argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
EU Withdrawal — House of Lords, 2019-02-13
Topic: Immigration
Nicholas Trench (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am speaking in the gap, so I will be brief. The Government’s five words that have worried me most right from the beginning of these debates are, "the brightest and the best", and there they were again in the very first paragraph of Sajid Javid’s opening speech in the Immigration Bill’s Second Reading debate last month in the Commons. To take the example of the creative industries, it is unlikely that artists and creatives, including other Europeans who have become established abroad already, will want to spend a great deal of time in a country where free movement is denied to its own citizens. This will be a fact if Brexit happens We have not had a debate about free movement in this country. Immigration is not the same thing, although the Prime Minister conflates them within her proposed immigration policy, with no thought at all about how this policy will affect the British themselves. As the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said last week in Committee on the Trade Bill, trade is about people. It is about movement both ways, not just of goods but of people. The loss of free movement will be catastrophic for our service industries, whose importance, and whose future importance, is hugely underestimated, since the free movement of British people, including movement between other countries, is essential to their operation. This plain fact is being ignored by both the major parties. Those who think that protecting manufacturing is the only way to protect jobs, even if that is possible, should think again. Bartenders, chefs, workers at ski resorts, beauticians in holiday resorts, plumbers, IT workers, performers and musicians are just a few of the new mobile working class whose widely varied livelihoods must also be protected. Many of them are self-employed, and all of them are part of a sector that now represents 80% of the economy More essentially still, particularly among young people, free movement across Europe is an established democratic right. From the point of view of the left, free movement ought to be understood as a socialist objective. I take my cue here from the social philosopher André Gorz, who believed in an emancipatory socialism which maximises freedoms for all people, not one which hems people in, which is what Brexit in any form will do, except for the privileged few. For these reasons I hope that the Immigration Bill—a Bill that is unnecessary and destructive—is stopped when it reaches the Lords.
Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Berkeley (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, in paragraph 79 of the draft guidance there is a reference to FGM. Recent events have made it very clear that getting prosecutions, however desirable they may be, is extremely difficult. I commend the Government on coming to the conclusion that education in this area is perhaps the most important facet of stopping this revolting and awful practice. Can the Minister confirm that there will be a real emphasis on educating children about FGM and supporting them when they have friends who have experienced it and might be in need of help?
Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Civil Rights
Raymond Jolliffe (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, it seems hard to find anything about morality or moral relationships in the Statement. Surely we can all agree that morality demands respect for others as unique persons? We hear a lot about bullying, grooming and seduction online. Will the Government go deeper than that and insist that there must be a solid moral base for education and lessons on all these subjects?
Animal Health, Plant Health, Seeds and Seed Potatoes (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-05-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Raymond Jolliffe (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I declare my interests as stated in the register—in particular in forestry. We have to learn from past sad experience—for example, over Dutch elm disease, which has wiped out the great majority of all the elms of southern England. At this very moment, we are grappling with ash bud disease, which can make the timber of ash completely useless, except as firewood. Other, lesser infections and importations have affected chestnut trees, oak and larch, and one hopes that they are not spreading or getting more serious. Invasive weeds have been mentioned, notably by the Minister, and on quite a few occasions your Lordships have discussed Japanese knotweed, but I will say no more about that. I notice that of course the regulations are unamendable —incidentally, I apologise for not having been present when they were discussed earlier—but I trust that the Government have devised the very best possible protection. As an island, we are better placed than those with land frontiers to protect our stock of plants and trees, but we should try to benefit from our natural advantages and devise the very best possible protection.
Parliament: Freedom of Speech and the Rule of Law — House of Lords, 2019-05-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Robert Armstrong (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I should like to join other noble Lords in congratulating and thanking the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, on bringing this Motion forward for debate. The incident to which the noble and learned Lord referred—that involving the noble Lord, Lord Hain—raises an important issue which ought not to be left unaired The time-honoured privilege of being able to speak in this House without fear of being pursued for libel or some other breach of the law was established by the Bill of Rights to allow noble Lords to speak their mind freely when contributing to debates and other proceedings in this House. It is a necessary and valuable privilege which is generally understood and accepted, but it must not be—I was going to say "abused", but perhaps I should say "misused" There are matters and cases where it should not be exercised; if it is misused, that will call into question whether the privilege should be regulated, further controlled, or even abolished. Everyone would accept that it should not be used to expose official secrets or matters that demand a high degree of confidentiality for other reasons. As a general rule, the sub judice rule is important; we should not use the privilege to frustrate a judicial decision in a court of law It would be difficult to define a range of issues on which the exercise of this privilege should be banned or limited by legislation or Standing Order. Misuse of the privilege is recognisable when it happens, just as Dr Johnson knew a stone when he kicked it. So what is needed is some sanction which will cause a noble Lord to think twice, or even more often, before deciding to exercise the privilege My suggestion is that, if a noble Lord has exercised the privilege in a sense that might be regarded as misuse—against the advice of the Lord Speaker, or without taking the Lord Speaker’s advice—a House committee such as the Committee for Privileges and Conduct should have the right and duty to examine and investigate the matter, and to report to the House of Lords on whether the use of the privilege was justified in that instance. I believe that that—without the need for a ban by definition—would oblige those minded to exercise the privilege in a manner that might be seen as a form of misuse to consider not twice but even more often whether to go ahead.
