argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Offensive Weapons Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, Amendment 91, tabled in my name and with the support of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, seeks to place on the face of the Bill a provision to exempt the kirpan from the provisions relating to the possession of offences weapons under the Criminal Justice Act 1988. I raised this issue in Committee, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, for meeting me and a number of other noble Lords from all sides of the House, along with representatives of the Sikh community, including the noble Lord, Lord Singh. It was very much appreciated by everybody present There is no question but that the Sikh community is fully behind the intention of the Bill to tighten the law on offensive weapons. We are all appalled by the toll that knife crime is taking on young lives; even today we are seeing more tragic events on the news. The Government have responded to the very reasonable requests of the Sikh community on an issue in the Commons, but my intention with this amendment is to go further. The noble Lord, Lord Singh, raised the issue at Second Reading, and I supported him. It came up again in Committee, and many noble Lords spoke then For practising Sikhs, observance of their faith requires adherence to the "five Ks", one of which is to wear a kirpan. Larger kirpans are used on many religious occasions, such as Sikh wedding ceremonies. I think it is fair to say that noble Lords in all parties, and on the Cross Benches, would be concerned if restrictions in this Bill had unintended consequences for the Sikh community as they observe and practise their faith, or caused upset or concern when a member of the community used a kirpan for ceremonial, sporting or historical reasons. The status quo is not adequate, as it provides a defence of religious reasons only if a person is charged with a criminal offence. It does not cover other reasons such as ceremonial, historical or sporting events, where kirpans are offered as gifts to dignitaries The status quo provides a defence only if a person is charged. My amendment will provide an exemption for the possession of a kirpan. It will provide a specific reference in the law, which Sikhs have been calling for. Sikhs are members of a law-abiding community that makes a wonderful contribution to the United Kingdom. The community still faces difficulties in workplaces, education and leisure with the issue of kirpans. This amendment will provide great assistance to Sikhs and will educate all of us about the kirpan. I beg to move.
Offensive Weapons Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in my nine years in your Lordships’ House, I have never had to come to the Dispatch Box and speak to two amendments that were originally in the government Bill. I am proposing a government clause here. I suppose we all have to do new things at some point, but it is a strange situation when the opposition spokesperson moves to add two clauses on these matters that were in the Bill in the other place I shall read out a couple of quotes that may interest the House. First: "There is concern about the availability of .50 calibre and rapid-fire Manually Actuated Release System (MARS) rifles being available to some civilian firearms licence holders. The range and penetrative power of .50 calibre rifles makes them more dangerous than other common firearms and were they to be used in criminal or terrorist activities would present a serious threat to the public and would be uniquely difficult for the police to control. Due to the rate of discharge MARS rifles pose a comparable risk to the public and police as other self-loading weapons already banned in the UK. The Government need to intervene to ensure the purchase, ownership or possession is illegal" That is the opening statement of the Government’s impact assessment. Moving on, at Second Reading in the House of Commons, the Secretary of State said: "We based those measures on evidence that we received from intelligence sources, police and other security experts … According to the information that we have, weapons of this type have, sadly, been used in the troubles in Northern Ireland, and, according to intelligence provided by police and security services, have been possessed by criminals who have clearly intended to use them".—[Official Report, Commons, 27/6/18; cols. 918-19.] What happened? What persuaded the Government to do a complete about-turn by Third Reading? I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response. Apparently, these weapons can immobilise a truck or hit a person over a mile away. I am surprised by the about-turn between Second Reading and Third Reading. We raised this issue in Grand Committee and have still had no explanation. I seek to put two government clauses back into the Bill. I look forward to the debate and I beg to move.
