argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Pension Schemes Bill — House of Lords, 2015-01-07
Topic: Government Operations
Keith Bradley (Labour, Centre-left): Because of the lateness of the hour and the excellent way in which the amendment was introduced by the noble Lord, Lord German, and supported by my noble friend Lady Drake and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, and as all the arguments have been clearly laid out, it would not be of any great benefit to the Committee if I tried to elaborate on this proposal. Suffice it to say that we would support any proposal such as this which improves transparency for the public.
Pension Schemes Bill — House of Lords, 2015-01-07
Topic: Labor
Thomas McAvoy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, we have tabled a clause stand part debate to scrutinise the rationale behind Clause 44 and the likely cost savings estimated by the department. First, can the Minister provide a few examples—or even one example—of how the process for selecting trustees under Section 7 of the 1995 Act operates? It is my understanding that following the removal of the requirement to operate a register, the regulator will appoint trustees for a scheme that has suffered an insolvency through a flexible procurement panel. What is the typical cost of recruiting in this way rather than through a register of trustees and how does this compare to the cost of maintaining that register In Committee in the other place the Minister discussed the Government’s Red Tape Challenge, specifically the desire to remove £2 million-worth of regulation on businesses for every £1 million introduced. He also said that the savings that will be made by the Pensions Regulator will be passed on to pension schemes and then on to savers. We are therefore understandably keen to get an estimate of the windfall that awaits pension savers once this clause is passed. What is the saving for pension schemes and can the Minister say whether he can guarantee that this is passed to contributors The clause stand part debate is intended to probe these details. I hope the Minister will be able to help in this way.
Pension Schemes Bill — House of Lords, 2015-01-07
Topic: Labor
Jean Lesley Patricia Drake (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I do not want to spend too much time on this. Obviously I am not unfamiliar with the issue of NEST, and the restrictions on NEST. We are now in a position, in 2015, where the continued bans on the transfer into NEST are clearly to the detriment of pension savers. It will be increasingly difficult to mobilise the argument that continuing those bans is in the pension saver’s interest. It denies many people a good home for their legacy savings and is unquestionably increasing the proliferation of small pots, particularly in the SME community. One of the merits of NEST is that it would reduce the proliferation of small pots. It is not benefiting the employers any more, who want the flexibility to use NEST and bulk transfer the accrued pension savings of their existing employees or scheme members, which they are denied. As far as I can see, the main beneficiaries of the continued ban are still predominantly the private pension providers that benefit from restricting NEST’s market proposition The Government have dealt with the EU state aid requirements, which no longer pose a barrier. The desire to get NEST to focus on a target market of small and medium-sized employers has been achieved. The auto-enrolment market is well under way. A cursory look at the figures will show that the private providers have secured a very large proportion of the new pension business, which is likely to grow. NEST is hardly tipping the market against them any more It is difficult to see why the Government are taking so long to make a change that would benefit pension savers and, particularly, facilitate efficiency among the employers who are bearing the responsibility of having to establish workplace pensions and cannot pick up what may be a preferred position in NEST because they are left having to run an arrangement for the legacy savings of their existing scheme members or employees.
Pension Schemes Bill — House of Lords, 2015-01-07
Topic: International Affairs
Keith Bradley (Labour, Centre-left): Once again, I am grateful to the Minister for his response and that, if there is lack of clarity over the state aid issue, he will look at it and write to me about the actual position, so that we can apply it to the amendment. I hope that he will be able to do that before Report, so that we may consider whether it is appropriate to pursue the matter further. In the light of his assurances on that point, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill — House of Lords, 2015-01-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I was anticipating that the Minister would now move his amendment, but perhaps in the circumstances it would be sensible if I spoke from the Opposition Front Bench The literary world is familiar with the concept of vanity publishing; this Bill is an example of its parliamentary equivalent, vanity legislation. Clause 3, with or without the government amendment, or that of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is the only clause that even purports to effect a change in the law—and that, in the words of Shakespeare’s Richard III, whose subject Ministers, and this Minister in particular, have so frequently prayed in aid, in a manner so "lamely and unfashionable" as to make it worse, not better It is noteworthy that, time and again, as this essentially trivial measure has made its way through both Houses, Ministers have harped on the alleged need, in the words of the Minister at Report, "to provide reassurance to ordinary, hard-working people who have adopted such an approach towards the safety or other interests of others during the course of an activity, that the courts will always take this into account in the event that something goes wrong and they are sued" In a remarkable non sequitur, the Minister went on to express the hope that, "this will also give them greater confidence in standing up to those who try to bring opportunistic and speculative claims by showing them that the law is on their side".—[Official Report, 15/12/14; col. 34.] That is a reference to the dreaded compensation culture which apparently haunts the sleepless nights of Ministers, potential defendants and their insurers—and now, we understand, possibly penguins in the Antarctic—but whose actual existence is more imaginary, in terms of cases brought, than real.
