argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-15
Topic: Civil Rights
Ruth Deech (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am puzzled by some of the issues that have been raised by this amendment. First, only a year or two ago, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, then president, called for Parliament to tell our judges clearly how rulings of the CJEU are to be dealt with after Brexit. Apparently our noble and learned friend did not see any difficulty about that Secondly, to tell courts that they are not bound by something does not mean that they will not follow it. If they are not bound, they may well still choose to follow it if they think it is good law. There are indeed many instances where the Court of Justice of the European Union has not produced good law: for example, over the secret nature of MEPs' expenses, on genetically modified crops and on diplomatic immunity. This is not surprising, because it is a court very unlike our own type of court. Its judges are nominated by sending countries for six years—they have only a six-year tenure. They have enormous salaries and expenses, and I am sure that they are reluctant to lose them after six years, and anxious to be renominated There are of course no dissenting judgments. Many of the so-called judges are not judges at all. They have been professors—obviously, I have great admiration for professors—and civil servants, with of course the exception of the British judge. So I am a little sceptical about this court. I think people sometimes confuse it with the European Court of Human Rights. We hear much talk that, if we depart from the rulings of the CJEU, our human rights will be affected. That is not the issue today I ask those who put forward this amendment what they mean, or envisage, by binding and not following, and why they think it would be better for citizens to have to go all the way to to the Supreme Court, with all the delay and expense—and lots of nice jobs for lawyers—that will be involved if you can only get a diversion from EU law by going all the way to the Supreme Court.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-15
Topic: Other
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, finds the amendment positively undesirable. I think it is quite difficult for the Government to argue their case, since the amendment merely reinstates what was in their October version of the Bill, so in October the Government must have thought this perfectly workable and not subject to the objections raised by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, who obviously thinks that the Government were a bit soft then.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-15
Topic: Other
David Hugh Alexander Hannay (Crossbench, Unknown): If I can help the Minister, the point that my friend the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, was making is that the Minister said it was in the hands of the Commission. He has now said that it is in the hands of the Council, which is correct.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-15
Topic: Immigration
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, my name is on the amendment because I regard it as the most important matter of honour that we must deal with in the Bill. The whole House admires the stamina with which the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has pursued this issue. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Refugee Council, which was run by the noble Lord for many years and still runs on Dubs energy and still gets his constant support On this issue, the House was persuaded by the noble Lord’s arguments in 2016, and again in 2018. We are now in a curious position where the Government say that the 2018 provision is undesirable and needs to be replaced with this new one. The most important thing about the Government’s proposed new Clause 37 is that it kills Section 17 of the 2018 Act. What is the difference between the two? The 2017 Act laid on the Government the obligation to "seek to negotiate"—not to negotiate, because we cannot do that because a negotiation has two sides—a deal for these children. Everything else in the proposed new clause is the same as in Section 17, except that we now find that the Government must make a statement to us on what their policy is I am not terribly worried about the Government’s policy here. I believe the assurance given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, at Second Reading, that the Government’s policy has not changed. I believe that the Government want this to happen. However, I am not clear about what priority the Government attach to it and I am very suspicious that they wish to use it as a negotiating card. That is what is most alarming to me and, to be honest, most disgusting. The fate of these children should not be seen as a matter for negotiation The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, on Monday night made one substantive argument against this amendment, apart from saying that government policy has not changed—on which, as I say, I believe him. He said: "It is vital that the Government are not legally constrained in those discussions."—[Official Report, 13/1/20; col. 554.] Implicitly, that means that the Government might not wish to pursue this and might wish to try to trade willingness to do this for some concession by the other side. That seems particularly offensive.