argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 (Consequential Provisions) Order 2017 — House of Lords, 2018-01-10
Topic: Law and Crime
David George Clark (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this debate has inevitably centred on Scotland and the British Transport Police, but civilian police forces such as the British Transport Police—I emphasise "civilian" police forces—were created for a particular reason. There are at least two other such police forces. The Ministry of Defence Police—not the "Redcaps"—and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary were similarly created for a particular reason Having lived for most of my life in the borderlands in the north of England on the opposite side to Scotland, I am very aware of those three civilian police forces, and I am interested in the Government’s reaction. If they concede on the British Transport Police but do not follow the sensible suggestions of my noble friend Lord Foulkes, what will happen to the Civil Nuclear Constabulary? I declare an interest as a former director of Sellafield. I shall be a bit circumspect in what I say about the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, but we should bear in mind even now the transport of material from Dounreay and other sites in Scotland to Sellafield. All those trains are accompanied by armed members of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, just as every defence establishment in Scotland is policed by the Ministry of Defence Police, a GB body. So, when we talk about this order, I am interested in what happens to the other comparable civilian police forces.
Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-01-10
Topic: Energy
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): But I think that the noble Earl would accept that the last time a negative instrument was prayed against successfully was something like 1940—certainly a long time ago—and it was about the use of petroleum with open flames.
Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-01-10
Topic: Government Operations
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): I know that we should not be intervening like this on Report, but the phrasing that the Minister just used is of interest—to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, as well, I think. What does "irrelevant" mean? Can the Minister unpick that a little? Either the Secretary of State has the power to do something, or not. If that power is conditional on the ICO having given broad agreement to it, under what conditions can the ICO intervene? Can it be because the commissioner regards it as irrelevant? What does that mean?
Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-01-10
Topic: Macroeconomics
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister very much indeed for his very full response. I will read it carefully in Hansard but at this stage, although it is a rather complicated issue, I understand where he is coming from and I think we can probably let it rest at this point. If there is anything else, I will write to him rather than prolong the discussion today I opined that negative resolutions were rarely voted down and cited 1940 as the last occasion that that happened, but I was wrong. Some 40 years ago on 24 October 1979, the Paraffin (Maximum Retail Prices) (Revocation) Order 1979 was defeated late at night during what appears to have been rather unsavoury activity by members of the Labour Party who hid in cupboards and things and then jumped out. Mr Hamish Gray, whom Members may recall, was unable to sustain the standing order and it had to be brought back later on—it was all very complicated and Hansard is wonderful about it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Registration of Marriage Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-01-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Joan Bakewell (Labour, Centre-left): The issue is not solemnisation but registration, which the Government have shown no opposition to. They merely ask for consultation; the consultation approves. They refer to the Law Commission; the Law Commission approves. It is not an issue on which the Government are offering any opposition; it is simply a matter of implementation according to their judgment.
Transparency of the Parole Board and Victim Support — House of Lords, 2018-01-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Jonathan Toby Harris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, that brings us back to the question that the noble Lord, Lord German, asked, to which the Minister was not able to give an answer because of time. Has there been any pressure on the Parole Board to deal more speedily with the backlog of IPP cases? I think that we need to know. I understood that the principle of IPP sentences was to protect the public. Clearly, the view of many victims is that in this instance the public are not being protected. We need to know—and I would be grateful for the Minister’s answer—what pressure has been applied on the Parole Board to deal with that backlog While I am on my feet, could we pick up the point that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, raised, which was the very interesting question that in the past Ministers took personal responsibility for some of these difficult cases? Is not there a value in what I believe is by and large sound political judgment being made by people, perhaps with a background of elective politics, looking at these cases and assessing whether in the mind of the wider public this is something that should be looked at, and that it is perhaps not in the public interest for such people to be released?
