Single-Sex Spaces: EHRC Guidance

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they will set a target to lay before Parliament the Equality and Human Rights Commission guidance on single-sex spaces before the first anniversary of the guidance being sent to the Equalities Minister.

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Lords (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s code of practice for services, public functions and associations provides guidance on all protected characteristics, not solely on sex and gender reassignment. The EHRC has submitted its draft code to Ministers and we are reviewing it with the care it deserves. It is crucial that providers have legally robust guidance on how to apply the Equality Act, which is why we are considering the draft code properly.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I say to the Government that the inexcusable delay in operating this makes it look like political party management is being elevated above the national interest. That is not good enough.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

Let me reassure all noble Lords. We have set out our expectation that service providers follow the law as clarified by the Supreme Court ruling and seek specialist legal advice wherever necessary. The Prime Minister has underlined this recently. We have always been absolutely clear that due process needs to be followed by all, in line with the Equality Act. Our priority is getting it right. That is why it is so important that we give it proper and due consideration.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I shall move to the Woolsack in a few minutes, so I shall be mute, for which many noble Lords will be grateful. Perhaps I might just point out to the noble Lord, and perhaps to some of his colleagues who have graced us with their presence in recent months, that the principle that this House has in the way it conducts itself is self-regulation. Perhaps I could just define what self-regulation is not. Self-regulation is not regulating oneself in one’s own self-interest; it is regulating oneself in the interest of the whole House and of the reputation of the House, and to get business done. I think that certain noble Lords are in danger of misunderstanding exactly what we understand self-regulation to be, and they are doing themselves and their reputation no good.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, the way to avoid introducing for the first time a guillotine Motion on a Bill in this House is for my noble and learned friend to specifically come within the next 10 days to answer each and every question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham. That would solve the problem.

[Lord Gove (Con)]

I am grateful for those recent interventions. They certainly help me, and I am sure they assist the House. But it also assists the House to know that this House is more respected, not less, for giving extensive scrutiny to the Bill. This is the view of people, including those, such as Charlotte Ivers, who favour assisted dying. It would be a sad day if those of us who believe in exhaustive scrutiny and extensive debate were told that that was not in our best traditions.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, on a debate such as this, the House really misses the Countess of Mar—if only she was still here. I can recall her one day bringing a delegation to a department where I was a Minister, and after she left, I told the civil servants, “One day, I will be a Back-Bencher and she is my model”. That is what I have tried to do. As the noble Earl, Lord Devon, spoke, I thought back to the one-woman awkward squad in this House—the Countess of Mar. She is much missed in a debate like this.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, if I could share my recollection of the Countess of Mar, I was Agriculture spokesman for the last Government, and she had some strong opinions. Whenever I received my brief in answer to her questions, I would sit with her and she would point out where the brief was wrong, and then I could get it right before I had to answer. That made it much easier. She was a great power.

I honour the noble Earl, Lord Devon, for bringing these amendments forward. Lord Diamond was in the lists on the Labour Benches when I first joined the House. I took my turn at it. My noble friend Lord Northbrook has done the same. We have been trying for a long time to get this dealt with, never with any success. I do not share the noble Earl’s opinion that we are the upper reaches of society. None the less, I do not think that this kind of gender discrimination should be allowed to persist anywhere. That it is a tiresome, small, insignificant but none the less continually noticed bit of gender discrimination ought to allow the Government to give the issue some time to get rid of it.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

However, it is not done, because some people say the power does not really exist, that it is not clear and it has not been done for a long time, except in the case of the present Duke of Edinburgh. While it may then be legitimately argued that the power to create the type of peerage I suggest already exists, the purpose of this amendment is to put it absolutely beyond doubt and, frankly, encourage its potential use. Why should we not have life Peers who are not required to attend this House by Writ of Summons?

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I have just a practical question, really. There is a Peer who came into this House and did not make a maiden speech for 10 years because he considered the peerage an honour. Then, one day, the Prime Minister said to that person, “By the way, with your experience, I’ve got a bit of a job I want you to do”. That Peer came in and made his maiden speech and worked inside the Government. That would not be possible with this kind of amendment.

