argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Civil Aviation (Insurance) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-06-18
Topic: Transportation
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I agree with the call by my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, for the Government to make every effort to get the Minister standing at the Dispatch Box on all occasions. I hope the Government Whip in the Chamber will take that point back to her noble friends the Leader of the House and the Government Chief Whip The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley raised important points regarding consumer rights with respect to refunds and vouchers. I look forward to the Minister’s response to these points, and to those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, regarding the conduct of airlines and how they treat their staff and customers, echoed by my noble friends Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale and Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick As we heard, these regulations are, on the face of it, fairly minor. We are using this transition period to make long-term changes and adjustments but, as we read at paragraph 2.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum, the policy context remains unchanged. Powers that were exercised by the European Commission are to be excised by the Secretary of State. It would be helpful to the House if the Minister could answer the point about what will happen in the future. The Government have taken these powers. Do they always intend to follow without question the European Commission’s decisions? "Take back control" does not appear to fit very well there. Or is the Government’s intention to take different decisions over time? If the latter is the case, could the Minister set out the process for doing so? How will that happen Aviation is global, by its very nature, and being global Britain it seems that we have to be part of international agreements to ensure that the UK aviation industry can compete in this new world we all find ourselves in. On that point, could the Minister set out any work done by the department to see what the cost will be of deciding to differ from the European Commission’s decisions, and what the process is for ensuring that any decisions made will not put us in breach of any further international agreements beyond the European Commission and cause our aviation industry further difficulties Paragraph 10.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that "The Civil Aviation Authority has been consulted", but a subsequent sentence says: "The devolved administrations and the aviation industry have been informed" Could the Minister please set out for the record what, in the Government’s view, is the difference and why the different approaches were taken? Who took the decision only to "inform" the devolved Administrations and the aviation industry, not "consult" them Finally, what discussions have taken place with the insurance industry? A number of noble Lords raised this point and I cannot find any reference to it in the Explanatory Memorandum.
Financial Services (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-06-18
Topic: Foreign Trade
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for her agility in so seamlessly and cogently speaking to the correct regulations. She says that they are minor, but the real importance of these regulations is that they illustrate what is at risk if we fail to reach an adequate trade deal, as seems very possible. Surely the regulations cannot in themselves begin to replace the unfettered access to the single market for our financial services sector which EU membership provided As the Minister will know, this sector employs 2.2 million of our workforce and is estimated to account for 6.5% of the UK’s economic output, generating more than £70 billion in tax revenues in 2017, making up 11% of the national total. Until the financial crisis of 2008, the City of London was seen as the country’s greatest economic asset, as well as being by far the most important financial centre in the European Union. Financial firms in London have benefited hugely from EU membership, most obviously through passporting rights which enable firms to trade in any other member state, under the supervision of British regulators, without having to seek further authorisation from each country. Around 5,500 firms based in the UK currently benefit from passporting, with financial exports worth £26 billion, while 8,000 companies in the European Economic Area use this mechanism to offer services in Britain. After the post-Brexit transition period, UK financial services will lose their EU passport rights and be forced to rely on equivalence for their market access to Europe. Under that scheme, the European Commission decides whether a country’s regulations are deemed robust enough for it to operate within the single market, and can later withdraw the decision with as little as 30 days’ notice—so much for taking back control In the run-up to the last election, many financiers seemed to assume that a Conservative victory would ensure business as usual for the City. However, as these regulations show, Britain’s status as Europe’s leading hub for financial and legal services is at real risk after Brexit. Already, more than 300 firms in Britain have opened EU hubs in order to ensure single market access, while £1 trillion of City assets and 7,000 banking jobs have been transferred to the eurozone. London has been supplanted by New York as the world’s leading financial centre in the Global Financial Centres Index and is close to being overtaken by Hong Kong. Again, so much for the Brexit promise of taking back control, even with these regulations.
Global Britain — House of Lords, 2020-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Yaw Boateng (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, disease and instability on a global scale are the greatest threat to our country’s security. Can the noble Baroness confirm that in this relocation of roles and responsibilities, as she put it, there will be no reduction in the overall headcount of development-related staff deployed overseas, or those in crucial functions in London and Scotland, who are focused on reducing poverty and global disease, and on promoting safety and security, rather than instability? That has been the focus of so much of DfID’s work. It is different and distinct from diplomacy. Will that distinction be maintained and respected, and will the headcount be kept up?
