argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-09-06
Topic: Government Operations
Ruth Deech (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, much more heavy weather has been made of this than I intended. I have a couple of opening comments: it is a pleasure to see the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, over here, and I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that those who draft law are not thereafter charged with interpreting it. Once they have launched their draft, it is over to others to interpret it. I do not claim by any means to be a European lawyer—far from it—but my point is very simple: if an extension is granted to 30 January, the Commons gets two days to consider it. If an extension is granted to 31 January, it gets no time at all. I have still heard no reason or sense for why that should be so, and I remain convinced that this was some drafting oversight No one has clarified either whether the "two days" are sitting days or calendar days. What if an offer comes at the weekend, during the Christmas Recess or some time when we are not here? Since the lawyers, both the noble and learned Lords in this House and those who are clearly just as learned but are mere QCs, have different opinions about this, it is quite possible that something that is a bit tricky may come our way at a time when we are not sitting or when the Act provides no two-day pause for the Commons. So either the Commons should have two days to consider anything or it should not have two days at all. I have heard no logical answer to that I sense that it is the will of the House that I withdraw the amendment. However, before Report, I expect to hear some sense from someone. I do not know who gave the draftsmen their orders. I have not yet heard a sensible reason why an extension to 30 January gets two days’ consideration but an extension to 31 January does not.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-09-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Ruth Deech (Crossbench, Unknown): I understand that point, but, given that there has been enough disagreement to worry me about what the European Union might say—others who know much more than me have expressed different opinions—and we are left with this "two days" definition and nobody knows what it means, I think that there is a real legal problem. I do not know who drafted it; I do not know who gave the orders; we have not really heard a logical answer. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I expect someone to give a proper explanation at some stage during the discussion, because we are in a bit of a legal pickle over that provision.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-09-06
Topic: International Affairs
Simon Denis Brown (Crossbench, Unknown): I ask the Committee’s forbearance. Noble Lords on all sides are entirely agreed that the extension which the Bill demands that the Prime Minister seek is for one purpose only—look at the Kinnock amendment in the second part of Clause 1(4)—which is to try to get something like the May deal finally agreed. Heaven knows, I strongly support it and have long suggested that it should be agreed. However, having got such an extension, it would be quite unlawful for anybody to then say, "Ah, but we must use it instead to retract the Article 50 notice"—or seek a referendum or anything like that. Are all noble Lords happy and agreed on that?
Offender Management and Treatment — House of Lords, 2019-10-03
Topic: Law and Crime
Harry Kenneth Woolf (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, this debate has been of excellent quality. We have all learned a great deal from what has been said in the speeches that preceded mine. That I, on this occasion, speak after the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, is quite a novel experience for me because, throughout our respective legal careers, he has followed me, rather than my following him. I very much have in mind what was said by another of my noble and learned friends, Lord Judge, in an intervention before the debate: if you agree with everything, there is something to be said for sitting down and not detaining people merely by repetition. I will bear that in mind in the remarks I make I draw attention to my entries in register. I have been much involved in the prison scene since the noble Lord, Lord Baker—who has here a while ago—received my report into Strangeways prison. I made substantial recommendations in that report. One recommendation was not, unlike the majority, accepted by the Government. It was that there should be a limit on the number of people in prison. The reason I think it most unfortunate that that or a similar recommendation was not accepted was that nothing is more likely to undermine the workings of a prison system than overcrowding, which has been a scourge of the prison system shortly after my report and ever since. It explains why many of the things we have heard today have happened. This clearly indicates that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, on this as on many other occasions, was profoundly right to have identified the problem of a lack of strategy within the prison service. I hope that, on this occasion, the noble Lord will be taken more seriously than he has been on too many occasions in the past. We require a Government who are prepared to do what is needed to deal with the problem of which we all should be ashamed. I am going to leave my address at this stage and not add to it. I hope that what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has said about the need for a strategy is taken up by the Government. That strategy has to be carefully thought out and not delivered on the hoof by those who may not have the knowledge they should have before making an announcement.
