argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-05-21
Topic: Domestic Commerce
David Neuberger (Crossbench, Unknown): I believe that is the case, yes. I was going on to say that in many respects it appears that all three territories which I mentioned have a regulatory regime which in many respects is stricter than that of this country On top of all this, this proposal imposes a financially damaging regime on at least three territories in the Caribbean area with significant financial service industries for which the UK has responsibility, while not doing so for the Crown dependencies with substantial financial service industries closer to home: Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, for example. That adds discriminatory insult to unconstitutional and unfair injury. Let me make it clear to the Crown dependencies that I say this to oppose the proposed law applying to the territories, not to support it applying to the dependencies Finally, what will happen if this unfair and unjustified law is brought into force, apart from leading to a real sense of grievance and of being let down on the part of small states which it is our duty to protect? It will do no good. If there is the hot money to which the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, referred, it will quickly move away from the BVI, Cayman and Bermuda to places which do not have respected democratic Governments and independent and respected courts, where the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which I had the honour to chair for five years, has no power. In effect, it will not be upholding the rule of law, it will be undermining it It will be only when we have universal acceptance of such regulation that, I respectfully suggest, it will be appropriate to impose it on these territories.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-05-21
Topic: Other
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate. With respect to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, we owe a debt to the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, for tabling his amendment, because it has given us an opportunity to set the record straight. I hope that those in the affected overseas territories will take some comfort from the points in the very powerful speeches that have been made right across this House to express the great dismay at what happened in the other place I emphasise the opportunity that the noble Lord has given us to express our feelings, and personally endorse entirely what was said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who set out very fully the arguments for supporting the noble Lord, Lord Naseby—although I know he will not press his amendment to a vote. It is very important, as I am sure the Minister will agree, that we have debated this and made the House’s position absolutely plain—while regretting that we have to accept the decision of the House of Commons.
Legislative Reform (Regulator of Social Housing) (England) Order 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-05-23
Topic: Housing
Richard Best (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the argument over whether the grant maker for social housing and the regulator for social housing should be the same government body has raged for 45 years. I was in the midst of the argument back in 1973, representing the housing associations as chief executive of the National Housing Federation. The Housing Corporation was being greatly enlarged by the Housing Act 1974; it had been created 10 years earlier, but only to promote cost rent and co-ownership housing. My federation concluded that that the Housing Corporation, as the body responsible for paying out housing association grants—which frequently covered 90% of the capital costs in order to keep rents low—should also be the body responsible for regulating these organisations. Regulation meant registering each housing association as fit and proper and then visiting it to monitor performance, ensure probity, and so on. These regulatory processes to ensure good governance were of critical importance to the funding agency before it could allocate substantial government subsidies to the fledgling housing associations. It was natural then for the grant-making and regulatory functions to be combined With the arrival of housing benefit—the personal subsidies to tenants—charging higher rents created fewer problems and the Housing Corporation could reduce grants somewhat without those on lower incomes having to be turned away. The Minister was Housing Minister at the time. When it fell to him to oversee cuts to the Housing Corporation’s grant making, he could declare, with some justification, "Let housing benefit take the strain". Moreover, loans from the Housing Corporation became increasingly less relevant after the Housing Act 1988, under which the housing associations could borrow the money they needed on the private market. So the dominant funding rule of the Housing Corporation was changing Increasingly, the combination of funding and regulatory functions within the one agency looked less relevant, and the earlier requirement for combining the roles in one body was becoming strained. The Labour Government, with Yvette Cooper as Housing Minister, in 2007 appointed Professor Martin Cave from Warwick University to review the position. Professor Cave argued convincingly that these were two different roles, requiring different skills. Indeed, Cave pointed out the potential conflicts of interest if the funder and regulator were one and the same.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-02-21
