argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Down Syndrome Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-01
Topic: Social Welfare
Gillian Merron (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the commitment to supporting people with Down syndrome has come through loud and clear in your Lordships’ House. I pay tribute to, and congratulate, Dr Liam Fox on introducing the Bill in the other place and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for steering the Bill through your Lordships’ House with her characteristic professionalism and sensitivity. We are glad to follow her lead. From these Benches, we give our support to the noble Baroness in her endeavour, through this Bill, to support the 40,000 people with Down syndrome. They and their families, friends and communities will be appreciative—as are we—of the recognition and improvements brought about through this Bill I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, is keenly aware of the point raised in earlier debate that, in the focus on Down syndrome, noble Lords would not want to create a hierarchy of learning disability which may inadvertently create challenges for other learning-disabled people. I very much welcome the words of the noble Baroness today in this regard. It is also welcome that the department has given a commitment that new guidance will be formed in consultation with key stakeholders. I am keenly aware that this Bill is not the end of the journey but just one step along the journey. In conclusion, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, on her tireless work for those with learning disabilities, and I wish the Bill all the very best as it continues its path.
Animals (Penalty Notices) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-01
Topic: Agriculture
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, for so ably introducing the Motion on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, who has so well steered it through this House so far. I also pay tribute to Andrew Rosindell, who sponsored the Bill in the other place We welcome any increased measures against those who break animal welfare laws deliberately, so we are pleased to see this Bill passing into law. But can I ask the Minister some questions about some other animal welfare legislation we are waiting on? It will be good to see the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill pass—fingers crossed—next week, and I was pleased to see that the Leader of the House in the other place has confirmed that the kept animals Bill will be carried over to the next Session. However, I am concerned, as are many others, about the fate of the animals abroad Bill, which would look to ban foie gras, fur imports and trophy hunting imports. Many people right across the parties support these Bills, and I would be grateful for an update from the Minister.
Independent Review of Children’s Social Care — House of Lords, 2022-05-24
Topic: Social Welfare
Hilary Armstrong (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too thank Josh MacAlister, his team and all the people from within the system he worked with. Josh came to the Public Services Committee, which I chair, as part of giving evidence in our review of vulnerable children There are so many things I want to put to the Minister today. Maybe she can help me get a debate on the Floor of the House on our report, and then I will not feel as if I am short-changing the vulnerable children I want to argue for. I will concentrate on one issue only: how do we prevent children having to go into the system? However good it normally is, children suffer when they go into the care system. Our committee uncovered that, since 2010, £1.7 billion a year has been cut from early intervention and prevention services. That was largely for two reasons. First, the overall money going in, particularly to local authorities—whether for children’s centres, youth work or other prevention programmes—was under pressure. Secondly, because they were not statutory responsibilities, authorities shifted the money to the statutory responsibility for looked-after children. Therefore, children have become older as they enter the system. I can tell noble Lords that difficult adolescents are much more difficult to deal with than very young children. Will the Government introduce a system which will ensure that money can go to early intervention and prevention services for the long term and will not be allowed to be switched into crisis work?
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Forced Confession — House of Lords, 2022-05-24
Topic: International Affairs
Raymond Collins (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Answer. It is hugely welcome that Nazanin is now safely at home with her family, where she belongs, but Morad Tahbaz remains detained in Iran and Amanda Milling said in the other place that the Iranian Government failed to honour the commitment to release him from prison on indefinite furlough and that the UK Government "urge Iranian authorities at every opportunity to release him immediately." Can the noble Lord tell us precisely when the Foreign Secretary last raised Morad’s case with her counterpart in Iran and what the FCDO’s strategy is to secure his release On the forced confession, I hear what the noble Lord repeated: it is an Iranian practice to insist that detainees sign documents before releasing them and that the UK official did not force Nazanin to do so. However, can he tell us exactly what the Government’s assessment is of how the confession could be used by the Iranian Government against Nazanin in the future, and what the department’s strategy is for dealing with this policy by the Iranian Government in the future more generally?
