argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Agricultural Exports from Australia: Tariffs — House of Lords, 2021-06-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): ONS data from two weeks ago showed that the UK lost £1 billion in goods exports in just one month in January to our nearest trading partner, Ireland. This is more than the entire £900 million gain the Government are forecasting over 15 years for their agreement with Australia. The Government’s own scoping document stated: "A trade agreement with Australia could increase UK GDP in the long run by around 0.01% or 0.02%" The EU scoping exercise for its own agreement with Australia in 2018 suggested 0.01% to 0.02%. Can the Minister explain why the Government are failing to secure any increase on their agreement with Australia than the UK would have had before Brexit? Why has there been such a collapse in trade with our nearest neighbour and trading partner, Ireland?
Education Recovery — House of Lords, 2021-06-08
Topic: Education
Michael John Storey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): The tutoring programme is really important to the recovery programme. The best tutoring is where the pupil has a relationship with and an understanding of the tutor. In many cases that is not happening; it is a virtual stranger. Has the Minister thought about how we could improve the tutoring arrangements? I am fascinated by her comment in the Statement that we have the best tutoring system in the world. What empirical evidence do we have to make such a statement?
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-07-07
Topic: Environment
Kathryn Jane Parminter (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): In introducing Amendment 209, I am grateful for the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Boycott, and my colleague and noble friend Lord Teverson, who have added their names to it I very much welcome the Government’s introduction of the local nature recovery strategies—I see them as a really critical tool in capturing the value of the natural environment and ensuring that local communities can have their priorities reflected. But as they stand, the problem is that local authorities only have to "have regard to" the local nature recovery strategies; they do not have to act in accordance with them. My amendment seeks to reverse that, so that all the good work done by local authorities in producing them can be utilised, ensuring that they can be effectively integrated with other local plans and programmes As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, just highlighted, the biodiversity net gain and the other biodiversity requirements put on local councils, including the local nature recovery strategies, will be incredibly resource intensive. These new local nature recovery strategies will be data-driven, map-based and about identifying protected sites and other areas that make a real contribution towards delivering environmental and biodiversity aims. They will require a lot of conversations and consultations with relevant stakeholders—landowners, farmers, local people and businesses—and we want to make sure that all that consultation, of working locally on the ground to identify sites that are important to people and that people feel need protecting, is valued and respected Once these strategies have been developed, they will then be able to link up all the various other things such as biodiversity net gain, the environmental land management schemes and the nature for climate fund. They will be a really important tool for bringing all of these together. But if the local authorities and other bodies do not have to act in accordance with them, all that good work of consultation, and all the resources put into them, will go to waste.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-07-07
Topic: Environment
Robin Teverson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I shall be pretty brief on this, because both my amendments should really have been in the previous group, although one of them is particularly important First, I take just one minute to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. She was concerned that she should not be consumed by vultures, but on the of Isles of Scilly, we have an Egyptian vulture visiting this year. There may not be an opportunity next year, so there are big decisions. That vulture joins Wally the Walrus, who, unfortunately, has come some 2,000 miles too far south on an ice floe and is trying to land his big weight—up to a tonne—on local vessels. I say to the Minister that we have some introductions that were not necessarily there before the last ice age, but there we are I shall be very brief. My first amendment says that local authorities must have a duty to implement nature recovery networks. That comes back to the theme of the previous group, and I shall not go through that again. My second amendment, which is also slightly out of place here, is key. It comes back to environmental land management schemes, which will be the big game-changers in practice in the countryside over the next decade. Why? Because they have real resources behind them—£2.5 billion per annum, potentially—to put into nature recovery. Their whole ethos and guiding hand is public goods being paid for by public money, and their concentration is to be on biodiversity—not all of it is for nature recovery but a large proportion of it is We have the three tiers, as they were called: the sustainable farm initiative, the nature recovery area and the whole landscape side. I am stating the totally blindingly obvious, but you cannot have that going off in one direction and nature recovery networks going off in another. One is primarily produced by local government, AONBs or national parks; the other is produced and decided by Defra centrally. The good news is that they are both within the "Defra family", but I have little hope that, without real concentration, one part of Defra will be talking to the Natural England side, on the other, on nature recovery network implementation. My challenge is this: how are we going to get those two key elements to work together, rather than working in conflict The only other thing I would say is that I was delighted to put my name to my noble friend Lord Oates’s amendment; he has expounded those virtues tremendously. I will not follow on from that, except to entirely endorse his arguments.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-07-07
