"My Lords, the Minister is in danger of giving mixed messages: strong support for Fulbright scholarships but no commitment to funding. Now we have heard about the Chevening scholarships. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office business plan calls for a strategy to enhance the impact of the UK’s contribution to conflict …..." Lord Brett - View Speech
"My Lords, Amendment 1 was not moved not because the Minister convinced me in Committee of her arguments on cost and complexity. The complexity seemed to be manufactured and the cost involved figures that I could not recognise; nor could anybody else who studied it, given that banks issue cards …..." Lord Brett - View Speech
"My Lords, yesterday when watching television I had a sense of déjà vu watching the disgraceful events in Millbank Tower. The déjà vu was: 1996 in Seattle with the World Trade Organisation, where I was one of the people inadvertently suffering from pepper gas and tear gas, because the police …..." Lord Brett - View Speech
"My Lords, I join others in expressing appreciation for the endeavours of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and his committee. They have produced a valuable report with practical recommendations. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, was being a tad harsh in his description of the report. It was impacted …..." Lord Brett - View Speech
"I am fascinated by the idea that information from a private sector credit reference agency, whose staff are not vetted by anybody, is considered to be reliable and secure enough for us to see it as a key part of the provision of passports. Concern was rightly expressed during the …..." Lord Brett - View Speech
"My Lords, this amendment seeks to retain one part that is enshrined in the law of the 2006 Act; that is, the use of the identity card as a travel document. Identity cards are not a unique phenomena known only in the UK, although you might have thought that from …..." Lord Brett - View Speech
"I seem to have caused part of this confusion with my amendment. As I understood during that brief period when I was the Minister responsible for identity cards, you have the information that is on the passport database and additional points that are on the national identity register. We are …..." Lord Brett - View Speech
"I am more confused now than I was when we started. I cannot even recognise the replacement costs. But I return to the issue of database transfer. It takes only an asterisk or other symbol on the passport database to indicate that a person is using the same information on …..." Lord Brett - View Speech
"My previous confession about having read all three manifestos was somewhat of a wasted investment, given that after the weekend following the election, we had a coalition agreement. However, I recognised at Second Reading that one of the few things that appears in both the Liberal Democrat and the Conservative …..." Lord Brett - View Speech