Offender Management and Treatment — House of Lords, 2019-10-03
Topic: Law and Crime
David John Ramsbotham (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate, which, if I might say, summed up the House at its very best. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for summing up so many of the contributions, which all mounted up to believing that all is not well with the management and treatment of offenders in prisons and in the community. I also thank the noble Earl for standing in for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen. I was very glad that he agreed to take back much of what was said to the relevant Ministers, particularly the Secretary of State I will pick out and comment on six speeches. I am very grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and others for including issues surrounding women, which I neglected to add to my opening remarks. I am particularly grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood for mentioning the IPPs, which I similarly omitted The noble Lord, Lord Beith, mentioned the cost of imprisonment. I asked what the cost of imprisonment was on my first day as chief inspector. A Home Office official told me how much money they had been given by the Treasury and how much money they had passed on to the prison service. I said, "That’s not what I meant. How much would it cost to do all the things that Ministers say would, should and could be done with prisoners?". I do not believe that anyone knows that cost, nor do they know what it would cost to do all the things that are said should be done by probation. Until and unless we know that cost, we cannot know what cannot be done. That is a very important issue I mention to my noble friend Lord Bichard the shock with which the 1998 Office for National Statistics psychiatric morbidity statistics in prison were greeted when they were suddenly published. That was 20 years ago. I just remind the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, of the Scandinavian system, where sentencers award sentences that include certain targets. If a prisoner has got through all the targets set, the governor can take the prisoner back to the court and ask for them to be released on licence The last person I mention is my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf, who agreed with me that above all we must have a strategy. Without a strategy we are going nowhere.
Brexit: Negotiations — House of Lords, 2019-10-03
Topic: International Affairs
Igor Judge (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I welcome any step, however tentative, which might possibly produce a resolution. Would the Leader of the House be in a position to clarify the intention of the Government if the EU—and I use it compendiously—were very interested in these proposals but asked for more time, say one month, to consider them?
Brexit: Negotiations — House of Lords, 2019-10-03
Topic: International Affairs
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): That is, with respect, no answer to the noble Baroness’s question. Her question was this: supposing, four years down the line in this endless cycle of economic and political uncertainty—very dangerous to the Northern Ireland situation—that Northern Ireland said that it did not want this, what would happen then? It is not clear. Is the EU to be told that it may not have the particular standard or regulation because a province of a country that is outside the EU does not like it? It seems an implausible proposition to put to the EU I think that we are at a rather solemn moment here. We are formally resiling from our 2017 commitment to full regulatory alignment now and in future on anything that might affect the peace process and the all-Ireland economy. We are formally resiling from our 2018 commitment to a future economic partnership based on a level playing field and common standards for environment, employment and social standards. We are deliberately tearing it up and highlighting that in the letter that we have sent to the President of the Commission On the first point, I have nothing more to add to what the noble Lord, Lord Hain, has said on Northern Ireland. It seems to me that he is absolutely correct. I would only say that I think that the corrosive effect on the Northern Ireland political situation of the continuing uncertainty of this four-year cycle is bound to be damaging. I note that all elements in Northern Ireland—business or political, apart from the DUP—appear to be of the same view My view is that, in Brussels, more attention will be given to the abolition of the level-playing-field commitment. I think they will conclude, rightly or wrongly, that we intend to challenge them by going for lower standards and deregulation, and I think that they will find that extremely alarming. I heard the Prime Minister’s Statement. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, is completely correct: the Prime Minister said that checks in the Irish Sea would be one way. In other words, he implied that standards in the UK would be below those in the European Union and applied in Northern Ireland I have four questions to ask the Minister. First, does she recognise how this would increase the difficulty of concluding, some years hence, even a bare-bones, Canada-style free trade agreement with the European Union? Does she recognise the likely effect on market access to our largest market for our services exports, which are our biggest exports? Secondly, how will trade deals with third countries work, given that the applicable standards for UK imports will differ depending on the final destination in the UK? Thirdly, does the Minister believe that the European Parliament and this Parliament could conceivably agree by 31 October to ratify a treaty based on these proposals? Fourthly, if not, what do the Government intend to do?
Brexit: Negotiations — House of Lords, 2019-10-03
Topic: International Affairs
David Hugh Alexander Hannay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I wonder if the Minister could answer a couple of questions, after one observation, which is that in order to reach a landing zone you have to take off first. The two questions I would like to ask are as follows On this vexed issue of consent, I do not want to go into what would happen, but can she confirm that, under the arrangements for government in Northern Ireland, either of the two main parties—Sinn Féin or the DUP—could, during the transitional period or at the moment of the four-year review, frustrate the continuation of the arrangements that have been negotiated, either by opposing them or by bringing down the Government? Could she answer that factual question? It is in the hands of either of them, and I am not pointing the finger at the DUP only, to frustrate the operation of this agreement Secondly, the Prime Minister has had quite a lot of Brussels experience—although his misrepresentation of what went on there led one to doubt whether he really understood what was going on—but has he ever in his life seen a process of the sort he is now describing being completed in the time available to this, before 31 October? If not, what does he intend to do about it?