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Forced Confession — House of Lords, 2022-05-24
Topic: International Affairs
Donald Anderson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, there is no personal blame attached to the Minister, who is highly respected by all sides of House, but would he, on reflection, agree that the length of custody of the poor, unfortunate Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been lengthened as a result of government action and inaction? I cite first the fact that the Prime Minister when Foreign Secretary misread or misinterpreted the purpose of her visit to Iran, and then the long delay in repaying a loan which everyone agreed was due and owing to Iran at the time. Finally, did the Foreign Office official simply stand idly by at the airport and make no protest or written note of what was happening? Was Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe warned in advance that she would be asked to sign this false confession? It all sounds very unsavoury.
Food Price Inflation — House of Lords, 2022-05-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, there is no doubt that global events, including increased oil and gas prices, are contributing to both food and other forms of inflation. However, the Government’s response is clearly insufficient, with even the head of the CBI claiming that there is a moral imperative for the Chancellor to prevent households having to skip meals. The Secretary of State may feel that a few percentage points on food prices is a cause for concern. Does the Minister acknowledge that more than 2 million adults in the UK have gone without food for a whole day in the past month because they cannot afford to eat? Defra’s various schemes to support domestic producers are welcome, but when will the Government wake up to the situation and use an emergency Budget to put in place the support that families need right now to get through this difficult period?
Working Practices (International Agreements Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2022-05-19
Topic: International Affairs
John Hendy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town on securing this debate and on the excellence of her introduction to it. I find it hard to see how anybody could disagree with anything she said—maybe that will be the case. I also congratulate the committee she chairs on its report. Again, I find it hard to see how anybody could disagree with its contents I am very conscious that most of the members of the committee are present this afternoon; perhaps they will forgive me if I draw attention to one passage, from paragraphs 94 and 95, of the report. There, the committee speaks of looking forward to the future and says: "if a future administration is open to reforming the statutory framework, then priority should be given to ensuring the following three improvements: (a) In respect of trade agreements, Parliament should be given a formal role in influencing the objectives when mandates are being set and this should be done transparently; (b) In respect of all other agreements, Parliament should be provided with a final draft text, in advance of signature, so that any significant issues can be raised before the agreement is signed and the text is set in stone; (c) That Parliament’s consent should be required, prior to ratification, for all trade agreements, and other significant treaties which are drawn to the special attention of either House Without such powers, Parliament’s scrutiny of agreements is extremely constrained." I find it difficult to see how anybody could disagree with those recommendations, but in its response, the Government did disagree. The basis of that disagreement is that those proposals were "not suited to the UK’s constitutional settlement." I have two questions for the Minister. First, to what principles or provisions of the constitutional settlement are those proposals not suited? Secondly, given that we do not have a written constitution but merely a constitutional settlement, what can be the objection to adopting those proposals now? It will not do to say simply that they are not consistent with CRaG.
Procedure and Privileges Committee — House of Lords, 2022-02-22
Topic: Government Operations
Clive Brooke (Labour, Centre-left): We had a very good Government then, but it was nothing to do with the Government. From 2010 onwards, we had a big influx of new Peers coming in, and we have this odd situation in which we have so many on the Lib Dem Benches compared with their weight in the country—but this is the House; we are different from the Commons. I have sensed that as more and more MPs have come into this Chamber, they have exercised more and more influence and played a bigger part. I am in love with them all, so there is nothing wrong with that The conduct of the House has changed. My noble friend Lord Hunt put his finger on it about self-regulation. I am a radical. If we have a debate on anything, I would say we should have a debate on the composition of the House. That is what the country will require us to engage in at some stage, but we are not there. So what are we now? We are a House whose Members have respected each other, regardless of party, to a very fair degree; where the Whips have played a lesser role in the past than you find down at the other end; and where, particularly in our committees, we have worked so well. We come together and try to produce something for the common good When I came in here, this Chamber was about the common good and was not as political. In a sense it was, because the Tories had all the seats, but the hereditaries tempered it to a degree in that they looked for the good right across the board. I believe in self-regulation while the House continues to function and to have representatives put in it as at the moment. If we go to a different scene entirely, I think we have to look for a different type of Speaker With respect to my good friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, I think she is perfectly right but I do not believe it would rest there. There is a push and a change taking place that would require the Lord Speaker to take on more and more responsibilities in different ways to that which we are currently talking about. I am reluctant to embrace a change that puts power with the Speaker, in a Chamber that needs fundamental change. My noble friends are normally in favour of fundamental change to the way the House is composed I hope we will support the report before us and not embark on what I believe is a change—a foot in the door—that would lead to even bigger changes, without a fuller debate on it than we have had to date. I hope we will back the recommendations from the committee.
