argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-25
Topic: Social Welfare
David Blunkett (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on his tenacity and his amusing and very important speech. Bringing this back for a second time and developing a report, to be launched next week, demonstrates his lifelong commitment to trying to ensure that we learn from the past rather than live in it, tackle causes rather than symptoms, and avoid the mistakes many of us have made. I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay; I hope to goodness that I can be as thoughtful and look to the future in my mid-90s, should I be fortunate enough to reach that age I just want to say three things. First, we have economic impact statements and equality impact statements, but we do not have social policy impact statements. Avoiding the tragedy of mistakes of the past involves examining what we are doing in light of a mode of thought, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, said. Sure Start, the development of the child trust fund and education maintenance allowances were, in their own way, endeavours to invest for the future rather than the moment. All sadly met the same fate during the austerity measures between 2010 and 2015. I am working with the right honourable Andrea Leadsom to try to reinstate the spirit of Sure Start, and to do so in a cross-party way, because that is clearly the only way to retain that programme and policy as Governments change, or even when there is change within Government. Sadly, the child trust fund, which was an endeavour to give all young people a real start in life and to overcome at least some of the great problems of asset divide, also had built in a mistake, which I have been trying to put right with the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. Namely, we did not think about the issue of youngsters with learning disabilities, who would not be able to easily access their funds at the age of 18 Thinking for the future, even with the best of intentions, is really important. Of course, our health, housing and mode of employment determine our well-being. But the well-being of the future and future generations will be obtained if we just pause for a moment every time we take a measure and think about what it will look like in 20 years’ time.
Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-25
Topic: Environment
John Lawrence Whitty (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I commend the persistence and drive of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on getting this measure considered for the statute book The short-term thinking of generations of politicians, business leaders and financiers has left an appalling problem for our grandchildren and future generations. On one level, we have recognised this. For example, this week we have been debating the Environment Bill and we have had the report of the Climate Change Committee. But that just reveals that, although we set ambitious targets for greenhouse gases and sustainable development goals, we have not put in place the means of actually delivering the way to deal with problems inherited from our generation—and it is indeed our generation and, perhaps, the generation immediately before it that has created these problems Eighty per cent of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been generated in my lifetime, and 60% since global powers formally recognised the problem at the Rio conference. On the social side, also, problems of inequality—between and within countries—over- population and failure to tackle social ills, such as mental health and social care, have also been inherited from previous generations but have been aggravated by our failure to deal with them. The Bill aims to mitigate that, in an apparently modest bid—but, in mindset terms, a revolutionary change—to ensure that all decisions on projects and policies take into account the interests of future generations. One apparently minor point concerns me. It sounds bureaucratic and technical, but it concerns discount rates, time preference presumptions and the Treasury’s Green Book rules. It runs through not only the psychology of our decision-making process, focusing on the short-term, but the technical process itself. For much of the key areas of decisions taken in recent decades whose inheritance we are now living with—from the 1970s to the 2010s, say—the official Treasury bill discount rate was never below 5%, usually at about 8% and sometimes as high as 15%. That mechanism was itself a major inhibitor of longer-term thinking, and we are living with the results We are now, since the financial crisis, in an era of low interest rates and low discount rates—below 1% at the moment—but that will almost certainly not persist beyond recovery from this pandemic. Can we, therefore, find a new mechanism that runs through our processes, so that we no longer discount future long-term benefits but begin to prioritise their interests and the interests of future generations When the noble Lord, Lord Bird, presented his earlier Bill, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord True, objected that this just meant another quango, another parliamentary committee and another tick box, but this is so much more than a tick-box exercise; it is a whole new way of taking decisions. It will, regrettably, take time to bed in. The Welsh Government have made a commendable start, but they recognise that they have a long way to go. We have not even made that start; let us begin to do so today.
Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-25
Topic: International Affairs
Jack Wilson McConnell (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests When Gro Harlem Brundtland, on behalf of the World Commission on Environment and Development, published her ground-breaking report in 1987, she set out the definition of "sustainable development" that has become standard in the decades since. That is, that we should be meeting "the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." I am delighted to see that definition used in the Bill placed in front of your Lordships’ House today, even if I am disappointed that, in the 34 years since, that definition and purpose have not been standard practice for Governments across the world, not least here in the United Kingdom There have been hundreds of summits, photo calls and agreements across those 34 years. The most recent, of course, were the 2015 sustainable development goals, agreed by the United Nations and not only signed up to by the United Kingdom but, in many ways, created by the two committees that were, in one case, chaired by our Prime Minister, David Cameron, and in the other, led and in many ways directed by the then Secretary of State for International Development, Justine Greening Unfortunately, in the aftermath of that agreement in 2015, the Government made an almost conscious decision to deprioritise the goals here at home. They have never been located properly in the Cabinet Office as universal goals that can help shape, inform and direct government policy and help us measure progress. Although there has been some progress elsewhere in our international spending, despite the hard work of the noble Lord, Lord Bates, the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, in his current position, and a number of other Ministers over the years, the Government have never put those sustainable development goals right at the heart of their policy So I welcome this Bill. I am not absolutely convinced of the need for legislation but I look forward to the debates on it. I want to see some clarification on the relationship with the devolved Governments and the devolved nations, and I want to explore more the definitions and the way in which they would be implemented. If we can debate this Bill in the same positive manner and with the passion shown by the noble Lord, Lord Bird—not just in his presentation today but in his lifetime of commitment to tackling poverty and disadvantage in this country—we will provide a good service as a second Chamber. I look forward to those debates. I hope that we will get a chance to look in detail at the provisions that are put forward and that, at the core of the debates, we will look to the future—particularly to children, who, I am pleased to see, are given priority in the Bill and in the deliberations that are going ahead now.
Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-25
Topic: Labor
John Hendy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on his Bill which largely follows the Welsh model. Should the Bill reach Committee stage—the noble Lord has not had much luck so far— I hope he, or indeed the Government, will accept some amendments in the footsteps of the Welsh Government, who have a draft social partnership and public procurement (Wales) Bill which is intended to put more meat on the bones of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act I draw to the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, two particular features. One is the harnessing of the huge power of public procurement to impose the objects of the Act and the Bill. The other is the emphasis on social dialogue. In particular, the Welsh Bill proposes a tripartite social partnership council composed of government, trade unions and employers. It would be a huge step forward in the United Kingdom for the future, as the TUC has proposed I would go further and recommend to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, an amendment making one of the well-being goals in his Bill the restoration of collective bargaining. As my noble friend Lady Blower mentioned, this is part of the scheme in New Zealand. The restoration of collective bargaining is a step essential to the well-being of future generations. In the United Kingdom, from the end of the Second World War to the end of the 1970s, collective bargaining coverage extended to 85% of the British workforce. Now it is less than one-quarter. That means that three-quarters of our 32 million workers have no say over the terms and conditions of their work. The well-being of future generations cannot be secured without them having an industrial democratic input into the conditions of their working lives. This is a step required by international treaties ratified by the United Kingdom and has been urged repeatedly in recent years by the International Labour Organization and the OECD. The Government accepted a commitment in the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU signed last December which states: "each Party commits to respecting, promoting and effectively implementing the internationally recognised core labour standards, as defined in the fundamental ILO Conventions, which are … freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining" and other things. Last week, this was emphasised in the Carbis Bay declaration by the G7. For the moment, the Bird Bill is a great step forward.
Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-25
Topic: Environment
Clive Brooke (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for presenting the Bill. He is a great, doughty fighter, and I very much support what is in the Bill I have listened carefully to the arguments advanced about what we can and cannot expect and how we can and cannot plan for the unexpected. We need to be very honest about politics, and we are not honest enough in politics. While I subscribe to much in this Bill, the reality is that when the Minister stands up, I expect he will use all the lovely words of comfort but will reject the Bill. The Government will reject this Bill at every stage. If it manages to get through the Lords, time will not be found for it in the Commons. That is my expectation, and that is very much the life that we encounter Right at the beginning, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, talked about difficulties in meeting the unexpected. We can recognise that in certain areas there are expectations that will not change, yet we ignore those expectations and often work against them. I am thinking here of the very important part of the Bill, to which I subscribe, on the environment. We are now going through Covid, an experience we have never had before. In the past five years since 2016, with Brexit, we have seen massive changes and government struggling day by day to cope with what is thrown at it—Covid being the ultimate. It was totally unexpected If we look at what we have been doing to the planet, is it unexpected that the planet itself, nature and the spirit behind nature will hit back against the human population to try to defend themselves? We have grown from 1.8 billion 100 years ago to 7.4 billion now, and we are projected to go to 10 billion. This is quite unsustainable. COP 26 is coming, but we are not talking about population. Faiths and science will not address the fundamental problem we have of too many people trying to inhabit this planet and damaging it. We will find that the planet in turn will care for itself, as it has always done, and come back at us. For the sake of our children, the one issue we must spend time focusing on, looking to the future and trying to work together, is what needs to be done about the environment and especially world population growth, where changes are needed. The faiths need to address that. If they want to protect God’s planet, they have to do the things that God needs on the planet.
Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-25
Topic: Education
Anthony Young (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bird, who is a man of action. I still buy the Big Issue, and a year ago a seller told me how it had turned his life around. I will support the Bill, even though I have doubts about its practicality. Dickens gave us a warning in Little Dorrit about the Circumlocution Office and its ability to obstruct progress I make a plea to the noble Lord to choose his examples more carefully. The old mental asylums were appalling places where people were incarcerated for years in appalling conditions. Community healthcare, first introduced by the Italians, was a major step forward. Of course, we need more of it and probably different varieties, but it was a major step forward Student fees, contrary to the noble Lord’s assertion, were first introduced by a Labour Government and saw a massive increase in working-class children deciding to go to university—often the first in their family to do so. When the previous Government decided to raise the fees to nearer £9,000, I was a bit concerned, but in fact the statistics showed us that working-class children continued to go to university. Of course we need to review the policy—apprenticeships now also need to be taken into consideration—but we should not ignore the fact that it was an important increase in social mobility I also have to take issue with my noble friend Lord Brooke, who referred to population control. The last person who gave that issue major impact was Malthus, who predicted that the world could never survive if the population increased from the then current number. It has of course increased phenomenally. Even the Chinese Government, with their dreadful means of trying to achieve population control, have realised that that is not the right way forward. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, reminded us, there really is a need to remedy the intergenerational compact. Is maintaining the triple lock really fair when we need to be spending more on the younger generation? I might not go as far as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, because I think there are aspects of the Bill that are worth looking at. I remind people that the Environment Bill, even though the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, is very sceptical, is an attempt to look forward, provided that we do not set ridiculous targets—some were unfortunately posed in the recent debate on the Environment Bill—and provided that we base our approach on evidence, reckoning that this generation also has to be able to afford advances in the environment So we should give further time to the Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Bird. Whether or not it proves to be practical, it is worth the effort, for the reasons that a number of noble Lords have given. In these circumstances, I will be supporting it.
Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Doreen Massey (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on again securing a debate on the importance of enhancing the chances of future generations. Before I came into this debate, I was in a virtual seminar with children and young people from the UK, Ireland, Belgium and France. They were from primary and secondary schools, and youth organisations, discussing what they would like to know and could do about climate change. They fear for their generation and for generations to come. They were exciting and articulate; they have learned to be confident while expressing their views in reasoned argument. This is what the future generations, with encouragement and support, are eager to do I would like this debate and the Bill to persuade the Government to develop a practical but inspirational strategy for children and young people; they are the future generations. By children, I mean those who are 18 and under, and by young people I mean those around 18 to around 25. I ask the Government to take another look at the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by the UK in 1991: a strategy for children could build on that. Wales will incorporate the convention into its legislation, and Scotland intends to do so. Any strategy for children must incorporate the rights, as stated in the UN convention, to education, health, the arts, culture, good parenting, a social life and sport. Education should include learning about resilience skills and what makes good relationships. Children need play, protection from harm—including online harm—and the skills to reject what might be harmful Strategies that remain relevant to people’s lives must seek out the views of people, including children. We have some good bases for doing this. The voluntary sector for children, the royal colleges, local government and academics are producing reports, seminars and briefings on what is best for children and on child participation. We have had the inspiring Leadsom report on the early years and other government initiatives, but where do they go? How are they monitored A strategy for children would stretch across many government departments, with their own plans but with the single focus of child well-being. It would need co-ordination and co-operation in all structures. Inspiring and exciting things could happen, as they sometimes do now, although we often do not know about them. For example, I learned last week that the DCMS is fostering youth involvement in democracy with "young inspectors" and school councils—how many people know about that? I did not. Strategy needs structure, with aims, targets and monitoring of the results, whatever its subject. It needs someone in charge, who can drive things forward, while consulting others. This is why so many of us here, and beyond Parliament, are asking for a Minister for children at Cabinet level. Well-planned and co-ordinated practical measures are needed to respond to the possibilities of the future and to help our children.
