argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
British Citizens Abroad — House of Lords, 2020-03-24
Topic: International Affairs
Raymond Collins (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Answer. Since we last discussed this issue, there has been welcome progress. Again, I thank all the staff of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who have worked tirelessly to address this issue. Anyone who heard the debate in the other place earlier would have been shocked by what was said about the number of people contacting MPs. As we saw in the media this morning, it remains a matter of huge concern The Foreign Secretary mentioned working with international partners, including the G7 and EU partners, to try to ensure that we can repatriate those who want and need it. However, he acknowledged—and this is my key point—that clear information is vital for those stranded. He said that the Government were providing certainty through embassies; although physical access is often restricted, they are not closed. The Statement mentioned doubling capacity, particularly through call centres. Can the Minister explain whether this is meeting demand? Certainly, MPs are hearing concerns from constituents that they are not getting a response. Can he address that capacity and demand issue? We have heard on the radio that a number of medical staff are very frustrated at not being able to get back to their job helping the NHS. Has the Foreign Office taken steps to compile a register of NHS staff stranded overseas to pass on to the Department of Health Given the scale of this situation, compiling full data is really important. I hope that we can get a better picture of those stranded abroad.
Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Labor
Jean Lesley Patricia Drake (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I welcome the order and regulations, which will ensure that eligible seafarers and offshore workers continue to benefit from employer duties to auto-enrol workers into a workplace pension Importantly, they confirm a set of three underpinning government decisions. First, the consideration of complexities in a sector or net burden on business, which led to the original sunset clauses, has not been allowed to exclude these workers from auto-enrolment. Secondly, the Government have resisted amending the eligibility test for auto-enrolling these workers, therefore ensuring that the coverage is not diminished. Thirdly, the DWP has held to its 2017 Maintaining the Momentum report, in which it concluded that employer auto-enrolment duties should continue regardless of industry sector and size of employer The necessity of emergency and extraordinary financial measures in response to this pandemic can sometimes mask the risk that fundamentals around long-term sustainability get lost, which is why I welcome that the Government have maintained employer auto-enrolment duties and that the job retention scheme allows grants to cover employer statutory minimum pension contributions for millions of furloughed workers. These grants particularly benefit women and young workers, who are much more likely to be working in sectors with the highest incidence of furloughed workers It took 16 years to build consensus and fully implement auto-enrolment. Auto-enrolment was born in the last financial crisis with the 2008 Act. If siren voices had prevailed then and the policy had been kicked into the long grass, we would not have secured 10 million more saving and 1.6 million employers participating. It is important that auto-enrolment is maintained during this pandemic crisis, avoiding irrecoverable long-term negative consequences, particularly for younger generations who are already likely to be hit particularly hard by this pandemic In conclusion, I ask the Minister for reassurance that the Government are committed to maintaining auto-enrolment duties in the rebuilding of the economy, regardless of the industry sector and size of the employer.
Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Labor
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too speak in favour of seafarers and offshore workers continuing to be subject to automatic enrolment if they are ordinarily working within the UK, and I support the removal of the sunset provisions that would negate this outcome. The point was raised about why the sunset provisions were there in the first place. If memory serves, it was because some of the complexities of the arrangement were still to be tackled and it was a way of enabling legislation to go forward without losing that issue Our position is consistent with our calling for the expansion of automatic enrolment to workers who are not ordinarily or currently covered, and aligns with the Government’s position, as we have heard from the Minister, that all sectors should be covered The July 2017 consultation concerning seafarers and offshore workers estimated that the number of workers on the UK continental shelf working in the UK was a little shy of 29,000, with a dropout rate of 10%. I am afraid I missed some of the Minister’s introduction but I think she suggested that the figure was now 26,000; in any event, perhaps she could confirm that. What is the split between seafarers and offshore workers? How does the eligibility for auto-enrolment align with income tax criteria? Are they the same We know that since the start of auto-enrolment in 2012 more than 10 million workers have been enrolled in a pension scheme but the work has not been completed, as we know. The Motion today is a missed opportunity to extend auto-enrolment to younger workers, those on lower earnings, the self-employed and those with multiple jobs; to help the gender balance; and to extend economic justice to many of those who have proved to be our front-line saviours these past weeks The Government’s commitment to tackling such issues by the mid-2020s will doubtless need some sort of review, given the coronavirus and changes in working patterns and practices, though it is perhaps too soon to make a call on that. What is the position of those who have been furloughed? There was the 3% top-up but can we know whether, and how many, workers would have opted out from those arrangements? The pandemic has highlighted just how—
Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Labor
David Blunkett (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, as my Braille watch does not have the facility of timing my speech down to the half minute, I shall be as brief as possible. I welcome these instruments, not least for the signal they send in terms of the continuing commitment to auto-enrolment. My noble friend Lady Drake may not remember that, along with John Hills and the chair of the commission, Adair Turner, back in 2005 she presented the initial findings, and my job was to persuade Tony Blair and Gordon Brown that auto-enrolment was the kind of long-term policy that gives Government a good name rather than a bad one. I was particularly pleased that, after the passage of the 2008 Act, although it took an extremely long time, the coalition Government were then able to pick this up and continue with it. That is why it is important to pick up on the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, who ingeniously managed to bring in the important issue of people working in the voluntary, not-for-profit and charitable sectors that will apply more broadly in terms of the impact of Covid-19 on a much wider group of sectors than the ones we are dealing with today. I want also to reinforce the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann—I seem to be supporting Conservative and well as Labour Peers today—about the anomalies that exist However, my main point is in the years ahead, while we protect the state pensions of people who are unemployed and moving in and out of work, it is clear that auto-enrolment will be a crucial part of maintaining income for the future, and therefore we need to find ingenious ways of ensuring that that entitlement will continue, as very large numbers of people move from furlough into unemployment, perhaps on a long-term basis.
Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Labor
Alicia Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too support this order and these regulations. Automatic enrolment into workplace pensions should continue for maritime workers and seafarers. They should have the same access as other workers in the UK economy. As acknowledged by other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Blunkett, auto-enrolment, introduced by the last Labour Government, was a landmark achievement. The welcome continuation of the policy between Governments has meant that 10.2 million people are now saving £90 billion a year via auto-enrolment However, there are issues that it would be remiss not to mention in this debate: the £10,000 threshold, the starting age of 22 and the problems for the self-employed. I hope the Government will look at these issues sooner rather than later, especially the age threshold. This change, implemented earlier than the mid-2020s, will help young people to start saving as early as possible and give their pensions more time to grow During the Covid-19 crisis, the Pensions Regulator has relaxed the requirement for employers to consult on cutting pensions contributions in some circumstances, and the period in which schemes must report payment failures has been extended from 90 to 150 days. Has an assessment of these changes regarding the pension pots of individuals been made? Recently, a leaked Treasury document suggested that one way to ease the debt burden accumulated due to the lockdown would be to scrap the pensions triple lock. Are the Government considering this policy change As we discuss the regulation for the offshore sector, as noted by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, we need to recognise the pressure this industry is under due to coronavirus. The recent business outlook report from the UK Oil and Gas Industry Association says that up to 30,000 jobs could be lost in the next 18 months. What action are the Government planning to support offshore sector workers?
Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Labor
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in 2007-08, as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions I introduced the original auto-enrolment legislation that made employee pensions membership virtually compulsory. At that time, many millions were staring at a pensions black hole, so I am pleased that since then over 10 million people are in auto-enrolment, as part of the three-quarters of workers now part of a workplace pension These statutory instruments are a welcome advance, especially for maritime workers and seafarers, but I appeal to the Minister to reconsider the issue of the 5 million self-employed, many of whom, as other noble Lords have said, are in low-paid or insecure work and have no pensions whatever. Can she explain how the Government intend to find a solution to this This is all against a background of defined benefit schemes—once the gold standard for occupational pension provision—closing at an alarming rate over the last decade as companies cut costs. The norm is now inadequate defined contribution schemes, which means that on current trends, and if the Government, with business, do nothing, the state will incur multibillion costs to save millions from abject destitution Notwithstanding auto-enrolment, the average pension pot of £50,000, which would give an annual income of just £2,500 a year, is nothing like enough to live on, even with a full state retirement pension. Experts estimate that we should each save at least 13% of our income from the age of 25. That is simply not happening, with auto-enrolment at a combined 8% The Government have kept kicking the can down the road on proper funding for elderly care, and we have witnessed the desperate predicaments of care homes in the Covid-19 crisis, but the same is true for decent pensions. We cannot and must not continue in this way. The blunt choice our society faces is between a future, which currently beckons, of poverty and misery in old age, or politicians today being honest about the need both to pay more into pensions and to raise extra taxation to finance decent elderly care.
