argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Marks, raises the important issue of the protection of complainants of rape and sexual offences from being questioned about their sexual history. As I previously made clear, it is vital that victims have the confidence to report crimes as terrible as rape, and that they have confidence that the criminal justice process will bring offenders to justice. Our message to those who are willing but currently worried about reporting such offences is that they should feel confident about doing so When we first debated the issue, I assured noble Lords that we would look at how Section 41 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 was working in practice. As the noble Lord asked, perhaps I may provide a bit more detail. The Justice Secretary and the Attorney-General have advised me that this will include examining the original policy intent of Section 41, its implementation and how it is operating in practice I can confirm that this work will be led by officials in the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney-General’s Office. They will consider carefully the concerns that have been raised and seek views from the judiciary, practitioners and victims’ groups. This work will be completed in the first half of next year. We have already made clear our commitment to carry out this work and, in our view, there is no benefit in making it a statutory requirement. In the light of the detail that I have provided, I hope that the noble Lord will feel happy to withdraw his amendment.
21st Century Fox Takeover Bid for Sky — House of Lords, 2016-12-12
Topic: Technology
Richard Keen (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I will respond first to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, on the fit and proper person test. Under the Broadcasting Act 1990, Ofcom needs to be satisfied that a holder of a broadcasting licence is a fit and proper person. That is entirely a matter for Ofcom. On a change of control, Ofcom may consider the issue but will do so only once the transaction has been completed With respect to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, of course the process of dealing with this transaction will be fair and will be carried out, as I indicated before, by the Secretary of State discharging a quasi-judicial function. There is no present intention to deal with the matters in Leveson that the noble Lord refers to. As regards his suggestion of a recent meeting between the Prime Minister and Rupert Murdoch, I point out that the only recent meeting was in September, when the Prime Minister was attending a meeting with certain journalists and correspondents from the Wall Street Journal and Mr Murdoch arrived unannounced, as it were, at that meeting. I can advise the noble Lord that there was no discussion at that time of the present transaction.
Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-12
Topic: Macroeconomics
Robin Granville Hodgson (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend is doing a splendid job with a brief that is not entirely his. The Revenue always produces these stupendous figures—£5 million here and £5 million there—but we are talking about an £8,000 maximum per charity, so there is a limit to the extent to which bad boys can run away with the ball. I am not asking for a response—just to place on the record that the Revenue is being unfair to my noble friend by talking about £5 million being cheated out of charities when we are talking about a very limited scheme. It was an unfair speaking note that it gave my noble friend.
Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-12
Topic: Social Welfare
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): I take full responsibility for any speaking notes that I deliver. If one looks at some possible structures, you can have a charity with a number of community buildings and each one could claim £8,000—so it is not necessarily capped at £8,000. Depending on the structure of the charity, it would be possible to claim a much larger figure. I take on board the point that my noble friend has made Progress is being made on making SMS slightly more user-friendly. SMS text giving is an easy way for donors to give to charity; donors simply send a short code to a six-digit number to donate a set amount via their phone bill. There is an established process for donors to gift aid SMS donations. Following the initial message, a reply is sent to the donor, thanking them for their donation and asking for their name, house number, post code and confirmation that they are a UK taxpayer. If the donor replies with this information, gift aid is added to the donation. HMRC is working closely with the sector and we are introducing new legislation in April 2017 to simplify the process for claiming gift aid on donations made through digital intermediaries.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: Labor
Rosalind Altmann (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I support these amendments, and I would like to probe the Minister on what the pause order is really meant to achieve. As the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, has just asked, how does he envisage it will work in practice? If a pause order is introduced by the Pensions Regulator, it is likely that an employer will be in breach of its auto-enrolment duties and potentially in breach of contract with its employees. In those circumstances, we could need some of the bulk DC transfer regulations, which we have discussed and I hope we may come to later, to enable a scheme to ensure that such transfers can be made relatively swiftly and without too much expense—perhaps before a triggering event, although the proposal is currently only if there is a triggering event. That would require some of the existing regulations that are made with DB schemes in mind to be undone.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: Labor
