argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-13
Topic: Housing
Nicholas True (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I will briefly intervene as a member of the London Councils Leaders’ Committee. I will not follow my noble friend Lord Deben, who occasionally joins us for our deliberations on this Bill to launch an attack on local authorities. Perhaps he could bring a different 1990s LP next time he comes to us, as we have heard that little speech before I am very grateful to my noble friend on the Front Bench and to the Secretary of State. They have listened—I want to address this in a positive way—and are seeking to deal with a very real problem within the context of a clear manifesto commitment. In Committee, we teased out significant issues that needed to be addressed. This is manifest evidence that the Government wish to address some of those problems. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, put the worst construction on it and said that 51% or, in some cases, 100% of the relevant property might have to go. In all generosity, I do not think that is what my noble friend intends or is what she said. She said in her letter that she was "clear" that she wished to see, "at least one new affordable home for each dwelling that is sold" I accept what she said in writing There will still be things that we have to consider as we go forward—for example, whether in some large boroughs the social housing in one ward could be more expensive than that in another ward not too far away, so a local element will be needed if we are to sustain mixed tenure and mixed communities, which is important. The drafting of the regulations is not a question on which to detain your Lordships today but we could look at the implications of higher value within local authority areas. However, I unequivocally welcome what my noble friend has laid before us and I know that many people in many parts of London—local authority leaders of all parties—also welcome it. I am very grateful to her.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-13
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I think the noble Baroness will understand, reasonably, that as a Minister I cannot hold the will of future Governments to account at this Dispatch Box. I can set out only what this Government intend to do and I hope she will take it in good faith. I have confirmed that it will not be used to raise additional income The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and other noble Lords have asked what I am bringing back at Third Reading. If noble Lords look ahead to Amendment 64A, I will indicate my intention to return to the issue of one-for-one replacements at Third Reading. I will give more detail on that when we get to that amendment, if noble Lords will indulge me. I am sure we will debate it fully in due course. A number of noble Lords have made the valid point that not enough houses have been built in this country. I do not think we will get into who it is attributable to this afternoon, but the fact stands: we have not built enough houses and we are now at a critical point. I think all noble Lords will support the intention of producing more houses of different tenures for this country’s residents to live in I turn to Amendment 61A, which would remove Clause 67 from the Bill. This clause will require councils to make a payment to the Secretary of State that represents an estimate of the market value of a local authority’s higher value houses that are expected to become vacant. Needless to say, it is a clause that is vital for us to deliver the policy. I have already explained to your Lordships’ House how the payments will work and I will not test your Lordships’ patience by repeating myself It is right that local authorities should sell their higher-value vacant housing so that value locked up in these properties can be released and used to fund right-to-buy discounts for housing association tenants and to fund the delivery of additional homes. The clause’s principles are clear and in line with commitments made in the Government’s manifesto. Should this amendment be accepted, I think the other place will be likely to overturn that decision. With this in mind, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, will feel free to withdraw his amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-13
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope I can reassure the noble Lord. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and I had a discussion about this and I hope he will be reassured when we get to Amendment 64A that we as a Government understand that there are different types of tenure required in different local authorities. The demographics and the need might change and we totally recognise this. That is what I intend to work towards for Third Reading, so I hope noble Lords are reassured by that.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-13
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Kerslake and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, who have all made powerful arguments about the importance of delivering new homes and meeting the needs of local communities, which is so important I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, that when government makes agreements with local authorities outside London about building new homes, we should ensure that at least one new affordable home is provided for each old dwelling that is sold. That has always been our intention, but today I am very happy to work to make that intention clear in the Bill. As I said earlier, I would like to consider further how we can best reflect that in the Bill, and I look forward to working with the noble Lord and others on it. The noble Lord makes powerful arguments about the different needs of different areas. Many noble Lords in the House—certainly many of those in the Chamber today—have, at some point or other, represented very different areas with very different needs. Reflecting this diversity and respecting the views of local people and local leaders is at the heart of the Government’s drive for localism, as several noble Lords have pointed out. I totally agree that in our dialogue with local communities, local authorities should be empowered to make the case for the right balance of housing in their area, and that there should be a strong expectation that the Government will listen. That is absolutely our intention; indeed, it reflects our broader approach The Bill enables dialogue through the provisions of Clause 72, which enables agreements to be made about the delivery of replacement homes. As I said, I am very happy to work with the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, to give local authorities with particular housing needs in their areas the opportunity to reach bespoke agreements with the Government about the delivery of different types of new homes in their areas With those assurances, I hope that the noble Lords, Lord Kerslake and Lord Kennedy, will agree not to press their amendments. I hope that this commitment will also enable the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, not to press her amendment, as we bring forward a proposal that ensures the delivery of housing in a way that specifies the cost of replacement, as a deduction to payments would not.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-13
Topic: Other
