argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
National Citizen Service Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-12-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Elizabeth Barker (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for the way he introduced this amendment. When the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, spoke to this matter in Committee and on Report, he was clear that his primary concern was not financial misconduct but that wider behaviour was at the heart of this. Charity legislation has had to grapple with this very difficult matter in the past. The Minister may know that during the passage of the draft Protection of Charities Bill we had a lengthy discussion about how one puts this concern into law. I note that this amendment still sits within a clause headed "Notification of financial difficulties". Will the purport of this measure be made clear in guidance—that is, that it is not about financial matters but about safeguarding and wider issues of that nature?
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-14
Topic: Other
Donald Thomas (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I must express our gratitude to the Government for clarifying this position. I also echo the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, in saying that there was some rather neat draftsmanship involved. The officials are to be congratulated on the way that this has clarified the situation.
Local Government Finance Settlement — House of Lords, 2016-12-15
Topic: Housing
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I declare an interest in that I, too, am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I found the settlement announcement today to be extremely worrying. I think it contains a major mistake in its use of council tax, which is a property tax—and an out-of-date property tax because it needs a number of higher bands. It is being used to make up for a failure by central government to fund adult social care adequately. Despite the extra tax that can be raised, it is still inadequate because there will still be a huge gap between income and expenditure in adult social care. Secondly, councils with a lower council tax base will get less money than councils with a higher council tax base. Thirdly, the settlement will end up leading to further cuts in other services, such as more library closures and reduced levels of service in universal services such as leisure centres that are enjoyed by many local people I accept that there was a consultation on the new homes bonus, but it is nevertheless a big worry to see so much money diverted from that to help to fund adult social care. Will the Minister agree to publish the modelling done by the department on the impact of that on individual authorities? I also point out to the Minister that there is no mention in the Statement of planning fees. There is an implicit criticism of local authorities for not building quickly enough, but the constraints on staffing being produced by cuts have meant that there are simply fewer planners in post. It would help enormously if the Government would permit there to be a variation in planning fees to allow local councils to appoint more planners to recoup that cost Finally, I associate myself with what was said about business rate devolution. I am in support of 100% business rate devolution, but I am deeply worried by the impact of that on those councils that cannot grow as fast as some others. That is why the fair funding review becomes so important, because we must not end up in a position in which there is full local control of budgets but actually the income for some councils is much lower than they need to run an average level of services that residents and businesses have a right to expect.
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Temporary Class Drug) (No. 2) Order 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-12-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I have one concern, which I did not expect to have until I read the Explanatory Memorandum. This is of course the second temporary order in respect of MPA, and the memorandum tells us: "The Secretary of State has received a recommendation from the ACMD that an order should be made on the basis that this substance is a drug that is being misused"— we have heard about that— "and that the misuse is having harmful effects" However the Explanatory Memorandum goes on to report the ACMD’s, "difficulty in finding any significant data relating to harms, seizures and prevalence", of MPA since the first order. Can the Minister comment on that? I do not of course advocate the use of any drug, but if the ACMD has not been able to show evidence of harm, is there a danger that by banning this drug we might be pushing people towards harm from another drug that is used instead of it, rather than protecting them from it? It seemed an interesting pairing of comments, if you like, in the Explanatory Memorandum. Since we are talking about temporary orders, and the first temporary order has not apparently provided the opportunity to do what we would have expected it to do, it would be helpful to have a comment on that on record.
Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-12-15
Topic: Other
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I shall accept that invitation. This is not a point that I have raised before and I do not expect the Minister to have an instant answer, but I make a plea. I would not have found the guidance had I not seen a reference to the date when it was published. Even then, it took me some time to navigate the GOV.UK website to find it, by which time I did not have very much time to look at it. There seemed to be no cross-reference to the number or title of the regulations, and I think the guidance may well cover more than just these regulations. I really think that that website could do with the uninitiated doing some mystery shopping on it.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-30
Topic: Other
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for listening to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, and to the issues raised by my noble friend Lady Hamwee. She cannot be in her place today, but she has asked me to pass on her thanks for the amendments that the Government have brought forward in this group.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-30
Topic: Other
Judith Anne Jolly (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for the clarification and for the meeting. I look forward to recommendations coming out very soon, as she said. In the meantime, I am happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-30
Topic: Other
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Before the Minister sits down—and with the leave of the House, as one would normally intervene to seek clarification from the Minister—I wish to correct what she said about people on these Benches accepting the 28-day limit. That is not the case.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-30
Topic: Other
Angela Harris (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response and all noble Lords who spoke in support of the amendments. I guarantee to the Government that the exercise of this will be far more burdensome than they expect and that we will come back to this. These ideas will haunt the Government, because—
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-30
Topic: Civil Rights
Angela Harris (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it is quite all right I want to take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blair. Have the Government taken into account what will happen if the 28-day period falls over Diwali, Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, the Sabbath, Ramadan, Eid or other religious festivals? This will cause real concern as there is no flexibility to respect these dates What about medical appointments, pre-arranged holidays, job interviews, caring responsibilities, academic examinations, funerals? The list is endless. There may be a case for a breach of human rights; certainly it could cause a corrosive relationship between the police and the public because of the length of time and the lack of flexibility. I hope that the Government will look again very closely at what many noble Lords have been proposing. At this stage there does not seem much point in dividing the House, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Infrastructure Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-02-09
Topic: Energy
Peter Derek Truscott (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I speak in support of the spirit of Amendment 21. As a former Energy Minister, an investor in the hydrocarbon sector and a former non-executive director in hydrocarbon companies, I have given a great deal of thought to whether I support the development of fracking in the UK Quite apart from the environmental risks in such drilling—and, although the degree of risk can be debated, there is always a risk when drilling for hydrocarbons, particularly given that we live on such a densely populated island—I think we should look at the broader picture. What has been ignored so far is the picture of global demand and supply that we are witnessing. The Chancellor has said that we should try to emulate the success of the United States with shale oil and gas. However, what we are witnessing globally today is a supply glut. The success of shale in the United States has partly contributed to that. Perversely, we are seeing that this glut is pushing down the price of oil and gas across the world—particularly oil—and the impact of that on a number of smaller companies is that they are going to the wall. We are already seeing a decline in shale oil production in the United States and we should not forget that with shale oil we have seen quite a dramatic decline over a couple of years. So there is a dramatic fall-off in investment in the United States in shale, a fall in employment, a number of smaller companies going to the wall and all the majors have now announced that they are cutting back investment in major oil and gas projects. Therefore my fear is that we are entering a period of greater volatility as regards energy prices To a certain extent the success of shale in the United States has been quite limited, both as regards scale and duration, and we are now entering a period of quite dangerous volatility with regard to investment. Therefore, although consumers currently benefit from lower energy prices for oil and gas, that may well be short-lived. In addition, with the majors pulling back on major investment and with a number of smaller shale companies going to the wall, once the existing number of companies have cut back on production in the United States, in two to three years’ time we may well see the price of a barrel of oil go back up to $200 Therefore, if we look at the United States as a model for a number of the companies that are involved in shale—and a lot of the communities that will depend on that local investment—it appears that it is not seen as a wonderful model, so maybe it is not a model we should adopt for the UK. Shale takes a huge amount of investment to develop, and it has its environmental risks. In the UK it will take many years to go through the planning process, yet the success of shale can be relatively short-lived. In the mean time, we will have these huge peaks and troughs in the price of hydrocarbons.
Infrastructure Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-02-09
Topic: Energy
Peter Derek Truscott (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): No, because that would be a short-term benefit. We should look at the long-term planning. That is the difficult thing with shale at the moment: it is destabilising the market for oil and gas, with the majors cutting back quite dramatically. You can have shale production, but it is short term. If, for example, you invest in a major field, it can take 10 or 20 years to develop—Kashagan in Kazakhstan, for example—it needs billions of dollars of investment, and takes many years to develop, sometimes decades. Companies have to be able to plan ahead, as that gives medium to long-term relative stability to the oil price. If you are talking about shale, you are talking about a two to three-year timescale for the development of a field, which does not provide the sort of stability we are talking about Of course, we should also look at increasing investment in renewables as well. Shale is one thing you can look at, but you can also look at investing more in renewables.
