"My Lords, the Minister’s department has confirmed in Answers to a series of Written Questions from me that neither the Government nor local authorities have any responsibility for dealing with the disposal of material dumped by third parties on private land. Criminals are of course aware of this, and target …..." Lord Cromwell - View Speech
"I want to take the Minister back to the issue of conversation. He and I have discussed in the past that, these days, social media is a weapon of war. I quoted to him a senior military figure who said to me, “We should spend as much on social media …..." Lord Cromwell - View Speech
"My Lords, this is a useful and substantive report that I welcome—in particular, its suggestion to merge the regulators into one super-regulator, which we certainly need. The underlying problem, which it identifies, is the need for long-term investment. I was surprised, therefore, that there is very little reference to the …..." Lord Cromwell - View Speech
"My Lords, I will speak fairly briefly in support of Motion D1 from the noble Lord, Lord Burns. This has become known as the hokey-cokey amendment—opt in, opt out, opt in, opt out, through the chain of amendments that have been put down. I support the vital role of trade …..." Lord Cromwell - View Speech
"My Lords, I support Motion E1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. In particular, I agree with her about the level of urgency and the slow progress that has been made on this, and about the de minimis rules, which need thoroughly updating to make …..." Lord Cromwell - View Speech
"My Lords, on Motion K1, I want underline what the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman, said about the need for independence in the monitoring and evaluation. The noble Baroness, Lady Willis, referred to it, but I am not sure that the Minister did so—forgive me if I missed it. Can we …..." Lord Cromwell - View Speech
"The Minister gave me encouraging reassurance about independence and referred to two bodies that would be doing the monitoring and evaluation. Could she repeat for me—I think I missed it—which bodies they are? Are they fully independent of Natural England and the Environment Agency?..." Lord Cromwell - View Speech
"My Lords, the real barrier for UK SME manufacturers is the time it takes to secure contracts, which is typically years, even for kit upgrades. By contrast, as the Minister knows, I recently hosted an event exploring ways to link UK manufacturers with Ukrainian software developers, who are innovating and …..." Lord Cromwell - View Speech
"My Lords, I suppose I should declare a small interest as having been the progenitor of the space committee. We think of space as infinite. In fact, the usable orbits are a crowd of high-speed rubbish. Just a fleck of paint will do damage. Not long ago, a single bolt …..." Lord Cromwell - View Speech
"I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has just said. Philanthropists in the past gave areas of green space and there have been scandals where councils have sold them off for money, and we all complain that there are no more playing fields, for example. This smells a …..." Lord Cromwell - View Speech