Parliament: Freedom of Speech and the Rule of Law — House of Lords, 2019-05-23
Topic: Other
Simon Denis Brown (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have three very brief comments; I am conscious of the fact that there are aeroplanes and trains to be caught. First, I give huge thanks to all noble Lords who have spoken in this high-quality debate. Not least, I am grateful to the non-lawyers who have spoken. This is partly because their view on the conflicting interests in play is particularly valuable and partly because I suspect that they have had to do even more homework to prepare their contributions than the lawyers who have spoken Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and one or two other noble Lords suggested that what he did here was justifiable. This heightens my concern that there is a real risk of this being repeated unless we now do something worthwhile to discourage such statements in future Thirdly, I respectfully suggest that there is more than sufficient support from the speeches today for taking some real action to deter future misuses or abuses, whatever you call them, of this privilege. So I respectfully urge the House authorities—no doubt predominantly the Procedure Committee—to give full consideration to this matter The Senior Deputy Speaker has just said, rightly, that the matter was looked at, comparatively briefly, by the Procedure Committee recently, and he undertook to look at it afresh. I urge him and the members of any committee that now looks into this to do so fully informed by this debate, in all its aspects. I hope that giving full consideration to the speeches today might very well temper what is otherwise a very limited proposed response to the problem, simply by way of adapting the Companion. I repeat that I am very grateful to all noble Lords who made such valuable contributions today and I beg to move.
Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2019-06-10
Topic: Mixed Topics
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, before that happens, I express my apologies for not being able to take part at Second Reading. I thank the Minister for asking his office to contact me and I am sorry that I delayed replying until Friday. I just want to comment on the family test. This was introduced in 2014 to be applied to Bills and involved a number of questions such as, "What kind of impact might the policy have on family formation?" and "What kind of impact might it have on stability in the family?" Although the test is not mandatory, this seems an appropriate Bill to have had it applied to, and I simply express the wish that in the future it might be applied to Bills similar to this one.
Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2019-06-10
Topic: Housing
Roger Thomas (Crossbench, Unknown): I have one question for the Minister. There is an outstanding consultation paper on the housing court, looking at whether we should bring together all the various complicated forms of housing legislation before one tribunal. How will taking out one of the parts of what would be a housing court matter affect it, when what we are dealing with is the procedural system to be applied rather than detailed means of service and hearings, which is what this is about? It would be helpful to have that explained We would be rash to assume that paper service of proceedings comes to people’s attention more readily. Certainly, we have found that if you want to get people to attend jury service, or some other things, it is much better to send them a text rather than a brown envelope; they normally respond to texts. That is modern thinking. I think noble Lords will find that people more readily respond in that way. This is much more a detailed matter of procedure.
Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2019-06-10
Topic: Mixed Topics
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support this amendment. I am a patron of the charity Best Beginnings, which has produced an application that can be downloaded from the NHS store for mothers around the births of their children. We are finding that it is tremendously effective in reaching black and minority-ethnic mothers in particular, and mothers on the lowest incomes. This has been developed with all the royal colleges, and it has taken time, money and a real strong effort from the charity over many years to develop such a good product that reaches out particularly to families for whom English is not the first language. One of the key selling points of this app is the videos attached to it. Mothers will see people like themselves talking about what it was like to experience depression or how to breastfeed and communicate with your infant. They can identify with those parents There is a tremendous opportunity here to make something which is really effective and helps litigants in person and people whose first language is not English to understand how to approach these matters. The noble Lord’s amendments are very important to ensure that there is a commitment up front to producing the best possible means for families and others to engage with the digital technology available and to get the best outcomes for them and their families Of course, with a product such as this—I am not pushing this one specifically—there are back-end analytics through which one can tell in an anonymous way exactly how often it is used and who uses it, so there would be plenty of feedback on how well it is working. I hope that the Minister can give a reassuring answer to the noble Lord.
Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2019-06-10
Topic: Civil Rights
Roger Thomas (Crossbench, Unknown): I make two brief observations. First, I support the introduction of the amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and emphasise that HMCTS provides a lot of advice on various areas and, because it is now jointly accountable to the Lord Chief Justice as well as to the Minister, its independence ought to be seen. Secondly, if Amendment 13 is adopted, I would hope that due regard is paid to the provisions of the Welsh Language Act; subsection (5) does not do so properly at present.
Brexit: Powers of EU-UK Joint Committee — House of Lords, 2019-03-20
Topic: Other
John Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, a lot of reference is made to this arbitration committee. Could the Minister kindly remind us who makes up this arbitration committee? What are the criteria under which this arbitration panel is made up and the matters relating to it decided?
