argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Peter Snape (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to speak to Amendment 43 in this group, which seems to do something similar to the amendment so ably moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott Like the noble Baroness, I am not quite as sanguine about a local authority deciding to set up a franchise scheme, appointing someone to look at it, and then having the ability, regardless of what he says, to go ahead. That smacks a bit of the people’s courts in Germany towards the end of the Second World War. Surely we ought to have something more democratic than that on these somewhat controversial matters. The traffic commissioners, who are widely regarded throughout the transport industry—although under successive Governments, they have been sadly underresourced—ought to be the people who appoint a proper independent arbiter to look at any such proposal. It seems to me to offend natural justice for a local authority wishing to have a franchise scheme to appoint a referee to decide on the merits of that scheme and, regardless of his or her conclusion, to go ahead anyway. I hope that the Minister will look carefully at these amendments and think about toughening up the Bill considerably.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Keith Bradley (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 42 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Berkeley. I understand that the amendment may not be perfectly drafted—it may be more appropriate to have "of" rather than "and to", but we can deal with that when the Minister gives me comfort that he accepts its basic direction of travel The amendment’s purpose is to look at the role of the auditor. It would ensure that that role is restricted to areas that are both within the auditor’s competence and entirely focused on the matters set out in proposed new Section 123D(2)(a) and (b), which states: "The auditor’s report must state whether, in the opinion of the auditor … the information relied on by the authority or authorities in considering", whether the authority or authorities would be able to afford, make and operate the scheme and whether the proposed scheme would represent value for money, is of sufficient quality and that the analysis of the information is also of sufficient quality Without this amendment, proposed new Section 123D(2) could be interpreted as giving the auditor a wider remit, given that, as drafted, the auditor must give an opinion on whether the authority, "had due regard to guidance under Section 123B" This guidance covers a much wider range of topics than those set out in proposed new Section 123D(2)(a) and (b), including the effects of the scheme, comparison of the proposed scheme to one or more courses of action and the scheme’s contribution to the implementation of wider plans and policies. As such, the current drafting risks giving the auditor a role which is beyond their professional expertise as well as creating conditions whereby a third party is second-guessing a locally accountable authority’s assessment. This in turn could introduce the kind of hurdle that led to the failure of the 2000 and 2008 Acts in creating a simpler route to franchising for those authorities that wish to pursue—I stress those that wish to pursue—this option The Government have committed to introducing a practical and efficient method of introducing bus franchising and this amendment, as redrafted, looks to assist them in that process.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Government Operations
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, on the amendments that we have discussed in Committee, many noble Lords have said how important it is for devolution to happen and for local authorities around the country to be able to operate franchises without too many controls from central government. Whether that happens or not, the importance of independence in the audit is vital, as other noble Lords have said. It would be so easy for some local authorities in the future to get it wrong and then for a rather nasty article to appear in Private Eye, suggesting that the leader’s brother-in-law was the auditor. I am sure that would never happen, but we do need independent checks. My noble friend Lord Snape’s suggestion of traffic commissioners appointing the auditor has enormous merit. The two issues in Amendment 42 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, and myself, about the affordability of the scheme and whether it represents value for money, are the two most important ones that should be focused on by the auditor. Then we would all feel comfortable that it would probably work very well.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Peter Snape (Labour, Centre-left): Before my noble friend sits down—I am sorry that she finds herself unable to support what is, in my view, a well-intentioned and well-meaning amendment—perhaps she can tell us why she objects to the traffic commissioner and why that is too specific. After all, by the very nature of his or her job, the traffic commissioner knows the business inside out and is widely trusted by all sides in the industry. Surely to have someone like that appointing an auditor is a very sensible way forward.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Government Operations
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): Without wishing to get into a dialogue, I think that we felt that as long the role was prescribed to be independent, different authorities will have different arrangements for appointing independent auditors. We do not feel that we need to be that prescriptive in this piece of legislation. I would not go any further than that.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 48 and 51 in my name. I very much support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Whitty. Amendment 48 takes a similar position—that as part of the consultation process, passenger organisations and trade union and employee organisations must be involved. We believe that proper time should be allocated to make this a meaningful consultation and an effort made to explain the changes in a clear and accessible form to those who may be affected. As my noble friend said, we have debated these issues in relation to previous amendments and received a positive response from the Minister. I hope a similar response will be forthcoming today I hope that Amendment 51 is an area where the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and I are able to agree for once; I am pleased that some commonality is coming out of this debate. One of the problems with bus provision in this country is that the market is dominated by a small number of large bus operators. This makes the procurement process more difficult for local authorities and does not always result in the best passenger experience. It is difficult for new entrants to enter the sector, even though they often provide more responsive, quality services with high customer satisfaction. Reference has previously been made to the social enterprise company HCT, which runs highly successful services in parts of London, Yorkshire and Bristol. It also has the contract for providing bus services in Jersey. Since it took over that service, passenger usage has increased by 32%, the level of subsidy has reduced by £800,000 a year and customer satisfaction has increased by 5%. Somewhat uniquely, the contract also has a profit-sharing element and it is now giving money back to the local authority We need opportunities for innovative providers like HCT to enter the market and win new contracts, but the rules are stacked against them and the regulatory burden is far too onerous for the small providers to navigate. There is a danger that the proposals in the Bill will entrench local monopolies, at best replacing an unresponsive private sector monopoly with a publicly commissioned one. When it comes to enhanced partnerships, we need to be clearer about the process for opening up partnership lists to competition to allow new entrants to join. As it stands, the Bill acknowledges this problem in new Section 123F (1)(i). It requires the consultation document for authorities going down the franchising route to include a statement on how they propose to facilitate the involvement of small and medium-sized operators. We obviously welcome that Our amendment takes this one step further and requires the consultation document to consider how the franchise could be divided into smaller units. This would help to break down the local monopolies and encourage new entrants into the market. I hope the Minister understands and shares these objectives: I look forward to hearing his response.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