Global Britain — House of Lords, 2020-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Mary Goudie (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I very much regret the subordination of international aid to the United Kingdom’s foreign policy considerations, for all the reasons that have been given by former Prime Ministers and many others. I would like an undertaking from the Leader on poverty, girls’ education and dealing with peacekeeping on the ground, which was done by DfID previously. Why was this done ahead of the full review? We had an earlier undertaking that the reviews of the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and DfID would be done together. Why, in particular, was this done early, with no contact with the staff? Staff did not know until some of us knew.
Global Britain — House of Lords, 2020-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): Does not the very fact that the Prime Minister made such a point of mentioning Ukraine and the western Balkans in his Statement demonstrate that the Government intend to deprioritise poverty relief as one of their overseas aid objectives? Does not the noble Baroness feel a sense of regret, perhaps even a sense of shame, that this Government are tearing up a political consensus that has lasted for 23 years and has seen the level of overseas aid spent on poverty rise from 0.23% of GDP in 1997 to 0.7% today? Does she not accept that this measure tears up that consensus? Finally, is this not just a demonstration of how the Conservative Party is rapidly becoming the party of populist English nationalism?
Global Britain — House of Lords, 2020-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): As part of the shadow ministerial team in the 1990s behind the policy of ODA/Foreign Office separation, and having heard the questions up to now, I say to the Minister, in summary, that this decision will kill DfID morale; it will distort DfID’s current poverty alleviation priorities; it will leak resources from development into other Foreign Office activities; and it will downgrade the roles played and positions held by DfID officials. It was precisely to deal with those problems that Labour set up DfID under Clare Short as a separate department in the 1990s. Is this not the third time that the Conservatives have wound up the department? They did so in 1970 under Ted Heath, in 1979 under Thatcher and now in 2020 under Johnson. It is madness, and it is the work of development aid bigots.
Arrangement of Business — House of Lords, 2020-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Iain McNicol (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, we now come to questions on the Statement on the United Kingdom and European Union negotiations. For Members participating remotely, microphones will unmute shortly before they are to speak—please accept any on-screen prompt to unmute. Our normal courtesies in debate still apply in this new hybrid way of working.
UK-EU Negotiations — House of Lords, 2020-06-18
Topic: Foreign Trade
Alan Thomas Howarth (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, does the Minister agree that the fact that we are negotiating free trade agreements in parallel with the USA and Japan is serving to concentrate the minds of EU negotiators, who are beginning to show more pragmatism. Will not this process of parallel negotiations strengthen our ability to achieve satisfactory environmental and animal welfare standards in all our free trade agreements?
UK-EU Negotiations — House of Lords, 2020-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Elizabeth Andrews (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hayter has laid out the risks facing this country from no deal. Despite all the Prime Minister’s clichés, it is clear from the Statement’s tone and lack of substance that we are nowhere near resolving the fundamental issues necessary for a good deal, and it was clear in the Minister’s tone that he has suggested that he would accept that. The Prime Minister is still arguing that an extension is not in the national interest, so can the Minister explain how the national interest would be better served by a no-deal exit, because that is increasingly the most likely and the most dangerous outcome for the country?
European Union: Negotiations (European Union Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2020-03-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): At end insert "and notes the undertaking of Her Majesty’s Government in paragraph 40 of the Department for International Trade’s summary of responses to a public consultation on trade negotiations with the United States, published on 18 July 2019, to ‘draw on the expertise and experience of Parliamentarians’ by working with a parliamentary committee which would be afforded ‘access to sensitive information’ during the process, before taking a ‘comprehensive and informed position on the final agreement’; and therefore calls on Her Majesty’s Government to ensure that, in a manner consistent with the European Commission’s treatment of the European Parliament, both Houses of Parliament are able to receive regular updates from ministers, scrutinise all relevant policy documents and legal texts, and debate the terms of emerging agreements, as negotiations on the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union progress."
