament to decide rather than the department.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I endorse the view that historical understanding is best assisted by the provision of full and unbiased information about those commemorated in statues, rather than by the removal or knocking down of these memorials. As regards Sir Robert Peel, who was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, should we not note that he was a life-long opponent of slavery and the slave trade and sent the British Navy to the coast of west Africa to help suppress it?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am happy to note that and to note that all of us as human beings are complicated, and our history reflects that complexity.

Covid-19: Regional Theatres

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am happy to echo the noble Baroness’s recognition of the important work that many local theatres and other cultural organisations have done during the pandemic. There has been extensive business support, which has been covered frequently in this House, but earlier this year the Government also announced a major £750 million package for those which are charities and social enterprises.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has now elapsed. We now come to the second Oral Question.

Television Licences

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Lord is right to highlight the sacrifices made by the over-75s, but we are all aware that sacrifices have been made in many age groups. It is critical that we are clear that the BBC remains operationally independent of government.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

Lord Caine. No? Then I call Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD) [V]]

I am sure that the Minister agrees that the BBC has proved its gold-dust weight during this crisis of the Covid pandemic and lockdown, providing a reliable source of national and local news for all, an essential aid to those home-schooling, and solace and entertainment for the lonely and elderly. In which case, why do the Government not take back responsibility for the licence fee concession for the over-75s, introduced by a Labour Government in which the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, served, as something to be paid for by the Government, not by the licence fee payer, and which the BBC was, frankly, forced to take on? Does she not agree that not doing so means that the BBC will inevitably have to cut back on the essential services I have referred to?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran]

I am slightly perplexed by the noble Lord’s question, because I do not think that the Government see the licence fee as a bran tub at all. As I have said in answer to almost every question today, the Government absolutely respect the editorial and operational independence of the BBC.

[The Deputy Speaker]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has now elapsed.

Covid-19: Women’s Sport

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

Particularly in relation to Covid, we have made a generous funding package available. More broadly, we are working with the governing bodies of all sports to make sure that resources are committed to the women’s game and that the positive momentum we have seen in recent years is continued.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has now elapsed.

Sport and Recreational Facilities

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes]

The noble Lord asks a very good question. As I said, I am about to talk to the Secretary of State for Education; I will put that on the agenda of the meeting. The noble Lord is right that facilities do not have to be offered just in school premises. Working with local community facilities or other sports facilities, for example, and making sure that those links are built is important. If he has any specific examples he wants to share with me and the department so that we can pursue this, I would be interested to receive them.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Is it not the case that partnership schemes in sport between independent and state schools, of which there are over a thousand, are already making a useful contribution to the sharing of facilities and staff? At the same time, I support my noble friend Lord Moynihan’s call for the further extension of this valuable work.

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes]

My noble friend is right that there are already many great partnerships that are transforming our young people’s opportunities in sport. There are always more lessons that can be learned. As I say, those experiences often go both ways; it is not just about the independent schools offering facilities to the state sector.

Television Licences: Over 75s

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I think that the noble Lord misunderstands the position. We made it absolutely clear to the BBC that we expect it to continue with this important concession, and in October the Secretary of State also made that clear to the House of Commons committee. However, the Digital Economy Act, which was passed before that, also made it clear that the Government retain the power to maintain the concession until 2020, which we will do, after which full responsibility will transfer to the BBC. Therefore, the settlement took place before the manifesto was written.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Would it not be good if the director-general of the BBC occasionally came to this House, of which he is a Member, to assist us in discussions of this kind?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I am not sure that that would be helpful—for a number of reasons but mainly because it is very important that the BBC’s director-general, who is the editor-in-chief of the BBC, stays clear of politics as much as he can.

Armistice Day: Centenary

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I will reflect a little on some of the events of Armistice Day itself, a century ago, and I begin, as is right and proper, with the monarch. Throughout his reign, King George V dutifully wrote up his diary at the end of each day. He expressed himself in terse, straightforward language, which reflected his character. Late in the evening of 11 November 1918 he wrote that:

“Today has indeed been a wonderful day, the greatest in the history of the Country”.


He had witnessed remarkable public rejoicing. Time and again, he and Queen Mary had been brought out on the balcony of Buckingham Palace at the insistence of immense crowds that stretched as far as the eye could see. It seems that the King contributed more to the events of that wonderful day than has been generally recognised.

The British representative at the Armistice negotiations in Compiègne, Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, the supreme allied naval commander, entrusted to his family an account of what had passed during the discussions that led up to the signing of the Armistice at 5 am, and its implementation at 11 am. According to Wemyss, the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, who had contributed so much to victory, instructed him to arrange for the Armistice to come into force at 2.30 pm when the House of Commons was due to meet so that he could reveal it to striking effect. Wemyss telephoned the King, suggesting that the 11th hour would be a far better time. George V agreed and the plan was changed, much to Lloyd George’s displeasure.

