argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Covid-19: Economy — House of Lords, 2020-06-04
Topic: Macroeconomics
Thomas Lyttelton (Labour, Centre-left): I draw the attention of your Lordships to my entries in the register of interests. I am from the Zhou Enlai school of analysis in thinking that it is too early to make a considered judgment of the economic lessons to be learned from the Covid-19 pandemic. However, it is not too early to suggest a few likely strands First, multilateralism is better than going it alone, and the Government have shown in their approach to vaccine and drug development that they are capable of acting multilaterally. That lesson should guide our economic strategy too. Secondly, "Keynes rules OK", as a 1970s graffiti artist might have written—perhaps it was the noble Lord, Lord Russell. The Chancellor’s constructive response to the crisis demonstrates how misguided the previous coalition and Conservative Governments were in pursuing the policy of wholesale public expenditure cuts—another lesson that must not be ignored in the years to come, or the recovery will be elusive Thirdly, just-in-time supply chain and inventory management is totally unsuitable for the NHS, whether or not it is an acceptable risk for commercial manufacturing. The economy needs greater redundancy in the engineering sense in order to lessen redundancies in the employment sense Finally, the catastrophe in the social care system and the broader exacerbation of inequality resulting from the pandemic point to the urgent need to improve the position of those on lower incomes. Wages and salaries have fallen from 70% of GDP in the 1970s to under 60% now. In an era of unprecedentedly low, risk-free interest rates, the providers of capital can afford to see a rebalancing of the returns, to be divided between themselves and the providers of labour. Employers, trade unions and government, through regulation, all have a role to play in achieving this.
Covid-19: Economy — House of Lords, 2020-06-04
Topic: Macroeconomics
John Davies (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the first thing that we need to do in a situation of this kind is to make sure that we do not deceive ourselves about the reality that we face. This recession will be twice as deep as the one in 2008-09, which followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and I think that it will go on for a great deal longer, quite simply because a high proportion of our fellow citizens have lost earnings, jobs, businesses and capital. Their great concern for a number of years will be trying to build up again their savings and net worth, of which they have felt reasonably secure in the past. That means that consumption spending will be very restrained. I am afraid that it is unrealistic to expect the state simply to step in and replace that Even as we have this debate, we are passing the grim milestone of a public debt to GDP ratio of 100%. Earlier in the debate, the noble Lords, Lord Horam and Lord Darling, reminded us that we had even higher levels of debt after the Second World War. What they did not mention is that we got out of that through inflation in the 1950s, the 1960s and, in particular, the 1970s. I do not think that they are recommending that solution this time, but that was how we managed to erode the value of that debt. If we had not run it through inflation, I am not sure how we would have done so We also have the problem that general taxation—that is, if we increase taxes while deep in recession—will make the situation worse. That makes life difficult. We also have a troubling background of a failure of productivity in this country, which makes our economy’s long-term prospects not very rosy This is, therefore, a time for radical suggestions. Let me make two. The Bank of England should start to reissue consols, which were once the basis of public sector funding. Now is the time to do that, while interest rates are low. Secondly, now is the time to take the National Health Service out of the structure of public spending and taxation. We need to spend more money on the health service, not less, and we cannot do that if it is constrained in the straitjacket of public spending policy. We should do what the continentals have done. We should set up a national commission or, like the Germans, we should have non-profit-making health insurance companies fund it. Money would still need to be raised but it would be a health insurance premium, not a tax.
Covid-19: Economy — House of Lords, 2020-06-04
Topic: Macroeconomics
Janet Alison Whitaker (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I have three questions for the Minister about the measures we need to adopt. They go beyond the consequences of Covid-19 to use the opportunities it offers. First and most importantly, how will Her Majesty’s Government direct their economic advisers to address the climate emergency? How will they get to the position that all economic analysts model and forecast through the prism of mitigation of or adaptation to climate change? How can we bring in externalities from outside Secondly, how will economic analysis be framed to prioritise well-being? I follow the authors of The Spirit Level in asking economists to pay more attention to non-monetary elements of inequality, such as health, social problems and access to amenities, in the economy. They demonstrate that equality is conducive to a thriving economy. To those who say that some public goods cannot be priced and are outside the province of economics—literally invaluable—I point out that there have been ways of considering how we should compute values outside the cash economy at least since Mandeville’s The Fable of the Bees in 1723 Thirdly, how will the Government ensure that citizens are party to economic environmental decisions? In this connection, will the Government now join the 88 nations which have ratified the Aarhus convention, which our former membership of the EU entitles us to do? We have experienced a high degree of public mistrust in political action. We need to repair this democratic deficit How should economic approaches adapt to the new world we shall find ourselves in so that we can use the opportunity to make it better?