Offensive Weapons Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for his contribution. This has been an interesting debate. I am proposing the position the Government took only a few months ago in the other place. They are now opposing that position. I suppose we live in interesting times I was very clear at Second Reading that I fully support the Home Secretary. I am just disappointed that the Government have changed their mind. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for his amendments. They go some way towards allaying my fears. I am very pleased to learn from the Minister that the Government will support them. That is progress, and I thank the noble Lord for tabling the amendments today I also welcome the government consultation. I hope everyone involved and interested will contribute to it. My concern is that we will have the consultation and get the results many months after this Bill has passed into law. If the Government decide to ban these weapons, I will be asking how they are going do so and when there will be legislation. That has happened before. Noble Lords know that I am going to mention the rogue landlords database in the dreaded Housing and Planning Act. We wanted it to be made public, but the Government opposed us all the way. We won at least two votes, but the Government would not have it, so the public cannot access the database. The Government have now changed their mind, but when I ask about it, they say, "You’re absolutely right, Lord Kennedy, but we cannot find a bit of legislation to make it public yet". That is the frustration with these consultations. The Government look at things, change their mind, but we cannot get changes I am not going to test the opinion of the House. I am tempted to see whether the Government vote against their original position, but I shall not do that today. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Privatised Probation System — House of Lords, 2019-03-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Shami Chakrabarti (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating that Answer. I admire her for doing it so well; it is not an easy gig. There has been cross-party authorship and ancestry to privatisation of probation and, indeed, other vital services at the core of the state’s principal duty to protect people. So I do not want to make partisan points but to say what we have learned and what we want to do differently in future. It seems to me that there is a constitutional problem with privatising services at the very core of keeping people safe, whether it is the military, policing, prisons or—if we are serious about reducing offending in the future, as we heard so eloquently from the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove—probation, too In that spirit, I ask the Minister, and all noble Lords here, to consider whether it is time to say that probation should not be for profit, so that we can have the greater ministerial accountability that our people deserve and we can put this at the core of everything we are about, in Parliament and in government—not contract it out or do it on the cheap, but take responsibility. Do the Minister and other noble Lords agree that we should do this? I say this to put private contractors, whether they are succeeding or failing, on notice that this is something that we on this side of the House are very concerned about.
Eurotunnel — House of Lords, 2019-03-04
Topic: Transportation
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer, but perhaps I may start by repeating the Question: to ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a Statement on the payment of £33 million to Eurotunnel over no-deal ferry contracts. We make no criticism of the National Health Service or anyone else in the supply chain. This Question is directed at the Department for Transport, in particular its leader, Chris Grayling. His catastrophic handling of the DfT’s no-deal preparations is what we are discussing Can the Minister spell out in detail why the Government have to pay out £33 million of taxpayers’ money? What were the specific mistakes? What are the detailed improvements that Eurotunnel has agreed to make? Will the entire £33 million be spent on improvements and when will they be ready Everything the Secretary of State touches seems to go wrong: from 800 trains per day cancelled as a result of the botched timetable introduction, to the east coast main line being brought back into public control. What action is the Secretary of State planning to improve the performance of his department—or is he going to take the advice of my honourable friend in the other place and resign?
Eurotunnel — House of Lords, 2019-03-04
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this £33 million to Eurotunnel is nothing more than hush money to shut it up and to avoid the disclosure of something like 1,500 pages of probable rubbish that demonstrates just how bad the procurement process has been. Can the Minister explain how Eurotunnel can possibly spend £33 million in four weeks to improve the movement of medicines across the channel when there is no evidence that there will be a shortage of capacity on any of the ferries or the Channel Tunnel? There will probably be a reduction in demand because of business going down. Surely what the Government need to have arranged in Calais is an enormous car park, with many more people checking the goods going backwards and forwards: it has nothing to do with the capacity on the ferries.
House of Lords: Sittings — House of Lords, 2019-01-09
Topic: Government Operations
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion in my name on the Order Paper. A number of Members have asked me why I have put down these particular dates. I have put them down because they are the dates for the February Recess and the Easter Recess already announced for the House of Commons. I thought it was strange that the House of Commons, the primary House, in this Parliament is able to announce its recess dates and we are not. It just seems crazy. In both Houses there is a qualification: it is always subject to the progress of legislation. That is understood. It is accepted that things can change, but at least it gives us some degree of potential certainty I do not always agree with my noble friend Lord Grocott on everything, but on this I agree with him wholly. When he was Chief Whip, he ensured that both Houses of this Parliament met and went into recess at the same time, so that it was Parliament that was sitting, not just one House or the other. Unless we take a decision, there is uncertainty not just for Members—a lot of whom have already gone into their whips’ offices asking when the recesses will be—but for the staff. We have to have some concern for the staff of this House and for the uncertainty that it creates for them I have been looking back over the last 15 years, and the February and Easter Recess dates are normally announced in October or, at the very latest, November of the previous year to give us some degree of certainty. I know that at the moment there is a particular uncertainty about the legislation—I do not need to go into that; everyone knows it—but of course it works both ways, and it works for both Houses The Government Chief Whip could have pre-empted my moving this Motion today by making an announcement in the normal way. As he has not done so, I am minded to let the House decide on its own recesses. That would be self-regulation at its best.
