argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): Could the noble Lord explain the theology of the public financing of his proposal? I think he said at the start that this would not add to the deficit, but it would add to the PSBR. If that is right, is it the case that if the Government wanted to stay at the current level of PSBR in order to fund his ingenious proposal, something else would have to give?
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Labor
Robin Granville Hodgson (Conservative, Centre-right): I have to say that I have some sympathy with my noble friend Lord Horam about the importance of not narrowing the gateway too much in terms of the work of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement. The wording in Clause 2(2)(a)(i) allows for a very wide remit: it seems to me to be important to preserve this. It is very easy of course to see this only through the prism of the victims—and indeed there are terrible victims who need protection—but the director should surely be able to identify practices, behaviours and trends not only relating to the protection of workers I am a keen supporter of employee share ownership. Every year the Employee Ownership Association has a dinner in your Lordships’ House, which I am proud to sponsor. Last year I was sitting next to one of the biggest companies in the field of imports, which brings a lot of stuff across the Channel in containers. He said to me, "Do you know that up to about a year ago, once a year a container would have people inside it; two or three times a week now, you open the container in Cowley and six or seven people jump out and disappear into the dark. They have a baseball bat and you can’t stop them—and talking to my colleagues in other firms this is an increasingly prevalent practice" It seems to me that this is the sort of issue that ought to be publicised and the director ought to be able to raise. It is not about protection of workers, though that is a very important part of his job. It is about what is happening in the labour market generally. It would be a grave mistake if we allowed ourselves not to think about these activities as well, and make sure that the director could comment on them and make suggestions for improvement. It is in the interests of everybody, but particularly those who are victimised, that this should be publicised—and the other side of the coin should be publicised as well. I hope that my noble friend will bear that in mind when he comes to consider his reply to this set of amendments.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Labor
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): If it would be helpful to noble Lords, I should be happy to set this out in writing. However, I can tell them that the 2015-16 budget for the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate is £0.5 million and it has 8.6 full-time-equivalent staff. For the same period, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority has funding of £4.268 million, including £100,000 for Northern Ireland enforcement, and it has 66 full-time-equivalent staff. The budget for the national minimum wage enforcement team was increased by £4 million to the current figure of £13.2 million, and it has 230 full-time-equivalent staff. We are saying that the helpful part of the role of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement will be to look at those three groups and the current basket of resource, which has been increased substantially over the past year, and to see how it can be most effectively deployed to tackle the types of wrongs that we are seeing.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): I have not received inspiration, but I do not doubt for one minute what the noble Lord rightly observes. He refers to a time when we were having to tackle some pretty sizable problems in the public finances, and that continues to be a pressure. That is one reason why, I think, we are bringing these resources together. It would be helpful—and I will certainly undertake to do this—to set out in one letter to Members of the Committee in your Lordships’ House the situation on resources, perhaps in a way that is easier to assess. However, the point is that when you have different pots in different areas with different groups of people, it makes it all the more important that they are joined up, that there is co-ordination and that we get the maximum effect for every taxpayer pound that is spent. That is, of course, what the remit of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement is envisaged to be.
Steel Sector — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Roger Nicholas Edwards (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, from these Benches I first express my sympathy for the workforce, whose jobs are being lost. Bearing in mind what has rightly been said about the importance of Port Talbot for our highly successful motor and white goods industries, I am pleased to hear of the determination of the Government, working with the Welsh Government, to see that Port Talbot has a sustainable and commercial future. I also welcome the specific measures that my noble friend has drawn attention to. However, on the question of rates, although it is true that there is a long-term review in England and that rates are the responsibility of the Welsh Government, surely there is a need for early and specific action in the steel industry on the rates question. Will my noble friend assure me that we will not necessarily have to wait to the end of the year for the completion of the long-term review of rates?
Steel Sector — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): I hear what my noble friend says and completely agree that rates is a vital area. We have three ministerial working groups, set up in October. They are very aware of the importance of rates. My noble friend Lord O’Neill is leading the work stream on productivity and competitiveness. I will ensure that I pass on the comments made on rates.