[Lord True (Con)]

It would. If such a rare case applied, a second, life peerage under the 1958 Act could be conferred—it would be very simple.

Like much constructive reform, this may not be a great innovation. It is an extension of a principle that exists under the royal prerogative, an extension to the 1958 Act so that non-sitting life Peers may be created through a statutory process as well. This would be helpful to Prime Ministers who wish to honour distinguished men and women but not necessarily to swell the ranks of this House.

There are many Peers who currently do not have the right to sit in your Lordships’ House, and I found the arguments put against this proposition in Committee faintly risible. A clear and unequivocal reform, enabling the creation of non-sitting life Peers under the 1958 Act, would be no more or less confusing than the current position, but it would relieve us of the potential difficulties both for individual Peers and for the House, to which I have referred. It might save some future Peers, and indeed your Lordships’ House, from the unnecessary embarrassment of including people who do not want to be here or to stay here for very long. I cannot think for the life of me why any Government would wish to resist it.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, this is the main argument that has been used consistently by people who do not want this place elected. It is based on a false premise, which is that, if both Houses are completely or largely elected, it will lead to persistent and irresolvable conflict. If the noble Lord looks at the work that the convener has instituted, which compares second chambers around the world, he will find that there are many that are wholly or partially elected, in countries that have mature democracies, in which there is not persistent stasis because they cannot agree. There may be arguments about the relative powers of the House, but I simply do not believe that having the sorts of elections that I am talking about will lead to the complexities that many noble Lords raised and that, in many cases, are raised as a basis for opposing a principle to which they object.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Does the noble Lord accept that most of those countries, which I have looked at as well, have a written constitution? We do not. That is the thing that would make it incredibly difficult to resolve disputes between the two Houses. There has to be another formula for that.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

I am not sure the noble Lord is right about that. We do not have a written constitution now, but we have conventions that enable us to deal with difference—

--- Later in debate ---

I am not convinced that this amendment will be agreed tonight and I discourage the noble Lord, Lord Newby, from putting it to a vote. The other aspect, as I look around the House, is that many of my noble friends and many Labour Peers do not favour an elected House. The hallmark of this debate that has run for the last 100 years is that the differences exist within the parties more so than between them. The only way that there will ever be any kind of long-term, sustainable reform of this House is to do it on a cross-party basis, which is why I return to the royal commission chaired by my noble friend Lord Wakeham in 2000, which was promoted by Prime Minister Tony Blair. Even that, 25 years on, has seen no further progress whatever.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, when I am at a college in the Midlands this Friday morning with the Learn with the Lords programme, the first thing I will say is that the House of Lords is nothing more than a large sub-committee of the House of Commons with the power to ask it to think again. That being so, it does not matter how its composition is arrived at.

The legislation that would be required by the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, must by definition reduce the powers of this House. It would have to remove the right to chuck out a Bill. We have the right but do not use it, for self-evident reasons, but what is to stop a troublesome elected second Chamber throwing out a Bill before it even revises it? That would be chaos. That would have to be put in the legislation before the new Chamber arrives. Would the Prime Minister down the other end appoint the leader of this new Chamber? Of course not. Self-evidently, that could not happen. So would there be Ministers in the second Chamber? There do not have to be; Ministers can be summoned by this Chamber from the other place to Select Committees and to explain Bills.

There are a few issues to be raised here that are not being talked about, which is why this idea is a bit more complicated than people think. I fully accept that the Chamber should be half the size of the Commons and should not have any Ministers. I have formed that view since I first came here. Noble Lords talk about the House of Commons as it is now, but I can tell them that between 1974 and 1979 we Back-Benchers had a lot more power, because the Government did not have it. The Lib-Lab pact was there. We have the problem of the current situation; we should not form ourselves on the basis that it will always be the same. There are a few more questions to be asked of the noble Lord, Lord Newby—which I do not expect him to answer—than have been asked so far today.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is nothing if not consistent on this issue. We voted together on the seven options that your Lordships’ House was presented with in February 2003 following the royal commission. The noble Lord will recall that, in the Commons, none of the options got a majority and the whole thing failed.

