argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): It would not, because 5% of the vote across an area may produce absolutely no councillors elected to those authorities at all; their only role in local government would then be to be appointed to the combined authority. That seems a ludicrous outcome. However, the noble Lord and I have been on good terms for virtually the whole evening and I would not like him to go away feeling too disappointed We will see what happens on Report, but I look forward to the discussions with the Minister on those matters which she has indicated are subject to further consideration. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, Amendment 37A is ultimately of some importance. It seeks to establish an audit committee for authorities created under the provisions of the Bill. I cannot claim to be as well qualified in respect of matters of audit as my noble friend Lord McKenzie, a former partner in PwC and a former leader of Luton Council, in which latter capacity he was presumably an auditee rather than an auditor, but I have served for a number of years as a member of Newcastle’s audit committee, which is politically balanced, with an independent chairman who is not a member of the council and two other independent members Given the potential role of the combined authorities, part of whose raison d’être will of course be to achieve economies of scale and ensure the most effective use of resources devolved by government departments and public bodies, something akin to a local version of the Public Accounts Committee would be a highly desirable addition to the role of overview and scrutiny, especially if independently chaired. The amendment sets out a job description which should facilitate proper oversight of the combined authorities’ management and governance. It is not unduly prescriptive and I would personally welcome the inclusion of additional independent members who might be drawn from business, academia or the third sector Again without going so far as to lay down a requirement, I hope that the combined authorities would eventually adopt a process of peer review across their whole field of operations. This has proved its worth in the local government world and would usefully augment whatever procedures are adopted in relation to this amendment It would be interesting to learn what the Government have in mind for assessing their own relationships with combined authorities and the workings of the partnerships between government, public bodies and the combined authorities collectively. In any event, I urge the Minister to consider sympathetically the proposal for an audit committee, preferably one that is independently chaired, because the role is not quite the same as that of an overview and scrutiny committee. I serve on both types of body in my own authority. They have different roles and I think it is critical, given the importance of the subject matter and the amount of money that will be spent, that there should be that function embedded in the new system. I beg to move.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I pay tribute to the work of parish and town councils and to their national organisation, the National Association of Local Councils, I think it is called—NALC. Having said that, I do not think that the proposal that the noble Earl has made is really a very practical one. The area I live in, which I am afraid I keep citing, is enormous, and there are others like it. I do not know how many hundreds of parish councils and therefore parish councillors there are in the area between the Tees and the Tweed, but I suspect that there will be a very large number. Quite how you would appoint people from there to an overview and scrutiny committee, I am not entirely sure I also do not think that this is really what is needed. I have an alternative suggestion to make to the noble Earl, which perhaps will be considered by the Minister. Should there be parish councils in the area of a combined authority, there should be a requirement on the combined authority, and on the mayor if there is one, to meet at least annually with representatives of those parish councils. After all, we are talking here essentially about large strategic issues, not very specific local ones. Although there should be a local voice at some point in the process, I do not think that it is realistic to add them to an overview and scrutiny committee. It could not be very representative anyway unless you had large numbers of such people on such a committee; it would not cover the whole area A better way might be to require the combined authority and/or the mayor to meet on at least an annual basis—it could be more often than that—with a representative group from across the whole of the parish and town council interest in the area concerned, to discuss the overall position. It would be part of the consultations that those bodies would be having with a variety of bodies, but recognising the particular position of those who have been elected to their very important but very local office. That would meet the more important aspirations of those people better, if I may say so, than the attendance of perhaps one person, representing so many hundreds of others, on an overview and scrutiny committee. I am not moving anything at this stage, but we and the Minister may want to consider it as a possible alternative to the noble Earl’s amendment when we get to Report.
