argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Lords, 2016-07-11
Topic: Other
Simon Denis Brown (Crossbench, Unknown): I, for my part, am entirely content with Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin. I marginally prefer it to Amendment 2. It may be doubted whether either is strictly necessary, but let us have the simpler one. With the greatest respect, I regard Amendment 1 as entirely superfluous. It unnecessarily overcomplicates things and in large part it overlaps with other provisions in the legislation. It just is not a good idea. It is all very well to treat this legislation with some element of scepticism, but, please, not cynicism. That is the way this is approached in that context.
Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Lords, 2016-07-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Onora O'Neill (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. She set out extremely clearly what is at stake and we should remember that at the other end of violations of privacy there are people who have their privacy severely intruded upon. The intruders are not the security services or a public authority but privately owned newspapers There is a rumour abroad that in some way Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations were a challenge, an affront and an abridgment to freedom of the press. That is a mistaken view of the matter. Freedom of the press is not freedom to intrude in other people’s privacy. On the contrary, it is freedom not just within the law—we are talking about changing the law—but where victims have reasonable redress. At present, that is not the case because the heavy costs and risks fall on victims—even a worthy case may fail in the courts—and because, on the other hand, perpetrators have no incentive to apologise or be accurate. There has been a great deal of concern about the extreme inadequacy of the complaints procedures that IPSO has devised. I say that with hesitation because I suspect that they cannot really count as complaints procedures, given that violations are rarely reported adequately and lead to no consequences We need this protection for individuals and private lives, and it fits naturally into this Bill.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-09-14
Topic: Other
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): With great respect to the Minister, she did not address my point. One has a choice: either one varies an agreement or one replaces it with something else. The example given is a very good one of a variation, leaving the existing agreement in place. We are at a very early stage of this Bill and all I am suggesting is that the amendment might be taken away and looked at again. It is a question of the proper use of the English language, which is why I have taken the liberty of standing up and making my point.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-25
Topic: Housing
Ann Butler-Sloss (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have not spoken on this Bill before. However, I would like to add a practical point from the part of the West Country where I live, where there is both very large building going on—5,000-plus houses, some on a flood plain—together with very small building on small sites. What we are being told locally is that the various builders, particularly those on the larger sites, are now going back to the council to ask not to have to provide as much affordable housing as they were originally asked to do. It really is a very serious matter down in our part of the West Country. As everyone knows, affordable housing is so important that every step that can be taken to support it, I would hope that this House would support.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-25
Topic: Housing
Ewen Cameron (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support this amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and others. The arguments have all been very well made, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Best, with his great experience, so I want merely to emphasise a few facts First, as we all know, the need for affordable homes is as great in the countryside as anywhere, because on average houses are more expensive and average wages are lower. The largest long-term black cloud hovering over nearly all less well-off rural families is the issue of, "Where on earth are our children going to live?". Secondly, rural areas currently have less than half the number of affordable homes per population than urban areas. I say "currently" because without this amendment, or something like it, the situation is about to get very much worse. The third fact—and this is really important and has been raised by all speakers— is that Section 106 homes on sites of fewer than 10 houses provide more than 50% of all affordable homes in the countryside I know that the Government have blundered into this now legal cul-de-sac and left themselves with few means of a U-turn, but I hope that they will somehow find a way out of this most unfortunate and ill-considered situation and turn it into something that is at least tolerable I believe that during the passage of this Bill the Government have grasped the seriousness of rural housing problems and genuinely tried to help—I thank the Minister and the Secretary of State for their parts in that—but in many ways this amendment covers the most important issue that we have dealt with because of the high percentage of affordable rural houses at stake here. There are not many opportunities to build houses in the countryside because of the lack of sites available; but when and where it is possible, it is crucial that we grasp the opportunity to add to the number of affordable houses available for locals I will spare your Lordships my thoughts on how all Governments, without exception, seem to drift from their early ideals of localism to ever-stronger central government controls, but it should be up to local councils to decide whether they need to support their local small builders, which is the case being made here by the Government, or, alternatively, the numerous young families living in crowded accommodation housing sometimes two or even three generations. I hope the Government will find a way of accommodating the very important intentions behind this amendment and genuinely satisfying us all that they will change their current approach.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-25
