argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-30
Topic: Social Welfare
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Rosser very much for moving this crucial amendment in such a powerful and forceful way. I should declare an interest because my grandson, who is very close to me, took the opportunity of the longer summer break for schools after the public examinations to go and work on the front line in a care home. He is intelligent, perceptive and caring, so I learned a great deal from what he told me What troubles me in our considerations is this: just how many of us would have thought of using some of our available time working in a care home? Would the noble Lord, Lord Horam, for example? We expect all sorts of other people to do it but we are not prepared to commit ourselves. Of course, this is also coupled with the extraordinary way in which we are so sentimental about workers in the care sector. We clap our hands and celebrate—I have done it—but where is the recognisable esteem in which we hold these people? We all know that they are grotesquely underpaid. We talk about them and how we will find sufficient numbers and all the rest of it; perhaps we should have at the top of our list proper remuneration for this highly demanding work A lot has been said about workers from outside Britain. It was quite insensitive because some of the most dedicated, loving care for those with serious conditions has come from those workers. Why can we not talk about them as people—fellow members of the human race—rather than as immigrants The amendment is important because we all know that the past summer—goodness knows what will happen this winter—has demonstrated an interesting contradiction. On the one hand, dedicated staff, against all the odds, have been doing their best in so many places to help those in great need, while we have failed to accord proper status in our social order to the people doing such work. It is surely because we have become a society in which success is regarded as a matter of how much money you make and how quickly you make it, rather than a society in which care, support and service to the community are regarded as of the highest order and significance. We have had a terrible crisis in the care sector this past year. May it not be repeated. Let us look at some of the underlying issues and put them right at once. The amendment will help us to introduce the necessary disciplines if we are to approach issues of this kind.
Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-30
Topic: Government Operations
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for introducing this group of amendments, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for his powerful intervention on behalf of the Constitution Committee. If we take our committee system seriously, we should take very seriously indeed the unanimous view of the Constitution Committee on such crucial issues I am afraid that what we have before us is another example of what I think is a deliberate confusion. Tremendous emphasis was made at the time of the referendum that the case for Brexit was to take power back. What on earth does that mean in a representative democracy? It means giving strengthened powers to a democratic political system—parliamentary democracy. Are we a parliamentary democracy, or are we not? The powers that are envisaged in this legislation are too great and too wide; they are in need of very careful scrutiny I am glad that we have moved forward since Committee, because we previously talked about a 12-month curb on the powers but now we are talking about a six-month term, which is an altogether sensible and healthy development. I strongly support this group of amendments.
Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-30
Topic: Labor
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, Amendment 7, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, was discussed in Committee. I am all in favour of maximising opportunities for British workers to have employment and skilled employment. Good companies invest in their staff, and it makes good sense to do so. It is much more sensible, when possible, to recruit and train staff locally, for all the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, including the charges that employers incur when recruiting workers from abroad This amendment adds a test and a further layer of bureaucracy. For me, the case has not been made for why we should support it. Again, I find myself in agreement with the Minister and her position, as well as with the position of the MAC, which concluded that the likely bureaucratic cost would outweigh any economic benefit of bringing this test back in I should say that I have enormous respect for the noble Lord, Lord Horam. We are good friends; we served together for many years on the Electoral Commission. My only point about think tanks—and I am heavily involved in one—is that for some we are unclear about where their funding comes from. I am pleased that we now know that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, generously funded his own report. Sadly, of course, we do not know where the money of many of the think tanks that we refer to comes from. With all due respect, it is good of him to fund himself I do not think that the case has been made for this amendment in any sense, and I look forward to the Minister’s response. So far, I have heard nothing that could persuade me to support it.
Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-30
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, she tabled this amendment in Committee. It would prevent regulations that are made under Clause 4 being able to include any provisions that could be inconsistent with the withdrawal agreement. Its intention is to make sure that nothing can be done that undermines the rights of UK citizens in the EU and EU citizens here that were guaranteed under the withdrawal agreement. I await with interest to hear the response. I assume that the Minister will be able to provide adequate reassurance that rights in the withdrawal agreement are protected. There would certainly be an issue if the Government were not able to provide that reassurance.
Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-30
Topic: Social Welfare
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it is always a particular pleasure for me to support anything put forward in this context by my noble—and very good personal—friend Lord Dubs. As I have asked on other amendments, do we or do we not see the well-being of children as one of our high responsibilities in any future society that we want to become? How can it be in the interests of stability and security to have children who are semi-alienated by the situation in which they find themselves? That spells trouble for the future. However, it is not just about our security. It is about wanting to ensure that children who have been through God knows what—it is very difficult to imagine the traumas that they must have had—are given the certainty that they need, with the backing of local authorities. This is not just a technical matter. In requiring local authorities to play their part in this, we will be building up a culture in which the nation shares in this commitment to children.
