argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-18
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I do not know whether other noble Lords have been watching it, but there has been a very interesting series on television of a Danish drama called "Follow the Money", which would be an appropriate title for this group of amendments. That series had the benefit of subtitles and, with all due respect to the Minister, I must say that we could all have done with some subtitles, not necessarily on the day but in the form of a briefing note that could have helped us get our heads around this complicated and arcane topic I raise one issue with the noble Viscount. I understand, having been so advised by Shelter, that the Bill originally provided that in the event of insolvency of a housing association the first priority would be to maintain social housing in the sector and secure a transfer to another housing association. The amendments collectively before us make that objective secondary to the interests of the creditors. Therefore, the properties might simply be sold off rather than continue to be held within the social housing sector. Will the noble Viscount indicate whether he or the Government take that as an acceptable position? What would the potential impact be in the event of this crisis emerging with any particular association? Why was it necessary to change the original thrust of the Bill’s proposals and downgrade that priority of maintaining the social housing stock in favour of dealing with the needs of the creditors?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-18
Topic: Other
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, may I ask the Minister a question, if she will listen to what I am saying? Perhaps those with the Minister could indicate to her that I am asking a question. Can we be told why this proposal was brought before Parliament only on the last day in Committee? That is what happened, as I understand it. Members in the House of Commons were not given any notice of this. Why was it introduced on the last day in Committee? Was some pressure being exerted by some group? Was it always in the Government’s mind to introduce such a measure? Was it pressure from local authorities? Where did the pressure come from?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-18
Topic: Other
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I intend to speak fairly briefly to this amendment. I heard what the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park, said in respect of the previous group of amendments. Therefore, I will not press this amendment to a vote at this stage and will wait to see what amendment is brought forward before I decide whether I need to bring anything back at Third Reading The noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, who is about to leave the Chamber, referred to taxpayer subsidies. He is completely wrong about that. This issue was raised in a previous debate in your Lordships’ House on 14 March, following which I tabled a Question to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford. I received a response on 24 March, which confirmed that the assertion was not correct. I will happily send the noble Lord a copy of the response from the noble Baroness. I will now proceed to move my amendment as I know that other noble Lords want to speak to their amendments and hear the Minister’s response. I beg to move.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-18
Topic: Other
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Minister. As she will know, we have the last day of Report on Monday and Third Reading is on Wednesday, which gives us very little time to consider amendments that the Government may table. They may be perfectly adequate —one lives in hope, if not expectation—but they may not, and we and other Members may want to table amendments for Third Reading, so we really need to know what the Government are doing by Monday at the latest, because no amendments can be tabled after Tuesday. If we can have an assurance about the timing, that will be very helpful.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-18
Topic: Other
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): We have had a wonderful time, have we not? I thank everyone who has spoken in this short debate. I am hopeful about what we will see from the Government in the next few days; we can all agree that next week, we get to Third Reading. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Janet Alison Whitaker (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I added my name to Amendments 93A and 94, powerfully advocated by my noble friend Lord Beecham and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. I added it on the clear basis that, unless Gypsies and Travellers—words which, by the way, should begin with capital letters, as recognised ethnic categories—are explicitly cited in the statute, along with travelling show people, local authorities will simply ignore their specific needs and airbrush them out of their reckonings, as they have done for so long. I will not rehearse the arguments made so powerfully in Committee, which were not really addressed in their nub and gist by the Government. Far from simplifying the law if the reference is omitted, as the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, said, in Committee, it will make it less precise and more open to fudge. It would be still better, of course, if this repeal were not in the Bill, which is what every single member of the Gypsy, Traveller and travelling show people communities to whom I have spoken thinks If the Government cling to their ideological insistence that equality is served only by flattening out difference, my noble friend’s amendments would relax the framework by proposing a planning policy rather than a statutory definition. There will still be a need, of course, to improve the Government’s definition of Gypsies and Travellers in this planning policy guidance so that those who have been forced to give up their traditional nomadic way of life through the absence of sites are not excluded. I hope that the Minister can give us some comfort on this. I urge him to accept the amendment and avoid the prospect of further judicial review.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-18
Topic: Other
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I listened with interest to the noble Viscount. It seems to me that the Government are adopting a Janus-like posture, wanting to give one impression to the community affected and another to the general community. I do not find that particularly palatable. We would be sending the wrong message if we simply accepted the Government’s position, and I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-18
Topic: Housing
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for his response. As I said, generally the provisions in respect of the private rented sector are quite good in the Bill, with one or two exceptions; the exceptions have come with the Government’s desire to take the courts out of these processes. I have not been at all satisfied or persuaded by the comments from the Minister, so I would like to test the opinion of the House.