If I am to be critical of what happened with the original proposals put forward by the Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, the royal commission and the various proposals put forward since, including Mr Clegg’s Bill, the proponents of an elected House—of which I am one—need to do the work on the powers and relationship. You cannot get away with simply saying, “We should have an elected House”. I absolutely agree with this, but my noble friend is right that, to make it work, you would have to constrain the current powers of the Lords to make the relationship work effectively.

You would also have to tackle secondary legislation. You could not leave an elected second Chamber with a veto power—which we have used six or seven times in our whole history—particularly if it was elected under proportional representation. Clearly, a second Chamber elected under proportional representation is bound to claim greater legitimacy in the end than the Commons; the claim would always be that we represent the voters much more accurately than a first past the post system.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, may not realise this, but I am very sympathetic to what he seeks to do. But, for goodness’ sake, let us do the work on what the relationship between two elected Houses should be.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Brady of Altrincham, on his maiden speech. I will be very sad to lose my noble friend Lady Quin although, both as a Minister and as a private citizen, I have done my Newcastle visitor trips. I almost had a lump in my throat, as a former engineer before I came into Parliament, when I saw the first factory where a railway engine was built. It was an amazing operation.

I made my general views on reform clear in the November debate, so I will not go over those now, but the Bill is a clear manifesto commitment within the conventions. Everyone has quoted page 108 of the Labour manifesto, but I will start off with Conventions of the UK Parliament, the report of the Joint Committee of both Lords and Commons, which is still valid today. After that report was done in 2006, both Houses voted to support it. In its conclusions, in paragraph 99, it says:

“The Convention which has evolved is that: In the House of Lords: A manifesto Bill is accorded a Second Reading; A manifesto Bill is not subject to ‘wrecking amendments’ which change the Government’s … intention as proposed in the Bill”.


Any of the amendments about reforming the Lords that have been hinted at today would therefore be, in those terms, wrecking amendments because they change the Government’s proposal that was in their manifesto and its operation. My view is simple: both Houses need to agree the Bill and send it back, not get it mixed up with other matters.

This will be my negative bit for the Government, as I do not want to be a toady now that we are in government. The other bit that has been quoted a lot today, again on page 108, is the part about Labour being

“committed to replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber”.

That is quite distinct from the other promise, and it cannot operate as a commitment under the conventions. The words in the manifesto are vague; they are not at all specific and therefore it cannot be covered. I say to my Front Bench that, if that commitment is based on the report of the so-called commission headed by Gordon Brown, I will vote against it. I would not give an O-level to that report and the Labour Peer on the commission voted against it. To be clear about this, I sent the establishment’s House magazine a note on it in the summer, but I was not establishment enough to get it published. That report was all about Scotland. It was not about genuine reform of a revising second Chamber, but I will not go over that anymore.

The Bill has got to go back to the Commons without any amendment. That way, we can get down to putting pressure on the Government, because I want reform. The issues raised by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, and the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, were all positive ideas. We cannot carry on just as we are, but I have seen and heard of plans by some of my new colleagues who want to amend it to include the Bishops. That will be a big mistake. It is a fundamental change to the Bill. It would amount to a wrecking amendment, because it is not consistent with it, and it would take the Bill outside the conventions that I have just quoted. At some time in another Session—if I am still here, being over the age limit—I would vote to remove the clerics from lawmaking. I do not want more of them in here; they have a job outside, which is not making laws, although I would make an exception for the Bishop of Newcastle, who has proved to be a Bishop of substance.

G20 and COP 29 Summits

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

Targets are there to be attained and reached, and every effort is being made. The difference is that 2030 is the national target; 2035 is the international agreement reached at the summits. I hope that is helpful.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

While I applaud the Government’s policy of being civilised, nice and supportive of President-elect Trump because we have to work with him, will it be made abundantly clear, without qualification, that this country will not import hormone-treated beef or chlorinated washed chicken?

