argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Tax Credits (Income Thresholds and Determination of Rates) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-10-26
Topic: Social Welfare
Molly Christine Meacher (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, you will be glad to know I will speak extremely briefly. I thank many noble Lords for setting out so clearly the consequence of these regulations for vulnerable people and the need for the Government to come forward with mitigating measures. My amendment to defer consideration pending a report, nothing more—no money, nothing unusual—raises no constitutional issues. The evidence is absolutely clear on this from our clerks and from many authorities. I ask the House to perform its duty: to enable the Government to think again and to ensure that they listen to the elected House next Thursday. I want to test the opinion of the House.
Mesothelioma (Amendment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Ilora Gillian Finlay (Crossbench, Unknown): When he writes to me, will the Minister include in the correspondence the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, who has done a lot of work on schools in Wales? He might want to meet him. Will the Minister clarify who has responsibility for free schools and academies? They are in a different position from maintained schools, yet they often occupy buildings which contain asbestos.
Junior Doctors Contract — House of Lords, 2015-11-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Ilora Gillian Finlay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, can the Minister say how sincerely the Government are considering going to ACAS, which, as far as I understand it, is acceptable to the BMA Junior Doctors Committee, and can he explain why there is resistance to doing that? Given the threat of terrorism that we now face, have the Government assessed the impact and the security that would be needed on the strike days both in the event of a terrorist attack on the population at large, when those who are well versed in managing it will not be working, and in the event of a terrorist attack specifically targeted at demonstrations by junior doctors, when they will be injured and the hospitals will be empty?
Childcare Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-14
Topic: Government Operations
Stewart Sutherland (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I welcome the progress that has been made during the Recess and the various meetings the Minster has had, not least yesterday’s briefing session, which I think all of us present found useful and informative. It did not give us all the answers that we want. I shall come back to that in a moment I also welcome the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. It properly criticised the procedure we are going through, which is not ideal and is certainly not perfect. The question is whether it should be continued because the benefits will be significant, or whether it should be halted. I do not accept that this would not involve delay. It is important for the health of this Bill and its implementation that we proceed with further analysis, and almost more importantly, the pilot studies. It is only through pilots that we shall begin to see where the real practical difficulties arise, many of which have already been mentioned by my colleagues on the other Benches. The pilots have to take these points on board and test the adequacy of the proposals As I said, I welcome yesterday’s briefing. From the discussion, I saw a new capacity—not willingness, but capacity—for flexibility in the Government’s response. The Government will have to exercise every jot and tittle of that flexibility in responding to the comments that are made and the views that are shared across this House. The other view we share is that we want this Bill to be passed. We want action The difficulty with the amendment is not the demand for a review. The review is under way and we have to get going further with it, and we had a helpful and professional briefing yesterday. However, the amendment’s second demand is that a sustainable funding solution be presented before moving to the next stage. Politics is the art of the possible. That is not possible. It can come only after the funding review across the whole of government has taken place. I do not want to make much of this at the moment, but I note in parentheses the view of the Select Committee that hard choices would have to be made. I have yet to see recognition of that from the Government, but that is a consequence we shall see when the final financial package is revealed That said, that seems to me an inadequate reason for such a measure, granted the moves that have been made, the flexibility that was shown yesterday, and what so far has been shared with us. There is much further to go. Granted all that, I am in favour of moving ahead to the next stage, which means that I cannot support this amendment as it stands, but I welcome the provision, for example, regarding a further meeting with the group of interested Peers when the funding situation is clear, so that our views can be formally and openly expressed.
Childcare Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-14
Topic: Social Welfare
Valerie Howarth (Crossbench, Unknown): I shall simply add to what my noble friend has just said a concern that I have, as vice-president of the Local Government Association. The Minister well knows that local government faces a funding gap of probably £9.5 billion, and £6.6 billion of cost pressures by 2020. My concern relates to the development of the Childcare Bill, about which I am very positive; for working families, it will make all the difference. My question is about the wider envelope of the funding review. When we get that review, will we actually understand in those totals what local authorities will have to give up and where the pressures will be to meet the extraordinary cost of childcare provision? We have to be very aware of the perverse consequences that might arise, and I would like the analysis to look at the pressure on small units in particular. Loss of the cross-subsidy will result in them having to close, because local authorities are not prepared to pay top-up fees; as the Minister knows, I have personal experience of that happening In conclusion, will the wider envelope take account of not only the Childcare Bill but the other pressures on local authorities? If so, what kind of priorities will be set, and can the wider review examine the cross-subsidy issue and the loss of places across the country?
Childcare Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-14
Topic: Education
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): I shall make one brief comment just to remind your Lordships that there probably will not be a better opportunity in this Parliament to improve social mobility. A well-funded early education service is one of the best means to ensure that the least advantaged young people and families do better and have a fair chance equal to those who have greater privileges. What is at stake is that, if this Bill is adequately funded, we will expand that offer to many more families; more parents will go into work, lifting their children out of poverty. Yes, mainly it will benefit the middle class, but it will also benefit some of the more disadvantaged. If the Bill is not adequately funded, this will not only be a poor offer but it will steal money from and impoverish the rest of the service. So we need to be absolutely clear that we have here either an opportunity to make a difference to social mobility that we will not otherwise have in this Parliament, or an opportunity to fail. Perhaps it is comforting to realise that, because the Prime Minister’s commitment to social mobility may give us some hope that, even in this difficult financial climate, the money will be found to make this work.