Under-occupancy Charge — House of Lords, 2016-01-28
Topic: Housing
Maeve Christina Mary Sherlock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Answer from the other place. The Court of Appeal ruled against the Government on two bedroom tax cases: one from a victim of rape who had had a panic room installed by the police, and the other from the Rutherford family, who care for their severely disabled grandson. In both cases, the court ruled that the bedroom tax was illegal and discriminatory. However, any relief for the families was short-lived because, astonishingly, Ministers have decided to appeal to the Supreme Court. References to the fact that families may receive the temporary discretionary housing payments from a pot being stretched in ever more directions are nothing but a fig leaf I would like to ask the Minister a couple of questions. First, can he confirm that 280 victims of domestic abuse have had a panic room installed under the sanctuary scheme and are affected by the bedroom tax? On the same point, is it true that exempting domestic abuse victims would cost the Government only £200,000 a year? Can he tell the House whether, in the wake of this judgment, the Government will consider withdrawing their appeal and instead taking the right decision of exempting severely disabled children and their families and victims of domestic abuse from the bedroom tax, in which the people of Britain have now completely lost confidence?
Under-occupancy Charge — House of Lords, 2016-01-28
Topic: Housing
Barbara Young (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister recognise that, since he has said that there are a wide range of circumstances in which the bedroom tax is inappropriate, that may be an indicator of the wider discriminatory nature of this tax? Can he confirm that the most recent evidence is that three-quarters of those hit by the bedroom tax are cutting back on food and only 5% of those hit by the tax have been offered alternative accommodation to allow them to move?
Under-occupancy Charge — House of Lords, 2016-01-28
Topic: Civil Rights
Hector MacKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): I want to reinforce the point just made that "by and large" is not good enough in these sorts of cases. I cannot see for the life of me how any Government with a shred of decency think that having a panic room to protect vulnerable women in particular can be classed as a spare room. How on earth can the Government seek to appeal that?
Safeguarding and Clergy Discipline Measure — House of Lords, 2016-01-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate for the very full and helpful way in which he introduced this Measure this evening, as he did in the Ecclesiastical Committee itself. I also take the opportunity to put on record my deep appreciation—I am sure I am not the only member of the committee who feels this—for the warm and very effective way in which we are led by our new chair, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who is an outstanding leader of our deliberations I very much endorse the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, which concern me deeply. I am a little more cynical than he is about the anonymity plea, because I fear that it might be counterproductive and would lead to even more gossip and speculation of a very damaging kind. I, too, despair at times about what I have always seen as the ideal foundation of British justice—that people are innocent until proven guilty. So often—too often—people are, in effect, tried, arraigned and condemned by the more irresponsible sections of the media and, indeed, by the gossip of the communities in which they live That is the point I wanted to make. Churches are themselves fairly close-knit communities. Particularly in smaller urban or rural areas, they are a very important part of the network of wider society. What we are looking at here can be a nightmare experience, not only for the person who is accused but also for his family and all the rest. I hope I will be forgiven for saying this—instinctively I do not like to say this, because it can sound awfully sentimental—but the basic principle of Christianity, as I understand it, is about love and the application of love in the way we live It seems that if we have any real, deep commitment to that principle, we ought to hear a little more—I raised this in the Ecclesiastical Committee—about the arrangements that are being made for counselling and supporting the accused individual during the period in which all these proceedings take place. Of course, if the person is ultimately exonerated, one can rejoice in the fact that he or she is exonerated but that will not undo the damage and, from that standpoint, I would like to see the other side of this coin. I am absolutely convinced that the church is to be congratulated on having faced up to something that needed to be faced up to and should have been faced up to long ago. It is extremely good that it has moved so firmly to try to do this, but the way in which the move is undertaken matters as much as the principle of the move itself, and I hope that the right reverend Prelate will be able to reassure us.