John Lawrence Whitty (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I congratulate the Department for Transport on being so forthcoming on this group of amendments, both mine and those of other noble Lords. In opposition and in government I have found previous manifestations of the Department for Transport to be slightly more resistant to the good sense of amendments put forward in this House. I am glad that a culture change seems to have taken place, epitomised in the Minister. Of course, the Bill does have a further, Report stage, when I certainly hope we will have amendments reflecting at least some of the positions taken in this group. The noble Lord agreed the other night on the one part of my noble friend’s amendment he did not refer to—on trade unions and employee representatives. He has already committed on that front so I hope that, before Report, we will see many of the principles embodied in the amendments in this group in government amendments. If not, I shall be disappointed but at the moment I am feeling pretty pleased with the department My point about Transport Focus being referred to in the Bill is an important and newish one, and I am very glad that the Minister responded positively to it. I thank him and the department—keep up the good work. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support this amendment, and will also speak to the others in the group—Amendments 58B, 99ZA and 99B. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, hit the nail on the head when she talked about extended ambitions, and my noble friend Lady Jones gave a really inspirational description of what one might be looking for. All these amendments basically cover the same thing, which is to do with creativity. When people are looking at whether it is right to have a franchise, partnerships or whatever, I hope that the Government will, through these amendments or something similar, realise the benefits from bidders having more freedom to be creative—whether in terms of different types of bus, different types of service, frequency and timetables, fitting in with other services such as railways or opening times for hospitals and doctors’ surgeries, and things like that.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, late or not, one has to look at the potential and the value of the particular amendment. I am greatly cheered by this amendment. It seems to me that we are in danger of totally losing sight of the ideal of community and the rest. A well co-ordinated, integrated bus service can play a tremendous part in furthering community activity. We just compound the problem of our individualistic society in which community is breaking down because people resort to their cars, go and do their shopping, go back home and watch the television, put on their computer or whatever it is. The fact is that, if we are to have a life worth living, we have got to have community. The bus can potentially be central to that community. I applaud the amendment.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I think the Minister for his response and I thank all noble Lords who contributed. For a little while there, we had a sense of what is possible in the Bill. If we were not careful, we were going to get bogged down in the technical detail of franchising but, as my noble friend Lord Judd said, it is about building community and using the real advantages that you get with a Bill like this that comes along only once every 20 or 30 years. This is a chance to build in that ambition and to have some excitement about the possibility that bus services can provide in terms of community assets. We have had a glimmer today of some of those opportunities My noble friend Lord Berkeley showed not only that you can have some innovation and excitement but that you can actually save money by pooling all those services. It seems foolish that social services pay for one set of transport while education pays for another, and no one ever thinks that they could pull that together into one complicated yet coherent grid I am pleased that the Minister spoke positively in response. I am slightly sad that he thinks this should go in guidance. I know we debate this over and over again, but guidance does not have the same weight as legislation. From our perspective, the social value Act is worth specifying in the Bill because it brings very specific requirements. I look forward to receiving the letter, when it eventually comes to us, but we need to explore how much more we can enforce this within the Bill rather than leaving it within the guidance. Perhaps that can be part of the wider discussion for us to have outside. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: International Affairs
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): I thought that my amendment elegantly dealt with the broad principles rather than going into technical details such as which paragraph I do not like. I am disappointed by the noble Lord’s intervention on that matter. No doubt he is stunned by his noble friend’s remarks that in fact the EU came to the rescue of the UK. We know that if the EU had not legislated in this area, the Government would certainly have brought in legislation much earlier which would have been much more draconian than the regulations that are before the House tonight.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Keith Bradley (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to speak to Amendment 61A in my name and to Amendment 66 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Berkeley. On Amendment 61A, although the franchising authority should seek to enforce breaches of registration requirements by reference to the traffic commissioner, there are circumstances where that will not provide a swift, effective remedy. The right to request a court to exercise its discretion to grant an injunction is a more appropriate and proportionate measure for use in urgent cases to prevent serious breaches of the registration requirements The amendment is based on a similar provision in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. A reference to the traffic commissioner would result in an investigation, followed by the possible imposition of sanctions, including a financial penalty and compensation. However, the process might require weeks to complete, during which an operator could continue to run services in breach of the registration requirements. The ability to apply for injunctive relief would allow the franchising authority to safeguard the franchise scheme