European Union: Negotiations (European Union Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2020-03-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Lawrence Whitty (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the noble Baroness. I agree. We need the principle of scrutiny; the form of it we can debate. We can debate the correct structure within our two Houses but, without the principle being conceded by the Government, we are in an anomalous situation in relation to Europe and to what has been promised on this side of the pond in potential trade negotiations with the United States.
European Union: Negotiations (European Union Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2020-03-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Davies (Labour, Centre-left): No, indeed it is not. I am not saying that the benefit we get is accumulating bullion, because we have a balance of payments surplus. That is the mercantilist idea, and I can only describe it as quaint; it is curious that people still believe in it. Yet the Government evidently do—because that is what it means when people say, "We’re in a better position, because they sell more to us than we sell to them, so they’re more dependent on us." In fact, the GDP figures show the reverse To complete what I was saying about the figures, no EU country, apart from the two I mentioned, has exports to this country greater than 4% of GDP. That means that, if there were a 10% reduction in our trade because we went over to a WTO basis after the end of the transition period, the continentals would lose 0.4%, which is within the annual fluctuations of national accounts, whereas we would lose a much more important 1.4%. If there were a 20% reduction, they would lose 0.8% of their GDP—still manageable, although it would be a difficult blow—whereas we would lose 2.8%, which would be cataclysmic For those who do not like elementary economics, I should add that one could ask a 12 year-old, "Who has the greatest leverage and influence: someone who speaks for a market of 500 million people or someone who speaks for a market of 60 million people?", and that 12 year-old would give you the right answer. The Government have the wrong answer. The first step in wisdom is self-knowledge, and the Government should take that step before they get involved any further in these negotiations.
European Union: Negotiations (European Union Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2020-03-16
Topic: International Affairs
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I apologise to the House for not being present for what I am sure were excellent speeches at the start of the debate; I was on the HS2 committee, under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and in order for it to be quorate, I had to stay. I asked our Whips to put me down for the end of the debate. The trouble is that an excellent debate such as this leaves you with very little new to say. I will try not to repeat what others have said, even if it means jumping about in the speech I prepared I did not hear the previous speeches, but the report before us is absolutely admirable, in the great traditions of the EU Select Committee. To my mind, it demonstrates beyond all doubt that the Government are now pursuing not just a much harder Brexit than Mrs May tried to achieve but a harder Brexit than was outlined in the political declaration, which the Prime Minister signed in October and which was ratified as part of an international treaty at the end of January. That was the basis on which he fought the election. As the noble Lord, Lord Barwell, said, he solemnly promised that he had this oven-ready deal, and it is now clear that he is going for something different I want to make clear that I fought Brexit very hard. I think that it is absolutely the wrong direction for the country. However, I now accept that it is done. Having said that, that does not mean that those of us on these Benches have to accept that the only option is the hardest Brexit imaginable. We in the Labour Party have a responsibility to vigorously oppose what the Government is now trying to do. Plenty of changes could be sought. If they are not, Labour should go into the next election saying that it wants to achieve a closer relationship with the EU On the question of a hard Brexit, many noble Lords have drawn attention to the retreat from the paragraph of the political declaration that made it clear that there is a difference between the United Kingdom’s position and other nations’ positions on concluding a free trade agreement. Because of our geographical proximity and economic interdependence, these are the words—I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton—that the Prime Minister signed up to. The noble Lord has to accept that.