Topic: Environment
Jonathan Oates (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful for the support from my noble friend Lord Teverson, and from the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Boycott. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, will not be surprised to know that I discussed my amendments with my noble friend Lady Parminter. The amendments do different things: the one does not replace the other. But I would be happy to talk with the Labour Front Bench more about this in future I was pleased when the Minister indicated that he wanted to finish this group tonight, because it would have seemed wrong to take it on to another day—but I would have been less pleased if I had known how peremptory his response would be, and how little it answered the questions that are given rise to in this amendment. He said that local authorities had the power to act already. I would be grateful if he would write to me and tell me under what powers Kingston Council could have entered the site to investigate what was going on and to stop the destruction of vegetation. If those powers exist, I would be grateful if he would share them with me. He said that local authorities already have the power under the Bill to enter into conservation covenant agreements—but that is only if they are so designated by the Secretary of State So I cannot hide my disappointment in his response. This is a very important issue: it affects local authorities up and down the country. It is not is not about the creation of strategies, it is about the ability to act to enforce and prevent the destruction of biodiversity. So I very much hope that the Minister will agree to meet and discuss this further. If the Government are not willing to move on this, I will want to come back to this, as it is such a critical issue. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
BBC: Dyson Report — House of Lords, 2021-05-25
Topic: Technology
Jane Bonham Carter (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, we welcome the fact that the Government agree that, in an era of fake news, public service broadcasting has never been more important. The Bashir story is truly shocking, but I worked as a journalist at the BBC for many years and know that the vast majority abide by the values and principles that make it such a respected institution at home and abroad. This is not a time, as the Secretary of State said, for knee-jerk reactions. While I wholeheartedly condemn these events, does the Minister not agree that they must not be used as an opportunity to undermine the BBC’s independence or the principles of universality that so importantly underpin it?
Daniel Morgan: Independent Panel Report — House of Lords, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, when the Metropolitan police service refused to allow the Independent Police Complaints Commission to visit the scene of the police shooting of the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005, I went to the then Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and told him it was the most stupid decision I had ever heard of in policing, because it would give credence to people who were expecting a cover-up. The second most stupid decision must be that of the Home Secretary to block the publication of a report into an alleged establishment cover-up over the investigation of the murder of Daniel Morgan. Does the Minister not see the parallels?
Education (Environment and Sustainable Citizenship) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-16
Topic: Education
Floella Benjamin (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I congratulate and support the noble Lord, Lord Knight, on his crucially important Bill and declare an interest as a member of the Peers for the Planet group and vice-president of the RHS This Bill puts sustainability at the heart of our education system in response to the long-term, systemic challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. Over the last few years, young people have shown that they are hungry to learn and to act to protect their future and better prepare themselves to thrive in an ever-changing world. Evidence shows that engaging children and young people through school has a wider impact on community-level behaviour change. Behaviour change by the public is crucial to achieving emissions reduction, and childhood lasts a lifetime Teach the Future has been fighting and advocating for comprehensive education on the climate crisis and sustainability for all students, not just through the sciences and geography. Students need to be taught about the climate emergency and the ecological crisis—how they are caused, what we can do to mitigate them and what our future lives and jobs are going to look like due to them. Currently, the national curriculum makes narrow provision for factual knowledge on climate science and geography. There have been calls to create a GCSE in natural history, but this Bill goes further than that: it updates the curriculum to reflect the cross-cutting nature of climate change and to better support the learning approaches needed to build a resilient, well-informed and compassionate society ready to tackle these global challenges and be part of the solution By shifting the focus away from just citizenship to include sustainability, we can revitalise the subject and transform it into one that focuses on what young people care about and are keen to be involved in. It needs to become key content in all subject areas. Educators need to be trained in how to teach these difficult topics in a way that empowers students, and there needs to be the funding and resources to do this. The recent Green Jobs Taskforce report recommended that, as part of an integrated curriculum, "government, employers and education providers should promote the effective teaching of climate change and the knowledge and skills … required for green jobs." Will the Government respond to this and action it as a priority I am an optimist and I believe we can invent our way out of the climate crisis we are facing. This Bill responds directly to the concerns of young people and addresses their future prosperity and well-being. We have a responsibility to act, to listen to them and, most of all, to press the reset button to change the world.
