argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Civil Procedure (Amendment) (EU Exit) Rules 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: International Affairs
Annabel Goldie (Conservative, Centre-right): Then let us start the debate My Lords, the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 passed through this House last year. For noble Lords not familiar with this legislation, the sanctions Act provides the legislative framework for the UK to continue to meet its international obligations, to implement UK autonomous sanctions and to update our anti-money laundering framework—although the latter is not part of our discussion today—after we leave the EU Before I explain the nature of these instruments, I would like to provide some background and to share the context of our approach to sanctions. The UK has strong expertise in this area and, following our departure from the EU, we want to continue working together with international partners to ensure we can develop and implement effective sanctions in the future. As an EU member state we currently implement more than 30 sanctions regimes, designating around 2,000 individuals and entities. These include country-specific sanctions regimes, as well as regimes targeting Daesh, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Noble Lords will be aware that the Prime Minister has committed that the UK will look to carry over EU sanctions into UK law after the UK’s departure from the EU. Applying pressure through sanctions, together with international partners, is one means of enabling us to deliver our foreign policy objectives.
Civil Procedure (Amendment) (EU Exit) Rules 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Government Operations
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not outraged. I welcome the statutory instrument. I have merely a factual question to put to the Minister. Paragraph 3.4 on page 1 of the Explanatory Memorandum says: "In the view of the Department, for the purposes of Standing Order … the subject matter of this entire instrument would be within the devolved legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament if equivalent provision in relation to Scotland were included in the Act of the Scottish Parliament" My understanding is that the current legislation is governed by the regulations adopted in Scotland in 2017. Can the Minister tell us how the department in question reached that conclusion, and what discussions were had with the relevant department and with the Scottish Parliament itself before bringing forward the statutory instrument today?
Civil Procedure (Amendment) (EU Exit) Rules 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Annabel Goldie (Conservative, Centre-right): I never cease to be amazed and surprised by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. I never quite know what will be aimed at me from that section of the Benches opposite, but I am very grateful to him for his observation I thank noble Lords for their helpful contributions. As I outlined in my opening speech, these instruments are crucial for setting out appropriate procedure for court reviews against sanctions decisions made under the sanctions Act.
Rules of the Court of Judicature (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) (EU Exit) 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: International Affairs
Annabel Goldie (Conservative, Centre-right): My understanding is that it ultimately depends on whether we have a deal or no deal. If we have a deal, the UK Government and the EU will be pledged to protect the Northern Ireland border, respect the Belfast agreement and do everything possible to ensure that the harmony and peace that these communities have known will continue. That is certainly what we all want. In the event of no deal, the Prime Minister has pledged that there would be urgent discussions with the Republic of Ireland and the EU on how best to ensure that the environment in which the two communities of Northern Ireland and the Republic have existed would, in every way possible, as far as we can manage, be allowed to continue Again my understanding is that, if we leave the EU with a deal, the desire would be to continue the sanctions regime with which we are familiar. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom. Therefore, under the agreement—if it is agreed—and the ultimate political declaration there would be a desire to continue a uniform sanctions arrangement, albeit that we would be a free-standing state in international law, as would the EU If I have failed to answer the noble Lord adequately, I will write to him with further details, but my understanding is that this SI should not in any way affect the current arrangements, which we hope will continue.
Money Market Funds (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: International Affairs
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): The Minister might indeed prefer to write. I think that it simply transfers existing powers which rest with the Commission to the Treasury, without changing the fundamentals On the sifting committee, I think that I am right in saying that wherever the sifting committee has recommended that statutory instruments under the EU withdrawal Act should be affirmative rather negative, the Government have agreed. I hope that that provides some reassurance to the noble Lord.