Diocesan Stipends Funds (Amendment) Measure — House of Lords, 2016-01-28
Topic: Civil Rights
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in the Ecclesiastical Committee we agreed very speedily and with unanimity that this was a good thing and that we were fully behind it. We do not often have an opportunity such as this, so I want to take it to put on record the deep appreciation and admiration there is for clergy up and down the country. They set a tremendous example of how the principles of service can become the primary driving force for first-class and effective work in the community, and how there really are other factors in a healthy society than the market alone.
Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-11
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Angela Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I do not want to delay the House and I wish noble Lords a very happy new year, but perhaps I may seek guidance and advice from the Government. We are about to start our deliberations on the Trade Union Bill, in which there is considerable interest in your Lordships’ House today, yet, not for the first time, we have no impact assessment. This has happened before but this Bill started around five months ago in the House of Commons and we still do not have that impact assessment. I am sure the noble Baroness is aware that the Cabinet Office manual on impact assessments states: "The final Impact Assessment must be made available alongside Bills published in draft for pre-legislative scrutiny or introduced to Parliament, with 80 copies sent to the Vote Office … and 10 to the Lords Printed Paper Office" We do not need 10: we will settle for one but we would like it as soon as possible.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Housing
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, last week I mentioned the position in my former constituency, where you have on the west coast of Cumbria council housing that is fairly inexpensive when it is sold and, in the Lake District part of my former constituency, which includes the town of Keswick and a number of villages in that vicinity, council property that is very expensive when it is sold off. In Workington and Maryport, you could buy a former council house today on a subsequent sale—not straight after right to buy—for as little as £50,000 or £60,000. A similar house in the Lake District part of the constituency would now cost between £250,000 and £300,000. The latter group of houses will now fall under the provisions of the Bill in the sense that the local authority will be required to sell them The problem is very simple: those houses are irreplaceable. They cannot be replaced, as there is no land. I understand from a letter to my noble friend Lady Hollis today that local authorities will be able to rely on housing associations to replace property lost under right to buy through this one-for-one arrangement. However, that does not deal with the problem if there is no land. You cannot expect the Lake District planning board—or any national park planning board anywhere in the United Kingdom—to compromise all its principles and provide for planning permission on land where otherwise it would not, simply to meet the objectives of the Government and this one-for-one replacement I think of villages and small hamlets where there might be only six or a dozen council houses at the moment. If we are required to sell those because of this nonsensical levy, all that will happen is that those properties will be lost to the young people who want to stay in the Lake District National Park—or in any national park in the United Kingdom where young people have been driven out because of high prices already. The properties end up on the second-home market in exactly the same way as the problem has developed over recent years in London The noble Lord, Lord Best, referred in speaking to his amendment to there being perhaps some flexibility in the Government’s position. I appeal to Ministers to look favourably on the position in the national parks, exempting them from the levy and from the requirement to sell in the event that they are approached to buy. Let us see some sanity in housing policy.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Housing
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): On that matter, what happens if the working group comes up with conclusions which we are unable to resolve during the course of Committee or Report because the group reports after the Bill becomes law? What happens in those circumstances? That is my first question My second question is this. The Minister may recall that we were given an undertaking—two weeks ago now, I think—that we would receive information on starter home demand figures in the various parts of the United Kingdom. Despite repeated references to them in the Chamber by me and others, we have simply not received them yet.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Other