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

Is that an application to be ambassador?

House of Lords Reform

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, to seriously take note of Lords reform, we really need to be aware of our role and function. It is not to be the Executive’s little helpers but to hold them to account. As such, it is Commons reform that we need to look at. Having been there for 27 years, I am entitled to be a critical supporter. I was sent here not to undermine the elected House but to help with scrutiny and revision.

Our big mistake in 1997 was effectively to guillotine every Bill in the Commons. Okay, we called it timetabling, but it has exactly the same effect. Bills arrive here in the Lords not properly scrutinised by the elected House. I once suggested that all the Bills that arrive here should come with a Speaker’s certificate, pointing out what parts of the Bill had not been scrutinised, but I was told this was not practical when it was looked at. But it remains the case that we have to clean up the Commons’ failure to do its job properly, and it annoys those down there, who are ignorant about our function.

I always start sessions of the Peers in Schools programme—now Learn with the Lords—as I will do again in a couple of weeks, by saying that the Lords is, in effect, a large sub-committee of the Commons, with the role of asking it to think again. The elected House always has the last word, but we are the thinking Chamber, which thinks for itself rather than being told by the business managers what to think. We ask the Commons to think again and maybe again.

I think the Learn with the Lords programme needs to be extended from schools and colleges to Whitehall and the Commons. We need to confront the sheer ignorance—which I shared until I came here—in Whitehall and the Commons about our role and function. The obsession is always with composition and numbers. They are important but not the key event. I will never forget the day when, as a Minister, I went with my noble friend Lord Grocott, who was then the Government Chief Whip, to a senior Cabinet committee in charge of legislation. We were there merely to explain the rules and conventions here in the Lords. The chair of the committee wagged his finger at us and said, “You’ve gone native, you two”, based on his ignorance of what we were trying to explain. So far, that ex-Cabinet Minister has not arrived in your Lordships’ House. Ministers need the odd session, particularly if they have been only a Minister on the bridge, rather than, as I was, a Minister of State, always in the engine room. Those Cabinet Ministers who have never done any other jobs have not got a clue, and need to be better informed.

I am coming to the end now. We are not a threat, but we are here to stop the executive takeover of Parliament. Having served for nearly three years on the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I know that the move continues bit by bit as the Executive take more power from Parliament for Ministers at the expense of scrutiny. There is no question but that—people on all sides have seen it—and it continues today. It has continued since the general election; that committee broke a precedent recently and summoned Ministers about an appalling Bill taking powers from Parliament. In my three years it never felt the need to summon Ministers, but it has since the last election.

Yes, we need to reduce our numbers, but kicking out the superactive noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and keeping the once-a-year Russian is not the sensible way to do it. I wait for a big defence of that from the Prime Minister. We should revisit the Commons and Lords Joint Committee on conventions of the UK Parliament. It was chaired by my noble friend Lord Cunningham, and its report was published in November 2006. After it was published, it was agreed by both Houses. If you are going to argue about changes in the conventions, both Houses have ownership. There should be a specific form of agreement. What better time to revisit it?

Human Rights Violations: Consular Assistance

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to create a legal right for British nationals to access consular assistance in cases of human rights violations.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)]

My Lords, our consular operation offers British nationals a 24/7, 365 days a year service. We welcome feedback to help improve our support to British nationals, including from those who use our services and other stakeholders. The Government are examining options on strengthening support for British nationals abroad, including a right to assistance in cases of human rights violations, as set out in our manifesto.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