Steel Sector — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: International Affairs
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): I have not seen the article, but it sounds extremely interesting. I think we have made it clear that we are very keen to work with the Welsh Government on sensible options. We have already shown our readiness to get proposals through and ensure that the state aid rules are not a bar to that.
Steel Sector — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Labor
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): The work we are going to do with the Welsh Government, who lead on these issues for Port Talbot, is incredibly important. In other areas, task forces have come together from all stakeholders and have spent the available money really well, which obviously has to include looking after the people who are made redundant.
Steel Sector — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, there was, of course, a new Government after the election and I have tried to explain what this new Government have been doing in this area. It is important to have a growing economy; that creates jobs in other areas. The noble Lord is right to point to other opportunities. On other occasions we debate the digital single market and all the service industry that has grown so strongly in the UK. That has to be part of the solution to the problems in communities such as those in south Wales that have been so severely affected today and for which we are all so sorry. The task forces that we have set up elsewhere, and that the Welsh Government are setting up for Port Talbot, can, in my experience, make a huge difference.
Steel Sector — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Foreign Trade
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): I very much agree with what the noble Baroness said about Trostre. Indeed, Llanwern, Corby and Hartlepool have also been affected today, so it is not just Port Talbot. Our hearts go out to them. We have taken action on Chinese imports. As I said, we voted last July in favour of anti-dumping measures for Chinese imports of steel wire. Again, in November, we voted for anti-dumping measures. We have changed the paradigm and we have raised the issue with Premier Xi. In ongoing discussions on the special status of market economy status, we have made it clear that while we would like to see China get market economy status in due course, it has to abide by the rules and that, if we give it market economy status—which is for the Commission to decide—duties can also be imposed.
Steel Sector — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Energy
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course, we need investment in steel in parallel with nuclear. We should look at how Tata has come in and invested in steel in the UK. There is bad news today but Tata has worked well with us in these very difficult circumstances to try to do the right thing and to really improve our offer for steel that can be used in the UK in our car industry—and overseas—HS2 and in all the other very important uses for steel, because I believe that what we need is a market for our goods. That is what the steel industry needs.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Law and Crime
Thomas Ashton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, several noble Lords said right at the beginning of our debate that these government amendments came fairly late, but noble Lords on the opposition Benches are not the only ones to suffer from that. I will therefore have to ask the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for her indulgence because I am afraid that her Amendment 18 was not contained within my speaking notes for this group. It is an amendment to our Amendment 17, but I do not have the details of how I should refute it with the power that I normally would. As my noble friend Lord Bates said right at the beginning, and as I think the noble Baroness mentioned, some of these issues may be revisited at times on Report—but I accept that that is not a very compelling argument tonight The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, talked about negative and affirmative procedures. I have never known him to agree that we should have a negative procedure when we could have the affirmative. I do not want to repeat the reasons that I gave, but we have made a distinction between regulations that create new offences or affect primary legislation and those which merely deal with existing offences, where we still maintain that the negative procedure is correct The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, asked how far the remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority will roam in future. I cannot tell her that today, but I absolutely take on board her point. As I said in my opening remarks, we intend that the authority should evolve. That is the whole point of our changing the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to the new arrangements, and putting it under the remit of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement. The only thing we are likely to be concerned about—we have made this point before—is that it will be for labour market enforcement issues and not for other things. However, I take on board the noble and learned Baroness’s point on where it might evolve Of course, the Director of Labour Market Enforcement is required to outline a strategy. That is one of the things that we would expect him to do, having used the intelligence hub to work out where the efforts of his three enforcement agencies should best be employed. I also take on board that if we are expanding their role, there will be resource implications. My noble friend Lord Bates has already committed to write to noble Lords about the resource issue, so I would like to leave it there and ask that the amendments be accepted.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Labor
