Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.
These initiatives were driven by Lord Trefgarne, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.
A bill to amend the law regarding succession to peerages; and for connected purposes.
First reading took place on 7 June. This stage is a formality that signals the start of the Bill's journey through the Lords.Second reading - the general debate on all aspects of the Bill - is yet to be scheduled.The 2016-2017 session of Parliament has prorogued and this Bill will make no further progress. A Bill to amend the law regarding succession to peerages and for connected purposes.
A Bill to amend the law regarding succession to peerages; and for connected purposes.
Lord Trefgarne has not co-sponsored any Bills in the current parliamentary sitting
The number of Peers attending the Chamber for the State Opening of Parliament is not recorded; but all of the approximately 180 available spaces for Members of the House were occupied for the State Opening this year. This figure does not include 14 Lords spiritual or eight members of the House who were either part of the procession or hold certain offices and were present in the Chamber due to the offices they hold. We do not have records to say how this compares to previous State Openings.
The Government regrets the recent air traffic control issues and the impact these have had on airlines and their customers. NATS has an outstanding aviation safety record and is regulated against service targets which are set by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). It is important that we await the findings of the independent review which the CAA has announced into the technical failure which impacted NATS systems on 28 August 2023 and that any recommendations from this are responded to accordingly.
My officials have and will continue to engage with the relevant stakeholders to ensure robust plans are in place to mitigate any disruption to air traffic control services, recognising that the safety of the operation must always be the paramount consideration for air navigation service providers.
Hammersmith Bridge is owned by the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (LBHF) and therefore responsibility for making decisions on its repair lies with the borough.
My Department and Transport for London (TfL) are working constructively with LBHF as it makes progress with its business cases for the project. The submission of these cases is a condition for the release of any Government or TfL contribution to the cost of repairing the bridge.
The works are split into two phases: stabilisation and strengthening. The completion of both phases will allow the permanent reopening of the bridge to all users.
LBHF is due to start the stabilisation phase of works in February. The timeline of the project to reopen the bridge fully is dependent on the engineering solutions chosen by LBHF.
Utility street works and highway authority road works, are carried out within the framework of legislation set by New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 and the Traffic Management Act 2004. The overall framework balances the need to ensure the essential repair and maintenance of roads, whilst reducing the disruption that such works can cause.
We have, in recent years, continued to improve the framework of secondary legislation and we have approved lane rental schemes, which allow local authorities to charge for works on the busiest roads at the busiest times to reduce congestion. We have also introduced the Street Manager digital service, which is now used by all local highway authorities and utility companies in England to plan and manage works, providing real time, open data on live and planned works.
Hammersmith Bridge is owned by the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (LBHF) and therefore responsibility for maintaining the bridge, and making decisions on its repair, lies with the borough.
The Government has set out a clear commitment to support LBHF in finding a long-term solution for the bridge. As agreed in the Transport for London Extraordinary Funding and Finance agreement of 1 June 2021, the Government will contribute up to 1/3 of the total costs, but no more.
The next step to permanent reopening to motor vehicles lies with LBHF, which must submit a satisfactory business case to the Department for Transport. The submission of such a case is a condition for the release of any Government contribution to the cost of repairing the bridge. As the asset owner, it is up to LBHF to take the decision on its preferred engineering solution. The timeline of the project is dependent on the solutions chosen by LBHF.
A decision has not been taken on how fares will be set for High Speed 2 (HS2) at this stage. The business case for HS2 is based on the assumption that fares will be the same as the average for comparable services on the existing network.
Following last year’s pay award, average basic pay per person for professionally qualified ambulance staff has increased to around £34,300 from around £33,000. On average, ambulance staff have additional earnings worth around 37% of basic pay, covering unsocial hours, geographical supplements and overtime. Following the 2022/23 pay award this will take total earnings to around £47,000 per year.