Office of the Whistleblower Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-25
Topic: Government Operations
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too fully support the Bill and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. Noble Lords who have spoken have given many examples of whistleblowing, but the one that has not so far been mentioned is of course the Post Office postmasters. They have suffered as much as anyone, and the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, has been pursuing their cause for years. It is one example where the people in charge get promotions while the people who have suffered lose their careers and pensions, have to spend sometimes millions on fighting, and have family breakdowns and even one or two suicides I want to speak briefly about HS2 whistleblowers—yet another case that is sadly still ongoing. People do not whistleblow just for fun. Often they do it because they sincerely believe that what is being done by their bosses, colleagues, government or others is professionally, ethically or morally wrong, as my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti has just told us. One example briefly referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, is a friend of mine, Douglas Thornton, a highly qualified professional property and land valuer who was commissioned by HS2 to value all the properties that it would have to buy. He and his colleagues very professionally produced a schedule of everything, which unfortunately showed that HS2’s budget was about half what it should have been Rather than the management accepting this, they sacked them and kicked them out of the office, and this is still a problem today because there is not enough money to buy the land or the properties. It is part of the reason why the cost estimates for HS2 are still in the clouds, frankly, with no real back-up or anything else. I have lots of evidence, because Ministers over the years, the Permanent Secretaries and the chief executives of HS2 have either told what I would call lies or misled Parliament by hiding that they knew the true costs. One HS2 employee actually gave evidence to a Select Committee, saying, "If we told Parliament the true cost, they would never give approval." Where is Parliament on this, keeping an eye on it This Bill provides the opportunity to provide much more support for whistleblowers. It needs independence, power, finance and, most of all, the strongest political support by Parliament against an overpowering Administration.
Ministerial Code and Register of Ministers’ Interests — House of Lords, 2021-05-19
Topic: Government Operations
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, when I became a magistrate, I had never speeded or gone through a red light and I had kept to the Highway Code. Similarly, when I ran organisations, I ensured that I was beyond reproach in keeping to any codes or rules of good behaviour because it is about setting an example of what one expects of others. Does the Minister agree that Minsters, especially the Prime Minister, not only have to be, but be seen to be, squeaky clean in keeping to the rules and that as leaders of this country they should set the tone of what they expect of others? Will the Minister tell us when the register of Minister’s interests will be published?
Ministerial Code and Register of Ministers’ Interests — House of Lords, 2021-05-19
Topic: Government Operations
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I say to the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, that following the unprecedented veto by the Prime Minister of Sir Alex Allan’s report on the Home Secretary and Sir Alex’s resignation, the system was totally discredited. I follow up what the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, and the Minister said: now that we once again have someone with impeccable credentials, a Member of this House, appointed by the Prime Minister, why do we not give him ultimate authority to decide on breaches and how to deal with them? Would that not restore confidence in the system?
Ministerial Code and Register of Ministers’ Interests — House of Lords, 2021-05-19
Topic: Government Operations
Brinley Davies (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Minister referred to the remarks made by the Paymaster-General in the Commons yesterday. In the Government’s response to these questions today, we have again had this harping on about getting on with saving lives and striving to do their best. This is sheer obfuscation. That is not the issue. The question before us is: should Ministers comply with the Ministerial Code? Will the Minister take the opportunity to assure us that the fact there is a pandemic has no relevance to the absolute obligation on Ministers to comply with the code? The fact that we have a pandemic and that they are doing their best is irrelevant. Should they or should they not comply with the code?