argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Australia Free Trade Agreement — House of Lords, 2022-07-11
Topic: Foreign Trade
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): I will guarantee to write a letter—I will write one letter—on the basis of this debate but I cannot guarantee when it will come, if that is the question that the noble Lord is asking; as soon as possible, I will write a letter Just to conclude, this is a bold and ambitious FTA that will carry both the UK and Australia forward into a bright new future, and we all look forward to it being brought into force.
M56 Motorway (Junctions 6 to 7) (Variable Speed Limits) Regulations 2022 — House of Lords, 2022-07-11
Topic: Transportation
Jacqueline Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Baroness raises some serious and good points. However, I gently remind noble Lords of how these smart motorways came to pass. I recall that, in my time in the European Parliament as the transport spokesman—obviously covering road, rail, aviation and maritime—the huge push for smart motorways came from the regulations and directives in the European Parliament some years ago. This was not just about the UK. We found that many member states were having problems with capacity due to the growth in traffic, and it was about trying to look at a way that we did not have to build motorways in different parts of the country but just expand the ones that we had I fully acknowledge that there have clearly been some awful accidents due to the fact that there was no hard shoulder. When motorways were built in the first place, it was known that there could be a risk of accident—obviously, there is always the risk of accident—and it was paramount that there needed to be a safe space to go. I also understand that in some cases where there have been accidents, it has been very much a technological failure because the notification above the lane that it was closed, or the X, was not showing. People have then got confused, and of course some of the results of that have been appalling. There are also appalling accidents even for the miles of motorways where we have hard shoulders, which is why we have tried to make sure that people are alert if they pull in and why we now tell people to get out of their cars, notwithstanding the size of the lorries that sometimes have to pull in Can my noble friend say whether the Government are looking at how, for example, the technology can work, notwithstanding that we have spent millions expanding these motorways? I use the M6 with great frequency when I drive down here, and the M56 too, which the noble Baroness mentioned, and we have miles of full lanes where we are doing 60 miles an hour. We have had years of this expansion—obviously not of infrastructure—for all the right reasons on the motorways, to get the capacity, and we have been under terrible restrictions with roadworks; it is now even more infuriating that we have four lanes but are still all crawling along half of the time Notwithstanding the issue of technology, which clearly needs to be seen to be working and to work properly so that people and organisations have confidence, I look forward to the response from my noble friend. We need to move this on. As the noble Baroness opposite said, there is clearly a need for more laybys to access. This will take some time, because more roadworks will have to be started, but it is imperative that those can be put in place as quickly as possible.
M56 Motorway (Junctions 6 to 7) (Variable Speed Limits) Regulations 2022 — House of Lords, 2022-07-11
Topic: Transportation
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): I will happily explain that. All the evidence I just outlined was in the progress report—as I said, there was an enormous amount of scrutiny. If I had my time again, would I have put all that evidence in the Explanatory Memorandum? No, because Explanatory Memorandums cannot possibly include every bit of evidence on which the Government have made a policy decision. This M56 variable speed limit SI is very standard—I cannot even begin to tell your Lordships how many we have done. However, I wish I had included a paragraph with links to all the different reports we have already done into smart motorways. There is a balance between providing sufficient information and links and ending up with an Explanatory Memorandum that becomes unwieldy. We could provide those links though.
M56 Motorway (Junctions 6 to 7) (Variable Speed Limits) Regulations 2022 — House of Lords, 2022-07-11
Topic: Transportation
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): That is exactly why, as I set out, we will update the Explanatory Memorandum. Am I going to regurgitate everything in the progress report, the response to the Transport Select Committee, the progress report from last year, and the original 2020 action plan and stocktake? No, because it would become a document of several hundred pages. We must be selective, but I think we can include links to other reports to explain it to people However, let us be absolutely clear that all this SI does is allow a variable mandatory speed limit to be put in place. Will that have any impact on road safety for that stretch? No, it will not. In allowing a mandatory speed limit to come in, it will probably make it safer. If the Government are then required to do an entire Explanatory Memorandum about the much broader policy, we will end up with some very lengthy Explanatory Memorandums.
Child Vulnerability (Public Services Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2022-07-11
Topic: Education
Laura Wyld (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not think I said that funding was not important. I said that some witnesses had pointed to problems that I thought were not necessarily directly related to funding; they were about communication issues and join-up. Indeed, at times I have called for extra funding for early years myself.
