argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Bill of Rights — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Christopher Bellamy (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Baroness for that question, which will require further and detailed thought as we go along. The essential purpose of this part of the Bill and the provisions to which the noble Baroness refers is to incorporate into legislation the test recently enunciated in the Supreme Court by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reed. He said essentially that the UK courts should not go further than the Strasbourg court under human rights legislation unless they are satisfied that the Strasbourg court would. This is not intended to do any more than incorporate in statutory form what the Supreme Court has already said.
Bill of Rights — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Christopher Bellamy (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for his comments, with which I respectfully and very largely agree. Freedom of speech is, of course, a keystone of our constitution. That is what the Act is intended to reinforce. On journalistic sources, the Bill’s wording is intended to make it plain that when a balance has to be struck, as it occasionally does, on revealing journalistic sources, then "great"—I think that is the word— but predominant weight is given to the protection of journalism, which is so essential to free speech in our society.
Bill of Rights — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Bellamy (Conservative, Centre-right): It is always difficult to read parliamentarians’ minds; that is absolutely true. I think the noble Baroness is referring to Section 3 of the present Act, which specifically asks the court to rewrite legislation—to change what Parliament intended. That power is being repealed.
Bill of Rights — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Immigration
Edward Garnier (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I join others in welcoming my noble and learned friend to this House and to his new responsibilities as a Minister. With all due respect, I ask him to persuade his colleagues in government when advancing the cause of this particular legislation not to rely, when seeking to knock down Article 8 points, on factually inaccurate case law, such as that somebody was allowed to remain in this country because they had a relationship with a cat. Far too many of these silly examples are often used by Ministers to denigrate the European convention. It does not add to the advance of any discussion Can my noble and learned friend please tell me the policy reason behind why the provision in Clause 8(5)(c) describes a "qualifying child" of a person who is under threat of deportation to be someone who "has lived in the United Kingdom for a continuous period of seven years or more" That suggests that a child under the age of seven who, although not a British citizen, has lived all their life in this country does not qualify as a qualifying child. That does not sound very civilised to me.
Bill of Rights — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Other
Christopher Bellamy (Conservative, Centre-right): If I may respectfully agree, this legislation should not be based on the kind of fairy tales which the noble and learned Lord just mentioned. As for this House, we will progress on the basis of the forensic and evidence-based analysis of the situation. I confess that, on the hoof, I am not immediately able to help him with Clause 8(5). If I may, I shall take that away and, if I am able and it is appropriate, come back to the House on the point he makes.
Bill of Rights — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Christopher Bellamy (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the right reverend Prelate. Perhaps I may take that question under advisement and place a response in the Library in due course, or whatever is the proper mechanism, to reassure the right reverend Prelate on that point. I take this opportunity to mention that the freedom of practice of religion is also specifically mentioned in the Bill, as he just pointed out.
Bill of Rights — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Civil Rights
David Wolfson (Conservative, Centre-right): First, I warmly welcome my noble and learned friend to the Front Bench. Although he has achieved the giddy heights of the Front Bench, I have not yet seen him on legal Twitter—which, of course, is a wonderful place. Some lawyers on Twitter were able to pass comment on the Bill before it was even published, which is indeed a remarkable feat. The response so far seems to be that some people regard the Bill as doing nothing very much and just tinkering on the margins, while others see it as the death of human rights in this jurisdiction. I am sure that the Minister will agree on one point: that they cannot both be right. Against that background, does the Minister agree that what we really need in this country, especially in this House, is a proper debate about human rights? Public law is too important to be left only to public lawyers. Therefore, does he look forward, as I do, to proper debate on this very important Bill, which I warmly welcome?
Bill of Rights — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Other
Christopher Bellamy (Conservative, Centre-right): Indeed, my Lords, I warmly welcome the prospect of the full, frank and very free debate we shall have in this House—an informed and instructive debate. The Government will be listening very carefully to the points made.