National Insurance Contributions Bill — House of Lords, 2015-01-06
Topic: Government Operations
Bryan Davies (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I have not the slightest difficulty in commenting favourably on technical Amendments 3, 4 and 5, which of course I understand the necessity for. I am glad the Government have brought them forward. Nor am I against Amendment 2—far from it, I am very much in favour of Amendment 2 I merely draw to the attention of the House the very credible work of our colleagues in the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which drew this issue to the attention of the Government in a way that gave them just sufficient time before Christmas to get their act together and indicate that they were going to table amendments on Report to give effect to the committee’s recommendation, which is to ensure that such a significant part of the legislation should be subject to the affirmative procedure and therefore much closer and more effective scrutiny in Parliament than the negative procedure. I am very much in favour of Amendment 2 and I congratulate our colleagues. I am sure the whole House is very appreciative of the work that is done by the committee. Once again it has done something that the House can take great pleasure in approving.
House of Lords — House of Lords, 2015-01-06
Topic: Government Operations
Ivor Seward Richard (Labour, Centre-left): I think that I was getting near to the end of what I was going to say. I wish to add two sentences. Yes, there is a problem. Yes, it needs resolution. However, setting an age limit is perhaps a brutal way of dealing with the issue. I would far prefer it to be done on the basis of experience and on who does what and when. I still hold to a basic, almost trade union, principle, which is that those who work are entitled to remain in their jobs and those who do not work should perhaps be the ones to whom we say goodbye My noble friend Lord Williams has produced a scheme which, in its outline, conforms to that principle, and it is well worth looking at. It is useful that we are having this debate and it is right that this matter should go to the appropriate committee of the House. The clerks are going to have to work extremely hard to produce their options paper, but we all know that the clerks in this House are redoubtable and flexible individuals who can no doubt produce large quantities of paper when that is required, although it is probably not required in this case. We do not want large quantities; we want small quantities. We want a proper options paper, proper consideration by the committee and a quick report. One hopes that more time will be given for the House to look at this issue again before the general election Finally, I want to say a word which goes back to where I started. I believe that the future of this House is as an elected second Chamber. I know that that is not a popular view in this House and I am well aware from my experiences in 2012 that it is not a view universally shared. However, faced with the alternative of the continuation of a nominated House with the sorts of problems that we are looking at in this debate or an elected second Chamber, I know which side I would come down on.
House of Lords — House of Lords, 2015-01-06
Topic: International Affairs
Ivor Seward Richard (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Lord has given both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats some advice as to what they might do. Would he like to give his own party some advice as to how to deal with UKIP?
House of Lords — House of Lords, 2015-01-06
Topic: Government Operations
Winifred Ann Taylor (Labour, Centre-left): Noble Lords might be interested to know that the Labour group met with the party leader on more than one occasion. We talked to him about our proposal for a constitutional convention. We are very pleased indeed that he said that issues of that kind will be referred to a constitutional convention. If we could get other parties to agree that that was the way forward, we could have a time limit on how long that constitutional convention was to sit. We could write a remit that could be very tight and specific. I really believe that that would be the way to ensure that we do not get into the constitutional chaos that would come about unless we look at all these issues together in the round.