Rosalind Altmann (Conservative, Centre-right): If there is no such provision as that in Amendment 46, what exactly protects members and employers by ensuring that they can continue with their legal duties to contribute to pension schemes for their members under auto-enrolment? Currently, it is not clear to me how it is intended that this pause order will fit with the legal obligations or contracts between the employer and the employee in relation to ongoing pension contributions.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: Labor
David Freud (Conservative, Centre-right): I think that the situation is the same—the fact that you have primary legislation will allow that to happen. I will clarify that, but I think that is the point of primary legislation I make the point to the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, that the Pensions Regulator will make a pause order only under carefully considered circumstances. The pause order may last for the duration of a triggering event period but is not likely to continue for a significant length of time, and the regulator must weigh up the potential impacts on members when considering whether to issue such an order I shall now turn to the government amendments on the pause power.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: Labor
David Freud (Conservative, Centre-right): This is really a specific point, but I will write to the noble Lord both on the numbers and on how the process will work. I hope that that will be satisfactory and that we can then dispose of the matter for the purposes of later stages of the Bill. I turn to government Amendments 47, 48, 49 and 52. These are intended to provide further clarity and some tidying up of the provision. They are based on further consideration of the comparisons with the Pension Regulator’s freezing-order power in the Pensions Act 2004, and are intended to ensure that they work sufficiently in a triggering event period. Amendment 47 makes clear that the pause power can be used to prevent benefits being paid out. Following the introduction of the Bill to the House, we have received some inquiries as to whether this is achieved through the provisions in the Bill. That was our intent, and as the freezing-order power makes separate provision to cover this aspect, we have, through Amendment 47, made an equivalent and explicit provision in respect of the pause order. Amendment 48 inserts a missing definition of "pension credit", which was an oversight, and mirrors the freezing-order power. Amendment 49 is consequential to Amendment 47, and ensures that members retain their entitlement to any benefit payments affected by the pause order.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: Labor
David Freud (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me just respond. The difference is that we are trying to get control of an obviously difficult situation. The pause is to allow the regulator to go in and make sure that the situation is sorted. We are not talking about keeping the flow of things going in a normal way; we are talking about a very difficult situation. We are worrying about losing the money that is already there, not about the smooth flow. We are typically talking about a very short period. Setting up large paraphernalia, which the noble Baroness is beginning to drift towards, would not be the point. The real point is to get the funds transferred as quickly as possible The noble Baroness asked where the legislation is. I can direct her to Clause 31(5)(c), which states that any contributions not paid over to the scheme are returned to the member, and paragraph 13 of Schedule 3, which ensures that the pause order will not cause employers to fall foul of their legal duties. I hope that that helps the noble Baroness in her consideration of what we are doing.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: Labor
Rosalind Altmann (Conservative, Centre-right): I have a couple more probing questions for my noble friend. The pause order is obviously intended to be used only in exceptional circumstances and in extreme concern about the solvency or probity of the master trust itself. I can certainly understand that, in that situation, one would not want to take any new employers, so it would pause adding any new employers. But it still seems that there is no protection for the ongoing accrual of members’ pension benefits, which is what we are trying to do with auto-enrolment. If the procedures suggested in the amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, are not considered appropriate—in other words, for the regulator itself to collect in the contributions—would it not be prudent at this stage and before the legislation is passed to have a proper plan for how ongoing contributions can be made and collected, perhaps through some form of bulk defined contribution transfer, even on a temporary basis, for members without consent to another master trust? At this stage we should produce such a plan rather than wait and hope that it will be okay.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: Labor
David Freud (Conservative, Centre-right): I am pleased to do that. My understanding is that the second assumption is correct: Amendment 76 moves it over to the determinations panel and I spelled out last Monday the process by which we will get the financial resources required by the Pensions Regulator. Clearly, one of the issues in that process will be the funds required to operate the determinations panel.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: Labor