Employment and Support Allowance Payments — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Labor
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat as a Statement an Answer given to an Urgent Question in another place by my honourable friend the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work. The Statement is as follows: "The Department for Work and Pensions is correcting some past underpayments of ESA that arose while reassessing incapacity benefit claims. We realise how important it is to get this matter fixed—clearly, the mistakes should not have happened—and we know it is vital that it is sorted as quickly as possible Since I last updated the House in October 2018, we have made significant progress. We are on track to complete work on the majority of the original 320,000 cases by the end of April this year. By 11 February we had started 310,000 people on the reassessment journey and paid arrears of over £328 million to 58,000 people, which is significant progress. The department has also increased the number of staff working on putting these cases right, from around 400 to approximately 1,200, which will enable us to continue to complete this important activity at pace Following the announcement in July last year to pay cases back to the point of conversion, I confirmed in October 2018 that that will require us to review an additional 250,000 cases, with activity due to begin shortly, and we aim to complete phase 2 by the end of this year. The department also published an ad hoc statistical publication last Thursday on GOV.UK setting out further detail on the progress that it has made on processing the cases, including an updated estimate on forecast expenditure and the number of people affected. The department now estimates that around 600,000 cases require review and that by the end of the exercise around 210,000 arrears payments will have been made. The increase, compared with the previous estimate of 180,000, is based on additional assumptions and samples, and very careful checking Alongside the Written Statement that was published last Thursday, I also published an updated version of the frequently asked questions, which has been deposited in the House Library".
Employment and Support Allowance Payments — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): First, my Lords, I repeat that these errors should never have happened, and the department is working extremely hard to make sure that the wrongs that have been done are put right at pace. I want to make it clear that we did not do nothing, as it were, for six years; we started work on this back in 2013. We are working hard with increased support to make sure that we get this right but we want to do it with care. It is very unfortunate that an estimated 20,000 people have deceased since this work began but we are working extremely hard to identify the families On passported benefits, I am able to say to the noble Baroness that we are engaging with a number of authorities that are responsible for passported benefits to raise awareness of the ESA underpayment exercise and the potential issues arising from it. This will enable departments across government to understand the impacts on the passported benefits they administer. However, the department does not hold information on what people may or may not have claimed.
Employment and Support Allowance Payments — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): Again, that is a good question. As the noble Lord will recognise, we have increased the number of people working on this quite considerably. We are increasing our resources from 400 to 1,200 fully employed people to manage all demands. We have taken a considerable number of staff from those who were focused solely on new ESA claimants. Of course, we are not taking new ESA claimants now because they are going straight on to universal credit, so we have a number of considerably well-trained staff. We are also increasing our training across the piece to make sure that people are fully aware of the support and the exercise required. I am pleased to say that I learned from meetings with officials only last week that we are on taking more and more highly skilled individuals, who want to work with us on this exercise and on universal credit.
Employment and Support Allowance Payments — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): On the first question, the reality is that we are reviewing all cases potentially affected and paying any arrears of past payments that are due. Our focus is on paying arrears to claimants in line with the primary legislation. With regards to those who have already, sadly, deceased, we are making sure that the money that would have been paid to those individuals will be paid to the families.
Securitisation (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: International Affairs
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness will know that under the withdrawal Act, we cannot make substantive policy changes using instruments such as this one, so whatever has happened should not be a major policy change. However, I generously accept her offer to write to her with a more detailed explanation of the changes she mentioned.
Aviation Security (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Transportation
Elizabeth Sugg (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank noble Lords for their consideration of these draft regulations. I agree that this is an important SI, dealing with vital security at our airports and in our skies The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about future regulation-making powers, and I apologise that these were not specified in the EM. Currently, three legal processes are used for agreeing amendments to EU aviation security, and that depends on the level of the regulation. Essentially, we are following what has been done under the previous regulation In order to maintain equivalence between existing EU procedure and the proposed UK procedure for making future amendments, the statutory instrument provides the Secretary of State with powers to make amending regulations by affirmative resolution for amendments to provisions currently covered by Regulation 300/2008 and the overarching Regulations 272/2009 and 1254/2009, and by negative resolution for amendments to provisions currently covered by Regulation 2015/1998 and the amendments to that.