Contaminated Blood Scandal: Interim Payments for Victims — House of Lords, 2022-07-20
Topic: Government Operations
Joanna Penn (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I join the noble Baroness in paying tribute to all those who have campaigned over many years on this issue, including her honourable friend Diana Johnson MP, who asked this Question in the other place and has been a great campaigner on the issue I reassure noble Lords that the Government are incredibly cognisant of the time pressure: we are working as fast as we can to work through the report that was delivered to the Government—Sir Robert’s study—including the recommendation on interim payments. We need to do that work thoroughly, but we are cognisant of the need to do it as quickly as possible. On the noble Baroness’s point about the deadline for responses being when the House is in recess, I reassure her that that relates to the work of the inquiry, the timetable for which is set independently of government. The Government will consider any recommendations the inquiry makes on this matter. My right honourable friend in the other place has committed to updating MPs as this goes along, and I am sure that the recess will not be a barrier to any updates we would wish to make.
Contaminated Blood Scandal: Interim Payments for Victims — House of Lords, 2022-07-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Elizabeth Rose Berridge (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as the noble Baroness pointed out, we are a little bit in the dark, not having had the Answer repeated. Will my noble friend please outline whether this is a situation where it would be appropriate for a low-level interim payment of a modest amount to be paid across the board, obviously not reflecting blame? It is clear that time is of the essence here for people, and paying out a few tens of thousands would make an enormous difference to most families.
Contaminated Blood Scandal: Interim Payments for Victims — House of Lords, 2022-07-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Joanna Penn (Conservative, Centre-right): One of Sir Robert’s recommendations, and the focus of the Urgent Question in the other place, is that the Government should consider making interim compensation payments to infected support scheme beneficiaries before a compensation scheme is established, in the interests of speeding up justice and to give some level of assurance and security to those who may not live to see the end of the inquiry. My right honourable friend in the other place, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, and all colleagues in government, are keenly aware of that reality. We are working carefully to consider the recommendations in the report, and making haste to address this as quickly and as thoroughly as possible.
Seafarers’ Wages Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-07-20
Topic: Transportation
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): Is it not really about the service? We cannot legislate for UK workers working in international waters or in any country in the world. That is what we must balance here. If we wanted to include cruises, we would have to include every vessel that pops into UK waters. The administration of that would blow up; it is not going to work. We will debate this in Committee, but I think we have reached the right balance. I do not know that noble Lords will be able to convince me that we have not, but I am willing to let them try I turn briefly to enforcement, which is a really important point. This is where the MCA will step up to enforce the system as a whole. We expect the cost of enforcement to be about £359,000 over 10 years. That is a relatively small amount in the context of the work of the MCA, because it can be done alongside its many other inspections The framework around the surcharges will be set out in secondary legislation. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, was concerned about the ports setting the surcharge, but they will not. If a port for whatever reason had a ship approach and thought, "That’s a friendly ship; we’re not going to charge it a surcharge", the Secretary of State could direct it to charge the surcharge. That gets round the issue where you might have a port and a ferry service operated by the same operator. The Secretary of State’s beady eye will be there to make sure that it does as it should I will come to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, about minimum fines. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, raised a point about a port being an enforcement authority; it definitely is not going to be. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, asked about criminal charges. It will be for the ship operator, which is standard for maritime, to suffer any penalties relating to the Bill I am going to finish off with my favourite topic—secondary legislation. I think someone said "good"; I am not sure who it was. I am really offended, but I am going to talk about secondary legislation just so we can suffer a little longer. This is important because I have noted that Grand Committee is on 15 September, and we will not have full draft regulations by then. I am sort of thinking that this is probably not the worst idea in the world. We will have detailed policy notes, but as we go through Committee and debate the sorts of things we are proposing to put into secondary legislation, I think having detailed policy notes will be sufficient to aid our thinking, and issues may certainly come up in the discussion that we may want to reflect in the regulations or perhaps draft the regulations in a slightly different way I believe I have covered some of the questions asked by noble Lords today.
