argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-08
Topic: Immigration
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, we do not believe that Clause 69 should stand part of the Bill. The clause allows visa penalties to be imposed on a country if the Home Secretary thinks—forms an opinion—that the country is not co-operating in relation to the return to the country from the United Kingdom of any of its nationals who require leave to enter or remain The penalties include not granting entry clearance to the UK to the country’s nationals, suspending entry clearance, requiring any application to be considered invalid, or to require the applicant to pay £190 in addition to the normal fee. Can the Minister explain how the Government arrived at £190? As the noble Baroness has just said, why should the ordinary citizens of a particular country be penalised for the actions of their Government, either by fining them or refusing them entry to the UK? What consultation has there been—and will there be—with the Foreign Office about the wider diplomatic picture concerning relations with countries that the Home Secretary intends to target with these measures I cannot imagine the Foreign Office being too impressed with a vengeful Home Secretary upsetting the diplomatic apple cart because she cannot have her way on deporting foreign nationals. A decade ago, there was no need for such measures. Why is there a need for them now? As Amendment 151B suggests, while the Home Secretary is making peace with the Foreign Office, perhaps she could ask it not to trespass on her territory by making trade agreements that include granting visa-free entry to the UK as part of the deal. I too agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Building Safety Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-26
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robert Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, as the person who has just had his name mentioned, I will start my very brief contribution by saying that there will be noble Lords who have a lot of criticism of what has come back from the Commons, but I am not one of them in respect of Amendment 6A. I am very pleased to see that the Government have responded well to the views that were very strongly expressed by Members of your Lordships’ House on all sides on the importance of tackling these issues. The Minister has come back with an amendment that is longer than the one that we tabled, and he has come back with a period of time that is longer than the one that we suggested. I am delighted with the first, which shows that he has better drafters than I had at my disposal, but I am not so happy about the three years However, it is going to be a major step forward if we get these issues of fire suppression, stairways and ramps, electrical equipment and safety, and provision for people with disabilities properly examined and costed, with the regulations coming in front of the House and in front of the Secretary of State. Even if it takes three years, it will be a significant step forward, and I am very pleased indeed to see that it is included in this Bill.
Building Safety Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-26
Topic: Housing
Kathryn Pinnock (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this is a shattering defeat for those doughty and determined campaigners who have made the case for justice for all leaseholders. I say to them that we on these Benches are on their side. They have right on their side. Unfortunately, the headline from the Government that it was morally wrong for any leaseholder to pay for the wrongs of others in the building safety scandal was a headline only, and a cynical attempt to win over more than half of the campaigners so that the rest get left to pay the bills that will come their way. I am sure that many of them will feel betrayed by the Government acting in that way As was pointed out earlier, it was easy to say that no one should pay. If not many are going to pay, why not encompass them all? No one should pay. We on these and the Labour Benches, with the support of Cross-Benchers and others, have tried to force a change—a rethink. Unfortunately, that has been lost tonight, but it will not be the last we hear of this. I will continue to fight, but for now I shall not move the Motion.
Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-26
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sarah Virginia Brinton (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton. I start by thanking the Minister for the large number of meetings during the passage of this Bill in the Lords—with some exceptions, but I will return to those shortly. It has been, for the most part, a very constructive engagement that has taken a considerable amount of the Minister’s and his officials’ time. I believe that the constructive nature of the discussions means that this Bill will leave your Lordships’ House in a better state, and more workable in practice, than when it arrived I will speak on Motions C, D and D1 and will leave Motions A, A1 and B to my noble friend Lady Walmsley. I pay particular tribute to her for her dedicated work on the Front Bench, which I have been unable to fulfil because of the strict rules relating to remote contributions On Motion C on modern slavery, I particularly thank Ministers for listening to the concerns across all parties in both Houses. Motion C addresses many of the concerns that there were about the willingness of the Government to carry out a review in order to better understand the risk of slavery, human trafficking and modern slavery in the NHS supply chain. It is, of course, only a first step. Eradication of slavery and human trafficking in health service supply chains must remain the key objective, but this will give the Government the tools they need. The publication arrangements will be transparent, and Parliament will have a chance to scrutinise it. For these reasons, these Benches will not oppose Motion C I turn now to Motions D and D1 on the social care cap. I start by thanking the Minister for his letter—received this afternoon—addressed to the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, and copied to myself and others who have attended meetings with him on the social care cap, which provided more detail on the trailblazer programme. By the way, in any other environment they would be called "pilots", but there we go. I am struggling to see what is new about the trailblazer programme in that letter, other than one extraordinary sentence which says: "I would be happy to arrange a further meeting with you and the policy team if you would like to discuss this in more depth".
