argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Companies (Disclosure of Address) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-04-16
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Christopher Fox (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, before commenting and asking some questions, I declare an interest in that I have been having personal communication with Companies House on an issue not unadjacent to this The Minister set out what we see as a pragmatic balance between what is practical and what is desirable—trying to balance what is needed to retain security and privacy while at the same time doing something that is both technically and administratively possible. For those reasons, we welcome the regulations. I have a couple of questions about the criteria and process for assessing applications within Companies House. Can the Minister give your Lordships’ House some idea of how the applications will be received and processed, and what criteria will be used to decide to remove a person’s private address and insert a holding address The Minister set out that a holding address would not be required for dissolved companies or directors who have stepped down. Would he consider a cooling-off period? After a company is dissolved, there is a period when its activity remains salient and therefore the activities of those past directors remain salient. Then there is a point at which, clearly, it is a dormant company and there is no fallout from its activities. A cooling-off period would be from the time at which the company is wound up until the time at which directors’ communications are removed It behoves me on these Benches to make the point that we still have a strong policy and we call for public registers of beneficial ownership to be extended to include British Overseas Territories. I understand that this SI does not necessarily cover that area, but I feel beholden to make that point. With those questions, we welcome the regulations.
Windrush Generation: Immigration Status — House of Lords, 2018-04-16
Topic: Immigration
Floella Benjamin (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it is good to hear the Government’s positive response to this distressing, inconsiderate and heartless situation. I came to Britain in 1960 as a British citizen; a Windrush generation child who was told that I was part of the motherland and would be welcomed. Luckily for me, I had my own passport as I travelled without my parents, otherwise I too would be having to prove my status. Many who travelled on their parents’ passports are now—due to unbelievable incompetence and lack of common sense and compassion by the Home Office—being treated as criminals and asked to provide evidence of their immigration status. Who in this House can provide school reports and payslips from 50 years ago? In this 70th anniversary year, we are meant to be commemorating Windrush, but these recent events threaten to sour the celebrations. There is a feeling of resentment, rejection and mistrust. Will the Government make amends by creating a Windrush day to celebrate every 22 June, to honour the pioneers and their descendants and to prove that we are valued?
Syria — House of Lords, 2018-04-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Roger Roberts (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, is the Minister basking in self-congratulation about the UK’s humanitarian aid to Syria? I remember the night when we voted on the Dubs amendment. We wanted 3,000 children from Syria to be accepted into the UK and those on the Government Benches walked into the Not-Content Lobby. Is that a measure of congratulation? There are still children in Calais and Dunkirk, yet every step we take builds a barrier—a wall, not a bridge—for those children.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
James Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): It is not only appropriate as a further role but one we have already agreed to. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, on many occasions noble Lords from all sides of the House have spoken about securing the rights of EU citizens in the United Kingdom and UK citizens in the European Union. This amendment fleshes that out and it would be wrong to pass a Bill which denied something we have already agreed.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Sarah Ludford (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): It may well be that we benefit from a visa waiver but it is also likely that we will have to apply for what is often called a "visa lite", which similar to the United States’ ESTA. The EU is bringing in something called ETIAS and for most people it will not amount to a big difference: you have to go online, pay a fee and answer lots of questions about health, criminal background and so on. We may not require a visa but we will need a "visa lite", so it will not be hassle-free.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Sarah Ludford (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): There could be a simple declaratory process. If any parliamentarians in this Chamber have ever had to deal with the Home Office on behalf of one of their constituents, as I did when I was an MEP, they will know what a happy—or otherwise—process that is. Something simple and declaratory such as going to the local town hall could be worked out. It should be light touch: a declaration of existing residence. That is quite different from having to apply to the Home Office The fear has been expressed on behalf of the group, the 3 million, that perhaps around 10% of people might fall through the cracks because their application is rejected or because they do not apply. Some people are not very aware of what is going on in the law or they do not have access to computers and so on. There is no legal presumption in favour of granting settled status to all residents who are legally living here before exit day, which begs another question. Perhaps the Minister could explain to us what exactly is