What is recorded in Hansard – 416 spoken contributions, and 161 written questions over 2025 – does not cover a lot of my work for the Green Party in the House of Lords. Attending meetings of all party parliamentary groups (particularly annual general meetings that have to be held every year, and be quorate to allow the continuation of excellent groups like those covering households in temporary accommodation and antimicrobial resistance) and hosting events, like the UK100 winter reception that I held just before Christmas, and the roundtable launch of my office’s report on the disastrous human and environmental impacts of fish (particularly salmon) farming, take up a lot of time.
Some of the most fun I have is in Learn with the Lords events. These are the multiple ways in which schools (and homeschoolers) can engage with the house and ask questions about its work. The team kindly calculated for me this year’s total of my events. That is how I know I reached 1,360 students in 12 online sessions and eight school visits, from Edlington (near Doncaster) and Brinsworth (near Rotherham) to Hudderfield and Blackpool, Malmesbury, Leamington Spa and Dudley to the Isle of Wight, plus eight events in the house.
But Hansard does make it easy to skim back over the year to see the range of subjects – and legislation – on which I have worked
A Hansard compendium
International questions and speeches in the house ranged geographically from Venezuela to Sudan (including specifically on victims of violence against women and girls), from Ukraine to West Papua, from Diego Garcia and debt traps across the Global South to the Democratic Republic of Congo. And of course on Palestine, including its recognition (on which the government finally delivered later in the year).
I also spoke in what I regard as a particularly important debate about repatriating indigenous people’s remains, so often collected in colonial times under the most barbaric of circumstances. And President Trump and his myriad global impacts came up many times; the threat to human rights and equalities featured particularly in my International Women’s Day speech.
And of course I asked lots of climate and environment questions, ranging from the post-COP30 wrapup, twice, to explaining why plastics do not fit at scale within a circular economy, and the way we are falling behind the EU in chemicals regulation. I also asked questions on the continuing threat of wet wipes, mercury pollution and the ending of its use in dental fillings, fossil fuel industry venting and flaring and the global dangers of allowing new UK drilling. I opposed airport expansion and questioned the environmental impacts of producing “AI slop”,deforestation, species decline, resisting genetically modified food – and of course endless, endless fighting back against the awful planning and infrastructure bill, now Act.
On finance and economy, I focused on the threats presented by private equity, corruption and money laundering, prudential regulation, the finance curse, the cost of Blair-era PFI schemes, the profoundly undemocratic Investor-State Dispute Settlement procedure, and the Wild West of financial advertising, among many other subjects.
As a society, we’re doing very badly by our young people, in all kinds of ways, and facing up to that – from debating causes of the high rates of preterm birth and inadequate restrictions on advertising of ultraprocessed food, to working with many others on trying to make the Mental Health Act as kind as it can be in the face of enormous under-resourcing and decades of mistreatment. But particularly on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill – trying to look differently to all the other parties at the figures for school absences and not asking, as the others are, “what’s wrong with the children?” but rather the Green question “what is wrong with the schools?” That led to my most unexpected “viral” video hit of the year, a reel about the Green Party policy of abolishing Ofsted, and focusing on pupils’ wellbeing, that got on Facebook alone more than 200,000 views.
Young people and education
As a society, we’re doing very badly by our young people, in all kinds of ways, and facing up to that – from debating causes of the high rates of preterm birth and inadequate restrictions on advertising of ultraprocessed food, to working with many others on trying to make the Mental Health Act as kind as it can be in the face of enormous under-resourcing and decades of mistreatment.
But particularly on the children’s wellbeing and schools bill – trying to look differently to all the other parties at the figures for school absences and not asking, as the others are, ‘What’s wrong with the children?’ but rather the Green question ‘What is wrong with the schools?’ That led to my most unexpected ‘viral’ video hit of the year, a reel about the Green Party policy of abolishing Ofsted, and focusing on pupils’ wellbeing, that got, on Facebook alone, more than 200,000 views.
Bills on biocides and sanitary products
As that quick run through indicates, the nature of most of my work in the chamber is not under my control; it is a matter of reacting to the bills and Statutory Instruments the government introduces and responding to debates secured by others. But I did start the year with my private members’ bill on biocides, addressing issues of antimicrobial resistance, microbiotoxicity and other environmental impacts of products added without cause to far too many consumer goods. And in the product regulation and metrology bill I made considerable progress in raising the issue, pushed so ably by the Women’s Environmental Network, of toxic materials in period products.
Looking forward to 2026
Coming up next year, I expect a lot of time to be taken up with the horribly misnamed English devolution and ommunity empowerment bill, on which we’ve already had our initial discussion and second reading, and what’s generally known as the assisted dying bill, on which I spoke at second reading.
The tobacco and vapes bill will be going into report stage. It’s really crucial this gets through into law before the session ends (when most non-completed bills fall), which current speculation suggests will be very conveniently timed for Sir Keir Starmer, just about the May elections in Holyrood, Cardiff and for local councils including all in London.
Labour’s chances are currently looking parlous, while Greens’ look great. But that means lots of work too outside the House of Lords, visiting local Green Parties with elections around these islands. Maybe I’ll see you at one of those?
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