argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-04-25
Topic: Transportation
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, Amendments 14 and 20 reinstate the original provisions of the Bill which prohibit local authorities establishing companies for the purpose of operating local bus services. The role of municipal bus companies has received a good deal of debate in your Lordships’ House and the other place. There are a few fundamental points worth making. First, we all agree that there are some very good municipal bus companies, such as Reading Buses and Nottingham City Transport. They deliver a high standard of service, and I expect they will continue to do so. Let me assure noble Lords that their ability to operate will not be affected by this provision. However, very few municipal bus companies remain, with many having been sold to some of our more successful private bus companies—for example, in February, Thamesdown Transport in Swindon was bought by the Go-Ahead Group after many years of making a loss—so I do not think this amendment is likely to impact on the plans of many, if any, local authorities. The Bill is all about improving services for passengers, and authorities should now start thinking about utilising the knowledge and skills of existing bus companies to get the best results. This amendment ensures that we get the balance right between local authority influence and private sector delivery in order to ensure both are incentivised to deliver the best services for the benefit of passengers I hope that noble Lords will understand that, because of the importance of this balance to the overall Bill, our view remains that passengers will see most benefit where the commissioning and provision of bus services are kept separate, and we do not think that authorities should be able to set up new bus companies. I hope that noble Lords will agree these amendments will enable the important business of the implementation of the measures contained in this Bill, which we all acknowledge to be important, to begin so benefits to bus services and, more importantly, bus passengers can start to be delivered on the ground. I beg to move.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-04-25
Topic: Transportation
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, first, I again thank both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their contributions. I accept of course that there was great strength of feeling on this issue as it passed through your Lordships’ House, but clearly, when you have a Bill with wide application, there will be areas of disagreement between government and opposition parties. On this issue, as I have already stated, the Government have acknowledged and indeed accepted the important role that existing municipal bus companies play, and that will continue to be the case. However, this Bill is designed to enable bus operators and authorities to work constructively together to deliver better services for passengers, and it is the Government’s belief that the creation of further municipal bus companies would actually significantly stifle competition, particularly in terms of private sector investment in buses. Although we accept noble Lords’ sentiments on this, the Government maintain their position.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-04-25
Topic: Transportation
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I take this opportunity once again to thank all noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, alongside my noble friend Lord Younger for their support during the passage of the Bill. I thank other noble Lords too; while we may not have agreed on everything, I think we agree on the principle of the importance of getting the Bill through because it is important for improving bus services for passengers across the piece. I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 15 to 23.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Lords, 2017-04-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
James Peter Hymers Mackay (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I support these amendments. I first came across unexplained wealth orders in Inland Revenue fraud proceedings where people had been accused of not paying their income tax. One of the methods of revealing that is by demonstrating that they suddenly have more wealth than their Revenue account suggests. Therefore, there is a question about whether the assets came from taxable income. That was the presumption at that time. That was before the terrific expansion of other forms of unexplained wealth that could arise. The explanation that someone had done something unlawful would not be a particularly good answer to a tax inquiry but perhaps that was not thought of. Certainly, that was a very useful tool in the armoury of the Inland Revenue in days past and is still so today. It is a very valuable method of dealing with this trouble. I find it very hard, however, to understand what is meant by purported compliance. As has just been said, it seems to me that you either comply or you do not. I must say that the explanation given in the draft practice system does not enlighten me any further. It suggests, indeed, that purported compliance covers certain aspects of non-compliance. It is a difficult definition to put in. I would have thought the measure would be better without it I raise questions with regard to the register. It is required to be done within six months of the passing of the Act. However, the commencement provisions of the Act allow the Act to come into force in accordance with regulations or orders made by the Secretary of State. I assume that the passing of the Act in this amendment is intended to refer to its getting Royal Assent. Strictly speaking, however, the Act comes into force only in accordance with orders made by the Secretary of State under the commencement provisions except in relation to certain aspects of that.