The Lord Bird MBE
Crossbench
Member of the House of Lords
M
Lord Bird's full title is The Lord Bird MBE. His name is John Anthony Bird, and he is a current member of the House of Lords.
Allowance claims · 2026
Data not yet released for 2026 — the Lords Finance Office publishes monthly CSVs ~6-8 weeks after month-end.
Lords votes · 2026
162 divisions
1 Content(0.6%)
2 Not-Content(1.2%)
159 didn't vote(98.1%)
2026-03-12
Content
26–134
Not-Content
Source: lordsvotes-api.parliament.uk. "Result" shows the headline
Content vs Not-Content tally (including tellers). The Lords doesn't
publish a "didn't vote" attendance roll like the Commons, so the
figure above conflates absence with abstention.
Recent Hansard contributions · latest 25
2026-06-17
Social Housing Bill [HL]
I will speak to my Amendment 116. The Government are charging us all with getting behind the idea that there will be 1.5 million new houses by the end of the Parliament. I suggest that one way you could achieve that is by being serious about the number o
2026-06-04
Young People and Work
Is it possible for the Minister to explain to me this kind of scattergun effect? She says that it covers all departments—education and everything else—but why is there not a central office in government for the eradication of poverty? Only by bringing ev
2026-06-04
Young People and Work
My Lords—
2026-06-01
Social Housing Bill [HL]
Anyway, to address the problem which I have not heard anybody mention: why is it that if you live in social housing—if you are the child of social housing—you have about a 2% chance, as a child, of finishing whatever levels you do to leave school and the
2026-06-01
Social Housing Bill [HL]
It is either the market or the state; that seems to be the argument.
In 2017, I went to a city that was having problems with a whole bevy of people. What we did was to try to reorientate the way that local charities worked together. One of the things
Is it possible for us to agree that one of the reasons we are in this dispute is that refuse workers are so badly paid? I am a former refuse worker —I was a road sweeper for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea—and I can honestly say that this is
Is it not wonderful that social security can be used as a hand up? That is the point I am trying to make. I am not trying to make the point of work versus social security. I am saying that a hand up is absolutely marvellous. The greatest hand up that I g
My Lords—
I say “well done” to the noble Lord, Lord Walker. I was confused when I was asked to follow the noble Lord and, in the tradition of the House, to praise him. I thought to myself, “I don’t know anything about Walkers crisps”. That was the only Walker I kn
2026-03-12
Children in Care: Illegal Accommodation
Does the Minister agree that care is often the only time when a lot of people who come from disturbed family lives can get their hands on some social mobility? I would like the Minister to up the idea that care is a great contributor to social justice.
2026-03-05
PFAS
I just wanted to bring a bit of thinking here. Why is your Government now looking like every other Government, in that when you get the opportunity to be brave and act quickly, you are incredibly tardy. That lot was doing it before you, and presumably so
2026-02-23
Free Speech Complaints Scheme
Can we include criticism of the actions of Israel in Gaza in the freedom of speech argument, because there are many of us who are being silenced by it?
2026-01-28
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
I am very pleased that this amendment is to be discussed again. What troubles me is that it could be such a small, insignificant thing to ask for targets from the Government. Are targets part of the armoury that we use to get rid of poverty? If we are en
2026-01-28
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
2026-01-28
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Thank you very much. I have decided to join the Conservative Party. Can I meet the noble Earl afterwards and fill in the forms? Forgive me, I was only joking. I have never received such praise in the House.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I
Does the Minister agree that getting rid of poverty would be one of the greatest ways of achieving net zero?
2025-12-16
National Plan to End Homelessness
With £2.8 billion spent on temporary accommodation in the last year by local authorities, forcing many of them towards bankruptcy, the £2.5 billion the Government have allocated, even if you look upon it as trying to cover the costs, is 28% short of the
2025-12-16
National Plan to End Homelessness
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether new funding allocations to local authorities are sufficient to deliver the prevention commitments in the National Plan to End Homelessness.
2025-12-04
Autumn Budget 2025
I am not here to congratulate the Government, nor to commiserate with the Opposition. I am here to talk about what the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, has called for, which is: not more of the same. I think that is what he asked for.
I came into the House o
2025-12-02
Subscription Contracts: Right to Cancel
Is the Minister actually asking for reluctant subscribers to stay with a service just because it is a charity? I find that really difficult to understand. We have to think of that person who goes in, looks at something, says, “I don’t really want to be a
2025-10-30
Heathrow Airport: Third Runway
Will the Minister say whether it is possible for the Government to buy my ex-wife’s house, which is right near the runway? It is absolutely appalling when you go down there. If the Government are going to make billions and billions of pounds for the UK,
My Lords, would the Government agree that, because we have a low-wage economy, we also have a low-investment economy? That is shown in the fact that 80% of all the transactions carried out by our banks, which were formerly owned by us, are in buying and
2025-10-16
Police: Vetting, Training and Discipline
My Lords, is it not possible to accept that what we have got is a situation, which nobody seems to want to address, where we have a class divide in the police force? We have a situation where people from the working classes join the police force and, unl
2025-06-19
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
I have never heard of the concept of deep poverty. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said that poverty is different if you are in Weston-super-Mare or in Bristol. I was privileged to be banged up with people from the countryside, from the little cities an
2025-06-19
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
I agree with the Minister 100%. We should never, ever abandon people who are in an emergency. But, if that is what we are doing, and if that is what most of our efforts go into, we will never come to the day when we dismantle poverty.
My problem—I hav
Source: hansard.parliament.uk via hansard-api. Snippets shown
verbatim from the search API; click any debate title for the full record.
Register of Interests · 6 entries on file
Declarations under the Lords Code of Conduct. Free text — no monetary values, no hours worked. A declaration that an interest exists, not a claim about its size.
