argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-07-08
Topic: Government Operations
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): The matters raised by the noble Lord will be part of the outline business case, so it is impossible to be specific. However, on costing, in October 2012, the House of Commons Commission, and at that time the House Committee in the Lords, considered the pre-feasibility study and decided: "The report is a useful first analysis of the issues. However, the Commission has ruled out the option of constructing a brand new building away from Westminster and no further analysis will be undertaken of this option".
UK’s Ambassador to the USA — House of Lords, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given by my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Europe and the Americas to an Urgent Question in another place on what steps he is taking to ensure that the apparent unauthorised disclosure of communications from the UK’s Ambassador to the USA are fully investigated by all relevant agencies. The Statement is as follows: "Her Majesty’s Government utterly deplore the serious breach of classified information; it is totally unacceptable. As the Prime Minister has already said, we retain full confidence in the British Ambassador to Washington, Sir Kim Darroch, for whom we have enormous respect as a distinguished and long-serving diplomat The Prime Minister and the British public expect our ambassadors to provide Ministers with an honest and unvarnished assessment of the politics in their country. We pay our ambassadors to be candid, just as the US Ambassador here will send back his candid reading of Westminster politics and personalities. That does not mean that it is the same as what the British Government think We have announced a leak inquiry, which I can reassure the whole House will be thorough and wide-ranging and will ultimately report to the Cabinet Secretary. A cross-government investigation led by the Cabinet Office has been launched, which I can reassure the whole House will be thorough and wide-ranging" My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
UK’s Ambassador to the USA — House of Lords, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as I have said, we rely on our diplomats to provide insights into the lay of the land. As a Minister I have visited a number of countries over the past two years in post, and in my other responsibilities as a Minister I have benefited greatly from the insights and candid nature of such diplomatic telegrams. On the specific questions the noble Lord has raised, I can say that we will seek to complete this inquiry at the earliest possible time. As the noble Lord may be aware, the cross-government investigation is being led by the Cabinet Office and will include the Foreign Office. That inquiry will report to the Cabinet Secretary. We have some incredible diplomats and the best Diplomatic Service in the world. Based on this experience there will, of course, be concern, but we have reassured our diplomats that they should continue to report in the excellent, candid manner they have done over many years.
UK’s Ambassador to the USA — House of Lords, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I totally agree with the noble Baroness’s assessment. I put on record that the Government, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, Ministers at the Foreign Office and all of us have full confidence in the work of Sir Kim Darroch. I will put on record my personal reflections. I have known Sir Kim for a long time. I have worked with him on various issues of a very sensitive nature. He reflects the best of our diplomatic capabilities, the best of diplomacy, and we stand by him.
UK’s Ambassador to the USA — House of Lords, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord in his various diplomatic responsibilities, which he discharged with great aplomb during his tenure as a Foreign Office diplomat, including of course at the United Nations. I agree with him. Whoever is responsible should be brought to account for these actions. As Ministers and as a Government, we rely on the insight that our ambassadors and diplomats provide Our relationship with the United States is strong and is based on mutual recognition and respect. I played a part in receiving the President of the United States at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Where we have disagreements, as we have had recently on climate change and the JCPOA, we respect each other’s differences and recognise that there are times when we may have a different perspective or view from that of our closest ally My personal reflection is that our work with the United States will withstand this. We work on a number of important issues. Today, the report of an independent review of Christian persecution has been launched. I am looking forward to being in Washington next week to meet my counterpart, Ambassador Brownback. We have been working on the issue of Christian persecution around the world and on standing up for the rights of the persecuted, and we are seeing results. The relationship between the US and the UK is special, deep and strong. It has spread over many years and will continue to withstand any challenges, including the latest one.
UK’s Ambassador to the USA — House of Lords, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am sure that the noble Baroness will recognise that when you take up responsibility as a Minister of the Crown, you are bound by the duties and responsibilities of that office, including by the Official Secrets Act, and that you should seek to discharge your duties in that manner. The noble Baroness is quite right to raise the issue of who is responsible. I am not going to speculate on that. The inquiry will be thorough and, if there is evidence of criminality, at that stage the police will be involved. We need to ensure that we get to the bottom of this to restore the confidence that Ministers have in the diplomatic telegrams that we receive, and so that our diplomats can continue to report in the exemplary and candid manner they do.
