argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Environment
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on bringing forward the amendment, and also my noble friend the Minister for the work that the Government have done in this regard. May I take this opportunity to press my noble friend on one issue? The Government have been quite clear on single-use plastics and a potential returnable bottle scheme, as well as cotton buds. I am not clear what the position is on wet wipes, which I know cause huge problems for water companies and can block cisterns quite badly. Another growing problem, which may not be addressed by this amendment but appears elsewhere in the Bill, is fat balls from cooking that uses large amounts of fat. Where are we are on those issues?
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Environment
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have campaigned against plastic and support most of the Government’s plans because of the permanent damage that plastic can cause, especially to our seas and rivers. I support the wide powers that the Government are taking in this area. However, focusing on single use is not sensible. I remember that, when I was in retail, a single bag for life needed to be used 80 times to match the efficiency of the light single-use plastic bag. We also need to think about the consumer. I feel there will be similar nonsenses if we try to ban the single use of other items. What is wrong with a coloured paper straw or a paper spoon to eat an ice cream? It will rot afterwards. I am also happy to see cans of Coke, especially if they can be recycled, as they would be if we made it a great deal easier for people to recycle. So I may be in a minority of one, but I think this amendment goes too far.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Environment
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. The Government are committed to promoting resource efficiency and moving towards a circular economy. Before I start addressing Amendment 40, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, I feel obliged to add my comments on the article that appeared yesterday in the Telegraph. I do not think any names were attached to the article, so it is very hard to know who to take this up with, but it certainly seemed to me to be almost entirely mischievous and not true. We do want to get this Bill done by COP 26—we do not have to, but we want to, for obvious reasons that we discussed in Committee—and we feel that it is in the national and international interest that we should pass the Bill in the strongest possible form before COP 26. No one involved in the passage of this Bill would put their name, privately or publicly, to the comments that appeared in the newspaper Turning to Amendment 40, the noble Baroness is absolutely right to highlight the impact of materials other than plastic on the environment. A number of other noble Lords have done the same. I will not go into all the reasons why that matters, as we have covered the issue well during the passage of the Bill, and it has been covered again today. We know that our reckless and wasteful use of resources is putting the natural world under intolerable pressure. However, there is a particular and acute need to reduce consumption of single-use plastic and the particular and enormous environmental harm that it causes. That is why we have included specific powers in the Bill to impose charges on single-use plastics. These will provide a powerful and targeted tool to specifically address the issue of single- use plastics by directly incentivising consumers to use fewer of them.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Environment
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful for the efforts of my noble friend Lord Blencathra and other members of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. My Bill team and I were greatly reassured by the assessment that the committee made of the Environment Bill, and I agree that there is an opportunity for us to go further. That is why I have accepted all the DPRRC’s recommendations and am pleased to table these amendments These technical amendments will increase parliamentary scrutiny in areas such as littering enforcement, vehicle recall, land drainage and local nature recovery strategies. I have also tabled Amendment 43, which was requested by the Scottish Government so that they will be able to make provision under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency to be able to impose civil sanctions relating to electronic waste tracking. This will bring the Scottish Ministers’ powers in line with those of the Secretary of State in England, Welsh Ministers and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland Finally, I have tabled Amendments 46, 47, 48 and 49. These are minor and technical amendments to measures on fly-tipping enforcement to clarify that authorised officers would be able to exercise their Schedule 10 powers relating to the search and seizure of evidence without a warrant in circumstances where consent has been given. This will enable enforcement officers to determine whether pollution control legislation is being complied with. This was always the intention; however, these amendments expressly set out that, where consent has been given, a warrant is not required I hope that noble Lords welcome these technical changes, which will increase parliamentary oversight and improve the Environment Bill. I beg to move.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Law and Crime
David John Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. It would be churlish of me not to congratulate my noble friend and the Defra Bill team on making these technical amendments. They were the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which I am privileged to chair. On behalf of the committee, I thank the Minister and the Defra team for making them. One of the powers has moved from negative to affirmative—no big deal, but we are very grateful for it. The others are textbook examples of what departments can do to improve parliamentary scrutiny. We were not demanding that the SIs be affirmative or that they be negative; we were simply saying, "Please lay them before Parliament and publish them." They have agreed to do so In the report that we publish today on the police and sentencing Bill, which the House will consider tomorrow, we will be scathing in our condemnation because the Home Office has failed to do those simple things in its legislation. Let this be a lesson to it on what can be done.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Transportation
