argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Pension Schemes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-06-30
Topic: Environment
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): I thank the Minister for her answer. Amendment 78 refers to this covering not just the effects of assets but of climate. I will leave it to others to assess the technical details of that, but I have a specific question for her. She referred to the need for larger funds to report on ESG matters. She does not have to give me an answer now, but I wonder whether there will be also a requirement to publish that, so that it is easily accessible by the public and can be publicised This has been a very productive and useful group of amendments. I am sure that the House will join me in paying tribute to the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Jones of Whitchurch. They have clearly done an enormous amount of work, some of which I have seen first hand, to get the Government to this point The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, made a very important point when she said that your Lordships’ House would love not to have to challenge the Government, Bill by Bill, to see the climate emergency recognised in legislation and government action. In this aspect, it is crucial to look at the Committee on Climate Change progress report to Parliament from last week. The Minister made reference to the 43% cut in our territorial emissions of climate change gases. That report highlights the impact of consumption emissions, and the reduction is considerably lower when that is factored in The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said that we want to see best practice become standard practice. There is an acknowledgement that that has to be legislated for and cannot just be assumed. The noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, referred to elements of the Bill still being permissive and not directive. I am sure that that is an issue that the House will return to again and again when we come to the Agriculture Bill. We need to see direction to all to act, because the climate emergency and the biodiversity crisis, along with so many other factors, such as the state of our economy and society, impact on all The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, referred to Britain’s international role. Understandably, with the impact of Covid-19, attention has swung away from our crucial global role in COP 26. I therefore suggest to the House that everything we do should hold that in consideration. We are in a position where we need to be a global leader, and the world needs us to be a global leader In conclusion, it is not my intention to push Amendment 34 to a vote. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-05-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, even I will admit that these regulations were urgent and necessary, but it is a democratic and constitutional outrage that they were implemented on 26 March and are finally being debated in this House only on Tuesday 12 May. The regulations mark the greatest loss of liberty ever imposed in Britain, yet they were slipped in as emergency secondary legislation the day after Parliament closed early for a month-long recess. Parliament had just passed the Coronavirus Act and we were told to go early to recess, as it was job done. Yet it turns out that the real measures had absolutely nothing to do with that Act. Why did we break up a week early for Easter, rather than sit to give proper scrutiny to such drastic legislation? It was wrong to do it like that; it reminded me all too well of the illegal prorogation of Parliament last year The Government say that they are adjusting their guidance to loosen the restrictions but they must make amendments to the regulations reflecting this. For example, last week the police were threatening sunbathers in parks with a fine; this week, they will not be. Were the police wrong about the law last week or are they wrong this week? The law has not changed, so the circumstances in which people can be fined have not changed either. With so much confusion among police officers and police forces, anyone who is fined should be encouraged to challenge a fine through the courts to ensure that it has been issued lawfully and not based on a police officer’s mistaken understanding of the facts or the law. Even so, too many people will be paying fines which have been wrongly issued. Can the Minister tell me, first, what the Government are doing to protect against this Secondly, can the Minister explain how the Government are addressing the widespread confusion among police, prosecutors and the judiciary, which has led to people being wrongly convicted under these regulations and the Coronavirus Act? Thirdly, can he provide an update on the Crown Prosecution Service’s review of convictions under the legislation? I understand that it is even going to look at guilty pleas. Finally, can he explain the appointment of an anti-terror spook in the role of deciding how to lift lockdown restrictions, instead of the four Chief Medical Officers who were tasked with it before? When did this become a terrorism issue rather than a health issue?
