"My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his very kind words. As regards Russia, the Ministry of Defence undertakes regular assessments of potential military threats to the Falkland Islands to ensure that we retain an appropriate level of defensive capability to address any such threats. We remain vigilant and …..." Lord Astor of Hever - View Speech
"My Lords, I pay tribute to those brave sailors who went down on the noble Lord’s ship. He asked me about the oil situation. The Falkland Islands Government have said that if the oil exploration is successful they would wish to share some of their revenues with the UK to …..." Lord Astor of Hever - View Speech
"My Lords, I can assure the noble and gallant Lord that the destroyers and frigates are within a certain number of days’ sailing distance from the Falkland Islands—we are very insistent on that. I think he will agree with me that sometimes an invisible deterrent is as effective...." Lord Astor of Hever - View Speech
"I can tell my noble friend that we will not undertake a fresh review, but we keep the situation under constant and continual review...." Lord Astor of Hever - View Speech
"My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, on securing this short but very important debate. This is a subject in which she has a particular interest, which is reflected in her taking on the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages. We share with her a …..." Lord Astor of Hever - View Speech
"I assure my noble friend that I will come on to that point.
I was talking about my former assistant private secretary, who keeps my office well informed on the LECs and their concerns. We share the noble Baroness’s view that the service and sacrifice given by our interpreters deserves …..." Lord Astor of Hever - View Speech
"My Lords, two separate groups of amendments were made to the Bill in the other place. Commons Amendments 1 to 20 reflect changes to the Bill that were made following the Commons Committee stage. They extend the role of the proposed Service Complaints Ombudsman in a number of important ways …..." Lord Astor of Hever - View Speech
"My Lords, I thank noble and noble and gallant Lords for their general support for these amendments. I will do my best to answer their questions.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, pointed out, quite rightly, that there would be a larger number of complaints. Obviously, people in the …..." Lord Astor of Hever - View Speech
"My Lords, I stand to be corrected, but I think that the extra cost of £500,000 would have arisen anyway and we would have needed to increase the number of staff from nine to 20 anyway under the original Bill...." Lord Astor of Hever - View Speech