argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Frederick Ponsonby (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, it is unusual to have such unanimity across the House in Committee on something that is superficially a very complex matter. I agree with two noble Lords in particular. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, was very succinct: he said that the information that the police retain should be subject to parliamentary or government control and not to police guidance. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Marks, in being cautious about regulation and having a full role for Parliament in any rules that are introduced I am sure that this is a very complex matter. I have just been wondering whether, in my role as a sitting magistrate in London, I would see this information. I obviously routinely see the police national computer—PNC—list, which includes convictions, cautions and bail conditions. If we go ahead and have a "bad character" application for a trial, additional information may be disclosed to us—to do with allegations of, say, a domestic abuse nature I was also thinking about my role sitting as a magistrate in family court, where I routinely see allegations that have not been substantiated in any court but have been recorded over many years in social services reports. I think that it is right that I see those allegations when we as a court are making decisions about the way that children should be treated in the context of a family court I give those two examples, which are different to what noble Lords have spoken about, to acknowledge the complexity of the situation with which we are dealing. I am sympathetic to the points that have been made by noble Lords, but I am also sympathetic to the Government addressing this with an open mind. I will listen with great interest to what the noble Baroness says about whether they propose bringing back any amendments at a later stage of the Bill.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-01
Topic: Social Welfare
Doreen Massey (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the amendments in this group are about ensuring the best interests and welfare of the child. We must remember that children are those under 18, not just little ones. The arguments have been admirably set out by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer. It is an honour to follow them both.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Charles Falconer (Labour, Centre-left): I apologise for interrupting. The right reverend Prelate’s Amendment 215 says: "A court must make inquiries to establish whether the offender is a primary carer for a child", and, if those inquiries suggest that the defendant is a primary carer, then, according to the amendment, the court has to direct a pre-sentence report on the circumstances of the child. Does the noble Lord object to that burden on the courts?
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Charles Falconer (Labour, Centre-left): This is a separate point. Amendment 215 would require the court to "make inquiries to establish whether the offender is a primary carer for a child" and, if it discovers that the defendant is, to then order a pre-sentence report about the circumstances of that child and the impact. Is the Minister asserting that that provision is currently in the sentencing guidelines?
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-01
Topic: Social Welfare
Frederick Ponsonby (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, we too support these amendments, and I too found the introduction from the noble Lord, Lord Beith, to be comprehensive. The brief in front of me asks why some youth activities are included and others are not, which is the point the Minister will have to address when he winds up this brief debate. I will not repeat those points about why certain activities might be included and others might not, and I am sure that everyone who has spoken in this debate wants to achieve the same end, but there are different mechanisms to do that I agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who, as she said, somewhat unusually found herself in agreement with potentially using Henry VIII powers to amend legislation. While listening to this debate, I remembered the biography of a very famous English composer that I read recently, just a few months ago. He would fall foul of these regulations and would very likely go to jail on the basis of that biography I hope this problem is not widespread, but it is something that people are far more alert to these days than they were in the past. It is right that the Government should ensure that the appropriate structures are in place in each of the activities for which young people get support, so that, if things go wrong, the coaches or whoever is involved can be held to account in an appropriate way.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Charles Falconer (Labour, Centre-left): It is very helpful of the Minister to tell us what the law is—accurately, I am sure. I do not think it is well known that if you damage life-saving equipment, you might be falling foul of Section 1(2) of the Criminal Damage Act—that is, you might be recklessly endangering life—because generally you will not intend to do that. That is why it is important to have a provision that makes it clear in the Bill, because most people do not have the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, to tell them what the law is.
Competition Act 1998 (Coronavirus) (Public Policy Exclusions) (Revocations) Order 2021 — House of Lords, 2021-11-01
Topic: Agriculture
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate—the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lord Bassam—and of course to the Minister for his response. I do not regret tabling this Motion because, as the Minister said, it is four years since we last debated the order and quite a few things have happened since then, including Covid. I certainly want to put on the record the thanks of people I have spoken to on both islands for the grant the Government gave to keep the services going during Covid—otherwise they would have stopped; they had very little income because there were no passengers The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, mentioned that the Covid problems are still here and asked whether it was too soon. I can inform him that twice in the last six months there has been a week’s shortage of meat for people to eat on the Isles of Scilly. Whether that is due to Covid, transport or whatever we can debate I agree with the Minister that it is time to have this particular order withdrawn, but the concerns of residents and businesses on these islands will not go away. It is something that will need further thought, but it is good to know that the competition is still around, and that we can talk to the CMA if we want to and see where it goes. Again, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this very short debate and beg leave to withdraw my motion.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for his amendment. I have a very brief comment for the Minister. The Explanatory Notes say: "Section 64A of PACE confers a power on the police to take photographs from a person who has been detained in a police station and/or arrested. If a person is arrested, charged or convicted without a photograph being taken, there is no power to require them to attend a police station later for this to be done, although there is such a ‘recall’ power in … PACE relating to taking of fingerprints and DNA samples." There are so many important things in this Bill, and this is yet another. The noble Lord is quite right to point this out. Therefore, why was it thought not to be necessary to include the taking of photographs in the original legislation but now is thought to be necessary? What is the evidence for the change in legislation to include photographs Also, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made the very important point about the extension of that power to overseas offences. Does that extension of power include not only photographs but fingerprints and DNA samples?
