argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
British Citizens Abroad — House of Lords, 2020-03-24
Topic: Transportation
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): On the latter point, I am aware of it. I have family members involved in the airline industry in the UK, and that is a concern being addressed directly by colleagues In response to the noble Lord’s first question, I agree with him and we are working with airlines to ensure that any prices charged reflect the true nature of the emergency.
British Citizens Abroad — House of Lords, 2020-03-24
Topic: International Affairs
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, my noble friend raises an important point. Noble Lords will know that Peru has been high up on the agenda. There are approximately 1,000 British nationals seeking to return. My noble friend is also correct that it is not just an issue of them being able to fly out from Lima; many are dispersed throughout the country. I assure my noble friend that we are working directly with the Peruvian authorities. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary had a productive phone call with his opposite number over the weekend. They have assured us of co-operation in ensuring that we can repatriate from Peru all British nationals seeking to return. Indeed, the first flight will leave tomorrow and arrive back here in London on Thursday. It is a series of flights with a commercial operator. Each flight’s capacity is circa 200. We hope that with that schedule of flights we will be able to repatriate all British nationals wishing to return from Peru.
Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Labor
Joyce Anelay (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, when auto-enrolment was introduced by legislation in 2008, and subsequently amended in 2012 to include seafarers and offshore workers—albeit subject to a sunset provision—I was Chief Whip and very much aware of the long route that we travelled towards achieving cross-party support for all the provisions to improve pension saving in the UK by encouraging people to contribute towards a pension. As ever, however, there was of course careful scrutiny of the Bill and the subsequent regulations throughout, particularly by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, both of whom are speaking in today’s debate I welcome the orders before the virtual House today. I notice that my screen has gone blank, but I am hoping that others can view what is going on I have a couple of questions for clarification of the proposals. At paragraphs 10.2 and 10.4, the Explanatory Memorandum refers to concerns raised by stakeholders about the drafting of the "ordinarily working" test, and states that they wanted it to be made more specific for seafarers and offshore workers. What definition was proposed by those stakeholders, and why did the Government decide that it would weaken the compliance regime and undermine the policy intention The total net equivalent annual direct cost to business is estimated at £22 million. Paragraph 12.1 of the memorandum makes it clear that part of that financial impact falls upon employers in the charity and voluntary sector. I appreciate what the Minister has already said about the assistance given to employers during the pandemic, but clearly at some stage that assistance will come to an end and there will be a financial impact on charities and the voluntary sector. I therefore ask: which employers of eligible seafarers and offshore workers fall within the category of being charities and voluntary bodies? For example, are we talking about organisations such as the RNLI, Mercy Ships or perhaps Greenpeace I recognise, as others have, that the impact of Covid-19 on the economy may cause employees to question the value of long-term savings and perhaps to be more prepared to opt out of pension schemes, having been auto-enrolled. I hope, however, that all employees will recognise the long-term benefits of pension savings.
Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Labor
Rosalind Altmann (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my noble friend for laying these statutory instruments, and for her excellent introduction. I also congratulate the Government on protecting the principle of auto-enrolment, which has been so successful in bringing millions more people into the policy of pension saving and provision for retirement. This principle has been preserved for all sectors by extending the application of auto-enrolment to this group of maritime and seafaring workers I also congratulate the Government on protecting the principle of automatic enrolment during the furlough scheme. This principle is so important and, by deciding that automatic enrolment—at least at the minimum statutory level—will be protected through the current crisis in the furlough scheme, the Government have shown an excellent example of considering the longer term amid a short-term emergency We have the lowest state pension in the developed world. That makes supplementary saving essential, and the principle of extra private provision, supported by employers and taxpayers, is an important one throughout our society. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and other noble Lords on all the work that they have done over the years to introduce and protect this policy Perhaps I may raise one issue that my noble friend is aware I have particular concerns about. It is the position of low-paid workers who are being automatically enrolled into net pay pension schemes through their workplace. They do not get the tax relief that they would in an alternative scheme, and therefore they are paying an extra 25% for their pension. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out, these workers clearly are those who are most in need of every extra penny that they can earn. I know that this net pay policy is one that I know my noble friend the Minister and the department have been looking at, and I urge the Government to take seriously the proposals to address this issue I fully support these statutory instruments and I congratulate the Government and my noble friend. I look forward to continuing the successful policy of auto-enrolment into the future.
Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Labor
Nicholas Bourne (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for introducing these instruments, which I, like others, strongly support. I also welcome the government help that has been provided in relation to furloughed employees, as announced by the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak. It is a great help at this time. The instruments refer to "seafarers". There is more than a whiff of Joseph Conrad about that. Although it is a rather old-fashioned term, this industry is vital for our country, as others have noted. "Offshore workers" perhaps has a more contemporary feel, but, like other noble Lords, I welcome the fact that the term extends to these categories The Minister noted how many people are within scope of the instruments: some 26,000, I think. How many workers in toto will be subject to automatic enrolment pensions after the instruments are passed? Other noble Lords, notably the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, have noted that the instruments are extremely important to our society—indeed, more important than ever, not less so. I hope that any review of these automatically enrolled pensions will be about extending the pensions to other categories or to people who are not subject to them at the moment, rather than about contracting the scheme at a time when, as we all know, there is a surge of public spending—rightly so—which will continue. We know that that will put pressure on the state pension, so supplementary saving for workplace pensions should be very much encouraged Can the Minister say something about fiscal relief? I realise that she will not be able to say too much as this is not within the scope of her brief, but my noble friend Lady Altmann’s point about tax relief for low-paid workers who are not drawing this relief at the moment was extremely well made. They should receive this, as others do. It makes automatically enrolled pensions that much more attractive In short, as other noble Lords have done, I welcome the instruments wholeheartedly. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about extending and embedding this to make sure that it is part of the pensions landscape long into the future.
Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Labor
Janet Evelyn Fookes (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have for many years been a supporter of the Mission to Seafarers and know from the work I have seen it undertake how important it is. Very often seafarers are stranded in ports perhaps many thousands of miles from home. They may have personal difficulties of their own or may be worried about family back at home, so anything which gives some stability through this automatic enrolment in a pension scheme is very much to be desired. I imagine that the work of the Mission will now be even greater, given the virus. An earlier speaker mentioned the plight of seamen onboard ocean liners; the passengers have long since gone home, but the seamen are apparently still stranded. I sincerely hope that action will be taken swiftly to bring them home Noble Lords will have guessed that I am extremely pleased by this permanent arrangement for this group of workers. I have one or two questions for my noble friend. It may be that I should know the answers already, so I am probably betraying woeful ignorance. Are British seafarers working for foreign companies allowed to be enrolled in this scheme? Conversely, are foreign nationals legitimately living in the United Kingdom automatically enrolled with British employers This brings me to another point which does not relate much to these instruments but has always been a grievance for me over the years. It has always worried me when a particular topic which is the subject of law is spread among a number of Acts of Parliament or regulations. I notice with some concern that the two before us this afternoon are not to be consolidated. The official announcement says that this is because they are considered trivial, but that is not the point. What one really wants is an umbrella system so that it is very easy for anyone to look things up. Will my noble friend look at this again—maybe not on this occasion but at the soonest opportunity—and make sure that these matters are sensibly consolidated?
Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Labor
Nathanael Ming-Yan Wei (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I join other speakers in this debate in congratulating the Government and the Minister on the principle of auto-enrolment. There are many speaking today who have been involved over the years in bringing this policy to fruition. I refer to my interests as entered in the register, which have historically related to this area. However, I also want to raise a bit of a dissenting voice, if I may There can be a danger of thinking that the job is done with auto-enrolment, and I will be interested to hear my noble friend the Minister’s perspective on this. I am very conscious that when you think you have done a great job, you tend to roll out the concept to more and more people. In many cases that is a good idea, but I recall that on many past occasions, the state of the American tax system for employees has often deterred the organisations I have worked with from doing too much with America. In an era when we are going to do more on free trade, has thought been given to whether this policy and others that could follow from it might deter overseas employers from employing British people, whether at sea or offshore, or in other ways? Has this been looked at? I sincerely hope that the Government will not apply these policies and ideas blanket-style to offshore workers who have some relationship with British companies, which may then deter trade I want to make a wider point beyond the policy of auto-enrolment. What are the Government doing to address the issue of people who have had multiple employers, especially given Covid? I know that this goes beyond the scope of the statutory instruments, but I would be keen to hear from the Minister what is being done to ensure that data from the different pension providers into which people have been auto-enrolled can be gathered over the course of their careers, so that they can get a decent picture of what they have saved or that has been saved automatically for them. Sometimes, people can be enrolled in this way without having an active involvement in or understanding of what they have been saving I would love to hear what work is being done to open up the data protocols, so that people can manage the money they have saved, get good advice and find a way to understand and go beyond the complexity often associated with saving for pensions. With the new technology, they will even be able to toggle their enrolment on and off in future, so that when we go through periods like this, in which we need people to save more cash up front, they can do so. I broadly welcome the principles but I would like to hear from the Minister what is being done to go further, instead of just resting on our laurels.
Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Labor
Howard Emerson Flight (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I hope we all support these proposals to maintain auto-enrolment for the 26,000 seafarers and offshore workers. Automatic enrolment has been the key success in this country in achieving the 10 million increase in pension provisioning. There are five important recommendations outstanding to complete the auto-enrolment programme: to lower the minimum age of participation to 18; to implement the proposals to remove the lower earnings limit; to increase consumer engagement with their pension savings and developing appropriate levels of guidance and advice; to increase the auto-enrolment contribution to 12% to achieve the desired retirement income for the majority; and to ensure that any review and changes to the state pension scheme take into account the overall retirement income targets. Can the Minister give us some assurance that these measures will not get interminably delayed as a result of Covid?
Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Labor
David John Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for setting out the rationale for these instruments, which I support. However, I rather like sunset clauses: they force Governments to come back to Parliament to justify the continuation of the legislation under review The impact assessment accompanying the instruments says: "UK legislation which came into force on or after April 2011 had to include a sunset clause where that legislation imposed a net burden on business or civil society organisations. The secondary legislation which extends automatic enrolment … into a workplace pension … contains such a clause which expires on 1 July 2020. Without government intervention, the AE … will fall away, contrary to the Government’s policy intention, as most recently set out in the 2017 AE Review: Maintaining the Momentum. Unless this legislation is renewed … workers commencing employment on or after 1 July 2020, or those existing workers who opted-out of being automatically enrolled into a qualifying workplace pension before this date, would not benefit from the legal obligations that apply to their employers to automatically enrol them." I agree entirely with the Government’s policy on this, but I understand that the Government considered two options. One was not to legislate, but that was a bizarre option and a non-starter. The second was to scrap the sunset clause for all time, as these regulations do. What was not considered, it seems, was a new time limit. I simply ask my noble friend the Minister: why not renew it for a further five or eight years and then let Parliament have another look at it then, as we are doing today? That is the only point on which I want clarification from my noble friend Finally, I went out on to oil rigs in my younger days, when I lived in Aberdeen, which the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, referred to, and I can tell the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, that it is not a great working environment and that they deserve every penny. They deserved that even in the good days, as they do now in the bad days I apologise—I have one final point. I congratulate the noble Baroness who has intervened today to remind speakers of the time limit. I call on Lords authorities and Lords Deputy Speakers to cut off and mute all Peers who exceed their time limit by 30 seconds.
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Technology
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for his further questions. To cover the point about Openreach, the noble Lord will be aware that on 15 May the Financial Times suggested that BT was considering the sale of a stake in Openreach to potential buyers, including Macquarie. Officials spoke to BT last week, which confirmed that this was inaccurate. Both Openreach and Macquarie sources have also publicly told the press that this is inaccurate. On his wider point, if the Government became aware that Openreach did not have the capacity to deliver on our target, we would obviously reconsider how best to meet it, but I am not in a position to be able to give any more detail here I will also correct something. I hope noble Lords did not understand me to say that potential delays in rollout from the impact of Covid-19 are only short term. At the moment, we understand some of the short-term impacts and we hope we will be able to absorb them, but given that none of us has a crystal ball on how this will all unwind, I wanted to clarify that for the record.
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Technology
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): With regard to the noble Lord’s first point about the technical amendment, he is of course right on one level. We—or, I am sure, the noble Lord himself or his team—could make technical amendments to make sure the Bill is coherent and consistent. We could address those points. However, the central issue is one of not delaying the implementation of the rollout and staying true to technology neutrality. I gather that speed neutral is a consequence of tech neutrality, so it would insert into the Electronic Communications Code a tech-specific provision that does not exist anywhere else in the code. The code is about regulating relationships between operators and landowners, not about technology. I will set out these points clearly for the Committee and the noble Lord in a letter.
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: International Affairs
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): I think the noble Lord knows that the Government are absolutely cognisant of how international relations with multiple partners, including China, evolve. The current situation is obviously unprecedented. Forgive me, but I must ask the noble Lord to repeat his second question.
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Technology
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): I shall answer that in two ways, if I may. Of course, I would be delighted to meet the noble Lord in conjunction with my noble friends Lord Ahmad and Lady Williams, and with the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, if she wishes to join. We can pick that up after the Committee. I assure the Committee that there is no loss of will or momentum on the Government’s side about the telecoms security Bill. Purely practical issues prevent me giving a firm date for its introduction.
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Government Operations
Alan Haselhurst (Conservative, Centre-right): I should say—by the way, my internet connection is unstable—that I did not mean to make a speech on this amendment nor indeed on the other one that bears my name. I was able to cover the issue in my earlier speech, which was more broad-ranging than on just that particular amendment. All I will add now that you have been good enough to call me, Deputy Chairman, is that the Secretary of State has been left with very wide regulatory powers. This was considered by the Delegated Powers Committee and quite deliberately left in a wide form. I therefore hope that this addition can be made in the fairly near future.
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Technology
Stephen Parkinson (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government are certainly very ambitious regarding the provision of sufficiently fast broadband for everybody. As mooted earlier in the proceedings, the current situation, with so many people working from home and relying on the internet to communicate with their loved ones, underlines its vital importance. We aim to lay the regulations as soon as possible, but I will be happy to write to noble Lords with further details of when they will come into effect.