argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-21
Topic: Government Operations
William John Lawrence Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 106A. As I have already said to the Minister, this is very much a probing amendment. Clause 8 is an important clause. We all recognise that it has to be in any elections Bill. I note that in various references to the clause the statement is made that there is a need to clarify the law on undue influence. One of the things I asked the Minister in advance was whether he could tell us how often there have been successful prosecutions for undue influence, because it is not that easy to prove.
Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-21
Topic: Energy
Jonathan Oates (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord West, is very familiar with Portsmouth and that he will take the opportunity to visit such projects As we know, electrical use is highly cyclical, both in terms of daily peaks and troughs and annual swings. Therefore, we have to show much greater urgency about how we use smart pricing to reposition demand rather than simply piling on more production to meet peak load. We also have to invest in energy storage and integrate it into grid planning through batteries, green hydrogen production, pumped hydro, compressed gas storage and other solutions Finally, nuclear power generation produces high-level nuclear waste which is deadly for longer than any human civilisation has ever survived. It is notable how few noble Lords who contributed as nuclear proponents to this debate addressed that fundamental issue The Minister was keen to tell us, as other noble Lords were, how the UK was the first country in the world to begin a civil nuclear programme, yet decades after that and after promising that a solution to this problem is just around the corner, the Government and industry have still failed to supply one. It is our contention that, quite apart from the other powerful arguments against nuclear, it is morally unjustifiable to build new nuclear stations until we first have a geological disposal facility in operation for the long term to deal with the existing high-level waste we have produced. That is key In our view, the case for new nuclear generation projects falls down at every hurdle. They cannot contribute to our 2035 electricity decarbonisation target, they cannot effectively complement renewables, and they cannot even clean up the mess they have already created. So laden are these projects with risk, so staggeringly unable are they to keep to time or budget, and so eye-wateringly expensive is the electricity they generate that the only way to finance them is by passing the risks and costs to consumers and taxpayers who are given no choice over whether to accept them It is hard to improve such a fundamentally flawed project, but in Committee we will do our best to bring forward amendments to deal with the specific flaws in the Bill that I identified earlier. We look forward to working with noble Lords across all parties in the House to at least make the best of a bad job.
Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-21
Topic: Energy
Jonathan Oates (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): If the noble Viscount had listened to my speech, I set out a range of areas in which we need to completely rethink our energy system, including significant investment in energy storage that we can bring online, demand repositioning and demand reduction. Those are the solutions, but I am happy to discuss them further with the noble Viscount outside the Chamber.
Government Contracts: Randox Laboratories — House of Lords, 2022-02-21
Topic: Government Operations
Elizabeth Barker (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, since the start of 2020, Randox has secured almost £620 million of government contracts and the firm has been shown repeatedly to produce goods which are faulty or do not work. It got those contracts using personal contacts. Will the Minister undertake that there will be an independent investigation of those contracts and recovery of any public money spent on faulty goods?
Judicial Review and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Alan Beith (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this is an area of complexity and difficulty and I think the difficulties are added to by the content of the Bill as the Government have brought it before us. It was not broken and it was not necessary to fix it in this respect. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has just explained how the previous use of common-law powers has dealt with this matter perfectly satisfactorily I share with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, the dislike of anything that lessens the clear impact of the threat of judicial review on the public service. I say threat not because I am hostile to members of the public service but because it is a necessary discipline that things must be done within the law and they know that, if they are not, what they are bringing forward could well be nullified in the courts. The severity of judicial review is important to its role as the discipline for the rule of law There are, however, cases which do not fit easily into this pattern and which make an element of retrospection attractive. I think of licensing measures of various kinds—measures that render lawful things that would otherwise be unlawful. There are quite a lot of them in the area of game shooting, for example, and one caused quite a stir over the last couple of years: the power to shoot a predator bird if it is likely to enter an area where it would disturb the wildlife in a site of scientific interest which is subject to protection. In a recent example, there was indeed the threat of an action which did not take place in the end but which led Natural England to accept that its regulations were defective In those circumstances, you have people who have behaved in good faith and—they thought—lawfully, who, when the court in a judicial review determines that the action is not within the law, are left in a rather difficult position. You may say that nobody is going to prosecute them once it becomes clear that the law had been nullified. The case may already have started. However, in the real world, having been found to have acted unlawfully, even unwittingly, is not a good position to be in and not one that an employee wants to find themselves in. It presents some difficulties which I think Amendment 6, from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, attempts to address in so far as it affects regulations and delegated legislation. I will be interested to hear him set it out more fully and the Minister’s response to it That qualification—that we should remember the interests and concerns of people whose actions could unwittingly be rendered unlawful—is only a limited qualification to what, in my view, is the fundamental reason to object to what the Government are proposing, which is that the full rigour of the effects of judicial review should be something that the public service is always aware of.