Topic: Public Lands
Ewen Cameron (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I rise to support the second amendment in this group, Amendment 128YAR, on the duty of care where compulsory purchase powers are involved. I do so from personal experience. Some 25 or 30 years ago, I had the Ilminster bypass through my farm. It was part of the improvements to the A303, which I strongly supported. I still strongly support more improvements to the A303 and hope we shall get them. As a supporter, I expected to be an equal partner in the process, the scheme and the negotiations, but I was left in no doubt that, it being a compulsory purchase, I had little or no say in the way the project was developed over my land. I am talking not about engineering schemes, although I disagreed with it being downgraded from a dual carriageway to a very dangerous three-lane single carriageway, but about things such as on-site planting and off-site planting, where, as a fairly knowledgeable forester, I was definitely considered inferior to their expert and largely ignored. There needs to be rebalancing with an obligation on the purchasing agents and the acquiring authority to treat their customers with care. There is a very real danger of property owners, who include householders, businessmen, farmers and others, being bullied and bulldozed by the acquiring authority. It is not necessarily always an agent of the state; it can be a privatised authority. In essence, as an owner, you are over a barrel. Everyone knows it and that whatever the acquiring authority wants, it can pretty well get, whatever the views of the owner or householder involved. To avoid the acquiring authority riding roughshod over those it should be treating as customers, we need this duty of care to be introduced.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-25
Topic: Housing
John Seymour (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I, too, support these amendments in the name of my noble friend. I thank the Minister for making some good progress with the arguments I put forward in Committee. We are going to see that in the amendments that are about to be moved. On interest rates for late payments, it would be good if the Government could commit to monitoring the success of the penal rates of interest for securing payment of compensation before entry. That would be very helpful These concessions still leave two topics unresolved from the group that I spoke to in Committee. First, on NSIPs, which are covered by the first amendment in this group, the Government are arguing that the landowner will get only current use value rather than development value for up to 500 homes with no functional link to the project but situated within one mile of it. This is confiscatory. I again ask the Government: who will benefit from this largesse? Is it the house purchaser or, probably more likely, the infrastructure provider? If it is the latter, this surely demonstrates the unfairness of the idea. The principle of equivalence loses coherence when applied as I have just mentioned. A farmer or landowner may have several tens of acres removed from his holding by this means, leaving his business unsustainable as a result. Existing use values would be unlikely to allow him to purchase elsewhere to rebuild his business, especially after the considerable costs he is bound to incur. In effect, the acquirer is giving himself planning permission to take land at lower value, develop it and gain a large financial uplift at the expense of the original owner. At the same time, it would ignore local plans and local neighbourhood plans I turn to the second amendment in this group, relating to a duty of care. In Committee, the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, on behalf of the Government, said that, "claimants should be treated with fairness … and kept up to date", and that, "competent professionals should be advising their clients to act in this way".—[Official Report, 23/3/16; col. 2451.] The word "should" appears again and again. This is not the same as "must" or "shall". Similarly, to my mind the word "urges" in this context is not strong enough I do not really understand why the Government should wish to deny Amendment 128YAR, which would merely strengthen and make mandatory the points that the Minister advocated in Committee. Clear guidance would not give those people subject to compulsory purchase orders the comfort that a compulsory duty of care, as incorporated in this amendment, would deliver. It would also provide a benchmark by which to judge whether an acquiring authority was behaving fairly and reasonably. I ask the Government to consider carefully accepting both these useful amendments.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-25
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Lytton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank the Minister for that, particularly for his comments on the second of the two amendments, which seems to be a profitable suggestion and an appropriate way forward. I very much appreciate the opportunity of taking him up on that as matters proceed. In a sense, it is one of those "motherhood and apple pie" amendments. I make no apology for that because the overarching purpose and geometry of how these things are dealt with is important, as indeed corporate social responsibility might be in any other walk of life I am entirely unsurprised that the Minister does not go with the first of my amendments, Amendment 119B. I am equally entirely unsurprised that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, disagrees in forthright terms with what I have suggested. The reality is that all sorts of businesses and individuals profit in one form or another from windfall gains, and it is a truism that those windfall gains do not coincide with the circumstances in which they could feed into the support of the needy and the underprivileged, particularly in housing terms, other than through the intervention of the state. That is a perfectly proper way of doing it.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-25