In the meantime, will the Government issue a warning to academics and curious tourists not to visit Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong and China as these are locking people up and denying them consular access. Is the Minister aware that Australia, the United States and Ireland— I repeat, Ireland—have secured the release of citizens from the Chinese Communist Party prisons by taking a tough line on trade? Yet our Foreign Secretary went off to China with no trade demands—and not even having met Jimmy Lai’s legal team here in the UK—and came back empty-handed. Jimmy Lai, a British citizen, has been locked in solitary for four years and denied medical treatment. Why can the UK not take the same tough line as Ireland?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend, but I think he knows very well just how seriously we take Jimmy Lai’s imprisonment. He will recall my questions to the previous Government on this. He will recall my statements on this, where we have taken a very strong position. Let me reassure my noble friend: the idea that the Foreign Secretary goes to China and does not raise these issues is ridiculous. I assure him that the Foreign Secretary said in his response to the Oral Question on Monday that it was because he had been out of the country visiting a wide range of countries he had not at that stage been able to meet the family of Jimmy Lai. But Catherine West has and will continue to do so and the Foreign Secretary said he would do so. I reassure my noble friend that we take this very seriously and will raise it at all levels.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 18th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move government Amendment 264 and will speak to Amendments 265 and 266, which the Government have tabled. They respond to the concerns raised about Clauses 223 and 224, which provide powers to replace the Health and Safety Executive as the building safety regulator.

When the Government made the decision to locate the building safety regulator in the Health and Safety Executive in the aftermath of the Grenfell tragedy, this was rightly because of its outstanding reputation in ensuring rigorous safety standards. We continue to work closely with the Health and Safety Executive, and I take this opportunity to thank HSE colleagues for what they have already done to bring this regime to life.

As we await the findings of the Grenfell inquiry, the Government recognise that we must provide a stronger, wider stewardship role to ensure that we regulate effectively across the whole built environment, with consideration and management of sustainability and quality sitting alongside the safety of buildings. The Government believe that these powers are a key part of ensuring that oversight of the built environment is delivered appropriately.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, who has tabled Amendments 265A, 267 and 268, and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for its scrutiny of the Bill. In response to the concerns raised by the committee and in earlier debate, the Government are making a number of changes to improve these measures.

Amendment 264 restricts the powers in Clauses 223 and 224, so that they can be used only to transfer existing functions of the Health and Safety Executive in its role of building safety regulator, and specifically cannot be used to create additional functions or to amend the building safety functions as defined in the Building Safety Act 2022. I hope that this principle of the preservation of existing powers provides the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, with reassurance on the intentions of the Government.

Amendment 265 limits the provision that can be amended, repealed or revoked by regulations under this clause to provision made by or under listed Acts, namely: the Building Safety Act 2022, the Building Act 1984, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.

Amendment 266 removes the ability to extend the sunsetting of the power to create a new regulator. These measures do not affect the timeline for the regulator’s important work. We expect the regime to be fully operational by April 2024, and are determined not to impact on that programme. Finally, I remind noble Lords that the powers in Clause 223 are all affirmative and so any future use will be subject to the consideration of Parliament. I beg to move.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to address the amendments in my name, Amendments 264A and 264B. These amendments raise an aspect of electricity supply which involves potentially dangerous network faults. I first declare an interest as probably the most out-of-date chartered engineer in Parliament, having been here full-time for 49 years, and a fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. I still pay my subs after more than 60 years, and skim the technical journals.

In April, I read in Engineering & Technology about concerns relating to the risks of neutral current diversion, known as NCD. The author was investigative journalist, Conor McGlone, who wrote of experts expressing concerns of the real risk of deadly gas explosions and fires in the UK due to a common fault on the electrical system. They claim that the fault is neither acknowledged by distribution network operators or the Health and Safety Executive. In short, and keeping off the detailed techy stuff, a neutral current diversion can occur when the combined protective earthing and neutral conductor fails. The current is then diverted by making a circuit via exposed metal workings on buildings including gas, water and oil pipes. In other words, electricity can flow through gas meters in these circumstances.

NCDs are causing gas explosions. Gas meters are not designed to carry electricity and, if a current is diverted, creating heat due to the high resistance, an explosion can follow. The fault is such that, when changing gas meters, engineers attach jump leads between pipes because neutral current diversions are so prevalent and sparks can be created. After an explosion, of which there have been more in recent years, we are simply told: “possible gas leak”. In fact, a house in the Kingstanding part of my former constituency disappeared in such an explosion last year.

