argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-25
Topic: Government Operations
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, our Amendment 64 looks to bring in one of the recommendations that came from PACAC around the consolidation of electoral law. The Elections Bill makes substantial changes to electoral law, but it does not tackle something that has been fundamentally and widely recognised: the need to consolidate the existing voluminous and fragmented body of electoral law. Amendment 64 aims to address this PACAC has done a number of reports on electoral law. In 2019, Electoral Law: The Urgent Need for Review noted that even the most professional agents can worry about falling foul of electoral law and the complexity that it currently contains, and that this provides serious risks and difficulties for electoral administrators. PACAC has been recommending for some time now that the Government should look at prioritising non-controversial consolidation of electoral law that can command cross-party support. Much of this would have cross-party support because we all recognise that this needs sorting out. Once that consolidation has been achieved, the Government should proceed to evaluate the effectiveness of electoral law more generally to see where we could bring in further reforms to make it more straightforward for those involved in it to manage I am aware that the Government agree in principle that electoral law needs consolidation but at the moment consider that there are more immediate challenges outside of the structures, which presumably is what much of the basis of the Bill before us is looking at. We agree with PACAC that electoral law needs looking at. It needs consolidating and, in many areas, it needs simplifying. We have tabled this amendment to ask the Government to look very seriously at this recommendation and to take some action on it, if not now then as soon as is practically possible.
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-25
Topic: Government Operations
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in Committee I tabled Amendment 205 to ask the Government to include in the Bill a statutory commitment to post-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, as recommended by PACAC. I want to say very briefly how much I welcome the amendments that the Minister has just introduced and to thank him very much for listening to my concerns and the concerns of other Members of this House about the lack of pre-legislative consultation or scrutiny. The fact that this has been included in the Bill is extremely welcome.
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-25
Topic: Government Operations
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I start by saying that I agree with the noble Lord the Minister that this Bill is improved and strengthened having gone through this House. This Bill is a clear demonstration that your Lordships’ House can really prove its worth when a Bill comes that is not really good enough. I thank the Government and the Minister for bringing forward some important changes and concessions which have improved the Bill considerably I also believe that your Lordships’ House has sent a very clear signal to the Government about concerns around, in particular, photographic ID and the independence of the Electoral Commission. I thank my colleagues, my noble friends Lord Collins and Lord Khan, for their support and all the work that they have done on this Bill. I also thank Ben Wood, in our office, who has worked like crazy on this Bill and others, providing really important support I thank the many noble Lords who have taken part in debates on this Bill and who have contributed to making it the better Bill that it is today. In particular, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, for his important work demonstrating our concerns around the Electoral Commission. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord True and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for their time and consideration of our concerns. They have given us a lot of time and some of the concessions that we have had are extremely gratefully received and have made the Bill much better. I also thank the officials, because they also gave us that time to try to improve things in this way. I join the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, in thanking the many organisations that have provided time, briefings and the detailed information that has helped us to understand some of the complicated areas of electoral law I just end by saying that I hope that we can continue to work together constructively to address the outstanding areas where we believe we can still make more progress.
Easter Recess: Government Update — House of Lords, 2022-04-25
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Benn (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am not surprised that the Leader of the House did not repeat the Statement orally: who would want to repeat such a Statement? I make no comment on the fact that Covid regulations were broken, because we know that the Privileges Committee in another place will reach a view on this and we will discover in the autumn what its judgment is and what will follow accordingly I shall raise one point about Ukraine, because the Prime Minister said in the course of his Statement that "our long-term goal must be to strengthen and fortify Ukraine to the point where Russia will never dare to invade again."—[Official Report, Commons, 19/4/22; col. 49.] Other Members in the Chamber tonight were present at a meeting earlier today of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, in which very interesting evidence was given to us about the current situation of a war that has lasted longer than anyone probably thought it would. What kind of condition Ukraine will be in at the end of hostilities is by no means clear. I put it to the Leader of the House that it would be very helpful if the Government could find time, in government time in the next Session, to explore the important issues that are already beginning to be raised, such as: what are the West’s war aims, to put it bluntly, in the current situation? I very much hope that the Government will see to it that we have such a debate in the next Session.
Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-03
Topic: Government Operations
Dorothea Glenys Thornton (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has once again put his finger on an issue that the Government need to take seriously and which, as the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, has run through our debates at Second Reading and in Committee. What is the role of the ICPs’ joint working and what should a place board be doing? As I said during the previous day’s debate on Report, we need also to treat place boards—or any commissioning body—in the same way as we do the ICBs The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is right. If the Government do not address this issue in the next few weeks by putting something in the Bill, we may well find ourselves back here in two or three years’ time, doing exactly what we are doing now.
Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-03
Topic: Government Operations
Dorothea Glenys Thornton (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with that and with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. We will be coming to other issues about the Secretary of State’s powers later on Report, but the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has put her finger on it. I think I was there at the CQC’s inception because I was a Minister at the time, or certainly soon after. It has discharged its duties extremely well. The Minister needs to explain why the Government feel it necessary to put these powers into the Bill.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will be brief. We support the intentions of the amendments. I thank my noble friends Lord Dubs, Lady Lister of Burtersett and Lady Chakrabarti, who have been leading on these amendments I found it interesting to hear from my noble friend Lady Lister that there was no pre-legislative consultation on the issues covered by Amendment 105. Normally if we want changes in the law, we are told that such things have to go through a lengthy and elaborate process, but these seem to have appeared with a certain degree of rapidity. I really only want to ask the Government a couple of questions. First, in each of the three cases—that is, Clauses 31, 32 and 37—what is the problem that the Government claim to be fixing? What is it, particularly in relation to Clause 31, about the current standard of proof that they believe is failing Secondly, could the Government tell us where the pressure has come from to make these changes in the law? Clearly this is not simplification; it is changing the law, so let us not beat around the bush on that. Where has the pressure come from? Has it been intense? From what sources has it come? Who, or what organisation, has been after achieving these particular changes in the law? I do not recall—though I may be wrong—having heard people marching through the streets demanding these changes, which makes one wonder if some requests for change were made at a political fundraising dinner where no one else knew what was going on.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-08
Topic: Transportation
Alfred Dubs (Labour, Centre-left): I had already begun saying my thanks and praising the Minister for her stamina. I will comment very briefly that something amazing has happened this evening. Amendment 116, in the name of four Conversative Members of the Committee, is much more radical than anything produced by the Cross-Benchers, the Lib Dems, the Greens, the Labour Party or the Bishops’ Bench. It is amazing and I wonder what is happening to the Conservative Party here. I welcome Amendment 116 I will comment very briefly on my Amendment 115. It very clearly says, "in consultation with local authorities". There is no number set and no obligation, other than to consult with local authorities and set the number accordingly. Of course, I welcome the national transfer scheme. It should not be instead of the principles in Amendment 115, but it is very important that not all the pressure is on Kent and Croydon. Lastly, the Minister mentioned the large number coming in lorries across the channel, but the figures will show—I am sorry that I do not have the full figures here—that, in recent years, the number coming in the back of lorries has been higher, but they have been replaced by the ones coming on boats. The total numbers are actually fewer, even though the ones in boats are more obvious I again thank Members of the Committee for the part they played in this debate, and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): This is from a non-lawyer, so it may be absolute rubbish. The legislation says, "This is an offence" again and again. It does not say, "We will treat it as an offence only if it is an egregious matter." Should not the law itself make that clear? Otherwise, any overzealous—
