argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-06
Topic: Education
Ruth Deech (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I remind the Minister that, if the amendment is not passed, the Government’s efforts to increase social mobility and diversity will be very badly damaged. By and large, the established—we might say "better"—universities will be able to charge more and will attract those students who can afford to pay it and who can afford to choose. By and large—of course not always—less-established universities will come out lower and will not be able to raise their fees. Not so well-off students will go to them Add to that the fact that the Government’s policy has been to get rid of the grants that enabled students to travel to other parts of the country and pay for accommodation in universities that were not in their home town. There are loans there, but those grants have gone. In other words, it is more expensive for a student to leave home and go to another university. That will increase ghettoisation. We already know that students tend to cluster in one type of high school. They may be forced to attend their local university because they cannot afford anything else. It may not be a very good one. The inequalities will simply reinforce themselves. If we detach fees from gold, silver and bronze, we stand a chance of increasing social mobility under the amendment. If we do not, social mobility will be frozen and ghettoisation will increase. I therefore support the amendment.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-06
Topic: Education
Karan Bilimoria (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I remind your Lordships that when the Browne report came out at the beginning of the coalition Government, the change was introduced to increase fees from £3,000 to £9,000 in one go and to convert to a loan system. I remember tabling a regret Motion at the time. The argument then was that a market would be created so that students would go for universities and courses that were better value for them, but what I highlighted in my Motion was that the Government were withdrawing funding on the one hand and tripling the fees on the other. In the five years since the change was implemented, there has been no market; universities across the board have had to increase their fees virtually to the maximum £9,000, because funding was withdrawn at the other end. For students, it was a double whammy. Their fees were tripled in one go—I suggested that it should have been phased in—and they are now saddled with loans of tens of thousands of pounds that they have to pay off. On the other hand, for the universities, there is a £9,000 figure which for some subjects—science and engineering, let alone medicine—is nowhere near enough to provide that type of teaching This is a Hobson’s choice. You can understand the students’ point of view—they are already paying £9,000; they were paying £3,000 and they got the loans; they do not want the fees to go up—and you can understand the universities’ point of view: they want to provide the best possible research, teaching and facilities for their students, but they have had no increase in their fees for five years. In real terms, the £9,000 is already down to just over £8,000. Now we have this further linkage with teaching I want your Lordships to understand that this is not easy. Universities operate in a challenging environment. We are competing with the whole world. We have the best universities in the world along with the United States of America. Our research is fantastic. I am proud of our universities, but in many ways we have our hands tied behind our backs. I applaud our students and our universities.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-06
Topic: Education
Robert Kerslake (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions to this very good debate. We heard very clearly about the concerns that the TEF is not ready and about the potential impact of this proposal on social mobility. Indeed, we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, that not one student body has found it necessary to support the proposal. This is something that is purportedly being done in the interests of students but none of the student bodies actually supports it. The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, made the very important point that the reason why we have the uniformity that the noble Lord, Lord Desai, referred to is precisely because government grants were taken out at the time at which the fee cap was raised. The two things went hand in hand It is really important to say that there is no need for universities to be deprived of the opportunity for inflation increases. If that were to happen as a consequence of this amendment, it would be entirely an action that the Government have chosen to take. It is clear that there is already a quality assurance system and that the TEF system, when it is finalised, will bring an ability to drive up quality. There is plenty of incentive in the system through the introduction of the TEF, and there will be plenty of incentive through other competitive changes in the sector. Crudely linking a TEF system that is not yet ready to the increase of fees is simply wrong and unfair on those universities which come out at the wrong end of it. I am afraid I have not been persuaded by the Minister’s arguments. Therefore, I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Sky and 21st Century Fox: Proposed Merger — House of Lords, 2017-03-06
Topic: Technology
John Birt (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I welcome the clarity and emphasis in the Secretary of State’s Statement. I fear some may argue, "Never mind the quality, feel the width": that there are, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned, many new centres of news on social media and in other places, but it is important to remember that news in the UK, whether print news or broadcast, is facing financial adversity. We see cuts on all sides and a diminution in the quality of our journalism. Does the Minister accept that these criteria need to be applied when considering this matter?
