argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, before I address these amendments, I should address the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Smith with regard to the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine. The noble Lord had a very distinguished business career before he entered the Cabinet. It was so successful that he even invited me to the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Haymarket company—I cannot quite remember the name. It was a very well-attended and impressive occasion, which I think was held at the Grosvenor House hotel. Therefore, the noble Lord, Lord Smith, need not feel in the slightest that the noble Lord was subjected to great hardship before entering the Cabinet. He took very great care to build up a very successful business before he did that. I only wish I could say the same for myself On the relevant amendments in this group, Amendments 11 and 12 are designed to introduce flexibility into the response to the situation arising when a constituent authority, part of a combined authority, withholds consent to the proposal to have an elected mayor. The Bill provides that in those circumstances the Secretary of State must order the removal of that authority from membership of the combined authority. Instead of this being a requirement, under Amendment 11 it would become an option for the Secretary of State to consider. Much, after all, may depend on the nature of the powers and functions to be devolved to the combined authority, or in any event exercised by it. There might, for example, be some functions which all the members of the combined authority might agree should be exercised collectively, but which might not be included in the Government’s package, relating to residual functions retained by the constituent councils For example, a particular devolution deal might not cover the provision of, say, sports or cultural facilities, which could, however, conveniently still be addressed by the combined authority. In such circumstances, the amendment would allow the Secretary of State to limit the particular authority’s voting participation in the combined authority to matters not included in the agreement with government. You would have a sort of binary system which would allow the combined authority for some purposes to function outside the deal where that would not therefore require the removal of the combined authority. It would be a matter of discretion for the Secretary of State.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): To respond to the first point, obviously the Minister—or those who helped to prepare her speech in response—did not take into account the case that I actually put, which was in relation to an authority, under the provisions of the Bill as it stands, being totally excluded from a relationship with the combined authority on matters that are not the subject of the deal. Perhaps the Minister will undertake to look at that aspect of it, which is really the thrust of the amendment. However, in the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
Kenneth Woolmer (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the amendments seems to cover two different areas: first, whether there is a need for oversight of a democratically elected mayor; and secondly, the proposed way of dealing with that. This will clearly vary depending on the part of the country we are in. In my view, the way in which an elected mayor, if there is one in a combined authority, will be held to account is by the constituent local authorities, their elected representatives and the leaders of those authorities. The idea that you need another elected body to hold those people to account seems crazy to me. I think of myself many years ago as leader of Leeds and of West Yorkshire. The idea that there would be another elected body that would hold this mayor to account and that I took no part in it is simply not credible. It simply would not work. Indeed, it would not be effective at all; there would be a great deal of conflict So, first, such an arrangement is not necessary to hold an elected mayor to account, should there be an elected mayor. For the record and as I said at Second Reading—despite my earlier remarks, which may be misunderstood—I can understand that a combined authority may occasionally wish to have a mayor. Many will not, but some will. Secondly, the particular arrangement proposed could lead to very odd results. Take my area of West Yorkshire. The local enterprise partnership includes four of the five metropolitan districts of West Yorkshire, plus three shire districts outside that include Skipton, Harrogate and Selby, plus North Yorkshire. Having five elected persons per district would give the area containing Selby an equal number to Leeds. I suggest that that would not be democratic and it would not be understood. I do not care what the system of election would be; it would be very undemocratic and unbalanced Trying to find an arrangement that leads to an elected process in addition to having leaders of strong and powerful local authorities—taking the amendments as they are—does not stand up. First, they are not necessary, and secondly the proposal as made in detail is not workable. I therefore oppose the amendments.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the problem with these amendments is that they want to impose a London-based solution on different parts of the country but they are not imposing a London executive mayor model. The GLA works to hold the elected mayor to account. How well it does that is open to question. I have never been to a GLA meeting but I have watched a bit on television. It was not the most riveting television I must say, but it did not seem that the mayor was particularly well disposed towards the scrutiny he was receiving, so I am not sure that it has even been that successful in London My noble friend Lord Woolmer of Leeds got this absolutely right: outside of London, the combined authority is a very different body. Whereas it works collaboratively and collectively to do things for the area, the 10 leaders in Greater Manchester are still advocates for their own areas. They want to work together, but if something was not in the interest of their particular area they would ensure that the mayor was fully abreast of that opinion. That is where the difference is: we would suddenly tag on, to an effective meeting of already 11 people, 50-plus others from across Greater Manchester. What kind of meeting is that? It would not be an executive meeting; it would simply be a talking shop. We do not need more talking shops. We want to make sure that this devolution really works. That means getting hold of the powers and putting them in in effective ways Democratic accountability in our area will be through elected local authorities. That seems to me what is missing in London: we have a big gap between the mayor and the boroughs. That is what does not work in London and what will work in the new combined authorities.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): I do not believe that the noble Lord is right on that issue. This is one of the differences between London and the combined authorities that we are talking about. The combined authorities will have members who are appointed by the constituent elected authorities, and they as well as the mayor will have functions to perform. It is not only the mayor, if there is one, who gets all these functions; it is other members of the combined authority as well. That is the situation that I do not think the noble Lord has taken into account in his analysis.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): At this stage, I am prepared to accept that, but I hope that the Minister might have a rather quicker consultation with the Electoral Commission and, indeed, will respond to the report of the Delegated Powers Committee with a view to seeing whether, on Report, it is necessary to produce amendments for decision then. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment tonight.