House of Lords: Sittings — House of Lords, 2019-01-09
Topic: Government Operations
Thomas McAvoy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, at great risk to my reputation as Opposition Chief Whip, I have a certain amount of sympathy with the Government Chief Whip over the situation that he faces, but perhaps I may qualify that a bit. I think that the statement today could, and should, have been made earlier. I can fully understand the disappointment and frustration about this situation felt by my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and others. We think the Government Chief Whip could have outlined that situation earlier Nevertheless, these are highly unusual times, and Parliament has a responsibility to sit to ensure that legislation has been given proper scrutiny by your Lordships’ House. So I understand the situation in which the Government Chief Whip has been put by the Government’s inability to get the necessary agreements in time and by their constant delay in taking critical decisions; this is not about the Chief Whip but the Government’s constant delay in taking critical decisions. Given that the expected Easter Recess dates are after 29 March, I hope the Government Chief Whip will come back as soon as possible to outline to the House what he expects us to be doing then and why.
House of Lords: Sittings — House of Lords, 2019-01-09
Topic: International Affairs
John Bassam (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, can the noble Lord the Chief Whip give an assurance on a question I asked the other day? The timetable for considering Brexit Bills before 29 March is getting shorter by the day. Can we be assured that the legislation that comes forward will not be forced into being emergency legislation? This House needs time to consider the Bills properly.
Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration — House of Lords, 2019-01-09
Topic: Transportation
John Reid (Labour, Centre-left): Why should the British people have any confidence in the Government’s capacity to produce what the Minister said they wanted—clarity and stability—when the most glaring recent example of the Government’s capabilities was to hire a firm to supply ferries which had no ferries? If the Secretary of State for Transport really wanted an organisation that had no ships, he could have asked the Royal Navy.
Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration — House of Lords, 2019-01-14
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it looks like Brexit is effectively over, thanks to the mature good sense of the British people and the British Parliament. The question now is: what next? First, we need to end Brexit democratically. If the Prime Minister has any qualities of leadership, she will call a referendum rather than wait for one to be forced upon her by the House of Commons Secondly, we need urgently a plan to rebuild Britain and to tackle the social crisis that led to Brexit. There must be a real end to austerity: we need to build houses, improve the NHS and train our young people, especially those who do not go to university. We need a federal constitution for the United Kingdom and a new settlement for England, which is currently run like a colony from Whitehall Thirdly, we must rebuild Britain’s place in Europe. We need to lead, not leave. We must stop, once and for all, being half in and half out, and fulfil the vision of our country’s greatest leader, Winston Churchill, who saved Europe and inspired the European Union—a free union of free peoples that has successfully promoted the peace and prosperity of Europe for two generations, and which we are taking for granted at our peril I was recently in Dublin discussing the consequences for Ireland of Brexit. On the wall of the General Post Office, scene of the bloody 1916 Easter Rising against Britain, are these words of Seamus Heaney: "History says, don’t hope On this side of the grave But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme" Today, we have a once in a lifetime moment to do the right thing for our country.
Leaving the European Union — House of Lords, 2019-01-14
Topic: International Affairs
Angela Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Leader for repeating the Statement. The Prime Minister so often tells us that nothing has changed. As the clock continues to run down to 29 March, it is worth reminding ourselves that, while Mrs May’s red lines have not shifted—with tragically predictable results—plenty of other things have. We were told that there would be no "running commentary" on the Brexit talks, as that would undermine the national interest, yet a prime ministerial EU statement has become an almost weekly event. We were told that "Brexit means Brexit", but, even now, the Government still have not got an agreed definition. And we were told that, "no deal is better than a bad deal", yet the Prime Minister has warned MPs that voting against her deal, as we heard just now, risks the UK crashing out without a deal—which, she finally acknowledges, "would cause significant disruption". We know that it would be catastrophic However, there is one area where nothing has changed. As the Leader said, today we were given the opportunity to read an exchange of letters between the Prime Minister, President Juncker and President Tusk. What did we find out? First, that the backstop is still a backstop; and, secondly, that documents continue to have the legal status they have always had. The Prime Minister promised to obtain legally binding changes to the deal, in order to address the concerns of her Back-Benchers and the DUP. The advice of her Attorney-General shows that she has failed. He confirms that, though the December Council conclusions have legal standing, "they do not alter the fundamental meanings of", the provisions of the Northern Ireland protocol. He is clear that today’s letter from the EU is only useful in terms of making a "political"—a political, not a legal— "judgment as to the likelihood of the backstop coming into force" I have two questions for the Leader of the House. Does she accept, as it says in the letter, that the backstop remains, "unless and until it is superseded by a subsequent agreement" Does she agree that that comment, in the letter from Tusk and Juncker, is accurate? Secondly, more than a month has now passed since the first meaningful vote was pulled. Does the Leader of the House really believe that it has been worth the wait?