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Shami Chakrabarti (Labour, Centre-left): Forgive me. I hesitate to rise, for obvious reasons, but I will rise anyway because I am a lawyer and this is important. I know that the Minister knows this, because she has a brief that covers other matters, including criminal matters, and she has her noble and learned friend next to her. This is the definition of an overbroad criminal offence. When a Minister has to stand up and say, "Yes, this offence is really broad but don’t worry because we intend for it to be prosecuted only in a subset of places", that is the very definition of an overbroad criminal offence, and it should be tightened up to cover the egregious cases that are on the Minister’s mind.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Shami Chakrabarti (Labour, Centre-left): On that specific point, it looks as though that is a defence. Therefore, the burden would be on the rescuer to demonstrate these things about the moment when the individual was in distress at sea, et cetera. That is very different from saying that these people are not covered by the offence, because the burden shifts on to the person who has potentially been arrested and charged and is having to make out the defence, does it not? I do not think the burden switch is quite what the Minister wants to happen.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Shami Chakrabarti (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am sorry but this is so important and I do not want to be bullied into submission because of things that happened earlier. The bottom line is that Her Majesty’s Coastguard is protected: it does not commit the offence. But there is a different formulation for those other rescuers. It is a defence for them, if they are charged, to show—they have to prove—these factual matters. They are in the loop; they are in the zone of being convicted and that is just not right. That is not fair. That is like saying, "You commit the offence of breathing but don’t worry, your defence will be that you weren’t raping and breathing at the same time." This is a flip of the burden and it is very dangerous for those innocent rescuers.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, on Clause 45 there are concerns about priority removal notices, but I am aware that at least part of the clause, to standardise the five days’ notice before removal, was welcomed by the JCHR. I welcome the questions put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and I look forward to the Minister’s response to them One reason the Government have given for standardisation is to ensure that there is time built in for the person to seek legal advice. However, the clause does not include any practical guarantee of access to legal advice. Can the Minister explain how the Government will ensure that legal advice will be provided? As has been discussed in previous debates, the legal aid sector is under pressure, so it will be interesting to know how the Government expect that to work There are also concerns over Clause 47, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, just outlined. Detention is a tool that should be used where it is purposeful, needed and proportionate. The deprivation of liberty is significant, and it is also a tool which, as we know, is exceptionally expensive to the taxpayer. Where a person’s previous conduct is relevant, such as where it makes them likely to abscond, that is already taken into account. We have also already taken into account where the person may have a detrimental effect on the community, such as by being a threat to public health or public order, or where we need to protect another person. So what does this provision add, other than to use detention, and charge it to the taxpayer, where it may not be strictly necessary Currently, we are not getting the use of detention right, as the Minister will know. Can she confirm how many cases there have been of unlawful detention in the past few years, and at what cost that has been to the public purse? In the other place, it was said that more than 500 people were wrongly detained, causing the Home Office to pay out more than £15 million over the past two years. Also, is it not the case that the majority of people in detention are released rather than removed, with their costly detention having served no purpose? At this stage, we are not convinced that this suggested change will improve things rather than making them a bit worse.
Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests — House of Lords, 2022-06-16
Topic: Government Operations
Angela Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Answer. He is right: the letters have now been published, but is there not a sense of déjà vu here? The resignation letter to the Prime Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Geidt, is just excoriating in its criticism. The loss of another—yet another—ethics adviser, is further evidence, if it were required, of Mr Johnson’s approach to office. The rules are for other people, not for him. They are there as a personal whim May I ask questions on two areas? The press briefings today indicate that the Prime Minister is in no hurry to appoint a new adviser and is even considering abolishing the role. I hope the Minister can kick that into touch and assure us that is not the case under any circumstances. Further, can he say something about how any inquiries—we know that there are inquiries—currently in play will be taken forward as a matter of urgency Can the Minister also say something on what Michael Ellis said in the other place, about the new arrangements in place to strengthen the code? The comment of the noble Lord, Lord Geidt, that these are not workable, is hardly a ringing endorsement There seems to remain a major flaw in this: the Prime Minister, who has a rather careless approach to rules, remains the final arbiter. One point made today was that it is important that, while the adviser can initiate investigations, they still need the consent of the Prime Minister. Does anybody really trust the Prime Minister with that consent?
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Government Operations
Christine Blower (Labour, Centre-left): I realise that the Minister is not able to say anything further about the timing with regard to Committee and Report, but could she say anything further in response to my noble friend Lord Knight about regulatory review, leaving aside the question of Report?