Slavery and Human Trafficking (Definition of Victim) Regulations 2022 — House of Lords, 2022-07-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, on 4 July the other place voted to affirm these regulations, which support the implementation of Part 5 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 which, as noble Lords will recall, received Royal Assent at the end of April. Section 69 of that Act gives the Secretary of State the power to define the terms "victim of human trafficking" and "victim of modern slavery" for the purposes of Part 5 of the Act The definitions of these terms are therefore relevant to the provisions in Part 5 relating to the circumstances in which the Secretary of State must provide assistance and support to identified potential victims under Section 64 and the circumstances in which an identified potential victim may be disqualified from protection if, for example, they are a threat to public order, as set out in Section 63. When these sections use the term "victim", that refers to the definitions contained in these regulations. As such, the regulations simply ensure that such provisions in Part 5 of the Act can work in practice As noble Lords familiar with this area will know, there are already definitions of slavery and trafficking in primary legislation under Section 56 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. However, these definitions relate to the criminal offences in Sections 1 and 2 of that Act, which deal with slavery and human trafficking respectively. What this means in practice is that the 2015 Act definitions require evidence of conduct amounting to a criminal offence, which is not a requirement for the purposes of victim identification, nor a prerequisite to provide support.
Post Office: Horizon Compensation — House of Lords, 2022-06-30
Topic: Government Operations
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for their statements and questions. The noble Lord already knows that I totally share his frustration. His statement about stressful uncertainty for the postmasters sums up the issue very well, and I totally agree with him. I am also very happy to join him in paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones; I know that a number of other parliamentarians, on all sides of the House, have also been involved in this. They are truly a tribute to parliamentarians, who get criticised for a lot of things, but when there are scandals such as this, it shows the role that Members of both Houses can play in bringing the public’s attention, and indeed the Government’s attention, to them On the questions the noble Lord and the noble Baroness asked about the overall timescale, the ambition is that all offers will have been made by the end of the year. The GLO interim payments will be made within weeks. The noble Lord asked for an assurance that the core funding of the Post Office is unaffected, and I can give him that assurance. He also raised the issue of the directors of the Post Office: they can be held to account by the inquiry, as indeed can Ministers and officials involved in this. We are determined that there will be no hiding place for those who contributed to this scandal. He also asked about further private prosecutions. Right at the start of this scandal, when I spoke to the chief executive of the Post Office, he assured me that it had no plans to bring any more private prosecutions. I would be very surprised if it went back on that, given the trouble that this has got it into. The noble Lord also referred to Post Office complacency. That may have been the case in the past, but I think the new leadership under Nick Read is really producing a change in the culture and some real improvements in the service the Post Office is offering The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred to cover-ups; there probably were, but that is of course a matter for the inquiry to establish. She asked how many people will receive compensation. The £19.5 million in interim payments goes to all members of the GLO scheme, of whom there are about 500. I can also confirm for the noble Baroness that in cases where some of those members have sadly died, we are engaging with their next of kin and their estates on seeking appropriate levels of compensation.
Post Office: Horizon Compensation — House of Lords, 2022-06-30
Topic: Government Operations
James Arbuthnot (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, again, my noble friend comes before this House with good news, and I am truly grateful for that. We look forward to the day when the compensation scheme can be completed, and we hope it happens early so that sub-postmasters can have truly substantial payments As the public inquiry considers the responsibility of Fujitsu, Post Office directors and others, can my noble friend the Minister assure your Lordships that the inevitable delay arising from the public inquiry will not cause to be legally time-barred any redress that might need to be taken in relation to those who are at fault?
Post Office: Horizon Compensation — House of Lords, 2022-06-30
Topic: Government Operations
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): Officials and, I am sure, Ministers are keen to learn the lessons, but the inquiry is the best place to fully go into all these matters, which took place over decades, as I said. It will get to the bottom of this and the appropriate individuals will be held responsible.
Post Office: Horizon Compensation — House of Lords, 2022-06-30
Topic: Law and Crime
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): Again, I have considerable sympathy for the points that my noble friend makes, but, so far, Fujitsu has not been found guilty of any fraud or other crime related to this matter. It is co-operating in full with the inquiry, as we would expect of it. I realise that this is uncomfortable for the House, but we should wait for the results of the inquiry to set out in stark detail exactly where the failings were.
Post Office: Horizon Compensation — House of Lords, 2022-06-30
Topic: Law and Crime
Rosalind Altmann (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I associate myself with the tributes paid to my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot and Paul Scully in the other place, and with the congratulations offered to the Government on bringing forward payments at last, at least in many cases. The Statement talks about reimbursing "reasonable" costs of legal action. I understand that going forward, because we have to guard against egregious costs being imposed, but for those who have already had to take legal action, can my noble friend assure the House that there will be full recompense for all the legal expenses that they have had to go to, in addition to which there will be compensation for the suffering that they have clearly been through?