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have some sympathy with Amendment 56 on stationary idling. It is an existing offence, and all we are being asked is to put the fine up to a more realistic level. It is certainly a problem that particularly concerns—I do not know if I should name them specifically—Uber-type drivers sitting waiting for fares I do not support any of the other amendments. I think it would be difficult if the House put some of these things through without fuller consideration and costings.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Agriculture
Alexander Randall (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 52 to which I have added my name, and the very important contributions, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. I am of course passionate because this is a matter of great importance. As I have said previously, on both the Agriculture Bill and in Committee for this Bill, we have a history of underplaying certain risks to human health, which we only find out about later. I am thinking of tobacco, asbestos, air quality—which we have just been discussing —and various things which cause harm. It must be obvious that these chemical pesticides—because of the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff—are nothing but harmful I am particularly concerned about cocktails of chemicals. I am not a chemist and did not do much science at school, but I know that if one mixes certain chemicals, they have a completely different effect and can be even more toxic. Do these chemicals accumulate in the soil, and not simply vaporise, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said? That is something we should be looking at.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Agriculture
Malcolm Sinclair (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness; she has made a very powerful speech and covered a lot of the points that I wanted to raise. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, also made a powerful and passionate speech. We all know that some pesticides are lethal when applied badly or in the wrong conditions. A lot of farmers do it absolutely correctly but, sadly, a minority do not necessarily adhere to the rules or the conditions. As the food section of the United Nations has reminded us, we also need to bear in mind that crop yields currently drop by 26% to 40% if one does not have the right chemicals The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, was absolutely right that there are alternatives coming through in gene editing; that must be the future. It would be an ideal situation if we could get rid of most harmful pesticides through gene editing, to keep food production up. The noble Baroness also reminded us what a complete mess we have made in our farming over past years, which has affected biodiversity, the soil and nature. A serious revolution is taking place now to correct that I turn to Amendment 123 and support what the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, has said. Yes, there is an informal agreement to phase out lead shot within five years, but that is too long a timescale. It is perfectly possible to do it to an earlier timescale. It would be inconvenient for some industries, I agree, but my mind goes back to when I was a Minister and we started to phase out CFCs. Industries came to my door in their droves, saying, "You cannot do this", "We will have to rejig our plant", "We can’t possibly do it in the timescale you are proposing." In fact, they did it in a quicker timescale than I wanted at the time. If one gives industries a set date, they can do it; they will meet it. It is a pity that most of the steel now has to come from China, but that is another story. I support the thrust of what the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, has said, and I so agree with my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury: it is for the good of shooting that this amendment is necessary.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Environment
James Peter Hymers Mackay (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the aim of the noble Duke’s amendments will be something that we all appreciate. I just wonder exactly how all this difficulty arises. Rainwater and groundwater are separate from sewage and will surely be very different in quality. While they may have some very small pollutants in them, generally speaking they are pretty wholesome It seems very strange to require that a water system should receive the sewerage system. Long ago, when I was at the Scottish Bar, I was instructed by a company that was then a water company in Scotland. The director of that company made it very clear to me that water and sewage were different things, and the last thing he would wish to agree to was to combine the two. Apart from anything else, the likelihood was that the groundwater and surface water would be greater in volume than the sewage. It therefore seems that the amendment that is proposed to change the system is very good, except that it would seem to require that it be done by the undertaker—which I take to be the water company. At the moment, the water company is under an obligation to accept the sewage. That must surely stop. It must be a ridiculous system that puts together two such completely different elements I very much support the amendment proposed in detail by the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, a little while ago. We need to come out of the idea of putting these together and separate them, because the floodwater difficulties are great enough. To add sewerage responsibilities to those of flooding seems an extraordinary example of what one should not do.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Environment
