argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: International Affairs
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): It is not a shame. What were the words? "Kindness, care and consideration". It is because we share the objectives of that best possible deal that we should make sure that our mandate and agreement serve the whole country, the economy and the regions. At this stage, we should not support one particular approach to that. I urge the House to abstain on the amendment.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Waheed Alli (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank everyone who participated in the debate. We have had a full debate and it was encouraging to hear the voice of business come through, particularly as it is often stifled by rhetoric and dogma. I thank the Minister for what he said. Clearly, I disagree with him. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and my noble friend Lord Mandelson, best set out the kind of negotiation one would expect to have with the EEA, which would be different. In the absence of anything else, this is where we are left. I also thank my own Front Benchers for their courtesy and the way they handled this difficult situation, with many of us on this side of the House wanting to vote for this amendment. It has been a privilege to work with them. I want to say that on the record I will highlight a couple of other people from the debate. It will be my only opportunity, and that of many in this House, to say thank you to the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, who has done an extraordinary job managing to herd the cats that are non-aligned on this Bill with regular updates and emails. I am sure that noble Lords who have had those will join me in thanking her for the work she has done. I highlight two speeches above anything else. It is very brave to speak against your own party when you do not normally do so. The contributions of the noble Baronesses, Lady Verma and Lady McGregor-Smith, were exemplary. To take something you believe in and to say and make those arguments against the wishes of your own party shows real bravery and independence. It has been a real privilege to be on the same amendment as them I am sure it will be of no surprise to the Minister that I reject his thesis entirely. I also reject the notion that if those of us in business and services wait long enough, the Government will come up with something to tell us about their trade negotiations. It simply does not wash. I ask my side to take the examples of the noble Baronesses, Lady Verma and Lady McGregor-Smith. Be brave and vote—as they say in Ireland, vote often if you can. I beg to test the opinion of the House.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Government Operations
Simon Haskel (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, to extend the scrutiny period of the statutory instruments committee from 10 days to 15 days. Like the noble Lord, I speak from experience as a long-standing member of the committee. Yes, where an instrument is fairly routine and uncontentious, 10 days with one meeting is manageable but tight. That is not possible where the committee has doubts or queries and needs to make inquiries; to get answers from Ministers, from other parliamentary committees and, most importantly, from stakeholders and experienced people outside Whitehall in response to its concerns; and to have their views and responses considered at a second meeting. After all, they are the people who are most affected. I could give examples but the time is late. Still, there are many occasions when these inquiries have materially changed the view of the statutory instruments committee In my time many statutory instruments have been reported to the House as having had insufficient consultation, so I am reporting this clause to the House for not allowing sufficient consultation time. I hope the Minister will take note and change it.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Government Operations
Margaret Jay (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support Amendment 70. If I am in order, I shall speak also to Amendment 71 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey. I declare an interest as serving as a trustee of the Hansard Society under the able chairmanship of the noble Lord Way back in what now seems like pre-Neolithic times at the time of the Queen’s Speech, when we raised some general issues about the potential passage of the Bill, I spent some time, I think rather to the House’s amazement and considerable boredom, trying to emphasise some of the points about the role that secondary legislation was likely to play in the passage of the Brexit legislation as we now see it coming before us. The estimates since we spoke about that have varied widely, but I have to say that the director of the Hansard Society, who I regard as one of the country’s leading experts on this whole area, has mentioned a figure of 2,000 statutory instruments coming before this House The noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, has competently and eloquently described, both today and in Committee, the importance of his Amendment 70. Amendment 71 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, myself and two other colleagues is what I see as a belt-and-braces addition to Amendment 70; as the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, has already said, it would be only a so-called nuclear option in particularly difficult circumstances. Given what has been described as the vastly uncharted waters in which we now embark on this, and remembering my time as the chairman of the Constitution Committee —on which the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, whose name is also to this amendment, was one of my most helpful colleagues—we need at this stage to put some detailed amendments in the Bill that enable the principles that we have discussed so often during the passage of the Bill about the pre-eminence of parliamentary authority over secondary legislation to be put very firmly on the statute book. I think the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, is sufficient. With the addition of the one in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, to which I have put my name, we will have, as I say, belt-and-braces protection.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Government Operations
