"My Lords, in the circumstances, I do not feel that we can justify more than two hours on this group. I think we should move to wind up this debate...." Lord Rooker - View Speech
"My Lords, in my modest experience of six departments in both Houses of Parliament, I have always come to the conclusion and repeated that Whitehall does not do devolution. By the way, I declare an interest: I live in England but within 10 miles of the border of Wales. Therefore, …..." Lord Rooker - View Speech
"I thank my noble friend for that, but is she aware that Bureau Veritas staff were inside flat 16 with the London Fire Brigade, as a contractor, before 1 am on the night of the fire, and that Bureau Veritas’s contract to inspect the lifts was out of time during …..." Lord Rooker - View Speech
"To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Lord Khan of Burnley on 17 June (HL Deb cols 1897–8), whether they have investigated the role of Bureau Veritas as the examiner of the cladding and inspector of the lifts at Grenfell Tower...." Lord Rooker - View Speech
"My Lords, on a debate such as this, the House really misses the Countess of Mar—if only she was still here. I can recall her one day bringing a delegation to a department where I was a Minister, and after she left, I told the civil servants, “One day, I …..." Lord Rooker - View Speech
"I have just a practical question, really. There is a Peer who came into this House and did not make a maiden speech for 10 years because he considered the peerage an honour. Then, one day, the Prime Minister said to that person, “By the way, with your experience, I’ve …..." Lord Rooker - View Speech
"Does the noble Lord accept that most of those countries, which I have looked at as well, have a written constitution? We do not. That is the thing that would make it incredibly difficult to resolve disputes between the two Houses. There has to be another formula for that...." Lord Rooker - View Speech
"My Lords, when I am at a college in the Midlands this Friday morning with the Learn with the Lords programme, the first thing I will say is that the House of Lords is nothing more than a large sub-committee of the House of Commons with the power to ask …..." Lord Rooker - View Speech
"If my noble friend the Minister does discuss it with Defra, she will find that Defra has nothing like the numbers of people with experience of farming that it had 10 years ago. It has been completely denuded and she would not find the answer to the question asked by …..." Lord Rooker - View Speech
"Is it not the case that retailers, particularly the smaller ones, would be more likely to take guidance seriously if there was a mandatory requirement to list the food hygiene scores on the premises? Why is England the only one of the four countries where this is not mandatory? It …..." Lord Rooker - View Speech