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Christine Blower (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, briefly, I speak in support of Amendments 122 and 275 in the name of my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti—who has already made an eloquent and erudite contribution, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said—and other noble Lords. I will also echo elements of the noble Lord’s contribution Amendment 122 encapsulates and incorporates precisely the advice that I would now want to give to my own two daughters and, in due time, my own grand-daughter, in the light of what we all know happened to Sarah Everard. There has been talk of flagging down buses or otherwise seeking assistance, in the case of a lone arresting officer seeking to require a person subject to arrest to enter a car or, as the amendment says "premises other than a police station". I simply do not find such advice or suggestions helpful or sufficient. These suggestions would not, I am afraid, assuage the well-grounded fears of many women in the wake of recent events and revelations about the behaviour of some police officers. The amendment, however, sets reassuring and necessary parameters, and I am in full support of it. We must use this legislation to afford clarity and safety to women With regard to Amendment 275, again, I believe that action taken hitherto by Her Majesty’s Government is insufficient and that a statutory inquiry, for all the reasons advanced already in this debate, is needed. It is needed to learn lessons but also to give a signal that we will now begin to restore the faith and trust in the police which has been so manifestly and extensively damaged.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Frederick Ponsonby (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for moving his amendment. As the Committee might be aware, I sit as a youth magistrate, usually at Highbury magistrates’ court. I have to say that I was not aware of the difference in the remand criteria; I should have known but I did not. I also thank Transform Justice for bringing this to my attention. The noble Lord has very thoroughly explored the differences in the number of youths remanded by the police versus those remanded by the courts. I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say in response.
Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-02
Topic: Labor
Jeffrey Rooker (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I had not intended to speak. I can see why there is a logic against the noble Baroness’s amendment in some ways, although if she puts the amendment to a vote, I will support her. There was a time—I am going back some years now—when the Government were committed to a link. The consequence of that was that I had to put forward a 75p pension increase. I remember saying to Alistair Darling, my boss, "Couldn’t we make a quid? It’ll be a lot easier to explain a quid than 75p.". He said, "No, no. The formula’s there. The Treasury said this is what we do: we stick to the formula." So we stuck to the formula. I was always able to defend it in a way because the supplementary pension, although people did not always apply for it, was worth three quid rather than 75p, but we know about the uptake. The Treasury factor in that people do not take up benefits However, here it looks as though pensioners are being treated unfairly. I do not think they are because, as I shall say tomorrow in the debate on the Budget, there are so many hidden tax increases, particularly for pensioners with a very small occupational pension who are at the moment outside the tax net but who will be sucked into it because of the freezing of the personal allowance over a five-year period. Substantial numbers will be paying tax without anybody announcing a tax increase, and that is unfair. I hope that some time, when he flies in, the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, will come to support me on the basis that he supported me and Audrey Wise in 1977 to make the system workable However, the noble Baroness has a point. I do not intend to speak on the other amendments because there is a point where logic says you cannot take account of the pandemic. I understand the long run. For a couple of years, I did the job that the Minister is doing and I understand that Ministers are presented with a 30-year run of the consequences of any change in the figures. That has got to be the case when you are talking about pensions If we had the second or third-best pension in Europe, we would not be having this argument, would we? However we have one of the poorest basic pension rates of any modern economic country, but we are, so called, one of the richest. Sometimes we have to say, "Hang on a minute: let’s take a stand," and I think today is an opportunity to do that. I know the logic is against this, but when one looks at the figures, it is an opportunity to make a change. The Government could be forced to have a look at some of the long-run consequences of having such poor pensions, where they factor in low uptake of pension credit. One of the documents produced for the Budget on changes in household incomes mentions that they factor in that people will not claim benefits to which they are entitled. That is not very fair. Today is an opportunity for the little people to hit back.
Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in speaking briefly in support of Amendment 5, although I also support the other amendments in this group, I will spare noble Lords the full lecture on the use of relative and so-called absolute poverty measures that I gave in Committee. As the Minister completely ignored the point in her response to that group of amendments in Committee, I return to it now. In discussing an assessment of the Bill’s impact on pensioner poverty—which is certainly necessary—we should be clear how we measure poverty When mentioning poverty, the Minister constantly uses the so-called "absolute measure", and no doubt she has been briefed to do so today. I say so-called because it is better described as an anchored measure, anchored to the poverty line in 2010-11 adjusted for inflation, but taking no account of changes in living standards in the intervening period. In doing so, she ignores what has happened using the more commonly used relative measure, which is part of the suite of official measures.
Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-02
Topic: Labor
Brinley Davies (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I should first mention a non-pecuniary interest as an unpaid adviser to the National Pensioners Convention. I do not want to detain the House for too long on this amendment, not because it is not important but because I want it to start a debate rather than reach a firm conclusion This Bill is about the increase in state pension benefits next April—more specifically, the increases in the flat-rate basic and new state pensions. But I think such a debate makes sense only in the context of what our long-term objective is for these flat-rate elements of the state system.
Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Prem Sikka (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton and his detailed remedy for future problems, and the call for an 8.1% increase in the state pension. DWP has not given us the median numbers, but the pre-2016 average or mean state pension is £155.08 while the post-2016 figure is £164. 23. It seems that the older you are, the lower the pension you actually get Discrimination against senior citizens is built into the system itself, which is wrong: 8.1% of that tiny amount is very small. A correspondent who contacted me from New Zealand said, "In New Zealand Super, there is a phrase that at 65, you get 65—at 65 you retire and you get 65% of average wage." That is at least two and a half times more as a fraction of average wage than it is in the UK, where it is impossible for anyone really to live on it We have heard from many Members of your Lordships’ House that the state pension is the only or main source of income for many, many people. I do not know whether Ministers speak to ordinary people to hear their experiences of trying to manage poverty. I will read out just one message that I have received from a senior person: "I am struggling to pay my rent, buy food and pay for gas, electricity and water. TV is my only source of company and the government is now taking that away too. I can’t afford to buy a TV licence. It would be better for me to go to prison. At least I will be warm and I will also be fed." Earlier, the Minister rattled off a whole range of pension benefits that people can collect. Will she tell the House how a 75 year-old with no TV for company, with one heating bar in a room, with no access to the internet and with her local library shut, gets access to those benefits and asks for help? I should be very grateful if she can describe to the House how that person can make ends meet on this meagre state pension We have institutionalised poverty in this country and the voice of the poor is not being heard, so I fully support my noble friend’s call for a pensions commission. However, people cannot wait for that. We need an 8.1% increase now.
Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-02
Topic: Labor
Brinley Davies (Labour, Centre-left): I do not think the Minister really responded to my request to initiate a debate about the structure of pension provision. But I am not going away. I will raise this issue at every opportunity, and I hope that at some stage we will be able to have a productive discussion about what to me is the key issue. The technical details of the uprating basis are important but the structure is crucial. With the leave of the House I will withdraw my amendment, but the issue is not withdrawn.
Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-02
Topic: Labor
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, as no one else is getting up, I will. I support Amendments 3 and 4 and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, on her tenacity in pressing this issue I have made it clear at each stage of the Bill that, while questioning the rationale for the triple lock, I strongly support the double lock that links pensions to earnings or prices as crucial to maintaining or hopefully even improving pensioners’ living standards. If under the triple lock it is possible to raise pensions by the arbitrary figure of 2.5% in some years, I do not understand why what is proposed in the amendments is deemed to be not sufficiently robust by the Government. I have yet to hear a convincing response to the very strong case made by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, nor have I received any letter from the Minister today. I have just checked my phone, and nothing has come through If, despite assurances to the contrary, and when an alternative that did not use the 8% figure was clearly available, there was a jettisoning of any earnings link, it is not surprising that this has given rise to fears that the link could be scrapped at some future point, just as it was in 1980. As has already been pointed out, the case for maintaining some form of earnings link, in line with the amendment, is all the stronger given the anticipated increase in inflation. Many people on low incomes—pensioners and others—face a bleak winter, especially if inflation rises as high as 5%, as predicted by the Bank of England’s chief economist recently—and that is before taking account of the differential impact of inflation on those on low incomes, for whom fuel and food represent a disproportionate proportion of their budget, as noted already. They will struggle during the winter months without any additional help with fuel, as called for by National Energy Action, and when they finally get their uprating next April, it will not be enough to compensate. While it is very welcome that the Government have finally agreed to produce an impact assessment of the Bill, it is a shame that we have not got it to inform our debate today Echoing what I said in the first group of amendments, I hope that, despite what she said earlier, when responding to these amendments, the Minister will not once again trot out the statistics based on the so-called absolute measure of poverty, when she knows full well that pensioner poverty, on the relative measure, is on the rise over a longish time period. Rather than avoid the issue of pensioner poverty, as it is experienced relative to the rest of society, the Government should be working to prevent a further increase. This amendment provides them with a means of doing so.
Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Brinley Davies (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann. As I made clear earlier, I am in favour of a somewhat greater increase, but I am glad to have whatever is available. I want to make two additional points First, there is a lack of trust in the Government. The one way in which they could assuage that lack of trust is by accepting the noble Baroness’s amendment. They really need to explain to us what the downside is of accepting the amendment. One can understand that they do not want to do it, but they need to tell us the disadvantages of adopting the approach My second point is a sort of response to the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. Characterising this as between generations is a category mistake. It is between people on low incomes and people on high incomes; it is between people without much money and people with wealth. That is the redistribution required. To characterise it in terms of generations is simply wrong.
Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Maeve Christina Mary Sherlock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, on Amendment 5, I thank the Minister for having listened to our representations on the impact of this Bill and for agreeing to publish an impact assessment. I would have preferred to have had a chance to read it before making a decision. However, given the Minister has moved on this issue, I accept her assurances and will not press my amendment. I should warn her that we shall keep coming back to the matter of pensioner poverty, so I hope that the Government have plans to tackle this in the longer term. For today, I thank her and shall not press my amendment.