argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-16
Topic: Labor
Robert Kerslake (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the purpose of the amendment is simple: to promote the greatest possible engagement, and widest choice, for trade union members in ballots for industrial action. As we have heard, elsewhere in this Bill there are provisions that require a turnout of at least 50% and, in the case of important public services, the support of at least 40% of those able to vote before industrial action can be taken. These thresholds set a high bar, and have been hotly debated. If a 50% turnout test had been applied to elections before local councillors and police and crime commissioners could take up their seats, we would sadly now have many vacant posts. We do not, of course, set referendum thresholds, including for one of the most important decisions that this country will ever take: whether we remain in the European Union. Equally, Governments are able to govern and bring forward legislation having secured the active support of far less than 40% of the electorate. The amendment, however, does not seek to contest these thresholds; it simply says that if we are to apply these higher tests before industrial action can be taken, it is incumbent on us to provide trade unions with the best practical means available to achieve the full participation of their members.
Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-16
Topic: Labor
Simon Denis Brown (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, in supporting this amendment I will repeat, very briefly, a point that I made in Committee. I might not have done this if the Minister had dealt with the matter in her reply. But, tantalisingly, just as she said: "Perhaps this is the point at which I should respond to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown",—[Official Report, 8/2/16; col. 2026.] the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, interrupted—perhaps I mean intervened—to raise a different question and the Minister never came back to it At all events, the point was simply this: while I support the turnout requirements in these clauses, it should be noted that certain bizarre consequences could, at least theoretically, follow from these provisions. Assuming a bargaining unit of 1,000 union members—the illustration used in the Explanatory Notes to the Bill—if 499 members voted in favour of industrial action and none against, a strike would be unlawful. However, if 499 voted in favour and one against, because at least 50% of those eligible would have voted, a strike would be permissible—so, too, of course if 499 voted in favour and 498 against Doubtless, such possible anomalies as these are inevitable in any scheme which combines, as this one does, a minimum turnout requirement with the principle of a simple majority decision. But my point is that surely this underlines the imperative need to ensure that the best and most effective way is found of achieving a maximum turnout of those eligible to vote. This amendment will surely facilitate the search for that better way, and plainly nothing can be lost by it. It prejudges nothing: if electronic balloting were to prove ineffective or insecure in addition to postal voting, it simply would not be adopted. But we should at least let such an independent review be held.
Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-16
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Berkeley (Crossbench, Unknown): I think that it is the turn of the Cross Benches. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, will be pleased to hear that I am wearing a tie that is both blue and red, and it is in that spirit that I offer these thoughts. Nothing enrages the public more than the way in which some parts of this Chamber are constituted through party-political funding. It seems to me that, until we can revamp the way in which that funding works, it would be very dangerous and unfair to change the status quo to tilt the playing field as it currently exists. For that reason, I wholeheartedly support my noble friend Lord Burns in his amendment.
Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-16
Topic: Government Operations
Charles Hay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I will not detain the House for very long. When the committee met we noted that this clause was not a manifesto commitment. Accordingly, there is not that complication as one seeks to apply common sense. The committee was lucky to receive a written submission from BIS as to what Clause 11 was intended to do. It stated: "Clause 11 provides for additional transparency over the expenditure of the union’s political fund. It places a requirement on unions to provide more detail about political expenditure … This information will allow union members to make an informed choice about whether they wish to contribute to the fund" We were lucky also that Nick Boles in his evidence said several times—I have picked just one instance—that we must make sure that this is, "not designed to trip people up" The difficulty—I think the Select Committee was unanimous on this—was that the current clause did not "scratch the itch" that was outlined by BIS but certainly amounted to "tripping up", for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, have just given. I feel that the amendment we have put forward does scratch those itches. I therefore urge the Minister to accept it as it is proportionate, effective and balanced.
Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-16
Topic: Labor
Mary Watkins (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, as a co-signatory to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, I declare my interests as an emeritus professor of Plymouth University and a non-executive director of the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust As the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, said, we agree with the Government about the value of appropriate amounts of facility time, which we all acknowledge are essential to effective industrial relations and health and safety at work. The benefits of facility time come not only to the trade unions and employers but to the public, including patients and students, when good, sometimes even novel solutions are found to changes in working practice through collective discussion between managers and employee representatives For example, a management team that I led could not have delivered the effective changes in nursing and healthcare education in the West Country without having had trade union representatives funded through facility time. In that instance, we moved from 17 small sites to a four-centre hub-and-spoke model. This saved in excess of £3 million per annum, recurring, for the NHS budget—without a single working day lost. During the year in question union representatives’ facility time and managers’ time were a worthwhile investment in securing a cost-effective solution for the future. The reserved powers for the Secretary of State outlined in Clause 13 should not necessarily be needed. Good managers should be facilitated to make decisions about the amount of trade union facility time that is appropriate for the business in hand at that time, whether in the NHS or other publicly funded services. Just as trust is necessary between managers and unions, it is necessary between government and leaders and managers in the public sector The Government are saying that costs should be transparent and relevant to the benefits. I have given a personal example of this approach and fully support the concept that this should be achieved. However, I do not believe that the reserved powers contained in Clause 13 are proportionate or necessary. Good managers will oversee and provide transparent data on facility time and should be held accountable for doing so without the need for Clause 13. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, has made a sound argument for the deletion of Clause 13, with which I concur.
Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-16
Topic: Government Operations
Robert Kerslake (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving his response and for the contributions to this debate, which have been most valuable. This provision can be described only as overweening central power, with no justification whatever. The Minister said that public bodies—in the main, local authorities—should be accountable for what they spend. Yes, they should be, but to their local electorate. That electorate will be able to see exactly how much the authority spends and what they get for it, and to form their own opinion. Do we seriously think that the process of democratic control cannot deal with less than 0.2% of the pay bill? It is, I am afraid, absurd and it has not been defended I will make one last point before we go forward on this. The Minister said that there would be flexibility within the cap to decide what arrangements there would be. Within this clause, there is provision for the Secretary of State to say: "I don’t like the fact that you are doing 100% time, trade union representative: I would like to change it to 50%, or maybe 25%". There is not even the ability to make the decision on the deployment of whatever cap is created. This is overweening centralism, so I beg to test the opinion of the House.
Litvinenko Inquiry — House of Lords, 2016-01-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Ian Warwick Blair (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am not entirely sure that I should declare this as an interest, but this appalling crime took place during my term as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. I endorse the Home Secretary’s Statement and I am very conscious that the implications of Sir Robert Owen’s report are far wider than having anything to do with the police. However, I would like the Minister further to acknowledge something which appears to have been omitted from the Home Secretary’s Statement. I would like the Minister to take note of the fact that this investigation was into a homicide by a method never seen before in the history of the world. It presented a unique and immensely dangerous challenge to the investigators themselves. In these days, when the Metropolitan Police faces sustained criticism over a number of unrelated matters, this investigation was in the finest tradition of that organisation. It was not only exemplary but innovative, intelligent, unstinting and astonishingly brave.
Enterprise Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-04-19
Topic: Labor
David Alton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, before we leave this group of amendments, I echo something that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said a moment or two ago about the importance of protecting workers’ rights. I was involved in the original legislation when it was enacted and spoke in another place about protecting workers who wanted to opt out of having to work on Sundays, and I moved amendments that excluded Christmas Day and Easter Day—two of the very few amendments that were successful at that time To some extent, these amendments merely tinker with the protections provided previously. A lot of evidence has been gathered in the years since the enactment of the original legislation which indicates that those protections need strengthening further. I simply refer the Minister to what one of her predecessors —the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon—promised Parliament back in 2012, on 24 April, when he spoke at the Second Reading of the Sunday Trading (London Olympic and Paralympic Games) Bill. He said that Parliament would have the opportunity fully to debate the issue of Sunday trading restrictions if the issue were revisited. I simply ask the Minister why it therefore required the intervention of notable Members of Parliament such as Mr David Burrowes and the redoubtable Fiona Bruce, who worked across the divide to defeat the Government’s proposals, to prevent something being stampeded through without proper parliamentary scrutiny. Why was the promise given to the House in 2012 not honoured? Why did we not have a debate about this when it was in your Lordships’ House in the first instance, before it went to another place? Perhaps the Minister will shed light on that The Minister will know that there were some 7,000 responses to the consultation process the Government initiated. It would be a great breach of trust in the future—at a time when trust is not held in very high esteem by many people when looking at Parliament and politics—if we were both to ignore the responses to the consultation process and circumvent the promises Ministers have previously given. If any further changes are intended, will there be the opportunity for full parliamentary scrutiny? Can we please not use such methods, which, in the end, it took members of the Minister’s own party in the House of Commons to prevent the Government from proceeding with in a very high-handed way?
Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-19
Topic: Labor
Robert Kerslake (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I rise to speak to this amendment and in doing so declare my interests as chairman of King’s College Hospital and president of the Local Government Association. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, for moving this amendment. He has been a constant companion during the Committee stage of the Bill and I have learned a great deal of trade union history from him that I did not previously know about Like the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, I am in the equally happy position of finding that the speech I wrote over the weekend is now entirely redundant. I think we are all agreed about the importance of the role of trade unions in this country. They are a part of British life. It was clear to anyone who looked at the detail that the Government’s proposals on check-off stood to do considerable damage both to the unions themselves and to their members and potential members. Like the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, I was particularly concerned about the impact on low-paid, mostly female workers who stood to lose out on the protection and benefits of trade union membership It is worth bearing in mind that the impact of this proposal was likely to be felt by more than 21,000 public sector organisations. Given its impact, I think many noble Lords felt that the arguments in favour of it were—to put it mildly—not convincing. Take just one example: modernisation. Again, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, has said, there are many examples of payroll deductions continuing. It appears that only the trade unions and their members were going to be route marched to modernity on this issue. It was absolutely right that the members should have the choice between payroll deduction and direct debit. In a situation where the unions had signalled clearly that they were willing to pay the costs, it felt to me that the last credible argument on this issue had fallen away I am delighted that Ministers have listened on this issue and changed their view. I hope that we can see equal progress on some of the other contentious issues in the Bill, and I look forward to seeing the wording at Third Reading.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Macroeconomics
Robert Kerslake (Crossbench, Unknown): I am intensely aware of just how long we have gone on but I cannot let that point pass. It is essential that the Minister address the analysis in the NAO memorandum, which clearly identifies the challenge here. This would all be a lot easier if we could see a set of numbers that said, "Here’s the potential receipts, here’s the potential deductions from those receipts and here’s how it will balance with the cost of the discounts". We might then be able to have a sensible debate I make one last point on what the Minister said. I am absolutely up for efficient management of stock and I am very much up for a duty on local authorities to manage their stock efficiently. But this is not about efficiency; this is about a levy to pay for a government policy.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Government Operations
Robert Kerslake (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, those are two important details that we could reasonably look at in the Bill or, had we the regulations in front of us, reasonably consider in regulations. The important point to make is that the absence of the regulations is compounding complexity on complexity. This is our difficulty here. We have a stated intent of government, but nothing in front of us that tells us how that intent will be delivered. Yes, there is an issue of timescale—we currently have three years; that may or may not be the right timescale for an expanded programme and should be consulted on with local authorities—but one thing that in my understanding is an irreducible intent of government is one for one. That is why it should be on the face of the Bill. I beg to move.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Government Operations
Robert Kerslake (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, my amendment goes as far as I think it is possible to go within the bounds of the legislation. If there were a way of constructing it, there would be an intent to replace in the same area. We will have that conversation in debate on the rural amendments, so the noble Lord’s point will perhaps come through then There is a trade-off here. I acknowledge the point about how much one can specify in the Bill and how much one has to leave to local authorities to lead on and understand where they have high-demand issues. However, if we do not have even one for one in the Bill, we are a long way back from where we need to be.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Macroeconomics
Robert Kerslake (Crossbench, Unknown): I accept that in the Bill it is a discretion—it says "may"—but we have no sense of knowing in what circumstances the Secretary of State might allow a transfer to go ahead without a levy and in what circumstances he would not. It is not unreasonable to want to know those circumstances. Perhaps the Minister could write to me on that point.