Beyond Brexit (European Union Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2020-05-12
Topic: International Affairs
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): Many noble Lords have referred to the fact that the subtitle of the report is How to Win Friends and Influence People. How the world looks at us and how it treats us is important to our prosperity and well-being as is the opinion of potential international students, business people looking to do business with our companies, and diplomats. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, said we are increasingly seen as untrustworthy and our good faith is being called into question. That has global impacts. Two relevant recent studies about how we are being regarded around the world are the Good Country Index and the Reputation Index. The Good Country Index is based on the objective criteria of environmental impact and impacts on the well-being of people around the world, and the Reputation Index is a large-scale panel of G8 citizens. Interestingly, we are about the same on both of them: 15th and 13th. If we think about what might have impacted on that, history over decades, even centuries, will have had an impact. The military adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan and our hideous colonial history of abuse and exploitation will have echoed through the decades and centuries. Currently, it is reasonable to say that our international aid, the maintenance of our GDP level and stepping in to chair COP 26 will have had a positive impact. How we deal with the Covid-19 pandemic will also have an impact. Does the Minister agree that how we handle the Brexit transition will affect the world’s view of us for decades to come? There is already irritation that we are forcing our European neighbours to focus on the Brexit transition when they would rather put the resources, time and energy into dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. There is real and growing fear of a crash out and its huge economic and social impact The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, used the metaphor of water pent up behind a dam, and that might also be used for the amount of work related to Brexit stacking up in your Lordships’ House, but if we think about that metaphor, Europe and the world are now in the middle of a giant earthquake with Covid-19. If we then are to inflict the flood of Brexit crisis and chaos on them, they will not thank us and it will affect their view of us for decades, even centuries, to come.
Airport Expansion — House of Lords, 2020-03-02
Topic: Environment
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I do not know how the Minister’s department manages the mental gymnastics to think it possible to have airport expansion and fulfil our climate change targets. Could the Minister explain that? When Heathrow Airport said it would go net zero, it did not include any of its flights—so it will be rather difficult to square that circle.
Crown Court (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-06-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, it always delights me to hear my name mispronounced in so many different ways As a lay person, the broadcasting of sentencing remarks seems to me a welcome step forward in modernising the English courts system and increasing public awareness of justice issues. It is also important that the public be given the right information about why a particular sentence has been given to an offender. Too many cases are sensationalised in the media, giving an impression that sentences might be too short or too lenient, with no information given about the reasoning behind them. I agreed strongly with the dangerous radical on the Conservative Benches, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and want much bigger steps to be taken in the future I have two questions. First, how will the Government work with the media and civil society to improve public understanding of justice issues, so that these newly broadcast sentencing remarks can be more fully understood by the public? The orders contain restrictions relating to the misuse of broadcasts, but can the Minister make clear how the Government will ensure they are not misused on social media—for example, by far right groups, who increasingly doctor and selectively edit such broadcasts to create a dangerously warped world view among their followers On the Court of Appeal broadcasting order, I welcome the extension. It is very timely I want to make some points on open justice in the age of Covid-19, because there are some areas where we are losing transparency and openness. For example, many court cases are taking place remotely at the moment. That represents a rapid modernisation in our justice system, which tends like the House of Lords to move and develop at a fairly glacial pace. However, unlike with physical proceedings, where members of the public can just turn up at a court and watch them, it has become much harder to join, whether virtually or in person. Many people have been trying to access remote proceedings as observers but have found it impossible. For example, some court websites direct members of the public to contact a judge’s clerk but provide no contact details, and instructions on how to contact the said clerk are also missing. What will the Minister do with Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service to uphold the principles of open justice and ensure that members of the public are able quickly and easily to observe remote proceedings?