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-06
Topic: Education
Julia King (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 49, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and give my wholehearted support to all the government amendments in this group Amendment 49 is a reinforcement of the registration conditions for higher education providers. It requires that it is not only the quality of provision and use of sector standards that can be subject to registration conditions but also the systems and processes that a provider has in place to ensure quality and standards are upheld. This provides an additional level of assurance of the ongoing maintenance of quality by a provider to the benefit of students I thank the Minister and the Bill team for their thoughtful work in bringing forward the government amendments on quality and standards. They effectively address the concerns of the sector, and of many noble Lords, that the definition of academic standards must be owned by the sector and not be in the remit of the Office for Students. The government amendments are, indeed, quite innovative in that they provide an implicit challenge to institutions in the sector to work together to define standards in other key areas—plagiarism might be a good example. These would be standards which the OfS could then use in its registration conditions. The Minister and the Bill team are to be commended for this forward-thinking approach, and I repeat my strong support for the government amendments. I beg to move.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-06
Topic: Education
Alison Wolf (Crossbench, Unknown): I support the proposition. When we discussed the matter in Committee, the Minister said that he saw no reason why there should not be a wider range of penalties at the disposal of the Office for Students. It would be very helpful to have that confirmed in the Bill, otherwise there is the possibility of challenge of the OfS exceeding its powers if it moved to restrict the number of students in a way that would seem on many occasions entirely appropriate.
Brexit: Triggering Article 50 — House of Lords, 2017-03-29
Topic: International Affairs
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, while I admire the noble Baroness’s optimism, I do not entirely share it. I admire the conciliatory tone of the letter, but the country will judge the outcome of the negotiations by the words of those on the Government Front Bench. Before the referendum, Mr Davis told us that there would be no diminution of trade with the EU if we left the European Union. This year, he has told us that the exact same benefits will be secured as if we had remained in the single market and the customs union. Before the referendum, Mr Johnson told us that there would be no change at the Irish border. This year, Mr Brokenshire has told us that there will be a "frictionless" border, even though that will be the border of the EU’s customs union and it will be for the EU to decide the regime on it. Does the noble Baroness understand that, as this negotiation proceeds, the country will not forget what it was told, and Ministers will be judged by their own words?
Brexit: Triggering Article 50 — House of Lords, 2017-03-29
Topic: International Affairs
David Hugh Alexander Hannay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am one of those who think that today is a pretty sad day but I also do not think it is a day to carp or criticise. The Prime Minister and the Government are setting off down a road which can best be described as a magical mystery tour, the destination of which they have no clue—any more than the rest of us do. But I wish them well in this thing, and I would like to put two questions. First, while I very much welcome the very strong emphasis the Government have put on the mutual benefit of maintaining and, indeed, strengthening the co-operation against all forms of international crime, can the Leader say by what process of adjudication any disputes on those matters will be resolved? Secondly, yesterday the Prime Minister urged us to, "get out into the world" Can the Leader give us one example of circumstances where we are prevented from doing that by our present membership of the European Union?
Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-29
Topic: Technology
David Pannick (Crossbench, Unknown): I have added my name to Amendment 32E from the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and I agree with all the speeches that have been made in this debate. The process for setting the licence fee is manifestly inadequate; it lacks transparency, fails to identify—far less promote—any coherent principle, and allows and indeed encourages a last-minute political fix. Does the Minister really think that this is a satisfactory means of promoting the independence and efficacy of the BBC?
Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-29
Topic: Technology
Beeban Kidron (Crossbench, Unknown): I am also a member of the Communications Committee. My noble friend Lord Best set out our position so well that I shall not repeat it, but I wanted to add one thing. I could not possibly exaggerate the feeling of those who came before us giving evidence that the BBC must not only be independent from the Government of the day but must be seen to be independent. That is really what these amendments are struggling to insist on—that it is truly seen by all parties as independent On a secondary point, while we did our review I was struck by the huge number of duties that the BBC was given, many of which were very right-minded, about regions and nations and the types of programming that it must do, as well as about training. Those are all things with a cost, and a subset of the amendments is the suggestion that somebody independent gets to look at the duties of the BBC and set them against the cost of doing those duties. Perhaps we will have more reasonable conversations about what those duties ultimately are when we understand what they cost.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-29
Topic: Technology
John Birt (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, it is hard to improve on the excellent summary by the noble Lord, Lord Best, of the glaring inadequacies of the last two licence fee settlements—the infamous midnight raids. I would add only one thing: it is important to recognise that in neither instance was the motive of the Government to do down the BBC, rather it was simply unscrupulous pragmatism, switching responsibility to the BBC for paying for services that had previously been funded by government. In both instances, the Government did this because they did not want to take the political hit of taking something away—the ill-considered gift of a previous Government of free licences for the over-75s, might I say—nor did they want to take the financial hit of continuing to fund the services for which they were switching responsibility In both instances, the Government were completely oblivious to the consequences for the funding of the BBC and the knock-on consequences for every kind of service. This is government at its worst, frankly. We all understand how it happened, but it was ill considered and Britain deserves better. There needs to be a proper, considered process to set the licence fee which takes, as others have said, every kind of circumstance into account before the licence fee is set. I strongly support this amendment.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-29
Topic: Technology
Charles Colville (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, my media interests can be found in the register. As many other noble Lords have said, it seems to me that the run-up to the next licence fee deal must be the time to take politics out of the corporation’s funding arrangements. This amendment is very welcome in creating a body that will do just that. The criticism of similar sorts of bodies is that they have been ignored by successive Ministers. However, the noble Lord, Lord Best, has dealt with this by recommending that the proposed commission should be considered by the Secretary of State, who should then explain his reasons if he is going to ignore it. That would provide a gold standard against which the public and politicians can measure any discussions and subsequent spin on the BBC’s funding settlement. I ask the Minister to consider the idea very favourably As regards Amendment 32E, I add my admiration for the tenacity of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, in trying to put the BBC on a more independent footing. In Committee, I spoke in favour of statutory underpinning for the BBC. As the noble Lord said, this amendment is a watered-down version of that discussion. I understand that it will not be put to a vote but I hope that it will stir the Government to start a debate to free the corporation from ministerial diktat. That debate must involve all the stakeholders. I hope that the result will guarantee the corporation’s future. Its position as one of the most effective public service broadcasters in the world has never been more important at a time when "fake news" threatens to suffocate the truth.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-29
Topic: Technology
Michael Berkeley (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, in supporting my noble friend Lord Best, I point out that the reprehensible situation in which we found ourselves the last time that the licence fee was discussed discredited not only the Government but managed to discredit the BBC as it put the director-general in a very difficult position for which he received a great deal of criticism. Nobody came out of that process very well. We must be able to find a better system that is more transparent and gives the BBC the possibility to plan ahead, but it has to be one that is fair to all parties.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-29
Topic: Technology
John Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I observe only that if you wish to access the BBC on iPlayer, for example, when you live outside the United Kingdom, you are asked whether you have a television licence. If you do not, you cannot access it. That seems an opportunity for revenue for the BBC to consider in the future.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-29
Topic: Macroeconomics
David Pannick (Crossbench, Unknown): I am puzzled by what the Minister has said, because he is saying two incompatible things. He is telling the House that the Government are going to take advice, but on the other hand he is telling the House that, because this is a tax, it is not possible for the Government to take advice.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-29
Topic: Technology
John Birt (Crossbench, Unknown): The Minister said a moment ago that the Minister—in this case, the Secretary of State—must do as the charter says. I remind him that the charter before last said explicitly that the licence fee may not be used to fund the World Service. After the famous "night raid", where the BBC was required to fund the World Service from the licence fee, the Secretary of State simply went to the Privy Council and changed the charter. He manifestly did not do what the charter required.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-29
Topic: Technology
