argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Abortion (Disability Equality) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-02-24
Topic: Civil Rights
Jennifer Louise Tonge (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I did not intend to speak to the amendment, but I have to stand up as a fellow medical practitioner—if a very humble one—to say that whenever the noble Lord, Lord Winston, speaks on his subject in this Chamber, he makes me feel young again. I am again a medical student listening to one of the best profs give a superb tutorial, and I thank him for that, because it was extremely useful. I add only a couple of things. I get very tired of people arguing that doctors assist women towards having an abortion—that somehow they want to get on with it, are complicit and do not allow women enough time. In my experience as a family planning doctor, and even when I was a Member of Parliament, I never came across examples of this. Women are listened to very carefully and allowed to make up their own mind. Allowing women to have the choice is essential A number of people say that women are terribly upset and traumatised after they have had an abortion. That is, again, a rarity. Usually, if they have had the right counselling and right termination, when they have had the abortion for whatever reason—particularly in the cases we are discussing this afternoon—there is a sense of great relief at being able to get on with their own lives. If the Bill went through we would be taking that away from a large number of women and I would deplore that.
Local Housing Need — House of Lords, 2017-09-14
Topic: Housing
David Geoffrey Nigel Filkin (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to radically increase the supply of housing. I declare two interests as chair of the Centre for Ageing Better and as a member of the Intergenerational Commission. The problems of insufficient housing are borne by both ends of the spectrum. Younger people face significantly higher housing cost and significantly lower quality of housing because we have failed to build enough housing in the last 20 years. The greatest growth in the number of households and the percentage of households is in people aged 65 plus. Clearly, the housing White Paper makes some reference to this, which is welcome, but there is an urgent need to recognise the importance of the million new homes, many houses being provided that are suitable for older people or people as they get older, and ensuring a supply of suitable accommodation for people to move into in urban and rural areas as they wish to adopt more suitable housing for their later years. What will be done about this?
Race Disparity Audit — House of Lords, 2017-10-10
Topic: Civil Rights
Jitesh Gadhia (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I add my welcome for the publication of this report. Sunshine is often the best disinfectant, and bringing transparency to areas where more work needs to be done to tackle persistent inequality and prejudice is most welcome. I encourage the Government to develop a proactive agenda to tackle these issues. At the same time, there is some positive evidence in the report, particularly regarding the British Indian community, which comes top in a number of earnings and education indicators. For example, 35% of British Indians earn more than £1,000 a week, versus an average of 24% in that income bracket across the population; and 14% of British Indian children achieve three A grades or better at A-level. Does my noble friend agree that the British Indian community provides a role model for how a minority group can integrate successfully into British society and make a positive and outstanding contribution to this country?
Race Disparity Audit — House of Lords, 2017-10-10
Topic: Civil Rights
Manzila Pola Uddin (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I want to follow up on the previous comments of the noble Earl from the Cross Benches, which relate to what my noble friend Lady Howells said. We need to address busting the myths about one of the issues, which is the impact of families living with a single parent and the claim that there is always an impact. That myth is always about black parents. There are countless single-parent families in this country and many children have done well, so we should not continue to perpetrate this myth because it adds to the burden of racism that many families have to face. I welcome the audit and whatever it is going to deliver, but it would be very helpful if the Minister said what the timeframe is for explaining and for action. The noble Lord himself will know about some of the issues around disparity and discrimination—whatever we wish to call it—and the challenge of making ourselves a more equal and just society. He has many long-standing associations with Tower Hamlets. He knows all about this issue, as do other members of the Government. I want to be told about the parameters of action to be taken rather than about the audit or the changes envisaged, because change has obviously not taken place over a generation. Therefore, I would welcome a little more certainty about the timeline.
Local Government Elections (Referendum) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-12-15
Topic: Other
David Lawrence Lipsey (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): Since there seems to be some mystery about this, I clarify that I have moved to being a non-affiliated Peer on being elected to the deputy chairmanship of the charity Full Fact, which is determinedly non-partisan.