Topic: Housing
John Lytton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am not sure that I know the answer to that. The point that I was trying to get at in the process of this amendment was the question of who profited from the 500 houses. The short answer is that very large gains are made by dint of the market. The noble Lord may wish to take the view that the market should be overridden—a view that I feel certain many would share on his Benches. It does not happen to be my view and we will have to agree to differ on how this is to be dealt with. I entirely respect his view and I can see the social pinch point here, but I am trying to look at this as an economic model rather than in terms of who gains out of it I have gone on long enough about this and it is certainly not my intention to divide the House on it. I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-25
Topic: Other
Robert Rogers (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, especially for her undertaking to seek consensus as the details have developed—that is extremely helpful. I know that she has taken my criticisms in good part. In practice, these amendments raise issues that are lessons for the future, rather than an occasion for a final skirmish on Report. Accordingly, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 138 and will not move the subsequent amendments.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-10-18
Topic: Other
Norman Warner (Crossbench, Unknown): I am sorry to interrupt the Minister’s flow, but I am puzzling over what he has just said about the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and whether the thrust of those is going to be included in statutory guidance, particularly covering all the conditions set out in Amendment 5. He seemed to be quite encouraging about this, but perhaps he could clarify whether that will be covered in statutory guidance.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-10-18
Topic: Immigration
David John Ramsbotham (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, this amendment seeks to include a duty to promote access to legal advice and representation for children in care in order to safeguard and promote their welfare and future life chances. It seeks to do that on the face of the Bill Local authorities, in their role as corporate parents, have a particular obligation to promote meaningful access to legal services for the children in their care. Recent evidence presented to the Refugee Children’s Consortium suggests that it is not enough for access to legal advice to be included in a child’s care plan. There should instead be an active duty to promote access whenever needed. For example, children may need access to legal advice in regard to accessing appropriate education in their area if they have special educational needs; to have a voice in family law proceedings that concern arrangements for their care; to regularise their immigration status; or to claim compensation where they are a victim of crime, including human trafficking In the concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child’s recent periodic report, it was noted that some children in care do not feel listened to, and that unaccompanied, migrant and asylum-seeking children may not receive independent legal advice. I am particularly concerned that children are missing out on opportunities to resolve their immigration status before they turn 18 because of the limited provision of legal advice and the difficulty of finding independent and reliable advice providers. A child without a way to regularise their immigration status in local authority care becomes a young person without support at 18, and now will be able to appeal against deportation only once they have been returned to their country of origin under the terms of the Immigration Act 2016 My reason for proposing this subsection is that it is yet another example of where the solution does not seem to lie in the hands of the Department for Education alone, but requires co-operation and co-ordination with the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. I therefore hope very much that the Minister will feel able to accept the amendment and turn it into a government amendment in due course. I beg to move.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-10-18
Topic: Immigration
David John Ramsbotham (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply and to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for her comments and remarks. I am concerned by the content of the UNCRC’s fifth report because it repeats so many criticisms that were contained in the fourth report that do not appear to have been actioned. I am also particularly concerned about the change in status of immigrant children in care, which was included in the Immigration Act 2016. The comment that they lacked legal advice before they were deported is not something of which we should be very proud I hope, therefore, that in considering all the things that he has said to me, the Minister will go back and assess the local area legal provision, particularly relating to immigration, because I give notice that I shall raise this question again at Third Reading. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-10-18
Topic: Other
