argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Northern Ireland Protocol: First Treasury Counsel — House of Lords, 2022-06-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Rosalind Altmann (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I sympathise with my noble and learned friend the Minister, but I echo the concerns raised by my noble friend Lord Cormack and will ask a brief question. When the Prime Minister insisted that there would not need to be any checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of Great Britain on goods entering Northern Ireland, where did he expect those checks to take place?
Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2022 — House of Lords, 2022-03-24
Topic: Other
Andrew Sharpe (Conservative, Centre-right): That the Regulations laid before the House on 1 and 8 March be approved Relevant documents: 32nd and 33rd Reports from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. 29th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments (special attention drawn to the third instrument). Considered in Grand Committee on 22 March.
Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report — House of Lords, 2022-03-24
Topic: Civil Rights
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the right reverend Prelate and I think I pointed out, either yesterday or the day before, that one thing we can be positive about is the increasing representation of BAME communities within the Metropolitan Police force.
Cumbria (Structural Changes) Order 2022 — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Other
Stephen Greenhalgh (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, we debated this at some length in Grand Committee. The noble Lord made those points very eloquently. Since then, I have agreed to meet with him and the current county council leader. In fact, I also disclosed and put on record that I have never been to Cumbria and I hope to put that right.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Immigration
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, before we move on, I will make some remarks about devolution and this Bill. I begin by placing on record my thanks to the devolved Administrations for their engagement at both official and ministerial level The majority of the Bill’s provisions apply across the UK. Some clauses extend only to England and Wales because the relevant policy areas relate to matters that are devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland. These are: civil legal services; arrangements for prisoners who are liable to removal from the United Kingdom; and some specific measures relating to support for potential victims of modern slavery I want to be clear that, in the view of the UK Government, the provisions of the Bill that have UK-wide application relate strictly to reserved matters. This means that none of the Bill’s provisions engage the legislative consent process. We have therefore not sought legislative consent from the devolved legislatures I advise your Lordships’ House that the Scottish Parliament has approved a Motion, lodged by the Scottish Government, to withhold legislative consent in respect of specific measures relating to age assessment and modern slavery. But it is the view of the UK Government that these measures relate strictly to reserved matters and therefore did not engage the legislative consent Motion process and do not require legislative consent The Senedd Cymru has also approved a Motion, lodged by the Welsh Government, to withhold legislative consent in respect of specific measures relating to age assessment and to powers to make consequential provisions. Again, in the view of the UK Government, these measures relate to reserved matters and therefore did not engage the legislative consent Motion process and do not require legislative consent For the sake of completeness, I will say that the Northern Ireland Executive has not lodged a Motion relating to the Bill in the Northern Ireland Assembly We look forward to continued engagement with the devolved Administrations as we move to operationalise the Bill and the wider new plan for immigration Clause 44: Illegal entry and similar offences Amendment 1
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Immigration
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for outlining his points. I will start with the government amendments, which are two tidying-up amendments for consideration by your Lordships’ House. The first is a minor drafting amendment to Clause 47, which relates to working in United Kingdom waters. The amendment removes a definition of the term "United Kingdom waters" from the clause. This definition is superfluous as the term is not actually used in the Bill. The amendment therefore helps to clarify Clause 47, so I commend it to your Lordships’ House The second amendment is necessary to resolve a problem that has arisen in connection with Schedule 2 to the Bill. This schedule relates to deprivation of citizenship. Its inclusion in the Bill was agreed when noble Lords voted to accept amendments on this topic moved on Report by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. The problem obviously arises because after agreeing the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, your Lordships’ House then voted to remove the substantive deprivation of citizenship clause from the Bill. In consequence, the noble Lord’s amendments were also removed and the schedule was left as an orphan, with no clause to establish it as part of the Bill. I have therefore given notice of my intention to oppose the question that Schedule 2 be the second schedule to the Bill, to ensure that the Bill is consistent I also note the 11 tidying-up amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and my noble friends Lord McColl of Dulwich and Lady Stroud. The Government will not oppose these amendments, but we will doubtless return to consider both them and the substantive clauses they amend at ping-pong. May I just say something about my noble friend Lord McColl? I had noticed that he did not seem very well recently, and I am sure the whole House will join me in wishing him a speedy recovery.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Immigration