Rodney Elton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, perhaps I may remind your Lordships that we are on Report and interventions of that length are normally granted by leave of the House. I am sure that the House would have granted the leave, but that is normal practice.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-13
Topic: Other
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): In the spirit of the discussion that we are having, I am very happy to seek clarification on the issue raised by the noble Lord. In fact, we will be working through many issues for Third Reading. I am sure that noble Lords will tell me if I have got it wrong—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, will.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-13
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his amendment, although I am not sure that I should. I appreciate the considered thoughts from your Lordships’ House on ways in which we can improve the Bill but I fear that the amendment would compromise the ability of the Government to meet our manifesto commitment, which clearly states that receipts from the sale of local authority housing will be used to fund right-to-buy discounts for housing association tenants, as well as supporting the delivery of additional homes. The amendment would prevent us from meeting this clear manifesto commitment, and as a result housing association tenants would be unable to realise their dream of owning their own home We know that there is £200 billion of value locked up in housing in this country. We also know that some of that could be used to increase housing supply, something that noble Lords from across the House have expressed a wish to do. We also know that in many places the value has not been used for that purpose. That is why this Government are bringing forward this legislation. I make it clear that we also want to increase housing supply with these receipts and through the voluntary deal with housing associations that will see more homes built for each right-to-buy sale.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-13
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his amendment. It would replace the discretionary power of the Secretary of State to make regulations on specifying circumstances in which housing is not treated as being vacant for the purposes of this part of the Bill by replacing "may" with "must". The amendments in this group would also require these regulations to be made as affirmative As many noble Lords will recall, and as many have made reference to, the DPRRC considered the powers that we proposed to take through this Bill. I am happy to report that it did not seek to change the proposal for this power to be made through a negative resolution. It accepted our arguments that it is appropriate to use the negative procedure for these regulations, as this approach will provide flexibility to ensure that if circumstances change over time or if a need for further exclusions is identified in the future, this can be easily addressed by adding, amending or removing exclusions Given my earlier concession on making the regulations setting out the definition of "higher value" through affirmative resolution, and given that the DPRRC agreed with our proposal, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-13
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I begin by agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, about the intention of government in providing housing, and about people—not usually the tenants themselves, and subsequently the owners—sometimes trying to profit from housing that is intended for an entirely different purpose. I hope the noble Baroness will recall the undertaking I gave in Committee to get a working group together to look at how such fraud can be eliminated from the system. I feel very committed to that. I also take on board her point about the detail perhaps not being ready when noble Lords might want it. I hope that noble Lords will at least give me credit for trying to do that when I can, and in as much detail as I can I assure noble Lords that the Government already publish a significant amount of statistical data on the composition, tenure and affordability of housing through various mechanisms such as housing surveys and data collection exercises. For example, as part of the English housing survey, we publish an annual report on households. For 2013-14, this included information about tenure in the social rented sector, the private rented sector and owner-occupation. It compared each of these tenures and looked at how the relative size of each has changed. The report also examined measures of the affordability of social rented accommodation and movements into and out of the social rented sector Additionally, the Government publish various housing statistics, giving up-to-date data on a range of issues such as affordable housing supply, dwelling stock estimates, net supply of housing, housebuilding and housing market data. That is very useful information which provides a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of changes in housing stock, tenure and affordability With that reassurance about the extensive data—
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-13
Topic: Other
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord is obviously referring to a previous group of amendments. I am not sure whether he was in his place when I said that this data collection exercise is quite extensive— 60 million pieces of data. We always thought it would be a quite a lengthy process, but we will keep noble Lords up to date as and when we can Does the noble Lord, Lord Harris, want to add to that?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope the noble Lord will understand that I do not have telepathy regarding what might happen in various spending reviews et cetera, but as far as I know such data collection exercises will continue. If that is not the case, I will let the House know.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-01-19
Topic: Domestic Commerce
James Bridges (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this is an amendment to Clause 30, which in effect will require certain individuals with annuities valued above a threshold to take advice before selling an annuity on the secondary market. Clause 30(3) gives the Treasury the power to make regulations to exempt some individuals from mandatory advice. The amendment changes the nature of that power so that the regulations are made under the affirmative, rather than the negative, parliamentary procedure. On Report, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee recommended that the power to exempt some individuals from mandatory advice should be subject to the affirmative procedure. The Government agree that this is an important part of the consumer support package and that your Lordships should have the opportunity to debate this issue before it is set in legislation. That is why an amendment is being brought forward to change the power so that it is subject to the affirmative resolution procedure Along with the power to specify certain individuals who will be exempt from the advice requirement, Clause 30 gives the Treasury the power to specify which annuities will be subject to the advice requirement, including the specification of any threshold annuity value, and a further power to specify what type of advice individuals must have received. Ahead of laying the appropriate secondary legislation, the Government will be consulting later in the year on our proposals for the details of the advice requirement allowed for in these delegated powers. I beg to move.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-01-19