Bill of Rights — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Christopher Bellamy (Conservative, Centre-right): My friend—the noble Lord—is quite right that the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is grappling with enormous problems. That is why the Government take the view that the vast majority of cases are better dealt with in our own jurisdiction, which is familiar to the general public and in which the public and the Government have confidence. The orientation towards cases being dealt with here in the UK is both pragmatic and right in principle.
Bill of Rights — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Daniel Hannan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, when the European convention was promulgated in 1950 and enshrined in 1953, this country already had strong and trusted laws in place that guaranteed free speech, religious pluralism, habeas corpus and so on. Will my noble and learned friend the Minister confirm that charters of this kind are not so much about the creation of new rights as about appointing a different set of people to arbitrate rights or to come and interpret between competing claims? Can he identify any specific advantages that have come to this country as a result of our adherence to the European convention?
Bill of Rights — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Christopher Bellamy (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend is quite right that the rights in this country go back many years. I will not, as a cliché, invoke Magna Carta, but it is perfectly plain that this country has a long and proud history of freedoms—they were not called human rights then—over very many years. When the Human Rights Act 1998 was introduced, the Government of the day described it as bringing rights home. I agree with my noble friend that they never actually left in the first place.
Bill of Rights — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Christopher Bellamy (Conservative, Centre-right): Historically, of course, the noble and learned Lord is completely right, as one would assume. At this point, I take my ministerial hat off and put my personal hat on and take this opportunity to pay tribute to the European Court of Human Rights over the years, and indeed to the Council of Europe. In answer to my noble friend Lord Hannan, I say that the very fact of our membership and the dissemination of rights through the Council of Europe that it has enabled is a very positive element for Europe in general, in my humble, respectful and personal view. That does not mean that everything is necessarily fine, and the Government’s view is that it is time, after over 20 years of the Human Rights Act, to look at it again and do some rebalancing.
Bill of Rights — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Christopher Bellamy (Conservative, Centre-right): I respectfully and fully agree with my noble friend; there are many other sources. The Canadian charter of rights is a prime example of what he says. Having worked personally in both the civil system and a common-law system in other lives, no one is more convinced than I am of the strengths of the common law on which we should draw for our freedoms.
EU Retained Law — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Henry Bellingham (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, is it the intention of HMG to reform the EU Solvency II rules, which restrict investment by insurance companies to fixed-interest instruments, such as bonds? If we really do want to unlock further wealth and job creation, surely we need to allow insurance companies to invest in, for example, projects such as social housing and wind farms.
EU Retained Law — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Nicholas True (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, my colleagues in another department will have to answer on the specifics, but my noble friend is absolutely right to highlight that the area of financial services broadly is something of fundamental importance to the national economy, and indeed the Scottish economy. I assure him that my colleagues will continue to examine the areas of regulation to which he has referred, with a view to keeping our financial services sector dynamic and effective and a place where people from all over the world would wish to come and work.
EU Retained Law — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): It is agreed by everyone that we have a productivity problem in the UK. As we have seen from history, one way of dealing with that is to sweep away anti-competitive legislation, including some that has been referred to in the debate. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that some operators benefit preferentially from their very existence and that it is essential to have the toughness needed to face them down? That can help small businesses, as my noble friend has said, and growth, and can, I hope, reduce bureaucracy. I am in danger of speaking for too long, but I mention that I have worked for most of my career in business and particularly welcome the promise to the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, of an impact assessment on the Bill.
EU Retained Law — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Nicholas True (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend. It seems quite a long time ago that we were working in Downing Street on the aspiration of reducing regulation. She makes interesting points which one does have to bear in mind in consulting on and considering the way forward It is important that we make it easier for small businesses, and it is also true—I am not criticising anybody or any organisation in particular—that familiar regulatory environments, particularly complex ones, are not necessarily as perturbing to very large organisations which have large departments to deal with them as they are to small businesses and would-be innovators and entrants. That is a balance one has to consider across the regulatory environment, including in this exercise before us today.