European Union: Negotiations (European Union Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2020-03-16
Topic: International Affairs
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): I found the Minister’s response on my amendment much more positive than that of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. However, because of that, I must say something on the issue The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, must have misread the amendment. We are asking not for a veto but for documents. I gave the example of the negotiations with America, where a parliamentary committee was specifically involved. I talked about the documents for both Houses of Parliament, not only the non-elected House. The fact that we are not elected and the European Parliament is seems irrelevant because the documents are for the Commons as well. So let us put that to one side. As my noble friend Lord Whitty said, it is more the principle of scrutiny that matters and less the detail of how it is done More seriously, I have to respond to the argument of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes—not to the Minister because his reply was more helpful—who said that the general election and the huge majority to get Brexit done somehow means, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, highlighted, that parliamentary scrutiny is neither necessary nor desirable. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, thought that, with a decent majority in the other place, this Government would not listen. That is scary stuff: "We have a majority of 80 and therefore we will do what we like—don’t trouble us." But Parliament matters and must not be shut out for two reasons: first, we do not want to reach a situation, when this treaty is ready to be ratified, where Parliament says, "Oh, we don’t like that now that we’ve seen it." That would put the country in a difficult position. We have got to the negotiations and the dialogue is necessary now so that we do not find the Government taking us down a road that would be unacceptable not only to this House but to the other House. It is also wrong in itself. The idea that because you have an overall majority—we had a much bigger one in 1997—you do not listen to Parliament is highly dangerous Perhaps it is different and this is not about the big majority but a fear that the new deal would not stand up to scrutiny. That is just as serious. It is obvious that it has been heard and responded to by the Minister but we will keep talking. Some of us will be sent away because of our age but there will be enough people on these Benches to make sure that if he does not come here, we will bring him back to answer more questions. He is younger than me, so he will have to be here even when I am not. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment to the Motion.
European Union: Negotiations (European Union Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2020-03-16
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): I very much welcome the committee’s intention to look at Northern Ireland. For some time, the Government said of the Irish border that it would all be all right on the night and we should not worry about it. They then conceded that there was something to worry about—and the agreement protects the open border, provided it is maintained. But there is still considerable denial about de facto checks and a virtual border in the Irish Sea. I very much welcome the committee’s intention to look at that.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2020-03-16
Topic: Social Welfare
Alan Thomas Howarth (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, my noble friend Lady Thornton alluded to some confusion in the Government’s communications over the weekend as to their policy in regard to herd immunity. No doubt the policy is a nuanced one but is it possible for the Minister to state succinctly and definitively what it is? Also, I think the public are finding it hard to understand the Government’s new provisions on eligibility for sick pay and social security. In particular, will he explain what support the Government are giving to self-employed people in low-paid and insecure work who are now being told by the people they normally work for not to come into work and that they will not be paid? How are the Government going to protect them?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2020-03-16
Topic: Social Welfare
John Mann (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, will the Government be giving precise advice to agencies dealing with the homeless? Will care workers on zero-hours contracts who need to go into self-isolation be paid by anybody? Are the Government relying on the House of Lords to set the best example in following the Chief Medical Officer’s advice?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2020-03-16
Topic: Macroeconomics
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, there is a gaping black hole in the economic package announced in response to this crisis. I hope that the Minister has picked up from the repeated questions of noble Lords on all sides that there is acute concern about this. I do not think it is possible to separate the public health emergency from the wider social and economic emergency. People will not go off sick and companies will not be able to give clear guidance to their employees until the Government can answer the questions which have been asked around the Chamber. There is an absence of a clear government policy on sick pay, which is after all the means by which people will survive if they self-diagnose or are diagnosed with this virus. Each day that the Government cannot answer this will lead to more needless spreading of the disease. I know that the noble Lord is the Health Minister and not an Economy Minister, but it is totally unsatisfactory that the Statement gives no clear guidance to the country on the economic aspects. He talked about this being published on Thursday, with the Bill, but that is three days’ time. We are in a massive national emergency; that statement should come tomorrow. Every hour that the Government delay will see the disease spread further, cause needless distress and lead to people going out of business.
Covid-19: Support for the Self-employed — House of Lords, 2020-03-24
Topic: Labor
Iain McNicol (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for reading that Answer, which was quite scant on detail. In response to this pandemic, Norway immediately committed to paying the self-employed 80% of their three-year average earnings, obviously with an upper limit. Denmark and Belgium have brought in similar schemes. We are happy to work with the Government to look for solutions, but these solutions need to be delivered quickly. Many self-employed people are in desperate situations in these desperate times. What timescale are the Government looking at to bring in these new measures? Can the Minister encourage them to do so as quickly as possible?
Covid-19: Support for the Self-employed — House of Lords, 2020-03-24
Topic: Labor
Spencer Livermore (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I understand that it can take a while to develop specific targeted measures for the self-employed, but can the Minister say why so little is being done on social media, for example, to publicise to the self-employed the limited range of measures that currently exist?