argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2019-01-29
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank noble Lords for their contributions. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for moving his amendment and giving us the opportunity to comment. I very much concur with the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, about how the officials have engaged in this process. I do not know whether it is appropriate to refer to them on the Floor of the House but I will do so anyway. I think that they too found it a very useful interaction. This Bill is beginning its journey through the legislative process in your Lordships’ House, and the ability to shape and craft it so that it will have been improved by the time it leaves this House will make the job of the other place, which has quite a lot on its plate at the moment, a little easier I also agree with the tribute paid by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for the work being done by officials and, indeed, by UK Members of the European Parliament and the industry on shaping EU financial regulation over the years to make it effective and proportionate I believe that the intent behind the noble Lord’s amendment and behind the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, putting his name to it was to give the Government an opportunity to put further flesh on the bones of what is meant by "major" and "significant". They will become the new version of "corresponding" and "similar", which we discussed in Committee. I do not want to hark back to that debate; instead, I shall focus on these key words. I will put some remarks on the record and then turn to the point made by my noble friend Lord Leigh It is clearly important that we find a way of limiting this power appropriately, and I am very grateful for the proposal in Amendment 2, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Davies. However, the noble Lord’s amendment could have the unfortunate and unintentional effect of rendering the power and therefore much of the Bill almost unworkable. The reason the Government settled on the term "major" rather than "significant" in drafting this amendment was the greater clarity provided by the term "major".
Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2019-01-29
Topic: International Affairs
Robin Granville Hodgson (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I add my thanks to my noble friend and his officials for Amendment 5, which in large measure answer the points I tried to raise in Committee. I am extremely grateful to him and to the Government An epochal event such as Brexit will obviously require a certain degree of statutory flexibility. That is why I support the principle of the Bill, but that does not mean that the powers under it should be exercised below the radar. I am therefore extremely grateful to my noble friend for having set the reporting periods, when he made it clear that it is not just a question of reporting: it is a question of why it is being used, as well as that it has been used. That is important to maintain confidence.
Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2019-01-29
Topic: Macroeconomics
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I again thank noble Lords for their contributions. The noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, made a contribution in Committee in which he expressed concern about the omission of some files from the Schedule and Clause 1. At Second Reading and in Committee the omission of two sustainable finance files, which complete the EU’s sustainable finance package, was raised. I am pleased to confirm to the noble Lord and the House in general, and to the sustainable finance industry, that the Government are happy to add these two files to the Schedule via this amendment. I thank him for pointing that out and I beg to move.
Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy — House of Lords, 2019-01-29
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat as a Statement the Answer given yesterday in the other place in response to an Urgent Question on the Government’s teacher recruitment and retention strategy. The Statement is as follows: "Last year, we recruited over 34,500 trainee teachers into the profession—over 2,000 more than the year before—but the growing number of pupils means that we need even more teachers at a time when we have the most competitive labour market on record. Today, the Government have launched the teacher recruitment and retention strategy, outlining our priorities ahead of the spending review. First, we are creating the right climate for head teachers to establish the right cultures in their schools. Secondly, we are transforming the support for early-career teachers. Thirdly, we are building a career offer that remains attractive as teachers’ lives and careers progress. Fourthly, we are making it easier for great people to become teachers At the heart of the strategy is the early-career framework. Developed with teachers, head teachers, academics and experts, and endorsed by the Education Endowment Foundation, it underpins what all new teachers will be entitled to be trained in at the start of their career, in line with the best available evidence. The early-career framework will underpin a fully funded two-year package of structured support for all early-career teachers, including additional time off-timetable for teachers in their second year and fully funded mental health training By the time the new system is fully in place, we anticipate investing at least an additional £130 million every year to support the early-career framework delivery in full. This will be a substantial investment, befitting the most significant change to the teaching profession since it became a graduate-only profession. In addition, the recruitment and retention strategy outlines how the Government are going to create the right climate for head teachers to establish supportive cultures in their schools, where unnecessary workload is driven down. This includes consulting on replacing the floor and coasting standards, with Ofsted’s "requires improvement" as the sole trigger for an offer of support The recruitment and retention strategy, including the early-career framework, has been developed closely with the sector. Its publication marks a crucial milestone for the profession, as well as the start of a conversation between government and the profession about how best to deliver on the promise of this strategy".
Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy — House of Lords, 2019-01-29
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for his questions. Dealing with the ones that I can address straight away, I reassure him that academies will be included in the early-career framework. This is a strategy for the entire state-funded system Regarding the question on teaching schools, we are reviewing this at the moment and have not fully completed our thinking. One issue of concern to us is that there are too many teaching schools that between them are not receiving enough money to meaningfully engage with the surrounding areas that they are being asked to help. We are looking to rationalise that. We hope that good multi-academy trusts will play a role in that, but we are certainly not seeking to exclude good schools I agree with the noble Lord that retention is more important than recruitment, because there is no point pouring people into a bucket with a hole at the bottom of it. We have given a lot of consideration to how we improve retention. A big problem is the workload and how it is being imposed, particularly on young teachers. We are aware from the figures for those leaving the profession that the percentage of younger, newly qualified teachers leaving the profession is one of the highest categories. We are working on that. There are several areas of concern; for example, the pernicious expectation that young teachers should be responsible for planning their own lessons, when we want to encourage schools to provide much more support I shall write separately to the noble Lord to address his concerns on mental health.
Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy — House of Lords, 2019-01-29
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the focus is on early-career teaching at this stage. We have outlined four key areas. One is funding, which will allow teachers in their second year to reduce their timetable by 5%. We are encouraging a reduction in teacher workload, which I covered a moment ago, and a more diverse range of options for career progression, which will help teachers further along in their career. We want to continue to make sure that teaching is considered a great career for those coming into it. We launched an initiative last year called Discover Teaching. Some 13,000 potential recruits have been through that system We need to see how the first phase of this programme evolves. We are rolling out some pilot areas in September next year: Bradford, the north-east and one other area which I shall find in my notes in a moment. We will learn from our experience of how those work before we implement the programme across the country.
Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy — House of Lords, 2019-01-29
Topic: Education
Eric Pickles (Conservative, Centre-right): I have always been quite surprised at the lack of support for new people entering the teaching profession, compared with other professions. My noble friend has spoken about some of the burdens. Can he talk a little about the positive help that the new strategy will give to newly qualified teachers in the first couple of years?
Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy — House of Lords, 2019-01-29
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, as I mentioned a moment ago, newly qualified teachers in their second year will have 5% taken off their teaching timetable—that is in addition to the 10% taken off the timetable in the first year. High-quality, freely available curricular and training materials will be designed to complement the early-career framework. There will be funded early-career framework training programmes and support from a trained mentor, including funding to take into account the additional call on mentors’ time in the second year of induction.
Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy — House of Lords, 2019-01-29
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): I share the right reverend Prelate’s concerns about rural schools. We have particular funding pots within the overall formula—sparsity funding, for example—which give a typical small rural primary school an additional £135,000 a year and a small secondary school £175,000. We are committed to the various ongoing training programmes. Only this morning, I was addressing a group of some 80 people involved in professional development training and encouraging them in what they were doing. I absolutely support what the right reverend Prelate has said.
Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy — House of Lords, 2019-01-29
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): I will have to write to the noble Baroness to confirm whether the money will be ring-fenced at school level. Certainly, our preference is to give autonomy to schools, but I will check on it and come back to her. Support is aimed beyond academies at all state schools. Only just over 50% of pupils are in academies today, so it is not our intention to see those still in the local authority system left behind.