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): Perhaps I may make a brief point. The noble Baroness is absolutely right about India. What is missing from this discussion, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, referred to it, is that in the future we will be able to substantially reduce migration from the European Union, much of which is low paid and therefore of less value, and that will give us some leeway when talking to countries such as India.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-02-21
Topic: Other
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): As it happens, I have an amendment directed to Clause 11. I would have thought that there was an advantage in debating in Committee so that we can at least engage with the Minister and explain the points that lie behind the amendment. Otherwise, if the amendment is simply not pursued in Committee, we cannot come back to it until Report. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me if in due course I move my amendment, which is intended to be helpful. At the end of the day, I hope that the amendment that the noble Lord is pursuing today will become completely academic because the differences between the devolved institutions and Westminster will be resolved. That surely must be the aim, not to keep this sense of tension until the Bill is passed.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-02-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alec Broers (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I will be very brief. I did not speak at Second Reading because I thought that the decision to leave Euratom was tied irrevocably by law to our withdrawal from the European Union. I discovered, while participating at Second Reading of the Nuclear Safeguards Bill—as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has mentioned—that it was in fact a political decision. I still do not know who made the decision but I regard it as a very serious and damaging mistake, and that is why I wish to support this group of amendments. We should do everything we can to avoid the disastrous consequences of leaving Euratom.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-02-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Norman Warner (Crossbench, Unknown): I am sorry to interrupt the noble Viscount’s flow, but does he remember that the Government voted down in the Commons an amendment which would have given him more time for a transition period on this issue? So the Government have turned their face away from allowing more time to a transition period to get things right. Whether one believes that the Government have taken the right course or not, they have committed themselves to do all this by 11 pm on 29 March next year. Does the noble Viscount accept that that is an impossible objective because at the moment the Government have not agreed to a transition period for the subject area?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-02-21
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Alexander Carlile (Crossbench, Unknown): If I could be allowed an ad majorem argument, I would recommend to noble Lords an article written on the Monckton Chambers website by the distinguished competition lawyer, George Peretz QC, which—as I understand it because I am not an expert on European law—provides the answer yes to the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-19
Topic: Civil Rights
Simon Russell (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I want to say one or two words, not least because I thought it might be appropriate to have at least one male voice speaking in this debate about violence against women and girls. I declare my trusteeship of Coram, which contains the Coram Children’s Legal Centre. The centre often gives advice and tries to help the victims of domestic abuse—particularly children, including girls and boys As ever, these are probing amendments and we do not expect the Minister to come up with a list of magic solutions. However, we are concerned with two key areas. One is to seek reassurance that the levels and types of co-operation currently in place will, to the best of the Government’s ability, continue to be as effective—and even more effective in the future. The second is to seek reassurance that the sources of funding, some of which are plugging important gaps that we have been unable to fill domestically in the recent past, will not be unwittingly left behind Nobody suggests for a moment that Her Majesty’s Government do not care about these things. When I googled what the Prime Minister said about violence against women and girls, I saw that one of her first speeches when she became Home Secretary in 2010 was at a Women’s Aid conference, when she said: "As both Home Secretary and minister for women and equalities I believe I have a unique opportunity to bring about real change to the lives and the status of women in this country and my ambition is nothing less than ending violence against women and girls" I am sure the Minister would agree with that. We are not looking for chapter, book and verse. The Government have put a huge amount of effort into this. I returned to Google and looked at the Home Office website on violence against women and girls. It has no fewer than seven pages full of a whole variety of initiatives and policy statements that the coalition Government and now the current Government have undertaken and made, so it is not for lack of activity or lack of trying. We are concerned to try to ensure that that momentum continues. We are really trying to make three points. I think we know the answer to the first, which is whether the Government are aware of our concerns. Secondly, are they actively reviewing the content and looking at how to try to sort some of these out? Thirdly, to the best of their ability, can they remedy any of the unintended consequences Lastly, I put on the record an apology to the House. Two weeks ago, I fell an unwitting victim to what I believe the President of another country calls fake news. After googling some contributions by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, I inadvertently attributed to him a mildly scurrilous article that appeared to be in his name in the Sun newspaper—a well-known and respectable organ. However, it turned out not to be the case. I have apologised to him in person, and I am now apologising to the House. My comments at cols. 924 and 925 of Hansard on Monday 5 March were not entirely correct.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-19