going to happen to those people who arrive during the transition period. That, of course, is something the Prime Minister has conceded, in that they will have a status, but it is slightly unclear how it is going to work There has also been no clarification of the continuation of all the individual economic rights and recognition of qualifications that EU citizens currently enjoy and, as I have said, no guarantee that the registration will be simple and light touch. There is supposed to be a digital application system. Can the Minister tell us exactly where we are in the construction of that system? We all know that IT projects, in particular Home Office IT projects, have a habit of becoming problematic. Moreover, the backstop to all this is that the European Parliament will have to approve the withdrawal agreement, including the conditions for EU citizens. I note that Mr Verhofstadt tweeted yesterday, "the European Parliament expects a cost free and burden free registration process" It wants to ensure that there is no discrimination between EU citizens and British citizens, which of course raises the question: are the Government planning to introduce ID cards by the back door in order to say that we are all being treated the same There are many holes and gaps that the Home Office is still unable to answer questions on. I do not have time to cover them all but I would like to ask about comprehensive sickness insurance—the requirement that people have private medical insurance—because very mixed messages are being given about it. The position of the European Commission has always been that if people are allowed to use the NHS, that amounts to comprehensive sickness insurance under the directive. It started legal action but that has apparently not progressed.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Sarah Ludford (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): It is highly relevant to whether people are being guaranteed their existing rights to legally reside in this country. I am quite surprised that the noble Lord thinks it is not relevant to an amendment that is about maintaining and guaranteeing the existing rights of EU citizens. The confusion is caused by the Home Office’s lack of clarity, not by me I end on that note. I would like some answers from the Minister to these detailed questions and many others.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
James Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, in moving this amendment— I referred to it myself—was that, as part of the agreement that was struck between the United Kingdom and the European institutions in December, provision was made to, "establish a mechanism enabling UK courts or tribunals to decide, having had due regard to whether relevant case-law exists, to ask the CJEU questions of interpretation of those rights where they consider that a CJEU ruling on the question is necessary for the UK court or tribunal to be able to give judgment in a case before it" So it is not a case of questioning the ability of the Supreme Court. We have entered into an agreement which says that there must be an opportunity or a mechanism to refer to the Court of Justice of the European Union. How does the noble and learned Lord see the mechanism for giving effect to what the United Kingdom Government have agreed?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-07
Topic: Immigration
John Roger Roberts (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I speak not as a lawyer—I find it difficult to follow some of these legal arguments—but as a grandfather to seven grandchildren, each of whom was born into European citizenship after the treaty of Maastricht. They are just representative of the more than 18 million others who were born since that treaty was signed. If the Bill were to go through unamended, we would withdraw rights and hopes given to them during the past 25 years. What moral right do we have to do this If I spoke today in favour of this Bill, what would I say to Haf, Osian, Manon, Megan, Reuben—I am trying to remember their names—Ianto and Aiden? They would say, "Taid"—which is Welsh for grandfather—"why did you not oppose this? Why did you not oppose the loss of all these freedoms and the availability we had in the previous time? You didn’t do a thing". I am not the only grandfather in this room; I am not the only grandparent in this room. If a grandparent can vote to withdraw rights that have been cherished by their grandchildren, they are doing a tremendous disservice. To the various concessions in travel, in education and in so many other ways that we get as members of the European Union there will now be barriers, and it will be because we went along with the Bill—I would nearly call it an insane Bill—to withdraw these rights from those who have cherished them and used them during the past 25 years. We were able to choose to be members of the European Union; they were not. They were born into British citizenship; they were born into European citizenship, and, as my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, said, they were born into Welsh citizenship. We cannot withdraw these things. It is a blind way of treating the future generation That is all that I will say at this point. Seriously, we have no right. How will the Minister defend the withdrawal of such rights from 18 million citizens? We should remember that only 17 million people voted to leave; we are talking here about 18 million. How on earth can the Minister defend such a move?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that the issue is important not only to those who might be thinking of coming here, but to the people living here now? It is perfectly clear that their confidence has been undermined and they are showing that by voting with their feet. They are leaving jobs which are important to the whole of our society. The longer this debate goes on, having started from a position of, "Let us be clear: no rights will be taken away", the less confident many people feel about their future Before I finish, perhaps I may say that I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who also got off my chest a lot of the things I feel about this issue.