argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-11-15
Topic: Technology
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful for the long response and for the Minister agreeing to consider Amendment 137. As regards oversight of automated processing, which is not quite where I would be coming to as something that was suggested to us, it would be fair to say that the commissioner has a resource issue covering all these developments. Maybe it is something that we will think about further in order to approach it from a different direction, perhaps by requiring some regular reporting about how the development of automated processing is controlled and affecting data subjects. I will consider that, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-11-15
Topic: Law and Crime
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, Clause 56 anticipates that competent law enforcement authorities may work together, and designates them as "joint controllers". Clause 56(2) allows them to "determine their respective responsibilities", although there is an exception when the responsibility is, "determined under or by virtue of an enactment" Amendment 137A would, I suggest, take us a step further by providing that, in any event, if there is a failure to comply with a controller’s statutory obligations, each joint controller is liable—or does this not need to be spelled out? I beg to move.
Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-11-15
Topic: Law and Crime
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, almost all these amendments were probing, except for Amendment 138A, which is how the noble Lord described it—it was distinctly not probing, so I am glad to have had his assurance in that regard. I commented on an earlier group about either the intelligence services or law enforcement—I cannot remember which—being advantaged as against other employers outside their immediate job. It seemed to me from the noble Lord’s comments about medical data that the services would be advantaged as against employers in completely different fields. He gave a long answer, and I am grateful for that; it of course deserves reading and I will do so. I thank him for this comments on Amendment 138A and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Online Hate Speech — House of Lords, 2017-11-30
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Scriven (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the Minister said that the state visit has been offered and accepted. The noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, the government Minister for Faith, less than 50 minutes ago said that he would be unable to welcome the President of the United States because of the tweets. With the Home Office being responsible for community cohesion, would she and other Ministers in the Home Office also be unable to welcome the President of the United States?
Renewables Obligation (Amendment) (Energy Intensive Industries) Order 2017 — House of Lords, 2017-11-30
Topic: Environment
Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made some of the points I intended to make although he is somewhat more forgiving than I am. I want to put on record concerns about the exemption for the eligible energy-intensive industries from a proportion of the indirect policy costs of the renewables obligation scheme. Obviously, I can understand why it seems desirable to remove any cost to our industries that might make them less competitive. However, what would make them most desirable would be to reduce their costs by addressing the need to decarbonise, even in the most challenging of those industries. I am concerned by the message that this measure sends out—namely, that to an extent these industries are being made a special case, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, and that environmental measures are dispensable when they come up against competition To meet our 2050 ambition to cut emissions from UK industries from 100 to 27 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide, we need to address the issue, not circumnavigate it. Obviously, that is challenging, as certain materials—such as those in steelmaking—require a lot of energy to reach the required temperatures, and certain materials developed for industrial use create emissions because of the chemical processes that they must undergo I know that the Minister referred to some of the things that the Government are doing, but they must encourage and, in a sense, force the issue. They need to make industries take action to reduce their carbon footprint, and push them to find suitable low-emission substitutes for materials, introduce radical resource efficiency programmes and reverse supply chains, as well as look at energy efficiency for industrial plants and CCS programmes The reallocation of financing for the exemption means that it will fall on those who have done nothing to deserve it. I am a great fan of the "polluter pays" principle, rather than it being put on the "canard" of energy prices, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said. The exemption is not the biggest of deals; I think some 130 companies will be affected by the scheme. As I said, it is not merely about the money; it is the fact that companies are being let off the hook and not being forced to do the right thing.
Scotland Act 2016 (Onshore Petroleum) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2017 — House of Lords, 2017-11-30
Topic: Energy
Christopher Fox (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I broadly welcome the devolutionary nature of this instrument. I think that my noble friend beside me would not forgive me if I did not say that we prefer an expansion of renewable energies rather than hydrocarbons, whether in Scotland or in the rest of the United Kingdom, and that should be put on record I am slightly confused and I may have misheard, so perhaps the Minister can guide me. I thought that the Minister said that consultations in drawing up these regulations had gone ahead with the Scottish Government, but the briefing says that there was no consultation. I would hope that these measures have been brought forth with the full understanding and consultation of the Scottish Government and I expect that they have. In that measure, I have nothing else to add.
Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-11-06
Topic: Education
Michael John Storey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, as I have said on a number of occasions, my previous job for 40 years was a teacher, 20 of those as a head teacher. One of my prime responsibilities as a head teacher was the safeguarding of children in my school. That was the most important thing I did: to make sure they were safe, so that those primary-age children, aged from five to 11, and nursery as well, could enjoy their childhood and their parents could know that they were safe and enjoying their innocence The Government did a lot with their education policies about safeguarding. Anyone visiting the school had to be checked and double-checked and had to wear identification. Children who went out of school had to be escorted properly and correctly. As part of our personal and social health education, we made sure that young people themselves understood. Yet, when it comes to this area, we seem not to take the role as seriously as we should. I was reading the newspapers on the train from Liverpool this morning. I just could not believe the Times headline: "Children as young as ten are sexting" The article says that, "according to figures from the National Police Chiefs Council. In 2015-16, there were 4,681 cases", where children as young as 10 were either sending inappropriate messages or photographs to other pupils or receiving them. Imagine it was your daughter who at the age of seven or eight—and some of them are that young—was receiving inappropriate pictures from other pupils. How would you feel as a parent? Is that really protecting or safeguarding those children I do not want to speak at length in this debate; I think the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Harding, have said it all. It is not beyond our wit to do these simple things. I have seen for myself that self-regulation does not work. I hope that between now and Report the Government will put aside any feeling that, "We can’t do this because of the EU, because of our own lethargy, because of what we have said in the past or because it will create more regulation". This is about children. Let us all agree that on Report we can agree these eminently sensible amendments.
Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-11-06
Topic: Education
Michael John Storey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the second pillar of protection of children and young people is education. In my view, that would be achieved through personal, social and health education. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has championed this issue for as long as I have been in the House of Lords One of the sad casualties of the last general election was the then Schools Minister, Edward Timpson, who was very keen that not only relationship and sex education would become a compulsory part of the curriculum, but PSHE would be part of the curriculum of all schools. Indeed, last year I asked an Oral Question on the subject. The then education Whip, now the Leader of the House, the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, said she thought it important that PSHE is taught in schools. Sadly, she missed two little words: in "all" schools and for "all" children. That has been the nagging issue. It is a question of not just having the subject, but ensuring it is taught in all schools, whether academies, free schools, independent schools or whatever, for the well-being of all our children On 24 October 2017 the Education Select Committee published the Government’s response to the joint report by the Education and Health Committees, Children and Young People’s Mental Health—the Role of Education. In response to the recommendation that, "schools should include education on social media as part of PSHE, including educating children on how to assess and manage the risks of social media and providing them with the skills and ability to make wiser and more informed choices about their use of social media", the Government responded: "All young people should have access to a curriculum that ensures they are prepared for adult life in modern Britain. Personal, Social, Health and Economic education … Relationships Education, and Relationships and Sex Education … help to provide pupils with the key knowledge and skills to ensure that they can keep themselves safe, develop healthy and positive relationships, maintain good mental health, build resilience and successfully navigate the changing world in which they are growing up" The Children and Social Work Act 2017 gives the Secretary of State the power to make PSHE or elements therein mandatory, subject to careful consideration. It has also given a duty to the Secretary of State to make relationships education in primary and relationships and sex education in secondary mandatory in all schools. The department will be conducting a thorough and wide-ranging engagement process on the scope and content of these subjects, considering school practice and quality of delivery to determine the content of the regulations and statutory guidance. Sadly, that consultation has slipped further behind the promised date originally given.
Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-11-06
Topic: Education
Michael John Storey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I am very grateful for the Minister’s helpful reply and to noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I do not particularly like the phrase "digital literacy": I much prefer "digital understanding". I always understood that the fourth "r" was religion, so perhaps, with a small "r", this is a religion for some of these large tech companies I can accept everything the Minister said, with the exception of two points. He said that these things are happening in the maintained sector. However, over 70% of our secondary schools are no longer in the maintained sector and they can choose whether or not to follow the programmes that he has suggested. Free schools are also increasing in number and, again, they do not have to take any part in this activity if they do not want to I agree with the Minister that this is not a discrete package where you tick the box when you have done it. It has to be part of a wider programme which goes through all aspects of learning. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, who raised the question of whether we have the skills in our schools. It is not just digital issues: we do not have teachers for A-level maths or physics but we do not stop doing maths or physics. This might ensure that we actually started training teachers to work in this area I am grateful for the Minister’s helpful reply and look forward to considering this again on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Paradise Papers — House of Lords, 2017-11-06
Topic: Macroeconomics
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, do the Government not recognise that the ordinary taxpayer hearing again this news today is utterly outraged that if you are rich or a business, you can avoid tax? There are schemes on an industrial scale, which are protected by a lack of transparency. During the passage of the then Criminal Finances Bill, when there was pressure from all over this House for the registers of beneficial ownership in the overseas territories to be made public, why did the Government resist when that would have stripped away secrecy? Why, also, have they brought a Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill to this House that gives Ministers the power, with virtually no intervention by Parliament at all, to eliminate every anti-money laundering regulation and replace them by highly watered-down versions? Is this the new Britain we are to expect post Brexit?
Grenfell Recovery Taskforce — House of Lords, 2017-11-06
Topic: Government Operations
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I should like to address the issue of emergency planning. It has become clear from this report that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea did not have an operational emergency plan in place when the Grenfell fire broke out in June. The Statement does not actually tell us whether there is one in place now, or whether officers are being employed in the council to deliver one. However, on page three the report states: "This intervention has not had the benefit of an inspection that would identify specific failings in a local authority and would precede a statutory intervention" Will action be taken to assess the robustness of Kensington and Chelsea’s emergency planning, which is a statutory requirement? Also, can the Minister say what advice his department will now give to other local authorities about emergency planning arising from the lessons being learned in Kensington and Chelsea?
Grenfell Recovery Taskforce — House of Lords, 2017-11-06
Topic: Government Operations
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the Minister referred to culture. He used words such as "empathy" and quite rightly said that changing a culture is a very long-term project. Does he share my concern—this is no reflection on Barry Quirk at all—that local authorities must be tempted to put their efforts into senior leadership and front-line services, leaving a bit of a hollow in the middle? The culture has to go all the way down, and the people in the middle contribute to the culture. I am of course referring to the financial position that many local authorities find themselves in.
Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-11-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Tom McNally (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones indicated, I shall speak to Amendments 41 and 44, which were eloquently introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths. I had no idea that it was a maiden speech from the Front Bench, and it is to the discredit of the Labour Party that it has taken him so long to climb to the top of the greasy pole. Having got there, I hope that he enjoys the view As the noble Lord indicated, these amendments are inspired mainly by Thomson Reuters and others in the City. I attended a seminar in the City some weeks ago in which the corporation, the City of London Police and some leading companies talked about the challenges that data was bringing them. At the core of this is a concern that the Bill is loosely and poorly worded in preventing private companies doing work with data which will help them to keep best practice in line with the objectives for corporate governance and efforts to fight crime, terrorism, slavery, bribery and corruption I hope the Minister can give some comfort that the Bill will give cover to companies, financial institutions and others to carry out this kind of data activity and allow screening by private companies for the purposes of checking against non-UK laws on terrorist financing or money laundering. It should be amended to allow compliance with widely recognised guidelines such as those promulgated by the Financial Action Task Force. In the light of the Minister’s response and in consultation with those who have asked us to raise this matter, we would see whether we wanted to take it further. At the source of these amendments is a concern on the part of companies which I think genuinely want to help.
Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-11-06
Topic: Government Operations
Timothy Francis Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I can be very brief. I have not yet quite got through the concept of the Minister as Henry VIII. There is a clear common theme coming through every speech in the House today. The issue is whether the Government’s arguments for the use of the powers contained in the various clauses that have been mentioned—my amendments from these Benches, Amendments 24 and 107, relate to Clauses 9 and 15, but there is a broader issue—are credible and whether their desire for flexibility is convincing. As many noble Lords have mentioned, the Delegated Powers Committee did not find them particularly credible and stated: "We regard this as an insufficient and unconvincing explanation for such an important power" That applies to Clause 15, but we on these Benches believe that the power in Clause 9 should not be there in its present form, either We have tried to be constructive. We have put forward a suggestion, as has the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, for the use of the super-affirmative power. That is extremely well known and is enshrined in legislation—so, unlike the noble Lord, we did not feel the need to spell out exactly what the procedure was because it is already contained in a piece of legislation that I will no doubt come across in my notes at some suitable moment. It is now an extremely common and useful way of giving the Government flexibility, while allowing sufficient consultation before any regulations come to the House by affirmative resolution. We recognise that this could be fast moving, so it may be appropriate that the Government have those powers, provided that they are governed by super-affirmative resolution.
Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-11-06
Topic: Government Operations
Tom McNally (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I can imagine how it was when the legislative programme was discussed in the Cabinet Office, or even at No. 10: how on earth do we get all this through? I am sure that the Civil Service advice was—or at least one adviser said—"Well, you could try by Henry VIII powers and lots of secondary legislation. Looking at the present rules, that is the only way that we think you could get it through in that timetable". And so the process started I know that the big problem for Ministers in this House is that there will be great impatience in No. 10 and down the Corridor at any delays or defeats—but, as has been said a number of times, they are going about it the wrong way. We are heading for a constitutional car crash unless there is intervention at the very highest level to look at this problem. It is a twin problem: how do you give flexibility to make legislation fool-proof in a rapidly changing technological situation, which is one of the central problems for the Bill; and how do you deal with Brexit legislation in such a tight timetable I know what cannot happen. It would be the irony of ironies if an exercise that was supposed to return sovereignty to this Parliament ended up with this Parliament accepting a whole range of precedents that diminished its sovereignty. Therefore, although it is unfair on each Minister, this debate will continue to take place, and I hope that when we get to Divisions we will put a halt to this solution, so that some really hard thinking will be done about how to achieve the end of the Government getting their business through without sacrificing parliamentary sovereignty.
Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-11-06
Topic: Technology
Tom McNally (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, so that my noble friend Lord Lester can come in in due order, I will speak to Amendment 88. I also draw the Minister’s attention to Amendment 91, which relates to the City. It is clear from the ICO guidance that journalistic exemption was intended to apply to non-media companies, but this is not made explicit in the Bill. In addition, the Bill does not address whether material can be considered published if it is behind a paywall, or mainly addressed to corporate subscribers. That is the thinking behind Amendment 91. We were discussing earlier the concerns of some in financial services and companies such as Thomson Reuters about how the Bill affected them, and that is my probing for them I would like to speak to Amendment 88. I was one of the four privy counsellors who signed off the royal charter. I was in government when this went on. It was not an attempt by government to regulate the press. In fact, the coalition Government twisted and turned to try to find ways of taking this forward, as far away from state regulation as we possibly could.
Update on EU Exit Negotiations — House of Lords, 2017-10-17
Topic: International Affairs
Menzies Campbell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): The noble Baroness bravely described the carping and criticism within the Cabinet as dissonance. Let me put to her a specific question raising just that carping and criticism. Is it still the Prime Minister’s position that during the period of transition—or implementation, if you prefer—the ECJ will continue to enjoy jurisdiction, just as it does now; or has the Prime Minister bowed to the will of the Foreign Secretary and Mr William Rees-Mogg?