Topic: Mixed Topics
Ruth Deech (Crossbench, Unknown): Will the existing Hague convention on maintenance cover the situation? From what I have learned there are dozens, if not hundreds, of other states with which we have reciprocal arrangements for enforcing child maintenance. Some say that once we leave Europe, and leave the Brussels conventions, it will be simpler. We will simply have one international regime. There are those who say that it is actually better than the Brussels regime. All we need to do is sign up as an individual member—not as an EU member—of the Hague maintenance convention with its advantages stretching all around the world. I would like to be reassured that that will be just as good as the situation that we have at the moment I also support other Members in pointing out how very bad child maintenance law is at the moment in this country. It is very difficult to enforce in England, let alone elsewhere, but this is not the time to go into the great failings of that particular area of the law. We need to know whether the Hague convention will do, and whether we will sign up with the necessary three months’ notice before we exit from the Brussels conventions.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-19
Topic: Civil Rights
John Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, this has the potential to be extremely divisive for the nation. We need a referendum to ensure that we do not land up, through this whole process, with a divided nation for a very long time.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-19
Topic: Other
Karan Bilimoria (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, how much more divided can the country be than it is now? That is what this wretched referendum has done: it has divided our country. Our House is divided in a way that it never has been before.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-19
Topic: Mixed Topics
Karan Bilimoria (Crossbench, Unknown): Perhaps I may challenge one point that the noble Lord made, which was really worrying. He said that one of the reasons that people voted to leave the European Union was because of the control from courts and judges. Yet the decision on Article 50 was not made by the European Court of Justice; it was made by our Supreme Court across the square and everyone should respect that. The language that he used reminds me of the Daily Mail’s headline, "Enemies of the people". Is that what we have come to as a country and as a Parliament? Do we not respect our judiciary, which is the finest in the world?
Cambridge Analytica — House of Lords, 2018-03-19
Topic: Civil Rights
Onora O'Neill (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the Minister has, very understandably, spoken as though the problem that we are addressing is breach of privacy, and that is of course what data protection legislation is intended to achieve. However, does he not think that new uses of data, including personal data, by digital media and specifically by social media are evading the way in which we would like elections to be conducted and enabling data use that is not merely a breach of privacy but a breach of public interest?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-19
Topic: Other
Alec Broers (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am encouraged that the Government are going to be conscientious and provide all these updates. I wonder whether one of these updates might satisfy my amendment. In light of what the Minister has said, while I am still minded to hang on to this issue—I have been pursuing it for a long time with a lack of any success, but that does not mean I will not hang on to it—for the moment, with the permission of the House, I beg to withdraw my amendment.
Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-02-27
Topic: Other
David Brownrigg Craig (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, noble Lords may recall that I moved some amendments to this important Bill, which of course has my full support. One of them dealt with the phrase "on a journey". As is evident from the amendment, and others in the noble Baroness’s name, possible weaknesses in the original wording—that is, a risk of loopholes in the intended coverage of the Bill—have all now been addressed. I support the amendment and I am very grateful for the noble Baroness’s receptive consideration of the points made in Committee.
Immigration White Paper — House of Lords, 2018-02-05
Topic: Immigration
David Hugh Alexander Hannay (Crossbench, Unknown): Would the Minister notice, or agree, that the timing for the White Paper that she has given is about as vague as anything I have heard, and I have heard plenty of vague promises from government about the timing of White Papers? Can she say that the White Paper—when it comes, if it comes, whenever it comes—will cover the aberrant practice of treating international students as economic migrants and will finally address that issue in terms that stop that practice?