in critical circumstances. It is anticipated that it would be used only in rare and specific circumstances, but it would give the franchise extra protection. The purpose of Amendment 66 is to ensure that the franchising authority should not be obliged to issue a service permit where it would have an adverse effect on the financial and economic viability of the wider bus franchising scheme. It should not have to provide one if, for example, it would adversely affect tram, light rail or heavy rail services within the area. The service permit regime in the Bill is the way in which, first, cross-boundary services can be provided—in other words, services that go in and out of a franchised area—and, secondly, services can be provided where no service has been provided for in the franchise contract. The franchising authority has to grant permission for such permits, but the Bill prevents operators using these provisions to cherry pick and, in doing so, to undermine the wider franchise by enabling the franchise authority to refuse a permit where it would have an adverse effect on any service provided in the franchise Amendment 66 would extend the safeguard explicitly to include consideration of any impacts on the wider economic and financial viability of the bus franchise scheme. It would also enable consideration of wider public transport services. There would otherwise be a loophole whereby an operator could undermine other forms of public transport by, for example, running a bus service in parallel with and in competition with a bus rapid transit system or a light rail system, both of which currently operate within the Greater Manchester footprint. This could undermine the wider integrated public transport network, of which the bus franchise forms a part, by undermining its economic position and its fully integrated nature. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s views on these points.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Environment
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 72A, 72B, 73 and 73A. I do not think I need to detain the Committee very long on this because it is the same issue of timescale that my noble friend Lord Bradley spoke to on Amendment 69. It would be good to hear some comfort from the Minister that all these issues could be addressed and responded to in a suitable timescale, and it would be good to see some of these amendments, if not all of them, in the Bill My only other comment is on Amendment 70, in the name of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch. Information about environmental impact and air quality data is essential, not only linking them to vehicle emissions but also to the surrounding air quality, which we have spoken about in Committee before, as well as to the safety records of bus operators. That is an essential part of providing the evidence that they are of quality and intend to maintain that quality, if and when they run the franchise. I beg to move.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Earl is asking that bidders be paid by the franchising authority for submitting information in preparing a bid. Is that what happens with London buses? Does TfL pay bidders in order for them to produce a decent bid? I am asking the question because I do not know the answer.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 70, which requires bus operators to publish data. A number of noble Lords have commented on this already. Data on the environmental impact of operators’ fleets, including the impact on air quality, the level of CO2 emissions and their safety record, should be available to local authorities and passenger organisations alike. It would be our intention that this information could be independently verified. These amendments build on our earlier debates on the need for buses to play their part in making our towns and cities healthier places to live and work. We believe that the bus operators have an obligation to deliver higher environmental standards and meet the requirements of low-emission buses. To be held to account for these commitments, the data have to be available to those who can best judge operators’ performance. The same arguments apply to safety standards, so that all passengers can be assured that their provider is working towards zero tolerance on safety failures I, too, disagree with Amendments 71 and 72 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. Amendment 71 aims to restrict the information provided to a franchising authority. We accept that some information needs to be identified as commercially sensitive but we do not accept that most of the information listed falls into that category. We need to be clear what is commercially sensitive and what is not. However, in most other comparable public services, the sorts of information we are talking about would be made public and shared. It would go beyond just giving it on a private basis to the local authority, and would be made more public. That is what we would expect in this instance. Meanwhile, Amendment 72 requires bus companies to be paid for providing that core service information which, of course, would be crucial to a franchising bid, such as journeys taken, passenger numbers and fares. The point has already been made that operators will already have this information, so there is no additional cost involved. We contend that local authorities should have the right to this information and it would be standard practice to provide this service information in other contract bids We also believe that there should be more open sharing of data so that passengers and communities can have a greater input into the types of services they would like, and can have that input on an informed basis. I therefore hope that noble Lords will support the principles of openness set out in our amendment and oppose those attempts to have a more closed and secretive regime.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I shall be even briefer. I fully support Amendment 77. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, is absolutely right. We have talked about ticketing before and the word "shall" should go in there. It is an excellent amendment Amendment 78 would require the ticketing system to be extended to demand-responsive transport and flexible bus services, assuming that the operators agree. I am sure they will but, as the noble Baroness said, if we do not put something like this in, they could argue that it should never be and we will be left for the next 30 years without a flexible bus ticket that you can interchange. That is why I tabled this amendment.
Turkey — House of Lords, 2016-07-19
Topic: International Affairs
Raymond Collins (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on her appointment and welcome her to the Front Bench, and I thank her for repeating the Statement. I welcome the steps that the Government have taken and their communications to the Government of Turkey, and I certainly welcome Sir Alan Duncan’s intention to visit Ankara. However, what happens next to this vital ally, partner and friend is critical. Two million UK citizens enjoy holidaying in Turkey. Will the Minister ensure that clear and speedy advice is given on an ongoing basis to those individuals and families so that they can continue to enjoy their holidays in Turkey, which is so vital to the economy of that country? As to next steps, will the Minister also reassure the House that in the necessary, ongoing discussions and dialogue, the importance of upholding the rule of law and due process will be stressed? Specifically, will they make clear representations against the reintroduction of the death penalty?