Paradise Papers — House of Lords, 2017-11-06
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Jitesh Gadhia (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I declare my interests as an investor in a wide range of assets, including offshore investments. Will my noble friend agree that millions of UK savers and pensions, let alone Her Majesty, benefit directly or indirectly from investments held offshore, and to suggest that they are avoiding tax is simply fake and false news? Those who take the time to properly understand offshore investment vehicles will realise that their underlying purpose is to provide an efficient and predictable umbrella structure to attract the widest possible range of investors from around the world. They are in fact set up to minimise the amount of tax paid within the offshore entity and consequently to maximise the returns flowing back to investors, allowing them to pay tax directly in their own countries.
Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-12-13
Topic: Civil Rights
Hilary Cavendish (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I want to briefly bring us back to Amendment 50A of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. I declare an interest; I have been a journalist for about 15 years and have won several prizes for investigative journalism. One of my campaigns, which exposed miscarriages of justice, led to the Blair Government changing the law in 2009. Looking back on that case—and the Rochdale and Rotherham sexual harassment and grooming cases, which I was involved in as part of the investigative team at the Times—I feel that the use of "necessary", which the noble Baroness is suggesting, is fraught with more difficulty than it may appear It is perhaps difficult to understand quite how difficult it is for journalists to do some of the deep, preparatory investigative work that results in some of these exposés. The vested interests arranged against the exposure of some of these cases are phenomenal; the legal remedies available are quite significant. Indeed, I think someone mentioned earlier that, only two years ago, the Sunday Times was faced with the threat of an injunction and civil proceedings for the publication of what turned out to be completely accurate information about doping among gold-medal athletes. That paper was protected under the Data Protection Act 1998, but the cases were brought under that Act. It is important to remember that journalists do not have the entirely free hand that we perhaps imagine I find myself standing in this Chamber, which has historically been a bastion of freedom, and looking at a series of largely well-meaning amendments that would amount to a shift towards presumption of privacy, which would protect precisely the kind of vested interests that I have spent part of my career challenging. I come back to the point about necessity: as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, suggested earlier, it is extremely difficult to understand, as a journalist, how this would work in practice. The definition of what is necessary seems extremely difficult. I foresee that that would be a gift to those who have an interest in preventing the investigation and publication of their activities—some of whom would be perfectly innocent and some of whom would be precisely the kind of people that this House would want to expose, I hope—because it would enable them to debate the definition of necessity and to delay investigation, potentially stopping it altogether. Delay is an enormously powerful weapon—do not underestimate it—when people are up against newspapers; do not forget about local newspapers, which sometimes have extremely limited resources I am deeply worried about the wording of the amendment; I would prefer the House to support Amendment 50.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-01-12
Topic: Civil Rights
John Woodcock (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, surprisingly, my remarks will overlap substantially with the noble Baroness’s speech, although they come from a somewhat different perspective I thought that the opening speech from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was convincing and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply before I make my mind up on how to vote. But it left me wondering whether this approach ought not to be actively considered for extension around not simply schools and vaccination centres but seats of democracy such as Parliament and potentially local councils, where we have seen pretty disgraceful activities that are clearly designed to intimidate elected members—anti-vaccine activists have pursued a highly aggressive strategy. It is notable that that is off the table in the amendment There is no reason why this issue should necessarily be covered, but—this is my point of overlap with the noble Baroness—I raise it because I will be listening with interest to what Members of the Opposition and from all sides of the House say about the very controversial measures that are due to come on Monday. I share the concern that we have a real tendency as a House and a legislature to find ourselves in instinctive agreement with measures designed to avoid intimidation from groups whose causes we do not agree with; yet we find ourselves, often subconsciously, contemplating what can be equally intimidatory methods of protest deployed in the name of a cause whose broader case we do agree with. It is really important that we guard against doing that.
Migrant Crossings: Role of the Military — House of Lords, 2022-01-20
Topic: Immigration
Catharine Letitia Hoey (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, just before Christmas the French Government closed their borders to British citizens, seeming to be able to do so legally. Can the Minister explain to the British public how they can do that, yet we seem not to be able to stop migrants illegally coming into our country?
