argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) Order 2017 — House of Lords, 2017-01-26
Topic: Government Operations
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I refer the House to my declaration of interests—specifically, that I am an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association As we have been told, the orders before us today, if approved, will provide the framework and rules for the conduct of elections for directly elected mayors of combined authorities, specifically for the elections taking place in May this year. The second order, as we have heard, deals with the process of addressing vacancies in the office of mayor and sets out how those will be dealt with. I am happy to support both orders before the House this afternoon I note that the first order contains matters such as the spending limits and the formula to calculate those limits, the number of voters needed to sign a nomination paper to make it a valid nomination, and other administrative matters which are quite normal for elections The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has raised a couple of points and I shall be interested to hear the reply from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. However, he may be pleased to learn that in fact I have no questions for him in respect of either order and am content to approve both.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-10
Topic: Labor
Neil Kinnock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I shall follow on from my noble friend Lord Rowlands on the issue of the apprenticeship levy and very briefly and simply make the case for reconsideration of the policy being implemented now by the Government in both the public and private sectors I believe that within the formulas currently being employed—and this applies very particularly to Wales because of our substantial local government and public sector, for various historic and structural reasons—there should be better treatment for both private and public employers who are already proven good trainers. There is insufficient discrimination in the way the system is intended to operate now to give higher rebates or greater inducements to improve apprenticeship training, numerically and in qualitative terms, because those who are already good trainers, who have the custom and habit of making substantial provision for the training of new generations of skilled personnel, are simply not getting rewarded as they should for good performance, and for their strong intention to continue with that good performance, by comparison with employers who are and will be levy payers who have a much weaker record of the employment and development of apprenticeship skills. I make that plea in the context of this Bill because it has direct relevance There was a time, a very long time ago, in the early 1990s, when I had various obligations in my mid-life crisis of being leader of the Labour Party. We developed an apprenticeship levy scheme that was deliberately constructed in order to reward public and private sector companies and institutions with good records of apprenticeship performance and to finance their bonus, as it were, out of the levy on those with weaker performances. So there was a dual spur of inducement to improve apprenticeship performance in rewarding those who had good records—and intended to improve upon them—and in the minor penalty, but nevertheless a penalty, on those who had no such record of good performance. There was an inducement for them to reduce their levy obligations by improving their performance.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-10
Topic: Macroeconomics
Paul Murphy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, as a co-signatory to my noble friend Lord Hain’s amendment, I support everything that my noble friend Lord Kinnock just said about the need to review the operation of devolving some income tax to Wales I congratulate the Minister and the Welsh Government on producing the fiscal framework. I defy anyone to understand it on their first or indeed second reading of it, but by the time you get to the third you get the general impression that it is an improvement in the finances for Wales over the last number of years. An improvement indeed: I have been living with the Barnett formula for three decades, and there is no question in my mind that the fiscal framework now before us is an improvement. However, there is no point in improving on the block grant if you then start losing out because of the income tax side of it, and that is the point that my noble friends have put. The important issue, as I am sure the Minister would agree, is that in the annual review of financing for Wales the impact assessment of this change will be very seriously examined. I am convinced that the comparisons between Wales and the whole of England mean that Wales could be disadvantaged unless we redress that in some way. I support noble Lords who have dealt with the issue of Cardiff Airport. My noble friend Lord Kinnock, a former European Commissioner for Transport, put it distinctly: if we could give some advantage to Cardiff with regard to long-haul flights, that would not just be a benefit for Wales; it would benefit a whole swathe of England as well. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Bristol versus Cardiff argument applies in this case. Bristol has no runway capable of taking these long-haul flights. Cardiff has, and it is a very good runway. That could help the rest of the country as well as Wales, and I think the Minister must be persuaded that right across the House today people have said that this is a reasonable amendment that would not affect the Government’s position with regard to air passenger duty generally. I think the Government are wrong on that, by the way; if you devolve it to Northern Ireland and Scotland, you should devolve it to Wales too. Still, if Bristol is blocking this proposal, in the case of long hauls there is no block that the Government can actually agree to I hope the Minister will look favourably on all the different points that have been made today because they are made with the knowledge that over the last weeks and months the Government have accepted different points that have been put by Members of the House across the political spectrum. The Government have conceded on many issues, and I see no reason why they could not concede on this small but important point.