Ffos-y-Fran Opencast Coal Mine

Debate between Lord Tebbit and Lord Henley

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the UK Government have responded to this report. The Question relates to one part of the report relating to the Ffos-y-Fran opencast coal mine. As I have made clear, that is a devolved matter and a matter for the Welsh Government, and the Welsh Government have responded to the UN rapporteur’s report.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, is my noble friend not absolutely and completely right on this issue? If matters are devolved, they are devolved, otherwise there is no point in having devolution at all, is there?

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend is absolutely correct.

Brexit: Fashion Industry

Debate between Lord Tebbit and Lord Henley

Thursday 15th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

Yes, my Lords, we will take the point about lawyers into account, and I will make sure that the noble Baroness’s concerns are brought to the attention of my honourable and right honourable colleagues. As regards others such as models moving abroad, I think that there will probably be no problem whatever, because there will be a particular attraction to making sure that English models and all others involved in the fashion industry are able to work in Europe and sell their wares.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend can tell me whether we have any problem with the Americans, for example, behaving in a dastardly, unfair way, as Lib Dem Peers fear our European friends would behave if we were not in the EU.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I think I had better confine myself purely to questions about fashion rather than other areas, but on that particular subject I can agree with my noble friend.

Judicial Independence

Debate between Lord Tebbit and Lord Henley

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord would expect me to comment on what appeared in the Daily Mail today, and I have no intention of doing so. But I shall note what he said about guidance to Ministers and pass it on to my right honourable friends.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, it is important that we all reassert in absolute terms the integrity of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, but does my noble friend recollect that in the debates that ran before the abolition of capital punishment, one argument that was frequently put was that the mistakes made by the judiciary could not be rectified after an execution?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my memory goes back quite a long way but I do not actually remember all the debates in detail on the abolition of capital punishment.

Phone Hacking

Debate between Lord Tebbit and Lord Henley

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I can agree with the noble Lord that this has not been the finest moment for the British press. His remarks about no win no fee go wider than the Question on the Order Paper, but that is a matter that we will obviously have to take into account. On the broader issue of phone hacking, phone hacking is obviously illegal, but we must await the outcome of the Leveson inquiry before we make any final decisions in this matter.

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, would it not be in the public interest for the press to publish, however they gained knowledge of it, activities by a Minister, in his working time and in his office, which were quite clearly contrary to all standards of decency and the Government’s own code of conduct for Ministers?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, what the press publish is a matter for the press and not for us, but I note what my noble friend has to say about the activities of some people in the past. I repeat that we feel that we should wait until the inquiry being conducted by Lord Justice Leveson has been concluded.

Marriages and Civil Partnerships (Approved Premises) (Amendment) Regulations 2011

Debate between Lord Tebbit and Lord Henley

Thursday 15th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am making, as my noble and learned friend put it, a considered ministerial Statement from the Dispatch Box, in line with the case he referred to, Pepper v Hart. Yes, I believe that this Act covers both the 2004 Act and the Equality Act 2010. As I said earlier, it would be very odd if the Equality Act was considered to have spoken inconsistently. However, I can give my noble and learned friend the assurance that he seeks.

[Lord Tebbit]

Could my noble friend address the point I raised earlier? In the event that the permissive nature of this is overridden by a judgment from a European court of any kind, what action will the Government take then?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am not sure which European court my noble friend is referring to. If he is referring to the European Court of Human Rights, we discussed that somewhat earlier in the day. I think that it was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, who referred to a judgment in a Finnish case in the European Court of Human Rights, and then to the later remarks of the Lord Chief Justice that we must give due weight to the decisions of that court but not necessarily be bound by them. If it was the European Court of Justice, obviously we would have to comply with that, as with other matters, but I do not see quite how it would get involved in these matters.

Birds: Farmland Populations

Debate between Lord Tebbit and Lord Henley

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I have not seen that study, but I will certainly take the opportunity to look at it and respond to noble Lord in due course. The important thing, as I made clear in my Answer to my noble friend, is that we encourage as many people as possible to do many different things under the schemes to create as much diversity as possible. In the end, that is bound to improve the habitat of birds.

[Lord Tebbit]

Does my noble friend agree that well keepered sporting estates tend to have a greater variety of wildlife, particularly small birds, songbirds and the like, as those who spend any time on such estates know well?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely correct and I am grateful for the opportunity to endorse everything he said.

Abattoirs: CCTV

Debate between Lord Tebbit and Lord Henley

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, that is a completely different question from the one on the Order Paper and has nothing whatever to do with slaughterhouses.

[Lord Tebbit]

Can my noble friend tell me whether the European Union has power to enforce CCTV in abattoirs?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my understanding is that the new regulation to which I referred—EU Regulation 1099/2009, which was agreed under the previous Government’s administration and came into force in 2009—constrains the use of national rules and would prohibit government action to require compulsory installation of CCTV in the future.

Energy: Large Combustion Plant Directive

Debate between Lord Tebbit and Lord Henley

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I can agree on that. Where emissions from one country affect other countries and the whole world, that should be dealt with internationally. That is why it is quite right that the EU should deal with them, especially those that are damaging to human health, which is the case with those dealt with by the large combustion plant directive. The noble Baroness then referred to the recent vote by the European Parliament on the industrial emissions directive. Again, we will take that forward, and it will replace the large combustion plant directive in 2016. That will further tighten the requirements, but those are matters that we have agreed, and we have introduced certain flexibilities that will make life easier for a lot of those plants until the end of 2023.

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, can my noble friend tell me how much of our generating requirement over the next five years will be fulfilled by buying electricity from France?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give that figure to my noble friend off-the-cuff; I will certainly write to him. If the French have spare capacity from their nuclear power stations, I do not see anything wrong with buying in capacity from them to deal with shortfalls that we may have.