Topic: Domestic Commerce
James Bridges (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the amendments in this group make minor and technical changes to correct oversights in the Bill. Amendments 3 to 6 deal with the use of the terms "institution" and "group entity" in the new Section 57B inserted by Clause 32. This section requires the Bank to provide information related to resolution plans for institutions and group entities. Subsection (5), which allows the Treasury to direct the Bank not to provide this information in relation to specified institutions, omits group entities. These changes correct this and make consequential amendments to the rest of the clause Amendment 7 alters Schedule 2 to ensure that the definition of "banking group company", found in Section 189(1B) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, applies to the use of that term in the new subsection (1ZB) of that section, which is inserted by this part of the Bill, and not just to its use in subsection (1A), as is the case now On Amendment 8, as we are ending the PRA’s status as a subsidiary of the Bank, Schedule 2 of the Bill removes a series of requirements in existing legislation for consultation between the Bank and the PRA that are no longer necessary. One such requirement, in Section 129A of the Banking Act 2009, was overlooked, and this amendment removes it Amendment 8 also reinstates a requirement for the Bank and the FCA to inform each other that they are satisfied that the conditions for application for a bank insolvency order for which they are respectively responsible are satisfied before either can make such an application. The amendment made by paragraph 56 of Schedule 2 to the Bill to Section 96 of the Banking Act 2009 inadvertently removed this requirement Finally, Amendment 9 corrects the reference to the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013 in paragraph 69 of Schedule 2. I beg to move.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-01-19
Topic: Mixed Topics
James Bridges (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I believe it is customary at this stage to thank all those who have helped ease the passage of this Bill through the House. It is fair to say that at times, the passage has not been entirely easy. The list of those I have to thank is therefore long but noble Lords will be glad to hear that I will refrain from an Oscaresque thank you, complete with thanking my mother and bursting into tears, and will simply thank a few people. I thank the Bill team of course, for their excellent guidance and advice, and my excellent Whip and noble friend Lord Ashton, who helped keep me on the straight and narrow throughout. I thank the Governor of the Bank of England, as well as Andrew Bailey and the officials there, and Sir Amyas Morse and officials at the NAO for all the work they did on various parts of the Bill and the negotiations over that Those Peers on all sides of the House who were members of the PCBS also deserve my thanks, especially the noble Lord, Lord McFall, and the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, and those on the Cross Benches who made excellent contributions on a range of possible technical issues during the Bill and spared the time to explain to me their thoughts and concerns, especially on the NAO and Bank issue. In particular I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, as well as the noble Lords, Lord Burns, Lord O’Donnell and Lord Turnbull. At one stage in proceedings, one of your Lordships asked for a collective noun to describe three former Permanent Secretaries. The answer is, of course, "a Humphrey" I thank my noble friend Lord Naseby for his contribution regarding mutuals, and the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, for her thoughts on the Green Investment Bank and auditing issues Finally, of course, I thank especially both of the Front Benches—the noble Lords, Lord Tunnicliffe, Lord Davies and Lord Sharkey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer—for all the time they spent meeting me and discussing detailed aspects of the Bill. Sometimes we agreed and sometimes we did not. But the discussion was always amiable, civilised and, above all, thanks to their efforts, we did what this House is meant to do, which is to scrutinise and test the legislation I said at the start of the Bill that I see this process as a form of legislative acupuncture. At times it was undoubtedly a bit painful, but, thanks to the contributions of your Lordships, the Bill leaves this place in better shape than when it began, and for that I am thankful.
Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-19
Topic: Public Lands
Andrew Dunlop (Conservative, Centre-right): We feel that in the clause, in giving the Scottish Parliament the legislative competence but then facilitating the executive competence of the Scottish Government, we have got the balance right As I was saying, the clause transfers management functions relating to the Crown Estate to the Scottish Ministers, which means that the Scottish Parliament has the ability to legislate in relation to such management functions. That gets the right balance and gives effect to the Smith commission agreement in what it intended to achieve I turn to some of the specific points that were raised —in particular, Fort Kinnaird, which I believe some people thought was a Ministry of Defence base but turns out to be a shopping centre in Edinburgh. I very much agree with what my noble friends Lord Lang and Lord Sanderson have said about this and the importance of not upsetting joint arrangements built on trust. The management of all the Crown Estates, wholly and directly owned Scottish assets, will be transferred under the transfer scheme. Fort Kinnaird, as has already been said, is not wholly and directly owned by the Crown; it is held by an English limited partnership in which the Crown Estate commissioners manage interests alongside other commercial investors. The partnership owns property in other parts of the United Kingdom, and Fort Kinnaird has never been wholly and directly owned by the Crown. It was brought into the partnership by the commissioners’ joint venture partner, the Hercules Unit Trust, and is managed by British Land. Revenue from the Crown Estate’s interests in Fort Kinnaird will therefore continue to be passed to the UK consolidated fund for the benefit of the UK as a whole I am very happy to confirm for the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, that I shall take her specific point away and write to her on the offshore renewables catapult. The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, talked about protections for the assets of the Crown Estate. The current managers of the Crown Estate commissioners are under an obligation to maintain an estate in land, so it is appropriate to pass on this obligation as part of the transfer of management. The new manager may make changes to the pool of assets that make up the estate under its management; it can sell some assets but must reinvest the proceeds, bringing new assets into the estate. But the new managers must maintain an estate in land; they cannot convert the estate in its entirety to liquid assets to fund public spending. An estate in land in the ownership of the Crown must be retained for the future; that is an important point of stewardship I hope I have been able to provide some clarity on the approach and reassurance on the Government’s commitment to make a scheme. Therefore, I ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.