Aviation Security (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Transportation
Elizabeth Sugg (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not able to give the noble Lord that reassurance as we are not sure how EU regulations will develop. However, we are of course committed to maintaining our high security record. As has been mentioned, we already have more stringent measures and that will continue On the more stringent measures and the Commission decision, the Aviation Security Act gives the Secretary of State powers to give directions to or serve notices on specified parties—for example, directly to air carriers or airports—for the purpose of discharging his aviation security responsibilities. The single consolidated direction is a compilation of the various directions and, after the UK exits from the EU, the single consolidated direction will continue to refer to the retained EU legislation, supplemented already, as I have said, by the more stringent measures. This is essential to maintaining our existing aviation standards, which will be continually assessed and modified, where necessary, to reflect the current threat picture. The single consolidated direction will also be used to set out the content of the Commission decision, and the content decision will continue not to be published. The information was not published before and will not be published in the future. I understand the noble Lord’s concerns about that but, obviously, if more details were out there on the specifics of what was needed for aviation security that would put us at risk—for example, the specifications of screening equipment, the volume of detection, the criteria for the random testing of airport supplies, details of the exact screening requirements such as what percentage of passengers are checked, and the green list for aviation security. There is no change in this.
Air Traffic Management (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: International Affairs
Elizabeth Sugg (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank noble Lords for their consideration of these draft regulations and turn to some of the questions raised. On participation in the UK-Ireland functional airspace block—the FAB—it is currently the only FAB we are part of but, in the event of no deal, there would be no legal basis for the UK to continue to participate in it. Nor could we compel Ireland to be part of it, so we have not been able to retain this part of the single European sky legislation in the SI. There is a possibility that EU states could involve neighbouring third countries in their functional airspace blocks and future UK involvement as a third country would be discretionary Co-ordination and co-operation with Ireland will of course continue, as both states are members of the international inter-government organisation Eurocontrol and, indeed, ICAO; both the UK and Ireland are delegated by ICAO to provide air traffic services in parts of the north Atlantic. The noble Baroness is quite right to point out that 80% of traffic entering or leaving the EU from the north Atlantic flies through that airspace, so it is imperative that we work together on this.
Air Traffic Management (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Transportation
Elizabeth Sugg (Conservative, Centre-right): I am afraid that I do not have a specific figure. Future funding is under consideration as part of our wider airspace modernisation project. That will be looked at through the CAA, which has a contingency fund for airspace modernisation costs, including the deployment of new technology It is important to reiterate that the safety of airspace will not be jeopardised after we leave the EU. This SI, along with the aviation safety SI which has been laid and will be debated in the coming weeks, will ensure that we have the same high safety standards. Air traffic controllers will continue to be licensed by the CAA and relevant EASA regulations will be saved in national law to ensure that those safety standards remain On the pilot common project, UK industry has been involved in the governance to shape the scale and costs of SESAR deployment projects. The future deployment of new technology would need UK legislation under the Civil Aviation Act 1982 The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, asked about military and commercial use. The military is excluded from the single European sky legislation. The flexible use of airspace is about using airspace reserved for the military when the military does not need to use it. It is not strictly about regulating the military, as such, but rules will be transferred into UK law through the statutory instrument which will continue to oversee them NATS is currently the UK’s en route air navigation services provider and will continue in that role; there will be no difference. On the question of what will replace the SESAR programme when the UK leaves the EU, the level of participation in SESAR remains a matter for negotiation. We firmly believe that it is in the best interests of the UK and indeed of the EU to maintain close co-operation, but it is likely that UK industry will no longer be able to receive EU funding for SESAR deployment. As I said, the Government have committed to cover the costs of that I hope that I have answered all the questions. If I have missed any, I will follow up in writing. This SI, and others to be debated in the coming weeks, are a key part of ensuring that we have a functioning statute book for aviation should we leave the European Union without a deal. It will make sure that, in the event of no deal, the UK has effective regulatory arrangements for our air traffic management system, and that the aviation industry, the CAA and NATS, have clarity about the regulatory framework.