Procedure and Privileges Committee — House of Lords, 2022-02-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I rise very briefly to support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Foulkes and also to speak about what I see as a creeping managerial control that the authorities sometimes seem to put on us when we come here. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said that we have a Writ of Summons and we come here with our security passes, but Peers’ Entrance is the only way you can get in without showing one. Everywhere else, you have to have one. If you have not got yours, you can show your driving licence or something and you can get in. I saw about a year ago that we were encouraged to put our pass on the reader just inside the Peers’ Entrance. I thought that was the creeping control that was going to stop us coming in completely if we did not have our pass I had another example two weeks ago—I am very grateful to the Senior Deputy Speaker for the help he has given me on this—to do with electric bikes, of which I have one. One Sunday, I and maybe other colleagues got an email from the fire and safety people here saying I could not bring lithium-ion batteries into the building on my bike—maybe on wheelchairs or scooters—because they might set the building on fire. I am sure they had some good advice, because they took the advice from London Underground—and misinterpreted it, I think, but that is beside the point There were a couple of policemen outside who told me that they commute here by electric bike. They come on the train, cycle across London and park their bikes here. One of them said: "I got given a grant to buy one of these expensive bikes, and I cannot use it any more, because I cannot bring it here." I thought, "Who has made the decision that we are not allowed to bring the bikes here." The Senior Deputy Speaker is going to arrange a meeting for me to talk about this later in the week, but it is just another example. My question is: who is in charge? Anything like that, I would have suggested, should have come before the relevant committee and then, if necessary, been discussed in the House.
Ukraine Update — House of Lords, 2022-02-22
Topic: International Affairs
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, instead of threatening alienation, conflict and isolation, can we not seek, even now, to negotiate the agreed-timeframe non-NATO Ukraine that I have been calling for in this House in recent months, in return for buffer state protectorate status under Ukraine for Donetsk and Luhansk? With China wooing Russia and prolonged tension in Europe, undermining economic development and cybersecurity, we do not need turmoil in these volatile times. We are humiliating Russia. German humiliation led to Versailles and war.
Ukraine Update — House of Lords, 2022-02-22
Topic: International Affairs
George Robertson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I fully support—we should all fully support—the Government and the resolution of the West against this unprovoked attack on an individual nation state. It is outrageous, and we are at a very dangerous point in European history. But I suggest to the Government that we need to do much more to answer some of the disinformation now being put out by the Russians. For example, President Putin tries to pretend that he has had nothing to do with agreements regarding the sovereignty of Ukraine, but in 2002 Vladimir Putin signed the Rome declaration; I actually have his signature with me here today. The declaration said that the participating states "respect … sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all states and their inherent right to choose the means to ensure their own security, the inviolability of borders" That was signed up to by Vladimir Putin 20 years ago, and now he seems to pretend that Ukraine does not exist. Surely we need to do much more—the Government need to do much more—to counter some of the lies that are coming out, because the battle of the narratives is going to matter just as much as the battle of the military on the ground.
Ukraine Update — House of Lords, 2022-02-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Desmond Browne (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, we can impose sanctions on the three people who have been identified in the Statement, but we cannot guarantee that we can freeze and seize their assets, because we will not know where they are. They will be hidden behind all sorts of complexities of shell companies and transactions. My right honourable friend Keir Starmer in the other place asked the right questions. He said: "We need to draw a line under Companies House providing easy cover for shell companies. We need to ensure that our anti-money-laundering laws are enforced … and we have to ensure that money is not pouring into UK politics from abroad." When will we be able to say that we have that assurance?
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-21
Topic: Government Operations
Shami Chakrabarti (Labour, Centre-left): I am so sorry to interrupt mid-sentence; it was just due to my hesitation. In the moments which follow, will the noble Lord give some thought to, and reflect on, his comment that there has been some serious doubt about our recent polls? That is quite a serious thing for anyone to say in this House. It may just be a question of rephrasing that point. For the reasons given by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, it is quite serious to now suggest, at this moment in 2022, that there is serious doubt over recent elections. We have had some pretty seismic elections and electoral results in recent years, and it is serious for a noble Lord of any party to suggest in this Chamber that there is serious doubt about the validity of those polls. That may not have been the noble Lord’s intention, but he might want to clarify this.