National Health Service Commissioning Board and Clinical Commissioning Groups (Responsibilities and Standing Rules) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-06-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for his Motion and express the Green group’s strong support for it. "Regret" is the right word to use when we are talking about policy around care homes and funding. Indeed, it is rather like the rotten onion that you find neglected at the bottom of the sack. When you peel it, the centre is rotten and the tears are flowing. This is a great gaping hole of unmet needs and human suffering I am picking up on points made earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, and the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, about the 84% of care homes which are privately owned and what you find when you peel back the layers of that. I first got interested in these issues in 2016 when I read a brilliant report by the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change called Where Does the Money Go? Financialised Chains and the Crisis in Residential Care. It exposed for the first time to full public view the way in which large numbers of care homes are owned by offshore-based companies with complex financial structures which extract 12% or even more annually in effective profit, however it is structured, while ensuring that little or no tax is paid and loading companies up with debt. All that provides care of a sort for our most vulnerable and often frail citizens while the work is done by lowly paid and often insecurely employed staff, treated with scant respect It is worth peeling into the onion and looking back to where this started in the 1980s. Until then, the UK had been a world leader in the provision of care, particularly for older people, but the NHS started to withdraw from that, leaving it to charitable and then for-profit providers. Some of the move had good intentions to allow people to live in the community, but the effect was a massive privatisation. The number of private residential homes rose from 44,000 in 1982 to 164,000 in 1994, almost quadrupling in little more than a decade. This shifted the costs of ill health and frailty on to individuals Now we have coronavirus, and again we have care home owners saying that they cannot afford to pay the costs. Is the Minister looking into what is happening and where the money is going now? Is 12% still being taken out? Are the Government looking for an entirely new, different, non-privatised, non-financialised structure David Lloyd George said: "How we treat our old people is a crucial test of our national quality." We are failing the Lloyd George test for our elders and many other vulnerable citizens very badly.
Budget: Economic and Fiscal Outlook — House of Lords, 2020-05-05
Topic: Macroeconomics
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, commented that, given the context of this debate, it was surprising to see 22 speakers for it. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, said, there is a great hunger to make a democratic contribution to the nation’s discussion now, and that is why we are taking this opportunity The historical framework in which we are conducting this debate is both useful and informative. There is an EU requirement for member states to avoid excessive government deficits. Of course, in the age of Covid-19, what is considered excessive is changing very significantly. Behind this is something that is certainly often wheeled out in British political debate. It is known as the household fallacy—the idea that the national budget has to be managed as though it were a household budget, so that the pennies in and the pennies out have to match up. That was used to justify the ideological approach and the philosophy of austerity, which the noble Lord, Lord Hain, said was doing so much damage not only to our society in terms of poverty and inequality, but also to our preparedness to deal with the awful shock of the coronavirus. Does the Minister agree that the fallacy of household management being equivalent to national economic management is now dead, and can he assure me that the Government will not revive it? As many noble Lords have said, we are in a huge phase of restructuring. I would like to quote from a letter to the Financial Times from Church Action for Tax Justice. It stated: "The social contract is now being renegotiated." In a press conference on 30 April, the Prime Minister said that he has never liked the term "austerity". Can the Minister tell me that it is not just the term that the Government do not like, but that they have abandoned the whole approach? Will they use their financial position to rebuild a better world, rather than going back to where we were As many noble Lords have said, this debate has to be considered in the context of Brexit. I want to congratulate the Government on an issue that I was pushing on at the beginning of March and was rebuffed about. I said that I believed that we are now signing up to something akin to membership of the early warning and response system for health in Europe. On this, it would seem that the Government agree that co-operation and working together makes sense. However, we are fast approaching an enormous challenge as regards the environment, agriculture, aviation and fisheries. In the context of Brexit, we have to set up whole new systems. Coming back to where I started, how can we do that democratically when it is so difficult for full democratic debate to take place in your Lordships’ House and elsewhere?
Environmental Protection (Plastic Straws, Cotton Buds and Stirrers) (England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-07-10
Topic: Environment
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I cite to the Minister three pieces of research that have emerged since these regulations were drafted. First, on King George Island, off the north-east tip of Antarctica, microplastics were found in the intestines of Antarctic springtails, crucial soil microbes. Researchers said that microplastics are now an integral part of the soil food web. A University of Strathclyde study showed that microplastics are blowing ashore in the sea breeze. A University of Manchester study found 1.9 million pieces of plastic in one square metre of deep ocean floor—a key area for the breeding of sea squirts, which are filter feeders In introducing the regulations, the Minister said, "This turns the tide; this is a landmark moment." Does he really believe that future generations, as they sift through the layer of defilement we have left on every inch of this earth, will say, "Oh, but isn’t it great that they banned straws, cotton buds and stirrers in 2020?"