Education (Environment and Sustainable Citizenship) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-16
Topic: Education
Dominic Hubbard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, when I first saw the title of this Bill, I shuddered because I thought it was going to say, "Let’s take something out of the curriculum and stick this in for the worthy cause." Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, dealt with that in his opening remarks; I congratulate him on the elegant way in which he did it because, as many other people have gone through this, they have said that that is what normally happens. I have actually tried to pour cold water on numerous good causes that people have tried to stick into the national curriculum at various times. The noble Lord has found a way round this One thing I would say to the Minister is, "Accept it because it is a very good way out. If you’re going to do it some other way, it’s going to get very difficult." Where could you not put the environment in? You can in history. You can look at when we started using coal and our transition and the way we reorganised our cities. Look at geography and the sciences. All of them would take more space if we accepted—and there seems to be general acceptance—that this is an important subject, and if we accepted the fact that it is an important subject because we have to change our behaviour. If you do not get people knowing why they have to change their behaviour, you get resistance to it. Making sure that your children know of somebody who has the eternal school project—let us put it like that; it is a great way of discovering something—is a way of knowing that you have to make that change. In getting into the school system, not only do you get the next generation; you also get the current one I hope the Minister will tell us that they have a plan that expands things without doing this. I rather doubt it; I think the noble Lord and the Minister are dealing with the same problem—of where this fits in. If there is another space we have not found, that is great, but it should be there. I say to the Minister that, looking back over what we have done in Parliament—I think I have been here longer than most—the biggest speech saying that we should take this subject seriously was made by Lady Thatcher, when she was still Prime Minister. We are tenants of the planet; we do not own it. We must take action and pass it on This is just one of those little ways you can fulfil that aim: making sure that everyone knows why we have to change the way we operate and live today. It is one way of making sure that that knowledge is embedded in society, so that we accept the change and get on with it.
Cyberattack: Microsoft — House of Lords, 2021-07-22
Topic: International Affairs
Julie Smith (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the Answer in the House of Commons suggested that there had been a response in the form of a statement by 39 countries. That is welcome, but what action are the Government taking, beyond making statements, to ensure that the United Kingdom and her allies are no longer vulnerable to China? Statements are one thing; sanctions or other actions would surely be far more effective.
Northern Ireland Protocol — House of Lords, 2021-07-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, decisions made by the Boris Johnson Government, not the EU, over the last year have meant that, for the first time in our history, a Government of the UK are compelling UK businesses that trade within the UK to Northern Ireland to register with the Government as an exporter. Any goods from GB to Northern Ireland will have to be separately conformity-assessed and separately labelled and, this month, new parcel and shipping taxes for consumers, set by a foreign power, are now being paid by people, over which we have no representation whatever. There is no mention at all of these in the Command Paper. Does that mean that businesses will have to live with this unacceptable and outrageous burden on UK businesses trading within the UK?