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Ann Butler-Sloss (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, we should be ashamed, listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, reading out what a primary school child is reminding us about. We are adults: many of us are parents, all of us are in some way related to children, and for goodness’ sake, we were once children ourselves I am quite taken aback. Here we are, as adults, debating what should happen to these children. Section 1 of the Children Act 1989 said that the welfare of children is paramount, but we must also remember that people are vulnerable, and children are vulnerable young people. This small group of children about whom we are speaking have rights. This Government are proposing to take away their rights, because in the 2016 legislation of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, which I strongly supported, and in the 2018 withdrawal Act, the rights of this small group of children were upheld. Now the Government are taking them away, even from the latest withdrawal Act I am sorry that because of family affairs I did not attend the meeting yesterday, and I am afraid that I did not see the Minister’s letter, but it was extremely helpful to hear what was being said. What I find extraordinary is that it is part of existing law. As for the idea that it is an oddity and we should not be legislating, this House supported the House of Commons to legislate for children with rights to rejoin their families in this country in 2016 and 2018. I make no apology for repeating this. For goodness’ sake, it is existing law. We are not talking about going out on a corner or something unusual; we are talking about retaining what this House and the House of Commons have already passed. This is one point which the Government have not met. It is existing law. The children have rights under Dublin, but they also have rights under English law, and this Government are intending to remove them The Government’s proposals seem to me to be peanuts. They do not in any way reflect what has already happened in Parliament, and that is not good enough. Coming back to what a primary school child in year 6 was saying, are we going to fail our own children, let alone the children with rights to come to this country I did not want to support amendments to this Bill, because I recognise that we have got to get it through, but this is a separate issue. It bears no resemblance to the rest of the withdrawal Bill, but my goodness, it matters. It is not only the children under the trees in Calais and Dunkirk—I saw them last year, and former MP Fiona Mactaggart and I wrote a report about it—but also the fact that they have a right to come here. Are we just going to let it go by the board?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-15
Topic: Immigration
Norman Warner (Crossbench, Unknown): Perhaps I might make a brief interjection. Following on from yesterday’s discussion on immigration, many of us were left a little uncertain as to what the Government were going to do with their new immigration system. So it is very important that we come back to the detailed legislation on immigration as quickly as possible.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Norman Warner (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I want to add a couple of words to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, in his amendment. As far as the NHS is concerned, if the Government do not allow more people to come in and work in a highly labour-intensive industry, then they will not be able to spend the money that they are promising to put into the NHS in a way that is useful to patients. But that is not my main point My main point is to emphasise the extent to which there is continual movement between the UK and European countries, as part of big research projects in medicine, science and technology. People can freely move around Europe for six weeks, a month, a week or a weekend, and many of these projects have EU money, which has come to this country to be used to set up and run projects, but not all the work is done here. The work may be done with partners in other parts of the EU, and there is a constant flow of people. If we put barriers in the way of that movement around Europe of expert people—and many are not highly paid professors but PhD students who have come to this country—working on joint research projects, not only for basic research but for translational research, we will get ourselves ostracised. We will not be a partner that people want to play with, because it is difficult for people from other countries to move around Europe as part of those projects. We will cut off our nose to spite our face. We need something like this amendment to ensure that mobility and a mobility framework get the attention that they need for the future.
UK Telecommunications — House of Lords, 2020-01-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Peter Ricketts (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I declare an interest as one of the rather small trade union membership of former national security advisers. I entirely agree with the Minister that there is no risk-free solution in this situation, or in any security and intelligence judgment. I welcome the fact that the National Security Council was able to take a decision in a context where very strong arguments were being put on all sides. To answer the noble Lord, Lord Reid, I am sure that all the relevant interests around Whitehall argued their cases vigorously in the NSC; that is what it is for. I am glad that the Government seem to have been able to take the very professional advice from our world-class experts on cybersecurity I am sure that Ministers were delighted to have the barrage of no doubt well-intentioned advice from across the Atlantic, but given that many American commentators seem to see the slightest role of Huawei in our system as an existential threat, is it not quite extraordinary that the US does not have its own 5G technology solution to offer to western allies? Perhaps one of the lessons of this, as the Minister suggested, is that there has been a market failure and that, before we get to 6G, the West ought to be much more co-ordinated in its approach so that we have an entirely reliable basis in technology to go forward. In the meantime, this seems to be the right risk-managed solution for a diversified network in the circumstances we find ourselves in.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-21
