Police: Reduction in Numbers

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Thursday 26th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

That is an interesting point. I was not aware of that particular fact but, on looking at the figures again, the number of fatalities from road traffic accidents, fortunately, has been coming down. The noble Baroness said that that was in relation to Essex, but the number of fatalities has come down from about 1,900 in 2010 to 1,730 last year. We want to continue that downward progress.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that the Scottish Government want Police Scotland to take over responsibility from the British Transport Police in Scotland? Will he or the Home Secretary—I presume he has her ear—have a word with the Scottish Government and explain the importance of cross-border policing as far as the transport police are concerned?

[Lord Bates]

That is a very important point which ought to be considered. Certainly I shall mention it to the Home Secretary when I have her ear this afternoon.

EU Council June 2014

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Monday 30th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates (Con)]

I think it is Labour’s turn.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, does the Leader of the House recall that when a Labour Prime Minister wanted to achieve something at a summit, we arranged for the ambassadors in all the countries of Europe and our Foreign Office Ministers to do some preparatory work to move us in that direction? We also worked through the Party of European Socialists to get all our socialist colleagues into line to support us. Could the Leader of the House explain what the Prime Minister did along those lines?

House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Friday 29th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord on bringing forward this Bill, and I want to support it. It is in the nature of these things that the legislation is seeking to tidy up some anomalies. My only concern is to ensure that we are not laying down future anomalies that successive Parliaments will have to deal with. My noble friend Lord Fowler has highlighted one that relates to the definition of non-attendance. The notion that someone might attend once during a Session and therefore be deemed to have reached the threshold might need to be looked at a little more carefully, lest we find that the 72 Members who were quoted as not having attended during the last Session may have been substantially reduced in number because they came in once in order to keep their membership alive, as it were.

The proposal on retirement is long overdue: people ought not only to be able to leave the House through retirement but to seek election to another place. The Inter-Parliamentary Union database indicated that, as of 28 May 2012 in a survey of 190 countries, the UK is the only country where Members of the second Chamber are disqualified from voting in elections to the lower Chamber. As my noble friend Lord Norton has pointed out, since the 1999 Act there has been a break in the link so that hereditary Peers who no longer sit in this House are now able to vote and, one presumes, to stand for election to the other place as well.

There are other anomalies that relate to the role of the Lords Spiritual because they are not Peers of the Realm, a point already made by the right reverend Prelate in his contribution—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

What the noble Lord said just a few moments ago has already happened. My good friend Viscount Thurso, who is still a hereditary Peer, is now the Member of Parliament for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. I think he owns most of it as well.