Lord Desai (CB)

My Lords, there are many dimensions in which participation can be measured. We have two problems. As the noble Lord, Lord Swire, said, we do not know the quality of the participation but we know the q

My Lords, I have many things to declare. One is that I came here not as a hereditary Peer but was appointed by John Major, who conspired with Neil Kinnock—the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock—to get me here.

My Lords, let me first say congratulations to the two maiden speakers. Let us hope that they enjoy being in your Lordships’ House. I start by saying that we have a very distorted housing market. Among

My Lords, does the noble Lord not agree that, because we had a debate on growth very recently, and because the question has been raised again, what we really need is an expert committee—perhaps your L

My Lords, we have not had any economic growth in the UK for about 15 years. The last time that we had growth was during the years of new Labour, between 1997 and 2008. Then there was the financial cra

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that it is not fair to blame the present growth rate on the Labour Government? There are long and variable lags in economics, so whatever investment we make now wil