Covid-19: Economy — House of Lords, 2020-06-04
Topic: Macroeconomics
Simon Haskel (Labour, Centre-left): Noble Lords are right: the pandemic has clearly shown how the economy does not work for everyone and lacks resilience. Take the resilience of care homes. The largest group has a complex offshore ownership that receives excessive related-party payments, resulting in a debt level of £56,000 per resident. With the declining occupancy due to excess deaths, they are looking for rescue. Empty beds do not pay interest Similarly, as a result of non-payments and their excessive debt, some cut-price electricity suppliers have raised the possibility of groups of customers being cut off unless the regulator steps in with money. Their lack of resilience is a danger to us all I do not know what the Government are going to do, but as a condition will they introduce and accelerate a new industrial strategy to help deal with this—one based on purpose? I put it to the Minister that the Government would be pushing at an open door. Before the pandemic this idea was well developed, with institutions as diverse as BlackRock and the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum calling for it. We need a purpose that calls on companies to behave responsibly in employment, investment, risk, environment, taxation, training and research Will the Government use this opportunity to remove the risks I spoke of and stimulate a more purposeful economy that would create the fairer and more equal economy that many noble Lords have called for?
Covid-19: Economy — House of Lords, 2020-06-04
Topic: Labor
John Hendy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Eatwell for this debate and his superb opening speech. The Covid crisis has revealed the wholesale failure of workplace law to protect workers. The plain and unambiguous requirements of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 and the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 have been flouted by many employers, not just in the NHS and this week in the House of Commons. The failure to enforce these laws is a disgrace and a tragedy. It is an affront to the rule of law Labour laws have also failed to ensure a decent income. We now realise how appallingly paid are our key workers, doctors excepted. The laws that should protect, do not. The gender pay gap remains at 17.3%. Some 25% of those entitled to the minimum wage are paid less than it. Statutory sick pay is a mere £95.85 a week. The wage share of GDP has fallen from 65.1% in 1976 to 49.2% in 2019. Some 9 million people live in poverty in a household in which at least one person is in paid work. Sir Michael Marmot reminded us that inequality of income means inequality of health and life expectancy. This week’s Public Health England report brings that fact starkly home in relation to coronavirus We need a whole new transformation of our labour laws, in which the voice of the workers must be heard. Above all, we need the reinstitution of sectoral collective bargaining, which was the way out of the crises after the First World War, the great depression and the Second World War.
Covid-19: Aviation — House of Lords, 2020-06-04
Topic: Transportation
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I declare my interest as a British Airways pensioner. Aviation is a key industry in this country, contributing £22 billion a year to the economy and sustaining 230,000 jobs across the sector and the wider supply chain. As the former Prime Minister herself stressed yesterday, the sector is just as important in terms of our global ambitions. Airlines and airport operators will need support, but that support should meet several conditions. They must protect jobs, salaries and workers’ rights, take steps to tackle climate change, maintain their tax base in the UK, not pay dividends until doing so is liable, and fully comply with consumer law, particularly in relation to refunds. Does the Minister agree with these conditions? If not, why not?
Covid-19: Aviation — House of Lords, 2020-06-04
Topic: Transportation
Alan William John West (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, with an estimated 16,000 of the world’s commercial aircraft grounded and stored, airlines are doing whatever they can to cancel orders and delay the delivery of ordered aircraft. Some airlines are falling into administration. Many older aircraft have been placed in store and are unlikely ever to be able to be flown again. Commercial aircraft and engine manufacturers, along with those engaged in important supply chains, have been forced to act to ensure survival. How can we ensure a healthy and fit-for-purpose aviation industry, which will be crucial for economic recovery and hoped-for growth? Have our experts made any prediction that the Government are using for planning purposes of when the recovery of airline usage will occur and when, if ever, it will return to current levels? Will Project Birch provide similar support for our aviation industry as that being provided by the US Government and the Dutch and German Governments for their national airlines?