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-26
Topic: Civil Rights
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, for all the reasons explained by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, we support Motions A1 and B2 on the noise trigger. Specifically, asking the police to anticipate what noise levels a protest that has yet to take place might result in is likely to bring the police into unnecessary and avoidable conflict with the public, further undermining the trust and confidence that the police rely on to be effective. The more popular the protest, the more likely it is to be noisy and the more likely it is to be banned I cannot play the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, at his own game, but he did ask me a specific question about the rank of officer who should be judging whether a protest is too noisy. Perhaps an additional condition should be for that officer to have a hearing test, because we cannot possibly have hearing-impaired senior officers making such important judgments On Motions B and B1, we insist on the amendment passed by this House the last time this issue was considered. That amendment allows the police to impose conditions on the start and end time of an assembly, meeting or political rally, in addition to the existing powers they have to set or move where the assembly takes place and to limit the numbers attending and its duration, but not to ban an assembly, meeting or political rally completely. In particular, Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights states that everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others Of course, it may be necessary, in exceptional circumstances, to place restrictions on this right, and existing legislation and Motion B1 allow that, but when it comes to taking away the right to freedom of peaceful assembly completely, by allowing the police to ban people meeting together, we agree with the then Conservative Home Secretary in the other place when the original legislation was passed that that would be an excessive limit on the right of assembly and freedom of speech. Allowing the police to prevent people peacefully meeting together—to ban political rallies, for example—surely puts us on the slippery slope of the erosion of fundamental human rights and the imposition of a police state. I ask noble Lords to support Motion B1.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-26
Topic: Other
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Leave out from "House" to end and insert "do insist on its Amendment 80, do insist on its disagreement with the Commons in their Amendments 80A, 80B, 80C, 80D, 80E, 80F and 80H to the words restored to the Bill by their disagreement with that Amendment, do insist on its Amendment 80J instead of the words left out of the Bill by that Amendment and do disagree with the Commons in their Amendment 80K to the words restored to the Bill by their disagreement with Lords Amendment 80."
Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Immigration
Meral Hussein-Ece (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, there seems to be a lack of transparency about the whole scheme. I ask the Minister, who knows I have enormous respect for her: what criteria were used to select those asylum seekers to be deported to Rwanda? It has been reported that it is quite random and not based on their circumstances, such as their having been trafficked. The Government and the Minister have emphasised that they want to stop trafficking, so what sense does it make to deport someone who has suffered trafficking and is a victim My second question is about how we learned that Britain has agreed to take refugees from Rwanda under the scheme Priti Patel signed up to. What details can the Minister give us about this? How many will be coming here? It seems to be a reciprocal scheme. If Rwanda is such a safe and secure country, why are we taking refugees from Rwanda?
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Other
Dominic Hubbard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will just follow up on that. It would be helpful if we could get some clarity on what else is coming through, if not that process. It is not the Minister’s fault, but she was given a car crash to drive, and we have now got to where we are. Can we please have a little more consultation about the new form of this Bill?