Brexit: Negotiations — House of Lords, 2019-10-03
Topic: Government Operations
John Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): Picking up on the theme of potential disaster, but nevertheless wishing the Government well in their endeavours to break the deadlock, while I can see complications, some of which have been expressed this afternoon. I hope that Yellowhammer will never need to be tested. However, given its importance—the report on its effectiveness is due out on 16 October, I believe—will the Government give serious consideration to ensuring that the Queen’s Speech allows us the opportunity to debate the contents of this, with appropriate days made available, because it is of such crucial importance? If not, will the Government ensure that, at the earliest opportunity after the Queen’s Speech, proper time will be put aside so that we can consider the contents of the publication?
Extension of Article 50 — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, should there be no deal agreed by 31 October, is the Minister aware that there is considerable concern about families on low incomes who may be faced with increased prices on staple foods? Have the Government carefully considered the possible adverse impact on those families and do they have clear plans to ensure that these families are not adversely impacted by a no-deal Brexit?
Brexit Readiness and Operation Yellowhammer — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: International Affairs
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): Just before we were so rudely interrupted on 9 September, the Secretary of State, Mr Gove, gave evidence to your Lordship’s EU Committee, and undertook that an up-to-date version of the Yellowhammer paper would be published shortly. When I saw there was to be a Statement on Yellowhammer today, I assumed that it was good news and we were about to see the up-to-date version, because the Government had been at pains to say—although the Sunday Times did not agree—that the version we had seen was out of date. When will we, when will business and the people who really need to see it going to see the Yellowhammer paper The Minister was delightfully optimistic about the progress of our negotiations, as he was earlier in the afternoon—Pangloss rules in Newcastle—but I ask him to take note of two things. First, in Brussels the most striking development of the last two years, has been British negotiators revealing that the text in the political declaration indicating that we wished to preserve a level playing field on social, environmental and labour law, state aid and business taxes, was going to have to go and we no longer believed in it. That has fed the impression in Brussels that we are planning for a wave of deregulation and on becoming a low tax, low welfare society, that would be highly competitive with the European Union. That may be what we are planning for—it is not what we have told the country—but that is the implication and it has had a considerable effect in Brussel. That is why in Brussels they are saying that progress in the last two weeks has gone backwards. Secondly, could the Minister also say, whether in his view, creating that impression assists or does not assist the search for ways of maintaining an open border on the island of Ireland?
Update to Parliament — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Ricketts (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the striking unanimity in this House will not be missed abroad. Our European partners will be reading this Statement as much as we are. The Prime Minister has some interesting comments about the state of the negotiations and takes a very optimistic view of the likelihood of negotiating changes to the withdrawal agreement. One of the things European leaders will want to judge in deciding whether to make any moves in negotiations is whether the Prime Minister can get another deal through Parliament. I wonder whether the noble Baroness has any thoughts on how they will judge that likelihood in the light of the tone of this Statement towards his own Parliament.
Iran — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Ricketts (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the Minister talks a lot about de-escalation, which of course we all want. The Statement contains a lot of useful activity, which I am sure my former colleagues in the Foreign Office are pursuing with their usual vigour. However, I am deeply worried. First of all, there is no united western strategy towards handling Iran; and, secondly, we do not seem to have effective deterrents over the more hard-line elements in the regime that the noble Lord refers to. Of course there is every benefit in seeking dialogue with Mr Rouhani and the more realistic end of the regime, but the hard-liners have taken a series of aggressive and dangerous actions recently, starting with the detention of the British tanker. Incidentally, the Minister might tell us whether the press reports are true and the tanker released from Gibraltar went on to deliver its oil to Syria. If so, that seems a remarkably aggressive action by the deep state in Iran. Then there was the attack on the Saudi oil fields. That was an extremely dangerous and risky escalation, and I have to say that, so far, the response has not been convincing. If I was a hard-liner in Iran, I would feel impunity: that I had got away with making such a dramatic statement on the whole world’s oil supply I entirely agree with the Minister that we need the widest possible co-ordination. However, it seems to me that we are not succeeding at the moment in convincing the Iranians that we are serious, that we will hold them to account for their behaviour and that there will be serious consequences. This is, after all, a country that has an extremely weak, fragile economy, yet it seems to feel that it can act with impunity in the region.