Malcolm Sinclair (Conservative, Centre-right): Indeed, I have a new point to add, which has not been made—there is no point in frowning, I say to my noble friend I thank the Minister for bringing forward the government amendments and for his commitment to reviewing Schedule 3. That was something that I asked for in Committee and I am delighted that he is going to do it. Has he been briefed on the latest research from the University of Manchester, which has demonstrated a direct link between poor wastewater management and high levels of microplastic pollution in the United Kingdom? When we have these overflows, the microplastics go out into the water system—not only the rivers, but the sea, thus negating a whole lot of good that the Government have been trying to do in reducing microplastics. If this were not enough of a bad situation before, it is now really bad My noble friend’s Amendment 63 proposes including a report "on elimination of discharges from storm overflows" I merely ask, what next after subsection (3)? It is good to have a report and lay it before Parliament, but what action will be taken? That is the only thing that matters now. I support these amendments, and support very strongly what my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern said: we should be aiming to separate the sewage from the wastewater. No new developments should be allowed to discharge automatically into the current sewerage system unless agreed by the water authority; there must be other alternatives I have one final comment for my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. If she expects a developer to make a commitment towards future expenditure on one of these systems, I am afraid she is whistling in the wind. The developers will not do so; if necessary, they would go into bankruptcy and set up a new company to avoid any liability.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Environment
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): Tackling storm overflows in England is a government priority, and the Government are acting decisively through this Bill. I am grateful to the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, my noble friend Lady Altmann and many others for the pressure that they have exerted on the issue of storm overflows. These new government amendments, which the Rivers Trust has welcomed as a "significant victory for river health and ... river users" are a credit to their work I am pleased to bring forward government Amendments, 61, 62 and 63, to add further duties on water companies and the Government. This strengthens the package of government amendments brought forward on this issue in Committee. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, we have secured the agreement of the Welsh Government to these amendments Amendments 61 and 62 are designed to increase the accountability on water companies and to provide greater transparency for the public on the frequency and impact of storm overflows. Companies will be required to report on storm overflows in near real time, meaning within an hour of them occurring, in a way that is easy for the public to access and understand. They will be required to monitor continuously the water quality upstream and downstream of both storm overflows and sewage treatment works. This will give regulators and the public crucial indicators of the health of our waters, including dissolved oxygen, ammonia, temperature and pH values, and turbidity. The information obtained from these two duties, along with the annual reporting required by the amendment that I introduced in Committee, will finally require full transparency from water companies about their impact on our waters. We have made this expectation clear in our draft strategic policy statement to Ofwat. For the first time, the Government will be telling the industry’s economic regulator that we expect water companies to take steps to "significantly reduce storm overflows". Therefore, with respect to the noble Duke, the Duke of Westminster—
HGV Driver Shortages — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Transportation
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer to an Urgent Question asked in the other place on HGV drivers. The Statement is as follows: "Mr Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to update the House on the actions that my department and others have been taking to address the shortage in HGV drivers. This is, of course, a global issue, with our supply chains adjusting to the impact of the pandemic and working incredibly hard to make sure that consumers get whatever they need. We have been working with the industry for many months, unlocking testing capacity so that UK workers can join the driving sector My department has already increased the number of vocational driving tests from 2,000 a week pre-pandemic to 3,000 a week—that is a 50% increase—and last Friday I announced to Parliament additional measures that will significantly increase the number of HGV driving tests, by up to 50,000 per year. First, we will eliminate the need for some car drivers who want to tow a trailer to take an additional test. Some 16 million drivers who took their test before 1997 already have that right, so we are going to allow everybody to enjoy the same privilege of the licence, allowing around 30,000 more HGV tests every single year Secondly, tests will be made more efficient by the removal of the reversing exercise element and, for vehicles with trailers, the uncoupling and recoupling exercise. That test will be carried out separately by a third party, so it will still be done Thirdly, we are making it quicker to get a licence to drive an articulated vehicle without first having to get a licence for a smaller vehicle. That will make around 20,000 more HGV driving tests available every year and mean that drivers can gain their licence and enter the industry more quickly, without removing any testing. I have instructed the DVLA to prioritise the processing of licence applications, and we are supporting the industry to get UK workers into training. This is not the only action that we have taken. Over recent months, we have made apprenticeships in the sector much more generous; offered incentive payments to employers to take on apprenticeships in the sector; worked with Jobcentre Plus with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to direct more people towards this brilliant career; and provided funding of £1 million for the Roads to Logistics scheme, encouraging ex-military leavers, ex-offenders and the long-term unemployed to move into jobs in this sector. This is not just a transport problem or effort, but ultimately many of the solutions to this will come from standing challenges, which the industry itself will want to take on The Government welcome the prospect of better remunerated drivers, with better conditions and a more diverse HGV workforce."