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sharon Bowles (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the noble and learned Lord for his response. I appreciate that some of what I was trying to outline was complicated, and made more so by it no doubt being difficult to listen to. I am not convinced that the point is nailed with regard to the recitals of directives, not least because there is no provision to publish those in Schedule 5. If you are going to rely on them in court, you will have to adduce some other evidence, whereas regulations are going to be published. That lies behind the amendment that I tabled to Schedule 5—it is for advance information, if you like I think this is a technical fix—I may be wrong, and I just bring that to noble Lords’ attention. I think I understand what has been said about Clause 6(6) in that, if the modification is trivial then, for that bit of the legislation, nothing changes and another bit in the same legislation would probably remain unaffected. So, within an individual piece of legislation, the impact of the recitals might have been removed from some bits and not from others. I think that is what was being said, and that is where the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, was trying to get some clarity. Maybe we can take that offline to get that clarity. I am still not quite sure who makes that decision in Clause 6(6), and whether it will be something that appears when we get the schedule modifications or whether the courts and others will be left trying to decide it for themselves This may be something that we have to return to but, with the Committee’s agreement, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-07
Topic: Civil Rights
James Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who took part in this debate and I thank the Minister for his reply. He will perhaps not be surprised to learn that I was not wholly satisfied with his reply—although in fairness there was some common ground. He, like me, referred to the White Paper of March 2017 and the commitments that the Government made. Indeed, I accepted and acknowledged that in many cases the rights that have been established in relation to equality in this country have sometimes exceeded those in the European Union. However, that somewhat misses the point, because what I sought to do with this amendment was to ensure that, as we go forward and leave the European Union, these rights will still be there and that no future Government will be able to row back on them without having to give a proper explanation to Parliament The Minister made a couple of other points and I will reflect on what he said. I wonder about making the same offer as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made in the previous debate: if he thinks that some of these go too far, if he and I were to meet and he were to excise the ones he thinks take it beyond what is already there, would he then be prepared to accept an amendment on Report without these? That might be something he would wish to consider I also note that while he made the point in relation to subsection (2): "All individuals are equal before the law", as I did in my remarks, that that is part and parcel of our common law, he did not have anything to say about the second part, which refers to having, "the right to the equal protection and benefit of the law" The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, very graphically described the recent case which shows that treating everyone equally before the law does not take account of the fact that some laws might impact disproportionately on some categories of people and end up in discrimination.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-07
Topic: Other
Richard Newby (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Can the noble Lord give an example of where something is not really needed? Surely the whole point of this legislation is only to do things that are really needed—not to do anything that you think, when you wake up in the morning, might be a jolly good idea.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-07
Topic: Other
Sharon Bowles (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, when we discussed Clause 2 and the Constitution Committee’s amendments, I said I did not wish to exclude the three paragraphs that the Constitution Committee wanted to exclude; I wish to exclude them instead from amendment under this paragraph. With the discussion we just had about what is necessary rather than just appropriate, to put as much as possible beyond the temptation of amendment by the Government seems to be a good idea. That was the approach I outlined previously. As far as this clause is concerned, it is in line with the Constitution Committee and with the Bingham Centre report, and in view of the state of my voice, I think it is best if I just say that I beg to move.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-07
Topic: Other
Sharon Bowles (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I speak only to Amendment 227C, just to say that this is a sort of "double omnibus" amendment in that it covers the whole Bill and also puts together, in its proposed new paragraphs from (e) onwards, some ideas about how to address in a generic way some of the concerns that other noble Lords have expressed in what I call the "Thou shalt not" clauses. Clearly, we cannot go through the Lobbies 20 times to deal with them all but, if this kind of formulation is adopted, we could achieve something that was both votable and covered a lot of the common ground that there appears to be when looking at other amendments, many of which will be spoken to later. I will limit my comments to that for now.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-04-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sarah Ludford (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I am just concluding my remarks. I want simply to support what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about the importance of the Northern Ireland issue. You cannot have differing rights on each side of the border. The European Commission has said that the Good Friday agreement requires equivalent standards of protection of rights on both sides of the border. I simply remind noble Lords that Jacob Rees-Mogg has opined that EU sanctions for breach of the withdrawal agreement would go against the EU’s own charter of fundamental rights. The irony and hypocrisy of that statement require no elaboration from me.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-04-23