Local Government (Religious etc. Observances) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-13
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Cashman (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and I will not repeat the evidence that he has put before the Committee. It has been argued by DCLG that, left unchallenged, the High Court ruling would prevent local councillors from, for instance, laying a wreath at a Remembrance Sunday event. At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, even suggested that the Bill was necessary to allow councils to close roads so that people attending such ceremonies could do so safely. The High Court ruling simply clarified that local authorities have no power to hold prayers as part of their formal proceedings or to summon councillors to such a meeting and therefore Section 111(1) of the Local Government Act 1972 would apply. It states: "Without prejudice to any powers exercisable apart from this section but subject to the provisions of this Act and any other enactment passed before or after this Act, a local authority shall have power to do any thing … which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the discharge of any of their functions" I therefore support the amendment.
Local Government (Religious etc. Observances) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-13
Topic: Government Operations
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, like the previous group of amendments, I do not think that any of the amendments in this group would improve the Bill. There is a possibility that they would make things very confused and potentially unworkable. That is not a good way to make legislation. As I said before, the Bill mostly affects lower tiers of local government and some combined authorities, and it is permissive in nature. Amendment 6 would remove the power to support, facilitate or be represented at a number of events As the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, said, at Second Reading I told noble Lords that while we do not hold prayers at council meetings, we do observe Holocaust Memorial Day. At our last meeting, which was close to the day, we invited the local rabbi to address the council meeting. He spoke to us and then led us in a short ceremony, which was very moving and was welcomed by everyone. As a council, obviously we support Remembrance Sunday. We have two prominent war memorials in the borough. Our elected mayor attends a ceremony at one and the chair of the council attends the other, while other members of the council attend both. The services are both led by local Anglican vicars and people of all faiths and no faith attend those events. This amendment could be confusing for them As I have said, I lived in the east Midlands for many years and I often attended the Diwali celebrations held there, along with members of the local council. I now regularly attend the Diwali celebrations which are held in Southwark with my good friend the leader of Southwark Council, Councillor Peter John. As I look at the Bill, those events would potentially be put at risk because the council would be participating in a religious event. I do not think that these amendments would help us at all and I hope that they will be withdrawn.
Local Government (Religious etc. Observances) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-13
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Cashman (Labour, Centre-left): I just want to make something absolutely clear for the Committee. The noble Lord, quite rightly, paid tribute to the acts of remembrance going on today in relation to Afghanistan. I would just place on record that such remembrances, principles and acts of commitment are not the sole domain of people with religious belief or people of faith—they are common to all of us. I know the noble Lord will agree with that but I did not want anyone to be in any doubt whatever about the sharing of common principles.
Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-13
Topic: Labor
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): That is an extremely helpful answer, but will it be made absolutely clear to employers in the guidelines to be issued alongside the regulations that they have not only a right to take disciplinary action but a duty to do so? If that is set from the centre, that will give a lot of authority to boards, which they sometimes feel that they do not have at the moment.
Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-13
Topic: Law and Crime
Norman Warner (Labour, Centre-left): I am sorry but this is quite a key point. If the Minister is right and those regulations were drafted in accordance with the law as it stood before this Bill, they presumably make the same requirement. The Minister is saying that they meet the requirements of the Bill. I still cannot reconcile why you need to change the law, particularly if we are now into "may" and "must" territory, which always delights your Lordships’ House. I am obviously being very dim but I still cannot understand why you need to change the law—the primary legislation—but do not then need to revisit the regulations which were made under other primary legislation. I thought I saw the Minister proceeding, uncharacteristically, with a degree of caution on this. There is an issue here on which, so far, the Government have not given me a particularly convincing explanation.
Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-13
Topic: Law and Crime
Leslie Turnberg (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I listened extremely carefully to what the noble Earl has just said and I am grateful to him for clarifying what a registered person is—I think that it is the word "person" that gets very personal here. I remain somewhat concerned about whether legislation to stop avoidable harm is a feasible proposition.
Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-13
Topic: Law and Crime
Norman Warner (Labour, Centre-left): I just want to register something with the Minister. I am grateful for what he had to say, but the whole issue of trying to make progress in this area is littered with attempts at reviewing the information that is available on making the world a better place. As the noble Lord opposite has reminded us, we have to go back 40 years for the first really serious child abuse scandal, involving Maria Colwell, which came to light. Since then it has been 40 years of agencies, in case after bad case, failing to share information that would have saved a child’s life. As I said, 12 years ago the noble Lord, Lord Laming, said his piece on one of those cases and made it very clear that a common database was required, with a linked identifier It is no good the Department for Education crawling all over the ground again and finding 27 reasons why we should not do anything. We need some action. There is plenty of evidence about why a common identifier would make things a lot safer for children. They are pretty much the same arguments that you would use in relation to adults; they are not fundamentally different. The Government and the Opposition Front Bench need to understand what is going on around the country—it is happening in Birmingham—where the agencies are coming together in multiagency safeguarding hubs. But when they come together, they find that their data systems cannot talk to each other, even if they are in the same room, because there is no easy linkage between the different databases If we wish to make kids safe, we have to progress this issue quickly. Frankly, I am not wildly reassured by a DfE review by the end of this year in an area that is littered with information about the need to make progress. It is not just me; I think that many of those hard-working professionals I have talked about cannot see why the government bureaucracy—whoever is in government—cannot make some progress in this area. Having got that off my chest, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-13
Topic: Government Operations
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, some very important points have been raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley. My regret is that we are dealing with these regulatory matters in this Bill. A number of statutory instruments will also come through your Lordships’ House, one from the GMC, in the next few days We had a Law Commission draft Bill which should have been a fifth Session Bill and would have enabled your Lordships to look at the statutory regulation provisions in the round. However, because of the Government’s decision not to proceed with that Bill, not even in pre-legislative scrutiny, we now have to look at this matter in a piecemeal way. It is wholly unsatisfactory. I am very sorry that we are having to deal with these issues in this way without enough time to focus on them properly. I am worried about Clause 5; I think that we are going to let it through without understanding its implications. We would be very grateful for anything that the noble Earl can do to clear this up.
Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Jean Ann Corston (Labour, Centre-left): My noble friend will be interested to know that one of the best experiences of my 13 years as Member of Parliament for Bristol East was my friendship with Olive Cooke. She had a face that could light up a room. She was one of the kindest people I knew. I always looked forward to her letters, giving me general and continual advice. Her outstanding contribution—selling more poppies for Remembrance Sunday than any other person in this country—is well documented. But the fact that a person who was, on the face of it, such a strong woman should feel driven in part to her death by being, in a way, prejudiced by her commitment to charitable giving, which was legendary, is quite a stain on our charitable sector.
G7 — House of Lords, 2015-06-10
Topic: International Affairs
Donald Anderson (Labour, Centre-left): I have two questions about Russia and Ukraine. We are told in the Statement that the G7 was clear and unambiguous about the position. It states: "Diplomatic efforts must succeed in restoring Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity" Does that extend to Crimea, or have we written off Crimea effectively as a fait accompli Secondly, the Statement states that we stand ready to impose further sanctions if necessary. Clearly, that is important, and it is particularly important that Japan is now part of that consensus. But are the Government really confident that the EU sanctions will even be maintained, given the very strong pressures of President Putin and his inducements for a number of EU countries?