HGV Driver Shortages — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Transportation
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, there is so much to respond to in that question. I am sure the noble Lord knows it is the case that this issue has been around for a very long time. I was talking to a colleague in the other place only recently and he said that one of the first things he did when he was elected in 2010 was go to an RHA reception at which they complained about the driver shortage. So the reality is that this has been a long time in coming. We absolutely will work with the industry to put in place all the things that they need to do The other thing to recall is that there are hundreds of thousands of qualified HGV drivers in this country who do not currently work in the sector. The industry must focus on getting those people back. By doing so, we have to focus on improving pay—there is anecdotal evidence that is coming through—and terms and conditions: my goodness, how simple is it to provide a clean loo, a vending machine and a comfy place to wait? Distribution centres need to absolutely step up and make sure that HGV drivers have at least those very simple things to make their day slightly easier There are lots of things that can be done. I do not take the point that the Government have been slacking. We have done an enormous amount and will continue to work with the industry to make sure that we keep goods flowing.
HGV Driver Shortages — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Transportation
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, Brexit is not the basis of this. At the current time, Germany has a 45,000 to 60,000 HGV driver shortage, France 43,000, Spain 15,000, Italy 15,000, and Poland 124,000. This is a problem that is impacting developed countries all across the EU and in the US, which has a 61,000 shortage right at this moment in time The noble Baroness refers to cowboys. I do not know who the cowboys are that she is referring to; I hope it is not the haulage sector, which I know is doing everything it can to make all the interventions we are putting in place work. For example, as the noble Baroness well knows, hauliers have to notify the department that they are going to use the extension of the hours and we obviously monitor the safety that comes out of that The noble Baroness seems to think that somehow the HGV test is getting easier. I am sorry to disabuse her: it is not. There will be no change to the standard of driving required for HGVs. The simple fact is that a certain element of the test will be delegated to trainers, who already train the HGV drivers in things such as manoeuvres. I would go on on the safety issue, but it is clear that we have some of the safest roads in the world and we want to keep it that way.
HGV Driver Shortages — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Transportation
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): I recognise that my noble friend wants to open the floodgates to EU drivers, but I sense that he may be waiting quite a while for the flood to arrive, because as I have outlined there is a shortage of drivers across the EU. What we must do is focus very hard on recruiting and training domestic drivers, and getting some of them to return. That is where the heart of this lies. I note what my noble friend says on training. I do not know where the £7,000 figure comes from, because I actually phoned up an HGV trainer the other day—not for myself, of course—to ask and they said that it was around £3,000. By removing the staging requirement to get a C licence and a C+E, we will have combined the two training elements together. We would also expect training to reduce to get a C+E articulated licence. As my noble friend may know, there are private sector loans available and many of the training schools will make those available to the trainees, but of course it would be better if industry paid for the training in the first place.
HGV Driver Shortages — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Transportation
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Viscount for his suggestion. We in the Department for Transport are great supporters of rail freight. We have made significant investments in rail freight. It is not suitable for many of the goods moved by road, but where it is suitable we have various grants available to slightly subsidise the cost of rail freight and get that freight off the roads.