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Neil Kinnock (Labour, Centre-left): I say to the Minister as a matter of record that I would gladly continue with the situation of the UK being subject to the state aid rules of the European Union, and retain membership, than have any other kind of relationship. That being said, however, the point made by my noble friend is absolutely valid; namely that within the United Kingdom a disparity of treatment is allowed under state aid rules because the authorities concerned have been able successfully to argue—rightly, in my view—that the market is not distorted by having arrangements in Scotland and Northern Ireland which differ from those in the remainder of the United Kingdom. Given the argument to which I referred in passing about the area to be served particularly by Cardiff if it were able to dispense with the passenger levy, I believe that under the current state aid rules it could certainly be argued that there is no distortion of the market because the form of competition that exists between international airports is not such as to be distorted by the operation of a different levy system in Cardiff.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-10
Topic: Government Operations
Mair Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, there are a number of huge and very different amendments to be considered in this grouping, so I hope that the House will be tolerant as I address the many key issues that need to be discussed under the broad heading of reservations Much of the debate on and scrutiny of the Bill have focused on whether particular subject areas should be devolved and form part of the legislative competence of the National Assembly for Wales. The tussle over exactly what the responsibilities of the UK and the Welsh Governments are is the focus of this Bill. Nevertheless, I am keen not to lose sight of the slightly more abstract and structural issues in the Bill, and of the lack of underlying principles—underlined by the Constitution Committee in the Lords—as to what should be reserved. The failure to have a Bill based on sound constitutional principles has created further complexity rather than simplifying and clarifying the approach, which is what the move from a conferred powers model to a reserved powers model was meant to deliver The Delegated Powers Committee and the Constitution Committee in the Lords have drawn attention to the broad interpretation that the courts have taken to the "relates to" test. The committees suggested that applying this test to a lengthy list of reservations—far longer than for other regional parliaments—could have significant implications for devolved competence. At best this will lead us back again to the Supreme Court and could reduce the competence of the National Assembly, often in areas where it already holds that competence The Minister sought to reassure the House of the impact of the purpose test, which determines whether a matter relates to a reserved matter, but we have no way of knowing how effective this will be. Never before have we seen a reserved powers model with as many reservations as we have in this Bill. My fear is that while many thought that the shift to the reserved model would facilitate the progress of devolution, it might turn out to have the opposite effect.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-10
Topic: Labor
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, how to follow that? I shall speak to Amendment 90 in my name and in those of my noble friends Lord Murphy, Lord Kinnock and Lady Morgan. I begin by expressing my disappointment that the Minister has not been able to persuade the rest of the Government to think again on this issue and that they continue to press ahead with their transparent move, not simply to go beyond overriding decisions that the Welsh Government have taken since 2011, but deliberately to claw back powers from the National Assembly. From everything the Minister has told your Lordships, and much of what the Bill contains, this is supposed to be a pro-devolution, not an anti-devolution, Bill. But in the way in which devolved public services are configured, and especially their staff relations organised, it is repatriating powers that are already the preserve of the Assembly. Surely, that cannot be right When we considered this amendment in Committee, the Minister acknowledged our shared belief that employment law is, and should remain, a reserved matter. He said that, "the underlying legislative framework concerning rights and responsibilities in the workplace must be reserved" I agree with that. He went on to say that the, "system we have allows workers to be clear on their rights, whether they are in the public sector or the private sector" Again, I agree. However, he then said that this, "is a fundamental principle and I cannot accept that the law underpinning the terms and conditions of public sector workers should be different from the law that underpins the rights of other workers".—[Official Report, 15/11/16; col. 1384.] On that point, we diverge My noble friend Lady Randerson spoke previously about the fact that the Welsh Assembly has long had considerable powers—for example, over doctors’ pay, terms and conditions. The principle has been conceded and accepted by the Government, ironically, as it has been in this very Bill in another respect. A government amendment to give the Assembly legislative competence over teachers’ pay and conditions has been accepted as part of this Bill. For the Minister to somehow then argue that it is impossible to disentangle fundamental employment rights from the terms and conditions of employees in the devolved public services seems somewhat irrational and contradictory, to say the very least. For the sake of clarity, I hope the House will permit me a short time to highlight the four different elements of this and to unpick a number of aspects that have been conflated during previous debates.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-10
