argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Official Listing of Securities, Prospectus and Transparency (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I read the words of paragraph 10 very precisely. Regarding the engagement with stakeholders, the noble Lord should be very careful about making himself a defence industry for the Treasury on these matters. The reality is that there has been engagement with stakeholders—it says so here. However, the only way that we will know about the engagement is if those who have been engaged with relay that to us. If they are fortunate enough to have former Ministers such as the noble Lord retained for these purposes, those people may tell the House via a circular route what has been happening. However, the way in which our parliamentary processes should work is that the consultation should be conducted formally and publicly, with the results being formally published and reported. That is not happening in the regime that is being set up at the moment The noble Lord is a former Minister in the Cabinet Office. It is the rules of the very department in which he was a Minister that require in all other circumstances, apart from these no-deal regulations, a formal 12-week public consultation. I am surprised that he should somehow think that it is adequate for that to be replaced by engagement with relevant stakeholders, undefined in paragraph 10.1. The noble Lord has aided the House greatly by starting to read out some of those who have been consulted with. There is no other way, apart from his intervention, in which we would have known who these stakeholders were. The way that this whole process is being conducted at the moment is utterly inadequate.
Official Listing of Securities, Prospectus and Transparency (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the noble Lord said that I should be precise and accurate. My amendment to the Motion says that, "this House regrets that no consultation was undertaken on this instrument". Paragraph 10.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum in respect of these regulations says: "HM Treasury has not undertaken a consultation on the instrument" Those are the exact words, so I cannot understand at all the point that the noble Lord is making. He is trying to excuse the fact that there has not been a consultation by saying that there has been a lesser form of engagement. However, that engagement is not a substitute for formal public consultation. Is he suggesting that it is an adequate substitute?
Official Listing of Securities, Prospectus and Transparency (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the noble Lord for making that clear. However, perhaps I may also make it clear to him that the time we have available is down to the Government. It is not because of some extra-terrestrial force that has been at work; it is because of the Government that we are operating within these confines. It is therefore absolutely appropriate that noble Lords who do not accept that we should be in this straitjacket in the first place do not accept for a moment the point that the noble Lord has just made—that dispensing with normal parliamentary and government procedures in respect of consultation is satisfactory because we are limited for time.
Official Listing of Securities, Prospectus and Transparency (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: International Affairs
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in trying to take my role seriously I staggered my way through the Explanatory Memorandum to try to understand this SI. It all seemed pretty straightforward. Basically, at the moment if you have a prospectus approved by an EEA regulator, it can be used in the UK. We are foolishly—no, that is not the party line, is it?—considering crashing out of the EU and we need some substitute regulation. It seems that the bulk of this statutory instrument is saying that whereas before you would have it approved anywhere in Europe, now if you want to market it in the UK it has to be approved in the UK. That seems to be a consequence of leaving the club. I regret that we have not had the level of consultation that Members would have liked but I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe that the alternative—not approving this SI—is anything like as consequential as the intrinsic costs. No matter how much consulting we did, we would still have come to the conclusion that we should approve the SI As ever, I tried to look at the Explanatory Memorandum in the context of the basic assumption of the withdrawal Act: everything is transferred and no new concepts are introduced. The one area where I have some questions is on a very narrow point, which is the exemption for certain government and local authority securities. The memorandum says: "Under the current Prospectus Directive rules, certain public bodies are exempt from the requirement to produce a prospectus when they undertake to offer securities to the public or request the admission of securities to trading on a regulated market. This includes EEA States, EEA local authorities, EEA central banks, and public international bodies of which one or more EEA States are a member" The dilemma is whether we continue that exemption. There is an argument that we should, but in order not to recognise EEA states, there then becomes the decision to extend that exemption There are two ways that that exemption is described. In the third bullet point of paragraph 2.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum: "Extending the existing exemption from the requirement to produce a prospectus and certain exemptions under the Transparency Directive that currently apply to certain EEA public bodies, to certain third country public bodies" That would seem to be a controlled extension of the exemption, which took account of the countries to which the exemption was applied, whereas in paragraph 7.22 it says: "To address this deficiency, the government will extend these types of public bodies exemptions to the same types of public sector bodies of all third countries" I think Venezuela is a third country, and the idea that the public offers of securities in Venezuela should be treated the same as those in other EEA states would seem somewhat anomalous.
Official Listing of Securities, Prospectus and Transparency (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): Everything that the Minister has said is based on the premise that we are dealing with a no-deal situation. All the bodies to which he has referred, given the choice between no deal, a deal and not having Brexit at all, would infinitely prefer having no Brexit or having a deal. The circumstances in which the Minister seeks to justify the use of what are essentially exceptional decree-making powers on the part of the Government are circumstances entirely of the Government’s own making.
