Supreme Court Dillon Judgment

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord lived and breathed this during the last piece of legislation: the legacy Act that we are discussing. The appeal was not continued—I have said this from the Dispatch Box before—because it was made very clear to us by the courts that we would not win. Therefore, we needed to come up with an alternative solution. That is what we are seeking to do in the new Bill.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a simple sailor. Recently, I have spoken to a number of simple soldiers, who may be even simpler. When we joined the military, we felt that there was an agreement that, as long as we acted in good faith, the country would support us.

I understand that this is a highly complex subject. I served in Northern Ireland. I do not know where we have got to in the answers, but can I ask my noble friend the Minister to make absolutely certain that we do honour that contract, because already it is having an impact on recruiting, particularly in the Special Forces? We must look after those people who went out every day to try to look after the safety of people in Northern Ireland—they might have got it wrong occasionally—rather than those who went out every day to damage and injure the people in Northern Ireland.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend and look forward to discussing the detail of our future amendments and having further conversations in this space with him as the legislation progresses. Like many other Members of your Lordships’ House, I am personally grateful to those people who put on a uniform, today, tomorrow or, in this case, yesterday. They ran towards the Troubles to protect the rest of us and we should be forever grateful to them. That is not to say, as the noble Lord will appreciate, that putting on a uniform protects you if you did do ill.

I would like to put something on the record. One issue that has been raised repeatedly in this space is how the conversations we are having about the Troubles are having an impact on recruitment and retention. Recruitment into our Armed Forces is up by 13% and outflow is down by 8%. I appreciate that people’s concerns are real, but we need to be careful with our language to make sure that we are not talking people out of joining our military at a time when, as all noble Lords will appreciate, we need people to sign up.

Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address Motion

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

To confirm, all electronic communication is in scope and will be released in future tranches of materials. On the steps being taken to secure the materials, the Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet Office has contacted all other Permanent Secretaries to make sure that materials are being secured and passed on. Those materials are currently being collated for further release. On the former chief of staff, as set out by my right honourable friend the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, there was correspondence between No. 10 and Lord Peter Mandelson, in which a number of follow-up questions were asked. I would assume that those materials are going to be released as well.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand that the complexities of employment law mean that you have to pay someone some money when they work for you. Has anyone approached Mandelson, who has done disgraceful things, to ask whether he wants to give this money to a buy-a-warship fund, or some other charity, rather than take it for himself?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I wondered how my noble friend was going to get a warship into this question—and, as ever, he succeeded. My noble friend is right; from my perspective, Peter Mandelson should donate his severance to any charity that campaigns for, or protects, women who have been targeted and have experienced horrendous violence. That is probably the least we are owed.

Public Procurement: Data Offshoring

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I refer back to my initial Answer, which is that each contracting authority should carefully consider, and make risk-based decisions on, whether and where data can be offshored. We can get really hung up on offshoring, onshoring or where the data is stored, but we have to make sure that all data and cybersecurity are central to how we move forward with this type of procurement. This is why the Government are introducing a cybersecurity and resilience Bill, which will help ensure our cybersecurity for the future.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, further to the question from my noble friend Lord Browne, I think that the response from the MoD is not satisfactory. These Belarusians, although they might not have had access to highly classified information, were writing software that would be used within our nuclear deterrent. This cannot be satisfactory. Can the MoD give an answer, maybe through the Minister, to say that this is no longer allowed to happen? We all know how you can use software in various clever ways to cause real damage.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I will speak to my noble friend Lord Coaker and ask him to provide a letter responding to that point.

Global IT Outage

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

All relevant departments will take part in the review, and I will feed back the specific points made to the Cabinet Office and colleagues in the Department of Health. Going back to the previous point about the widespread use of specific software systems, this needs to be taken seriously as we move forward with the proposed legislation.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, one area of weakness is PNT, so how will we ensure that we still have traditional navigational and time signals of the correct type to enable all our systems to work? Will we maintain a task group to work in this area to try to resolve it by next year?