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sarah Virginia Brinton (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in this short debate. Before I respond on Amendment 88, I want to offer my support to the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, for his Amendment 171E, which would require Ofsted to ensure that schools take account of the public sector equality duty to tackle discrimination, promote equality and assess extracurricular activities at the school. It may seem obvious but, at the moment, there seems to be some confusion about that duty and various parts of our public sector; it is good to see the amendment there I am grateful for my noble friend Lord Addington’s helpful comments, further to mine, on Amendment 88 and how essential it is to ring-fence mental health funding to ensure that education staff are effectively trained, as well as being supported by CAMHS The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, talked about some excellent initiatives, such as Place2Be. She echoed my concerns about the patchy nature of CAMHS provision and how long severely affected children can wait. Just last week, I heard of a family friend with a daughter who shows clear signs of serious clinical mental health problems. However, the queues at their local CAMHS are such that they have been told that she will be seen only if she is suicidal. She is eight. That is just too late. It also places unacceptable pressure on a little girl, her family and her school. I recognise that this is an NHS problem—I applaud the Government for trying to join some of this up—but it is why we must have some ring-fenced funds: to make sure that the school side of this, the mental health partnership, will actually work.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-07-18
Topic: Other
Dominic Hubbard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the Minister has done what in rugby they say happens to good players: they catch the bad ball. You catch the attention of the entire team and you get flattened, but the good players get up. I hope the Minister will be able to get up and report back that—and I have made this point to her many times—unless we have a realistic amount of time and structure within which to discuss the changes, we are not doing our job. It is as simple as that I would be slightly more flexible about having a whole new Committee stage, but only one day has been suggested. I asked the Minister at the time whether that meant one day of business that might be extended to three or four—we might have a better reading if we had that—but a process that would be effectively guillotined, or at least very condensed, fills me with nothing but dread. We have to make sure that we have enough time to discuss the changes, and if that meant another process coming through, I would be quite flexible and would encourage my noble friends to do the same. But one day of Committee, with 12, 20 or who knows how many more new clauses and a structure that we have not heard of yet—come on, that is not on.
Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-07-06
Topic: Civil Rights
Alison Suttie (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I echo many of the points just made by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy. I also repeat the comment that many of us made in Committee: it is with regret that we are debating this Bill at all. It should be debated in Northern Ireland by the Northern Ireland Assembly. Having said that, we broadly support the Bill, but we tabled these amendments in Committee and have tabled them again here to probe the Minister further. Having reread the debate from when we discussed similar amendments in Committee on the definition of public authorities, I do not believe that the Minister gave a substantial explanation of why the Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission were not explicitly included under the Bill. It seems, to me at least, that both bodies would have a substantial role to play in these matters. Like the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, I ask the Minister to give an explanation in his concluding remarks for why they were not covered in this legislation.
Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-07-06
Topic: Civil Rights
Alison Suttie (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, on Monday I had an extremely useful meeting with Ian Crozier of the Ulster-Scots Agency. Although I cannot support these amendments, they do raise some very important points, as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, just said The Bill as drafted places a duty on public authorities to have "due regard" to the Irish language commissioner, as has been discussed, but creates no such duty in respect of the commissioner responsible for Ulster Scots and the Ulster-British tradition. This is therefore causing some lack of trust and some concern. This difference of approach was not specifically set out in New Decade, New Approach, which suggested that both commissioners should be treated the same way on this point. Will the Minister respond to the fears that have been expressed in the debate and, indeed, by the Ulster-Scots Agency that treating the two commissioners differently through this legislation risks undermining the credibility of one of the commissioners? Like the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, did, I ask whether the Minister has already met the Ulster-Scots Agency. If not, will he do so and listen directly first-hand to its very real concerns?
Women’s Rights to Reproductive Healthcare: United States — House of Lords, 2022-06-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Elizabeth Barker (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the United States and the United Kingdom are recognised as global leaders in maternal healthcare and fully inclusive reproductive rights. Last year, the Government cut their pledge to the UN Population Fund by 85%. Given that an incoming US Government might reinstate a global gag at any time, could this Government pledge to reinstate some of that funding Secondly, could we strike a completely different note—one that sympathises with, rather than criminalises, women in desperate need of fully inclusive reproductive healthcare—and decriminalise abortion in this country?