Sri Lanka: UNHCR Refugees — House of Lords, 2019-05-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Arthur Russell Howell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, we are dealing here with not one but two members of the Commonwealth family. Can we be assured that, in our position as chair of the Commonwealth, working with the Commonwealth organisation generally, we are doing the maximum possible available to us in bringing to bear the co-ordinated efforts of the Commonwealth in meeting this difficult situation and the tragedy that lies behind it?
Sri Lanka: UNHCR Refugees — House of Lords, 2019-05-09
Topic: International Affairs
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, again, the noble Lord speaks with great insight on these issues; equally, to return to the issue of Asia Bibi, I pay tribute to his efforts in that respect—I think we are all grateful for what has happened. But he is right that the real result will be not to have 1,000 Asia Bibi cases. We must work with countries such as Pakistan to ensure, first and foremost, that the long-term objective must be the overturning of these draconian blasphemy laws, which are used not just against minority communities in Pakistan but against Muslim communities themselves. I therefore assure the noble Lord that we are working closely with the Pakistani Government to ensure that we can build not just religious tolerance but understanding at a core level The noble Lord mentioned the UNHCR; we are engaged fully with the Sri Lankan authorities and UN agencies on the ground to see what level of support we can offer. There has been no specific request apart from the figures I quoted to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, on specific refugees who may come to the United Kingdom. On the wider issue of textbooks, the noble Lord and I have discussed this matter, and I agree with him. We have a massive aid programme to various parts of the world, including Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and it is important that, as regards any support we provide, the values we seek to extend are reflected in the education and training, particularly which young children receive in those countries. I assure the noble Lord that we are working closely on that very objective with DfID colleagues.
Sri Lanka: UNHCR Refugees — House of Lords, 2019-05-09
Topic: International Affairs
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend is entirely right to draw our attention to the plight of these Muslim refugees. However, can I return to the appalling atrocity that took place on Easter day? Is he as satisfied as he can be that the small Christian community in Sri Lanka has adequate protection? To take up the point on the Commonwealth made by my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford, would there be some value in convening a meeting here in London of Commonwealth high commissioners to discuss the persecution of Christians, Muslims and others of religious faith in the Commonwealth and to try to agree a much firmer code among them?
Serco — House of Lords, 2019-07-04
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Keen (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat in the form of a Statement an Answer to an Urgent Question asked in the other place earlier today. The Statement is as follows: "We very much welcome the fact that by court approval today the Serious Fraud Office has reached a conclusion in its investigations of Serco. These historical contracts ended in 2014 and were awarded as long ago as 2004. The agreement allows the parties to draw a line under the matter. Following the successful conclusion of this process, we see no reason why Serco should not continue to be a strategic supplier to the Government and compete for government contracts We conducted an investigation of the matters raised in the agreement announced yesterday and we are content that the matters were resolved in 2013-14, when Serco reached a financial settlement of £68.5 million with the Ministry of Justice and undertook an extensive self-cleaning exercise. While we deplore the wrongdoing identified in the deferred prosecution agreement announced yesterday, we have confirmed that since 2013 Serco has thoroughly overhauled its management, governance and culture, and that these changes continue to be effective today. Serco is and will continue to be a strategic supplier to Her Majesty’s Government, working across the defence, justice, immigration, transport and health sectors".
Serco — House of Lords, 2019-07-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Keen (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Lord refers to an infatuation of this Government. I remind him that the contracts with which we are concerned go back to 2004, at a time when, at least as I recollect, there was a Government of a different complexion. It was that Government who let these contracts to Serco in 2004 and for many years thereafter The resolution of the matter between the Ministry of Justice and Serco took place in 2013-14, when there was a financial settlement of £68.5 million. As to why it took six years for the criminal matter to be concluded by DPA, that is of course a matter for the SFO, to which we lent all our assistance during the course of this very complex inquiry.
