Food Poverty

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer

Thursday 11th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord for that. The report is also addressed to the utility companies and to problems such as having mobile phones on “pay as you go” tariffs meaning that you pay more. The poor pay more due to a whole range of structural reasons and the report therefore identifies a large number of targets to be addressed. It talks about debt, addiction, utility pricing, low pay, housing costs and mental health. The problem of low pay and the minimum wage, and how we increase pay, turn around troubled families and rebuild local social networks, are all part of the issues we need to address.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Food and Health Group, and I must say that we have had so much evidence over the years on why the national diet is inadequate, with malnourished people, obese people and so on. The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin of Kennington, correctly identified that responsibility for food in the national diet is spread across eight government departments. Does my noble friend agree that the time has come for a national food strategy?

Nuclear War: International Conference

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to attend the international conference in Mexico in February 2014 on the humanitarian impact of nuclear war.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, we have not yet received an invitation to the conference in Mexico on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and have not yet made a decision on whether the UK will attend. We continue to have concerns that the initiative would divert attention from the 2010 action plan agreed by states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his reply, which is a little more positive than I had feared in that at least it is not a negative. Does he see a problem in that, on the one hand, last April the Prime Minister claimed that Britain had taken the lead in pushing for progress towards multilateral disarmament while, on the other hand, we have not taken part in the UN open-ended working group that was set up to try to overcome the 17-year impasse on the Conference on Disarmament, and yesterday, in the UN General Assembly, the UK voted against resolution L34 to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations—which are exactly the sort of negotiations the Prime Minister called for last April? How does he think that the rest of the world is viewing us?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As regards attendance at a conference that is still four months away, British officials have had conversations in Mexico City, Geneva and New York about whether we may attend. It remains very much an open question. Perhaps I may simply say to the noble Baroness that there are a great many different, and in some ways conflicting, bodies in which disarmament is now being discussed. These include the Nuclear Security Summit which will meet again in 2014, the UN Disarmament Commission and the Conference on Disarmament. There have also been a number of discussions on nuclear-weapon-free zones. The question of where one puts the priority and where you think it is most worthwhile to push for development is difficult We hold that the NPT review conference of 2015 should remain one of our priorities. We also think that there is value in the P5 process, on which Britain has been one of the leaders, and in the P5-plus process in which the P5 members discuss these issues with India and Pakistan.

Defence: Trident Review

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the British Government, under both the previous and the current Administrations, have been strong supporters of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. We have developed sophisticated means of simulating the testing and checking of warheads. This is one area in which we are now co-operating with the French: on the sophisticated facilities available for examining current nuclear warheads and considering further developments in design.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, surely, whatever the outcome of the decision on Trident, it is important that this country continues to play its full role in diplomatic efforts towards non-proliferation and disarmament. Why did the UK ambassador not attend the UN open-ended working group intended to kick-start efforts in this area?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the United Kingdom remains strongly committed to nuclear disarmament, and we are working in a range of different international contexts to achieve this. As noble Lords will know, the next Review Conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will meet in 2015, and the preparatory committee met earlier this year.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer

Thursday 16th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Having heard this useful further discussion, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend I thank the Minister for his reply on the retrospective aspect of this matter. I am sure that she will be as reassured as I am by that. I thank him for his explanation on why the penalty is as it is. I still wonder whether 90 days is rather heavy-handed. We will want to come back to whether police officers should be able to vary their guidance or their judgment of a situation on Report.

Around the House, we are in agreement that peaceful protest is a good thing and violent protest is not. On 28 March, we had a good example. At the Fortnum & Mason peaceful protest, 138 people were charged. Of several dozen violent protesters only 11 were charged. Somewhere there the police did not get their judgment right. I am grateful that my noble friend the Minister has had such broad experience of protests—going on them and now from the Dispatch Box. I am sure that he will be able to weave a careful path through this very knotty issue. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is quite right. When parliamentarians from other countries come here it is one of the things that they comment on—and not adversely. They do not dwell as much on the slightly messier aspect that MPs and some noble Lords have complained about. They are more impressed with the fact that the demonstrations take place. There is much attraction in the noble Lord’s amendment, not least for the Government. They have signed up to a bonfire of regulations and this gets rid of an awful lot of regulations all at once. I imagine that they will be nervous of adopting it because it seems perhaps too gentle but for my part I am very attracted to it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I note that these two amendments are identical, and almost identical to the Private Member’s Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford. Does this replace his Private Member’s Bill or will we return to this on 1 July, which I think is now scheduled for the Second Reading of his Bill, for a third debate on the issue that began with the Second Reading of the Private Member’s Bill of my noble friend Lord Tyler last Friday?

As I have already said, I welcome the discussion of not just the future of Parliament Square but also the whole question of the democratic environs of the Palace of Westminster. If I might go slightly off ministerial piste, so to speak, I think that we all recognise that the most intrusive element in Parliament Square is traffic. Some of us were actively supportive of the World Squares for All initiative which intended to close off either one or two sides of the square. That would give us back a major democratic space. Part of the reason that the encampment has been able to lodge on those pavements for some time without interference is because it is difficult for the ordinary person to get across the traffic on to Parliament Square Garden under most conditions except in the middle of the night.

If we are going to discuss the whole issue of Parliament Square and demonstrations in the vicinity of Westminster, Abingdon Green and so on, I suggest that we need to pull together a committee which will include not just the authorities here but also the Supreme Court, the authorities of Westminster Abbey and elsewhere. I am sympathetic to a good deal of what is behind the amendment but suggest that if we are to discuss this area it is not just a question of the management of demonstrations or the encampment in the middle of Parliament Square. The Government are working with the Greater London Authority, Westminster City Council and the Metropolitan Police on effective enforcement protocols. Guidance will be issued to the public about these new provisions. However, that is about the narrow issue of the future of encampments in Parliament Square. The wider issues that I suspect the noble Lord wishes to get to require debate outside the confines of the Bill. I therefore request him to withdraw his amendment.