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, if I may, I will just detain the House a little longer to mark the end of this Bill’s passage through your Lordships’ House. It has been very wide-ranging. It has had five thorough days in Committee and three days on Report. During this time, in response to the terrible situation in Ukraine, we have added important measures to the Bill which introduce new visa penalty provisions for countries posing a risk to international peace and security. I was very pleased to see support for these measures across the House I was not so pleased, though, by the removal of some important measures, the aim of which was to find a long-term solution to long-term problems in our asylum and illegal migration systems which successive Governments have faced over decades. Those amendments will now be considered in the other place and no doubt we will debate them soon Notwithstanding that, I want to take this opportunity to recognise the contributions of those who have supported me in steering the Bill through the House. In particular, I thank my noble and learned friend Lord Stewart of Dirleton, my noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar and my commendable noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom for sharing the load from the Front Bench I also express my thanks to all noble Lords who stayed up very late on a number of occasions and thank Members on the Front Bench opposite for their engagement on the Bill, accepting that there have been some areas of disagreement between us. I thank in particular—because I cannot thank everyone—the noble Lords, Lord Coaker, Lord Rosser, Lord Paddick and Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee I also extend my thanks to officials at the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, as well as lawyers and analysts, not only in those two departments but across government. On my behalf and my ministerial colleagues’, I extend our thanks and appreciation to all of them for their professionalism over the past months. I also thank the teams in our respective private offices There should be no doubt about the merits of the Bill’s ultimate objectives, namely to increase the fairness and efficacy of our system, to deter illegal entry into the UK and to remove more easily from the UK those with no right to be here. That is what the British people voted for, it is what the British people expect and it is what the Government are trying and determined to deliver. In view of the crises now confronting our world, it is surely now more important than ever that the Bill moves swiftly to become law. On that note, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
National Insurance Contributions Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Other
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have some very brief return remarks to thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their remarks. Of course, I listened carefully to the disappointment expressed by them both in terms of the outcome. However, perhaps I can give a little chink of light: I think we can look forward to continuing to debate some of the themes raised, perhaps more appropriately, as I mentioned earlier, during the course of the economic crime Bill. But with that, I beg to move.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, we start with a group of government amendments to collect more information about trusts and overseas trust-like arrangements. These amendments address both the concerns raised in the other place by noble Lords on Second Reading in this House. I pay particular tribute to my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier, the noble Lords, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, Lord Faulks and Lord Fox, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, all of whom drew attention to this important issue in their speeches As highlighted by those noble Lords, there is a particular difficulty with the availability of information about some trusts, including so-called discretionary trusts. This is where the assets are held in trusts to be used at the discretion of the trustees, because the beneficiaries can change. So we need to have some further information captured on trusts in this register, over and above what Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs already captures on the TRS—trust registration service Both Houses can rest assured that this issue was not overlooked by the Government. Officials had already been working on amendments to the Bill, but it was important to table amendments only when we were sure that proposals were workable in practice and that the drafting fully achieved the policy intent. I have had a number of discussions with noble Lords, so I think everybody appreciates this is a complicated technical area These amendments set out that where a trustee of a trust—or of an equivalent arrangement that under the law of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom is of a similar character to a trust—is a registrable beneficial owner, the overseas entity must give them an information notice. That notice requires the recipient to provide information about the settlor, beneficiaries and other persons who have rights to appoint or remove trustees or rights over the exercise of the trustees’ functions—sometimes referred to as protectors.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Civil Rights
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I shall speak in support of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and his Amendment 17. I recognise that the Government have made big strides in the last few days to listen to the concerns which are so widely held. However, given all this effort, and given that the Bill has sat almost ready for four or five years, I feel that we could go further today and do the job properly There is no point in legislating for a Bill that leaves huge gaps for more anonymity. I am really sceptical about the need for endless anonymity. The people who strive to have anonymity do not always have it for the right motives. We need to recognise that. I said to the Minister before we came to the Chamber that we spend our lives being entirely reasonable in this country while trying to deal with very unreasonable people. Of course, we must stick to the law, but we need to have the levers in the law which enable us to tackle these bad actors. This is why, in my own slightly layman attempt with Amendment 23, I have tried to bring more focus on the promoters of these organisations. This is to ensure that there is much more responsibility taken by directors who promote organisations, and that they help to provide proper due diligence when working with the sorts of people they are busily defending anonymity for.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Other
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): I just make a very brief point to my noble friend. Because of migraine, I was unable to take part in Second Reading; I had to go home. I was going to make the point then that, if ever a Bill needed continuous post-legislative scrutiny, it is this one. Can my noble friend give an assurance that he will try to set up a special sort of post-legislative scrutiny to look continuously at how the Bill comes into force, what effect it has and where it fails?