EU Exit: Negotiations and the Joint Committee — House of Lords, 2020-10-21
Topic: International Affairs
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, what a mess we are in. Do the Government accept that they won a large parliamentary majority last December on the basis of an "oven-ready deal" that had two elements? A withdrawal agreement that ditched the Northern Ireland backstop and substituted a customs border in the Irish Sea was the proposal of the British Prime Minister, not the European Union. The second element was a political declaration that set out the terms of the future EU relationship, including clear commitments to a level playing field on state aid, workers’ rights and environmental standards. These inevitably represent constraints on independence. Is it not the case that if we end up with no deal, it is because the Government have gone back on those commitments made in December and put a price on sovereignty that will result in grave economic damage and increased political insecurity for the British people?
Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-21
Topic: Social Welfare
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for her response this afternoon and her agreement that an independent assessment would be undertaken. I endorse the remarks of my noble friend Lord Rosser. At the end of the day, whatever the worthy work of Skills for Care has been and whatever the recommendations made by the Migration Advisory Committee, we have a big problem with the social care sector in relation to the workforce challenges. The intention that, basically, most care workers cannot meet the criteria in the new health and care visa means that, from the beginning of next year, further pressure will be leant upon the sector Given that the sector is almost totally dependent either on government funding or on self-funders—who are already hugely overstretched because they sometimes pay more than £1,000 a week for their care—this will not be solved simply by saying that we can rely on the UK population. There will have to be an injection of resources; this is inescapable. In thanking the Minister, which I do very much, for her response this afternoon, I remind the House that the social care sector faces many huge challenges, and, in the end, the Government are going to have to come up with the necessary if we are going to get it out of the problems that it now faces.
Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the decisions taken by the other place on all these issues are most disappointing. I thought my noble friend Lord Dubs made a convincing case, but sadly it was not listened to in the other place, as is so often the case now. I hope the Government will take a constructive attitude in working with local authorities to protect vulnerable children. Many local authorities have considerable pressures on them in terms of looking after children in care, and I hope the noble Baroness will confirm that there is a positive attitude from the Government to address these concerns, even if they are not prepared to accept my noble friend’s amendment today I note the comment—the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, also made the point—that the other Motions in this group make reference to all these dangerous criminals who would potentially be released into the public. I think we have to accept that the people we are talking about here are vulnerable people, and that if there are people who are dangerous criminals, there are other procedures to deal with them. We should not be wrapping people up like that: these are vulnerable people who need our help and support. There is an issue about people being locked up in detention when they have done nothing wrong and not knowing when they will get their release date The noble Baroness may well say that they are normally released into the community. That is obviously really good news, but if you are locked up in a cell or in a detention centre and you do not know when you will be released, the fact that you will be released at some point in the future may not be a huge comfort to you. Again, we are not going to pursue these issues any further today, but the fact that the Government rely on those arguments underlines the weakness of their case in this respect. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said that we will return to these issues at a later date, but we will not be pressing any of them today.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-02
Topic: Government Operations
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): I think all speakers in these debates ought to get them. Unless, of course, it is a very private letter to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis—in which case we will leave that between the two of them—all noble Lords should see all the letters that arise from these debates When I started thinking about this group, I thought that there were two divergent views, but they are not as divergent as I thought. It looked as if some amendments wanted the OIM, which is an observatory rather than an office, to be almost part of BEIS, with little independence. Our view is to the contrary. Amendment 113 in my name, which is obviously probing, signals that the CMA should not be advising the department but using its powers to intervene as necessary. That did not mean that it should not send messages to the Secretary of State, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, did when, as its chair, he sought more powers for the CMA to intervene. He wanted a proper consumer duty adding to it. The amendment does not say that it should not advise the department but makes the point that it should not be subservient to it.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-02
Topic: Agriculture
John Morris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support Amendment 114, moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. It is right that we take the opportunity to look at the role and relationship of the Competition and Markets Authority and its relation to the Joint Ministerial Committee The single market is important to all of us. Perhaps I may give a practical example of smooth working, which is so essential. In the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, smooth working will ensure that our products are able to be sold in one part of the country and in any other. Nothing would distort that more than if access to the markets were limited. All my family are sheep farmers. They sell their products, produced in Wales—ram lambs, lambs and ewes—in markets in Carlisle and Exeter on a modest scale. It is important for them to ensure that they have easy access to all markets. That is the kind of practical example that we look at in the functioning of our future relationships.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-02
Topic: International Affairs
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it is always interesting to hear the reflections of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and I have a tremendous amount of sympathy with a great deal of what he said. However, I think he must come to understand—if I may put it this bluntly—that we have moved on and we are perhaps at a stage now where the future strength of our four nations working together will have to be rooted in an understanding of their separate identities and democratic systems, which complement our own I happen to believe that the road we should be exploring far more often is that of a federal United Kingdom. I hope that does not hurt the noble Lord; I feel that that is how our people can become strongly united in the way forward. In some ways, the determination to leave the European community has made this more urgent and important than ever. Our success as four nations depends upon our mutual co-operation and our recognition of interdependence Our debate this afternoon has been on a theme to which we have returned several times during the passage of this Bill, and it is crucial. We must have a situation in which the peoples of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England feel a sense of ownership in what is being done, and a genuine sense that it is being done on their behalf rather than being dependent on a dominating lead from England, and finding ways of talking to them to try to meet their needs in the best way possible. We simply have to make sure that there is common ownership of what is being done. That is why the amendment by my noble and respected friend Lady Hayter is so important and I am so glad to see it—although I am slightly intrigued by the groupings as I think it is closer to the perhaps more detailed Amendment 131 tabled by my noble friend Lord Stevenson. As we go forward, I am sure that we will fail if there is any feeling that there is not common ownership and agreement about the things that are being done. This will take time and effort because, as has already been said, it is not just an administrative matter but a trust-building matter. These amendments are desperately important, and I hope that the Government will take them seriously.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-02