Brexit: Preparations — House of Lords, 2019-10-08
Topic: Law and Crime
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, with regard to security, page 154 shows that we are taking powers to ensure that, "Border Force Officers will have greater scope to refuse entry on the basis of criminal behaviour" How will they access real-time information about criminal behaviour in future?
Brexit: Preparations — House of Lords, 2019-10-08
Topic: Government Operations
David Hugh Alexander Hannay (Crossbench, Unknown): Given that any delay would have to be decided collectively by the 28, I ask the Minister to answer a straightforward question: will the Government send a letter asking for a delay if 19 October arrives without a deal?
Brexit: Preparations — House of Lords, 2019-10-08
Topic: International Affairs
John Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, this has been a tortuous process, but there will come a point when we will need to rally around the flag. Does the Minister agree that the time will come to keep politics out of this process and that we will start accepting the practical reality of no deal and the subsequent consequences? As things stand, what shortcomings still require urgent attention, or are the Government satisfied with the level of preparedness as set out in Operation Yellowhammer?
Brexit: Preparations — House of Lords, 2019-10-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Deborah Bull (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, page 67 of the report, in the section on services, makes it clear that UK businesses and individuals operating in the EU will need to comply with host state rules, including on business travel, investing in and running companies, getting professional qualifications recognised and the levels of access to market. This may mean different regulations in every domain in which they operate. Can the Minister help me understand how this aligns with the Statement, which says that we will have, "autonomy over the rules governing our world-leading services sector"?
Brexit: Preparations — House of Lords, 2019-10-08
Topic: Agriculture
Charles Courtenay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the Minister stated that the no-deal mitigation plans for meat exporters are in place. Does this include the mass slaughter of livestock for which there is no longer an EU market, given the huge hike in tariffs? The chairman of the Heart of the South West LEP has said that the impact of a no-deal Brexit on agriculture in the south-west will be considerably worse than foot and mouth. Do the Government agree?
Brexit: Preparations — House of Lords, 2019-10-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): With the leave of the House, can I press the Minister a little further on the impact of a no-deal Brexit on low-income families in particular? I recognise the Government’s great achievement in achieving such a high rate of employment, but as a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children, I have been examining for several years the impact of the cuts in local authority funding on families with low incomes. Many of the essential services that support low-income families have been lost; they have carried a heavy burden through the years of austerity. Can the Minister please look carefully, as far as he can, at mitigating any adverse impact, particularly of possible significant food price rises?
Syria: Withdrawal of US Troops — House of Lords, 2019-10-08
Topic: International Affairs
Raymond Jolliffe (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the noble Baroness on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench was absolutely right to draw attention to the risk of the sudden release of ISIS prisoners, which could undo the huge gains achieved in recent years. Will the Government reconsider their policy on the widows and children of ISIS fighters, particularly those who originated from this country? Other European states have taken back some of their people; surely we should do the same.
Syria: Withdrawal of US Troops — House of Lords, 2019-10-08
Topic: International Affairs
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): I understand every word of the question, but I do not understand the answer. What is our policy towards the Kurds? Do we have no shame about betraying them now? Have we made any representations to the United States? Will we be making any representation to the Turks?
Northern Syria: Turkish Incursion — House of Lords, 2019-10-15
Topic: International Affairs
David Alton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, a few moments ago the Minister said that a principal reason for our involvement in north-east Syria has been the defeat of Daesh. Vast numbers of people have been released from camps in north-east Syria. Some of those whose names I gave to the Minister and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, over the weekend, have been directly associated with Daesh and are now on their way to the streets of Europe. What is the Minister doing to ensure that these people are apprehended as soon as possible, and, more importantly, brought to justice by creating internationally recognised mechanisms under the convention on the crime of genocide?
Football: Racism — House of Lords, 2019-10-15
Topic: International Affairs
Graham Stirrup (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, does the Minister not agree that this is not just about football or one country? We are seeing a growth of extremist views and ideologies across our societies that harm us all. What is required is not simply to condemn them but to see a renaissance of international leadership on behalf of the values and standards we have long held dear and for which those who went before us fought and died. If she agrees, from whence does she think such international leadership might spring?