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
David Blunkett (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, may I just try this then with the Minister, who is doing her best in very difficult circumstances? Would she be prepared to talk with the Secretary of State, who is one of the most able members of the Cabinet—that might not mean a lot to others, but I think in this particular case it does—on whether it would be beneficial, not just to the passage of this legislation but to the whole education system, if he were able to see his way to taking time to reach a substantial consensus on the majority of this Bill, which I think we can do, if time were allowed to do so?
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Estelle Morris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support the arguments just made by the noble Duke about maths schools. I am not sure what the Minister will say—maybe she will solve the problem. I am not arguing that they need to be more independent than any others; the argument about the MAT is about the nature of the partnership the school is going into. I value partnerships—they are really important—but I can see the argument that maths schools need different partnerships from other secondary comprehensive schools that might go into MATs This is because we are not likely to have a whole host of these maths schools throughout the country. They are few in number, a bit like the music and ballet schools. Whatever you think of them, their aim is to take the most able children in that subject and support them to reach as high a level as possible. We will never aim to have thousands of them, so I worry that, if you make their key partnership in future—if you do not want them to stand by themselves—to be part of a MAT, you give the ownership of that scarce resource to that MAT. Just as we have competition between stand-alone schools, I am absolutely certain, because it exists at the moment, that we will have competition between MATs. They will not all share their resources; they will compete with each other. That is what they are doing now and will do in future. I am just not confident that the competitive environment in which MATs exist—trying to get more kids and the best results—will lead to them sharing the special skills in the maths schools in the way they should. The maths schools have a different set of partnerships. Unlike the MATs, they have very good relationships with universities and business. Progress-wise, they look up. So I am not fearful that they will fall prey to the problems of standing alone. I do not think they stand alone; they have a different set of relationships in their partnership. To take them out of that partnership and make them a legal part of the ownership of one MAT would make it far more difficult for them to share their skill across a geographical area. I can just bet which MAT they will end up going into—the one that already has the most high-performing children, because it will think that it can use them better than anyone else Go for the partnership, as they already have existing ones, but be really wary of treating them the same as any other academy, as they were never set up in that way. I hope that complements what the noble Duke said about independence; the nature of the partnership needs a great deal of thought.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Paul Murphy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham’s amendments, so ably spoken to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester. I do not have an awful lot of experience of academies; we do not have them in Wales. I suppose we are a bit old-fashioned, but the system seems to work quite well. However, I have nothing against them. They were introduced by the Government of which I used to be a member and I wish them well It is particularly important that church and state schools should have the same opportunities as academies. There is no reason in this wide world why a Church of England school or a Roman Catholic school—I am a Catholic—should not have the same opportunities as a state school. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester rightly referred to the fact that, in England, one in three schools is a church school. Ten per cent of all schools in England are Catholic schools, and 850,000 pupils go to them. Both Church of England and Catholic schools do a tremendous job in very deprived areas all over England—and, indeed, although it does not apply in this debate, in Wales There is a very strong case for ensuring that church schools have equal status in the Bill; handbooks and various bits of guidance from the Department for Education are okay, but they are not enough. If there is to be proper equality between church schools and state schools, that has to be recognised in law. Those issues revolve around governance structures, appointments, religious education and collective worship. I know that the Catholic authorities, all dioceses in England and the Catholic Education Service warmly support the amendments spoken to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester, as I do. I wish them well.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Jenny Chapman (Labour, Centre-left): I should perhaps declare an interest on the amendments moved by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester on behalf of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, given that my children attend academy schools in the area of that diocese. We would like to put on record our appreciation for the contribution of the Church of England to education in the country. I think it was very well put that there needs to be a strategic approach. The amendments tabled by the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Durham would better able that to happen, so we are sympathetic to the case that was made We were already minded to support Amendment 60, and my noble friend Lady Morris made the case better than I could. The issues highlighted prove that the Bill would have benefitted from some pre-legislative scrutiny I was particularly pleased to hear comments about fair access and admissions. Should we be forming a government any time soon, we would probably want to explore that and push it still further Given the very solid case that was made by both the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, and my noble friend Lady Morris, we would want the Minister to be as sympathetic as she can be in response to these amendments at this stage.