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Technology
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): I spoke at Second Reading, so I do not need to follow the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in making a Second Reading speech. I agree with all the points he made; his amendments probe the Minister in all the right directions However, a new big Second Reading theme has emerged since that Second Reading debate, due to the coronavirus crisis and the pressure it is putting on private operators. There has been a good deal of media speculation in the last two weeks as to what might happen to Openreach, in particular whether BT will seek new partners to fund its rollout plans or possibly even sell off Openreach entirely. That would be a dramatic change in circumstance from the position before the crisis, when BT was keen to maintain its position with Openreach and the argument was much more about how one could get a commitment to rollout while Openreach was still linked to BT In her reply, can the Minister give us a sitrep on the position in respect of Openreach, what BT’s intentions are and what impact she believes it will have on the rollout schedule and plans in respect of superfast broadband? This has a big bearing on the subsequent amendments and those we might want to take forward on Report. I hope she can give us an update on those issues.
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Technology
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): I am glad that the Minister has a sense of humour. Those of us in this Committee will regard her predicament of having a very weak connection as fully justifying the Bill. I do not know whether she is in a shared property that does not have fibre throughout, but we cannot properly conduct this Committee stage because even among ourselves we do not have a sufficiently strong internet signal, despite having weeks to prepare. This demonstrates why, as a country, we need to get going on this I did not pick up the first time round what the Minister said about BT, because of her dropped connection. When she repeated it in response to my noble friend Lord Liddle, she left me somewhat concerned. She said that the stories in the FT were "inaccurate", but she would not say in what respect; she simply referred to other press comments. I see exactly what she is seeking to do: she is trying to keep clear of revealing to us private information, which the Government or the regulator will surely have, about what is going on in this context. However, I think she will understand that we do not really regard this situation as satisfactory As my noble friends Lord Liddle and Lord Stevenson rightly said, although Openreach is formally a private company, our whole understanding is that rolling out enhanced gigabyte connectivity crucially depends on Openreach. If we do not have confidence in its capacity to do this, the Committee will certainly not be satisfied that the Government have a strategy. To be fair, I do not think that the Government themselves would be satisfied with the situation either.
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Technology
Spencer Livermore (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am pleased to follow my noble friend Lord Adonis, to whom I am grateful for tabling Amendment 2. The Government have talked a lot about improving broadband speeds across the nation—something which, in light of the current situation, has become more important than ever. Despite this, as my noble friend Lord Collins of Highbury noted at Second Reading, there has been a gradual but very definite downgrading of the Government’s ambitions When the Bill was first published back in January, it should have been an important step in realising the stated ambition of widely available gigabit-capable broadband. The Government have their new Commons majority—not that they needed it, because the issue of improving our telecommunications infrastructure is not contentious. Instead, not only was the legislation severely limited in its scope; it played it safe on the services to be provided under it. The Committee can imagine our disappointment, and the bewilderment of many who had expected so much more from the department. The Labour Front Bench has signed this amendment, as we need greater clarity on the Government’s plan for high-speed broadband and other forms of telecommunications infrastructure in the months and years to come.