Covid-19: Housing — House of Lords, 2020-05-18
Topic: Labor
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, referred to the tragic death toll from Covid-19 among construction workers. Does the Minister agree that that is just one sign of a deeply unhealthy industry that is built quite literally on the backs of the 60% of manual construction workers who are in self-employment, very often bogus self-employment, where they are actually working for just one company under its direction and with dictated rates of pay? Will the Government look to build a different kind of construction sector, one that focuses on decent pay and conditions and that looks towards moving towards modern, modular construction whereby most of the work can be done in factories and therefore in far better conditions than being out in all weathers?
Public Service Vehicles (Open Data) (England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-07-02
Topic: Transportation
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): A happy moment is when I can say that the Government are moving in the right direction towards a cleaner, greener and much healthier future. It is true that Transport for London has led the way on a lot of this innovation. It has been able to make travelling in London much easier, and during this period of coronavirus it is again moving forward on that front in London We definitely want people to use public transport more, and we want to reduce car use, simply because it clogs up our towns and city centres. Therefore, this is a very good move. It is a little late, coming many years after Transport for London did it, but at least it is happening. However, I have two questions for the Minister First, when will the Government insist that bus crash data is also part of the information that potential passengers can look up? In places where this is freely and readily available—not just by digging into the STATS19 of police forces and so on—and people can see on which bus routes and with which bus companies there are regular crashes, brake failures or even driver failures, they can make decisions, and the companies become safer, because they become aware of the problem Secondly, going cash-free is another big move that has made Transport for London bus services much more regular and reliable. Therefore, I am curious about when the Government will help the rest of the country become cashless, as it would help people to make greater use of public transport. In these days of coronavirus, we have become used to not using cash, so this would be a sensible next step.
Contracts for Difference (Electricity Supplier Obligations) (Amendment) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-07-02
Topic: Energy
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, these regulations seem to suggest a fundamental flaw in the way the Government are thinking about funding new energy generation. It looks as though the Government intend to tie us into tens of billions of pounds of these contracts over the coming years, for everything from new nuclear power stations to solar and wind energy. Contained in these contracts is a guarantee that energy payers will pay high energy prices whether or not the wholesale price is much, much lower, and whether or not we use much less energy. Surely the Government can see that that is a bad business practice. Why would a Conservative Government do something like this We have used less energy while in lockdown, and that has essentially bankrupted the Government’s whole energy-generation scheme; I understand that. As we embark on the rapid reduction in energy consumption that is necessary if we are to meet a net-zero carbon future, we will see the same thing happen again and again. However, for me this is a stealth tax. It will be deeply regressive, pushing the burden of costs on to the fuel-poor and disadvantaged while the wealthy will barely notice the difference For these very reasons, the Government should abandon this bankrupt contract system and instead bring their energy-generation and energy-efficiency schemes into normal government capital investment, to be funded by progressive taxation. Will the Minister comment on those ideas?
Electricity Capacity (Amendment etc.) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-07-02
Topic: Energy
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I should like to thank other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate because they have touched on issues that I was going to ask about. I refer in particular to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, who talked about the Government’s promise to increase the number of houses that are to be built. The chances are that they will not be constructed to anywhere near the sort of standards that we need if we are serious about our net zero carbon budget over the next few years I also thank the Minister for answering my other queries earlier, but I would like to point out that when he talks about Britain being a world leader in green energy, that is of course in spite of all the government cuts to solar capacity and solar subsidy as well as, of course, closing the wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight. So well done to those who have taken this particular form of energy seriously, and not at all to the Government.