argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Counter-Daesh: Quarterly Update — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: International Affairs
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her very relevant questions. She asked about the post-settlement strategy in Syria. It is perhaps too early for me to give her substantive information on that. Clearly, the priority is to achieve that settlement. We are actively supporting the negotiations through our participation in the ISSG, including in the ISSG task forces on the cessation of hostilities and humanitarian access, and our engagement with the opposition. The Foreign Secretary has attended all four meetings of the ISSG and a ministerial meeting of the United Nations Security Council on 18 December, at which UN Security Council Resolution 2254 was passed. We are also offering technical advice, including on strategy and diplomatic handling, and logistical support to the opposition negotiating team, alongside our international partners. However, I can tell her, as I am sure she knows, that as and when a settlement is achieved, the UK has promised a further £1 billion to assist in the reconstruction of Syria As regards Turkey, there is no doubt that Turkey is making a critical contribution to the international campaign against Daesh. It is a key member of the global coalition and co-chair of the foreign terrorist fighters working group, and it is making a really strong contribution to stopping extremists from reaching Iraq and Syria. The Turks have detained more than 2,500 Daesh suspects. We should remember too that Turkey has itself been a victims of Daesh attacks in Ankara, Istanbul and elsewhere. It is also housing 2.7 million refugees. We should pay tribute to the efforts that the Turks have made in this very difficult area The noble Baroness asked about the effort at home. We are continuing the Prevent strategy, which has undoubtedly made a difference. Thousands of people in the UK have been safeguarded from targeting by extremists and terrorist recruiters, which incidentally includes those at risk from far-right and neo-Nazi extremism as well as those vulnerable to Islamist extremism. In the last year, we have considerably increased our programme of Prevent activity through our network of Prevent professionals, working with more than 2,790 different institutions and engaging nearly 50,000 individuals during last year. Although to some the Prevent name has acquired a slightly pejorative ring to it, nevertheless it is the right thing to be doing to protect those most vulnerable.
Counter-Daesh: Quarterly Update — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. Since December 2013, 101,000 pieces of unlawful terrorist material have been taken down from the internet. That brings the overall total to 120,000 since February 2010, when the police Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit was set up. The unit makes 100 referrals a day related to Syria.
Counter-Daesh: Quarterly Update — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord about the Prevent strategy. Currently, the greatest threat comes from terrorist recruiters inspired by Daesh. Our Prevent programme will necessarily reflect that by prioritising support for vulnerable Muslims and working in partnership with British Muslim communities and civil society groups. I do not have up-to-date information about the extent to which we have been able to intercept and assist—in the right sense—those returning from the Middle East, but I shall gain data from the Home Office, if I may, and write to the noble Lord about that.
Counter-Daesh: Quarterly Update — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: Education
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord makes a very good point. It is slightly outside my brief, as that is a Home Office matter, as he will appreciate. But I am aware that there is considerable concern across government about schools of the kind he mentioned, particularly unregistered schools, where a false ideology is being promoted. Again, I shall consult Home Office colleagues and, if I can give the noble Lord up-to-date information, I shall be happy to write to him.
Counter-Daesh: Quarterly Update — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: International Affairs
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, we are in close touch with the Egyptians about this, and we share their concern about the spread of Daesh in Libya. We welcome the signing of the Libyan political agreement in December for the establishment of a Government of National Accord to restore a measure of security and stability in Libya. We know that the Egyptians are also supportive of the new Government in any way that they are able. All I can say to the noble Lord is that we will continue to play an active role and encourage the Government in Libya to make sure that, as the Libyan state authority is re-established across national territory, we see respect for human rights being considered as an important part of rebuilding governance—and, of course, we impress that message on the Egyptians as well.
Counter-Daesh: Quarterly Update — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: International Affairs
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Lord makes a profound point. Nevertheless, we are clear that Assad cannot form part of a long-term solution in Syria. He has passed the point where that might once have been an option. It is clear that the Syrians want change, and we think that the Syrian peace process in Geneva is the route to that change.
