argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Immigration
David Hugh Alexander Hannay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the Minister seems to be reaching the end of his remarks. In replying to matters raised on the individual areas of transport, sport and so on, he has simply ignored the fact that most of those who spoke to these areas talked about the need for rapid movement of people, rapid access and no impediment to such movements. Could he perhaps say something about that? At the moment, the Government seem to have a blank sheet in front of them on that. We have not been told a single thing about the immigration rules that will apply after 29 March 2019—not one word has been said other than that it is going to take a lot longer for the Government to consult everyone before they can tell us what they are doing. All the areas that have been referred to in the debate this morning involve the movement of people. Will the Minister please try to fill that out a little?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Other
Hugh Dykes (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I will speak briefly mainly to Amendment 216, tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, which I also signed, but I will also refer briefly to Clause 9 and its generality On the recent exchanges, I may be incorrect, but speaking from a shaky procedural memory, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, was probably correct in what he said: the procedure that the noble Baroness opposite engaged in is unusual, although I understand that she had the permission of the House to do so. It was perhaps an exceptional moment, and noble Lords may agree, particularly in Committee rather than the whole House, that it is not necessarily a transgression. However, I think a law somewhere in the procedure book says that what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, asserted is correct. Be that as it may, I pass on to the important matters of Clause 9 and Amendment 216.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Other
John Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): When the noble Lord talks about timing and Parliament, is he also anticipating that Select Committees will be given time to consider their issues and report back to the House so that Parliament can consider the appropriate course?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Other
David Hugh Alexander Hannay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the Minister has got me famously confused now. He said, in a very welcome way just now, that the Government accept that the amendment voted for in the Commons—Amendment 7—provides for the outcome to be subject to a statutory procedure. A little time ago, he said that it was the Prime Minister’s intention to submit the deal to both Houses without a statutory procedure but as a simple resolution. Which comes first, and how do the two relate to each other?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Other
Margaret of Mar (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. Paragraph 4.36 of the Companion suggests that: "In debates where there are no formal time limits, members opening or winding up, from either side, are expected to keep within 20 minutes. Other speakers are expected to keep within 15 minutes" The noble Lord has spoken for 18 minutes. I wonder whether he would consider the tolerance of the House and wind up his speech.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): There is a good deal to be said for the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, when one bears in mind the power given in each of Clauses 7, 8 and 9 to make any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament under regulations made under these clauses. Of course, one can look back to an existing Act, which could be amended by the exercise of this power, for a purpose related to the Brexit arrangements. If one takes an existing Act—one can visualise all sorts of situations when that might arise—it would seem right that the same procedure should apply if the amendment is made for the purposes which one sees in Clauses 7, 8 and 9 For future Acts I can see there is a problem, because one cannot control a future Parliament, but as far as the past is concerned I respectfully suggest that there is a lot to be said for the amendment.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Ann Butler-Sloss (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support this amendment. My eldest grandson is about to leave university. He is incandescent with anger that he is about to be deprived of the right to look for a job anywhere across Europe when he leaves university. He is typical of a large number of young people coming out of university, colleges of further education and school who want the opportunity to travel, and, as my noble friend Lord Clancarty has suggested, the opportunity to do something outside their own country, to move away. However, that is something they are in real danger of losing with this change that we are about to have. The Government must really listen to these young people.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Immigration
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the noble Lord should be rather careful about drawing comparisons between the EU as a place to travel and to work in, and Australia and Canada. My son studied in Canada, where there is a strict visa system for students: you have to leave as soon as you have finished your course, and he had to be very careful to get himself out of the country before his permission ran out. You need a visa even to visit Australia, and I suspect that it also has rules for visas if you have to work there. Of course people go there, and that visa system is comparatively relaxed, but it is not the same as the freedom we have in the EU.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Immigration
Ann Butler-Sloss (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, spoke powerfully about a particular girl from Syria but she is typical of children across Europe. I went to Calais in May with Fiona Mactaggart, then an MP, and we wrote a report about the situation in Calais and Dunkirk, but it is also true in Italy and in Greece. Of those children who have come across Europe without their families, there is a group who have rights under EU law. Those are the children who can apply under what is known as Dublin III. This amendment asks that the relatively small number of children who have actually succeeded in coming to this country should not be cut off when Brexit occurs. I accept Brexit, but what I ask, along with fellow Members who have put their names to this amendment, is that the Minister who answers on behalf of the Government recognises that Brexit should not prevent the existing rights of children. It is not just a moral issue; it is a legal issue: they currently have rights and it would in my view be shocking if those rights were got rid of because we leave the EU.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Immigration
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, was absolutely right to say that respect for family life lies at the heart of this matter. That in particular was the basis for the regulation we are looking at, Dublin III, and this provision, which is talking about those unaccompanied adults and children from outside who wish to join a family member who is already here in order to make the application. It is about respect for family life as well as seeking to give the benefit of the asylum application under the convention, to which we are, after all, already parties. So without elaborating and with great respect to what has been said by everyone who has spoken so far, I too support the amendment.