Northern Ireland Protocol — House of Lords, 2021-07-21
Topic: International Affairs
Donald Thomas (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, seven months ago the Minister negotiated and signed the protocol and presented it to the British people as a triumph. Today he stands at the Dispatch Box and says, "It’s rubbish, doesn’t work, we’ve got to have something better". Would not the first step—and the best way of resolving the trust problems to which he referred—be for him to resign for a gross failure of government policy for which he is personally responsible?
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-21
Topic: Labor
Barbara Janke (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 93 in the names of my noble friend Lord Storey and myself. As the right reverend Prelate said, the amendments in this group deal with finance and incentives to take up the training and development opportunities in the Bill, as well as addressing the disincentive posed by universal credit to taking up those opportunities Amendment 93 seeks to change the current situation of people who are unemployed and wish to follow full-time training courses to improve their job prospects by giving them entitlement to universal credit, from which they are currently excluded. As has been explained, that is because those receiving universal credit have obligations to prioritise job searches and take available jobs over full-time training. In addition, the length of time in which people can continue receiving universal credit while undertaking work-focused study has been capped at eight weeks. People taking up courses on offer would have to give up universal credit and have the choice of whether to take up chances of reskilling or have enough money on which to live, eat and pay bills. Unemployed people or those on low-paid jobs are the least likely to take out a loan, further risking indebtedness and poverty for themselves and their families The Bill is about the importance of training and retraining to support people and employers. The Government have rightly invested in traineeships, apprenticeships and the Kickstart and Restart programmes. However, those schemes have limited eligibility. Unemployment has risen in age groups other than those aged 18 to 25, on whom much attention is focused, but the people who would benefit from claiming universal credit are often those who would benefit most from retraining and development There is a lack of co-ordination across departments to make the Bill and its provisions succeed. There needs to be appraisal by the DWP and I should like to hear from the Minister what the Government have done to consider the difficulties of people who are trying to take up courses when they are unemployed and have no other means of support. Amendment 93 seeks to amend the regulations on universal credit to enable a more flexible and enabling approach to those most in need of retraining development for decent jobs. It relates only to courses leading to the lifetime guarantee and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-21
Topic: Labor
Dominic Hubbard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I can be fairly brief, given that my noble friend has just done some of the heavy lifting on the amendment standing in her name and that of my noble friend Lord Storey Universal credit is there to help people, and it replaced a lot of other benefits. However, there are problems relating to the fact that generally one is supposed to be looking for work, but the system seems to exclude people from taking on training. That is purely an absurdity. If one wants to try to improve the skills levels of the nation, surely every time that people are available, often when they are not in work, it would be a good chance for them to take up that reskilling We need to get people better skilled. I hope that the Government when they answer will be able to tell us exactly how they are going to get those groups of people who are available to take up the training and skill opportunities to take part, because presumably some of them are not doing anything else. If one takes away the foundation on which they are able to live, one is stopping them taking part That is not a new problem, but at the moment the benefits system is acting in many cases as a disincentive to upskilling. We should do everything we can to change that. This is as good a time as any.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-21
Topic: Education
Dominic Hubbard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, when the Government are asked to have a long-term look at something, the usual answer is, "We are". That is what generally comes out with all these different things, but the advantage of the right reverend Prelate’s amendment, which I have signed, is that it puts it in one nice solid place and gives us three good bases to start from I was initially attracted by the support for special educational needs, and I remind the Committee yet again of my interests in that particular part of the playground. But looking at things regularly, over a long period of time, is essential if a policy is to develop. To go back to special educational needs, there was a long development of saying, "Of course you can, but a requirement on the way in"—I have an interest in dyslexia—"is that, by the way, you have to pass a written test in English, despite your having God knows how many other qualifications." I remind the Committee of how many hours I have burned on that subject over the years. If you have a way in, how do you maintain that person? Does that maintenance pattern keep up with both the understanding and the technology out there at the moment? That is a pattern of development that comes one after the other and will change over time.