Topic: Government Operations
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I rather regret that, early on in this debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned rugby. I would have thought that this was not the weekend for her to do it, but I am sure that it cheered up others in the House. It is hard to add much to the case so clearly set out by earlier speakers, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for covering the amendments in our names, so I do not need to go through them. I will just say that, yet again, the Bill bears testimony to the haste in which it was cobbled together. Perhaps even more serious was the lack of consultation and joint working with the devolved Administrations. How else was it possible to think it appropriate to give the OIM to a non-ministerial government department, accountable only to the UK Parliament through its sponsor department, BEIS, without a thought to the interests, the responsibility, the competences or the rights of the devolved authorities As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, said, whatever structure we end up with must surely have the confidence of all four nations. Indeed, he said that the appointees should have the experience and the expertise of the four constituent nations. That point was emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, who said that, particularly in the case of Northern Ireland, which will be working in a different regime from the others, it was absolutely essential to build in the requirement that someone with that expertise and knowledge was involved in the governance of this organisation Without these amendments, it would simply be the Secretary of State who had the power to appoint the chair and members of the CMA’s board and of its panel—the latter, of course, as we have heard, is responsible for operational and casework decisions. More than that, BEIS is a UK department, which gives the CMA a non-binding strategic "steer", as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, reminded us. Therefore, one Government of the four gives the CMA a steer with that Government’s strategic priorities, to which it is expected to have regard. Placing the OIM in the CMA to monitor the health of the internal market—apart from all the issues about whether it has any expertise to do so—including its impact on intra-UK trade, investment and competition, but with no voice from the other three parts of the UK, appears, at its kindest, forgetful, but at worst, deliberate.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-02
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will also speak to Amendments 167 and 168, which are also in my name. I am grateful to other Members for contributing to this group. The group is about another of the black holes that we are discovering in the Bill. This one is about state aid or, as we must learn to call it, subsidy—or, as the Government would have us call it, "the UK shared prosperity fund", although details about that are incredibly difficult to find State aid matters. It particularly matters if people think money is being stolen from them and used for other purposes. The Government have quite a lot to do to try to explain where they are going with this state aid issue, the timescale and how they intend to make progress in bridging the gap between people’s expectations and where they currently are We currently get an awful lot of money through state aid; it is certainly money that would be felt if it were not there. It is hard to get a complete picture of it; the best figures that I have been able to find come from the Institute for Government, which suggests that about £20.7 billion is currently available through state aid in two main forms, the European Regional Development Fund and the European structural funds. The regional development fund focuses on physical development—physical capital, as it were—while the ESF, the structural funds, are about employment and young people and are probably best described as human capital. The combination is a significant quantum of money, held by people who I think regard it as not being money provided directly by the UK Government, although of course money technically circulates around and presumably was originally from taxation in the first place Two significant points come from that. First, the headline funding from the EU at the moment is matchable. We currently think that about 40% is added on top of the just over £10 billion—£10.6 billion, I believe—that is available directly from Europe to the UK agencies that spend it, so that gives us the figure of about £20 billion when it is matched with local authority and central government funding and from the lottery An issue that is hidden, or at least more opaque, in terms of how state aid is organised is the way in which it seems to come in response to different requirements. For instance, the long-standing convention is that there is a regional bias based on deprivation, which takes into account the broader picture across the whole of Europe. In the UK, there are only two counties currently in the most deprived areas—or most in-need areas, I think they are described as—which are west Wales and Cornwall and the Scilly Isles. However, there were recently rumours that, had we stayed in the EU, which we are not, four more might have been put into that higher-needs category. That leaves the question: will the Government continue that process? Will they also think in terms of how individual parts of the country are treated in relation to that?
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-02
Topic: Government Operations
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it will be interesting to hear how the Minister responds to this request, which has been well described as a bit of a coda. On the other hand, it also contains teeth, which would be there to be used, if someone wished to. It is important to get this right and understand, if it is rejected, why it is. I look forward to that Ministers know that we on the Labour side think that the common frameworks are at the centre of the managed divergence that we want to see and allow to happen across the devolved Administrations. It is important that the process continues and that is at the centre of the Bill, because it is not at the moment; it is hardly mentioned, except in passing. If that is the case, we look for some additional reassurance from the Minister that the powers that might be available to the Government, when they feel the common frameworks are not working, are not used too early or vicariously just to show the devolved Administrations who is in charge. As we were reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, on day one, the Government already have powers to deal with any default they feel is present in the common frameworks. The questions raised by this amendment are important, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.