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): Indeed, I am happy to provide the reassurances that both noble Lords have asked for—in the case of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in terms of the regulations, and in the case of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, that we see this as an iterative process. As I mentioned, this is fairly unique legislation in the world; we are aware of only one other country, possibly, that has attempted to do something similar. When we introduced the provisions on PSCs—persons with significant control—in relation to UK companies, we had to make some iterative changes to that, as it became evident over time that aspects were not working as effectively as we had hoped. I hope that we have thought of everything on this one, and I hope that we have all of the details correct, but a lot of it—some of it anyway—has been drafted in haste and it is possible that we will have missed one or two complicated international devices. But, the noble Lord can be assured that we will keep it regularly under review, and if there are—I hesitate to use the word "loopholes", although it is probably appropriate—devices that clever lawyers, of which there are several in this House, find to get around the provisions, we will not hesitate to close them if we need to.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): I really want to carry on in a similar vein to earlier comments, and what my Amendment 3 is trying to do is to give more levers to government and enforcement agencies to force out information when we are worried that the information is not clear. My noble friend made the point that the Explanatory Notes say that this will be subject to regulations, but those regulations will be subject to a negative resolution. Could my noble friend confirm that we could be involved in the drafting of those regulations, rather than being faced with a fait accompli at the last minute, because I think there is a lot more to be done here? This perhaps plays to my noble friend’s point about the iterative improvements this Bill is going to need over the next few years, because it is fiendishly complicated The other piece to this jigsaw is the likelihood of prosecution of bad actors. Having been in business many years, I am afraid that the phrase that has often been offered to me when one is trying to get things done is "It’s the cost of doing business." If the fines are so weak and the enforcement so inconsistent, it sends a message to those bad actors to continue, because—let us be realistic—is the NCA or Companies House, or any of these other people, going to take an action against a promoter in the British Virgin Islands for £10,000 of unpaid fees? It is just not going to happen, unless we are very clear that there is a mechanism for that to happen and that the fines very quickly get to a level that makes it worth while for litigators, acting on behalf of the taxpayer and the Government, to do that. I beg to move.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): First, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. Before I address the amendments tabled, I reiterate the point I made earlier. This will be almost the first register of its kind in the world. We should accept that we are leading on this. I completely accept that we may not have everything perfect, but we will learn as we go—just as we did, in the example I cited, when we implemented the people with significant control requirements for domestic companies. We had to learn and iterate that, and now many other countries have followed our lead. That is a good thing. I re-emphasise that we will be perfectly willing to revisit these measures if it transpires that we have not got everything quite right.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, but they would have to be tabling notices to any potential beneficial owners in order to update the register. We think that if we have a yearly update, any third party transacting with that entity would then have sufficient legal certainty to be able to proceed. The point is not that the entity might not register the change of ownership but that the third party, and indeed Companies House, have no way of knowing whether it has. Therefore, a third party could engage in a transaction thinking that the original entity is compliant and then discover afterwards that it has not updated its register and is non-compliant, and therefore potentially lose its money and be unable to proceed with the transaction because it cannot register the property. On balance, we think the better option is to have a yearly update cycle, but I realise that this is a point of debate and I am happy to discuss it further. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, is engaged in this.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): Indeed it would be helpful, and that is why we have the transparency of the register in the first place. Returning to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, it would indeed be possible for them to update it, and it is of course perfectly possible that the advisers of the third party buying that property would wish to say to the entity that they wanted it to update the register in terms of formal ownership before they could advise their clients to proceed with the transaction, which is a point that the noble Lord made to me. That is different in terms of due diligence of the third party’s financial legal advisers, but in terms of the legal requirements, we think that it is best to leave it at 12 months. However, maybe we could have further discussions on this before we get to the second Bill To summarise, a change in beneficial ownership is not necessarily foreseeable and would not be knowable to any third parties, including Companies House, without detailed investigation. As such, a requirement for an overseas entity to update its information when there is such a change means that it could be compliant one moment and non-compliant the next, at any point in time. Our point is that this would create significant legal uncertainty for any third parties engaged with the entity I remind noble Lords that the key sanction for non-compliance with the new register—apart from the criminal penalties for non-compliance—which interferes with existing property rights is effectively to make it impossible for the buyer to then register title, if purchasing from a non-compliant entity. Of course, if they have transacted with an overseas company in a different jurisdiction, it might be very difficult for them to then take appropriate legal action to recover any sums that they have paid. This is not about providing a free "get out of jail" card for the overseas entity; it is genuinely about protecting the rights of third parties that wish to transact with them As the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, pointed out, the onus is on the buyer and their agents to ensure that they do not transact with a non-compliant entity. In order to protect the buyer, who is likely to be an innocent third party, it follows that there must be absolute legal certainty in every case as to whether the overseas entity doing the selling is compliant. An annual update with a transparent end date for the update period will give third parties transacting with the overseas entity the certainty that they need. The annual update already requires an overseas entity—
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course, we are constantly looking at these matters. The Treasury is implicitly engaged in pursuing crackdowns on the so-called enablers that the noble Lord has mentioned, and the anti-money laundering regulations exist. This register, which is a transparency measure, is designed to provide information to the public, HMRC and other law enforcement agencies that can then take the appropriate action under the other provisions. However—before the noble Lord, Lord Fox, gets up—I totally agree with the noble Lord that we need to look again at whether the anti-money laundering statutes are appropriate. It is not for this legislation, but I am sure it is something we will want to look at in detail before we get to the next Bill, because it is a complicated area of law. If we do not, I am sure the noble Lord will wish to table his amendments again then.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): I am happy to agree with the noble Lord. If there is one firm of accountants or one legal practice that is turning a blind eye to these provisions, there is a problem with which we need to deal. Nobody wants to see that; we want to give the UK a reputation as the best place in the world to do business and to crack down on the small minority of the legal profession that are abusing their position and facilities—of course we would want to do that.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Other
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my noble friend think it would be a good idea to set up a Committee of your Lordships’ House immediately after the Bill has gone on to the statute book, like these special Select Committees that are set up for specific purposes, so that you have a number of knowledgeable Members of your Lordships’ House, among whom I do not include myself, who will be able to provide expert examination of this Bill on a continuous basis?