Air Traffic Management (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Labor
Elizabeth Sugg (Conservative, Centre-right): My apologies for not answering that question. We meet BALPA regularly to discuss a variety of issues, including Brexit. I cannot recall discussing this specific SI with BALPA but it is incredibly important that, as we develop these SIs, we take into account industry’s needs, our regulators’ needs and of course trade union needs.
Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): I reassure the noble Baroness that we are absolutely firm on steering the middle course that we have tried to achieve over this long period to get to this point. As she will know, the call for evidence generated some 23,000 responses; the response to the consultation generated another 11,000. On top of that, we had two petitions, with 29,000 names in combination. We have tried to steer a way through this and we believe that we have come up with a process that keeps the vast majority of parents happy and comfortable that we are doing this in the right way, but, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, we will keep this under review because we are in a fast-changing world, particularly online.
Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): The right reverend Prelate is absolutely correct to mention the whole issue of online safety and the regulation that I hope will curb some of the excesses we have seen over the last 10 years. One of the things we amended in the period between laying the original guidance and the consultation was to put more emphasis on encouraging children to have much more self-discipline and self-restraint in their use of the online world. It is a matter of great concern to me that teenagers are spending four or more hours a day in this medium, which cannot be healthy. All these things will need to be brought together. My friend, Minister Zahawi, recently established an online safety working group, made up of online safety and education experts, to help advise the department on future iterations of Keeping Children Safe in Education. Indeed, that could be strengthened to support schools if needed.
Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): I reassure my noble friend that faith is a protected characteristic and we have been clear that schools have flexibility over how they deliver these subject so that they can develop an approach that meets the needs of their local community and/or religious beliefs. All schools will be required to take into account the age and religious backgrounds of their pupils when teaching these subjects.
Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): I reassure the noble Baroness that we will provide further advice to support schools to improve the practice and training that could be delivered using the latest technology, including opportunities for face-to-face training for teachers. We intend to produce supporting information by September for schools on how to teach all aspects of internet safety, not just those relating to relationships, sex and health, and to help schools deliver this in a co-ordinated and coherent way across the curriculum. They will of course be free to seek advice from the department on whether the various forums that are out there are considered good. I mentioned that forum because I did not get to my notes quickly enough, but there are several others, such as the PSHE Association; the Royal Foundation, set up by the two Dukes, which focuses on mental health; and the Catholic Education Service, which has also created a model curriculum for primary and secondary schools.
Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): To reiterate, the right to withdraw is in the parent’s gift until the three terms before the child is 16. It is extremely difficult to predict what an exceptional circumstance would be, but paragraph 41 shows how clearly it is entrenched in this guidance: "Parents have the right to request that their child be withdrawn from some or all of sex education delivered as part of statutory RSE. Before granting any such request it would be good practice for the head teacher to discuss the request with the parent and, as appropriate, with the child to ensure that their wishes are understood and to clarify the nature and purpose of the curriculum" Schools will want to document this process to ensure that a record is kept.
Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Education
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me clarify the definition of an independent school: while academies are defined as independent schools, they fall within these regulations, so I can reassure the noble Baroness on that point. We are still in the stages of finalising the independent school guidance, and will address the issues raised.
Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education — House of Lords, 2019-02-25
Topic: Education
Alan Haselhurst (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the continuing advance of social media is presenting severe challenges for parents and teachers alike in knowing how and when it is best to deal with this difficult subject, in what is already a sensitive area? I welcome what the Secretary of State has announced today. It is right not only that it happens now, but that it be renewed on a very regular basis, to keep up with the changes in social media.