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, government Amendment 57 would allow the Pensions Regulator to issue a pause order to an existing master trust at any point between the scheme submitting an application for authorisation and the decision on the application becoming final, regardless of whether or not a triggering event has occurred in relation to that scheme. Once an existing scheme has submitted an application for authorisation, the Pensions Regulator will have access to a significant amount of new information about the scheme. That information may alert the regulator to members’ interests or assets being at risk in the scheme. Clearly, the regulator will not grant authorisation in such circumstances but it needs to be able to take immediate steps to protect the members. A decision to refuse authorisation is one which must be taken by the determinations panel. It is right that this is so, but it means that there could be a period of time between the regulator recommending to the determinations panel that the scheme should not be authorised and the panel reaching its decision. During this time, the interests of scheme members need to be protected. The Government’s proposed amendment therefore provides that the Pensions Regulator may make a pause order in relation to a master trust scheme which has submitted an application for authorisation, "if it is satisfied that— (a) there is, or is likely to be if a pause order is not made, an immediate risk to the interests of members under the scheme or the assets of the scheme, and (b) it is necessary to make a pause order to protect the interests of the generality of members of the scheme" These conditions mirror those we have just been discussing for making a pause order following a triggering event The proposed amendment would introduce an important protection for the members of existing master trust schemes during the period when such schemes are applying for authorisation. In the light of what my noble friend Lord Freud has just said, I too apologise for not making this provision in the Bill as introduced, and I beg to move.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Rosalind Altmann (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I will comment briefly on my noble friend’s absolutely valid observations. The concerns expressed across the House on this issue are particularly acute as there has been an interdepartmental, cross-government approach to try to clamp down on these issues. Police initiatives such as Action Fraud and Operation Scorpion have all supposedly joined together to fight this issue. The FCA is involved as well. However, in response to Written Questions that I have tabled, my noble friend has said that so far this year, for example, nobody has even been charged and, over the last few years, nobody has been convicted. So this initiative, while very worthy, is not necessarily catching the public’s attention. If you ask those who have been scammed where people should go if they are not quite sure about something or have had a problem, they simply do not know. So we either spend a lot more money advertising the existing initiatives or, preferably, ban cold calling and introduce further measures—as the Chancellor has already indicated is the intention—to prevent or make more difficult the transfer of pension money to one of these unregulated vehicles. If we do that, the public will be better protected.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: Labor
Rosalind Altmann (Conservative, Centre-right): Might I suggest that my noble friend’s amendment is particularly relevant where the master trust has had a triggering event? At the moment, the rules for a bulk transfer of defined contribution benefits do not allow trustees easily to transfer the members’ rights across to another scheme. In many cases it may require member consent or complex calculations that are based on defined benefit schemes and not defined contribution schemes. Therefore, I certainly echo the sentiments expressed by my noble friend about the importance of being able easily to transfer accrued rights across from one scheme to another without member consent. As he rightly said, very often members become a little disengaged from their pension pots and may not themselves want to engage in the idea of transferring across. Somebody else being able to do it on their behalf would make sense It may also be prudent to consider the notion of bulk transfers, which I did raise on the first day of Committee, even in the circumstances that there has not been a triggering event. That might more easily facilitate the orderly transfer across of members’ accrued benefits under a scheme in which it is considered likely or inevitable that a triggering event will occur. The Pensions Regulator may then be able to be proactive rather than reactive in being able to protect members’ rights and transfer them across without consent in certain circumstances. I would be grateful to hear my noble friend the Minister’s thoughts on that issue.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: Labor
David Freud (Conservative, Centre-right): We have spent a lot of time talking about the continuity options 1 and 2 for trustees in a scheme in difficulty transferring in bulk, and I am sure we will return to those areas on Report. When I read the amendment, I took it to refer to a transfer where a member wants to consolidate his pension fund, which is something that we looked at in the 2014 Bill. I am at something of a loss as to how much I can add to what we discussed earlier, given my misreading of the amendment, which was talking about members wanting to consolidate their pots In certain circumstances a scheme may undertake a bulk transfer of members’ accrued pension rights without their consent. This could be, for example, because an employer has two or more pension schemes and wants to consolidate them. The provisions in the Bill provide the opportunity to require master trusts to transfer those members. The existing provisions in the Bill will permit a transfer on a trigger event, as my noble friend was asking.