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): I will try to be a bit more helpful if I can. I totally share the view of the noble and learned Baroness that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority is doing an outstanding job in its present field. That is one reason why we are increasing its powers. It is a recognition that it is an effective organisation and we want to make it even more effective. It is unthinkable that someone could come into this role—co-ordinating and sharpening the overall strategy of labour enforcement—who would not embrace the strategy already in place of such an effective organisation as the Gangmasters Licensing Authority Clause 7 prevents the director exercising functions or making recommendations in relation to individual cases. Decisions about sanctions to be taken against businesses are a matter for the enforcement bodies, which will remain operationally independent. However, the director may consider individual cases when examining the general issue during the exercise of his or her functions. I know that that relates to a previous comment, not to the comment just made. None the less, I hope that those additional reassurances—that the labour market enforcement director is building on strategies, ensuring that they are coherent and joined-up, and in doing so is absorbing best practice from a wider range of organisations involved in enforcement—will be welcomed. If so, the noble Baroness might feel these amendments are not necessary at this stage.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 40 to 42, 60, 73, 77 and 214. I will allow the sponsors of Amendments 71 and 245 to speak to them Government Amendment 39 will rename the GLA the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, reflecting the transformation of its role. Amendment 40 relates to a new schedule, inserted by Amendment 73, enabling the GLAA to investigate labour market exploitation through investigative powers for our proposed new offence and the labour market offences contained in Clause 3. Government Amendment 41 enables GLAA officers to exercise police-style powers when investigating labour market offences, ensuring prompt action to tackle criminal behaviour. Officers will undergo necessary training, meeting College of Policing standards, to exercise these powers Other noble Lords will speak to Amendments 41A to 41D. Government Amendment 42 introduces a power for the GLAA to request assistance from the National Crime Agency, the police and immigration enforcement, who will have a similar right to ask the GLAA for assistance. Other bodies can be added by order Government Amendments 60 and 77 make consequential amendments reflecting the GLA’s change of name, adding the director to certain legislation, such as the Freedom of Information Act, introducing IPCC oversight for the exercise of PACE powers and retaining the current GLA regime in Northern Ireland I will deal with the other amendments in this group when they have been spoken to by other noble Lords. I beg to move.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am very grateful to noble Lords for speaking to their amendments in this group. I shall try to address as many of the points raised as I can at this stage, but I may have to write to noble Lords on some of the more specific ones I want to make one general point, which more or less relates to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and the noble Lord, Lord Lea. Essentially they are asking what has changed here. The Government are effectively putting themselves in a strategic position to take much tougher action against all forms of labour market abuse. In general terms, although the TUC had some reservations about the detail, which I am sure we will come to, in a broader sense it welcomed the fact that the Government were taking this matter very seriously, wanting to join up different agencies which are all doing a very good job, to give them a stronger strategic position and, of course, more powers. Those powers would include the ability for rogue employers to be jailed. These are serious powers and I will come back to the comments of my noble friend Lord Hailsham on their use, because that is a very important point for us to consider It should be remembered that we are extending the base of the resources. In some of the amendments we have covered the additional resources that will be available to the agencies—for example, the Organised Immigration Crime Task Force and the National Crime Agency, which we dealt with in the Serious Crime Act, and there is also immigration enforcement. Organised crime syndicates are massively exploiting this area. Information will be shared and we will be receiving information from different areas. That is part of a big approach that we are taking to nail some of the abuse that has been going on for far too long.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Labor
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said, they are 25% higher than this time last year in terms of overall labour market enforcement. Are we saying that that is sufficient? No, because what we are focusing on is the strategy. A very important role of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement will be to advise the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on what resources are necessary to tackle labour market abuse and exploitation. That is what we are doing, but once we have an overall strategy that says where the focus should be, we would be confident in identifying where the gaps are. We would have more confidence in claims made for increases in resources at that point than perhaps might have existed when we were looking at them in isolation. Again, I would have thought that that would be welcomed The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, rightly asked if we would look at the recommendations made by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Of course we will. We take all the committees of this House extremely seriously. I would say in our defence—as has been used in defence against us—that the report is dated last Friday, 15 January, and it is now Monday.