argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Rodney Elton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the breadth of the compassion of my noble friend Lady Cox is equalled only by the depth of her energy. I am astonished, as I think we all are, by what she accomplishes for human rights right around the world. We are very lucky that she has focused today on this particular important human rights situation. She started more or less by saying that all are equal under the law and that no person, organisation or ethnic group, no religious persuasion and no speaker of a foreign language is exempt from the law, either from its constraints or from its protection, unless the law so provides. Where it exists to protect the weak from the strong, it must be known to the weak so that they can seek its shelter, and to the strong so that they know the limits of their authority. If the law is to be effective, it must therefore be as clearly expressed as legislators can make it. It follows that where it applies for those who do not speak English, it must be available to them in their own tongue If practices or a system of practices developed under a different jurisdiction or culture are established in this country and are recognised to be incompatible with the judicature or culture of our own country, the law must be developed to prohibit them. Where that practice or set of practices result in serious harm to individuals, the application must be swift. It follows, perhaps controversially, that that application should not wait on the painstaking development of case law or interpretation; that is, of statutory law as it exists. It should be applied, as is now proposed, by legislation. If it is in contravention of any point of existing law, which I very much doubt, it needs to be amended. If it is not, I suggest that the remedy of overlap should surely await consolidation In the present case, we are dealing with matters of great importance and very great sensitivity. The practices at which the Bill is directed have arisen in a particular religious persuasion and perhaps within particular ethnic groups. It is therefore of the greatest importance that it is made absolutely clear that it is the practices themselves, and only the practices themselves, at which the Bill is directed. As has been drawn to your Lordships’ attention, it is so drawn that if they occur in any group—religious, ethnic, cultural, linguistic or any other—it will bear equally heavily upon them. That is how it should be, and that is exactly what the Bill achieves The next task is surely to see that there is a mechanism for getting an understanding of this to all those affected by reliable machinery, supervised by those who are empowered to enforce it, and that it should be in their language and, most difficult of all, if they cannot read, it should be given to them verbally. That is of great importance in this particular case. I repeat my admiration and thanks to the noble Baroness. I apologise for beating the same drum as many other noble Lords; I just hope that the rhythm has been slightly different.
Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Mohamed Sheikh (Conservative, Centre-right): No. Under sharia law he does not have to do that. If sharia councils make unfair decisions, these must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I feel that there must be a mechanism to deal with such cases and that we should put in place an appeals procedure.
Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Mohamed Sheikh (Conservative, Centre-right): I will continue. In the same way as sharia councils cannot claim to make legally binding decisions, some religious decisions have no place in English law. In any case, mainstream courts are not able to deal with matters of religious custom. If Muslims or those from any other religious group wish to undertake mediation or even arbitration according to a set of religious principles, they should be free to do so and there should of course be no coercion. I would like to see the UK Board of Sharia Councils become a prominent, self-regulatory body of which every sharia council should be encouraged to become an accountable member. I have spoken to heads of sharia councils and I know that there is enthusiasm for this There are problems affecting Muslim women who are denied religious divorces and women who enter into religious marriages with no legal protection. If there are problems with some practices, it is incumbent on the Muslim community to deal with the issues and take remedial action. We must work together with the community to find the solutions. This Bill will not help us to achieve this.
Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Edward Faulks (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I begin as others have done, by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, on bringing this matter for debate in the House today. I, of course, share the admiration of all noble Lords for her tenacity. I also share in the admiration for those women who have given the evidence, often at great risk to themselves, which has provided much of the momentum behind what the noble Baroness has done in drawing our attention to the problems that undoubtedly exist in society now. The Government share her support for women’s rights and access to justice and her concerns for the victims of domestic violence. We are fully committed to protecting the rights of all our citizens The noble Baroness’s Bill is driven by a concern that sharia law principles, as applied in the decisions by sharia councils in the United Kingdom, are being used as an alternative to the legal process, resulting in the unfair treatment of women, the condoning of domestic violence and other abuses, and the undermining of equal rights and protection under the law. The measures in the Bill would, however, apply to a range of arbitration and alternative dispute resolution services, including those provided by arbitration tribunals, religious councils and boards and independent family mediation services, many of which are regulated by the independent Family Mediation Standards Board. Although these bodies and services are not identical, the overriding principle is that they must operate within the rule of law in the United Kingdom, a point made by a number of noble Lords throughout the debate and particularly by my noble friend Lord Kalms My noble friend Lady Buscombe asked about the future of the jury system and the personal beliefs of judges who might be appointed. She and the House will be well aware that judges take an oath to apply the law, as do jurors when deciding a particular case. There is a long and worthwhile tradition of jury trial in this country and I would not seek to say at the Dispatch Box that that should be diminished.
Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): I would say wholeheartedly that our jury system should not be diminished. My concern is that a growing number of people who sit on our juries do not share our beliefs in one rule of law and system of justice and equality of rights for women. They therefore may have a different view as to the outcome of cases that they preside over or sit upon.
Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Mohamed Sheikh (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my noble friend appreciate that there are certain women who obtain a decree absolute but who may not wish to remarry unless they can get a talaq? We need sharia councils so that women can approach them for a talaq.
Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Edward Faulks (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government wish people to make free choices on these matters. If someone wishes to make a choice of their own volition, it is no business of the Government to interfere with that. But we also wish to have a system where women, and men if necessary, feel free to make those choices without undue pressures of one sort or another Let me be a little more specific about the legislative provisions. The Equality Act 2010 prohibits discrimination on the grounds of gender. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 prohibits the intimidation of all witnesses, including victims of domestic violence. The Arbitration Act 1996 allows parties to an arbitration to agree any system of law or rules other than the national law to be applied by the arbitral tribunal to that dispute. I ought to declare an interest as a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, although I have never arbitrated on the sorts of disputes which this debate has been focusing upon. Religious law considerations may be applied in the context of an arbitration only where, first, the parties have specifically agreed to the arbitral process, and secondly, where all the parties have specifically chosen to use religious law considerations. But even then the decisions of such tribunals is subject to review by the courts of England and Wales on a number of grounds. If any of the decisions or recommendations were in direct conflict with a mandatory provision of national law, the law of England and Wales must always prevail The Arbitration Act sets out a number of safeguards, including a duty for arbitrators to act fairly and reasonably between parties. No one should feel pressured or coerced into resolving their dispute in a particular way. Any member of any community has the right to refer to a civil court in England and Wales at any point, particularly if they feel pressured or coerced to resolve an issue or to accept a decision that is unfair or unlawful. If there has been coercion, the outcome of any mediation or arbitration cannot be enforced I return now to the point made by my noble friend Lord Elton. That is not to say that all our citizens have equal knowledge of access to their rights within the national law or that other measures cannot be taken to improve the situation. It is the Government’s view that the problems raised by the noble Baroness are due to a lack of awareness of rights, unequal access to the law and barriers to integration rather than a lack of protection within the current law. Integration requires changes to society, not necessarily changes to the law. The issues and barriers involved are often complex, and solving these problems is not just a job for the Government. It is also important that communities and community organisations take the lead in supporting equality and integration and help to raise expectations and awareness so that the rights of women and of all citizens are understood and protected.
Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my noble friend, who is disappointing me a little. Does he not feel that the Government have a duty to promote awareness? It is all very well saying that people should be more aware—we can all agree on that—but do not the Government have a role in this?