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): I just wanted to thank the noble Baroness for both her announcements; they are very helpful. On the first one, she talked about noble Lords receiving various policy position papers. Would it be possible, when she does that, to sketch out when she thinks—we will not hold her to this, but just some idea of when—we will get the various regulations? That would be very helpful.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister mentioned high-value properties but, as we have heard before, there is a greater proportion of high-value properties in rural areas. Does that not make the concept more difficult to apply in those areas in terms of the consequences of the policy for that category?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): Can the noble Baroness tell the Committee how often these payments will be made? Will it be monthly, half-yearly or yearly? If an account overpaid an amount of money, when would that be put right? If a payment was due to be made in April and it was to be paid again the following April, the timing might be an issue.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): Can the Minister help me on a question that we have been pursuing through several Committee days? It is clear that there will be a time gap—even if one accepts the push in policy, which of course I do not—between selling more valuable property and the deployment of the money to fund housing association discounts. Housing association discounts will be required on day three after the Bill gets Royal Assent. The sales to fund it may take a year, two years, three years or four years to come through to fund the presumed demands that will come very quickly in the direction of local authorities. Therefore, many local authorities will instead be levied in view of their sales. The information I had from my authority, Norwich, this morning was of a housing revenue account of around £50 million facing a loss of £7 million a year on its rental income as a result of the 1% reduction. The levy, in lieu of sales, because of the delay in sales coming through, is likely to cost up to—we do not know yet—£11 million. A quarter of its net housing revenue account will, therefore, be lost to funding housing association discounts until—and if—the sales come through in lieu Can the Minister tell us when local authorities will have some idea what that levy is likely to be? Will it be governed by the pent-up demand or otherwise of housing association tenants? Will the Minister expect this to be rationed so that it proceeds on an equal path along with the diversion of local authority resources through high-value sales? How exactly will this work? At the moment, it stands to wreck my local authority’s housing revenue account.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Other
Tessa Blackstone (Labour, Centre-left): I once again press the Minister on the issue of moving to the affirmative procedure. I have raised this question on other days. It has been raised twice this afternoon. On no occasion has the Minister answered the question of when the Government will let this House know whether they are prepared to move in this direction. That would be a much more satisfactory approach to dealing with the detail of the regulations.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Other
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): Can the Minister repeat for the Committee what the Government’s problem is with Amendment 69A? It would not stop them doing anything. It is just a sunset clause and would provide them with the ability, if they proceed with the policy and find an issue with it, to stop it. If they wanted to carry on, they would bring forward the affirmative regulations to do so. I do not see what the major problem is. If the Minister could repeat her reasons, it would be very helpful.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): I am sorry to intervene on the noble Lord, but I wonder if the Minister could indicate at this stage whether she intends to give us some real figures on the taper today to save us having to guess what they are during the course of the debate.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): I think that the noble Lord, Lord Best, said that he thought that the Government were minded towards the lower taper. If he thought that, he must have had some indication, either from officials or from within the department. Has any discussion gone on and who is privy to it?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): Can the Minister help me on this? Under UC and so on, we are dealing with real-time information, where people’s income fluctuates month by month. Does this mean that the Minister will not be interested in that fluctuation month by month in terms of the taper? As far as local authorities are concerned, and as far as I can see, they will be required to have personally tailored rents, probably revisited every month, and a different rent for every house in the street. The Minister may go on to answer that, but as far as I can see, almost no thought has been given in all the papers that I have read to the interaction between what is proposed for local authorities and what a fellow department, DWP, is seeking to achieve.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister therefore not accept that the path that she appears to be going down is individually tailored rents which will fluctuate month by month, which local authorities will be expected to determine and collect?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Civil Rights
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): I am very grateful, but I remind the Minister that the Equality and Human Rights Commission said that the whole point of the assessment is that it is done while policy is being made, not in the middle of Committee, when we are discussing it.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Housing
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister answer the direct question I asked of her? Is it true that private companies will have access to information on the incomes of council tenants where the total income of the household exceeds £30,000 a year? The answer to that is yes or no.