argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-09
Topic: Government Operations
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the Minister assured the House earlier this afternoon that the autonomy of the regulators would be respected. I am sure we all take the Minister’s assurance at face value and fully understand what he is getting at, but one of the many problems that lurks within the Bill and the wide regulation-making power it creates is the risk of causing collateral damage by careless or inadvertent wording or insufficient research before the power is exercised. As I said at Second Reading, the centralised systems that the Bill seeks to create will work only if the diversity that exists across the United Kingdom is fully respected. That is especially true where the devolved Administrations are concerned My own experience is confined to the systems for regulation of the legal profession in Scotland, but it is a guide to how the regulatory systems among the professions may differ from each other. In my cases, they involve not just one but two regulators working together, and there are different systems for the two branches of the legal profession in Scotland. For the Law Society of Scotland, which regulates solicitors, it is the society itself, working together with the Lord President of the Court of Session. For the Faculty of Advocates, it is the Court of Session itself, whose functions are then delegated to the Lord President of the faculty. The message that these two examples conveys is that it cannot be assumed that the regulatory systems that currently exist are alike in all cases, or even in most, so great care is needed to ensure that what is being done fits the requirements and practices of the profession that is being regulated This brings me to Amendments 13, 24, 35 and 40, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, to which I have added my name. The point that each of these amendments is making is that prior consultation with the devolved Administrations and the regulators is essential before the regulation-making powers in Clauses 1(4), 3(3) and 5(2) are exercised. I shall say a little more about each of these subsections Clause 1(4), which is about providing for individuals with overseas experience and qualifications to be treated as having UK qualifications, really has to be read with Clause 1(5), which sets out a list of the many provisions that may be made in the exercise of the Clause 1 power. They are very wide-ranging. Paragraphs (f) and (g) in the list are of particular concern, as they are so wide in their scope. The words "guidance" in (f) and "other duties" in (g), which are not otherwise qualified, leave a huge amount to the discretion of the national authority.
Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-09
Topic: Technology
Narendra Babubhai Patel (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I will speak mainly to Amendment 53 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fox. I had hoped that he would speak before me, so I could hear his views on the amendment, but I support its intent. I might have some reservations regarding whether a report should be made within 12 months or a longer period, as others have mentioned. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, that it is not a question of the impact on innovations of this Bill alone, but the cumulative impact of other Bills, to which this one might add. That is the issue I wish to explore The United Kingdom has a big ambition to be a science superpower, as has been said many times by our Prime Minister. In fact, he is the second Prime Minister, including Harold Wilson, to have mentioned science as a driving force for the United Kingdom and the UK’s leading in science. So, we have a great ambition: we are going to invest 2.4% of GDP by 2027 and, depending on the spending settlement to be announced shortly, it looks as though there will be £22 billion for R&D leading up to 2024. A significant amount of resources is being put in. So, what drives innovation? The drivers of innovation are research infrastructure; funding; importantly, career development opportunities for early-career researchers—I emphasise early-career; and collaboration and knowledge exchange through institutions in different countries working together.
Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-09
Topic: Government Operations
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 27, which is principally in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. There is a lot to be said in this particularly obscure Bill for the publication of regulations in advance of their being made, so that people can see them in draft and consider them before they take effect. Regulators themselves would of course be consulted if this amendment is passed, but publication gives the opportunity for the wider public to scrutinise them, and no doubt inform this House and the other place, before the crucial point comes when the regulations are made. So I support this particular amendment There is a lot of force in the point just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that to confine this provision to the priority professions perhaps misses the point. Perhaps there should be a requirement across the board. There are other important professions that are not in this list. I am not claiming this particularly for the legal profession, as there are certainly other professions that are absent from this list, given the enormously long list of people who are within the purview of this Bill. The amendment may be a starting point but, for what it is worth, I support it.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Transportation
Ilora Gillian Finlay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, after that welcome from the noble Baroness in her introduction, I feel that I should go next in speaking in support of this amendment. I should declare that I live in Cardiff, which is one of the pilot areas of the 20 miles per hour speed limit, and we have already found that the air quality has improved, but the transit time from one place to another has not increased—contrary to rumours that that had happened. The difference is that the traffic is calmer; children walking to and from school are safer; and there is less bad behaviour generally on the roads with people being aggravated and pulling away fast at lights I have spoken at length about the problem of non-exhaust pollution and that is all on the record, so I will not go over the damage caused to human health by that. However, I remind everyone that, as well as decreasing fatal accidents, the lower speed limit also decreases accidents where there are life-changing injuries. Given that we are trying to increase walking and cycling and that the Highway Code has been rewritten, moving to 20 miles per hour on our roads generally is very sensible. I have noticed that in London, where some areas are limited to 20 and others are not, drivers are confused but it is easier for cyclists and pedestrians, and it is easier as a driver to see them if they are going just a little slower I am afraid I cannot see any arguments at all against the Government accepting this amendment, other than the theory that some people think it might take them longer to get from A to B. However, I do not think that has been proven in practice.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Agriculture
Ilora Gillian Finlay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have put my name to the amendment, and I support it very strongly. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will test the opinion of the House We have major problems with these chemicals. First, our testing regime tests single pesticides, but does not look at combinations or mixtures of pesticides. Secondly, people are required to notify local premises prior to spraying, but there are two difficulties with this: as downwind is not necessarily a short distance, these chemicals can travel very long distances, and you cannot predict the direction the wind is blowing. Another difficulty is that they sit on the land on crops, and when the sun comes out, they vaporise. Even though people might have been warned about spraying, the vaporisation means that the amount in the air goes up again and it is spread still further towards people living in the vicinity I have a list of references from different parts of the scientific literature which I will not go through in detail now, as it is not the time. But I point out that pesticides can cause deformities in unborn offspring, cancers, and mutations that poison the nervous system and block the natural defences of the immune system. The irreversible effects are permanent and cannot be changed once they have occurred. I have looked after an awful lot of cancer patients, many coming from farming communities in Wales. When they are young and ask me about exposure to chemicals, it is very difficult to have that conversation, because by then they, or maybe their child, is already so seriously ill or dying, that everything is irreversible. We cannot carry on doing this and polluting the environment without thinking again. Article 3(14) of EU Regulation 1107/2009 defines rural residents living in the locality of pesticide-sprayed crops as "vulnerable groups," and they are recognised as having high pesticide exposure over the long term The side effects of the individual chemical agents are quite scary. When one looks at the cumulative effects long term, we cannot continue to ignore them. The effect on rural residents will go on and on, even for those living at sizeable distances. I hope that the House will reflect on the debate we had on the Agriculture Bill, when the Minister at the time, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, told the Committee that we need a population in good health to cope with the threat of infection during the pandemic. We cannot carry on having a rural community that is being poisoned by its own actions in an attempt to supply us with food which is cheap and probably underpriced for the value which should go to farmers for responsible farming. I hope that this House will support this amendment.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Agriculture