Childcare Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-14
Topic: Social Welfare
Stewart Sutherland (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I very much support the spirit of Amendment 20A. This is one of the key points that the Bill seeks to address. However—continuing in my pessimistic mode, I fear—I think this is one of the hard choices that may have to be made. I can see how large providers might well be able to do this and how in large centres of population this kind of provision will be possible. But asking small providers to continue provision outside their normal hours may well stop them operating completely. This is a matter of hard choices and I would be much happier with the amendment if it said something like, "Regulations should take account of the need to" rather than "ensure" because I do not think that regulations can ensure this Very quickly, I would be unhappy to do what Amendment 2 suggests because I fear that if you take the Secretary of State out of the line of full responsibility, the danger is that the responsibility lands on the local authorities and, as we have seen in other areas—and I have a lot of interest in the provision of care for the elderly—the local authority would have the responsibility but not the funding.
Childcare Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-14
Topic: Social Welfare
Stewart Sutherland (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, none of us would disagree with the importance of quality of staff; that is the fundamental thing that will make a childcare centre work, and work well. I have sympathy with all these amendments, because they point to particular features that may be part of ensuring, or giving reassurance, that quality is present—for example, qualifications. The evidence that we had in our committee was that qualifications are one of the most important identifiers of quality of staff. However, I have to put in the rubric that, of course, there is no guarantee. I have met many well-qualified people who do not exude quality in the required way. However, there is good evidence that qualifications are one indicator. For example, we have heard about the importance of a special individual in the setting. When I was at school, I suppose that would have been my form master. He did not teach me French, maths or physics, and sometimes he was a pain in the neck—but sometimes he was very useful and helpful. It is a relationship with an individual that is fundamental here. When it works well, it works exceptionally well, but it is not the only indicator. Equally, the staff training and development process is important Quality is a complex thing, with a whole series of factors, including the quality of the buildings in which the groups take place. A better way in which to tackle this issue would be to ensure that, off the Bill, instructions and guidance to Ofsted, which inspects these nurseries and care centres, are sufficiently clear to provide reassurance to parents that there is high-quality provision. Flexibility will be required and will vary from one place to another. Not all groups will be able to provide a specialist in SEN, but there need to be arrangements so that they have access to a specialist, even if it is in some other group. So I am pleading for flexibility here, rather than detail in the Bill.
Childcare Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-14
Topic: Social Welfare
Valerie Howarth (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support the noble Baroness’s wish for a national workforce strategy, for children with disability generally but particularly for those with learning disabilities or in specialist nurseries. That is because the availability of places for those children is simply not there, in my experience: that is why parents cannot access them. Where parents do wish to access them, local authorities often make it very difficult for them to do so, by producing very complex financial arrangements that exclude those nurseries from the capacity to give help to children. I have spoken about this to the noble Lord, Lord Nash. The Bill is complex, and this is another range of complexities that would benefit from a further look at a later stage, outside the Bill At the same time, as many of my colleagues know, I believe that we need a good mix. Of course we need qualifications. Having been involved sometimes at both ends of inspections, I know that qualifications belong to a tick box that is easier to look at, measure and add up than it is to look at skills, competency and relationships. Those are the things that actually matter. They are often enhanced by qualifications, but we need to look at provision that has a mix of all those qualities, particularly for children with difficulties. I do not believe, therefore, that qualifications are everything, but I do think that it is sometimes difficult to measure the other areas of expertise. Moreover, many voluntary organisations would like to add to the training of their staff, but as their colleagues will know, if you are going to train a member of staff you have to release them. Even if organisations are doing in-house training, they have to find time. That adds to the cost, so they have to make sure that cost is covered, which puts extra pressure on the budget Therefore, I cannot fully endorse the amendments in terms of qualifications, but we all need to move forward and look at the complexity of what we are trying to provide for children in these situations.
Childcare Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-14
Topic: Education
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for his careful response and to noble Lords who have tabled amendments and taken part in this important debate on quality. I should first point out that I made a couple of omissions in my opening statement because of my wish for brevity. The man I spoke of was, of course, Winston Churchill. Also, the Minister kindly made some comments to me earlier but I was not in my place. I assure him that I was stretching my legs behind the Bar and heard every word he said, but it was not a good time to choose to do so. I apologise for that I am grateful to the Minister for taking the time to answer in detail on these important matters. It is good to be reminded that he is developing a strategy for the early years workforce. It is most important to all of us, I am sure. I listened with interest to the debate about the importance of Ofsted versus the importance of high-quality qualifications for staff. I am very familiar with this issue from discussions about children’s homes, and there seems to be a parallel. Within the culture of residential care for looked-after children in this country, there is a strong conservative bias towards a low-qualified workforce and a high level of regulation. Many people working in this field and many authoritative figures would say, "We do not need higher qualified staff; we need good regulation and we will work with what we’ve got". I have followed this issue for many years and have always taken the opposite view. We need highly qualified staff when working with such vulnerable children—even more so than the staff on the continent, who are definitely more highly qualified. I am very sympathetic to the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Storey. We should start with high-quality teachers and professionals, and then regulate to make sure everything is done properly. That is the motor to real improvement There is a concern about private group provision and the percentage of early years teachers in those settings. We should not be too prescriptive but we know how important having professionals in early years settings is, particularly for the most disadvantaged children. It is a matter of concern that nearly 50% of independent group providers do not have early years teachers in those settings. I am sure that this will be debated further in the other place. I welcome the Minister’s many comments about the improvement in the qualifications of the workforce during the last Government. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Childcare Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-14
Topic: Social Welfare
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, will the data give information about the number of homeless families that are taking up the entitlement, for instance, or about the number of families with children in income poverty taking up the entitlement? If it is helpful to her, I am happy for the Minister to write to me.
Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 (Criminal Courts Charge) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-10-14
Topic: Law and Crime
David Pannick (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, on this subject, I am on the side of the two Jeremys: the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and Jeremy Bentham. In 1795, Jeremy Bentham wrote: "The statesman who contributes to put justice out of reach … is an accessary after the fact to every crime" For Bentham, such a law tax was a denial of justice. These regulations are a denial of justice, and they are a denial of justice for the two reasons given by the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Marks. First, because the sums involved—£150 up to £1,200—may well encourage innocent people to plead guilty, and, secondly, because the magistrate or judge has no discretion to vary the charge by reference to the circumstances of the offence or the offender—in particular, the offender’s means I will add a further point. There is a much fairer and more lucrative way forward for a Lord Chancellor who wants to help balance the books by imposing a court charge. Let the Lord Chancellor give the judges and magistrates a discretion to charge much higher court fees to defendants who are convicted of serious crimes and who can afford to pay. The drug dealers, the bank robbers and the fraudsters can be charged the true cost of their occupying the courts for weeks in trials that end in convictions if the judge or magistrate in their discretion thinks that it is appropriate to do so. The regulations could then give the courts a proper discretion not to impose on the small fry charges that may well induce guilty pleas from innocent people and may well result in the imposition of orders for payment from people who cannot afford them. If the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, wishes to test the opinion of the House on these regulations, he will certainly have my support in the Division Lobby.
Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 (Criminal Courts Charge) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-10-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Simon Denis Brown (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the points to be made against these regulations are so obvious and so strong that really they do not need to be made yet again in tonight’s debate. The problems—the total lack of judicial discretion, the obvious impossibility of recovery in so many cases and the risk of excessive pressure on defendants to plead guilty to avoid the charge escalating from £150 to £520, or, in an each-way case, from £180 to £1,000—were all foreseen by the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Marks, in Committee in July of last year. They have all since been the subject of widespread criticism by a series of distinguished legal commentators in a succession of legal periodicals such as the Criminal Law Review, Criminal Law and Justice Weekly and so forth. Professor Nicola Padfield, a most distinguished legal academic and criminologist and now master of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, described them as "astonishing" and quoted another commentator as saying that they were the most unworthy provisions on the statute book. The president of the Law Society called them "outrageous".
Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 (Criminal Courts Charge) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-10-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Harry Kenneth Woolf (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, what we are discussing concerns what happens in magistrates’ courts up and down the country and, from time to time, in the Crown Court, where for reasons that can be good or bad, cases go to be heard. I fear that these regulations indicate that the Government have paid less attention to what they are doing because it concerns magistrates and the cases that come before them, and other cases that are not the most serious. I see no other reason why the Government could come to the conclusion that it is right and proper to do what these regulations seek to do. I suggest that this House should regard justice in the magistrates’ courts as every bit as important as every other court in the land. It is a total disgrace that we should put on to the statute book provisions that have the consequence that magistrates are so appalled about what they are required to do that they feel it necessary to resign. I regard that as shocking, and the only explanation that I can suggest is the one I have given: that insufficient consideration was given to what has been done. Now that the matter has been brought to the attention of a new Minister of Justice and Lord Chancellor, he should look at it very carefully, as quickly as possible and, as he has been shown to have the courage to do, take his own decision and come to the right conclusion. I wish to put it on the record that I have been very pleased by the general approach of our new Minister of Justice and Lord Chancellor. It seems to me that he considers the facts; he may not always come to the decision I would want him to come to, but he comes to a fresh decision, as required by the circumstances as he sees them. I make no objection to the fact that he may take a different view from that which judges and retired judges would have come to. What is wrong here, though—this is the explanation—is that there was no proper consultation. I believe that if there had been proper consultation that had been objectively considered, these regulations would not have seen the light of day.
Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 (Criminal Courts Charge) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-10-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Nicholas Addison Phillips (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, in the days when one was allowed to use Latin in court, counsel and judges sometimes delighted in the phrase res ipsa loquitur: the facts speak for themselves, or, the answer is obvious. For the reasons given by every single person who has spoken thus far in this debate, that phrase applies to the Motion. I shall not repeat the reasons, but I shall support the Motion if I have the opportunity.