John Davies (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I think I agree with every statement that has been made in the course of this debate. A real consensus seems to be emerging from both Benches’ contributions. I just want to add briefly to that, because it is an important issue In my view, the treatment of secondary legislation in our country is one of the hidden scandals of our constitution. It is done better in this House than it is in the other place. I was in the other place for 23 years. When I was on the Front Bench, like everyone else, I was from time to time press-ganged by the Whips to sit on a secondary legislation committee. What I witnessed there was a travesty. I often commented on it by intervening in those debates to say how disgusted I was with the whole process. Nobody was given an opportunity to brief themselves on the subject—we would have actually been discouraged from doing so. Certainly, anyone who had an interest in the subject would have been disqualified from serving on the committee in the first place. Everyone brought in their constituency correspondence or read a book. Nothing was said and there was no investigation of the issues raised, which were sometimes important issues. This went on for weeks and months and years, and I am sure continues The great virtue of this debate is that Brexit has given us an opportunity—simply because of the vast volume of secondary legislation that will be generated—to look again at our procedures in both Houses of Parliament to deal with it. Some very interesting suggestions have been made this evening. I particularly support the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane. Ultimately, of course, we need to solve this problem in a different context from the one we have tonight, but I was delighted to hear the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, say that the solution must be to rely on Parliament to amend statutory instruments—secondary legislation. Only that will ensure that we have the opportunity for proper debate on the substance of these laws coming through Parliament, which is so severely lacking at present.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I strongly support the amendments, but I wish to ask about what I thought was a remarkable statement made by the Deputy Speaker after the previous Division. She announced that the result for the Contents in the Division on the single market amendment was out by two. The vote in the Contents in that Division was 247 rather than 245. I ask the Minister, in the interval before he replies to the debate, to explain to the House what happened. This is now the fourth Division on the EU withdrawal Bill where figures have been misreported to the House.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, perhaps I may comment a bit further, because I think there is a serious problem in the conduct of Divisions in the House when large numbers of Peers are voting. We have had only 14 or 15 Divisions on the EU withdrawal Bill, but this is the fourth amendment where the result of a Division has been misreported in the House. On three previous occasions, there was a difference in the tallies between the tellers and the clerks, which I think is a serious business. The majorities have been quite large, but if they had been small, we would not know what was the view of the House by the way that the Divisions have been conducted We have now had a serious misreporting of a vote. It takes an inordinate time for Divisions to be conducted because the procedures of the House were not conceived for the number of Members that we have but—more importantly, I think—because the new electronic system of recording votes is very inefficient. I simply note this for the attention of the Clerk of the Parliaments, with whom I have now raised this twice. I should note that he has not replied to my last letter to him on the subject. I think this issue needs to be looked at by whichever is the appropriate body in the House responsible for the conduct of business.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Goldsmith (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Government have come forward with, in effect, some concessions in this area so as to give added safeguards to Members of this House that these powers will be used responsibly I know that the Minister recognises how concerned Members of the House are about the way that legislative power may be exercised other than through the full parliamentary process, or sub-delegated to others. That is why it is very important that the statements that it is proposed will have to be made are carefully considered. I will not repeat what I said in previous debates about the importance of ministerial responsibility for them, but the Minister has said that the House and another place will want to scrutinise very carefully both the statements that are made and the reports that are proposed to see how this is going. I therefore appreciate the changes being made by the Government and will be happy to see them go through.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-08
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it seems to fall to me to move the last amendment of Report, as in Committee. However, I am not going to detain the House for long because, having re-read the Committee proceedings earlier, I found myself fully persuaded by the compelling and eloquent arguments made by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. As his arguments rolled off the page about the intent of the European Union Act 2011 and how it was not intended to address a situation other than a significant accretion of powers to the European Union, I thought it would not be sensible to press this. I am entirely persuaded by the fact that if we are to have a referendum on the treaty that the Prime Minister is negotiating with the European Union, as I believe we will ultimately have, it needs to be on an explicit vote by Parliament and cannot take place as a consequence of the 2011 Act. So, at 10.38 pm, I can bring Report proceedings to a conclusion.