Judicial Review and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Jonathan Marks (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): It is a two-pronged attack. I do not believe that the judges should have the power to make lawful what they have already found is unlawful with retrospective effect. That means that prospective-only orders are, in principle, wrong. However, if there were a case for changing regulations or for altering government action so as to bring it within the limits that Parliament wanted, that is for Parliament; that is for legislation, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, argued. It is not for the courts to say, "We find the act unlawful, but it is only going to take effect as unlawful for the future." It is, in the example of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, an ex tunc approach; but an ex tunc approach, frankly, is right, whereas the removal of flexibility by ruling out the Part A power—the power to delay—would be a removal of flexibility, which would be unnecessary, and we support that. We do not support the presumption, but that is a different point The real important point, about retrospective charges and the points in Amendment 6, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, is that they accept the unlawfulness—if that was the only amendment that was passed—but would go on to say, "You can rely on the unlawfulness as a defence in criminal proceedings and you can still apply for other financial remedies for judicial review, but the quashing order will only take effect prospectively." That, in my respectful view, is to fudge the whole point of unlawfulness, and the universality and the universal application of judicial review, which lies at its heart.
Judicial Review and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Jonathan Marks (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this group of amendments, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, is designed to take the sting out of the provisions in Clause 1, both as to the circumstances on which suspended or prospective-only quashing orders may be made and as to the way in which the discretion should be exercised. If passed, the amendments would each mitigate the damage which in my view is inflicted on the rule of law inherent in Clause 1. However, if all were passed, they would still by no means eliminate it. As has been pointed out, the worst part of Clause 1—in a sense, the elephant in the room of the first two groups—is the presumption, which we shall come to in the next group, which has been spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and which is, I suspect, opposed by the overwhelming majority of those who have spoken. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, spoke to it in the last group, and said that his support for the prospective quashing-order power was conditional on the removal of the presumption I suggest that there is also a flavour to Clause 1 that is inherently offensive. We are faced with a proposal that not only permits the suspension of a quashing order and the retrospective validation of unlawful acts—and we accept the power of suspension—but dictates to the court, by new subsections (8), (9) and (10), how the court should exercise its discretion. Once again, I have to say that I am impressed but dubious about the optimism expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, that the Government are concerned only to give judges tools in their toolbox which they would not use, and that they can exercise their discretion in any way that they wish, because that is not actually how these new subsections work—and they are wrong in principle to dictate the way in which the discretion is exercised. The court when considering judicial review—
Judicial Review and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Jonathan Marks (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): It is absolutely right that the court can consider any other matter, but it must consider all the factors in new subsection (8)(a) to (8)(e). That is mandating the court where some of those factors may not be of any interest to the court at all. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, was right to point out that there is a potential conflict between the factors in subsection (8)(c) and (8)(d). For Parliament to be telling judges how they should exercise their discretion and what factors they should have regard to without giving them the option of disregarding some factors is wrong The court is exercising, as we all know, a supervisory jurisdiction over executive action or the claimed abuse, or excess, of delegated powers. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, was right to argue that the way in which judicial review has worked in practice—and I suggest that it is the most important development in civil or administrative law over the past 50 years, above any other development that we have had—is that the judiciary, the Executive and Parliament work not exactly together but in balance, so that the powers are exercised in accordance with the law. With respect to what the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, says, it is inappropriate and regressive for the Executive to tell Parliament what factors they should consider when performing that supervisory role. The courts should be left to consider executive action in accordance with the law passed by Parliament and to grant remedies accordingly. They do not need, and should not be tied down by, restrictive provisions that prevent them doing justice taking into account factors that they think are important Amendment 2, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, would at least limit the exercise of the provisions in Clause 1 to powers where the court was satisfied that it would be in the interests of justice to do so. I suspect that that amendment will be opposed on the basis that it would introduce an unnecessary fetter on judicial discretion—and I suggest that that is entirely ironic, because the whole of new subsections (8), (9) and (10) are precisely targeted at fettering the courts’ discretion, and it is to that that we object. It is also ironic that, if passed, this would be the only mention of the interests of justice in the clause Amendment 7 would make the new subsection (8) factors permissive, rather than mandatory. Therefore, it removes the point that I made in answer to the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, that the court must consider factors which have an inherent conflict.