Counter-Daesh: Quarterly Update — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: International Affairs
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, there is no doubt that Syria needs transition to a new Government able to meet the needs of the Syrian people as a whole. That is why our position on Assad is unchanged. That regime is responsible for the current crisis in Syria. The barbarity it has meted out—the barrel bombs, the chlorine, the siege tactics, the interception of medical supplies to those in need—is the main driver of the refugee crisis. We do not think that Assad can form any possible part of a future regime, and the transition has to take place by another means.
Counter-Daesh: Quarterly Update — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: International Affairs
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord is better informed than I am of the political history of Syria. There is no doubt that Assad does not now command the support he once clearly did.
Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: Government Operations
Edward Faulks (Conservative, Centre-right): There have been significant changes The Bill would also remove the requirement in the Wales Act 2014 for a referendum before a proportion of income tax is devolved. As I said, the National Assembly will be able to legislate on any subject unless specifically reserved to Parliament. The Bill will also reflect the permanence of the Assembly and the Welsh Government in statute Your Lordships’ House has a vital role as the scrutinising and revising Chamber of Parliament and will discharge, I am sure, the role with its usual diligence. But this Government firmly believe that the elected House of Commons should have the final say on the laws that Parliament makes. That should be the case for all legislation, however it is made. Last year, my noble friend Lord Strathclyde was asked to come forward with proposals to secure the decisive role of the House of Commons in the passage of secondary legislation. We are considering his recommendations carefully, alongside the recommendations of a number of committees of your Lordships’ House and the other place, and will respond in due course I know noble Lords will agree with me that there is a great deal in this important and highly topical legislation to consider. Much of the legislation has not yet been published. When it is, I feel confident that it will be carefully scrutinised. In the meantime, I much look forward to the debate today in your Lordships’ House, which I am sure will contribute greatly to the Government’s thinking. It is possible that the debate will not involve the forthcoming referendum, but I rather doubt it.
Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: Law and Crime
David James (Conservative, Centre-right): I will sum up and conclude. We have to resolve this in some way. We do not have the Supreme Court among us directly now but surely we can ask it to consider reintroducing either a proper appeal process or a retrial, either of which would lead us to some form of justice. Alternatively, why can we not pass this to the newly formed Criminal Cases Review Commission and ask it to get its teeth into it? Meanwhile, we should suspend the remainder of the confiscation process and we should probably give serious thought to having a serious talk with the SFO and asking it to clean up its act for the future. I rest my case.
Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Patricia Elizabeth Rawlings (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it is a brave Peer who says anything in your Lordships’ House about prisons with the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, present and due to speak. However, I commend the Prime Minister for including the prison and courts reform Bill in the gracious Speech and for searching for ways to reduce the number of prisoners in our overcrowded jails, as was spelled out so well by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. The Minister of State started his speech with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, called the centrepiece of the Queen’s Speech. The Minister stressed the importance of being "accessible and proportionate" and "out of the courtroom" where necessary, and spoke about disputes being resolved through mediation rather than jail and the importance of human rights, which I imagine includes self-protection, which was put into historical context so clearly by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans I agree wholeheartedly with what the Minister of State said, and I have just two brief questions for the Parliamentary Secretary, my noble friend Lord Bridges. I will hardly detain your Lordships at this late stage in the debate. Following the Minister of State’s very clear opening speech, will the Government look into reforms to magistrates’ court fines and Crown Court convictions concerning listed building enforcement notices requiring two years’ imprisonment for non-compliance? There are so many of these offences yearly. Does the Parliamentary Secretary think that minor offenders, such as those contravening Section 9 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, should be clogging up our overcrowded prisons?
Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: Government Operations
James Bridges (Conservative, Centre-right): I suspect that my noble friend knows the answer to that question. I am sure he will tell the House. I dread to think The noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, who has more experience on the matter of statutory instruments than many in this House—or, indeed, in Parliament—rightly raised the issue of the need for proper scrutiny of delegated legislation. I say to him, to my noble friend and to all noble Lords that after only a year in this House, I entirely agree that we need to do that. However, I say again, with due respect and very gently, that there is a comprehensive scrutiny system through which Parliament can hold the Government to account for the delegated powers and SIs that they use. This includes scrutiny by three dedicated Select Committees, debates in Standing Committees and Floor debates.
Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: Government Operations
James Bridges (Conservative, Centre-right): Ah, I am told by a noble friend that it will be "shortly"; let us see. I know that it is being awaited with avid anticipation. Before I leave the subject, I would like to talk about the point raised by a number of noble Lords about the need to tackle the size and composition of the House of Lords. Obviously, these are important questions, which is why my noble friend the Leader of the House has convened cross-party talks regarding the way forward. Those talks have been constructive and there are plenty of ideas around, as we heard tonight.
Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: Law and Crime
James Bridges (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not have that statistic straight to hand; I will certainly write to the noble and learned Lord. Let me pick up an earlier point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, about legal aid. I understand that we are committed to a review of LASPO, as we have said on several occasions. He rightly raised that point I turn briefly to policing and crime. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, raised the issue of neighbourhood policing. I commend to her the provisions of the Policing and Crime Bill, which the Government believe will help to drive further efficiencies and joint working between emergency services and to deliver more funding for the front line, including for investment in neighbourhood policing I touch on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, in his interesting speech about the growth of our population. He spoke powerfully, and the Government are acutely aware of the pressures that population growth is placing on our society, which is why we are focusing so heavily on building more homes and roads and improving our rail network, quite apart from investing in schools and hospitals. On this point, we are not complacent; we are very seized of the challenges we face. I am sorry for a ramble through those points. As I said, I apologise to those noble Lords whose questions I have not addressed; I will endeavour to do so in writing after this debate. I thank all noble Lords for the energetic and interesting discussion we have had and am sure that I speak on behalf of my fellow Ministers when I say that we all look forward to debating these matters with your Lordships in the coming months.
Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-06-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Rose Berridge (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I raised this matter at Second Reading. The issue of inchoate offences is very important, particularly in this context. It sends the criminal law much further down, into preparatory acts. In these situations you often have a group of people acting—passing on information to buyers, et cetera. You often need to scoop quite a large number of people, so I would be grateful for confirmation from the Minister, because the inchoate offences in this context are an incredibly important part of stamping down all activity in relation to this illegal trade.
Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-06-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, in addressing these two amendments I hope to satisfy noble Lords, but if I do not we should speak between now and Report. I appreciate that the aim of the amendments is to ensure that the Bill allows the UK to meet all our obligations under the convention and its two protocols. Clause 4, as currently drafted, already allows the UK to meet its obligations under Article 15(2) of the Second Protocol and the legislation will comply with, "general principles of law and international law" I will outline my main points now, although, given that this is a technical and complicated issue to explain briefly, I will reflect on what has been asked and send noble Lords a note setting out the Government’s position on this amendment The purpose and effect of Clause 4 are to ensure that the UK has extraterritorial jurisdiction to try all ancillary offences in the same circumstances in which Clause 3 establishes such jurisdiction to try the substantive offences. It does not establish the ancillary offences, which already exist under at least five different and relevant pieces of legislation. The good news is that these apply automatically to offences under Clause 3. In respect of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, the definitions of, "An offence ancillary to an offence under section 3", are limited to the offences of attempting, conspiring, assisting and concealing, because it is only in relation to these offences that there might be doubt as to their extraterritorial application Where the existing law is clear as to extraterritorial application—which it is in relation to aiding and abetting and the offences under the Serious Crime Act 2007, which replaced the previous offence of incitement—no provision is made. However, as noble Lords will appreciate, to make such provision unnecessarily would be bad drafting practice and could create doubt as to the other situations where no such express provision is made The position in relation to Scottish criminal law is different and this is taken into account in the drafting of Clause 4(6). I assure noble Lords that the Scottish Government have, of course, been consulted on this provision. I hope that brief explanation, together with the note that I am planning to send to noble Lords, will provide sufficient explanation and reassurance that we have taken the correct approach on ancillary offences, and that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-06-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Rose Berridge (Conservative, Centre-right): On that discrete point, again, the resources that were available to the Metropolitan Police unit in this area were raised at Second Reading. If my noble friend is to write in relation to this matter, can she also tell your Lordships’ House how the military unit is to be set up in a way to pass relevant intelligence to the Metropolitan Police unit? It may glean information from the field that is relevant to the Metropolitan Police, which is not a usual situation to have, so it might be useful in that same letter to have clarification of the appropriate form of communication between that specialist unit and the private contractors, as well as back into the Met and probably more widely into Europol and so on.
Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-06-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): We have made this a priority. I was going to say that my noble friend Lady Berridge made a good point about the link to the police. We have the military—the monuments men whom we heard about last time, one of them a 100 year-old woman—and the police effort. Together they need to have adequate resource, as I explained last time. Although it is an operational decision for the Met, working with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, to determine the available resources, in the spending review the Government pledged strong support for the police On the monuments men and the monuments lady in particular, I will come back to noble Lords on exactly what our plans are. The good news is that they are well geared up and are starting to recruit specialists into the Army Reserve pending final approval of the Bill now that we have, at last, found parliamentary time The working group will continue to provide updates on its progress, but I do not feel that a statutory requirement on the Secretary of State to produce a report a year after the Act is passed would be appropriate at such an early stage of its development. I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, talked about the penalties when he spoke about whether the clause should stand part. Concerns have been expressed about the 30-year term. To some degree, I sympathise. I felt that when I saw the provisions. I am pleased to say that officials have now outlined the detailed reasons behind the approach, and I agree with their reasoning. The introduction of the penalty is considered appropriate to comply with Article 15(2) of the second protocol, which obliges parties to adopt measures necessary to establish in their domestic law criminal offences as set out in Article 15(1) of the same protocol and to make them punishable by appropriate penalties. While at first sight it may seem surprising that an offence of this nature and ancillary offences, such as attempting or conspiring, attract the same maximum penalty as war crimes, this flows naturally from the seriousness with which these offences are considered in international law. It is worth noting, as the noble Lord acknowledged, that this is a maximum penalty. In practice, the penalty may be a much shorter sentence or even a fine and the maximum sentence is likely to be reserved for only the most heinous crimes against cultural property The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, asked whether we have consulted the Sentencing Council. We have not consulted it, but we will certainly look into this. I also thank the noble Lord for raising this point. There are a number of important amendments in this group. The military is already very much behind this work, and we are gearing up for further work following the Bill’s passage—smoothly and rapidly, I hope—through the two Houses of Parliament, if that is possible these days. I will write to noble Lords with a little more detail about the working group.
Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-06-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I think I acknowledged that I had not managed to answer his penetrating question. We explained a little at Second Reading about how it would be set up. He was talking about resourcing, while my noble friend Lady Berridge made a good point about the link to policing. We need to return to the "embedded" question, because although I gave the noble Lord an answer I am not sure that we were quite getting at the point that he was making, which is why I was perhaps a little nervous in answering his question. We will look at that issue. The point is that our intentions in this area are clearly positive, and we will certainly write before Report on the issues that have been raised.
Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-06-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Roger Bootle-Wilbraham (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, before the noble and learned Lord spoke I was about to say that I find this a very odd clause indeed. It could be read that proceedings for an offence can be brought in England and Wales, and in Northern Ireland, but not in Scotland. I am no lawyer, but is the noble and learned Lord entirely correct that we do not need some reference to Scotland within the Bill for proceedings to take place?