Infrastructure Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-02-09
Topic: Energy
Peter Derek Truscott (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): What tends to happen is that in the United States, for example, a shale oil rig—a well—may cost $1 million to develop. You then drill in that well for a couple of years, and then you have to invest further in the next well in the same field. A number of shale oil companies in the United States at the moment face not getting the funding to invest in the next well, because it is very cash-flow intense. Therefore if you want energy security, shale oil and gas is not the way to achieve it. It is a very expensive short-term hit, and it adds to the volatility of the price of oil and gas. In a way, the success we are seeing in the United States is already unravelling. I therefore wonder whether it is worth the cost as regards the overall benefit We are also seeing the impact on businesses, both large and small, in the hydrocarbon sector. Ask any of the majors at the moment whether they are happy about where they are as regards medium to long-term planning, or go to Saudi Arabia and ask people what they think about the impact of shale oil and gas development in the United States and on the global market. You can say that they are game-playing, but nevertheless, it is destabilising. Is that the way we want to go? Is that a great success story? I am not so sure that when we look back on the development of shale in the United States it will look as successful as we all initially thought it would be. Therefore from that point of view, is what happened in the United States the right way for the United Kingdom to go? I am not so sure.
Infrastructure Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-02-09
Topic: Energy
Peter Derek Truscott (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): That is exactly the reason. The noble Lord may know that that is why some companies are going bust—today Max Petroleum, which develops oil and gas in Kazakhstan, said that it was facing insolvency because it can no longer raise the funds to develop new fields. When the price of oil is under $50 a barrel—and we are already seeing the effect on companies such as BP, which is laying off people in Aberdeen because the price of a barrel of oil makes it uneconomic to continue to develop mature fields in the North Sea—we are facing a problem, are we not?
House Committee Report — House of Lords, 2015-02-26
Topic: Government Operations
John Sewel (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, the House Committee reviewed the access and privileges available to non-sitting and former Members following the House’s agreement to the provisions for Members retiring under Section 1 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. A range of rules had developed over time and the Committee wanted to rationalise them Our report recommends that Members on leave of absence, Members who are MEPs and holders of disqualifying judicial office should no longer be provided with paper copies of parliamentary papers—they are available online—or have access to Library research facilities, but may still have access to the Library. Both provisions have a financial cost to the taxpayer, and are provided to support Member participation in the proceedings of the House. We also recommend that Members in those categories should have the same access to catering facilities as retired Members Finally, access privileges for the spouses and civil partners of Members in those categories—that is, Members on leave of absence, MEPs and holders of disqualifying judicial office—would no longer be extended, although they could of course still attend as guests. The spouses and civil partners of Members in those categories could also still obviously make use of the facilities of the House as guests If agreed today, these changes would take effect from the start of the new Parliament and the Clerk of the Parliaments would ensure that affected Members were aware of the new arrangements. I beg to move.
Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill — House of Lords, 2015-01-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Manzila Pola Uddin (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): Does the Minister agree that social services’ statutory guidance on responding to child sexual abuse or exploitation has evolved over decades, and that, even then, there has been malpractice or things that have gone drastically wrong and we have not always been able to protect children? How does the Minister envisage this new phenomenon of identifying those who may give some indication of predisposal to radicalisation? How does guidance take on board the identification of someone in a nursery or a school? If somebody said, "Actually, I hate Muslims", is that person prone to radicalisation? If they were to say, "I hate Christians", is that being prone to radicalisation? At what point is an investigation triggered? I speak as a former social worker in a child protection office. I know the trigger mechanism when someone is said to be vulnerable and what happens: a whole series—a whole plethora—of professionals are called in. We know that that is not an established practice at the moment, so how does he envisage managing this?