Women’s Health Strategy for England — House of Lords, 2022-07-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Floella Benjamin (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Government for this important announcement. I particularly welcome the aim to introduce a voluntary certificate of loss scheme to parents who have suffered a miscarriage or stillbirth before 24 weeks of pregnancy. I have a Private Member’s Bill in the House asking for this provision, so I declare an interest. This will provide comfort to millions who have experienced this type of loss, and I congratulate the charity Saying Goodbye on its work on this over the last eight years. When will the scheme be implemented? Who will administer it?
Sewage Disposal in Rivers and Coastal Waters — House of Lords, 2022-07-07
Topic: Public Lands
Sarah Ludford (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I am grateful to the Minister and sorry that I missed the first minute of his response. Following the theme of my speech, can I ask that another term be used instead of "storm overflows"? It is the biggest excuse that the water companies rely on. It sounds like, "It’s an act of God; it’s a storm; we couldn’t have anticipated this". If another term could be found it would help to shift the debate.
Australia Free Trade Agreement — House of Lords, 2022-07-11
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): The Minister will know that the Liaison Committee in the House of Commons has written formally to request an extension of the scrutiny period. Have the Government responded to that, and what is their position with regard to the concern in the Commons that the Secretary of State has not met the committee to respond to the very questions that we have raised in this debate today?
Post Office: Horizon Compensation — House of Lords, 2022-06-30
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jennifer Elizabeth Randerson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for his commitment on this issue and for his Statement today. As he knows, when I was first involved in this, as a Member of the Welsh Assembly in the early 2000s, even then it was obvious that there was something very seriously wrong. In a crowded room in a pub, with so many people, and their families, who had been regarded as pillars of the community—the sort of people who went to look for pensioners who had not come to collect their pension to check that they were all right—I was being asked by the Post Office to believe that those people had taken its money. That definitely jarred with me at the time The big questions are these. How has this been allowed to take so long? How was it covered up for so long? What will happen to those people within the Post Office and Fujitsu who knew that they were covering up problems? I realise that there will have been people who were doing so without realising that they were involved in a cover-up, but there were many who knew. We must also consider the impact on the Post Office as an institution, which had previously been one of the most trusted British institutions The Minister has already addressed some of my questions, but I have a few questions on today’s Statement. First, I welcome the interim payments that are announced, but the amount of money sounds relatively modest given the time it has taken to get to this place. They are interim payments, but can the Minister tell us how many people the £19.5 million will be going to, so that we can get some measure of how much they will receive in the interim? The Statement refers to postmasters being contacted in the coming weeks and so on. Can the Minister give us a target date by which he hopes the interim payments will be made? We have had so much delay here. Finally, because I realise that time is short, 75 convictions have been overturned. Are there more in the process at the moment? Does the Minister expect there to be other overturned convictions What will the Government do about payments for those who have already died? As this process has taken more than two decades, many of the people involved in this process are now very elderly, and some of those who have died did so as a result of suicide because of the situation in which they were placed. What plans do the Government have to compensate the families of those who died and the families that stumped up large amounts of money to avoid their relatives going bankrupt as a result of misplaced allegations?
Human Rights Act 1998 — House of Lords, 2022-07-14
Topic: Civil Rights
Donald Thomas (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): To what would the Minister ascribe this lack of public confidence? Is it the sayings of the Lord Chancellor, or of Suella Braverman? Why is there a lack of public confidence in human rights in this country?
Human Rights Act 1998 — House of Lords, 2022-07-14
Topic: Civil Rights
Sarah Ludford (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): In further testing the patience of the Minister, and no doubt the House, does he really think that the constant repetition over decades of certain politicians and sections of the press that it was only undesirable people who were getting the benefit of human rights law—criminals and whoever—has had no effect whatever? That and the lack of civic education in schools about the benefits of the Human Rights Act has helped us arrive at this situation. Perhaps there is only a slight silver lining to the pandemic, which otherwise, obviously, has been horrible: that while not being able to visit their relatives in care homes, some people might have realised or had perhaps a glimmer of understanding of the relevance of human rights to protect family life, the right to life and all those other issues.