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Ivor Seward Richard (Labour, Centre-left): The specific terms of the amendment are: "The Secretary of State shall commission an independent evidence-based review of the effectiveness of the Misuse of Drugs Act … and the implementation of the Act", and, "The Secretary of State shall lay a copy of a report of the review before both Houses of Parliament within one year" Is the noble Lord saying that he approves of the amendment but does not think that it should be linked to the passage of this Act? If so, I would be grateful if he clarified that he is in favour now of an independent review of the way in which the Misuse of Drugs Act is actually operating.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Kamlesh Patel (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I have listened to arguments on both sides and I am struck by the point that we somehow think that the introduction of legal highs is a phenomenon we have never come across. We had cheap, smokeable heroin in the early 1980s. There were outbreaks in various cities across England where people were smoking heroin. There was anxiety. We had a knee-jerk reaction and we set up services for heroin users. Then we had amphetamines in the nightclub scene, and in the mid-1980s kids were sniffing solvents and glue. There was huge panic and uproar and we banned children from buying solvents in supermarkets. We thought that thousands of kids were going to die because they were sniffing solvents. Things moved on Then we had MDMA, GBH and crack cocaine, and then heroin came back again. These things keep coming. We do not want to have a knee-jerk reaction to yet another drug that young people will take. The evidence, from watching last night’s "Newsnight" report from Ireland, is the opposite of what the noble Lord said his police officers wanted here. Officers there were saying that they could not enforce this law. This is simply imposing a blanket ban on new drugs as they keep coming out—and they will keep coming out. We can ban one thing and I guarantee that in the next five years, there will be another substance that young people are using and we will be panicking again. We cannot continue to do this There is a desperate need to review the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. We have had all these policies and other Acts dealing with prescription drugs, and we have never looked at the evidence—not just this Government but the Labour Government as well. We have never looked at the evidence because, as my noble friend Lord Howarth said, Ministers look at what the public want and they want hard, strong enforcement tactics on tackling the use of drugs. The evidence is fairly clear and we have a lot of it in this country, so we desperately need a review. Whether we need to tag that on to this Bill I do not know, but my anxiety is that we will be passing a Bill because of a knee-jerk response We have not looked at the connections with existing legislation. We are creating legislation that is not looking at harms but simply banning everything in sight under this umbrella body, and it seems to everyone to be unenforceable. We need to take a step back. There has to be an opportunity somewhere along the way to have a review and to look at drugs policy effectively.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Ivor Seward Richard (Labour, Centre-left): I put the same question that I asked the noble Lord, Lord Condon. I hear what he says about the relationship between the Bill and the general proposition in the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, that there should be an independent review of the operation of the Misuse of Drugs Act. Does the noble Lord support that?
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): I acknowledge the strength of feeling of many noble Lords on this issue but I hope we can all accept that, whatever our view, we all have the interests and protection of young people in particular in the forefront of our minds when discussing this group of amendments and the Bill as a whole. That is not the prerogative of one particular point of view. The effect of this group of amendments—certainly its intention—is to put back the commencement of most of the Bill’s provisions for, in reality, probably at least 18 months after the Bill has been passed The proposals in the Bill for a blanket ban on new psychoactive substances have been supported by the New Psychoactive Substances Review Expert Panel, whose report was called for by one Liberal Democrat Minister and accepted by another. The ban has also been supported by a similar panel in Scotland, the Health and Social Care Committee of the National Assembly for Wales, the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, the Local Government Association, the police and the two largest political groupings in this House, including the Opposition, at the recent general election. The Liberal Democrats said that they would clamp down on those who produce and sell unregulated chemical highs. That all these organisations, committees and parties reached their conclusion in either the face of all the evidence or the absence of any evidence—as has been implied—is unlikely We need to start to tackle the issue of legal highs now. The United Kingdom now has the second largest legal highs market in the world, beaten only by America. We are the top country in Europe for emerging new psychoactive substances. Over the past four years, hundreds of new internet sellers have been established in the UK, along with an estimated hundreds of specialist high street head shops. Beyond this, an unknown number of other stores, including late-night garages and takeaways, have started selling these products. In short, an entire industry became fully established under the previous coalition Government, selling and marketing dangerous drugs largely aimed at young people, many of whom would not otherwise have considered experimenting with drugs It also appears quite common in the legal highs market for legal high sellers to send out samples of new psychoactive substances to existing customers and use human beings as guinea pigs with no consideration of the consequences. The evidence also shows how far behind the market we currently are.