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Rosalind Altmann (Conservative, Centre-right): Perhaps I may follow up that comment. Yes, indeed, there will be transfers on a triggering event, but I seek some reassurance that proper provision will be made for bulk transfers that do not depend on defined benefit rules which make those bulk transfers much more costly and time-consuming and do not automatically ensure that they can occur in a timely way. Does the Minister also consider that there could be circumstances where a bulk transfer could happen without a triggering event? We are trying to consolidate schemes, but we know that there are schemes already in existence that will need to consolidate and either will not or will not wish to meet the authorisation criteria. If there were the possibility of doing so, that would be helpful. Finally, going back to a point that I raised on our previous day in Committee, it is true that the Bill will place what is potentially a legal duty on trustees to effect a transfer, so there will be an obligation for that transfer to happen. But I am not clear that we are any the wiser as to who would be able to fund the transfer if the records of the scheme are in disarray and there are no funds to pay for advice or administration services to enable the transfer to be made. What provisions can we rely on to ensure that the transfer takes place, and of course I am referring again to some kind of potential back-stop insurance as required in case the costs cannot be met anywhere else.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: Labor
David Freud (Conservative, Centre-right): Now we are moving more closely into what I thought the amendment was about, which is the pot following the member. As my noble friend will know, that mirrors the spirit of Schedule 17 to the Pensions Act 2014. We have not commenced that schedule We are looking at another approach, which is the launch of a pensions dashboard. We want to see whether that will work. This would allow people to see their retirement savings from across the industry in one place, which they could consolidate where they felt it was in their interests. The Government will support industry in designing and delivering a pensions dashboard by 2019, with a prototype being developed by March 2017. Clearly, when we know how it works, it will set the context for looking at how best to worry about the problems of being left either in funds that an individual thought were not performing, or wanting to consolidate. It is not necessarily the case that it is always advantageous to consolidate all the different pots, given the way legislation works—in other words, where the member has valuable benefits or lower scheme charges in one or other of those pots There is a lot of development here and a lot of change going on. The pensions industry is absorbing a large number of reforms. The Government’s approach is to see how the industry’s plan to have the dashboard will allow much greater flexibility for individuals.
Aleppo — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Annabel Goldie (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord opposite for his questions and, indeed, for his sentiments, which I think strike a chord with everyone in the Chamber. I shall deal first with the issue of war crimes, which he raised. Where it is clear that the Assad regime has committed terrible atrocities in Syria, and where there are allegations of war crimes, we are very clear that they should be investigated. We continue to make the case for the situation in Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court On the second issue that the noble Lord raised, regarding the potential option of air drops, we have always been very clear that our priority is the protection of civilians in Syria, who are already facing an appalling humanitarian situation. The noble Lord opposite will understand that air drops are an imperfect humanitarian option by their very nature, and that they can be more dangerous and harder to implement successfully than ground access. So there are major challenges with any military option, including air drops, and we would need to consider these carefully in close consultation with our existing partners, with whom we are working closely. The noble Lord will be aware that the United Kingdom is one of 10 partners, all working together to try to improve the situation in Syria. On the noble Lord’s final point, I am sure that my colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will have noted his request. I can only reassure him that I will make sure that that request is reaffirmed to the department.
Aleppo — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Annabel Goldie (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for raising two important points. The first is of course that a solution to this problem has to be found within Syria. The United Kingdom Government, in conjunction with the partners to whom I referred, are using every means availableto them to urge both the regime and those who have influence over it, not least Russia, to acknowledge that. The noble Lord will be aware that the High Negotiations Committee has proposed a vision for Syria which the United Kingdom supports, and we very much urge everyone who cares about the country and who wants a future for it to have serious regard to what that committee has outlined I remind the noble Lord that the key partners with whom the United Kingdom operates are the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and that is separate from the global coalition against Daesh, which is another alliance. So a cohort of concerned and influential partners is doing everything it can to try to improve the situation in Syria. However, at the end of the day the solution will have to be found within the country itself The noble Lord raises the important issue of the status and situation of refugees—those who have been forced to flee. Of course one can look at the neighbouring countries, not least Jordan, which has been one of the major recipients of refugees and has been providing help on the border. He will also be aware that the United Kingdom is the second biggest bilateral donor of humanitarian aid, and we are desperately trying to do our bit to support these people. However, the future beyond the immediate situation largely depends on finding a solution to Syria.