House of Lords — House of Lords, 2015-01-06
Topic: Government Operations
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): My noble friend Lord Sewel has said it is a pity that that happened. I have just been appointed a trustee of Age Scotland, the new body that replaced Age Concern Scotland and Help the Aged in Scotland. The director, Brian Sloan, said to me when I was appointed, "Of course, George, you’ve got more of a direct interest in our work now". He was absolutely right. This is the kind of thing that we should be doing. We are not in favour of arbitrary retirement ages; I should not advocate that. However, I do not think this is arbitrary. We have looked at it carefully and made a serious recommendation We then come to the longer term, which is the more important debate—no disrespect to what my noble friend Lord Williams and others have raised about the current matter. In the longer term, we need to start with the purpose of this House: not how many we are, but what we are here for. First of all, do we need a second Chamber? An argument has to be made against unicameralism in favour of a second Chamber. I used to be a unicameralist, but if you go to Scotland and see what has happened with the Scottish Parliament, where there are no checks and balances on a Parliament controlled by one party, with a First Minister, the Presiding Officer, and the majority of the Select Committees of the same party, you begin to see the advantages of a second Chamber If noble Lords agree with that, how should the second Chamber differ from and relate to the House of Commons? I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who said that it should be complementary to it. I think the noble Lord, Lord Walton, raised the question of the council of experts that we have here. This is a really important dilemma about what we are here for. If we want to be a council of experts that is one thing, but it does not have the legitimacy of a body that has some form of election, whether direct or indirect. That is difficult. It is difficult to argue that a nominated body, however expert and brilliant it is, should be part of the legislature. That conflict needs reconciling.
House of Lords — House of Lords, 2015-01-06
Topic: Government Operations
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): That is an argument. I am posing a problem rather than coming down on one side or the other. It is difficult. If one looks around the world, there is nowhere else where the second Chamber does not have some form of legitimacy. We need to look at that where we are participating in the legislative process I do not know whether this is going to cause controversy in relation to what the noble Lord, Lord Cope, said. He spoke about the culture of this place and some of us—I am sure he was not referring to me, but maybe to some others—not accepting it. With respect to the noble Lord, some people outside this place do not accept all aspects of its culture, particularly the privilege that is represented by the very nature of this building, this legislature and this part of the legislature. People have to recognise that. We do not all think that the comfort and the comradeship represented here is automatically the right thing. There are some good aspects, but there are also some legitimate differences between the parties. These ought to be represented and expressed in a legislature. There is nothing wrong with doing that in a forceful and eloquent way; that was done no better than by my noble friend Lord Forsyth. I agreed with everything he said in his speech today. That will not do him or me any good; we will be attacked by the cybernats—the nationalists who go online and attack us regularly—for being in cahoots again. I think it is good that on an issue such as this, which is not a party-political issue but one about the functioning of the second Chamber, we come to some kind of agreement I have gone on much longer than I intended. I apologise. In conclusion, the Labour Lords’ group recommended a UK constitutional commission, as my noble friend Lady Taylor said. That has been supported by the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, which Graham Allen MP chairs, by the Electoral Reform Society, by the Constitution Society, by Unlock Democracy and many others. Along with my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed from the Liberal Democrats, I have been involved in setting up an all-party group to look at ways that this can be pushed forward The leader of my party, Mr Miliband, has already said that a Labour Government would legislate for a senate of the nations and regions. With no disrespect, I say to him and to the leaders of the other parties, why can we not set up that constitutional convention now? Why can there not be some agreement between the parties? Why can they not show that they can work together and say, "This is how we want to go forward"? We need that sensible, holistic approach, with respect, to protect us from further constitutional Cleggery: poorly thought out, short-term changes in that outrageous attack from Mr Clegg on the House of Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said. By the way, that did not stop him stuffing lots more Liberal Democrat Peers into this place. There is a slight dichotomy there. Ah, a Liberal Democrat voice.
House of Lords — House of Lords, 2015-01-06
Topic: Government Operations
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): If I have achieved nothing else with my speech, I have had two Liberal Democrat interventions and that is a little step forward. What I said about Mr Clegg applies not just to House of Lords reform. We are now seeing the problems of fixed-term Parliaments. Thankfully, his misguided attempt to reform this place—and it was misguided—was thrown out. I think that a lot of the Liberal Democrats, including the one who has just intervened on my speech—I spoke to him about it—thought that it was misguided. Mr Clegg’s proposal on voting reform for the House of Commons was thrown out. That is one reason why we should view talking about the size of this House as a small step towards getting holistic, sensible and reasonable reform not just of the House of Lords or of Westminster but of our whole constitutional set-up.