Post Office: Horizon Compensation — House of Lords, 2022-06-30
Topic: Law and Crime
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): If my noble friend is talking about the GLO legal action, of course the costs of that were funded and the lawyers were not paid by the litigants; a lot of the compensation went to pay the legal fees, which is part of the problem with the GLO scheme.
Post Office: Horizon Compensation — House of Lords, 2022-06-30
Topic: Law and Crime
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): The inquiry can cover all relevant matters. Of course, the role of the judiciary is being examined in the cases proceeding through the courts at the moment and in the convictions being overturned. I am sure that all those members of the judiciary still in their posts will pay close attention to those cases. To be fair, they can adjudge a case only on the evidence that is presented to them, but I am sure that they will want to take careful account of any technical evidence that was given in the various cases and perhaps treat it with a bit more scepticism in future.
Commonwealth — House of Lords, 2022-06-30
Topic: International Affairs
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): So I hope noble Lords will excuse me for doing so. It is great to hear the longest, loudest "hear, hear" from the former PUS at the FCO, who did incredible work in strengthening our time as chair-in-office To all noble Lords in all parts of your Lordships’ House, and to the right reverend Prelates who bring into focus the moral compass of the responsibility we have—I pay tribute to the right reverend Prelates the Bishop of Southwark and the Bishop of Guildford, who have taken part today, for their direct accountability —I say that it is right that the Government are held to account. We look forward to your contribution to the four events later this week. I assure the House that we remain committed to the Commonwealth and wish to play our part as a partner in the Commonwealth Finally, the Commonwealth is about the here and now, but it is also, importantly, about the future and how we continue to strengthen economic resilience and security; to step up action on climate change; to become a force for good in standing up for human rights for all and for freedom of religion for those who are oppressed; and for the LGBT community, women’s rights, girls’ education and the Commonwealth family. There are differing perspectives and different periods of travel, and different pathways may be taken; but most importantly, as a network, it allows us, as a Commonwealth family of 56 countries, to come together for that common vision and common future.
Commonwealth — House of Lords, 2022-06-30
Topic: International Affairs
David Arthur Russell Howell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I give the Minister more credit for his excellent summing up and for all the work he does to promote and develop Commonwealth links of every kind. I thank everyone who has spoken in this debate for, on the whole, a very positive tone. This is a very difficult time; the world is changing fundamentally. Obviously, I see the Commonwealth structure itself evolving, as it has evolved. We have to think very hard about how we can both benefit from that as a country—why not?—and shape and benefit the Commonwealth and the whole geopolitical situation I say to the Minister: we have to follow through on what the Chinese are really up to. I notice that, over the weekend, they have been having their BRICS meeting for 3 billion people. It must be a rather odd meeting with India and China there when they have recently been at war with each other. I do not really know what went on, but we have to watch the Chinese. They are trying to rebalance the world in ways that are not good for freedom and democracy at all. We look to Marlborough House to be more vital now that the Secretary-General issue is solved The noble Lord, Lord McDonald, raised the issue of the realms versus republics and other kingdoms and sultanates. That will sort itself out. It is really a media muddle, because they do not understand the difference between the Queen as Head of State and the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth—the answer is that there is not much difference at all, but the media get very muddled Finally, we all have to think in terms of constant new initiatives to develop further. As the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, says, there is much more work to be done. Some of us are planning to raise the idea of a brand-new Commonwealth centre at the end of the Elizabeth Line. We have our eye on the Woolwich Barracks that are now vacant. It is a vast area, a little bit of which, as an exhibition centre, would make a magnificent place representing the whole Commonwealth. The Minister will, I am afraid, hear more about that Generally, the world is changing so fast. The digital relationship is altering international relations so greatly that we can now confidently look at the model of the voluntary non-treaty Commonwealth, in all its diversity, as something that will shape the international future rather than just be part of the international past. I thank all my friends and colleagues and your Lordships for applying their minds to that prospect this afternoon.
Afghanistan: British Special Forces — House of Lords, 2022-07-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Annabel Goldie (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for the tenor of his remarks. Yes, it is the case that the RMP has asked the BBC, the "Panorama" production team, to produce this evidence on which it founded the programme. If that evidence is produced and it is new evidence it will fully investigated and it will initially be the task of the Royal Military Police to do that. The police are independent of the chain of command and have the power to pursue these matters objectively and independently and in the best interests of serving justice.