Lord Moylan (Con)

My Lords, I was depressed by the remarks of the Minister, but I have been depressed further into almost silence by the astonishing remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. The complacency they both show on these two really important issues is staggering. Since we last debated this, there has been an appalling crash at Victoria bus station, and what is going to change? Nothing. We will have a road safety strategy that will encompass all modes of transport by road, including foot, bicycle and whatever. That is a good thing, and we should have it, but for buses changes are needed in operator mentality and practice. We see no sign of those happening. They will not emerge from a strategy, but only if the Government say, “This is our objective and we will make this happen”. That is what the Minister is not saying. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, did not hear him not saying it clearly enough. As for my noble friend Lord Moynihan and all this nonsense about what was discussed when, none of that matters. What matters is what my noble friend Lady Owen said—the actual experience of women and girls travelling on buses. They do not feel safe. The Government again come forward with astonishing complacency about this, saying that it is already being done and there is nothing to be added. It really is not good enough. If the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and my noble friend Lord Moynihan choose to divide the House on these matters—I make the point clearly to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, that that is their choice; I have known my noble friend for what must be nearly 50 years now, and he has never been my glove puppet during all that time—then we will support them, because we think these issues are very important. Finally, as far as dark influence within the Labour Party is concerned, it is astonishing that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, should make his naive remarks on the day on which Mr Paul Holden’s book The Fraud is published, a tract dedicated to exposing the conspiracy behind the Starmer Government, the undeclared funding and the actions of Mr Morgan McSweeney in destroying Jeremy Corbyn and inserting Sir Keir Starmer as his substitute as leader of the Labour Party. I realise that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, is a byword for naive credulity among his colleagues, but I suggest that he should get hold of a copy of the book published today and sit down, perhaps this evening, with a stiff whisky by his hand so that he can prepare to anaesthetise himself against the shocks that will be revealed to him. Then he will realise what nonsense he has just said about my noble friend’s amendment.