Norman Warner (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I think it is a missed opportunity, but I am glad that the Minister is going to put some of this into statutory guidance. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-10-18
Topic: Housing
Norman Warner (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I shall speak in support Amendment 12, to which I have added my name, but I should like first to add my support to Amendment 10. Affordable single-person accommodation is one of the areas in shortest supply in many of our cities. This is the pool in which we are often trying to find accommodation for these young people. They do need a lot of support. We are asking them to live independently and to battle their way through what is often a confusing and difficult accommodation market. Even older, more mature adults find it difficult to survive in that market We are setting these young people up to fail if we do not do more to help them to get into safe and suitable accommodation. It is no wonder, sadly, that we find so many of these young people having been in care sleeping rough in many of our inner cities, including not far from this place. Anyone who late at night wanders around the South Bank will find some of these characters who have been in care having a difficult time. When you talk to some of them, you hear that they have never had good accommodation The Minister should take this seriously. When I was chairman of the Youth Justice Board this area was one of the major contributory factors to many of these young people moving down a path of crime and into the youth justice system. Tackling it is therefore in everyone’s interests, not just those of the young people. I strongly support Amendment 10 I also support Amendment 12. Too often we pass reforming legislation without saying what would be an acceptable level of response by those responsible for implementing that legislation. There is a long history of the lifetime outcomes for looked-after children being inadequate. We shall come to the issue of outcomes in a later amendment. To address this long-standing problem, the Government would do well to set out some national minimum standards for the services that must be offered under their local offer for care leavers. Far too many young care leavers do not know what they can expect from the authority that has been looking after them when they move into the wider world From my experience as the commissioner for children’s services in Birmingham—appointed by the current Secretary of State’s predecessor but one, who has since gone on to further fame—one also finds huge variations in the performance of some of the leaving-care teams within the same authority. This is not an area that has been well served by consistency even within the same authority. Setting some national standards would not just be helpful for consistency between authorities but would help some of the bigger authorities to have consistency within themselves. So I strongly support Amendment 12.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-10-18
Topic: Other
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, perhaps I may speak briefly in support of the amendment. Earlier we debated my Amendment 2, and I indicated this morning to the Minister that I would not be seeking to move it. I must say that, listening to the debate in the Chamber, I was almost tempted to change my mind. The amendment was brought to my attention fairly late, which is why I was reluctant to push it as hard as I might. This is an excellent amendment, if I may say so. I understand that the Minister is going to give a very sympathetic response. I hope he can go as far as possible towards enshrining this in statute. I look forward to his response.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-10-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
David John Ramsbotham (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I rise to move Amendments 17 and 19. The purpose of Amendment 17 is both to ask to ask the Minister to clarify the intention behind subsection 3(b) of new Section 23CZB and to highlight a potential loophole which could risk local authorities opting out of their duties to former relevant children. It would appear that the intention behind that subsection is to enable a local authority to cancel the appointment of a personal adviser if at any time a former relevant child says that they no longer want one. However, the wording of the subsection is ambiguous. The phrase "if earlier" leaves open the possibility that a local authority might interpret it in a way that would enable it to refuse advice and support to a former relevant child who had previously said that they did not want a personal adviser but at a later stage requested advice and support. This opens another possible loophole of local authorities requesting that former relevant children sign a form on leaving care at 18 to say that they no longer need support. Would the Minister therefore be kind enough to clarify the Government’s intention and resolve any possible ambiguity in the wording of the legislation My Amendment 19 is made completely unnecessary by government Amendment 18, and so I propose not to press it.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-10-18
Topic: Other
David John Ramsbotham (Crossbench, Unknown): I am grateful to the Minister. I am sure that this is capable of resolution. It just seemed an irritant rather than a major issue, but one which it would be unwise to let go. Therefore, I will not press my amendment.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-10-18
Topic: Other
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I join in welcoming government Amendment 20, which seems to fill an important loophole. In passing, as I did not have an opportunity in the previous grouping, I also thank the Minister for his previous amendments, which are important and which we raised in Committee. As is so often the case, the Minister listens and takes action, and I am grateful to him when he does so, as he did earlier and in this case.