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-01-10
Topic: Civil Rights
Claire Fox (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I welcome this amendment and I commend the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, in particular, for doggedly sticking with this issue. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, for organising the MoJ teach-in, which I found very interesting and useful. I learned a lot and I listened hard I thought this amendment was a nuanced and sensitive way of dealing with all the objections raised by the MoJ at that teach-in, so I am rather disappointed that the Government have not accepted the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, which is a bespoke amendment that protects women’s single-sex spaces while sympathetically and practically managing any challenges faced by transwomen prisoners The amendment might be a modest proposal—I think it is—but noble Lords may be interested to hear that it has created a huge amount of interest outside this place over the last couple of days. People on Twitter might look at #KeepPrisonsSingleSex. It has been trending for the last 36 hours. Do look because the messages on there are what I am talking about, rather than the fact that it is trending I want to read a few tweets that could maybe help us understand why this amendment matters. One woman said: "I find it quite baffling that this is even up for discussion! How did we get to the point where we need a debate to include legislation to prevent something so damaging to women?" Another said: "Women in UK prisons must not be locked in with convicted male criminals. This is an appalling failure of the duty of care the state has for female prisoners. Female prison staff must not be forced to search male prisoners. Let’s hope the House of Lords shows sense." I would like to think the House of Lords would as well, but maybe not. The final one I want to read out says: "I’ve been to prison and I’m telling you now that for some women it’s their only safe space, due to abuse on the outside. Allowing anyone who claims to feel like a woman to be put in that safe space is wrong! Women, criminal or not deserve to feel safe." I say hear, hear to that.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-01-10
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Cashman (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I rise to speak against this amendment. We should remind ourselves that when we talk about trans women and trans men, we are talking about men and women who have faced very difficult choices about their identity and whom they believe themselves to be. Once they face that choice and make the decision, the transition is a very lengthy process and, again, it is not undertaken lightly because, as we have heard, so often it leads to gender reassignment I occasionally go on Twitter. I have read the tweets and received messages from people who, in relation to what we are discussing tonight, have said that if they thought that they were going to prison as a trans woman or a trans man, they would rather commit suicide than face what they believe would be inhumane treatment within the United Kingdom Prison Service. We have to deal with these fears. We are being asked to deal with fears on both sides of this argument, and I want us to deal with both equally. The balancing of rights always poses for us the greatest problem, but I believe that the Ministry of Justice, in its policy on assessing trans prisoners, has got it absolutely right It is late and we have other important work to do, so I will begin to wind up. But I wish to associate myself wholeheartedly with the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I could go through the policy section by section stating why I believe it is right. I am not going to do that, but if your Lordships wished to return to it, I would do so I will finish with these reflections. This amendment, even though it has been placed in good faith and, as the mover said, with good intention, deeply concerns me because it perpetrates the stereotype of trans women and trans men as sexual predators—as a threat to other women, and trans men as a threat to the wider society. It also, as was said in debate on the previous amendment, creates further inequalities; it does not reduce them.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-01-10
Topic: Civil Rights
Claire Fox (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): I wanted to clarify whether, if the proposal has an impact on prisons, what impact it might have on all women. What is at issue is the protection of single-sex facilities—places that are only single sex. That is a very important principle—no matter how small the numbers are in this instance—about which there is concern. I am clarifying why people say that, and not just in this House—this is a widespread concern.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-01-10
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Cashman (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, it is a great pleasure to speak in support of these two amendments and to follow the Minister, who has, throughout the six years, made it seem a bit like fun, and so time flew past. Joking aside, her commitment from the very beginning has never been in question To put these amendments into context, for nearly 500 years this House routinely passed hateful legislation that damaged, and in many cases destroyed, the lives of gay people. Many of the measures that this House passed, century after century, are well known. The Acts of 1533 and 1855 are now infamous, but a battery of lesser-known laws ensured that gay people were systematically fettered within a vile and oppressive regime of regulation that prevented them living full lives.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-01-05
Topic: Mixed Topics
Manzila Pola Uddin (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I am nearly finished. Are we seriously asking our officials to watch as people die, which may be considered manslaughter by gross negligence in our English courtrooms Over generations the UK has contributed to destabilising many nations, most recently Afghanistan, and the same can be said for Iraq and countless African countries. What result did we expect when the UK and its allies dropped an average of 46 bombs a day—
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-01-05
Topic: Civil Rights
Manzila Pola Uddin (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): —we cannot punish the victims we have created. I sit in this Chamber every day, hopeful that it is possible that we can change the way in which we discharge our duties. Doing nothing is an abrogation of our duties. Our moral standing leaves nothing for others to emulate except tyranny, and we cannot be a bystander to such degradation of human decency.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-01-25
Topic: Mixed Topics
Claire Fox (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, relatively new as I am to this House, I try to follow procedure and often fail to do so, and I am rightly reprimanded by fellow Peers when that happens and when mistakes are made. I am also very conscious of the democratic deficit of this House as unelected legislators. But, in relation to this issue, I was shocked by what I saw as an abuse of procedure by the introduction of this very important Harper’s law at such a late stage. I felt that that was bending the stick, to say the least, in terms of taking this House and its procedures seriously So, from my point of view, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, has explained very well that this is a modest amendment that does not try to overturn the spirit of what was passed earlier on but is trying to deal with what I think are unintended consequences that the Government themselves do not want to see—that is not their intention. But Harper’s law is not a minor matter. Since that bit of a mess by which it was passed last time, I have had some sleepless nights imagining that I might in any way be responsible for the unintended consequences that I really do not think the Minister wants to happen, but which could happen unless the Bill is unamended—which is why I support this amendment in these unusual circumstances.
Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-04
Topic: Mixed Topics
Tina Stowell (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): I will be very brief. I declare my chairmanship of the Communications and Digital Committee. A lot of powerful speeches have been made all around the House today and clearly, we are all united in our care and concern for the issue of child obesity. The complexity of what is proposed in this legislation has been illustrated to such an extent that there is a case for delaying implementing these measures so that it is got right. But the main reason for my decision to speak in this debate is the issue of fairness, equal treatment and the difference in the way these regulations apply to broadcasters and to the online platforms. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood have already spoken in some detail about the inequality of treatment between broadcasters and news publishers, and the online platforms I spell out clearly that what we are talking about here is that responsibility for the control and compliance of advertising that appears on television or radio rests with broadcasters, which can be sanctioned severely with huge fines by regulators if they allow anything that is non-compliant to air. But responsibility does not rest with the online platforms, which take far more in profit from the advertising they publish on their sites than any broadcaster is able to. They are equally able to control what appears on their platforms, as the noble Viscount powerfully described. Could my noble friend the Minister therefore explain why the Government are not ensuring parity between broadcasters and the likes of Google and Facebook at the point of legislation, to ensure parity in the way this will be applied Also under the heading of fairness, I say that, in the case of the small manufacturers of the products affected by the advertising ban, I support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, which ensures that the definition of "SME" in the Bill does not provide a loophole exempting large international manufacturers from these advertising restrictions just because they have a small workforce in this country.
Communications and Digital Committee — House of Lords, 2022-01-19
Topic: Other
John Eric Gardiner (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, Baroness Harding of Winscombe and Lord Young of Norwood Green be appointed members of the Select Committee, in place of Viscount Colville of Culross, Lord Gilbert of Panteg, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara; and that Baroness Stowell of Beeston be appointed chair of the Select Committee.
Conduct Committee — House of Lords, 2022-01-19
Topic: Other
John Eric Gardiner (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, Lord Blair of Boughton, Lord Garnier and Baroness Manningham-Buller be appointed members of the Select Committee, in place of Baroness Anelay of St Johns, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and Lord Mance; and that Baroness Manningham-Buller be appointed chair of the Select Committee.
Conduct Committee — House of Lords, 2022-01-19
Topic: Other
John Eric Gardiner (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, raises a crucial issue but it is unrelated to the appointment Motion. I am moving the Motions in my capacity as chair of the Committee of Selection. I therefore hope noble Lords will accept that I do not and am not in a position to speak for the Conduct Committee, which is represented in your Lordships’ House by its chair. I will of course listen to what the noble Lord has to say and draw his remarks to the attention of the chair of the Conduct Committee, assuming that the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, is indeed appointed. I beg to move Amendment to the Motion
Conduct Committee — House of Lords, 2022-01-19
Topic: Mixed Topics
Catharine Letitia Hoey (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I support completely what the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Forsyth, have said. I am here to speak because, unfortunately, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox—who was one of the recipients of this letter—has had to leave for Grand Committee. She is a new Member, and she is a very strong woman, as we all know, yet getting a letter from the standards commissioner affected her. It affects anyone who gets a letter from the standards commissioner, even if, as has been said, it goes on to say that they are not going to investigate. It should have been put in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said I know that the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, cannot accept this amendment, but it seems to me a very common-sense amendment which should be accepted widely. It would allow the new committee to be able to take this as a first matter of priority.