argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Kenneth Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, what the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, said is totally correct. Y Wladfa, the Welsh community in Chubut, rather benefited from the Falklands War, because the Argentine Government were rather anxious to show that they were solicitous of the needs of cultural minorities in their country. I feel, on behalf of Welsh historians everywhere, that I should support this. I have not been to Chubut, as the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, has, but I have taught Chubut students in Swansea. I twice published articles by historians from that community in the Welsh History Review when I edited it. They have a very living contact; it is not an antiquarian matter. All Welsh people should strongly support it.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Anita Gale (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, by now, after the contributions that have been made, the Minister will be quite clear that there is a need to consolidate the Welsh Acts of Parliament. We believe that the Wales Bill would be appropriate and without doubt could consolidate matters so that the Welsh constitution is accessible as a single piece of legislation The Bill as it stands constantly refers to or amends many previous pieces of legislation, in particular the Government of Wales Act 2006. As such, reading and understanding where power lies in relation to Wales can be needlessly complicated. As noble Lords have said, we should therefore aim to bring as much clarity as possible to what could be a landmark piece of legislation So far, however, the UK Government do not seem to want to consolidate the Welsh devolution settlement into one authoritative piece of legislation. I believe they have said—perhaps the Minister can confirm this—that it is "not necessary", because the constitutional settlement for Wales is in the Government of Wales Act 2006. We should strive for more than what is just necessary; rather, we should aim to produce a Bill that all of us in Wales will be proud of The Welsh Government have already drafted an alternative Wales Bill, drawing together many pieces of legislation into one self-contained whole. In that sense, the hard work has been done. Could the UK Government not simply follow the approach of the Welsh Government, and what I believe is the wish of noble Lords tonight? This would be an opportunity for us to forge clear, accessible and ambitious legislation. I am sure that the Minister has been listening to what all noble Lords have said, and I hope that he will come forward with some positive responses.
National Funding Formulae for Schools and High Needs — House of Lords, 2016-12-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Josephine Farrington (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, can the Minister be a little more specific about special and higher needs? Many years ago, Baroness Warnock identified that 20% of children have special needs, of whom only about 2% have needs severe enough for statementing. I go back to the question from my noble friend about the funding formula for young children. The Government are to be commended for extending childcare, but no one will support moving children with special needs not at statementing level, who are currently educated properly in infant and nursery schools by qualified teachers. We need an assurance that finance for this group of children will be protected. These children form a large percentage of those who fail to achieve later in their school careers because their special needs have not been identified and met.
National Citizen Service Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-12-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Janet Royall (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too am grateful to the Minister for tabling this amendment, which I fully support. I was also very grateful to him for agreeing on Report to amend the charter. It would have been helpful to see the draft charter with the amendments in it, and I hope it will be published soon. When will the charter be amended and published? Will the noble Lord be able to make an announcement about the review regarding a year of service? It was going to be "in due course", "soon", "imminent" and "very imminent", and I wonder if it will be today.