Grenfell Tower: Insulation Materials — House of Lords, 2018-02-05
Topic: Housing
Ilora Gillian Finlay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, can the Minister inform us whether the documentation of the type of cladding includes the way it is attached to the building? If it is adherent to the surface, there will not be an updraught on both sides of it. The problem, as soon as anything starts to burn, is updraught, which brings more air and oxygen in and fuels the inflammability of whatever material is there.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Other
Simon Denis Brown (Crossbench, Unknown): Funnily enough, when I first read the amendment, I took the same point from it that my noble friend has taken. However, it seemed that it could not be so because it simply would not make sense to move an amendment that is not intended to have any effect on the Government as they pursue this legislation.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Harry Kenneth Woolf (Crossbench, Unknown): Before the Minister sits down, can he help me on one matter? I am sure there is an easy answer to it. The Bill is exceptional in its regulatory power. Whereas I see the strong force of what is being submitted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, I wonder if it has the effect of curtailing these very wide Henry VIII clauses.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Other
Frederick Butler (Crossbench, Unknown): Can my noble friend clarify one point? I think the noble Duke said that such an extension could be for only a few weeks because it could not extend beyond the date of the European elections. Is that correct?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Immigration
Hugh Dykes (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, notwithstanding the very reasonable sentiments just expressed by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, I think that I would be among others in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for the way in which he has taken the initiative on this subject. It is becoming increasingly complicated with the approach of the so-called exit day—whatever date that may be in legislation and so on—and, therefore, we need to think very carefully about this. Although this was a long time ago, I recall that the Maastricht treaty bestowed on citizens of each member state individual citizenship as EU citizens, too. It was a solemn and profound moment when that was announced many years ago in 1992, and it was made much of, mostly in the other member states but also in Britain as well. A lot of British citizens who were working abroad were delighted at the idea of being citizens of the European Union as well, which added to their obvious practical freedom of movement, although that was not essential to it We have now got to be very careful to make sure that the Government respond to the civilised and reasonable request for them to expand their minds a little bit into thinking about this matter, because it will be quite complicated. There is the question of the Irish Republic’s offer, which has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and the special status that may emerge in Northern Ireland, not deliberately, according to the DUP, but accidentally. It is not much to their liking that a special status would be accorded to people there and they would remain individuals citizens of the EU. Is this a matter of collective bestowal of citizenship because of the Maastricht treaty in 1992, or is it now a matter of it being an individual proclivity if the right was there, given that there are exceptions to the idea that you have to be within only one member state to be a citizen and you can apply for citizenship from outside? It therefore may be that the very act of applying for citizenship and continuing to have the protection of the ECJ as individuals because of the bestowal of European citizenship would need to be included in this wide examination. It is a very complicated matter and should not be excluded from people’s mind and, mostly, the Government’s mind. They may be very unwilling to consider these matters, but they need to do so and we are grateful for this amendment and this debate.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Immigration
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, as I think it is extremely sad. I think the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, speaks for a huge proportion of the younger people of our country who resent seeing their rights as EU citizens, particularly the right of movement, being taken away from them My objection to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, is even more objective than the objection of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. We are asking the Government to do something impossible. It is not possible to be a citizen of the European Union if you are not a citizen of a member state of the European Union. That is how citizenship is defined in the treaty. It is left entirely to member states to decide who their citizens are, but if you are a citizen of a member state, you are a citizen of the European Union. When—I hope if—the UK leaves the European Union, every British citizen ceases to be a citizen of the European Union, and there is nothing that we can do about it. Although my heart is with the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, my head says that this amendment does not make sense. The only way that the young people of this country can retain the rights they now enjoy as EU citizens is for us to decide not to leave the European Union.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Immigration
Nicholas Trench (Crossbench, Unknown): Before the noble Lord sits down, this is being tested in the courts in Europe, so not everyone is of the opinion that you cannot have European citizenship. I believe that in June we will hear the result of the appeal by the Netherlands.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Ann Butler-Sloss (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am the only member of my family unfortunately unable to get an Irish passport, and I very much resent it. I admire the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for raising this issue, but I fear that my noble friend Lord Kerr has got it absolutely right. I wonder whether, when we have left, there will be any possibility of negotiating any sort of individual relationship for UK citizens with the European Union. That is my hope, but perhaps it is a faint hope. Much though I admire what the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, said, my noble friend Lord Kerr is absolutely right and there is no point in supporting this amendment.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, one aspect of this will be dealt with, or should have been dealt with, by looking at the immigration system we will have with Europe. We have made proposals for the free movement of young people, and we could have proposals for movement without visas and so on and so forth. Personally, I think the Government made a serious mistake in not setting this out and getting into a negotiation with the European Union that would tackle some of the aspects that have been raised.