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): Touché. I get that point. The point I am trying to make is a very serious one: that the Government will of course listen to and pay very careful regard to the recommendations of a committee of your Lordships’ House. I will have more to say on that by the time we get to the relevant section on Report Will our reforms make it easier for rogue gangmasters to operate without fear of detection? Absolutely not. Our reforms will ensure that the GLAA has tough new enforcement powers to tackle criminals in any labour sector, not just those that are licensed. Importantly, the number of licences granted for 2014-15 was 82, with 27 refusals and 23 revocations, out of a total of 954 licences in existence. That shows that it is something more than a box-ticking exercise: that genuine work is being done by the GLA in assessing the quality of those licences, and we want that to continue I have touched on reviews—perhaps not to the entire satisfaction of the noble Lord, Lord Alton—but I will come back to that issue and set out the position in a letter. The licensing rules contain detailed provisions on a variety of matters, such as what information should be provided by a licence holder to a worker before they start—for example, shellfish-gathering rules on tide, accommodation, record keeping and sector- specific provisions. This follows a model set out in Section 7 of the Private Security Industry Act 2001 which allows the Security Industry Authority to set its licensing criteria by publishing a document without any parliamentary procedure but with the approval of the Secretary of State I come to the point made on PACE powers—that there is no mention of the new labour market enforcement order offence in the proposed new Section 114B of PACE. Amendment 55, which introduces the new clause "Investigative functions", provides that the enforcing authorities can use the investigative powers they already have for the relevant trigger offence to be investigated in any breaches in LME orders. This means that where the GLAA has PACE powers for the trigger offence, it can use those powers to investigate a breach. I am immediately conscious, as I read that out, that that does not answer the particular point. Staff designated to exercise police-style powers will be subject to the relevant PACE codes and to Independent Police Complaints Commission supervision. As I say, I am conscious that that does not answer the specific question my noble friend asked, and I will undertake to write to him and to other noble Lords whom I have not had the opportunity to respond to in the time available. I hope, with those reassurances, that noble Lords and Baronesses will feel able to withdraw their amendment.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): It is one that we listed in the supply chain regulations which recently came before your Lordships’ House. A number of undertakings were given at that time to examine options for a central database and how that will be done. It should also be said that there was general agreement that we had set the threshold for the reporting of those standards at the lower end of the expected threshold, so that more companies would have to comply. That has a concomitant effect upon the size of the database which would need to be maintained in order to carry those statements of transparency in supply chains by the companies affected. I am very happy to undertake to update noble Lords on progress with that in the course of my responses.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): It is the same argument as before: whether the same test applies to people who are here legally—in one form—but are exceeding or abusing the terms by which they are in the UK. The noble Baroness may be saying that if that provision contained the phrase "without reasonable excuse", it should be read across. But there is no ability to say that you can be prosecuted for the proceeds of crime unless you have a reasonable excuse. It is therefore consistent to apply the same test to somebody who is here illegally as to somebody who is here legally but exceeding the terms of their permission to be here.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-18
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): The new offence will serve as an important deterrent. I have listened very carefully to the noble Lord’s concerns. Although I am of the opinion that there are sufficient safeguards to ensure that the offence is used appropriately and that victims of modern slavery are protected, I said that I would reflect on that point very carefully, listen to the debate and come back with further remarks on Report. The particular point was about whether the defences are sufficient for those who may have been the victims of modern-day slavery.
European Union: United Kingdom Renegotiation — House of Lords, 2016-02-04
Topic: International Affairs
Nigel Lawson (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, is my noble friend aware that none of the important objectives set out in the Prime Minister’s Bloomberg speech three years ago has been achieved? He committed himself then to securing a "fundamental, far-reaching" reform of the European Union. These inconsequential scraps are certainly not that. He committed himself to the process of returning powers from the Union to the individual member states. That has not been achieved. The principle of the acquis communautaire remains in place, as does the passerelle clause of the Lisbon treaty which entrenches it He promised full-on treaty change. No such treaty change has been secured. On ever closer union, is my noble friend aware that the Solemn Declaration on European Union agreed in Stuttgart in 1983 explicitly commits the European Union to the ever closer union of the member states of the EU? Did the Prime Minister seek to have the Stuttgart declaration revoked, and, if not, why not?