EU Retained Law — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Peter Lilley (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I recall that when I went to Brussels as a Treasury Minister or as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, my brief to discuss forthcoming legislation and regulations invariably said, "Minister, we don’t really want this, but we can’t stop it. Could you try to seek at least one or two of the following half dozen amendments to it?" If we did achieve one or two, that was counted as a great triumph. Will my noble friend insist that departments go back to the briefs that were given to Ministers at the time the regulations went through and look for the changes that we wanted to secure but did not at the time? Will he also reflect on the irony of the Liberal Democrats complaining that secondary legislation will be used to change some of the regulations we inherited, given that they were all introduced under secondary legislation, which gave no option for Parliament to reject them at all? Finally, since there is time for me to go on, will my noble friend reflect on the fact that the one thing we could do in the past was to gold-plate regulations, which we did? I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Hailsham, on the privy counsellors’ Bench, who introduced a system to try to limit gold-plating of regulations when we implemented those of the EU. Will my noble friend the Minister make sure that when we modify these regulations, we do not succumb again to the temptation to gold-plate them and that we go back to the Hailsham dashboard—it was called something like that—to make sure that we do not make them more regulatory, rather than less?
Arrangement of Business — House of Lords, 2022-05-26
Topic: Other
Thomas Ashton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, for the convenience of the House, I would like to make a short statement about forthcoming recess dates. As usual, to save Members reaching for their diaries, a note of all the dates I am about to announce will be available in the Printed Paper Office before I sit down. In a bid to be helpful to the House, we are planning ahead to next February. I should therefore put particular stress on the usual caveat that the planned recesses are provisional and subject to the progress of business As we have already announced, we expect Summer Recess will start at the end of business on Thursday 21 July and the House will return on Monday 5 September. For the Conference Recess, we expect to adjourn at the end of business on Thursday 15 September and to return on Monday 10 October. In November, we will have the usual short break, with the House expected to adjourn at the end of business on Wednesday 9 November and to return on Monday 14 November. For Christmas Recess, we expect to adjourn at the end of business on Wednesday 21 December and to return on Monday 9 January. Finally, for the February Recess in 2023 we expect to adjourn proceedings at the end of business on Thursday 9 February and to return on Monday 20 February. Further dates will be announced later in the Session.
Arrangement of Business — House of Lords, 2022-05-26
Topic: Other
Thomas Ashton (Conservative, Centre-right): The recesses coincide, with the exception of the September Recess when the Commons will rise a week later on 22 September and return a week later on 17 October. That is the only difference. It is not unprecedented for there to be a slight difference of plan around this time, as there was in the previous Session. Sometimes we start business earlier, and that allows the minimum intervals to take place. Normally we interlink, but it does not have to be like that. We are our own House. We determine our own dates and there is no particular reason why they have to be the same.
Arrangement of Business — House of Lords, 2022-05-26
Topic: Other
Thomas Ashton (Conservative, Centre-right): I am always open to suggestions. I do not say that I will not look at it, and I accept the point that in some cases an APPG might take place, but we are giving people plenty of warning on this so they are able to arrange the dates that suit them to combine with both Houses. It is perfectly possible to work around this. Sometimes it helps if we come back one week different to get business done and vice versa so that business can come from the Commons to us. We do not have to be the same, but I take the point. Having made those decisions, I think it is unlikely that they will change.
Arrangement of Business — House of Lords, 2022-05-26
Topic: Other
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the Chief Whip for giving us such advance notice. For years we have asked for that, and now we have got it, people are carping about it. He is to be congratulated.
Arrangement of Business — House of Lords, 2022-05-26
Topic: Other
Thomas Ashton (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course the same applies the other way around, when we are sitting and the House of Commons is not. It is able to cope with that. It is true that in that one week it will not be able to, but as I said before, these are not insuperable problems. I said to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that I will look at this, but I do not think it is very likely that the dates will change. I have said I will look at them. It may be possible, or it may not. I think it is unlikely, but I will look at it.
Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee — House of Lords, 2022-05-26
Topic: Other
Natalie Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty to offer the heartfelt good wishes and loyal devotion of the House on the occasion of the Seventieth Anniversary of Her Accession to the Throne, expressing its deep gratitude for Her Majesty’s lifelong unstinting service, leadership and commitment to the United Kingdom, Dependencies and Territories, Her other Realms, and the Commonwealth.
Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee — House of Lords, 2022-05-26
Topic: Other
Greville Patrick Charles Howard (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, given our role as a revising Chamber, there are very rare occasions in this House when one can indulge in unfettered praise, and rightly so. Today, however, is one of those rare occasions, as we join together to joyfully recognise Her Majesty’s unrivalled contribution to our national life Hearing some of the tributes to Her Majesty today, I am struck not only that the Queen has been on the throne for seven decades—70 years—but that during that long period her reign has been faultless. Her Majesty’s surefootedness defies the imagination. Personally, I find it impossible to think of any comparable achievement The wonderful words that Her Majesty said on her 21st birthday, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, quoted, spoke of her devotion to service. Ever since those words, Her Majesty has adhered to that promise she made, steadfastly and, on occasions, with great courage. What the country owes to Her Majesty is incalculable Through the many difficulties she has had to face up to throughout her reign, she has never, even for an instant, wavered in her duty or from taking the right course of action. As has already been said, she is an example to all her people, and to the world, of the meaning of "duty". However hard a decision might be, she always puts her obligation to the country in front of everything else, whatever her personal feelings and whatever the personal cost One might think that behaving in such an exemplary manner might have made the Queen remote, but she has never become distant from her people. Moreover, she has retained a wonderful sense of humour, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth has so delightfully demonstrated and as I can humbly attest to.
Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee — House of Lords, 2022-05-26
Topic: Other
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, with his special—and much more youthful than some of ours—perspective. I rise to support the Motion in the name of my noble friend the Leader of the House, who made an excellent speech, and, as others have done, to congratulate Her Majesty the Queen on the 70th anniversary of her accession to the Throne. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, it is a very joyful event for the people of our country and for those of the Commonwealth I have always been conscious that I was born in the year of Her Majesty’s Coronation, so I am a coronation baby and still the proud owner of a commemorative coin given to me to mark the occasion. I collected stamps from an early age and grew to love that handsome sideways head on increasingly decorative stamps from across the globe. For the brief period that I was the Minister responsible for recommending the design of new postage stamps to the Queen, I discovered that she also has a very fine collection. Later, I was responsible for the Royal Mint in Wales when we issued the new 12-sided, bimetallic, counterfeit-resistant £1 coin, which bore the unmistakable portrait of the Queen. I should add that in my early years as a civil servant, I had a wonderful black leather briefcase with "E II R" stamped on it in gold, which I carried with great pride. I am not a new or late supporter of the Queen Throughout my life, the Queen has been someone I have admired. She is probably the most famous woman in the world, and a supreme professional to make every career woman amazed by her composure, her work ethic, her charm, her humour and her judgment. She has also been a loving wife, mother and grandmother at the same time—how much she must miss her rock, HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, after their many years together. That was a tragic loss during Covid, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman of Darlington, described so well I met Her Majesty for the first time in my Tesco days at a Red Cross reception to meet those of us involved in helping after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand. She spoke with much obvious affection for Princes William and Harry, who had been working with us, packing relief parcels for some of the unfortunate victims Finally, I should mention Her Majesty’s passion for racing and for breeding racehorses, so well described by my noble friend Lord de Mauley, the Master of the Horse, that there is nothing to add. I just wanted to say that, sadly, she does not have a horse in the Derby next week, but I will be cheering to the rooftops if—as I am sure and I hope she will—she wins at Royal Ascot It is a great honour to speak today. Like others, I offer my thanks for Her Majesty’s duty, fortitude and sacrifice, and my warmest congratulations on her unrivalled, record-breaking Platinum Jubilee.