Topic: Immigration
David Alton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, just before the noble Lord concludes his very persuasive remarks, can he put into context for the House the numbers of unaccompanied children we are talking about? In the context of World Refugee Day last year, with 70.8 million displaced people or refugees in the world and a further 37,000 becoming displaced every day, the modesty of what was incorporated by your Lordships’ House and put into law should speak for itself. Will the noble Lord remind the House of the small numbers of the most vulnerable people of all that the amendment deals with?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-21
Topic: Immigration
Ann Butler-Sloss (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, in listening with interest to what the noble Lord has just said, I entirely accept that the Government have done some very good work. We heard of it from the Minister last week and we ought not to undervalue the extent to which the Government have brought children to this country, but we are talking about a very small group. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, about this and it might be 1,000. Among the children about whom we are speaking, this is a small group who have rights only under Dubs III I may have unintentionally misled the House last week, for which I apologise, by making a comment when I felt so strongly about this matter that I got carried away. I did not read my notes and led the House to believe that there was some English law providing a right for children. I was wrong and was rightly corrected by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, who kindly did not refer to me when he set out the existing position, which is that Dubs III—I am sorry, it is Dublin III, although one really ought to call it Dubs III—comes to an end in January 2021. Of course I trust the Minister and have huge respect for her genuine commitment to children, but what I am concerned about is urgency Given everything else that goes along with Brexit, it would be very easy for this Government, intentionally or unintentionally, not to have a priority regarding these children, a point made by the right reverend Prelate. What we need is to retain the sense of urgency. We do not find that in Clause 37, but we have it to a greater extent in Section 17 of the 2018 Act. It does not take us all the way, but it includes the requirement for things to happen. I am not happy, with everything that has been said today and everything that I fear may be thought behind the scenes, that this will be dealt with having a proper regard for urgency. From January next year these children, who have a right to come to this country and are among the most deprived and vulnerable children in the world, will lose the right to do so unless a degree of realism and urgency is injected into the Government.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-21
Topic: Immigration
Norman Warner (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment for a reason which keeps coming up in our debates: they are all about trust and whether we can trust the Government to behave in a reasonable way. A lot of the amendments that have been put down have been about trying to ensure that—if I may put it as crudely as this—the Government behave well in carrying out these negotiations. We have seen a kind of emotional blindness, if I may put it that way, in the discussions we have had on immigration systems and physical documents that people who have a right to live here can use. This seems to be another piece of work in which we have to table an amendment to try to ensure that the Government behave properly and well in these negotiations It is quite extraordinary. Having agreed these reciprocal healthcare arrangements with the EU countries and Switzerland so recently, I cannot understand why we should not just be able to use this amendment to ensure that there are no rapid changes. The Government almost seem to forget the huge number of people who in their daily living move for holidays between the other 27 EU countries and Switzerland, as though that does not matter. This is an important part of people’s lives. They book their holidays assuming the system will not change. Particularly after this recent piece of legislation, no one has told them there is a risk that something may change The Government are bringing on themselves a mood in which people will be suspicious of what they are up to. They will raise a lot of anxieties totally unnecessarily. In my experience of government, if you allow rumours to be fostered they spread around quite quickly. What we are trying to do with this amendment is to remove the temptation. The Government would be wise to listen, unless the Minister can give a level of assurance that will remove any suspicion that somehow, because of the way they behave, the Government are up to something.
Universal Credit — House of Lords, 2020-02-04
Topic: Housing
Mary Watkins (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, are we collecting any central statistics on the increasing rent arrears for some people on universal credit? There is a real challenge, particularly for people in London, where rents are high in relation to universal credit. We are very concerned that some people are going without food in order to pay their rent.