Official Listing of Securities, Prospectus and Transparency (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: International Affairs
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): The suggestion that the EEA does not exist, because we are out of the EU, is surely not valid. Many regulations specify how they apply to different countries. It would be entirely available to the Government to say that the exemption for public moneys should apply to EEA countries and not to other third countries. It is an entirely possible outcome; I am not saying whether it is good or bad. I want to know why the Government have moved from the EEA to everybody, including Venezuela.
Benchmarks (Amendment and Transitional Provision) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): Leave out from "that" to the end and insert "this House declines to approve the draft Regulations because no consultation has taken place on them despite Her Majesty’s Government’s economic assessment indicating that transition and associated costs will be significant".
Benchmarks (Amendment and Transitional Provision) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I shall not press the amendment. I am extremely grateful to, and flattered by, the compliment paid by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. He said that he does not understand my opposition to these regulations, but he will appreciate that there is no way in which I could conceive of being a Minister proposing to put arrangements in place for a no-deal Brexit. I would regard that as a fundamental betrayal of the national interest. Therefore, if he accepts as a premise that the whole activity that the state is engaged in at the moment is, in my view, fundamentally illegitimate, he might accept that the course that I am pursuing is at least logical.
Benchmarks (Amendment and Transitional Provision) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): And I am very anxious that they should have an opportunity to cast their vote on the deal which they can now see but which they did not know about three years ago because it did not exist. I am fairly confident that if the electorate of this country had any idea that three years ago they might have been putting in place arrangements for a no-deal Brexit, they would not have gone anywhere remotely close to the situation that we have today. However, on that note, I beg leave to withdraw.
Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): Leave out from "that" to the end and insert "this House declines to approve the draft Regulations because no consultation has been undertaken despite Her Majesty’s Government’s economic assessment indicating transition and associated costs will be significant."
Public Record, Disclosure of Information and Co-operation (Financial Services) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): I do not have anything to add on consultation or assessment, but the Minister just said that discussions with the EU about a new regime are in progress. He was speaking extremely quickly, but I think he said that good progress was being made. Could he tell the House whether he expects that an agreement will be reached by 29 March? I beg to move.
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2019-01-15
Topic: International Affairs
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support very strongly indeed what has just been said. Having spent much of my life working with humanitarian agencies, I know that the importance of what has been said cannot be overemphasised. We must not slip into an attitude in which relief, when things have gone badly wrong, may be interminable and highly costly, apart from anything else. There is a real need in hot situations to be working at prevention In broad government statements we get very reassuring remarks about the importance of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The humanitarian agencies frequently find themselves involved in this and I think with all possible clarity that that is valid. They should not just be tolerated, they should be supported by the Government and others. That is significant because anything that either intentionally or unintentionally detracts from the commitment in that area would be very unfortunate.
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2019-01-15
Topic: Government Operations
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Minister has been very helpful in the comments he has made and I most genuinely thank him for that. I just wonder whether it is possible for the Government and the Minister, when this legislation is given final consideration, to say some encouraging and positive things about the recognition of the courage and value of such work, so as to in no way whatsoever inhibit organisations that are able to make a positive contribution of this kind. Having been through this kind of situation, the trustees and leaders of the agencies concerned obviously give a great deal of deliberation to what they do and what is involved. To feel they are doing it in a climate of good will and not just acceptance is very important.
Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-01-15
Topic: Government Operations
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister read from paragraph 10.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum for my noble friend Lord Adonis. That paragraph does confirm what she has just read out: that, "the Department did engage with and respond to industry concerns over one aspect of the draft regulations that created an unintended consequence" How can she know, without carrying out a full consultation, that other aspects would not create unintended consequences?
Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-01-15
Topic: Labor
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister said that the regulations would be cost neutral and the Explanatory Memorandum says, as she has just noted, that they, "make minor and technical changes", but that does not appear to be the view of the sector. The journal Professional Pensions, which did a long article on these regulations, quoted Faye Jarvis from Hogan Lovells who said the regulations, "could result in significant costs being incurred, the magnitude of which will depend upon the level and type of exposure that would need to be relocated to comply with the rules in the event of … no deal" Since there has been no impact assessment what the Minister is saying to House this afternoon is pure assertion. The only response that I have been able to discover—because although an impact assessment has not been conducted there has been a certain amount of response in the media—suggests that there might be significant costs. How does she think that the House can make a judgment between the claims of people in the sector that there could be significant costs and her assertion that there are no costs, when no impact assessment of any kind has been conducted?
Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-01-15
Topic: Labor
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): On this constant and ongoing activity with the industry, I wonder whether the Minister can help me. The territorial extent of this provision is the United Kingdom. What is the position if my pension is based in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, or if my employer has a base in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man? How is that covered?
Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-01-15
Topic: Labor
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): I am not asking that. I should make it clear that I do not have a pension based in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man. At least, if I do, then Brian Donohoe is going to be in trouble, because he is in charge of parliamentary pensions, which is all I have. I asked the question as a Member of this House, scrutinising this on behalf of people outside who may have pensions based in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. I have read through the whole document and there is nothing related to either. What discussions have taken place? As the Minister knows, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man have large financial sectors. They are providers of pensions and investments that are the basis for other pension funds that may be based in the United Kingdom or elsewhere in the European Union. How are the funds in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man affected by the proposed changes? It is not clear in any part of the document and I hope the Minister can tell the House.
Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-01-15
Topic: Social Welfare
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): My noble friend—I have known him for many years—is an expert on social security and a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. The two committees under the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and my noble friend Lord Cunningham do a terrific job. However, is it not perfectly possible, because of the huge avalanche of legislation—the statutory instruments now coming to these committees—for things to be overlooked? Therefore, it is absolutely right that the Grand Committee and the House, where there is a wider membership and people might have looked at the regulations in some detail, might raise some of the issues. I fear that a lot of things will get through and these unintended consequences—few and far between as they have been in the past—will just become an avalanche themselves.
Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-01-15
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Lord and I have spent some time with other noble Lords in Grand Committee scrutinising a whole swathe of these regulations. Does he agree that a pattern is becoming very clear in that there has been no formal consultation on any of these regulations, whether or not they are making minor changes? In parenthesis, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, that the deficiencies in the first set of regulations were not minor but major in their impact and were not picked up by the engagement of the department with the industry. However, even those that involve substantial changes have not been consulted on formally. He will recall that in Grand Committee yesterday we were told that there had been selective engagement with "trusted" individuals. It became clear to us during those debates that there was a huge reluctance on the Government’s part to engage formally in consultation because—until the moment that we have just reached, when it has become public knowledge— they did not want the degree of preparation made for no deal to be known. The very scale of the problem to be encountered in respect of no deal and the alarm it would create was a reason why the Government have not been consulting, as they should have been, on these and other regulations. That ought to give the House very great concern about the state of the regulations and the degree to which the Government have engaged with those who are going to be very significantly affected in the way that he suggested.
Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-01-15
Topic: Labor
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Lord raises an extremely important point about the need to consult before regulations are published, rather than after. The Minister said that these were technical and that there was ongoing engagement. Responses from practitioners in the sector show that they were concerned about the mistakes made the first time round. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, who thought that everything would be perfect the second time round, the response of Faye Jarvis, a partner at Hogan Lovells whom I quoted earlier, was that they were getting very significant impacts from the original version of these regulations. She warned schemes to pay attention to any further changes to the regulations in case they brought such unintended consequences again, saying: "People will need to be scrutinising and seeing what else is coming out in terms of draft regulations to make sure there aren’t any other inadvertent errors but also to check there aren’t any unexpected impacts" Does the noble Lord agree that the whole reason one consults before presenting regulations for approval to Parliament is so that these kinds of inadvertent changes do not take place? The fact that partners in pensions law firms are saying that they have not been consulted and are not content that these regulations will not produce more inadvertent errors with a major impact entirely supports the noble Lord’s argument. We need proper consultation and not the rushed, informal dialogue which is taking place because of the very rushed nature of these no-deal preparations.
Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-01-15
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): Does the noble Lord not agree that another theme that came out of the Grand Committee’s consideration of these statutory instruments was a more fundamental issue? The House of Commons debated and voted on no deal last Tuesday in one of the largest Divisions on Brexit since this whole process started two and a half years ago. It voted by a majority of seven against no deal and in favour of an amendment to the Finance (No.3) Bill, under which the disbursement of public funds in respect of no deal was conditional on the House of Commons having a specific vote on no deal, with it being clearly understood—because that amendment had been passed—that the House of Commons would not be favourable to it. So there is real concern among Members of your Lordships’ House about the legitimacy and validity of all this planning, given that in the one opportunity the House of Commons had to express its view, it expressed a firm view against there being no-deal planning.
Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-01-15
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Lord makes an extremely good point. I invite noble Lords to read the debate in the House of Commons on 8 January on no-deal planning. It lasted about an hour and, as I say, it had a vote that led to the Government being defeated on a specific proposal to rule out no-deal planning. It became very clear in that debate that Members from all sides of the House of Commons were not prepared to contemplate no deal; that they wished to rule it out and did so in their vote; and that they regarded no-deal planning as an immoral activity. The only reason it is being kept in play and detaining the House at huge length, as it has done today and in the consideration of these regulations in Grand Committee, is as a means of trying to scare Members of Parliament into thinking that if they do not vote through the Prime Minister’s deal, there may be a no-deal Brexit. This is a straightforwardly immoral activity if it does not command a majority and the confidence of the House of Commons in the first place.