One example given by Conor McGlone was when Gordon Mackenzie, formerly of SP Energy Networks, became aware of a resident’s coat falling on a gas meter and catching fire. He detected a 35-amp current flowing through the metallic gas service pipe entering the property, affecting 72 houses. There was nothing whatever to indicate a problem: no flickering lights, nothing.

Neutral current diversions are not routinely considered after an explosion. Having read this, I therefore tabled some Written Questions, answered by the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, on 2 May. I was informed that

“no additional action is required by the regulator”—

the Health and Safety Executive—

“to manage this risk of neutral current diversion at the present time”.

In other words: “We’ll keep it under review”.

Now these can cause fires in ordinary domestic appliances due to the high resistance. Voltage surges occurred in properties without a gas supply. As a result of the Hansard reports of the Written Answers, I was contacted about the wider problem of safety checks and weaknesses in electrical regulation. I am informed that the charity Electrical Safety First and certification giant Bureau Veritas have both expressed more concern than the Health and Safety Executive, whose approach has been described as

“nothing to see, move on”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, if nobody is getting up, I will just let the Minister and my Front Bench know that I agree with the content of all three speeches I have just listened to. My message to the Front Bench is that things have to be done differently. The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, did not just invent this system; it has virtually been his life’s work and it has been a success. It is not like the good old days and the bad old days; we have to learn lessons and do things differently. The present arrangements have not worked.

In the last Labour Government we made mistakes, but we are in a different world now, by and large. There is going to be a general election, when there may or may not be a change of Government, but there ought to be a change in policy about the way that these issues are dealt with. They cannot all be one size fits all, which is the apparent view of the present Government, whether of the public or the private sector. Partnership, good leadership and a willingness to share responsibilities is the only way to success.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, and his fellow signatories to the amendments in this group. As we have heard, they refer to very important issues relating to how such a complex and far-reaching Bill should be implemented.

There was much discussion earlier about the wasteful and partial way in which the levelling-up fund was implemented so that, instead of making a real contribution to levelling up, it became a beauty contest of who could spend the most on consultants to put their bids together. There is no better example of the rationale for close and careful consideration of how the Bill will work in practice. I hope the Government will pay close attention to the wording of these carefully considered amendments, to how they will ensure cross-departmental working—which is not a feature of this Government nor of past Governments—and to the committed devolution of powers and funding, which will be necessary to deliver any meaningful levelling up. But I fear that this might have to wait for the Labour Party’s “take back control” Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I want to put on record that I support the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on this issue. The Government have to give an explanation. The experts say it is impossible to decarbonise our electricity supply by 2035. Labour has planned to do it by 2030, but if it is impossible to do it by 2035 then it is certainly impossible to do it by 2030. One has only to look at recent papers—for example, the one by Professor Dieter Helm, an expert. It lists completely all the points that we are going to miss.

One of the missing ingredients is of course onshore wind. I have seen these huge onshore wind farms under construction in Shetland. It is true that they took rather longer in terms of planning applications that I thought they would—instead of eight years, I thought they would be pretty quick. The biggest problem will be that they are so big that the grid does not have the wires to get the power to the mainland. That is crazy.

Then there is the matter of alternative jobs. I find the windmills magnificent, whether they are in the Lake District, Cornwall or anywhere else—they are not an eyesore—but where are they made? We are losing out on manufacturing. We are importing far too much because we do not have an energy plan. We have 20 bits of energy, but that is not an energy plan. Without one, we are going to be importing and importing, and we are going to lose the jobs that the green policies should give to our people.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, we strongly support the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, in this amendment. It is important that we continue to discuss where our energy comes from, what kind of energy we want and how it is going to help us meet our net zero and low-carbon targets. Onshore wind has to be an important part of that. She is completely right to draw attention to the problems we have been facing in recent years in getting onshore wind built. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, talked about the issues of the results of round 5 recently. That puts a sharp focus on some of the issues we have had around wind farm development, whether offshore or onshore.