Judicial Review and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Jonathan Marks (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but is that right in relation to new subsection (8)(c) and (d)? The court must have regard to the interests or expectations of persons who would benefit from the quashing and of persons who have relied on the impugned act. There is nothing voluntary about that. Those interests may be in conflict. Is it right that the court should always need to have regard to those interests?
Judicial Review and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Alan Beith (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, if I were to give my apprentice joiner grandson a tool for his toolbox, I would not say, "In all circumstances, other than quite limited circumstances, this is the tool you must use and ignore the ones you already have". The Government’s toolbox analogy does not seem to work. I am glad to have the opportunity to raise a question before the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, contributes to the debate—as I hope he will—because perhaps he can throw further light on the clarity of the recommendations of the Independent Review of Administrative Law on the issue we are debating. Paragraph 3.69 considered what would happen if the committee’s recommendation for a non-presumed format for these circumstances were followed and stated that, if Section 31 were amended in this way, "it would be left up to the courts to develop principles to guide them in determining in what circumstances a suspended quashing order would be awarded, as opposed to awarding either a quashing order with immediate effect or a declaration of nullity." It was a very clear recommendation, and the Government should have taken that advice, as they took much other advice from the excellent document produced by the Independent Review of Administrative Law I will enter one other point into the debate. It was referred to by the former Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton: the issue of adequate redress. The way the phrase appears in proposed new subsection (9)(b)— "offer adequate redress in relation to the relevant defect"— worries me. It may not have been drafted with this intention, but there is a very great danger if "adequate redress" is seen as a matter which concerns only the person pursuing the action. It is perhaps too rash to say "most", but many judicial review cases, by their very nature, have a far wider effect than simply on the individuals involved in the case. That is, indeed, recognised in the Government’s own formulation of proposed new subsection (8). It refers both to those "who would benefit from the quashing of the impugned act" and those who had expectations and "relied on the impugned act" There will be large numbers of people in many judicial review cases who will be affected by the outcome, either because an action they have already taken will be deemed to have been unlawful at the time it was taken or, indeed, because the law on which they have relied to enforce a regulation has now been found not to have been good or effective law at the time. The breadth and implications of judicial review cases—which is why the subject arouses such widespread interest—is potentially threatened if the concentration becomes on "We’ve fixed it for the unfortunate person who appears before us in this case" without having proper regard to the very large number of people who will be affected. Now, courts do have regard to it and that is a feature of many of the cases referred to in the debate. I am suspicious that the Government wording appears to discourage them from doing so.
Judicial Review and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Alan Beith (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): On the basis of what the Minister has just argued, do I understand the Government’s position to be that unless this presumption is included, insufficient use will be made of these provisions and case law will not develop appropriately? Is that the Government’s position?