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Lords, 2017-04-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Faulks (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 24 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts in this group. It concerns the setting up of a public register of beneficial ownership of UK property by companies and other legal entities registered outside the UK. Those are more or less the words that are the subject of a call for evidence issued by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in April this year. I do not know but I assume that the Home Office did a great deal to bring forward the publication of that report in the light of the debates which took place in Committee about the concern that was generally expressed about corruption and the acquisition of property in central London by overseas companies hiding behind anonymity The establishment of a public register was indeed a commitment made by the Government. Why do we need a register of this sort? I can do no better than quote briefly from the call for evidence, which says, "the government is concerned about the potential for illegal activity to take place through overseas companies investing in the property sector. Some properties are owned through off-shore companies in order to obscure their true owners. This can make it difficult for regulators, legitimate businesses and the general public to know who the true owners are and can make it very difficult for law enforcement agencies to carry out effective investigations … Greater transparency of property ownership will make the job … easier and will discourage criminals and the corrupt from choosing the UK to hide or launder their money" It is made quite clear that the Government intend to introduce a register of beneficial owners of overseas companies but, as it is a call for evidence, it does not seek to prescribe the nature of that register but calls for advice and information to assist it in formulating the register. It may well be influenced by what the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, said about verification to make any such register particularly useful The amendment in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Hodgson simply asks the Government to do that and make it a part of the Bill. If we do not, there is real feeling that there will not be legislative time even in the Parliament that may start in June. I ask the Minister to reassure us that the register will be set up in short order.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Lords, 2017-04-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, we now come to a group of government amendments relating to improvements to the operation of Chapter 2 of Part 1 of the Bill. I hope the House will agree that these are technical and uncontroversial. Clause 9 permits extensions to the moratorium period for suspicious activity reports, and Clause 11 allows the National Crime Agency to apply for a further information order. These powers will be available in all the UK jurisdictions. However, we have consulted the Scottish Government, who have confirmed that the wording in the Bill does not accurately reflect the common-law position in Scotland, which recognises the role of the Procurator Fiscal in directing criminal investigations. Amendments 9, 11 and 12 reflect that principle in Scotland so that the moratorium extension and further information orders should be applied for only by the Procurator Fiscal Clause 10 permits, on a voluntary basis, the sharing of information between regulated-sector entities for the purpose of tackling money laundering. This currently allows those entities up to 28 days to share information following an initial notification and to provide a report to the NCA. Following further discussions with the regulated sector, we have concluded that more time is needed to ensure more effective sharing in complex cases, where numerous banks, for example, may hold relevant information. Amendment 10 increases this time limit to 84 days, which will still maintain a proportionate limit on how long these companies have to share information Finally, Amendment 49 amends POCA to ensure that extensions to the moratorium period and further information orders that are issued in one jurisdiction in the UK, such as Scotland or Northern Ireland, will be recognised in the others. I beg to move.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Lords, 2017-04-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Robin Granville Hodgson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the noble and learned Baroness for that intervention, but I can glide this down to third man, if I may use a cricketing analogy, because this is a government proposal. The Government are proposing to set up this new body, so I am sure my noble friend, when she comes to wind up, will have all the detail of how this body will work. I merely wish to ensure that it is sent down the right channels. I know that my noble friend, with her usual aplomb and ability, will deal with that by stroking it effortlessly to the boundary, if I may continue the cricketing analogy It is important to do some serious re-engineering of the general approach to money laundering to increase its effectiveness and public confidence in it. That the National Crime Agency can, in its annual report, trumpet the fact that SARs went up by 7.82% over the last year as a badge of success without any reference to the impact it is having, shows that there is much to do. I beg to move.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Lords, 2017-04-25