National Citizen Service Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-12-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I just want to pick up on the point that has just been made—the unfortunate elision of financial difficulties with the broader issue raised by the amendment. I am sure that it is not something that we need to trouble with today. The Minister and I discovered that the wording in bold black type in Bills of this nature is not subject to amendment but it can be changed by the Government simply issuing instructions to the draftsman. Perhaps that can be arranged at some point in the magic that goes on behind the scenes, as I think that would remove the difficulty here.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-14
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Morris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I want to add one word to what the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, has just said. I very much welcome what he has told us about the intentions of the Assembly, through its Counsel General, to consolidate the laws of Wales as they emerge. I raised this point earlier in the passage of the Bill. I was a consumer once, as a practitioner. Consumers generally, whether lawyers in Cardiff, Swansea, Caernarfon, London or elsewhere, want easy access to the law of Wales as it emerges from Cardiff; otherwise, they could be sued for being negligent in the advice they give. I welcome it very much and I am grateful to the noble Lord for telling us of those intentions.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Kenneth Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I think this is an occasion on which we should not speak for more than a minute and a half, and that is my intention. I support the Government’s amendment, and I thank the Minister for his consideration, but I make it clear that I regard it as an interim statement—something that will not stand the test of time. As Welsh law develops, the case for a Welsh jurisdiction will become overwhelming. There is an old Welsh song that asks, "Who will be here in a hundred years’ time?"—"Pwy fydd yma mewn can mlynedd?"—and perhaps that is the view that one should take At the moment we have a Bill that gives the Assembly reserved powers. The legislative competence of the Assembly is growing, yet we have two different legislatures passing laws for the same small territory. That is a situation unique in the UK and in Europe, and it seems bound to result in confusion and perhaps, in due course, conflict The idea of a distinct Welsh jurisdiction is supported by the legal professions in Wales. University law departments see Wales as lacking a legal identity, which actually it had for 300 years after Henry VIII’s Act of Union, so we have to catch up with Henry VIII. The idea is supported strongly by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd; his wording is careful but he has said that it is perfectly possible to have a single justice system with two separate jurisdictions within it. Similar views were expressed by the great Lord Bingham in his work The Rule of Law So this is a well-meant interim settlement, a stopgap, that will not last. There is a void in the devolution settlement and eventually we will need a permanent principal settlement, both for the sake of devolution in Wales and, frankly, for the sake of the union of the UK.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Kenneth Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I very strongly agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has just said. To leave these matters uncertain and vague, and potentially as, yet again, a source of future bitter conflict, is quite contrary to what the Minister is doing in the Bill Two points occur to me. First, it seems that giving the Assembly authority over water is fully consonant with what we are doing in the rest of the Bill—that is, strengthening the regulatory powers of the Assembly over the natural resources of Wales. Secondly, and perhaps more fundamentally, we are—perhaps unintentionally —bypassing this enormous emotive issue in Wales. I would like it to be felt and seen by the citizens of Wales, who are not always clear on the point, that devolution is making a difference. I would like it to be felt that devolution means that there will be no more Tryweryns in Wales and no more treating with contempt the small rural communities for the benefit of others. I expect the Minister to listen with sympathy and I hope very much that the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, will be supported.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-14
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Leslie John Griffiths (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will intervene for a short moment, with real apologies for not having been here at earlier stages in these discussions—I fear that I have duties that do not make it possible to be here all that often. I take the definition of the £10 bank very seriously to heart, but that is not the issue for me. I congratulate the Government and the Minister on recognising that there is a problem and bringing forward a government amendment that reflects that. The curious paradox for me is that having recognised there is a problem, on the basis of fixed-odds betting machines as they currently exist, the one area that devolved responsibility does not address is the very part of the problem that creates the discussion in the first place. To have an amendment that provides powers for the Welsh Assembly to look after what happens in the future, when the problem that has generated the debate cannot yield a similar level of control, seems to me a curious paradox. So while thanking the noble and genial Lord the Minister, who has handled things so magnificently in these debates, I just urge him to think about something that is paradoxical but could be tidied up. If retrospective responsibility could be introduced, that would make it a much better amendment from the Government.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-14
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Alan Thomas Howarth (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, my noble friend Lord Griffiths of Burry Port is rather charitable, indeed flattering, to the Government in referring to their creation of a paradox. I would say that this is simply confused and bad policy-making and endorse what my noble friend Lady Morgan of Ely said at the outset. First, it is not a good way to treat the House for the Government to insist on mixing up, in one group, amendments on this variety of topics—energy, the Crown Estate and gambling. This is not a basis for rational scrutiny of legislation and it should not have happened I want to dwell on the gambling issue for only a moment, as much more important is the confusion in the handling of it. To make this distinction between different sizes of bank or stake—I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord James, for his elucidation of the issue—and to attempt to make a distinction between responsibility for supervision of machines that are already in Wales and for machines that may in future be in Wales is to fragment responsibility. If the Government are going to devolve responsibility for a very important social issue, they should devolve it properly and produce a coherent solution. Fragmenting responsibility can only make for confused and ineffective policy-making. This issue matters far too much to Welsh society, and in particular to the prospects for significant numbers of young people in Wales, and we need a coherent and proper policy for it.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-14
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Mair Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): Before the Minister sits down, I should like to be clear on this point. The suggestion is that there will be no possibility for the Welsh Government to look at fixed-odds betting terminals that currently exist, despite there being this incredible social problem in Wales. If the UK Government will not allow the Welsh Government to deal with this, do they have any intention of bringing forward something that would address this issue, which is devastating communities not just in Wales but across the UK?
