Electricity Supplies from Europe
Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
I am very grateful for the opportunity to opine on this important issue. Can the Minister confirm that the French are in fact building one of our nuclear reactors? Has the recent dispute led the Government to review that situation?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
The French are indeed building at Hinkley Point, and we are still in discussions with them on the project to build Sizewell C. I am not aware of any interruptions in those negotiations.
National Security and Investment Bill
Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton WaldristTuesday 9th March 2021
(3 years, 1 month ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate National Security and Investment Bill 2019-21 View all National Security and Investment Bill 2019-21 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 165-II Second marshalled list for Grand Committee - (4 Mar 2021)
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I am grateful for those comments. They will be noted.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con) [V]
My Lords, I would never put my noble friend the Minister in the same paragraph as “Yes Minister”. She is a far classier act than that and a wonderful and effective force in your Lordships’ House. But, in a hesitant fashion, I will say that, when listening to the Government’s response, my concerns continued to grow. It seems that their position, which is perhaps understandable, is that they have crafted a Bill that covers every conceivable transaction. Then they will see how it works in practice, over the next couple of years, and gradually narrow it down. That was the tone of the response that I got from my noble friend Lord Callanan. When my noble friend Lady Bloomfield was responding, I began to wonder whether the sale of an iPhone to a Chinese government official in a phone shop in Westfield in Shepherd’s Bush would count as a transaction.