Covid-19: UK Border Health Measures — House of Lords, 2020-06-04
Topic: Education
David Blunkett (Labour, Centre-left): I draw attention to my declaration. It is not my intention to shoot the messenger—I both respect and like the noble Baroness—but perhaps she can pass on the strength of feeling in this House, and a very simple message. If the signal you are sending damages your higher education, business and trade, travel and hospitality, and is seen universally as irrational and unworkable, is it not time to stop digging?
EU Exit: End of Transition Period — House of Lords, 2020-07-15
Topic: Agriculture
Jeffrey Rooker (Labour, Centre-left): What preparation has been made for 1 January 2021, when the UK will be out of RASFF, the rapid alert system for food and feed? Only EU members and EEA states, along with Switzerland, can receive the alerts—up to 10 a day in real time on major safety issues. What is the Government’s plan? The system started in only 1979, so there is nothing from the past to fall back on.
EU Exit: End of Transition Period — House of Lords, 2020-07-15
Topic: International Affairs
Anthony Young (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the EU Environment Sub-Committee. We have recently had a number of meetings with Northern Ireland stakeholders, and I am going to refer to a letter we received recently from the Northern Ireland Assembly, raising a number of concerns. I will be brief, but if the Minister cannot deal with all of them, I would appreciate a response in writing On EU approval of ports and airports as border control posts, the committee is aware of the need for ports and airports to submit detailed applications to the EU in order to be designated as border control posts. These are needed to check goods arriving from the GB’s jurisdiction. So, the worry is the amount of time that is going to take and whether the Government feel confident about that being dealt with. Designation of goods at risk is another concern, but I am going to focus on the volume of work to be carried out by departments, committees and the Assembly. The committee has been briefed by the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs and his officials on the volume of work required to implement the protocol by the end of the transition period. The department has shared information on what it considers necessary to deliver a minimum viable product by 31 December. Much of that MVP will require legislation being made in the Northern Ireland Assembly alongside UK government departments. Can the Minister be confident there is enough time for this to be done by 31 December, that the lines of communication with the stakeholders in Northern Ireland are open and ready for action, and that the document due later this month will deal with many of these issues?
EU Exit: End of Transition Period — House of Lords, 2020-07-15
Topic: Transportation
Alfred Dubs (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, could the Minister clarify his reference to lorry parks, especially in Kent? There is great local concern there. Will he confirm that if there is to be a lorry park in Ashford it will be only temporary? More specifically, what have the Government worked out as the likely time it will take to clear an HGV arriving in Dover, either at the Port of Dover or in a car park nearby, under the new arrangements that will come fully into force in July?
Enterprise Act 2002 (Specification of Additional Section 58 Consideration) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-07-15
Topic: Technology
John Reid (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, there is obviously a heavy element here of trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted. Indeed, both horses have bolted: the Covid pandemic and the cybersecurity issue. But the problem is that even now the stable door has not yet been closed effectively. The new grounds on which the Secretary of State might intervene in mergers are short-term measures until more fundamental reform is taken forward through the National Security and Investment Bill, as the Minister said. But we do not know what is going to be in that Bill, so it is very difficult to judge these changes. As the SL committee says, the House will be able to scrutinise the issue properly only when the Bill is being considered. Incidentally, the committee also asked the department to give a timetable for the introduction of the Bill without delay. The Minister missed that point, and I am not aware that any such timetable has been provided or published Secondly, if the Bill that is to come before us is based on the 2018 White Paper, this raises a number of other issues of concern. Are these proposed measures really temporary or are they permanent? Will the Bill unwind these and other recent changes to jurisdictional thresholds made in 2018? Will the new regime be mandatory or, as the White Paper suggested, based on a voluntary notification system? Will there be a turnover or market share threshold applied? I regret that none of these questions has really been answered today. I would very much like to welcome these measures, but I think that the House has been left in a very unsatisfactory position.