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in supporting my noble friend Lady Morgan’s excellent speech, I make one brief point. The Welsh Government are not seeking to have their civil servants run the rail franchise—I do not believe anybody thinks that that would be a good idea—but to configure the right package for Wales. We can take the example of Welsh Water. To be precise on this and, I hope, not pedantic, Welsh Water is a not-for-dividend company. It is not a not-for-profit company. It has to make profits to invest. Any entity taking over the Wales rail franchise would have to do the same. But Welsh Water is run much more efficiently than privatised water companies in England because it can raise its capital at a far cheaper rate on the market than private companies—noble Lords can look at the figures—because it does not have to satisfy the shareholders’ speculative roundabouts. The amendment would give the Welsh Government the opportunity to invite bids of that kind Finally, if the Minister is serious about his support for devolution to Wales, why does he not respond to the Welsh Government’s specific request to have this amendment carried into statute?
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-14
Topic: Other
Mair Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): Before the Minister sits down, I thank him for the suggestion that there will effectively be some kind of early warning system. But he suggested that it would allow the Assembly to act appropriately. What does he mean by that? What would the Assembly acting appropriately mean?
Brexit: UK-EU Relationship — House of Lords, 2016-12-01
Topic: Mixed Topics
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Liddle for giving us the opportunity to have this debate. I thank him most warmly for the passionate conviction and hard-headed analysis with which he introduced it I think that all of us, if we are honest, know that one of the problems with the referendum was that it was not about the European Union but about a lot of alienated and disenchanted people who are bewildered and frightened by the challenges of globalisation and do not see how they fit into the pattern. We shall have to go on working very hard indeed at tackling that perception in this country because we failed as a political community to bring home the reality that we are inescapably locked into an international community in terms of climate change, terrorism, crime, trade and culture. Those issues are all interdependent across the world. History will judge us by our success in mastering the governance of those realities. But at the same time people feel personally less and less significant and they feel left out. If we are really to learn lessons from the predicament we are in, the challenge we all face is how we enable people to rediscover a sense of identity and significance within our society, and lead them in that context to an understanding of the realities of an international community. For example, we will not be able to solve the problems of climate change on our own. We shall, of course, have to continue to co-operate with the Germans, the French and the Americans—that is absolutely clear. The same goes for terrorism and international crime. As has been well argued, the same also goes for the economy There is one other issue which I want to discuss briefly in the time available. At the time of the Maastricht treaty something very significant happened for people living in the European Union—they acquired European citizenship. Going back to my school days, when I studied ancient Rome, I learned that citizenship is a very serious concept. People will in effect be stripped of their citizenship and will wake up to the implications of that only when it has happened. That is why, in my view, it is important to insist that we reach an understanding with others in the European Union on citizenship, and all that flows from that, before we activate Article 50, because after we activate that article this will be just another issue for negotiation. However, it is not just another issue. Thousands of British people across Europe and thousands of people in this country have in good faith built a future for their families and their relatives, their home and their work—everything—on the understanding that they were European citizens who had the rights of European citizenship. That is no small matter—we are taking all that away. We ought to be absolutely clear, before Article 50 is activated, how we will replace what has been taken from the people.
Brexit: UK-EU Relationship — House of Lords, 2016-12-01
Topic: Other
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I want to speak briefly in the gap to say that this debate has been, in time, allocated to the Labour Benches. We have sponsored the debate. When we were deciding which debate should take place we wondered whether we should take the full five hours, but we thought we would not have sufficient speakers. We have had 31 speakers altogether, at four minutes apiece. It is utterly inadequate. People such as myself decided not to intervene because we felt we simply did not have time to make our case. I appeal to the Government to allocate some of their time so we can have a proper, longer debate where people will at least have time to make their fuller cases.