Modern Slavery (Victim Support) B‎ill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-05-10
Topic: Law and Crime
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, for his skill in steering this Bill through your Lordships’ House. We are all very grateful to him and for the campaigns and businesses that have supported him, including the Co-op and Co-operative Party, of which I have been a member for 40 years I wish this Bill every success in the Commons and hope that it will become law swiftly. It will improve the support that victims of this wicked crime will be able to receive and bring the law in England and Wales up to the same standard that already applies in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Civil Liability Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-05-10
Topic: Labor
John Bassam (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I rise with some trepidation to enter into a debate that is so well populated by lawyers and people who know a lot better about these things than I. Perhaps I should declare a sort of interest or make an admission that while I am not a lawyer, I live with one—and her advice to me the other day was not to get into this debate. I have set that on one side for what I hope is a good reason I shall speak to Amendment 27A on the supplementary list. It pursues the same point that the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, explored. I too am worried about what the Bill—a welcome, reforming Bill in many respects—will also capture and that it will put off, deny and deprive access to proper compensation to those who, in the course of their employment, drive for a living. I am thinking of public service workers, ambulance drivers, firefighters, police officers and those in the distribution sector. I am worried that the Government have it wrong and that the legislation will capture people they do not want to. I cannot see, and we have not yet seen, evidence that there is widespread fraud. I am also concerned that in cases involving people who drive as a product of seeking their living and who are injured in the course of their work, perhaps by someone else’s negligence or when they have been working for a supplier contractor, they end up being undercompensated Like the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, I should like to probe the Minister’s intent. Can he assure us that such claims will not be affected in the way in which they potentially are? We are both seeking assurances, some evidence and a hope that damages suffered by those in the course of their work will continue to be assessed in the usual way. That is only fair, right and proper. I am sure that the Government would not want to unwittingly—perhaps inadvertently—damage such people’s interests. While a claim culture exists, stimulated by an industry that is very driven, we do not want to harm those who are rightly seeking compensation for an injury that they have suffered.
Civil Liability Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-05-10
Topic: Transportation
John Stephen Monks (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I follow for a moment the line that previous speakers have addressed. I understand that the Scottish position is different from that proposed in the Bill and that people injured in the course of their employment are treated differently from others. It would be interesting if the Minister, with his extensive knowledge of the Scottish position, could outline what the different reasoning might be. I am not asking him to speak for the Scottish Government, but I am sure he understands how Scottish practice has developed in a different way A number of us are concerned that this is a Bill for the insurance industry, tackling problems that it should have addressed itself. If insurance companies were paying out claims without properly investigating, if they were making money available just because it was too much trouble for them to assess the honesty of those making the claim, they have spawned the industry that we are now grappling with and trying to make sense of. The insurance industry should put its own house in order, not come crying to the Government too often to say, "You should do this for us with legal changes" I am conscious that we could have a problem with drivers who get injured and are covered by the road traffic laws being treated differently from a driver of a forklift truck, say, who has an accident in the factory or depot, and is not covered by road traffic law. There are inconsistencies here which, I understand, the Scots have addressed differently from the position under the Bill. The Minister shakes his head, and I stand to be corrected, but I should be interested in his observations on that point.
Civil Liability Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-05-10
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I return to the issue of employee exemption, which several noble Lords have mentioned in this debate. I have a lot of sympathy with it. In my Amendment 23, I shall be seeking some kind of exemption for vulnerable road users. My worry in these amendments is the definition of who is driving in the course of their employment. My understanding is that under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, you are covered if you are driving to work in your car and you are employed. The car does not have to be owned by your employer; it can be hired or your own. You are at work and, therefore, covered by the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. I assume it is the same for Uber drivers, truck drivers and anyone in between It is difficult to accept an exemption that would cover all those things, whether you are self-employed or employed by a company or by somebody else. It would be fine if one could find a definition, but there are so many loopholes nowadays in driving and road safety law. I have had many discussions with Ministers over the years about whether road safety and driving legislation should be led by the rules of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. In other words, you are at work all the time. That applies to drivers’ hours, driving safety and everything else. I worry about the definition of driving when in the course of employment, and I have a lot of sympathy with anyone trying to find a definition.