National Planning Policy Framework — House of Lords, 2018-03-06
Topic: Housing
Margaret of Mar (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, is the Minister aware of the unforeseen consequences of the right to buy on rural exception sites? These are small patches of land that landowners either donate or sell at a cheap price for housing and which they understood, when they gave it, was in perpetuity. The right to buy overrides that right. This means that young people in villages who cannot afford current prices are being forced into towns. They cannot work in their home locality and villages are now becoming dormitory towns for commuters, who can afford the high prices, or for elderly people. What is happening there? Because many of these village developments are fewer than 10 houses, what will the Minister do about the loophole through which builders can get away with not building affordable housing—housing at rents or prices that people can afford, as opposed to the rather euphemistic use of the word "affordable"—in future?
Seafarers (Insolvency, Collective Redundancies and Information and Consultation Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-03-06
Topic: Immigration
Raymond Jolliffe (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, these regulations are, no doubt, narrowly drawn and seek to improve protection for at least some seafarers using our ports. There are, however, some wider problems. Foreign owners and companies bring fishing vessels to British ports. They are often largely crewed by people from south-east Asia and the Indian subcontinent. When, from time to time, the owners become insolvent or the vessels break down, the crews can be left in very difficult situations. Their wages may be unpaid for long periods. They may or may not receive the redundancy payments that should be due. They may be asked to work on land or may choose to do so, even illegally, because of the threat of destitution. They may have serious difficulties in communicating with their families and their Governments I therefore ask the Minister: what representations have HMG received on these issues from voluntary organisations working with fishermen and seafarers? Do the Government now have proposals, other than those included in these limited regulations, for dealing with the very real, human problems—for example, over repatriation of crews? Do foreign Governments help with this, and what provision do our Government make for meeting the costs, particularly of repatriation in cases of bankruptcy when crews are stranded here through no fault of their own? The people who are affected by the problems I have mentioned are, by themselves, almost voiceless. They therefore deserve better protection than they have now.
Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-04-17
Topic: Other
Margaret of Mar (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, may I help the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in his question about the rules of debate? If he were to make a point that I had not understood, I could ask him to clarify his point and he would then be allowed to get up a second time to do that, just briefly.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Lords, 2018-02-22
Topic: Other
Alexander Carlile (Crossbench, Unknown): I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I suspect that she is now on paragraph 15, but she is not answering this debate, which is about whether Her Majesty’s Government are prepared to provide specified information to Parliament on certain criteria. What she is telling us would all be very interesting if we had not heard it many times before, but it is a dissertation on the roles of different organisations. Can we please have an answer to this debate? It is 4.32 pm on a Thursday and I would have thought that it could be answered in a few paragraphs—maybe numbers 47 to 50.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Norman Warner (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support the amendment, but I do not expect us to go for our hat trick of votes on it. I speak as someone who had the misfortune to inherit the NHS IT system as a responsibility. I also had some experience in the Home Office of IT systems. Things never work out the way that noble Lords think they will. They are usually delayed and they usually malfunction a bit when they are first introduced and used. My question for the Minister is: has he got a plan B and what is it, if this IT system does not come online to time? At the end of the day, the ONR will still have some responsibilities to discharge. If it does not have the IT system, how will it go about discharging its responsibilities?
Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility — House of Lords, 2018-05-17
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Lucius Cary (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I congratulate the Government on finally taking action on the casino gaming machines in betting shops. One must not be too harsh about the bookmakers, because the history here is of course that betting on horses and greyhounds—the traditional betting in betting shops—has declined enormously, as people tend now to bet more and more online. This will be a sad day for bookmakers, with the reduction of the amount to be bet on these machines. I do not know whether that is the right amount; I would not criticise it, but it will make the bookmakers’ position quite difficult. There will be job losses, and so on. When I was on the pre-legislative scrutiny committee on the draft gambling Bill I tried to persuade the Government and the DCMS officials of the problems with gambling, particularly on machines in betting shops. But since then four machines have been allowed. I argued the toss with Baroness Jowell, one of the nicest women you could possibly argue with, and it was a great pleasure to work against her. Along with a number of my colleagues, I did not like the Bill that came forward, because it did not deal with the realities. I say to my ex-noble friend Lord Foster that it is not right to criticise the owners—
Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility — House of Lords, 2018-05-17
Topic: Mixed Topics
Lucius Cary (Crossbench, Unknown): Does the Minister agree that the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, on the question of whether horses are valued more than people and the dangers of addiction and racing are somewhat misplaced? Racing has the greatest difficulty in funding national competitions. Could the Minister comment on that?
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-17
Topic: Housing
Bryony Worthington (Crossbench, Unknown): In the spirt of this Bill being entirely about enabling powers, would it not be sensible for the Government to consider taking an enabling power that can then be used if necessary, given that we are really at the start of rollout, which must rapidly increase if we are to hit our targets? It seems highly likely that we already have evidence of leaseholder-lessee disagreements holding us back—I could go out and gather it all for you. We are simply talking about taking a power to enable the Government to regulate. Otherwise, we will be back here in a year’s time having to go back over this ground again. Surely this is an opportunity to use the Bill to try to future-proof the situation.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-17
Topic: Housing
Bryony Worthington (Crossbench, Unknown): Before the noble Baroness responds, I want to check that I am clear about that last point about the NPPF. With residential buildings, the expectation is that there might be a shift. However, why would there be a difference as regards leaving it with local authorities for non-residential buildings?
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-17
Topic: Mixed Topics
Bryony Worthington (Crossbench, Unknown): I thank the Minister for her response. Obviously, as discussed, there are some sequencing issues about when and how you expand scope and for whom. In response to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about different cities having different tiers, we felt this was appropriate for the mayoral cities because with democratic election comes accountability. You would naturally expect there to be powers that come with that. To the extent that we have already accepted that we are allowing cities to change status by having elected mayors, we are tacitly saying that we are okay with that level of devolution and I do not really see that this is any different. It is about accountability: you have the ability to elect that mayor and they should have powers as a result I listened to the Minister’s response and will read it again carefully. There is quite a high reliance here on planning and changes to the NPPF to get us where we want to get to. We will probably come to this in the final group of amendments. My overriding concern is that if you were to look at the market today and see the numbers of electric vehicles being sold, why would you do anything? Why would you require that anything be done? The levels are so low. When it comes to hydrogen, they are almost non-existent. This is going to need some kind of kick-start. The latent demand is there among consumers, I am convinced of that. We have the skills and the money wanting to invest in the infrastructure. I fear that we will just not have the cars We will have to come back to that. I hope that in the Road to Zero strategy the Government think hard about how we marry all these infrastructure questions with the market restructuring that is already needed. On the basis that the Minister has agreed to take away some aspects of this, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-17
Topic: Mixed Topics
Andrew Mawson (Crossbench, Unknown): Listening to the debate I find it really interesting, but I certainly would not claim to be an expert. I can easily imagine circumstances in which we end up with many diverse charging points across the country, and not enough people buying cars to use them. I have seen many examples in other areas of government doing things and pushing forward proposals, but with disconnects on the ground Having a 17 year-old, one thing that I have discovered recently is the cost of insurance for that age group. We need some joined-up thinking in that respect. We live in a rural area and my son has quite an old petrol car, but the insurance for him is £1,857—a great deal of money. If we are to get the next generation of young people buying electric cars and helping us to move this agenda forward, we may need some joined-up thinking between that amount of money being invested in insurance companies and the need to trigger more purchases of electric cars, with incentives to that generation to own a better, cleaner car, which would work for them and also begin to trigger the economy. I suspect that there are opportunities in all this, amid the problems that the younger generation face—but we need more joined-up thinking to ensure that we do not have lots of power points that are not used.