Richard Best (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am grateful to the 10 noble Lords who spoke in support of my amendment. The only moderating voice was from the noble Lord, Lord Maxton—but even that, I think, was with approval as well. I will not reiterate the arguments that everybody brought forward. I thank the Minister for his response and accept that most of the recommendations from your Lordships’ Select Committee on Communications were adopted by the Government, which we were pleased about, including the 11-year period for the charter. But there is only a five-year period for the funding of the BBC, and, although there is certainty for five years, this is not entirely new. We had certainty over the freeze in the BBC licence fee for seven years prior to that The Minister stressed that the Government will "consider taking advice" and "may consult experts" on the various aspects of this. I had hoped that the Minister might pull the rabbit out of the hat and that we might have something more to show for the debate tonight than we have. I understand that the Government do not consult on taxes—although, as the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said, this is a particularly obscure kind of tax. It is 100% hypothecated and we do not have many of those. The Minister mentioned that it was a complicated issue. That is why an expert commission could be so useful. Public consultation might well produce an answer that there would be reluctance to increase the licence fee, but there would be better understanding if these matters were all out in the open and transparent before the public came to that view Although I am grateful to the Minister for explaining the position as is, it is not the position that these amendments would establish in the Bill and I would like to test the opinion of the House.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-29
Topic: Technology
Elspeth Howe (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, briefly, I very much support this amendment and above all salute the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, for all she has done over many years in making the case for the production of more and very much better-quality television programmes for children, whether by the BBC or other programme-makers. It is very good to see the name of the Minister on this amendment and I hope I am not wrong that as a result the Government fully support it. I hope we shall hear that soon.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-29
Topic: Technology
Charles Colville (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment because it is important to future-proof the prominence on the EPG of our public service broadcasters at a time, as the noble Lord, Lord Wood, said, of extraordinary change in the media In Committee, the Minister said that anybody could find the PSB digitally connected channels if they wanted to: the channels’ very success showed that they did not need any boost to their prominence. However, one of the aims of the amendment is to push back on BSkyB’s unique position in our media environment of being both a content provider and, via its satellite and broadcast services, a distributor. This means that it is in its interest to ensure that its content is more easily accessible than other companies’ content. As the noble Lord, Lord Wood, said, on many of the new Sky boxes, its content is made as prominent as possible, while making the PSB channels—in particular the BBC’s children’s channels—more difficult to find. After the great success of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, we should do everything we can to encourage access to PSB children’s channels The Minister said that children can easily find their way around the channel controller—we all know how adept children are with technology—but I hope that he is not suggesting that children are given free rein with the channel controller to access anything they want. It needs to be carefully controlled and, I thought, given top prominence It is also clear from research by BARB, the audience research company, that prominence—or lack of it—affects consumption of programs. A like-for-like comparison shows that CBeebies secures a lower target audience share on Sky, at 28%, where it is more difficult to find, than on Virgin, at 33%, where it is listed in the top three children’s channels I also understand that some noble Lords believe that an unintended consequence of the amendment will be to stop the prominence of the existing linear PSB channels: BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4. I assure noble Lords that this will not be the case. In subsection (3), the amendment confirms Ofcom’s power to review the main linear channels and extends it to the new connected, or internet, channels. In subsection (8), it further strengthens Ofcom’s power of review by omitting "such degree of" appropriate prominence. It simplifies and strengthens the duty on Ofcom to secure prominence, which will apply to both the main PSB channels on EPGs and the new PSB internet channels. It therefore gives Ofcom more rather than less scope to require prominence for all PSB services within the EPG Surely your Lordships’ House will want to ensure a balanced broadcasting environment with a wide range of content on offer. I ask the Minister why he would not want to allow Ofcom, our world-class media regulator, to review this issue.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-29
Topic: Technology
John Birt (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, some time in the mid-1990s, I drove to west London to Sky’s warehouse-style offices to be given the first privileged sighting to an outsider of the then embryonic Sky guide and set-top box. I was enormously impressed. In simpler times, it was very innovative and very helpful to the television viewer. Some decades later, not only Sky’s but other guides appear frankly antiquated, and the whole EPG needs modernising very fundamentally. It is not of the digital age; it is hard to navigate and is miserably slow to search. You cannot personalise it, and the Channel 4 and ITV channels are not bundled together conveniently. I have tried very hard to remember where BBC1 HD is, but I have completely failed; I search for it endlessly and spend many wasteful minutes before I find it In an ideal world, we would have competing EPGs, and we would have contemporary innovation if we did. We need a much faster user interface than the clunky one that we have now. Plainly, it is no longer right to have EPG providers also being the main channel and service providers themselves. There is a conflict of interest; others have spoken of this. It is not right and at some point it should be ended. I favour a much more fundamental review of EPGs than is being discussed now—but, in this less than ideal world, we simply must protect the PSBs, and I support the amendment.