Belhaj and Boudchar: Litigation Update — House of Lords, 2018-05-10
Topic: Law and Crime
Shami Chakrabarti (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement and am especially grateful to Jeremy Wright, the Attorney-General, for advance sight of it yesterday and, in particular, for his humane handling of this matter Mrs Boudchar has been in the Public Gallery of the other place today, and I am sure that the whole of both Houses of Parliament will sympathise with her and Mr Belhaj for having suffered such appalling treatment at the hands of others. What happened to them both is deeply disturbing, not least as Mrs Boudchar was pregnant at the time. I only hope that the settlement of the legal case allows some closure to a terrible set of events in their lives The Prime Minister has written to Mr Belhaj and Mrs Boudchar, who is in the Palace today, to apologise for this terrible treatment. She is entirely right to have done so, and to accept—unequivocally and unreservedly—the failings on the part of the UK Government at that time I of course agree with the Minister and with the Attorney-General that our security and intelligence services carry out vital work in helping to keep us all safe. But the rule of law must always be respected and must always be the guide of the actions of government. Our security and intelligence services must be properly overseen. When things do go wrong, it is right to acknowledge that in very clear terms, to do what can be done to make recompense, and to learn lessons for the future The Attorney-General rightly raised in his Statement problems regarding information sharing, more actions being required to reduce the risk of mistreatment and missed opportunities to alleviate human suffering. We must do all we can to stop this ever happening again The relationship between our intelligence and security services and government is now subject to a different framework. That is a welcome step in the right direction. The statutory right of the Intelligence and Security Committee, independent of government, to review past intelligence operations and its direct access to agency papers are important. That Ministers must be consulted whenever UK personnel are involved in a planned operation in which they believe a detainee is at serious risk of mistreatment by another state is absolutely crucial. I appreciate that the Minister is, understandably, limited in what he can say openly today, but I would ask for an assurance that such ministerial consultation will be detailed, considered and informed by as much information as can reasonably be made available to Ministers at the time In addition, might the Minister assure your Lordships’ House that we will always be vigilant in ensuring that the framework within which our intelligence and security services operate is robust and is always shaped by our core values: the rule of law, liberty and human rights? After all, it is only behaving to those standards ourselves that allows us to stand up for those values around the world.
Belhaj and Boudchar: Litigation Update — House of Lords, 2018-05-10
Topic: Law and Crime
Alan William John West (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I welcome this Statement: it is very clear in drawing a line under matters. Things have changed since these events happened. I was the Security Minister at the time and when I asked the question about rendition, I was told, as a Minister in the Government, that it was not going on. Does the Minister feel that this could not possibly happen again now because of the changes that have been put in place by a number of noble Lords, when they were in the other place, and by the committees that are in place or does he think that such a thing could happen again, where a tiny cabal of people is able to do something and there is no way of breaking this out?
Civil Liability Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-05-10
Topic: Transportation
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for a very comprehensive reply. I should say that looking to deal with the definition in the amendment was pretty much a peg on which to raise the issue that I did. The Minister prompted me on driverless vehicles. As it happens, I had half an ear to the television set in my office yesterday when I was drafting some of this, so I caught up on that debate. It certainly should feature in the future There is a broader issue here—I accept it is not for this Bill—about whether we could make a dramatic improvement to some of the casualty numbers by a comprehensive effort, particularly around some of the black box technologies. The insurance companies bear some of the costs of that at the moment. It may be that they should be asked to do more. What I am looking for here is a thorough, comprehensive focus. If we had the same intensity of focus on dealing with road traffic accidents that we have—dare I say?—on Europe, we might have made a real difference already. Having said that, I am grateful to the Minister for his response and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.