BBC: Unfair Pay — House of Lords, 2018-01-09
Topic: Technology
Leslie John Griffiths (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating that Answer to an Urgent Question given in another place. I must say, as I take part in this exercise for the first time, that I had expected in an Urgent Question to hear a note of urgency. While I sense a little self-congratulation about measures that have been brought in and reforms that have been introduced, as regards the BBC I do not sense that deep desire to achieve objectives that are in line with public expectations at large, deeply held and urgently sought. Of course, the measures that are mentioned must continue, but 2020 seems a long way away. We understand that the BBC must look after its own internal affairs, but can the Government assure us that, with some urgency, all appropriate measures will be applied to encourage, goad and pressurise it to come forward with a solution to these questions, so that the beacon referred to can serve as a benchmark against which to measure progress in other sectors of our public life?
Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-01-09
Topic: Government Operations
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. I do not think anyone is suggesting that it should be put in the legislation but, given that there has been a consultation on guidance to local authorities, which someone said has just ended, would it not be appropriate for that guidance to include guidance to local authorities about how to implement this Bill and the evidence they should be looking for? I think that is what noble Lords were saying.
Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-01-09
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): Although I do not want to state the obvious, could I ask the Minister to confirm that the £100,000 is the sum in total across all local authorities? It is not £100,000 for each local authority involved in this activity.
Stronger Charities for a Stronger Society (Charities Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2018-01-16
Topic: Social Welfare
Jill Pitkeathley (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, far be it for me to attempt to sum up the richness of our debate but I thank most warmly all the speakers today. It strikes me that the passion, commitment and concern we have heard from them very much reflects the passion, commitment and concern which is so apparent to anyone who has anything to do with the charitable sector. I remind your Lordships that not only do we here see it as indispensable and something to be proud of; it is the envy of the rest of the world. Anyone who has had anything to do with international work about the charitable movement or the charitable sector knows that other countries envy it very much—its ability to be the voice of disadvantaged people, and to convey that to government in a way which is both innovative and taken up to be formed into other ideas, which form part of our society In response to this report, charities have certainly shown that they do not shy away from improving their performance or measuring their impact. They are committed to positive engagement. In thanking the Minister for her courteous and wide-ranging reply, I assure her that I do not doubt her commitment—nor that of the Minister at DCMS—to taking this forward. She has shown a commitment to real partnership and we hope that will continue. We all acknowledge the importance of the strategy which is to be developed, and I assure the Minister that we shall be watching and participating as it is developed.
Brexit: Deal or No Deal (European Union Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2018-01-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Davies (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Would he not agree that in trade negotiations, the leverage of one side or another is a function of the proportion of the GDP of that party which is exposed to trade with the other country in question? I am sure the noble Lord is very well informed on these matters and knows that, in the case of the British relationship with the other 27 members of the EU, we have 14% of our GDP exposed to the EU—that is the proportion exported to the EU—while in the other direction, with the exception of the Republic of Ireland, no single member of the EU sells to us more than 4% of its GDP. So in fact our dependence on them is much greater than their dependence on us.
Brexit: Deal or No Deal (European Union Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2018-01-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): The evidence is overwhelming. I could point the noble Lord to many research reports which show that, in the event of no deal, the damage to British GDP would be far greater than to the GDP of the EU 27 Why is no deal still a possibility in my view, despite what was agreed in December? It is basically because the Cabinet cannot make up its mind on its long-term vision for the economic relationship between Britain and the EU. The Prime Minister talks about a bespoke trade deal for Britain despite Mr Barnier having made clear many times that the choice is either a Norway-style deal, where we are close to the single market or in it, or a free trade deal on the Canada model. Those are the limits of the choice. The Cabinet seems unable to make that choice. It is fundamentally divided between those who want to keep as close to EU rules as possible and believe that can be negotiated, which might be difficult—such as the Chancellor, for example, who wants to do that—and those who want to break free We are in very perilous political circumstances that might come to a crisis as early as March this year, when the European guidelines for the trade talks emerge. Those who favour a hard Brexit may be close to resolving in their mind that Britain should choose a very different future from the one we now enjoy. They may decide that Britain should go it alone. Goodness knows what the politics of that would be. I think it would mean a split in the Cabinet and the Conservative Party to match that of 1846 and the dispute over tariff reform in 1903. I say to my own Front Bench that in those circumstances there would be a very heavy responsibility on the part of the Labour Party to act in the national interest.