Lloyd George deserved, and received, great prominence on that wonderful day. In the two years since he had become Prime Minister, the political conduct of the war had been infused with a dynamism unknown under his predecessor, Herbert Asquith, great man though he was in his way.

The wonderful day was naturally tinged with deep sorrow. Long queues formed outside cathedrals and churches, for people felt a pressing need to reflect on the enormous sacrifices that had been made over four long years, as well as to give thanks for victory. Late in the evening, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, walked home from Downing Street. In his diary, he recorded encountering an elderly woman, dressed in deep mourning, sobbing her heart out. He said to her, “You are in trouble—is there anything that I can do for you?”. She replied, “Thank you, but no. I am crying, but I am happy, for now I know that all my three sons who have been killed in the war have not died in vain”. Sorrow and joy stood side by side.

The wonderful day was wonderfully free of speeches. After reading the terms of the Armistice to a packed House of Commons, Lloyd George said:

“This is no time for words. Our hearts are too full of a gratitude to which no tongue can give adequate expression”.


He moved the immediate Adjournment of the House, suggesting that,

“we proceed, as a House of Commons, to St. Margaret’s, to give humble and reverent thanks for the deliverance of the world from its great peril”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/11/1918; col. 2463.]

Lord Curzon moved a similar Motion in this House, of which he was the Leader.

Thereafter politics resumed. The War Cabinet met at No. 10 to discuss the general election campaign, which was to begin the following day. Should a vengeful note be struck? Churchill argued that leniency should be shown to the Kaiser. Sir Henry Wilson agreed, noting in his diary:

“My opinion is that there should be a public exposé of all his works and actions and then leave him to posterity”.


During the election campaign, the political leaders concentrated on setting out their plans for post-war reconstruction and social reform to build a better world for those who had suffered so much. The subsequent, incomplete implementation of these plans does not, in my view, detract from the sincerity with which Lloyd George and his colleagues proposed them, gaining a massive majority on 14 December 1918, one month after the Armistice when, for the first time, the whole nation voted on the same day.

Towards the end of his six volumes of war memoirs, published in 1936, Lloyd George placed a particularly fine chapter entitled, An Imperial War. In it, this remarkable Welsh radical praised the indispensable contributions made by those who came to our aid from all parts of the British Empire and Commonwealth. He noted how the arrival of Indian troops had averted disaster on the Western Front in 1914-15.

“Had they stayed at home”,


he wrote,

“the issue of the War would have been different, and the history of the world would have taken a different course”.

Nothing has been more important during these four years of commemoration than to secure a fuller recognition of the indispensable service rendered by men and women from Asian, African and American countries. I was glad to be able to introduce a debate on that hugely important aspect of the war a few months ago. I am glad that it has loomed large in today’s debate.

Will those who come after us remember for ever the terrible war which we have commemorated so thoughtfully and respectfully over the last four years? The greatest Englishman of the last century had no doubts. There were such powerful visible reminders, thanks to the wonderful work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Speaking in 1920, two years after the Armistice, Churchill said,

“there is no reason at all why, in periods as remote from our own as we ourselves are from the Tudors, the graveyards in France of this Great War shall not remain an abiding and supreme memorial”,

and,

“will still preserve the memory of a common purpose pursued by a great nation”.—[Official Report, Commons 4/5/1920; cols. 1970-71.]

First World War: Empire and Commonwealth Troops

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are planning to commemorate the contribution made by Empire and Commonwealth troops during the First World War.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, 2018 is the centenary of the final year of the First World War, in western Europe at least; fighting continued for some time elsewhere. Since 2013, commemorative debates have been held in your Lordships’ House on various aspects of that terrible conflict. Subjects have included the origins of the war; the long, blood-soaked battles of the Somme and Passchendaele; and, by way of contrast, the rich cultural legacy in literature and art that the war bequeathed to posterity. I hope that later this year we will have a full debate to mark the centenary of the Armistice on the Western Front. However, before that point is reached, I thought that it might be appropriate to consider the immense contribution made by troops from the countries of the British Empire and the Commonwealth, the latter name coming into widespread use during this period. I am grateful to noble Lords across the House who will be contributing to this debate.

The deeds of conspicuous valour performed by Empire and Commonwealth troops were followed with close interest by the retired military commanders, colonial governors and administrators who were prominent in this House at that time. Looking back after the fighting was finished, David Lloyd George, whose great statesmanship emerged so clearly during the second part of the war, concluded that without these brave men from beyond our shores, victory might well have eluded us.

“Had they stayed at home”,


he wrote,

“the issue of the war would have been different and the history of the world would have taken a different course”.