Deregulation Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-05
Topic: Technology
Margaret Ford (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I also rise to support the amendment, and in so doing declare a very particular interest as chairman of a public service broadcaster, STV. We are on Report and had a very full debate on this issue in Committee where, as the noble Lord, Lord Black, said, there was very little between any of us in understanding and appreciating the issues in front of us. I do not think there is any issue with saying that the original legislation is very out of date. It is not just the pay TV platforms that are benefiting from this; every day, new online content creators and online aggregators also benefit hugely from public service investment in all this. There is no doubt or dispute that the regulations are massively out of date, and the debate on the iniquitous nature of the investment in public service broadcasting has been very well rehearsed. My concern really is that the Government have a complete open goal here and have had it for quite some time. The Deregulation Bill, as we said in Committee, is a perfect vehicle for dealing with this as removing "unnecessary and outdated regulation" is exactly what it was set up to do. This is outdated and unnecessary regulation. However, the Government have chosen to go down the route of a consultation instead of taking the open goal in front of them. This consultation has now been very widely trailed over many months. At the Royal Television Society conference in early September, the Secretary of State said that now is the time to reconsider all the regulation around broadcasting. He signalled very strongly to the audience that day that the consultation was pretty imminent. That was September. We have managed to have a consultation—the Smith commission—on new powers for Scotland. We have managed to negotiate all that in that time, yet we have not managed to even get out of the blocks on a consultation on deregulation of this section. It is pathetic, quite frankly The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is excellent. It is simply belt and braces. There is no reason why the Government cannot accept it. But if for some reason the Minister is going to tell us that he cannot accept it and that there are sensible reasons for that, I would really like the House and the whole industry to hear, on the record, the timescale for this, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said, there is a strong whiff of kicking this into the long grass The question of the general election is a complete red herring. This ought not to be a party-political matter. Losing hundreds of millions of pounds of income out of this country every single year instead of retaining that investment in the country and reinvesting it into the creative industries ought not to be an issue between any of the political parties. It should be a no-brainer. I do not understand why the general election should even be a feature in thinking about the timescale for this. I would really like the Minister to give us some very clear assurances about the Government’s intention and the timescale that they are going to adopt here.
Privileges and Conduct Committee — House of Lords, 2015-03-24
Topic: Government Operations
John Sewel (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. The third report from the Committee for Privileges and Conduct recommends various amendments to the Code of Conduct and the guide to the code, and one other change. If these amendments are agreed, the code and the guide will be republished for the new Parliament The first proposal is to allow the Committee for Privileges and Conduct to consider the suitability of a sanction recommended by the Sub-Committee on Lords’ Conduct in the absence of an appeal by the Member who has been found in breach of the code. Should the committee decide that a recommended sanction requires further consideration, it will give the Member concerned the opportunity to make representations before deciding whether to alter the sanction The second proposal is for this House to follow the House of Commons practice of keeping all terminated interests in the Register of Lords’ Interests for one year after the Member gives them up. At the moment, hospitality and gifts remain in the register for a year, but other interests are deleted as soon as they are given up The third proposal is that the Registrar of Lords’ Interests should no longer send an annual reminder to Members inviting them to check and update their entry in the Register of Lords’ Interests. This practice is potentially confusing as it might be taken to imply that Members have to revise their entries only once a year, whereas the code requires the register to be amended within one month of a change in a Member’s interests. Instead of the annual reminder there will be regular reminders through other means The fourth proposal clarifies the definition of a personal client as it is used in relation to the provision of public affairs advice in paragraph 57 of the guide The fifth proposal is that the requirement to register interests should apply to Members whose leave of absence lapses at the end of a Parliament from the date that they take the oath in the new Parliament. The committee also recommends that the Code of Conduct for Staff of Members of the House of Lords should apply to Members’ staff with a parliamentary email account but no photo-pass. Finally, the report recommends that the Committee for Privileges and Conduct should have the power to respond to requests to redact personal details given in written evidence to a defunct Select Committee, such as an ad hoc committee that has been disbanded. I beg to move.