Category 1: Remunerated employment etc.
-
Director, Dunne Bird Ltd (vehicle for member's speaking engagements, book royalties, media appearances, writing commissions and the like)
registered 2019-01-02 · amended 2025-04-05
-
Director, The Big Issue Group Holdings Limited (which owns Big Issue Group Limited and its subsidiaries Big Issue Invest Limited, Big Issue Media Limited, Big Issue Impact Ltd and their subsidiaries)
registered 2015-12-08 · amended 2025-07-17
Category 2: Shareholdings etc. (a)
-
Dunne Bird Ltd (vehicle for member's speaking engagements, book royalties, media appearances, writing commissions and the like)
registered 2020-08-08 · amended 2025-04-05
-
The Big Issue Group Holdings Limited (see category 1)
registered 2015-12-08 · amended 2025-07-17
Category 2: Shareholdings etc. (b)
-
The Big Exchange Limited (building a new financial system in the UK)
registered 2020-08-15 · amended 2025-04-05
Category 4: Sponsorship
-
Donation received from Elizabeth Aitken to the office of Lord Bird (via Big Issue Media Limited) for supporting the member's parliamentary work, 16 April 2026
registered 2024-04-09 · amended 2026-04-27
Source: UK Parliament Members API (Lords register). Refreshed weekly.
Read the full
Lords Code of Conduct
for what each category covers and the disclosure thresholds.
Party history
2015-10-30 → present
Crossbench
current
Government posts
None recorded.
Opposition posts
None recorded.
Committee memberships
2017-03-06 → 2025-01-14
Lord Speaker's Advisory Panel on Works of Art
Contact
Parliamentary office
birdja@parliament.uk
020 7219 5353 · House of Lords, London, SW1A 0PW
020 7219 5353 · House of Lords, London, SW1A 0PW
X (formerly Twitter)
APPGs (2026) · 2 active officership(s) · 6 historic
| Group | Role(s) | Funders | Officers in group | Next deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
All-Party Parliamentary Group for Social Enterprise
Subject Group
|
Vice Chair | Social Enterprise UK | 9 | 2024-05-20 |
|
All-Party Parliamentary Group on Business Responses to Social Crises
Subject Group
|
Co-Chair | — | 5 | 2024-04-19 |
One row per active APPG. Funder names link out via the
/appgs Top secretariat funders panel — click any funder
there to open its full relationship graph. Officer matching is name-based against
the parliament.uk register text and may miss titled / hyphenated variants.
Written parliamentary questions · 2026
Showing
67
of 67 tabled
67 answered(100.0%)
6
departments
2026-05-18
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Affordable Housing: Empty Property
Answered
2026-05-18
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Empty Property: Correspondence
Answered
2026-03-18
Department of Health and Social Care
Healthy Start Scheme: Migrants
Answered
2026-03-17
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Affordable Housing: Construction
Answered
2026-03-12
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Bed and Breakfast Accommodation: Children
Answered
2026-03-12
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Temporary Accommodation: Children
Answered
2026-03-10
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Poverty: Children
Answered
2026-03-10
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Poverty: Children
Answered
2026-03-10
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Poverty: Children
Answered
2026-02-06
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Social Rented Housing
Answered
2026-01-26
Department of Health and Social Care
Health Services: Digital Technology
Answered
2026-01-20
Department for Work and Pensions
Social Security Benefits: Children
Answered
2026-01-20
Department for Work and Pensions
Social Security Benefits: Children
Answered
2026-01-20
Department for Work and Pensions
Social Security Benefits: Children
Answered
2026-01-20
Department for Work and Pensions
Social Security Benefits: Children
Answered
2026-01-20
Department of Health and Social Care
General Practitioners and Primary Care: Equality
Answered
2026-01-19
Department for Work and Pensions
Social Security Benefits: Children
Answered
2026-01-19
Department for Work and Pensions
Children: Social Security Benefits
Answered
2026-01-19
Department for Work and Pensions
Children: Social Security Benefits
Answered
2026-01-19
Department for Work and Pensions
Social Security Benefits: Children
Answered
Source: UK Parliament Members API. The amber "interest" tag is set
by Parliament's own system when the asking member has a register entry
it deems related — typically a paid role or directorship in the
sector being asked about. Click any "i" icon to see the full
question and the department's answer.
Bills sponsored & supported · 2026
0 bills
0 as lead sponsor
0 as supporter
No bills sponsored or supported in 2026.
Source: UK Parliament Bills API. "Lead" sponsor is the
primary mover (sortOrder = 1); "Supporter" rows are
members of either House who
backed the bill at introduction. Year is the bill's first-reading
date.
Historic bills (all-time)
8 bills
7 as lead sponsor
1 as supporter
| Bill | Info | Role | Status | Introduced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ministry for Poverty Prevention Bill [HL] | Sponsored | 1st reading | 2025-01-29 | |
| Ministry for Poverty Prevention Bill [HL] | Sponsored | 1st reading | 2024-03-13 | |
| Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] | Sponsored | 1st reading | 2022-07-08 | |
| Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Act 2023 | Supported | Royal Assent | 2022-06-15 | |
| Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] | Sponsored | 2nd reading | 2021-05-20 | |
| Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] | Sponsored | Committee stage | 2020-01-08 | |
| Well-being of Future Generations Bill [HL] | Sponsored | 2nd reading | 2019-10-21 | |
| Creditworthiness Assessment Bill [HL] | Sponsored | 2nd reading | 2017-06-28 |
Same source as the year-scoped panel above, but unconstrained by
year. The "Sponsored" tag = lead sponsor; "Supported" = backed at
introduction. Sorted newest first.