"My Lords, as the Minister says, no one quite knows yet the impact, particularly on the oil and gas sector. I declare an interest as a co-author of the original 1979 plan for sharing oil reserves in the event of a crisis. The crisis then was, of course, far bigger—not …..." Lord Howell of Guildford - View Speech
"My Lords, I thank my colleague, my noble friend Lady McIntosh, for securing this debate, the authorities for providing room for it, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Nagaraju, on his maiden speech, which seemed full of common sense and aimed at the right issues. I am also glad …..." Lord Howell of Guildford - View Speech
"My Lords, the Minister probably knows that Zimbabwe is rather keen to rejoin the Commonwealth. Could it be explained to President Mnangagwa that the chances of doing so will be much improved if he stands down after two terms, since the Commonwealth on the whole—it does not always work—prefers presidents …..." Lord Howell of Guildford - View Speech
"I think I have heard the Minister remind us from the Dispatch Box that the pipelines bypassing the Strait of Hormuz are working and carrying, apparently, 7 million or 8 million barrels a day—I had thought it was 4 million barrels a day. Will he and his colleagues, when they …..." Lord Howell of Guildford - View Speech
"My Lords, I am not sure that any of the figures we have heard in the last few minutes are correct or substantial. In fact, there is a huge amount around the world of spare oil capacity and oil production potential which can be and is being brought into play. …..." Lord Howell of Guildford - View Speech
"My Lords, as the defence production need for entirely new kinds of warfare steps up, as it is now doing, are the Government satisfied that the needs of our strategy, which are rapidly growing, are closely enough aligned with the plans of British industry?..." Lord Howell of Guildford - View Speech
"My Lords, having been a Minister through six energy crises rather similar to this one, I cannot resist a bit of sympathy with Ministers having to go through it all again and explain the difficulties over which we have very little control.
"Is the Minister aware that, according to official statistics, 99.18% of all British businesses are defined as “small”—those with 50 employees or fewer. It sometimes seems, in the answers we get, that the Government have not quite understood that...." Lord Howell of Guildford - View Speech
"My Lords, as a member of the committee that produced this report, I congratulate our former chairman, who has just spoken, for guiding us through an extremely complex and quite prolonged report on a wide variety of subjects. We think that it is about trade, but the truth is that …..." Lord Howell of Guildford - View Speech
"My Lords, I am very glad that the title of the excellent report we are discussing refers to a “reset”. Indeed, there seems general agreement in all the documents, including the Government’s response, that it is a reset, which we can define very widely. It is certainly “unfinished business” and …..." Lord Howell of Guildford - View Speech