Serco — House of Lords, 2019-07-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Keen (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I will not comment upon suggested other allegations. There has been a thorough investigation by the Serious Fraud Office with regard to events between 2004 and 2014, and that has resulted in the deferred prosecution agreement, as indicated earlier. We are content that Serco, having carried out a thorough and extensive exercise in cleaning out those involved in this matter, is in a position to accept further contracts from the Government going forward, subject to the same rules and regulations that apply to other third parties. Therefore, it will continue to do so. I make no comment on G4S. It may be the subject of continuing inquiries, and it is not appropriate for me to say any more.
Serco — House of Lords, 2019-07-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Garnier (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I declare my interest as the law officer who introduced deferred prosecution agreements into our criminal justice system when I was in government, and I have also been instructed by the Serious Fraud Office on two of the deferred prosecution agreements—with Standard Bank and Rolls-Royce—since they came into force. Does today’s news and the Statement not illustrate the good sense of the deferred prosecution agreement system? It allows companies to come to terms with their wrongdoing, to compensate the victims of their wrongdoing and to pay a suitable penalty for that wrongdoing, while at the same time not causing collateral damage to the contractors, employees and pensioners of those companies who are not affected by, for example, a company being shut down. The events which caused the criminal conduct are to be much regretted, but surely the new board and management have in this case done precisely the right thing in coming to terms with the wrongdoing and making account of it to the public, and, having cleaned its debts, can now get on.
Serco — House of Lords, 2019-07-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Keen (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I entirely concur with the observations of my noble and learned friend. The underlying purpose of deferred prosecution agreements is as he has set out, and the consequences are as he has referred to. It would have been wholly inappropriate to see the jobs of many employees put in jeopardy because of the nefarious activities of some in management, who have now been removed.
Serco — House of Lords, 2019-07-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, does my noble and learned friend not accept that many of us feel that penal matters should not be in any way administered by private companies? It is about as appropriate to have a private prison as it would be to have G4S guarding Buckingham Palace. I have held that feeling all my political life. Will my noble and learned friend accept that I am not unique in that?
Serco — House of Lords, 2019-07-04
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Keen (Conservative, Centre-right): I am obliged to the noble Lord for his question. In December 2018, the Chief Executive of the Civil Service wrote to central government departments asking each to include contract audit activity as part of the implementation of their outsourcing review. As part of this programme of audits, the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence have invoked contractual audit rights on five contracts with Serco, and those audits are under way.
Serco — House of Lords, 2019-07-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Keen (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am not in a position to comment on the statistic that the noble Earl refers to. However, clearly there is an issue of violence and, indeed, of self-harm in all our prisons which we are anxious to address.
Work Capability Assessment — House of Lords, 2019-07-04
Topic: Social Welfare
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I will now repeat a Statement made earlier in another place as an Answer to an Urgent Question. The Statement is as follows: "Mr Speaker, the department holds the original commission and final report for all peer reviews of disability benefit claimants’ deaths up to 2015. All these documents are kept for six years from the date of the final report. In October 2015, we moved from conducting peer reviews to internal process reviews. This change means we hold more information, including the original commission, all emails relating to the case, the final report and any recommendations resulting from the internal process review As the House may be aware, the Welfare Reform Act 2007 committed the Secretary of State to publish an independent report on the work capability assessment each year for the first five years of its operation. In 2013 and 2014, Dr Litchfield led the fourth and fifth independent reviews of the work capability assessment. The department fully co-operated with the reviews and shared all relevant information as requested. To assist the work capability assessment independent reviews and in response to a freedom of information request, we carried out a robust search to supply all necessary information to the reviewers. The record of the documents requested by or shared with the independent reviewers no longer exists, in line with the department’s document retention policy. We take the death of any disability benefits claimant very seriously and always conduct an investigation into the circumstances where we are informed that the claimant committed suicide. As the reviews contain extremely personal information, it would not be appropriate to declare which individual cases were shared with the reviewers on this occasion".