Topic: Civil Rights
James Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): The Minister should not tempt me. I am grateful to him for his reply, which was probably a bit more substantive than ministerial replies to the previous two debates, although it was, equally predictably, negative I do not think that the Minister’s arguments bear too much scrutiny. He complained about the language used in my amendment and said that it is difficult to put a political commitment on to a statutory basis. He was challenged by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith. If the wording here is not right, what are the Government proposing to do to give underpinning? I do not think that at any point in reply to this debate did the Minister indicate that there is no need for a proper underpinning of the equality rights we have. Indeed, given the Government’s commitment to maintaining them, one assumes that the Government believe that they should continue and be underpinned. If the wording proposed is not right, there is a deafening silence from the Government’s side about what words they would use. The Minister raised the declaration of incompatibility and whether that meant striking down. I think I made it clear, as did the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, that we do not mean striking down. What we seek in this amendment is to make it consistent with the principle of parliamentary sovereignty after we leave the European Union It is said that the clause conflicts with the Human Rights Act. I confess that my party and I have argued many times for a written constitution for the United Kingdom, but we are always told that one of the benefits of the unwritten constitution is its flexibility. So we introduced into our constitution a Human Rights Act with some very good provisions; the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, indicated some of the focus of attention and consideration that that Act places upon Ministers when they consider compatibility. If we have that, what is wrong? What is the constitutional fault in using that good practice to extend into another area where we are talking about something fundamental That is the concluding point because this is a fundamental question. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, reflected on what kind of country we want to be. The Government set out in their White Paper last March that they want to respect and cherish equality rights. There is common ground on that. What we have not seen from the Government is a way in which they can ensure that that is underpinned as we go forward, so that we can ensure that that characteristic of what kind of country we want to be can be maintained without threat. I find it very regrettable but the night is a bit too late to test the opinion of the House, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-04-25
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Kishwer Falkner (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I chair the EU Financial Affairs Sub-Committee of this House. We have been having a lot of conversations with regulators about appropriateness, as the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, has rightly pointed out. But words matter. The distinction in legal terms between "appropriate" and "necessary" is quite profound if you are a regulator—both EU and UK regulators—that has a duty to put in place a workable legal framework. While I completely agree with most of what the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, said, and I understand that he rightly wishes to bring power back to Parliament, there are instances where regulators need to adapt and to have legal certainty to adapt I will give the House one small example. I should say that I am speaking for myself as the chair of the committee because the committee has not come to a settled view on this, having had discussions very recently. But we are told that the amendment would lead to increased litigation and therefore legal uncertainty in relation to the meaning of "necessary". This would impact a large number of different areas of financial services regulation. It may be hard to argue that it is strictly "necessary" to extend protections but if, for example, you take securities collateral held within the EU, absent an FTA—if we have to revert to WTO rules—we would need to treat collateral held by UK firms in EU systems in the same way as collateral held by UK firms in systems outside the EU. If you took away discretion from the Minister and you had to define this as "necessary", you may have to restrict the protection to collateral held in UK systems only. That would put UK firms at a disadvantage Finally—this is slightly technical—redenominating values and thresholds from euros to sterling may be appropriate in a UK regime because most UK firms’ balance sheets are denominated in sterling. However, it could be argued that it is not "necessary" to do so ahead of the UK’s exit from the EU. Litigation would take time while the courts determined whether the Minister had acted under "necessary" or "appropriate", but in financial crises time is not something regulators have at their disposal. I just ask noble Lords to bear that in mind. I have not come to a definitive view myself but it is important to put that on the record.