European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-03-02
Topic: International Affairs
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): On the second point, I have to correct the noble Lord. The sentence is clearly about further integration inside the eurozone without additional powers being passed by member states outside the eurozone. On the first point, I can only apologise. I had myself thought that the former Chancellor, the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, agreed with the present Chancellor that it was in the interests of the UK that the eurozone market should not collapse and that it was in the interests of the UK economy that these arrangements should survive. That is the policy of this Government. I had thought it was a policy supported by the noble Lord, Lord Lawson The exchange with the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, did not quite bring out the fact that of course we could trade with other third countries on WTO terms. The terms that we trade on now, which have been secured by the EU, are much better than WTO terms, because they have been secured using the muscle of a market of 500 million people. That is a fairly fundamental point. The key point on trade is that if we leave, we lose. The argument of the noble Lord, Lord Howard, on the other hand, did seem to contain a lacuna, which I greatly welcomed; this time he did not advance what I call the Maurice Sendak theory. The Sendak argument—I call it that in tribute to that great literary work, Where the Wild Things Are—is one that the noble Lord has advanced in public several times; I heard him explaining it on the radio the other day. I think it is a view held by Mr Cummings—not the cartoonist but the conspirator. The argument is that if the nation votes to leave on 23 June, we should not leave but should stay firmly where we are, saying and doing nothing, not invoking Article 50, and the wild things will all come rushing to us as supplicants, saying, to quote from the great book: "Oh please don’t go—we’ll eat you up—we love you so!" This is a theory that Mr Boris Johnson advanced a few months ago and then resiled from a few months ago, and then advanced again a fortnight ago and then resiled from this week; his bicycle wobbles but he remains vertical. Sadly, the wild things are fiction. The fact is that the other member states are fed up with us. To them, this week’s European Council on the refugee crisis is much more important than was the Council, and the conclusions, that we are debating now It is surreal that any UK Government could decide not to act on a no referendum. It is even more surreal that the French press, which believes that Mr Cameron got away with murder, could agree that in the event of a no, murder should be followed by massacre.
European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-03-02
Topic: International Affairs
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): I thank the noble Lord for his helpful intervention. I believe that if we were to say no, our decision would be greeted with regret in most EU capitals, but that regret would be accompanied by some relief that all the contingency concessions made to Mr Cameron would automatically fall away—and they would; that is what the European Council’s conclusions text says The different argument that the noble Lord, Lord Howard, advanced today is one that I have to take much more seriously. This time it is the rest of the world that comes as supplicants, rather than the EU 27, to a self-confident UK freed of the shackles of the European Union, bestriding the world, trading on our own terms and striking new alliances. The Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Japanese and Indian Governments have all made clear that they believe it is in their interests and ours that we stay, not go. That is the view of the US Administration, the Government in Beijing and the G20. I do not believe that the rest of the world is waiting to do business with us on our terms Despite reservations about the strategy that the Government have followed, I have to say that I warmly endorse and welcome the conclusions of their White Paper: we are better off, safer and stronger in the EU. That is certainly true.
European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-03-02
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): I must counter the noble Lord. I think that the quotation by the noble Lord, Lord Howard, was completely accurate. What Delors said was that you can have an EEA, which is what the Norwegians have, or you can have a free trade agreement, which is what a lot of countries round the world have, but you cannot have access to the single market.
European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-03-02
Topic: Technology
David Hugh Alexander Hannay (Crossbench, Unknown): Perhaps the noble Lord is not familiar with the research that has been done by Universities UK. It states that moneys which come through the programmes of the European Union are worth 1.4 times moneys that come from simple research in the UK without collaboration with others. Before he starts with "It’s our money" he should think of that.
European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-03-02
Topic: International Affairs
David Hugh Alexander Hannay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, could the Minister confirm what I believe to be the case, and stated when I addressed the House earlier: that in the cases of Denmark and Ireland, where postdated commitments were entered into for treaty change, which took quite a few years to fulfil, there was no evidence and no case in which the European Court of Justice sought to tamper with those agreements? That is rather more important than endless speculation about what it might do.