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-28
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Rennard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): In the six general elections since I have been a Member of this House, I have always found people to be very surprised that I was unable to cast a vote in them, even though I campaigned in all of them. They find it ironic that I have been campaigning for my party, and its predecessor the Liberal Party, for some 49 years, but I now no longer have a say on who will be the Prime Minister of the country Like the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, I am not an opponent of piecemeal reform of this House; I am actually rather in favour of radical reform, and quickly. However, if we had objected to piecemeal reform, this place would be the same as it was in the 19th century. All the progress on reform of your Lordships’ House has been piecemeal, and this amendment would also be an example of piecemeal reform. The principle of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, was debated extensively when it formed the basis of two recent Private Members’ Bills, and there was a clear logic to the proposition. The Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 ensured that Peers lost the power of an absolute veto on legislation, or to determine any financial measure. As Peers, we have no opportunity to vote at a general election to help decide who becomes Prime Minister. Therefore, in those debates on the Private Members’ Bills, I supported the principle of Peers being able to vote in general elections, but I also emphasised that it is not my party’s immediate priority. There are many measures in this Bill which may have considerable impact on future elections, but this is not one of them. As the noble Lord, Lord Horam, pointed out, if membership of the House were evenly distributed across 650 constituencies, there would, on average, be one extra voter on top of some 73,000 others. Therefore, it would be unlikely to make a great deal of difference to the election outcome—although it was of course Churchill who said that "one vote is enough" The issue we are debating is really one of principle. As an issue of principle, it is ironic, in my view and that of my party, for any Peer to argue for their right to vote in general elections without also arguing for the right of our country’s voters to have a say in who becomes a Member of this House. There are other priorities. Before we argue for our right to vote in general elections, we must address the problem of 9 million people being missing from or incorrectly recorded on the electoral registers. Our last debate showed that there is a real need to address major inconsistences in the right to be included in our electoral registers. For these reasons, we support this amendment but, while it is logical, it is not our priority.
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-28
Topic: Government Operations
Rupert Bertram Mitford (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I also apologise for not speaking on Second Reading; I was unable to. I was not planning on speaking in this debate, but the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, raised the point of some of us being here permanently. I have been here a mere 30 years, but I cannot actually see the fact that I have been here 30 years as a legislator making that much difference to the country. I would love to say that being a Back-Bench Liberal Democrat is the bedrock of our whole system, but I cannot really put that forward. When I came here, it was the mantra that only Lords, lunatics and criminals could not vote, but that is no longer the case—though it depends on what bracket you put us in I have one question for the Minister. I am standing as a candidate in the local election, and my wife is standing as the agent for the Liberal Democrats in Islington. The complexity of the forms you have to fill in, with the understanding of the minutiae and detail, is incredibly difficult. What is the cost to the country of us being taken off the electoral register? Everybody has to be trained; it has to go through the whole system; it has to be part of the process. The cost is not insignificant for 800 people to be treated in a different category. Of course, it goes into a number of different areas. If the Minister could give us an indication of just how much our privilege of being taken off the register, so we can carry on with this view that we are a permanent part of the process, would cost, and whether that is worth it, I would be very interested.
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Paul Scriven (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, very briefly from these Benches, most of these probing amendments seem reasonable and we look forward to the response of the Minister on the points that have been raised. I will just raise four points First, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hayward. I have listened throughout Committee to his detailed analysis of what has happened in Tower Hamlets. I think it is important as we go through the Bill that we remember what has happened in Tower Hamlets, but we must not use it as the sole basis on which to make the law of the land; we have to listen to what has happened there, but making electoral law has to go much wider than just the Tower Hamlets case Having said that, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, I want to probe why it is five years in particular. Five years is one election cycle, or could be one general election cycle. If somebody has committed quite a serious election fraud, having a five-year, one-term ban seems rather lenient to most people who would be looking in. What analysis was done by the Government in determining that five years was the particular period On Amendment 172, it is pleasing that, if the Secretary of State is going to vary, omit or add to the list of offences, it will be done on the affirmative procedure. Can the Minister give an example of what type of variation would be required? One can understand omitting, one can understand adding, but what kind of variation do the Government foresee could be laid by the Secretary of State? With those comments from these Benches, and my omitting when I first spoke to also wish the noble Lord, Lord True, a speedy recovery and wish him back to his place for Report, we look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.