Aviation Security — House of Lords, 2015-11-05
Topic: International Affairs
Elizabeth Conway Symons (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I return to the position of the British citizens currently stranded in Sharm el-Sheikh. Various assessments of the numbers involved have ranged up to 20,000, although some of the travel agencies have said that the number is nearer to 12,000. Will the Minister update us On the question of consular support, have consular officials been brought in from neighbouring jurisdictions? Consular work is sensitive, difficult and requires training. It should have been possible to have brought in some of our consular officials from neighbouring countries. Have consular officials been able to leave the United Kingdom to give support to their colleagues in Egypt, because presumably there will be consular officials going out of our embassy in Cairo Are British-based airlines being approached to go to Sharm el-Sheikh to bring out our citizens? I think that the Statement said that the first are expected to be able to leave tomorrow. One cannot help wondering what is happening to people who may be at the end of a holiday period and who have not got funding available to pay for extra flights, let alone for extra nights in Sharm el-Sheikh, for food or for sustaining young families. I hope that the Minister will address that As regards forensics, this was a Russian aircraft over Egyptian territory. We are good at forensics, being acknowledged as being among the foremost countries. Have we been asked or have we offered to provide forensic support on the ground? That does not impinge on intelligence. Have we been asked for or have we offered support to go to Sharm el-Sheikh to look at what happened to this aircraft? There are all sorts of rumours about the condition of the plane and the condition of the dead, for whom we all have sympathy as we do for their families. Are we playing our part as regards forensics?
Aviation Security — House of Lords, 2015-11-05
Topic: International Affairs
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the noble Lord did not address the issue of forensics that was raised by my noble friend directly. The subtext to his Statement is that the evidence of a device on board is not forensic; otherwise, the Government would probably have placed the information in the public domain. Therefore, we must presume that it was intelligence based. We know that the evidence of intelligence information is not going to be placed in the public domain, but in so far as the Egyptian economy is going to be quite badly damaged as a result of this and we know that there have been protests from Ministers in the Egyptian Government, surely we owe it to them at least to give the Egyptian Government some information, not as to the source but as to what intelligence information we may have gained that has led us to take the decision that we have taken?
Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Transitional Provisions) Order 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-10-27
Topic: Government Operations
Margaret Josephine McDonagh (Labour, Centre-left): I am not talking about these ghost votes—I do not believe them to be ghost votes. We know that they have not returned a registration form but we know that they continue to pay council tax. We know that they are there. If the noble Lord does not agree with me, I ask him again to accept my invitation to come out on Sunday and we can talk to these voters together. I can reassure him that they do exist. We know they exist We have the problem affecting in the region of 10 million voters versus this smokescreen of fraud, which is the obsession that has hindered us from properly scrutinising this regulation. When has there ever been a case of registration fraud—ever? How many people have registered wrongly? Tell me the numbers we are talking about. Can any noble Lord tell me when they have ever met such a voter? I have been knocking on doors since 1978 and have never come across anybody who has fraudulently completed a registration form. Nor have I spoken to a registration officer who has seen this taking place. I think your Lordships are getting confused with postal vote fraud. Even the impact assessment for the Bill from which this regulation was drawn up says that it is a very rare occurrence, yet it does not name any occurrence ever happening. There has never been a proven case of registration fraud in this country.
Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Transitional Provisions) Order 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-10-27
Topic: Government Operations
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this has been an excellent debate. I think the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is going to accept my amendment, so I am grateful to him for that. The Minister has not made a convincing case to the House this afternoon. The Government also failed to persuade the Electoral Commission, an independent body set up by Parliament which is expert in this field, to which a number of noble Lords referred, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Alton As has been said, the Electoral Commission urged the House to support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. My noble friend Lord Wills made a powerful contribution, particularly pointing out that the Electoral Commission recommended the use of ID cards at polling stations. The Government have not moved on that and they should do so if they have concerns about electoral fraud The noble Lords, Lord Empey and Lord Lexden, made reference to the Northern Ireland schools initiative. I agree that it is a very good initiative and I have repeatedly said from the Dispatch Box that the Government should introduce it in Great Britain, but to no avail so far. I know that EROs target groups, and supporting the Motion today will be giving more time to EROs to do more work on the register. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, made an excellent point about the completeness of the register, which underlines the underregistration problem we have in Great Britain today. It is important to note that a cut-off date of 1 December 2016 was in a government amendment. It has been mentioned here before and nothing has changed since then. No one suggested here today that it is so successful that we can take a year off the period. From my time on the Electoral Commission, I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that it worked with great determination on IER. It was the champion initially and worked really hard on completeness. When it says that this is a risk, we need to look at that very carefully My noble friend Lady McDonagh made an excellent contribution, highlighting the data-matching issues that have been experienced across the country. The case has not been made today.
Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Transitional Provisions) Order 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-10-27
Topic: Government Operations
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): We discussed this point earlier. The commission looked at all these factors—risk, accuracy and completeness—and it still says in its paper that, "taking this decision before the outcome of the annual canvass means the Government has acted without reliable information" It looked at all the figures and decided that if Government go ahead with this, they will be making the wrong decision.
Asylum Support (Amendment No. 3) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-10-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): It should not be up to other organisations to provide the evidence. The Minister very honestly said at the outset that these people will be living on an income barely above the level of destitution. I asked if he would give an undertaking that the Home Office would monitor the impact. Will he now do that please?
Arrangement of Business — House of Lords, 2015-07-07
Topic: Government Operations
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, before we move on to the next business, I have been sitting in the Lords Gallery in the other place in the debate on English votes for English laws, which has serious consequences for constitutional issues of interest to this House. Will the Leader of the House or the Chief Whip give an assurance that, before any changes are made, this House will have an opportunity to debate the matter?
Office of Lord Chancellor (Constitution Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2015-07-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, Newcastle, in its time, has contributed significantly to our judicial system. Two of its sons have recently held the position of Lord Chief Justice: the late and much lamented Peter Taylor, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, whose distinguished career was marked in the recent Birthday Honours by the conferment upon him of the status of a Companion of Honour. I am sure that your Lordships will join me in congratulating him on this significant honour.
Office of Lord Chancellor (Constitution Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2015-07-07
Topic: Government Operations
Charles Falconer (Labour, Centre-left): Before the Minister moves on to that, can he identify whether he accepts the central recommendation of the Constitution Committee that the Lord Chancellor has an especial role in protecting the rule of law, or does he, like Mr Grayling, think that the Lord Chancellor has no special role that is any way different from that of the Secretary of State for Health or the Secretary of State for Education?
EU: Financial Regulation (EUC Report) — House of Lords, 2015-07-07
Topic: Agriculture
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): It is not the case that France has a veto in relation to the common agricultural policy, as I think the noble Lord well knows. All the decisions on the reform of the common agricultural policy have been taken by majority voting in the Council of Ministers. Of course, the council tries to take into account the views of member states which have particular interests. Surely he would acknowledge that, in the case of financial services, that is what has happened with Britain: our interests have been taken into account by the council.
EU: Financial Regulation (EUC Report) — House of Lords, 2015-07-07
Topic: International Affairs
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): Does the noble Lord accept that the Commission has just produced precisely what he is asking for? Commissioner Timmermans has put forward a whole set of propositions on regulatory reform and on reviewing existing legislation to make sure that unnecessary regulation is cut back. The noble Lord, Lord Flight, appears to be making statements without full regard to what is happening currently in Brussels.
Education and Adoption Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-01
Topic: Education
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I suspect that the movers of the amendment have been rather taken by surprise by the speed with which the European Union Referendum Bill completed its Third Reading, which on past counts was rather unexpected. My congratulations to the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, on the speedy way in which she dispatched the business. I think it would be fair to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, to allow him to arrive This is clearly an amendment about the role of local authorities. Obviously the specific details are contained in the amendment, but I want to take this opportunity to ask the Minister whether he is able to say something more about the role of local authorities in education in the future, because that is very much contingent on the amendment before us. He knows that we have debated whether the Government’s real intention is for all schools in the maintained sector to become academies. The Minister has rather dissembled on that point, but he will know that it was very clear from what his right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said only last week in the Autumn Statement that it is essentially the Government’s intention that at least all secondary schools should become academies. Mr Osborne said: "Five years ago, 200 schools were academies: today, 5,000 schools are. Our goal is to complete this school revolution and help every secondary school become an academy. I can announce that we will let sixth-form colleges become academies, too, so that they no longer have to pay VAT. We will make local authorities running schools a thing of the past, which will help us save around £600 million on the education services grant".—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/15; col. 713.] As the amendment talks about local authorities, it is entirely reasonable for me to ask whether that is an enunciation of a new government policy. If it is, and my impression is that when the Chancellor makes a Statement in the other place it is an enunciation of policy, clearly it is the Government’s intention to take local authorities completely out of the schools sector The point that I put to the Minister is this: why are we going through the charade of this Bill when it is the clear intention of the Government to phase out maintained schools completely? Why are the Government not prepared to be open and honest about this? Why do they not come forward with the appropriate legislation? I would oppose that legislation, but let us at least have an honest debate. I know that we are on Report and I guess that I am pressing against the boundaries of what is allowed, but it is none the less a very interesting amendment.
Education and Adoption Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-01
Topic: Education
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): I hear what the Minister says but what did the Chancellor mean by saying: "We will make local authorities running schools a thing of the past".—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/15; col. 1370.]? What does that mean in relation to what the noble Lord has said? He may not like my use of the words "dissembling" or "dishonest" but I come back to the core point. Is it the Government’s intention that, willy-nilly, all schools will be academies, as the Chancellor said last week?