Rosel Boycott (Crossbench, Unknown): It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I just want to say a few words about these chemicals and to talk about it from the point of view of the industry and cheap food In 1947, the manufacturers of DDT ran an advert in Time magazine showing smiling cartoon farm animals and a rosy-cheeked housewife who sang "DDT is good for me-e-e!", along with the claim that DDT was the "benefactor of all humanity". That same year, they had a British colonialist sprinkling DDT over a bowl of porridge and then eating it in a bid to persuade local people in east Africa that this chemical was harmless We can see, if we cut forward to today, that Silent Spring was written in 1962 and DDT became recognised as something that was harmful to animals, nature, biodiversity and, indeed, humans. Yet, today, we see a very different story. In 1990, we treated 45 million hectares with pesticides. By 2016, this had risen to 73 million hectares, although the actual area of crops had remained the same. However, we were putting many times more pesticides on to those same crops, on to a weakening soil, in our attempt to keep producing ever more cheap food to feed our population There are very familiar names in the industry—Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta—and it is reckoned that they make about 35% of their total global revenue by selling these sorts of pesticides around the world. Farmers get trapped into that same cycle. It is something that we have to break This amendment is very important to me, because I feel a great distrust of the Government at the moment, for instance over the ban of neonicotinoids. They are now banned in America and across the whole of Europe; indeed, when we were still within the European Union, we banned them as well. However, we have now let them back in and they are allowed to be used on sugar beet. This feels to me like a small open door that could get bigger. I quote Dave Goulson, from the University of Sussex, who wrote a fantastic book about the decline of insects. Mentioning neonicotinoids, he says: "The toxicity takes your breath away—just five maize seeds treated with neonicotinoids are enough to kill a grey partridge." No one can spray 17,000 tonnes of poison across a landscape without doing massive damage as it spreads. As the noble Lord, Lord Randall, so wisely said, we now know about DDT—and, actually, we know about this stuff too. It is no accident that it kills animals, insects and every single small thing around These amendments are absolutely imperative, right across so many parts of this Bill: biodiversity, habitats and human health. Also, there are other ways of doing it; there are intelligent, responsible uses of gene editing and many natural solutions to keep crops safe and ensure that we have good, healthy food that does not destroy either our planet or ourselves.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Agriculture
Rupert Carington (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am afraid that I will add a little un-unanimity to this debate, which seems to have been completely one-sided so far. I declare my farming interests as set out in the register and note that there is a thriving apiary on my farm, to which the greatest threats are from weather and woodpeckers—if noble Lords want to know why woodpeckers, it is because they break into the hives during the winter and eat the queen bee.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Environment
John Krebs (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. I also thank the Minister for his response. With regard to Amendment 84A, in brief, I accept the reassurance that he gave in his reply. The metric will be regularly reviewed in light of scientific evidence. The Government recognise the importance of species and microhabitats, and the need for connectivity across landscapes. Rare and protected species will be safeguarded by regulations that will work alongside net gain, and the Lawton principles will underpin net gain and be considered when updating the metric I still think that, given the concerns expressed by many stakeholders on the current version of the metric, there should be an urgent consideration before it is finally put into practice, so that we can get it as good as it can be. I also accept the point that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, made: that this is an ongoing work in progress and will be continually improved With regard to Amendments 85 and 87, I am disappointed that the Government are not prepared to go further. However, I accept the reassurances of the Minister on Amendment 84A and beg leave to withdraw it.
Armed Forces Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Roger Thomas (Crossbench, Unknown): I rise to support Motion A1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. The key issue is trial by jury. I completely accept the improvements in the service justice system—I saw them in my former role as Lord Chief Justice. However, the Minister does not grapple with the fundamental issue: why take away the right to trial by jury? It is important, because sometimes Ministers misspeak on the "Today" programme, to see what the Deputy Prime Minister wrote in this morning’s Times: "Trial by jury is another ancient right, applied variably around the UK, that doesn’t feature in the ECHR, but will be in our bill of rights. We should be proud of our history of liberty—and preserve a human rights framework that promotes it." It seems inconsistent with that declared policy of Her Majesty’s Government that the Ministry of Defence opposes the fundamental right of trial by jury for those who put their lives at risk for our country. That is what this amendment has at its heart It seems to me that by their support of this amendment in the course of debate, the Opposition have accepted that a mistake was made in 2005 when the right to trial by jury was taken away from those in the armed services for these very serious offences. Why does the Ministry of Defence not have the courage to admit that a mistake was made and restore the fundamental right of every member of the Armed Forces to trial by jury for these most serious offences?
Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-14
Topic: Technology
Amyas Morse (Crossbench, Unknown): I too will speak to support the amendment advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, who has explained it very clearly. It is worth getting back to basics on it—if I may use that expression—for a second. The ARIA scheme is about driving our national research frontiers forward by publicly funded risk taking, if I can summarise it as simply as that. It is a good idea that is widely supported But this is the reverse of what will happen if foreign-owned companies are allowed to acquire companies that own intellectual property derived from ARIA or to take that intellectual property offshore. If this happens, the reverse of the objective of the scheme will be achieved. This possibility is not far-fetched. I spent 10 years as Comptroller and Auditor-General at the National Audit Office, and, during that time, I saw cases relating to a series of companies where exchange of control provisions in the hands of government were not exercised properly or the scheme was administered rather feebly. As a result, these things became faits accomplis and the property went offshore. Sometimes, you would be told, "Well, we believe in the market operations, so we really don’t like to interfere with this sort of thing" Actually, we need strong, clear decision-making about this now. We need to make it clear in this amendment that we are not prepared to see intellectual property that has been paid for by British taxpayers go offshore. It makes mugs of British taxpayers.
Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-14
Topic: Environment
Daniel Mosley (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for his proposal and for ensuring that ARIA will be asked to demonstrate through integrated reporting how sustainability is an essential characteristic within its strategic objectives, operations and policy-making. I believe that this proposal meets the intent of my original amendments through implementation in the framework document. It will ensure that ARIA has regard to the areas set out in my original amendment; it will be asked to consider and demonstrate how it has met them. In particular, as he said, it will ensure that ARIA has regard to its projects contributing to our climate change targets and environmental goals. Through working together with the Government, we have reached a good compromise on this issue. I again thank the Minister, his team and my supporters and beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-14
Topic: Technology
David Brownrigg Craig (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I speak to Amendments 12 and 14 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Browne of Ladyton and Lord Clement-Jones, the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and myself. Noble Lords will be aware that a number of fields of modern technology and research are coming to rely more and more on mathematical sciences. When I gained my degree in pure maths at Oxford over 70 years ago, and for many years since, maths was seen largely as an adjunct to other fields of science and technology, but the world of digital—particularly of AI, machine learning, 5G and quantum computing—is now becoming mainstream. These diverse technologies rely very greatly on mathematics for help to find solutions and answers Mathematical sciences today are employed in many ways: from risk analysis of the use of driverless cars to the likelihood of collisions and how best to avoid them in space; from sifting with AI through large quantities of medical data to spot treatments for illness, to the best ways of introducing superfast broadband nationwide; contributing to security risk analyses, or delving into the more esoteric problems of known and unknown unknowns. Mathematical sciences feature in improvements that will benefit the lifestyle and health of wide cohorts of citizens and the esoteric work of astronomers unlocking the secrets of the cosmos. Analysing and predicting trends in the Covid-19 epidemic is another active field in which mathematical sciences play an important part The marginalisation and exclusion of mathematical sciences in government legislation prompts this amendment. For example, the 2004 guidelines on research and development limit the definition of mathematical contributions in research and development to the "physical and material universe". Far from sticking to current definitions in this new legislation, is it not time to recognise the unique and growing contributions of mathematical sciences in the new digital age of AI, quantum computing and much, much more? The ARIA Bill is an ideal opportunity to do so and move on. The focus and capacity of the Bill’s provisions should explicitly embrace the mathematical sciences. These now include "blue skies" maths, which is sometimes referred to as a new form of "pure" maths My amendment is thus not a probing amendment; it is a simple and straightforward proposal to reflect the advances being made by mathematical sciences in the digital age. I challenge anyone to assert that this new agency will not be making use of mathematical sciences in its work. This Bill is an excellent opportunity to give the rightful recognition in statute to the key role of mathematical sciences in advanced research and inventions. I beg to move.
Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-14
Topic: Education
David Brownrigg Craig (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank the Minister and all those who spoke to this. Quite clearly, there is a difference of view between the Government and those of us who have spoken to them about how we should treat mathematical sciences in the present age. It is a pity that it has not been possible for the Government to agree to the amendment, but, in view of the late hour, I shall withdraw it.
Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-14
Topic: Government Operations
Amyas Morse (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I just repeat a remark I made in Grand Committee in response to the noble Baroness’s speech: I think that she is expressing best practice, certainly as I understand it, on how boards should function. I reconfirm the supportive comment that I made before Amendment 17 stands in my name. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman of Darlington, and the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, for their support. My amendment is intended to address potential abuse; I just put that clearly in people’s minds to start with. It sets out to do so in this way: it specifies that those who have been employed in a department that is either supervising or sponsoring ARIA and have been directly involved as part of the team doing so should not be employed by an entity that has benefited from ARIA funding within five years of leaving the department. It also, in proposed new paragraph 8A(2), applies the same five-year exclusion to persons who have been employed in ARIA itself and who might seek employment in an entity that has benefited from ARIA. Finally, in proposed new paragraph 8A(3), it provides that a person falling under either of the two new paragraphs I mentioned shall not acquire a proprietary interest, either directly or indirectly, in intellectual property or bodies owning intellectual property that have benefited from ARIA for a period of five years.