Brexit: Deal or No Deal (European Union Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2018-01-16
Topic: Labor
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): You do not hear what you do not want to hear. We would not go into the negotiations with red lines already closing off what we wanted to discuss with the opposite side. A number of noble Lords have said today that they are experienced negotiators. I have done a bit myself, starting in the trade unions. I have never gone into negotiations saying what I would and would not accept before I even started. The Labour Party has said absolutely clearly that we would not have taken anything off the table before we had even sat on the chairs.
Brexit: Deal or No Deal (European Union Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): As the noble Lord knows, those were not actually his words. The leader—I did not need to know his name; interestingly, I remember it—said that he could see some difficulties in being in when and if we were no longer a member of that treaty. He did not say, and nor has he said, what the outcome of the negotiations should be. Importantly —it was a challenge, I think, made to me earlier by my noble friend—it was asked whether the Labour Party can rise to the national interest. If anyone would like us to take over the negotiations and do a better job than is being done at the moment, we will be very willing to do that For the moment, I leave your Lordships with these words: "It is difficult, if not impossible, to envisage a worse outcome for the United Kingdom" I hope that the Minister will now reassure us that that is neither the aim nor even a fallback and that every bit of work will be done to make sure that there is a deal in the interests of the whole country.
Industrial Strategy — House of Lords, 2018-01-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Sushantha Bhattacharyya (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I declare my interest as chairman of WMG at the University of Warwick, as set out in the Register of Lords’ Interests. It is fitting that the first debate of the year is on the industrial strategy; 2018 is, after all, the Government’s Year of Engineering. Being an engineer, I shall concentrate just on the engineering sector of industry The industrial strategy is most welcome. I am sure that the challenge fund, increased tax credits and the national retraining scheme will make a real difference in the short term. The five foundations are broadly right; the grand challenges are all important. But however welcome, an industrial strategy needs more than good immediate announcements and exciting challenges In our previous debate on the industrial strategy, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, pointed out that this is the eighth attempt at an industrial strategy since the war—I think that somebody else said that it was the ninth. The sheer number of strategies shows the disconnect between them and demonstrates the core problem of Britain’s approach to industrial policy. We focus on the short term and not the long view. We do not review success, revise targets or refine our approach. We just rip it up and start again from scratch a few years later The consequences can be disastrous. We have had many White Papers on skills—just to give one example—but there has been no consistency in implementation and no stability in institutions. We have gone from levy to grant to levy, from training boards to skills councils and back. These changes have often been confusing and chaotic. It is no surprise then that we have a near-permanent skills crisis. With all the money that has been spent on it during the past 20 years, nothing has happened I have one big hope for this strategy: that it lasts longer than the others. A short-term industrial strategy can never succeed. You need time to implement it on the ground, time to bed in institutions and time to build partnerships, but we do not give a strategy much time before we decide that it is time for a change of plan. This is especially true for Ministers. We have already lost the noble Lord, Lord Prior, and I think that we nearly lost our Secretary of State, Greg Clark, between today’s opening and closing speeches. I hope that he is still there.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: International Affairs
Clive Brooke (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am pleased to follow my noble friend Lord Monks. I support the fundamental aim of Amendment 142 that Parliament should be empowered to determine the mandate for the Government to follow in the talks about the UK’s future relations with the EU Amendment 144 seeks to place a requirement on HMG to secure mutual recognition of professional qualifications. The Government have agreed to seek to protect the rights of EU citizens in the UK and UK nationals in the EU under the withdrawal agreement. This includes the continued recognition of professional qualifications. However, the withdrawal agreement is a draft agreement and still needs to be agreed with the EU 27 and then negotiated with the UK. The final withdrawal deal will make reference to the framework for our future relationship with the EU, which is why it is important that mutual recognition of professional qualifications, which I will refer to as MRPQ, is included. The amendment is about bringing more certainty to British and EU citizens, to businesses and to services about how they can operate in future I should like to outline