Topic: Government Operations
Robin Granville Hodgson (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, for her helpful intervention and my noble friend for her very full response. There is a really serious issue here that needs to be tackled. It is not just about bureaucracy and cost, but about unnecessary interference with people’s lives. Increasingly, it is also about damage to this country’s reputation as a place where you can get clarity. The question will be whether the new body can bring focus. The proof of that pudding will be in the eating. We shall have to wait to see whether it happens. My noble friend encouraged me to make my views known to the review. She need not worry; I have not missed that opportunity. I have written a letter already, so it has my views. We will have to see how it develops, but it will require vigilance, focus and care by the FCA to improve the regime, which is currently not working as well as it should. With that, to continue the cricket analogy, I will return to the pavilion and withdraw the amendment.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-07
Topic: International Affairs
Archibald Gavin Hamilton (Conservative, Centre-right): If all our European neighbours are shaking their heads and wondering why we are leaving, why then should they give us a good deal when they know that it might be overturned by a referendum and the UK might stay in the EU? Therefore, they would have no incentive to give us a good deal at all.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-07
Topic: International Affairs
Patience Wheatcroft (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have no wish to get involved in Liberal Democrat internecine warfare but I put my name to this amendment and I support many of the speeches that have been made in support of it My noble friend the Minister has done a very skilful job in getting the Bill to this stage in this House, but in Committee he told us to be in no doubt that this country was leaving the EU—no ifs, no buts, and with no idea of the terms. I admire determination but not when it is blind to changing circumstances. I cannot see why any Government would be so adamant about a course of action with no knowledge of the circumstances in which they might take that course We do not know what the world will look like in two years’ time. Economically and politically it is at some of the most uncertain stages that I have ever seen in my lifetime. In two years’ time, the EU, the world and our economy could look very different—and, I suspect, not for the better. At that stage, we will be able to look at the deal that our Government have negotiated or, as others have pointed out, at the no deal that they have been handed. Although I am not an advocate of government by referenda, in this situation, having started the process with a referendum, as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, pointed out, it seems to me that the only sensible way to bring the process to an end is to put the terms to the public. I have listened to the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and I do not dismiss the patronising advice that he gave the Liberal Democrats or those supporting this amendment, but I believe that the public need to see what is on offer During the course of this Bill, we have heard that, whatever people voted for on 23 June last year, it was not to get poorer. I cannot see that in the end the Government will be presenting them with a deal which does not mean that they get poorer. I believe that at that stage they should have a chance to vote on whether, having seen the future, it is the future that they really want.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-07
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I agree entirely with the noble Baroness that referendums are a bad idea, and I am surprised that everyone else in the Chamber does not agree, especially those on the Liberal Democrat Benches Nevertheless, we had a referendum and, as the most reverend Primate said, it was a binary choice: yes or no. People knew what they were voting for, and they voted to leave the EU. It is unbecoming and, if I may say so, patronising of people to attribute to the individuals of this nation the reasons for how they voted. Personally, in 1975 I voted to stay in and some 40 years later, with my experience of the EU, I voted to take back control of this country and put it in the hands of the British people. That is what I have done, and that is what I suspect that most people are expecting from us. It is patronising to suggest that people did not know what they were voting for The logic to which the noble Lord, Lord Newby, referred is this: what would happen if in a second referendum the people of this country rejected the Government’s negotiating position? No one has an answer to that, so I would say that there must be a third referendum, but I would not particularly want to get into that Finally, perhaps I may direct my friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches—I count them as friends and I hope that they count me as a friend from time to time—to an article published in the Times yesterday by a man called Edward Lucas, who outed himself as a Liberal Democrat—I did not realise he was until then—which suggested that this is part of reinvigorating the fortunes of the Liberal Democrats. I would say the contrary. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, suggested that there might be corrosive and justifiable anger, but the great British people have had their referendum and they do not want another one. So we should just ignore this amendment and carry on.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-07
Topic: International Affairs