Topic: Government Operations
John Morris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will confine myself to Amendment 78 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan. I am not going to repeat my Second Reading speech, in which I complained vehemently of the inclusion of such a huge number of reservations. I welcome the words of my noble friend Lady Morgan on the announced changes by the Government so far in, as I understand it, limiting them. The Wales Office has only limited experience in legislating, in drafting and in fighting its own corner to get its own way with other departments in Whitehall In drafting the original Welsh devolution proposals in the 1960s, I faced the same dilemma of how to deal with the self-interest of many departments in Whitehall, for which, "Devolution is all right provided it does not encroach on my back yard". What we did then was to set up a Cabinet committee, meeting twice a week under the chairmanship of deputy Prime Ministers, and to have seconded to it rising stars from the Cabinet Office to guide it through and ensure that the Minister got his own way. In the fullness of time each of these two gentlemen became Permanent Secretaries in major departments in Whitehall—that indicates the weight of the input. The combination of such people as Ted Short and Michael Foot in turn knocked heads together. We knew what we wanted and got our Bills into shape. My advice on this occasion is for the Wales Office to enlist someone from the Cabinet Office to knock heads together. Regrettably, this Bill has the finger marks of every department in Whitehall trying to preserve its own corner It takes a combination of the resolve of a Secretary of State and his advisers to get the right Bill and not succumb to the blandishments of other departments in Whitehall, enumerated by the great number of reservations in the Bill. I fear that the first result will be a field day for litigants, particularly if we have again a trigger-happy Attorney-General. It will not be the end of the matter. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, illuminated at least one of the instances where we can face litigation. The second result, as sure as God made little apples, is that we will return to this issue time and again in order to seek a permanent settlement, which we all wish for, for Welsh devolution. Hence, the best line of defence for the Government is a committee, as proposed in Amendment 78 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, to report on the functions and powers and see how we are getting on; whether I and others are right or whether the Government are right. At least, within a period of three years, we shall know and report to the House, possibly for a debate on the developments that have taken place. Then perhaps, after that cooling-off period, as it were, we might have a more mature and resilient approach to Welsh devolution, which will then be a permanent one. That is my hope.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-10
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): I acknowledge that the noble Lord represents Conservative trade unionists, which must be a noble and valiant role to play, but the definition of public services is in the legislation passed by this House. It is set in statute; there is no question of redefining it or inventing new public bodies. It is all defined and the amendment repeats that.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-10
Topic: Government Operations
Mair Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the point is that, under the conferred powers model of governance at the moment, we already have this power. It is in the move to the reserved powers model that we are losing this power. That is why we are so outraged by this move.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-10
Topic: Government Operations
Neil Kinnock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, there are many issues on which I find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Balfe. There used to be more, it must be said, in a different political lifetime, but I greet with some dismay the fact that I have to diverge from him on this issue, simply because he is wrong. I particularly pursue the point made in her intervention by my noble friend Lady Morgan. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, used the term "mission creep" to describe Amendment 90. Of course, that can be employed as a derogatory description of any development. If we put it in the context of devolution, however, we could categorise devolution entirely as "mission creep" because the whole proposition on which it has been based in this country—and perhaps, indeed, in biology, from which it derives—is that there will be an accretion of competences as time passes and the sophistication of devolved Administrations and legislatures takes place.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-10
Topic: Government Operations