None of this was foreseen. Lloyd George and his fellow Liberal Ministers in Herbert Asquith’s Cabinet would have been astonished if they had been told in August 1914 that the Empire and Commonwealth would play a central part in the conflict. No preparations were made for their involvement; no provision for them was included in the plans for warfare. Even the five self-governing dominions, which thought of themselves as Britain’s partners in a free commonwealth, were completely ignored.

At the outset, the British Government were concerned solely with the threat that German aggression had created in Europe. Not an inch of new territory was to be acquired, the Cabinet decreed. Some 440 million people, the subjects of George V, the King Emperor, found themselves at war by his decree. The 10% who lived in the United Kingdom were expected to determine its outcome.

Everything changed when it became clear that Britain and her allies stood no chance of securing the swift and decisive victory they had confidently anticipated. The moment of truth arrived quickly in the autumn of 1914. It was then that Britain became fully conscious of the immense asset that its Empire and Commonwealth represented. With the unexpected prospect of a long war before them, the British Government recognised in particular the potential benefits of two great strokes of good fortune that they enjoyed. The first was the existence of a large army on the other side of the world. India had over 150,000 men under arms and the capacity to recruit many more. A contingent was rushed to the Western Front to help stem the crisis which had arisen there. Lloyd George paid them a tribute that they deserved for the way they,

“helped us to defend the water-logged trenches of Flanders through the miserable winter of 1914-15”,

when Lord Kitchener, the war supremo who had had experience in India, had only limited success in his efforts to supply them with suitable food.

Although struggling to maintain its morale in wretched conditions, the Indian Corps contributed notably to averting disaster during battles around Ypres in 1915, which were close-run things. Thereafter, the Middle East became the principal arena for Indian arms. The huge new imperial domain, wholly unforeseen in 1914, that Britain acquired from the Ottoman Empire, Germany’s unexpected ally, owed more to the soldiers of India than to any others. The conquests of Mesopotamia and Palestine were achieved mainly by Indian units fighting alongside troops from many other places, from Belize to Fiji and Hong Kong, under British command. Their victories helped redeem the disaster of Gallipoli and the humiliating surrender of 13,000 men at Kut, in the arid, inhospitable land of what is now Iraq, in April 1916. A British soldier wrote:

“Is this the land of dear old Adam?


And beautiful Mother Eve?

If so, dear reader, small blame to them

For sinning and having to leave”.

Indian soldiers bore the brunt of these grim conditions. Altogether, nearly 1.3 million of them fought, representing a 10th of the Empire’s war effort.

Britain’s second stroke of good fortune was the remarkable, spontaneous enthusiasm exhibited at the recruiting offices of the Empire, which were deluged with volunteers. The Australian Prime Minister said:

“Our duty is quite clear: to gird up our loins and remember that we are Britons”.


Within 10 days, New Zealand dispatched an expeditionary force of 8,000 men. Within two months, 31,000 Canadians had been recruited, drilled and sent to Europe. They were the vanguards of the mighty dominion contingents, whose enormous sacrifices on the Western Front won them lasting respect and gratitude. By the summer of 1918, Canada and Australia had each established its own army corps under outstanding national commanders. Their rigorously trained men—better, said many, than the English—were at the forefront in the Battle of Amiens and other great breakthroughs in the last months of the war. They were lauded as some of the best shock troops in the allied armies.

There was a tendency at the time to give the contribution of the dominions undue prominence. Lloyd George provided a just assessment. He wrote:

“It is not too much to say that without the 1,400,000 fine men who rallied to the flag from the Dominions and the 1,300,000 who came to our aid from India the Allies would not have been able to bear the strain of this gigantic struggle”.


There were others to whom the allied cause was also deeply indebted. As well as serving in their own continent, soldiers from Africa joined men from the West Indies in the Middle East; on the Western Front they undertook back-breaking duties. Lloyd George wrote:

“We recruited numbers of labour battalions for the work of transport, supply and construction. Their toil alone enabled us to throw up with much speed new defences and fresh roads and railways”.


What he did not record is that many endured racial insult and abuse. Today, we look back on their vital role with the greatest admiration and thanks.

The Government’s impressive programme of First World War commemoration has been commended, and rightly so, for promoting a fuller recognition of the contributions made by Empire and Commonwealth troops, and for encouraging pride in their achievements among men and women of all races today. Can my noble friend provide details of how these admirable aims are being pursued in this final year of commemoration? Does he agree that there is ample scope for more work in a number of areas—for example, to secure a fuller understanding of the campaigns in the Middle East, which had such fateful consequences for the region and the world?

Traces of the First World War abide in far-flung places, large and small.

“In memory of the brave sons of Smith’s Parish”,


proclaims a plaque in the little country church of St Mark’s, Bermuda,

“who risked their lives in defence of the Empire against the unscrupulous German foe”.

Their Empire proved transient. Germans have long ceased to be foes. But the memory of bravery, and the honour that is due to it, must endure for ever.