Work Capability Assessment — House of Lords, 2019-07-04
Topic: Labor
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I refute the allegation that this is a deeply discredited system. The Department for Work and Pensions takes the death of any claimant very seriously. Where it is made aware that a person has died and it is suggested that that is associated in any way with the department’s activity, a review will be undertaken to identify any lessons that can be learned. It is important to make it very clear that in a case of suicide, a mandatory internal assessment review is undertaken. All these reports will be kept for six years from the date of the final report In October 2015, we moved from peer reviews to an internal review process, which is what I meant to call it in the first place. That process means that we hold more information, including all emails relating to the case, the original commission, the final report and any recommendations resulting from the internal process review. That relates to the death of any individual who has been in receipt of any benefit—not necessarily just the work capability assessment but any benefit at all It is important to make the point that we retain that information for six years. Some of it is highly confidential. What we do not retain for more than one year is the day-to-day business on emails which is where requests come in and out about who is asking for what information. That is in line with normal practice. We retain that information for only one year. Complex issues are involved in the decision-making for this, however, and we examine those issues with great care, also taking into account letters from the coroners’ courts. Once again, the department takes the death of any claimant seriously and always conducts an investigation into the circumstances.
Work Capability Assessment — House of Lords, 2019-07-04
Topic: Government Operations
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I cannot respond to the specific case that the noble Baroness mentioned, but I will write to her. I can only repeat what I have already said. This is not a question of keeping information from individuals. As I said in the Statement, the reviews that we carry out—84 since 2015—contain extremely personal information. It would not be appropriate to declare which individual cases were shared with the reviewers on this occasion. We instituted a change in October 2015 when we moved from peer reviews to the internal review process to ensure that we can hold more information, including all emails relating to the case, the original commission, the final report and any recommendations resulting from the internal review process. In line with the department’s document retention policy, any records of whether peer reviews and coroners’ reports since 2010 were either requested by or shared with the independent reviewers of the work capability assessment do not exist. As I said, we keep the information for six years from the date of the final report in the case of the reports and active emails—the day-to-day business of the department—for only one year I stress, however, that we take this situation and this issue very seriously. I do not accept that the department has in any way sought to withhold information for any ulterior motive. The department works hard to do the right thing. If one looked across the private and public sectors, one would see that the period for which we hold information of this kind is absolutely in line with normal practice.
Work Capability Assessment — House of Lords, 2019-07-04
Topic: Social Welfare
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my noble friend for that question because this instance relates to the work capability assessment. As I said, we carry out an independent review of any case where there has been a death by suicide. Yes, we are working hard to reassess the work capability assessments to support claimants and we will integrate the services that deliver both PIP and the WCA from 2021. We are testing the feasibility of having one assessment for people who apply for PIP and universal credit at the same time and we will test how to build better relationships with universal credit customers awaiting an assessment or in the limited capability for work group by changing how conditionality is tailored. We also want to explore whether we can improve the mandatory reconsideration process to reduce the volume of cases going to appeal. All of this of course goes towards doing everything we can to support claimants and reassure them through the process of obtaining support.
Apprenticeships — House of Lords, 2019-07-04
Topic: Labor
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, that is absolutely right. I reassure the noble Lord and the House that the levy funds have not run out, although they are now being spent at a higher rate. I also reassure the House that this is certainly being looked at in the context of the spending review. I can give no guarantees whatever but an eye is being kept on it, given the importance of the apprenticeship programme The noble Lords, Lord Layard and Lord Aberdare, who deserve answers to all the questions they raised on Tuesday, asked whether the Government would consider broadening the levy so that it funded not only apprenticeships. The levy was introduced to support the apprenticeships that we expect employers to generate, and it is important that we maintain our focus on funding high-quality training The noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Fox, said that there seemed to be no transparency in the levy review and that it was perhaps rather secretive—a point also made by others. The levy review is not a formal published consultation, but the evidence that we garner from employers will help the Government to understand the issues facing employers and build our evidence base as we make decisions on the spending review I conclude by saying that the most recent OBR analysis suggests that the picture for productivity growth, which has been an important theme today, is increasingly positive, and apprenticeships will have a vital role to play as this trend continues. There will still be challenges along the way, but we are determined to continue our work with employers, respond to their concerns and build a programme ready for the challenges ahead.