Neil Kinnock (Labour, Centre-left): No, it is the definition of the fact that when confronted with reality, I try to make it work. Consequently, while I retain some reservations about the whole way in which devolution is taking place in the United Kingdom, I am utterly in favour of decentralisation of administration and decision-making, which any democrat must be, but would quarrel with the sectional and selective form of devolution that is taking place. I would argue on another occasion that, had we undertaken in 1979, let alone in the 1990s, the form of devolution that I and some of my colleagues, including my noble friend from Pontypool, were then advocating, there would have been devolution throughout the whole of the United Kingdom. Perhaps we would not be confronted with the constitutional mismatches and disequilibria that confront us now, especially when we are faced with the prospect of the disaster of Brexit. I will return to that on a different occasion I say to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, that the accretion of competencies that has taken place is in the nature of devolution. Indeed, the Minister could take justifiable credit for producing a Bill that assists in the clarification and strengthening of the whole devolution process. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, will welcome the redemption of the Conservative Party, which, back in 1979, took a view that was almost as enlightened as mine on the issue. The most important point—and it is fundamental to this amendment and this Bill—is that the argument in favour of Amendment 90 is that those powers currently exist and they manifestly work. I am therefore employing, in a sense, a conservative argument in saying, "If it works, don’t fix it" What happens in Wales—and has happened for several years past—is that the powers advocated for retention in this current set of arrangements for devolution should remain: not that there should be mission creep, but restoration of the status quo. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, that surely, in his changed political prism, he would recognise and wrap his arms around the principle of the maintenance of the status quo that works. It is on that basis that I hope the Minister will give further consideration to these arguments and retain a set of arrangements that work, that are warmly endorsed by everybody involved in Wales, and that do not constitute the difficulty of definition suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, in discriminating between public and private employers. The terms on which this measure, if accepted, would be retained, properly describe where the responsibilities and obligations would lie and be exercised. It works now; do not fix it.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-10
Topic: Government Operations
Mair Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House for too long. We have spent a lot of time on this group, so I will focus on just two issues The first is the matter of ancillary provisions. I thank the Minister for stating on the record that the ability to enforce Welsh laws should be proportionate and not just be the minimum necessary. We need a suite of options to be able to deliver policy. However, that is not what it says on the face of the Bill, and I am sure that lack of clarity will lead in future to problems and references to the Supreme Court. I ask the Minister not to dismiss the ideas of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, and reassess the impact of that move to being a reserved matter in the future We are also disappointed that the Government have not listened on the matter of devolving industrial relations in public services to Wales. We believe that the Welsh Government currently have the power to act in this area under the conferred model and the Government have attempted to claw back this power in the move to the reserved model. This is not acceptable. We have a good track record on partnership working in Wales. We have not had a junior doctors strike and Whitehall has no idea of how health, education and many other public services are run in Wales. It is a great shame that the Minister has not moved on this issue. We shall be pushing this matter to a vote at the appropriate time. With regret, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 75.
Northern Ireland: Political Developments — House of Lords, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, as a former holder of the post, I give my full support to the Secretary of State in every step that he takes to try to ensure that this does not end in the sad and tragic way that it could. It is almost by default, through political incompetence, Civil Service bungling and party posturing in Northern Ireland, which has led us to a situation where 10 years of devolved government since the historic settlement we negotiated in 2007, and 10 years of Good Friday negotiations prior to that, could be destroyed. As he has mentioned Brexit, will the Minister tell us how, if the Supreme Court rules that the devolved legislatures should, as they all requested, be consulted on Article 50, that can be complied with if there is no Northern Ireland Government?
Northern Ireland: Political Developments — House of Lords, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Murphy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I was a direct rule Minister for five years in Northern Ireland, and it seems to me that the last thing Northern Ireland wants is a return to direct rule. Clearly, there has been a serious breakdown of trust and confidence between the political parties in Northern Ireland. I also agree with other noble Lords that an election, frankly, would be disastrous. There is one week in which to avoid that. Does the Minister agree that the guarantors of the Belfast agreement and the others that followed are the British and Irish Governments, and that they should work together very closely and carefully over the next week—even to the point at which the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach get involved?