Advertising of Prostitution (Prohibition) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-23
Topic: Other
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): That is a fair point. It is for the usual channels and my noble friend Lord Gardiner, the Deputy Chief Whip, is the perfect person to hear those representations. I am sure he will consider them carefully and respond to them in due course.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-15
Topic: Other
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I always try to answer noble Lords’ questions from the Dispatch Box. However, in this instance, I take the noble Lord’s point. With the leave of the House, I propose to withdraw Amendment 62 today and return to it at Third Reading.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Peter Brooke (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I rise expressing extreme sympathy for the enthusiasm which it is possible to develop for politics at a very early age but which does not lead me to be in support of the amendment. I was one year old at the general election of 1935. I therefore had to wait until 1945, when there was a further general election. Two and a half Members of Parliament for the Labour Party have played first-class cricket and one hundred and twenty-six and a half have played first-class cricket and represented parliamentary seats in the Conservative interest. The half was Aidan Crawley. I was at a prep school in Buckinghamshire where he was the Labour candidate. It was a matter of total astonishment to me at the age of 11—admittedly, there had been no elections between 1935 and 1945—that somebody who had played first-class cricket for Oxford and for his county, Kent, could espouse the Labour cause It was the case by then that my late noble kinsman had won the first by-election after Munich and therefore I had lived with a Member of Parliament in the Conservative interest for the previous seven years. We arrived late at the count in 1945 in Lewisham West, where my late noble kinsman was the Member of Parliament defending the seat. His seat had been announced. It is a seat which has generally gone with the Government of the country, a fact which was further proved by the late Chris Price, whom a number of people in your Lordships’ House will have been very fond of. He told me that he was absolutely sure that the reason why he was elected for Lewisham West as a Labour candidate was the coincidence that the Tory who had won the seat back in 1951 was a Mr Henry Price and that the people of Lewisham West assumed that Chris was his son The thing that had the most powerful effect on me in the 1945 count occurred in Lewisham East, where Herbert Morrison retained the seat. The independent candidate—a man called Russell—had been put in prison by Morrison in 1941 and had remained there until 1945, when he was released and decided that he would get his revenge on the Home Secretary by standing against him. He got the best part of 1,000 votes and gave what was, without question, the longest speech of thanks to a returning officer that I have ever heard; Mr Russell spoke for 25 minutes, explaining why he disapproved of Mr Morrison In the years immediately after 1945, my late noble relative stood as the Conservative candidate in a by-election in Kilburn. She won the seat by 300 votes and held it again at the next council elections. I have, I think, every ground for thinking that she is the last Conservative councillor to represent Kilburn in all the years since. In 1949, in an era when there had been no Conservative—
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-15
Topic: Civil Rights
Peter Brooke (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord’s intervention is most gracious; if he will forgive me, I am coming towards that end. Between 1945 and 1950, no by-elections were won by the Opposition party, yet in the LCC elections in 1949, my late noble kinsman led the Conservative Party to an absolute dead-heat—that was the first sign that there was a change in the politics of the country. I acknowledge what the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, has just said and I will fast-forward as much as I can I followed the referendum in Scotland with the keenest interest and I totally understand why it constitutes a large part of the argument about this change. However, there were factors in that referendum that greatly raised the temperature and enthusiasm of people. In the years since I entered your Lordships’ House, the previous Labour Government insisted on changing the arrangements for election after election on the grounds that the number of people who were voting was going down, but they never succeeded in reversing the situation as a result of the steps that they took—there was diminishing enthusiasm I have, myself, been subjected to some evidence. A young man, a boy, who sits in a youth parliament locally—I live in rural Wiltshire—sought to enlist me in the cause of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, not directly but on the same principle. I was happy to enter into correspondence with him and to engage in argument and discussion, but I said to him that, before the conversation went any further, he had to explain why there seemed to be no shift at all in voting patterns between the ages of 18 and 35 and, if that was so, why I should support him on voting at 16. It is on those grounds that I am opposed to this amendment being carried at this stage.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-15
Topic: Civil Rights
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord believes very strongly in elections—he said that again a few moments ago. If this Bill had followed the normal course and had come to us from another place, and the other place had not inserted an amendment on votes for 16 year-olds, would he think it appropriate to do so?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who have spoken this evening, particularly my noble friend Lord Marlesford, who has given a good warm-up act for his Bill, which we will discuss on 11 September and to which I will respond. I will return to the matters he has raised this evening when we consider that Bill Amendment 75A would require the Secretary of State to lay a report in Parliament on the introduction of higher bands of council tax in the areas of both combined and local authorities. The Government have stated their determination to keep council tax bills low. The last five years of council tax increases are the lowest since council tax was introduced in 1993 and have even been lower than inflation. We already provide local referendums, triggered at a threshold of a proposed increase over 2%, so that people can have a say on the levels of their council tax The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, compared different areas. Of course, councils will ultimately have a say on the level of council tax that they raise. Many councils have frozen their council tax over the last few years. We do not support higher council tax bands, or a council tax revaluation which would be required to implement them. Revaluation and higher council tax bands can lead to higher council tax bills for hard-working people. We are clear that council tax is not a wealth tax but a charge for the use of local services The current banding system reflects the fact that many larger homes make slightly greater use of local services, but it intentionally is not a poll tax or a domestic rate. The Government have already taken a number of steps to tackle property tax avoidance by a small minority of wealthy people, and also increased stamp duty on the highest valued homes Given these explanations, I hope that the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw her amendment.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-15
Topic: Other
Peter Brooke (Conservative, Centre-right): I realise that the drafting of the amendment is not the noble Lord’s, but in proposed new subsection (9), to which he referred a moment ago, it might be sensible if the penultimate word in the penultimate line was struck out at this juncture, as, at the moment, it constitutes nonsense.