Local Government Finance Settlement — House of Lords, 2016-12-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I declare an interest as a county councillor in Cumbria and someone who is not a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Perhaps I may express my sympathy for the Minister in having to come before us with such a pathetic Statement. Does he not recognise that the fundamental problem the Government are facing is that they cannot meet the expectations of the public for decent schools, decent health and decent social care on the financial perspective they have set out of reducing public spending to 36% of GDP by 2020? We have to fundamentally reconsider that objective Will the Minister give us some indication that there might be just a little bit of joined-up thinking in the Government and assure us that this extra social care fund which is being provided will be directed at those parts of the country where the NHS is suffering from severe bed-blocking problems, as is the case in my own county of Cumbria? These issues are really threatening the provision of decent healthcare in our area Thirdly, I want to make a point that no one else has made. The Statement contains a threat to the most local of local democracies; I am talking about parish and town councils. In my experience—there is a town council in Wigton in the area I represent in Cumbria—they do not have big budgets, but they are trying to use money to make up for community grants for helping swimming pools and local leisure facilities that have inevitably been cut back by county and district councils as a result of the scale of the cuts in grant that the Government have implemented. To try to restrict their freedom of action is, frankly, petty.
Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-12-15
Topic: Immigration
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): That this House regrets that the Government have laid the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 with insufficient explanatory material to allow the House to gain a clear understanding of the instrument’s policy objective or intended implementation; that they have not provided the House with key guidelines needed to direct how provisions are to be interpreted; and that there has been no prior consultation for a significant change in practice for courts and tribunals considering the restriction of freedom of movement. (SI 2016/1052) 14th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-12-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for her reply and for being willing to respond to the points that I have raised by writing subsequently. I thank her too for her comments about the relationship between the Home Office and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Perhaps I may make it clear that I was not put up here by the committee to say that perhaps there might be a meeting or at least some method of talking things through, so I hope that I have not put my foot in it on behalf of the committee and that its members would welcome such a meeting, just as the Minister would Again, I thank the noble Baroness. I have attempted to put across the concerns of the committee, which I have to say that I agree with, and I am grateful to her for her response. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Arrangement of Business — House of Lords, 2016-11-30
Topic: Other
Bruce Joseph Grocott (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I apologise to the Government Chief Whip for not giving him advance notice of this question, and I do not need an immediate reply, but what consultation has there been with the Commons to marry, so far as is possible, the recesses of the two Houses? He will recall that, in the most recent recess, we had what to me, at any rate, seemed a most absurd situation where we sat on the Wednesday when the Commons did not and they came back on the following Monday when we were still in recess. A bigger brain than mine may have worked out that that is the best way of doing things, but it is not immediately apparent, and it is for the convenience of both Houses if, as far as possible, the recess dates of the two Houses marry with one another.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-30
Topic: Other
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): I take it that the noble Baroness is going to write, and I am very grateful to her for saying that, if necessary, that means we could come back to this issue on Third Reading. I also ask, genuinely for clarification, and I am sorry I did not pick up the Minister’s response on Amendments 12, 14 and 18 first time, but on Amendment 12, which sets out a number of requirements relating to consultation over what documents should be published and why the benefits could not be achieved through other forms of collaboration, did I hear correctly the Minister say that those requirements would be included in guidance? I do not know whether that will be guidance or regulations.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-30
Topic: Other
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): As I understood it, the Minister did not extend that to the items I covered in Amendments 14 and 18. I am seeking to clarify, not to pursue the argument again, that that statement of what would be covered in guidance relates to what I have in Amendment 12. As I understood what the Minister said, that did not extend to Amendments 14 and 18. I am simply trying to clarify what was said.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-30
Topic: Other
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): So there is an issue of a period over which consultation shall last. The other matters will be covered in guidance. Is that guidance that will go through this House in the form of regulations, or is this guidance that we will not see until it is published?
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-30
Topic: Other
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): That is a helpful response and I take it in the spirit in which it was said. I hope that the Minister will accept, bearing in mind that she has indicated—I do not want to make things difficult—that it appears to apply to Amendments 12 and 14. To put it bluntly, if that does not prove to be the case we can come back at Third Reading.