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Technology
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): Before I make my concluding remarks, perhaps I may ask the Minister three further probing questions. I am obviously extremely grateful to her for her full response, but she raised three questions in my mind First, she raised some technical concerns about the amendment—in particular, that it amends not the code but only the introductory provisions. That raises an obvious question. If I return with this amendment on Report, properly drafted—indeed, I might invite the noble Baroness herself to provide a draft that the Government think is adequate—would the Government then be prepared to accept it? Indeed, if they proposed it themselves, they would not have to accept it That is important because there is an inconsistency in the noble Baroness’s argument in respect of the other two points. She said that it is unlikely that operators would want to install what she called "outdated technology". I take that to mean technology that is not gigabit-capable. Not only is that unlikely but, if they were to do so on any large scale, of course the Government would then not meet their target, which is to have gigabit-capable coverage If the Government are committed to their target and believe that operators are unlikely anyway to want to take forward what she calls outdated technology, what is their objection to having this specification in the Bill? I do not understand what it is. I will give the Minister a moment further to consider her answer to that I was very concerned about a point she made about the Government being speed neutral. When Matt Warman spoke in the House of Commons, he did not use the phrase speed neutral but said the Government were technology neutral. I am sympathetic to technology neutral but totally unsympathetic—as I suspect colleagues in the Committee will be—to the idea that the Government are speed neutral. Speed neutral means that the Government may not actually be committed to having superfast broadband rolled out across the country in the first place. Indeed, if the Minister considers what she means by speed neutral and elucidates it a bit further for the Committee, it may be that we get to a position where we have underlying concerns about whether the Government are committed to their own target. Can the Minister tell us what she means by speed neutral? Does she mean that the Government would be perfectly happy to have a national rollout of something less than gigabit-capable coverage? If she does not mean that and is committed, on behalf of the Government, to gigabit-capable coverage—which I think is what the Committee wants to see—why will the Government not accept an amendment of this kind, properly drafted, which does no more than hold them to their own public commitments?
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Technology
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): I am extremely grateful to the Minister for her last point about setting this out in a letter. It is very important to the Committee that the Government do so. I do not at all like this idea of speed neutrality, which implies that the Government’s target might not be worth the paper it is written on and that Parliament is about to grant the Government powers that in principle we support but whose purpose will not necessarily be met unless we can maintain the commitment to gigabit-capable coverage. I think the Minister understands that, because, while she said that speed neutrality is a consequence of technology neutrality, she has not said that the Government are not committed to gigabit-capable coverage across the country If the Government are committed to gigabit-capable coverage nationwide, it follows logically that it is not speed-neutral. The Committee is looking forward to hearing, in the Minister’s reply, how the Government will square that circle. What she says in that regard will have a big bearing on how we take this matter forward at Report, but on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-05-19
Topic: Technology
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): This is a very interesting argument, which I do not really understand. It has come up on previous amendments and we need to bottom it out before we get to the end of today’s debates. As a precursor to what I am about to say, I do not think we would be having these discussions were it not for two things. First, memories are very short. One reason that we have Openreach is the increasing frustration that we felt over the years—not just us but the Government—at the inability of BT, a slow-moving giant, to respond to the needs of the country in developing gigabit-capable broadband. Indeed, in those days we were talking about simply getting to a USO figure of 10 megabits per second. That was the rationale for forcing BT, which did not wish to do it, to split off Openreach. It may well be that that is a continuing story and we will have more to go on. The idea was that Openreach would be faster and less constrained by the bureaucracy of BT and the problems affecting it, and able to satisfy the need to get our country up to the standards we wanted. That was the moving force It has been mentioned but it is important to bear in mind that last year we were at the bottom of the 80 or countries that contributed to an overall survey about how fast broadband was being been brought into countries. The good news is that we are no longer bottom; we are now third from bottom with 2.8% coverage. The top countries—Iceland, Belarus and Sweden—have more than 60% coverage of fibre to the home and the EU 28 average is 17.1%. We are miles away from getting anywhere near completing this in the time allotted. I do not get the idea that somehow we have to be balanced and fair and that there is a public interest in making sure that the rights of all concerned are equally balanced. The public interest is in getting fast broadband to as many people as possible as quickly as possible We will do that by making sure that the process is more like utility provision than a discretionary arrangement for getting something as a result of choice. The idea that somehow bringing operators to the point where they see that it makes good economic sense to implement a process in an area they happen to be working in is somehow unbalancing the public interest is just bonkers. It is in the public interest if we increase the quality of connections available to people to connect to the fast internet if they wish to do so, and it is not taking any rights away from owners. The whole point is that this is a process that has started; it is not a decision to go ahead. The process allows people to petition the courts or others to make sure that they can get access when they wish to do so. It is not about giving away any rights. I hope the Minister will take those points away and think about them. I am certain we will want to come back to this on Report. In the interim, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.