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Prem Sikka (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you very much. I certainly have not come across any evidence to suggest that ID cards are an answer to the problem of voter fraud. I would like to broaden the debate a little and think about the consequences. I grew up in east London, where it was not unusual for people of certain backgrounds to be stopped in the street by the police and asked to show ID, when you are not required to carry any ID. What would happen in this brave new world when the police stopped people and said, "By the way, you now have an official ID. Have you not got it? Can you not bring it from home and report to the police station?" What would be the consequences for the young people who are unwilling or unable to produce those officially sanctioned ID cards? Would that drive a wedge between the police and the community? Would that criminalise people? Would that fuel more dissatisfaction with our parliamentary system? Would that fuel social instability? I would like to hear from the Minister where this ID concern will stop. What would be the broader social consequences? It seems to me that we would be opening up American-type social problems. They would be imported here, because people simply do not have or cannot produce officially sanctioned ID cards It is minorities who will be targeted. It is well known and well documented that the police target minorities. They would have a new authority to wield to criminalise minorities. I would love to hear the Minister’s views on that.
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Shami Chakrabarti (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way, because it is worth addressing this point. It came up earlier with her noble friend Lord Hayward, who said to me, "You collect your parcel", et cetera, and I suddenly looked down and saw myself, of course, wearing a badge around my neck, as I and most noble Lords do. I notice that my noble and rebellious friend Lord Grocott is currently not wearing his, but that is presumably for the TV cameras, and he will put it on later. Are noble Lords suggesting that, by complying with sensible security practices within this Palace and wearing this thing around my neck as I walk around every day, I am conceding that I should be prepared to wear such a thing on the street and in my life for other purposes Surely that concession is not made, because we are not comparing like with like. If anything, when I leave the Estate, if I still have this badge around my neck, a police officer will say to me, "Please take that off", because it is not appropriate. Something that is of security value in here becomes a security risk out there. We are, therefore, not necessarily comparing like with like. The most sensitive and valuable ID that I possess is probably the card that gives me access to taking cash out of the wall, and it has no photographic evidence on it whatever. These are different purposes, different levels of risk and different levels of ID or not. Is that not the case?
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-21
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): If I may intervene, I knew where the pilots had taken place, but they were not nearly proportionate to the scale of the reforms being introduced. We do not know anything about their likely impact on voter turnout or the administrative issues that will be raised by the nationwide introduction of this reform. The very small, selective pilots were not even in representative areas. The issue of piloting is still very much there. If this is to be a nationwide reform—we are talking about parliamentary elections—this should be piloted in many constituencies before we move in this direction.
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-21
Topic: Government Operations
Raymond Collins (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I intend to be brief, because I do not want to repeat all the excellent arguments that have been made. I think the important part of this debate is the issue of proportionality. Of course, as we have heard elsewhere in the Bill, it is incredibly disappointing that the key problems our electoral system faces—underrepresentation, low turnout, lack of registration—are not addressed, as referred to by my noble friend Lord Woolley. Also, I am going to keep to my record in referring to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, because this House’s Select Committee report on civic engagement showed that it is really important to address this issue in terms of education—better understanding our responsibilities and the role of the citizen.
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-21
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): The issue that I hope the Minister will address, and which goes to the heart of my noble friend’s Amendment 64, is that he said when he replied to me earlier that, under paragraph 2 of Schedule 1, it will be possible for people to apply at the same time. However, if we want to minimise bureaucracy, surely, we want to make it a requirement that they be able to apply at the same time, which certainly is not part of that paragraph. My reading is that it could be covered by the regulations "about the timing of an application for an electoral identity document" in new Clause 13BD(4), as proposed by paragraph 2 of Schedule 1. But obviously, the way to ensure that it is possible, that we minimise bureaucracy and that we do not have an impact on turnout is for the Minister to accept my noble friend’s amendment or give an undertaking from the Dispatch Box when he comes to reply—so that he has time to commune with his officials—that the regulations will provide that electors can apply at one and the same time to register to vote and for the electoral identity document.