Enterprise Act 2002 (Specification of Additional Section 58 Consideration) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-07-15
Topic: Government Operations
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank all speakers who have participated in this debate. It may have been rapid fire and we have had to cover a lot of ground individually but some very good points were made, several of which were noted and responded to by the Minister We had several contributions on the need for early sight of, and time to debate, the forthcoming Bill. In particular, my noble friend Lord Reid worried about the inclusion of temporary measures within permanent legislation, something that was also picked up by the noble Lord, Lord German. Other noble Lords raised other issues which ought to be considered in the forthcoming Bill. The noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, raised the need for lower limit for turnover; this was not welcomed by the Minister but I think the noble Earl made a very good point. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, made a point that I support entirely on the need to revisit media takeovers; as the last experience shows, there was time for this part of the statute to be reviewed My noble friends Lord Adonis, Lord Liddle and Lord Kennedy raised concerns about the CMA as it goes through the transition to a new chair. Perhaps the Minister could write—more fully than he was able to do when he responded—about some of the more detailed questions Four issues were raised by my regret Motion. The first was the difficulty of securing scrutiny without sight of the national security and investment Bill—the Minister has said in response that this is a top priority, but we do not have a date; the best we have is that it will be with us "in due course". I take that as a failure to get anything out of that. We have not seen much of the content of the Bill, even though the Minister has agreed that things have changed since 2018 so we can imagine that there will be some adjustments; so, I failed to get anything out of him on that. On the question of whether there should be pre-legislative scrutiny, perhaps he could write to us. I really cannot see the case for not having that in play; it would seem to give the Government a chance to see the sorts of responses to this type of legislation that are necessary without having to make a final commitment; this has always proved useful in the past. Finally, on my fourth point about the role of consumers within the process, all we know is that the new chairman of the CMA is being appointed; there were no answers to the specific questions that I raised So, we have not got answers to the regret Motion as tabled, but we have had a very good debate. I think we can say that we have responded well to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s request that this issue be drawn to the attention of the House. It certainly has been.
Direct Payments to Farmers (Crop Diversification Derogation) (England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-06-02
Topic: Agriculture
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to this SI. It is of course a welcome move and we support the intent behind it. The fact is that the three-crop rule has always been seen as a rather clumsy way to achieve greater environmental benefits across the European common agricultural community. It did not always fit with obvious best farming practice. As the Minister said, this has been an unprecedented winter and spring, in which it felt that it would literally never stop raining, but the roots of this problem go back to last autumn. Even then, farmers were calling out for assistance. So what took the Minister so long, and why did the Secretary of State say at the NFU conference that he was not prepared to help on this issue This derogation is being introduced specifically in response to flooding, as it has in the past, but we know that flooding and drought are becoming much more regular as we struggle to adapt to the climate change emergency. Could this derogation have a wider application? Will it also cover some of the current Covid-19 impacts, for example the potential loss of seasonal workers to harvest crops or the loss of market access, such as that experienced by the dairy sector There are obviously wider questions about going forward as we leave the EU and the Agriculture Bill comes on stream. Is it intended that a UK version of the three-crop rule will be part of the environmental land management schemes and, if not, how will we replicate the environmental benefit that our membership of the CAP was meant to deliver? What mechanisms does the Minister envisage will be in place to support farmers facing extreme weather conditions in the future? I look forward to his response.
Direct Payments to Farmers (Crop Diversification Derogation) (England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-06-02
Topic: Agriculture
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I accept the case for this derogation and thank the Minister for introducing it so clearly. However, I would like to ask him some questions I was a great supporter of the CAP reforms of 2013, which introduced environmental and sustainability conditions into the single farm payment. It covered permanent grassland, ecologically focused areas such as field margins and the three-crop rule to prevent monocultures taking root in Europe. When Michael Gove became Secretary of State for Defra, he made a great thing of how the Government’s intention was to be more environmental and sustainable, and that the rules would be changed to reflect that. This measure is of course temporary, but it is a retreat from that objective. I would like to be clear that the Government see this as a temporary and not a permanent thing. With what do they intend to replace the three-crop rule to achieve the objectives of that rule I am also concerned about what the future will hold as a result of a UK-United States trade agreement. Will that not give incentives to arable farmers to go in for more monoculture in order to stay competitive? That is a worry, so I would be grateful if the Minister would answer these points.