Higher Education (Fee Limits for Accelerated Courses) (England) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-01-29
Topic: Education
David Willetts (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I very much welcome the proposals brought to us today by the Minister. I am sure that he is right that this adds an extra element to the options available to prospective students, and it certainly therefore brings more diversity into the system. I should draw noble Lords’ attention to my interests as set out in the register as Chancellor of the University of Leicester, an adviser to 2U and a visiting professor at King’s College, London I am sure that the Minister was right that there will be some mature students—I was fascinated by what the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, just said—for whom the prospect of studying so briskly in two years will make this an attractive option. However, for many 18 year-olds, the prospect of three years away from home studying a course at that length will remain very attractive. In fact, I would be so bold as to make a modest bet with the Minister or anyone else who will take me on that in the coming years the increase in the number of students studying for four years will be greater than the increase in the number of students studying for two years Believe it or not, quite a lot of students enjoy being at university. The Minister quoted a student as saying that the advantage of this would be that it would minimise the time at university. There may be some students who think like that but, in my experience, many students enjoy their three years, and the biggest single surge in demand in higher education at the moment is for master’s degrees—adding an extra year to the time at university. So if we look at where the growth in higher education is coming from, I think we are very likely to see it in master’s degrees rather than in two-year courses I have two questions for the Minister. First, for those of a suspicious cast of mind, when we see that this full degree is to be delivered for a total fee cost of £22, 000 over two years, we wonder what would happen if £22,000 were divided by three and became a new fee total for a three-year course—something slightly over £7,000. Can the Minister assure us that it would be a serious mistake for us to worry about such calculations? Will he assure us that he will take to heart the very interesting intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Luce, who made a point about the costs that an exceptionally efficient and well-respected university, the University of Buckingham, encountered? The argument was that £11,000 times two was insufficient resource for the University of Buckingham, so we can presume that any such reduction in fees would not provide the resource that even an efficient and well-regarded university such as Buckingham would require in order to educate its students As we are straying into this territory, will the Minister say whether there is any information that he can share with noble Lords about the current likely timetable for the publication of the Augar review?
Higher Education (Fee Limits for Accelerated Courses) (England) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-01-29
Topic: Education
James Peter Hymers Mackay (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, one matter that occurs to me in relation to accelerated degrees is the question of staff. I got the impression earlier in the debate that the staff for a quicker type of degree would be different from the staff dealing with the rest. That might be partly due to a difference in subject matter, but within the same subject, is the Minister suggesting that the staff teaching the accelerated degrees would be different from the staff dealing with ordinary, full-time degrees?
Higher Education (Fee Limits for Accelerated Courses) (England) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-01-29
Topic: Education
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): It is indeed, but I cannot give a simple answer to that one this afternoon; I can only say that I very much noted what the noble Baroness said about seeking grants. As I said earlier in response to a question from my noble friend Lord Willetts, I suspect this is a matter that Philip Augar will look at in his review. The bigger issue is whether it should be tuition fees, grants or a mixture of the two. I am not in a position to answer that question today However, I would like to go further, because the noble Baroness raised an interesting point about mature students. It might be helpful to say that we hope and envisage that mature students will look at these proposals seriously. Points have been raised about the cost involved for mature students. It depends on how you define "mature", but I would imagine that it is those who have had several years in employment, who perhaps are not particularly comfortable in that employment and want to make a change, and a two-year degree at a total cost of £22,000 might just be within their scope. Some people might say that is quite expensive, but we think there could be some demand for that. The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, raised the point that it would be more applicable to mature students, rather than younger students setting out from school. This may be the case, but as I said earlier, it is early days and I think we need to see how this is rolled out and how universities and providers grab the opportunity and market it. We then have to monitor it carefully, not just in three years but over the period up to three years, when we can have a proper review. I hope that helps, but I am not in a position to answer the noble Baroness’s first question Today’s debate will continue to inform and help us to meet the wider challenges of expanding higher education provision. It will also help raise awareness and understanding of accelerated degrees for providers, potential students, employers and the wider public. I commend these regulations to the House.
Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Hugh Trenchard (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate and I appreciate their strong support. My noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond spoke movingly. He is most qualified to speak on this matter. I was very pleased to hear from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who reminded us that he lives in Hertfordshire. As he said, today is Finn’s day. My noble friend Lady Brady pointed out that at present the punishment does not fit the crime, and Finn’s law will go a long way to ensure that it does My noble friend Lady McIntosh’s speech was very interesting. I am delighted to have heard the Minister’s reassurance that horses are covered and that he will pass back the strong message to government that this House asks that measures are taken at an early date to increase the maximum penalty to five years I thank the noble Lord, Lord German, for his interesting speech illustrating how well both Houses can work together. I was most grateful for the strong support from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. It is heartening to have support from all sides of the House I appreciate the Minister’s very supportive remarks, and I thank the clerks and the officials at Defra for the guidance and support they gave me in preparing for this Bill. I ask your Lordships to give this Bill a Second Reading Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-01
Topic: Government Operations
Rodney Elton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, we have been speaking at length about the constitution and we have gone a good deal wider than the terms of the Bill. I want to heighten just one point about devolution. I echo my noble friend Lord McColl and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay on the need for sensitivity. I think the amendment goes more to the heart of doing harm than is intended. Proposed new subsection (3) states: "If a Northern Ireland Executive is formed within the period of 12 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, a statutory instrument containing regulations under this section must be laid before the Northern Ireland Assembly" That is a direct statement that, even if the Assembly returns, direct rule will be exercised on this devolved matter. I am sure my noble friend does not want to make a pugnacious statement, but if he proceeds with this I think he will find that he has engendered more opposition than he deserves.
Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for prompting this debate on the provisions contained within the Bill relating to the coronial investigation of stillbirths. I am aware of the reservations which the noble Baroness has in relation to the scope of the power contained within Clause 4(4) of the Bill, but I hope that what I am about to say will reassure her The amendment, like the one we debated in Committee, would remove from the Bill an important provision that will allow for the extension to parents of stillborn babies the same transparent and independent investigation into their loss that is granted to the parents of a newborn baby whose life ends soon after birth. This power is needed because the provisions for the exercise of coronial powers are limited to very explicit duties which do not provide for coroners to undertake an investigation of a still-born baby As I said in Committee, we shall consult on this issue. The consultation will be wide-ranging and will seek views from a number of interested parties, including, as the noble Baroness asked, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, whose members provide crucial services to all expectant mothers. We recognise that, while there are those who are keen to see this change, there are others who have well-considered reservations, and it is important for us to hear from them Clause 4 provides that the Secretary of State will report on the question of coroners investigating stillbirths and, having consulted and produced that report, if the conclusion is that coroners should indeed investigate stillbirths, the Government should then move forward in a timely way. Clause 4(4) provides the mechanism to do that, with the safeguards provided at Clause 4(5) and Clause 4(6) appropriate to the changes that are in scope. I reassure the noble Baroness that, if the Government decide to proceed with giving coroners powers to investigate stillbirths and draw on the power provided at Clause 4(4), we will publish our regulations before they are laid in Parliament. This additional scrutiny will ensure that robust and well-understood provisions for changing Part 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 are brought before Parliament. Should we make such change, the Government will also undertake a post-implementation review within two years of its implementation.
Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Fiona Hodgson (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for prompting further debate on the provision in the Bill relating to coronial investigation of stillbirths. She knows that this is an issue that has touched me personally, and I much appreciate the thoughtful way she has approached this. I know that the noble Baroness is keen to see this Bill make its way on to the statute book, but she has some well-considered reservations about the merits of the proposal that coroners should investigate stillbirths and about how the powers in Clause 4(4) will be exercised. I hope that she is reassured that the Government have listened and have responded to her concerns I thank everyone who has taken part in the Report stage of the Bill today. I much appreciate their thoughtful input and attention to the Bill.