Trade Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-20
Topic: Public Lands
John Lytton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, this is the first time I have intervened on this Bill and I do so without any interests to declare, although back in the 1980s we had great discussions about the criteria for dealing with protected areas in the United Kingdom. This was because in the classification of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, UK national parks were regarded not as category 1 protected areas but as multi-use areas. The meaning of national park here was different from what it was in the United States, Australia or many other countries There used to be a three-legged approach to what happened in protected areas in the UK, based on the principles of environmental, economic and social balance. It seemed to me then—and still does—that that encapsulates all that one might expect without skewing the outcome in one direction or another. None of the four items in proposed new subsection (4B) in Amendment 2 refers to business economics or to the leisure and cultural activities of those who may be living and working in protected areas. This is an omission of some significance in regard to protected areas in the UK. Can the Minister say, therefore, whether the three-legged approach is still meant to be encapsulated in the four-legged one in proposed new subsection (4B)?
Trade Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-20
Topic: Civil Rights
David Pannick (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I would like to add to what the noble Lord has said on human rights. I thank him for bringing forward the amendment specifically to add human rights, but I am satisfied with his decision not to move it. The powers conferred on Ministers under Clause 2 would not, as I understand it, permit Ministers to act in breach of the Human Rights Act—primary legislation—in any event. I would be very grateful if the Minister could confirm that understanding. It would also be inappropriate to include human rights in the main amendment because many pieces of legislation do not expressly refer to human rights. This is because we have primary legislation, which has a particular force. Therefore, including human rights in the amendment to Clause 2 might possibly cast doubt in those other areas.
Trade Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-20
Topic: Other
Robert Rogers (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I do not wish to detain your Lordships unnecessarily, but in a previous life I spent three years as the Clerk of Legislation at the north end of this building. One of the duties of the Clerk of Legislation is to read through the Explanatory Notes and approve them for every government Bill. A key part of that process is ensuring that there is no advocacy or advertising of the merits of a part of a Bill in the Explanatory Notes. Another factor to be taken into account is when Explanatory Notes tend to give an interpretation or an additional gloss on something that actually ought to be on the face of the Bill. With that background, I thoroughly welcome the exchanges of the past few minutes.
European Council — House of Lords, 2019-03-25
Topic: Other
David Hugh Alexander Hannay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, will the Leader of the House answer this question? From the Statement that she read out, it seems that the Prime Minister has accepted that, this evening, she will not succeed in persuading the House of Commons not to have the indicative vote. The indicative votes will go ahead, and the Prime Minister has said that the Government will facilitate that. Has she given any thought to giving this House a say on indicative votes? When will she programme that?
Hong Kong: Pro-democracy Activists — House of Lords, 2019-04-10
Topic: Mixed Topics
David Pannick (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, in the light of those questions, will the Minister emphasise that those who have been convicted have the right of appeal; that the basic law protects the independence of the judiciary; and that, in practice, the Hong Kong judiciary is as independent as any judiciary in the world? I declare an interest as a frequent advocate in the Hong Kong courts both for and against the Government of Hong Kong.
Shamima and Jarrah Begum — House of Lords, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Hastings Jay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the Minister rightly said that this case involves a highly complex set of issues—Britain’s security, the need for effective justice and the possibility of human rights abuse. But would she not agree that the tragic death of little Jarrah illustrates a much wider issue: that the British Government have a responsibility to British citizens, whoever they are, wherever they are and whatever they have done, and that the right thing is to bring them back to face justice, which we believe in and which surely has the right combination of fairness and robustness?
Further Developments in Discussions with the European Union under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union — House of Lords, 2019-03-11
Topic: Other
Frederick Butler (Crossbench, Unknown): I am grateful to the noble Lord. I think the barons at Runnymede would have been surprised by the suggestion that the people were in charge of the country. They would have thought that they were.
Further Developments in Discussions with the European Union under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union — House of Lords, 2019-03-11
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): The noble Lord has been talking about extending the franchise to 16 to 18 year-olds. Does he believe that it should continue to include the 1 million to 2 million people who are not British citizens?
Ebola Outbreak: Democratic Republic of the Congo — House of Lords, 2019-05-20
Topic: Immigration
Ilora Gillian Finlay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, asked about training being provided to anyone who might be going out there to work in any facility. I would be grateful if the Minister could answer that question. This is clearly an incredibly difficult situation. As part of that training, what consideration is being given to the security of anyone at all who is going out there? Also, what is being done internationally about the movement of people in and out of these areas, particularly on air travel, whereby people may travel great distances? Have we reinstated screening at our own borders and points of entry for air travel from affected parts of Africa? Are staff travelling to work in those areas being offered entry on to the Merck vaccine trial to avail themselves of the vaccine if they so wish?
Torture Overseas: Ministry of Defence Policy — House of Lords, 2019-05-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Frances D'Souza (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I think that the MoD policy adds to the evidence of complicity in torture and rendition programmes. After all, the Government accepted responsibility in the Belhaj case. Last year’s Intelligence and Security Committee report revealed deep and systematic involvement by the UK in extraordinary rendition but, due to government imposed-restrictions, the ISC was unable to produce "a credible Report". In view of these revelations, does the Minister not agree that the time has come for an independent, perhaps judge-led, inquiry into the UK’s adherence to the convention against torture?