why MRPQ is important to a range of professions and what the consequences would be for those professions if we did not have an agreement in place. The professional business sector generates a huge amount of wealth and jobs for both the UK and the EU, and the current system of mutual recognition of professional qualifications within the sector allows for a great deal of flexibility and freedom. For example, an architect who studied and qualified in France can work on a project in Rome and then establish his own practice in Birmingham. Lawyers who qualified in the UK can move between the UK and Belgium, providing advice to clients in Brussels on both English corporate and finance law and EU competition law, and there is no need for these individuals to prove that their qualifications meet local standards. UK auditors can take part in audits in other member states, although they cannot sign off an audit report in that state unless they have taken an additional aptitude test.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Agriculture
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, since this is my noble friend’s last speech in Committee on the Bill and as we are so distressed at the thought of not getting his further advice on our procedures, has he detected any advantage whatever, on any substantial issue relating to food protection or standards, from us leaving the European Union?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Agriculture
Jeffrey Rooker (Labour, Centre-left): The short answer to that is no. I will give the evidence as my final point. In 2013, the coalition Government set up the balance of competences review of 32 areas of government. At the time I chaired the Food Standards Agency, a non-ministerial department, so I was part of the coalition in a way. It was a bit of shock when I turned up to a Cabinet sub-committee one day. There was a separate review on animal health and food safety. We consulted and did a lot of research work. As I said, people thought that the EU does not do much and that they were not very secure. We consulted widely on food standards and safety. The balance of views from the Food Standards Agency and Defra—it was a joint report in the end—was that we were better off being in this system of regulations. I am a Brussels sceptic but I believe that, on balance, UK customers are better protected in terms of food and feed in this system. I have not spent much time on feed, but it is the Achilles heel of all this. But the short answer to my noble friend is no. The balance of competences review, which can be found in the Library, is there for everybody to read. We have been through all this before I will finish on this point. What happened to the 32 reports on the balance of competences? They were buried, because they all came out with roughly the same idea: by and large we are better off being in the EU arguing our case than being out. So we never heard any more about them until we had the barmy idea to have a referendum.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: International Affairs
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Monks said, we in Parliament appear at the moment to be mere spectators, highly dependent on the Government to negotiate on our behalf—indeed, on behalf of future generations—an agreement with the EU as to how we withdraw from nearly half a century of membership and, more seriously, how we work with and alongside the EU in the decades to come: the canvas, or the mandate, in the words of my noble friend Lord Lea It is to this latter task that Amendment 144 and its amendments draw our attention. At the moment, the Government are telling us nothing as to the shape of the agreement they wish to reach. "Deep"? "Bespoke"? Those words tell us nothing. What does it mean in regard to family law; our highly profitable creative industries; the protection of consumers, especially in food safety or transport—those trains, planes and ships that carry people and goods from here to there every hour of the day? How does it affect our artistic, sporting and other professionals, who are currently able to work across the EU, representing British companies or citizens, competing, performing or conducting architectural, veterinary or scientific work across that enormous market, or undertaking accounting or auditing work for multinationals? Indeed, a whole range of jobs are currently undertaken day by day by virtue of the IP agreements, broadcasting licensing or the mutual recognition of qualifications, which my noble friend Lord Brooke set out so clearly. Negotiations are needed on those areas.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Agriculture
Jeffrey Rooker (Labour, Centre-left): Is it possible to have an answer to the only question that I asked? Are we going to stay a member of the rapid alert food and feed system? If we do not, we are in real trouble. I cannot see the arrangements for that—nobody ever talks about it—but it is pretty crucial. Are we going to stay in that system?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Government Operations
Jeffrey Rooker (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister accept that it is not an agency? Get briefed. Have a look at the annual report of RASFF. It is a 24/7 system that is incredibly simple. That is why it works. We are either in it to give notifications or to receive notifications. You cannot be half in and half out. I should have thought this was non-negotiable, to be honest.