Broadmoor Hospital is owned by West London NHS Trust. In December 2019, the Broadmoor Hospital moved from the predominantly Victorian buildings, which were no longer compatible with modern clinical standards, into a state-of-the-art facility. This provides purpose built accommodation to ensure a safe, therapeutic environment for the care, treatment and rehabilitation of patients who need high-secure psychiatric care. All the former patients have been moved this new facility on the same site.
The Department encourages the National Health Service to sell land when it is not in use and the NHS locally deem it no longer needed for clinical purposes. Broadmoor Hospital was declared surplus in April 2012 and is recorded in the NHS Surplus Land annual collection. The surplus land area is 16.86 hectares containing listed buildings and is expected to be disposed of in April 2022.
The Trust is looking to dispose the former hospital in a sensitive way that accounts for the complex planning and environmental aspects of the site, in line with official NHS guidance.
The criteria for those who wish to stand for, and hold the office of Police and Crime Commissioner, is set out in legislation under Section 64 to 69 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011.
Those who wish to stand as a candidate must be at least 18 years of age on the day of their nomination and registered to vote in the force area in which they wish to stand. They must also be a British citizen, an eligible Commonwealth citizen or a qualifying EU citizen or EU citizen with retained rights. To be nominated as a candidate, candidates must obtain 100 nominations and tender a deposit of £5,000.
Individuals are not required to have any formal legal qualifications or other qualifications.
The Government’s Home Office Type Approval (HOTA) process oversees the accuracy and reliability of vehicle speed measurement devices to ensure they meet the specified requirements.
Manufacturers work with Road Safety Support to test the accuracy of speed cameras and provide test reports as part of the HOTA submission process. These reports are reviewed by scientific colleagues at the Defence, Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) who will then make a recommendation on a device’s suitability for Type Approval.
Data on the number of fixed penalty notices (FPNs) issued under the new emergency COVID-19 health regulations, are published by the NPCC on a fortnightly basis and can be found on the National Police Chiefs' Council website.
The NPCC release provides information about FPNs issued by police forces in England and Wales, the British Transport Police and the Ministry of Defence Police.
Policing is a devolved matter and FPNs issued by Police Scotland and Police Service Northern Ireland are reported separately by the respective forces.
The General Register Office (GRO) is currently working on the secondary legislation, IT systems and administrative processes that are required to implement the marriage schedule system, which includes the issue of certificates following a ceremony.
GRO continues to engage interested stakeholders on these matters, including the Church of England and Church in Wales.
The Tornado aircraft went out of RAF service in 2019 and has been through a thorough disposal process. The RAF have retained 16 Tornado aircraft across different variants for use as ground based training aids and gate guardians but none are airworthy and the majority of their systems have been permanently removed or inhibited to ensure long-term safety for ground instruction training or public display.
I refer my noble Friend to the answer I gave on 15 November 2022 to Question HL3303 to the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead.
Six Destroyers and twelve Frigates are in-service with the Royal Navy. They rotate through operational deployments, exercises and periods of planned maintenance.
At present, of the six Destroyers, four are available for operations with the remainder in long term refit. Of the twelve Frigates, eight are available for operations with the remainder in long term refit.
Since April 1969, there has always been at least one Royal Navy nuclear-armed submarine at sea keeping us safe from the most extreme threats to our national security and way of life. We will maintain four deterrent submarines to ensure at least one will always be on a Continuous At Sea Deterrence patrol.
The first Dreadnought Class ballistic missile submarine will enter service in the early 2030s, as set out most recently in the eighth Annual Update to Parliament on the United Kingdom's Future Nuclear Deterrent, published on 20 December 2019.
The Government does not collect this information centrally. The annual rough sleeping snapshot for 2019 will be released on 27 February 2020. In addition, the Greater London Authority will release their CHAIN data on 31 January 2020, which will provide details on people seen sleeping rough in Greater London in September - December 2019, including details on ex-service personnel.
The Government has allocated over £1.2 billion through to 2020 to tackle all forms of homelessness. In London this includes:
As of 31 March 2022 (latest available published statistics), there were 1,618 male sentenced prisoners and 21 female sentenced prisoners aged ‘70 and over’ in prisons in England & Wales.