Leaving the European Union — House of Lords, 2019-01-14
Topic: International Affairs
John Reid (Labour, Centre-left): The Leader of the House has suggested that the biggest threat to the unity of the United Kingdom would be to have a second referendum. Will she reflect on the fact that actually the biggest threat to the United Kingdom would be if the Government were to create the circumstances in which those who wished to break up the United Kingdom were better placed to win such a referendum, particularly if the Government followed a course of action that was opposed by the people of Scotland and the people of Northern Ireland? Does she recall that there is a thing called unintended consequences? However much the Government wish—as we in this House wish—to retain the unity of the United Kingdom, they are in grave danger of creating circumstances in which, if a referendum is held in other parts of the UK, that unity may be put under threat.
Leaving the European Union — House of Lords, 2019-01-14
Topic: International Affairs
Dave Watts (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it is not right for the European Union to want to protect its borders after Brexit? Did it not put the backstop in place because the Prime Minister had failed to find an alternative?
Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration — House of Lords, 2019-01-14
Topic: International Affairs
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): It has been on offer—and had it not been ruled out by that short-sighted red line, we might indeed have been talking about it The Government claim the deal will protect security, but outside the European arrest warrant and intelligence exchange this is simply not the case, as the head of the Met has warned. These are serious, precarious times as storm clouds gather, as the noble Lord, Lord King, described—but this deal, with its dangers for our economy, security and international relations, will lessen our voice in that troubled world as we face US antics, climate change and international security: we know the list The deal jeopardises our security and economy. That might keep the Tories out of office, as the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, warned us in December. But that is little comfort, not just because Labour would have to rebuild the economy but because of the damage to public trust in democracy, especially among leave voters who genuinely believe Brexit would improve, not damage, their families’ lives and futures, as my noble friend Lord Liddle suggested The deal fails to unite the country, and that is the result of the Government’s refusal to engage with the 48%, the trade unions, business, consumers, Parliament or the Opposition. The duty of the Commons, as my noble friend Lord Brennan said, is to direct the Government. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, agreed that, "if this deal is not accepted, the… question", of, "what to do next… is for Parliament to answer".—[Official Report, 26/11/18; col. 507.] He also said that, "if Parliament cannot solve this", we should call the whole thing off and, "propose a Motion that we stay in the European Union".—[Official Report, 21/11/18; col. 236.] That other dangerous radical, the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, similarly suggested that if the agreement is defeated, the Prime Minister, "should, without further delay, revoke the notice of withdrawal".—[Official Report, 10/1/19; col. 2340.] This evening it is in the national interest for us to say that the deal is not acceptable for the future of our country. Even those who have given it their begrudging support describe it as "imperfect" and the "least worst", "least bad" option. That is not sufficient for my grandchildren, your grandchildren or my noble friend Lord Radice’s grandchildren. Hence our Motion: no to no deal, and this deal will not do. I urge the House to support the Motion moved by my noble friend Lady Smith.
Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration — House of Lords, 2019-01-14
Topic: International Affairs
Angela Smith (Labour, Centre-left): Baroness Smith of Basildon’s Motion10.01 pmMoved by That this House, while noting that it is for the House of Commons to determine the matter, considers that a no deal outcome to negotiations under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union must be emphatically rejected, and regrets that withdrawal from the European Union on the terms set out in the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration laid before Parliament would damage the future economic prosperity, internal security and global influence of the United Kingdom.