Contributions
2,217 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDGeneral Elections: Party-political SpendingI always enjoy reading articles by my noble friend and I will undertake to read that one.29 Nov 2023HANSARDGeneral Elections: Party-political SpendingMy Lords, that is an interesting question for all sides of this House. Donors to political parties of all colours make huge contributions to our society—not only to our political…29 Nov 2023HANSARDGeneral Elections: Party-political SpendingI completely reject the premise of the noble Lord’s question. We have transparency in our system so that people can see who donates to political parties. The alternative to…29 Nov 2023HANSARDGeneral Elections: Party-political SpendingMy noble friend is absolutely right that the procedure for uprating spending limits has to be done through multiple statutory instruments because different procedures are attached…29 Nov 2023HANSARDGeneral Elections: Party-political SpendingMy Lords, the Government have no plans to limit the size of donations made. We have procedures in place to ensure that there is transparency over those donations and, as we are…29 Nov 2023HANSARDGeneral Elections: Party-political SpendingMy Lords, all political parties should seek to abide by the rules and, if they have not, they should definitely return the money that they owe.29 Nov 2023HANSARDGeneral Elections: Party-political SpendingI hope that the noble Lord will forgive me for acknowledging that it is a slightly tangential question; I may need to write to him with a fuller answer. I remember the…29 Nov 2023HANSARDGeneral Elections: Party-political SpendingMy Lords, I believe that as a result of the debates on that Act the Government took forward a commitment to ensure information sharing between the police and other relevant…29 Nov 2023HANSARDLevelling Up: Project DeliveryMy Lords, after announcing round 2 of the levelling-up funding, we recognised how many high-quality bids we had from councils that we were not able to meet during that round. That…23 Nov 2023HANSARDLevelling Up: Project DeliveryMy Lords, as I have set out, we took a different approach in round 3 of the levelling-up fund. Instead of having a competitive process, we looked at the existing bids that we had.…23 Nov 2023HANSARDLevelling Up: Project DeliveryMy Lords, as I have said, we are keen to see the delivery impact of the investment as soon as possible. That is why we have not moved to an automatic extension to the deadlines…23 Nov 2023HANSARDLevelling Up: Project DeliveryThe Government are really focused on ensuring that the levelling-up funds deliver value for money and provide transformative outcomes for the local areas that they deliver for.…23 Nov 2023HANSARDLevelling Up: Project DeliveryMy Lords, as I have highlighted, the department is very happy to speak to any project that sees that it is facing perhaps unavoidable delays in delivery. Our first priority should…23 Nov 2023HANSARDLevelling Up: Project DeliveryMy Lords, the report itself highlights a number of issues that have delayed some of the delivery, including rising costs and inflation and other outside factors. That is why we…23 Nov 2023HANSARDLevelling Up: Project DeliveryI am afraid I completely disagree with the noble Lord. There is a choice to be made about where that investment goes, and the Government have made the choice to invest in…23 Nov 2023HANSARDLevelling Up: Project DeliveryMy Lords, the department has implemented several measures to support local authorities in their delivery of levelling-up projects. These include committing over £65 million for…23 Nov 2023HANSARDLevelling Up: Project DeliveryI thank my noble friend for drawing out some of the positives of that report, as there were indeed some. He is right that, while we are keen to see the delivery impact of this…23 Nov 2023HANSARDLevelling Up: Project DeliveryMy Lords, we deliver funding to local authorities in all sorts of ways. We are looking to deliver more funding to local authorities. That is why we are taking forward an approach…23 Nov 2023HANSARDLevelling UpMy noble friend makes an important point about learning as we go and understanding what is effective in delivering our mission to level up. We have put in place comprehensive…22 Nov 2023HANSARDLevelling UpMy Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, for their questions. I start by challenging a few of the assertions made in their responses to…22 Nov 2023