Police Federation (Amendment) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-07-15
Topic: Other
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): I think that the noble Lord is putting words into my mouth. I did not say that—I said that it was for the federation to make the case for its membership. So I think that he should reflect on what I have said from the Dispatch Box. In his usual style, he has asked a raft of questions and, as I said earlier, on specific areas I shall reflect on contributions made and respond accordingly.
Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I do not often disagree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, but I think he was walking something of a tightrope there, for obvious reasons What is wrong with this first clause is the whole approach to the Bill. The Government, in advance of even knowing what the conclusions of the Smith commission would be, undertook to implement them and expected both Houses of this Parliament to ratify them. In speaking in support of the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Norton, I draw the attention of the House to page 7 of our Constitution Committee’s sixth report of Session 2015-16 on the Scotland Bill. Paragraph 8 states: "The Bill contains a number of provisions of the highest constitutional importance. In affirming the permanence of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government and declaring that they are not to be abolished except following a referendum in Scotland, and in giving statutory recognition to the Sewel convention, the Bill carries potential implications for Parliament’s own sovereignty" Too right it does Paragraph 9 states: "In our report on the Draft Clauses"— which were contained in the document which was ironically entitled Scotland in the United Kingdom: An Enduring Settlement— "we expressed concern at ‘the failure of the UK Government directly to address the implications of these proposals for the United Kingdom as a whole.’ We questioned how any process that did not consider the future of the Union ‘could provide for an "enduring" settlement’, and recommended that ‘the Government give urgent consideration to the consequences of the Draft Clauses for the constitution of the United Kingdom as a whole. This should happen before they are passed into law.’ There is little evidence that such consideration has been given to date" That conclusion is something of an understatement, to put it mildly If we look at the Smith commission proposals in respect of these amendments and the clause which we are discussing—a point I made at Second Reading—we see that under the heading, "A More Autonomous Parliament", the Smith commission report stated: "The Scottish Parliament will be made permanent in UK legislation and given powers over how it is elected and run. The Scottish Government will similarly be made permanent" It does not say, "We recommend that Parliament considers how it could be made permanent", but that it will be made permanent.
Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-08
Topic: Other
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): If the clause is dishonest in the information which it conveys to the public, how can it be wrong to remove it or amend it as such, and how can it be disastrous to amend it in a way which makes it clear what its real meaning is?
Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): On the subject of political reality, is it not the policy of the noble and learned Lord’s party to have a constitutional convention with a view to creating a federal United Kingdom? What happens if we have a provision in law saying that the Scottish Parliament as it stands is permanent and the rest of the United Kingdom wishes to alter the structure and have a federal constitution along the lines that he suggests and that is blocked because of these provisions? Perhaps he thinks the political reality is that what he wishes for will never happen, but surely it is wrong to create inflexibility, given that he and his party accept that the present system is not a stable, lasting settlement.