Domestic Premises (Energy Performance) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-02-07
Topic: Housing
Merlin Hay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I also rise to say a couple of words in the gap. I declare an interest: we farm some land and also rent out several old cottages. The Bill makes a lot of sense, especially for new housing, but I would like to make an appeal for some of these charming country cottages. We have discovered that we can do the basics easily—loft insulation, better heating insulation, et cetera—and get them to an F rating that way. To get them further up, I have found that you have to get them on to mains gas, which is much more expensive and more difficult. It depends on whether there is any nearby—and then we hear that this may be banned by 2025, I believe, so what good is that? We have been doing it anyway You can draft-proof, but you have to be careful, because you must maintain ventilation. It is very easy, if you hermetically seal these old buildings, to start getting that nasty black mould. It builds up and then people say, "Oh, gosh, we have terrible damp." Actually, all they have done is keep the windows closed. There is a real problem, because then you get into the health issues. How you get over that in an old building, I am not very sure. Many people who live in older houses accept this: you have windows open occasionally and you wear a jersey in winter; your house is heated to 17 or 18 degrees, not 20 degrees—you do not pretend you are in the south of Spain. I, as a Scot, am certainly one of those people: it does save quite a lot of money. Equally, there are limits to all these things What I wanted to say is that if you do not allow exceptions, you are going to lose a lot of lovely cottages in lovely settings and that would be a great shame. It will not improve the housing stock for rental, either.
Extension of Franchise (House of Lords) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-02-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Shreela Flather (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I make no apology for saying that I feel personally deprived. That is the feeling that I get from other noble Lords: we all feel personally deprived. I cannot say that I have had a burning desire to vote in every general election, but in the two most recent elections I wanted to vote because some very big issues were presented to us. However, we had no vote The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said that no one has asked him whether he has a vote. It is not that people come up to you and ask, but when you talk to them it comes out and they are absolutely taken aback that we have no vote. It is not that they think, "Oh well, you shouldn’t have a vote because you have a place in Parliament"; they ask, "Why do you not have a vote? Are you not capable of voting sensibly? Have you committed some terrible crime? Are you too mentally disabled to vote?" It is just ridiculous to think that we have to look back to previous centuries, to the Lords who have brought us to this stage. I totally support this little matter being looked at carefully There is really no logic to why a mere 900 people cannot vote. It is not as if we are 9 million, or even 9,000. We cannot change anything in the election. Most of us would probably vote for the sitting MP in our area—if that MP was good enough, that is, otherwise we would not—or along party lines. We all have our own views on who we would vote for. It is not as though 900 votes would go to one person and make a difference in their life. My sitting MP is Theresa May and, if I had the vote, I should certainly vote for her because she is extremely popular and a good constituency MP. That is how it goes. It is not as though we are going to change the world. Nine hundred people cannot change the world in any way. I do not know what we could do to change the world; if anyone has an idea, please let me know because I will join them Seriously speaking, to my way of thinking, it is completely illogical that we do not have a vote. A lot has been said about various Acts of Parliament from 100, 200 or 300 years ago. As has been said, if we had not made changes, where would we have been with those Acts? We would not have functioned at all. In any case, if life Peers had not come, there would be no House of Lords. I think it would have started by removing the life Peers and then removing the women. The best way to start would be with a new House of Lords I totally support the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, which says that we should get the vote.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-14
Topic: Immigration
Norman Warner (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support these two amendments. I do so as the roommate of my noble friend Lord Kerslake, who sends his apologies for not being here but has strengthened my arguments for supporting the amendments. I speak as someone who, after the 1997 election—oh glorious days—spent two years in the Home Office and saw every submission of any significance that was made to the then Home Secretary. I always shuddered a little when we got submissions from the immigration part of the department. They sent a quiver through my soul, because of reliability. I remember a former Conservative Home Secretary briefed us shortly after that election. He said to the then Home Secretary: "You have to remember that there are always 500 people in the Home Office who can ruin your political career. The really scary thing is that none of them actually realises that they can do it." The Windrush exercise demonstrated rather well the wisdom of those remarks The important thing about these two amendments is that they do not in any way disturb significantly what the Government want to do. They provide legal certainty, about which I think we will hear more later in Committee. They also provide some very practical stiffening of the arrangements around these new Immigration Rules. I went to one of the Home Office briefings for parliamentarians on the new scheme, at which everybody, MPs, Peers and members of MPs’ offices, made the point to the Home Office that in the real world a lot of people expect someone to produce hard-copy evidence, whether it is the landlord, the GP or whoever. I can speak from personal experience, having helped a number of people get permanent leave to remain here, and not that long ago either. These people had had experiences of having to produce some written documentation that they were entitled to live here.