Integrated Communities — House of Lords, 2018-03-15
Topic: Civil Rights
Herman George Ouseley (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to comment on this proposal and the specifics contained in the consultative document. However, integration is a two-way process. We have to accept that we have been around the houses for many years—2001 being the most recent occasion, when many reports came out to point the way to how we might deal with some of these problems in places such as Bradford and Oldham. It is important for it to be recognised that responsible leadership has not been consistent nationally and locally on these matters, particularly in challenging bias, xenophobia and hatred. Levels of hatred are now rising considerably in all aspects of our society—we have talked extensively about that already today. Do the five areas that have been identified for action represent the ambition that the Minister talked about, because the issue of integration and cohesion applies right across the country in all areas? I hope that the Government will look again at that and see it as very important My second question goes to an example given by the Minister about the Bangla Bantams. He indicated how that initiative came about through an accident and due to the fire. But it was more than that—this is where I draw Members’ attention to my own record in the register and my association with an organisation called Kick It Out, which was set up back up in 1993 to try to use football to tackle some of the problems of racism and all forms of discrimination. The Bradford Bantams was one of many organisations that came about as a result not only of a fire but of hard work, with communities around their football club seeking to draw in people from all backgrounds to participate and mix with and learn about one other. Will sport play an important part, as I already see happening? Investment from football into communities is one of the few sources of investment taking place without public funds that tries to bring together young people of all backgrounds, faiths, ages and sexes to play, participate, learn and be involved as the future generation in taking forward this agenda in an integrated way.
Building Safety Update — House of Lords, 2018-03-15
Topic: Housing
John Lytton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I welcome this announcement from the Minister and, in doing so, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the LGA and, more particularly, my practice as a chartered surveyor in the building and construction sector. I join other noble Lords in expressing concern that there are components—whether they be doors or something else—in buildings that are not meeting the standards that are claimed for them. That is a very serious matter that needs to be followed up with great rigour On the doors in particular, there are of course questions about the fireproofing of the door panel itself and its frame, but there are also more discrete fireproofing systems, such as smoke seals, intumescent paint and, of course, self-closers. I remember teasing a fire officer years ago, perhaps rather unfairly, by saying that the chief use in a particular building of the two-gallon water extinguishers seemed to be propping open the one-hour self-closing fire doors. There is this issue about the "desire line"—if I can use that term. How people use buildings is a very important factor in all this; we do not want to have fire doors propped open with bicycles, suitcases or anything else that might itself cause an obstruction but, more particularly—as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said—might imperil the very basis of the compartmentalisation. If we allow that to happen, because self-closers are inconvenient or because there are too many doors, we need to look into that. I hope that the Minister can reassure us that that is being looked into at the same time.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-01
Topic: Other
Alexander Carlile (Crossbench, Unknown): The noble Baroness may accuse me of being pedantic, but she said that her noble friend "hopes" to be able to respond. Does that really mean "expects" to be able to respond, or is it merely a hope? If it is an expectation, most of us will be content; if it is merely a hope, we will be troubled.
Leveson Inquiry Update — House of Lords, 2018-03-01
Topic: Civil Rights
Sheila Clare Hollins (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, after my successful amendment to the Data Protection Bill, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, I was misrepresented in a leader in the Daily Telegraph which seemed to imply that I had lied to your Lordships’ House. A short apology was published at the bottom of page 2 last week. It seems that manipulation of public opinion continues, and I shall look forward to progress with the Data Protection Bill in the other place Sir Brian Leveson considers that an amended inquiry should go ahead, as do the victims of press abuse who believe that a very large amount of abuse remains hidden. Today’s announcement breaks promises to victims made in this House and elsewhere. How can the public have confidence in any future undertakings by Her Majesty’s Government?