House of Lords — House of Lords, 2015-01-06
Topic: Government Operations
John Alston Maxton (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Williams of Elvel for introducing this debate. During the Recess, I read that his stepson, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, had contracted pneumonia. I hope that he is now well on the road to recovery. I shall make two points, one of which is in relation to the transport problems of my noble friends Lady Taylor and Lord Foulkes. I attend this debate having taken today five forms of transport to get here. I took a car to a hotel on the Isle of Arran, a bus across the island, a boat from the island to the mainland, a train to Glasgow and a train from Glasgow to London, and then the Underground. If that does not deserve a pat on the back, perhaps it should My noble friend Lord Gordon of Strathblane and I are the same age and will be 80 next year, which means that, under the proposals being put forward, we might have to retire. However, recently I did an online test which showed that my real physical age, if you take the fact that I take exercise, go to the gym and do this and that, is 60. That therefore means I have another 20 years to go until I have to retire In this debate, it would be very easy to fall into the trap of defending the House of Commons against those who are attacking it. I spent quite a long time there and have to say that some of the changes, although not all of them, have been beneficial. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said that rebuilding the Chamber still has to be adversarial, but it always has been such. I am sure that, like me, when he shows people around the two Houses, he points out the sword lines in the Commons and says, "You can’t step over that line because the length of the sword is between the two". It always has been adversarial. I had an uncle who was thrown out of the House of Commons for making an overtly political, let us say, insult to a Member of the Tory party. The question that has not been asked is not whether we should change the size of the Lords but whether we should change at all at this point in time. My answer would be no. I agree with my noble friend Lord Clark that we have to have legislation but, before we have legislation, surely we have to look at the whole way in which we are governed, including whether we still should be in this building, how and whether we should vote, whether we should vote online and the type of card we should use to vote, right through to the sort of devolution we should have to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. After all, we have just had the referendum in Scotland and have seen more powers given to the Scottish Parliament. We may have to say, "You will not be able to serve on the education committee in this House because you are a Scot. Education in Scotland is devolved and is not part of the English system, so you will not be able to serve on a committee that is about the education system".
House of Lords — House of Lords, 2015-01-06
Topic: Government Operations
John Alston Maxton (Labour, Centre-left): I was born in Oxford of an academic. Therefore, like the noble Lord, I probably would have the same qualification, although I spent all my career in education in Scotland. The fact is that we are living in a political world that is changing very rapidly. We are also living in a high-tech world that is changing very rapidly, not just in terms of this country but in terms of the world more generally. The idea of the nation state may be at an end. Let alone whether we devolve power to different parts of this country, this country may have to be part of a larger organisation in order to govern itself and to control the companies and organisations that are now much bigger than a country. Companies such as Amazon and Apple—I hold one of its products in my hand—are as big as some of the countries in which they operate and have a turnover larger than those countries Surely we must look at the whole issue, which is why I am in favour of something for which my noble friend Lord Foulkes has been pushing for some time; namely, a convention on the constitution to look in the broadest possible way at how we govern ourselves, the people of this country, and how we fit in with the rest of the world. Until we have done that, we should hold off any changes in this place. That will require legislation but surely we should sit back and say, "Let us have the general election, see what happens and then consider what we are going to do". I hope that the Labour Party will win an overall majority, will set up the constitutional convention and will look at the way in which we govern Finally, I say to my noble friend Lord Williams, having expressed a hope that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop is on the mend, that he is not talking about 400 Peers in this Chamber. He is talking about 426 Peers because 26 are here automatically; namely, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the three Bishops, plus the others who make up their number. Should they be here? Are they part of this deal? I am told that there is separate legislation for them and therefore the plan put forward by my noble friend cannot cover them. Are the Bishops prepared to be part of the plan? Are they prepared to say, "We will not attend if this plan goes ahead"? I hope so. A noble friend says, "Of course", and I hope they will. That ought to happen. The Bishops’ Bench is the biggest single anomaly in this place at the moment. That is because this is now a multicultural society and they do not represent even the majority of the people of this country, so why should they, and they alone, be sitting in the House of Lords, which is part of the legislature, the body which makes the laws of this country? That cannot be right. It is time that we separated the church and the state completely and the Bishops should be told to go. We should resolve that this House becomes completely secular. People will still talk about religion and different religions are represented here, but the Church of England should not be an established church within our organisation.
House of Lords — House of Lords, 2015-01-06
Topic: Labor
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister has stressed the concept—I find this completely new; it was not given to me when I was appointed—that this is a part-time job. It may be possible to be a part-timer if the rest of your work is in London, but if you come from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen or Carlisle how can you do something up there and come down here day in and day out? It is an entirely London-centred concept. I hope that she will rethink this, and go back to whoever advised her on it and say that it is just a lot of nonsense.