Archibald Gavin Hamilton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, there are two scenarios vis-à-vis the attitude of the EU towards our leaving it. One is that it will be absolutely delighted that we are going. A thorn will have come out of its side once the UK has departed and it will be able to proceed with the federal dream it has always had. Therefore, it will want to quickly get on with an agreement and say goodbye to us. The other scenario is that the EU will regard the UK leaving as a hole in the head. As the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, said, it will present it with an enormous budgetary problem. It will probably be contagious and will lead to other countries in the EU wanting to leave as well. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, says that we must trust the EU. Well, hold on. The people who run the EU are not renowned for being overtly democratic. Let us face it: they put the whole objective of the federal dream above all else. Therefore, they will say that we must go to any lengths that we possibly can to ensure that the United Kingdom stays in the EU How do you do that? You offer the most appalling deal known to man. Then, knowing that there is going to be a referendum, if this amendment is passed, you can confidently reckon that the British people will vote against that deal and the United Kingdom will stay in the EU. Does that not completely undermine the Government’s negotiating position once Article 50 has been triggered? This amendment should be opposed absolutely ruthlessly.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-07
Topic: International Affairs
Alastair Cooke (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, my simple point is this. Parliament will pronounce for or against the results of the Government’s negotiations to withdraw from the European Union in due course. It may possibly be that in 2019 or whenever the negotiations are completed, Parliament will feel that it would be wise to test the opinion of the country through another referendum, but that should be determined at that final stage and in those circumstances, not now. It would be wholly contrary to our constitution and traditions to make a binding provision for another referendum at this early point.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-07
Topic: International Affairs
Edward Faulks (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I do not think I am a frog or a lemming, but I was one of the Ministers at the Dispatch Box when we took the European Union Referendum Bill through this House and I think we should have regard to what we decided in Parliament in that Act. A number of amendments were tabled but, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, there was no amendment about thresholds, no amendment to nuance the simple question that was posed, no amendment to say that we would only leave if we stayed within the single market, and, in particular, no amendment saying that there would be a second referendum. Why not? Was it because the alternatives were too complicated? There were only two outcomes of the referendum: either we remained or we left. Was it political negligence by parliamentarians not to table these amendments, or were they content with the Bill and its binary question We are having this debate contrary to what was generally considered to be the law, which was that it was the right of the Government, exercising the royal prerogative—
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-07
Topic: International Affairs
Edward Faulks (Conservative, Centre-right): I find that remarkably unpersuasive As a result of the decision of the people, most thought that there was a power for the Government to negotiate and do the best deal possible. We then had the Gina Miller case, but there is nothing in the Supreme Court judgment, in my view, which either expressly or impliedly endorses the amendment advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Newby This is opportunism motivated by the perfectly understandable view, which I share, that we should not have voted to leave the EU. However, if we vote for this amendment, we will be ignoring what we decided in the European Union Referendum Act, we will be ignoring the vote and we will be ignoring the House of Commons. It is time for a little constitutional modesty on our part.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-07
Topic: International Affairs
James Bridges (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the Conservative Party manifesto made it absolutely clear that we would respect the outcome, a position that the noble Lord himself took on the night of the referendum. It is absolutely our intention that the Government will deliver on the results of the referendum. I know that the noble Lord is spending Lent eating his own words, but I am sorry to say that he is wrong on this point Then there are the consequences of such a referendum. Would it bring certainty? Will businesses clap their hands with glee at the thought of a referendum some years off, the basis on which it would be held unclear, but the consequences of which could be to throw the entire negotiated settlement up in the air? We know the answer. As I have said, the Institute of Directors have called for: "A commitment across all major political parties … not to undertake a second referendum on either EU membership or the Brexit deal to reduce uncertainty" What would happen, even after all this, if the result of the second referendum is still to leave? As some noble Lords have pointed out, would we once again be subjected to people saying, "Actually, we don’t like this answer. Please try again"? Where does it end? Will we continue to hold the same referendum until we get the result that those who support this amendment prefer?