argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-24
Topic: Macroeconomics
Jonathan Oates (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who took part in the debate. I thank the Minister for his response. The issue of value for money, as my noble friend Lord Stunell pointed out, is a central part of the Bill. All we are asking is that the value-for-money assessments the Government rely on are published. I am pleased that the Minister said that they will be published, albeit not at the stage we would wish them to be. That is some progress at least, but it puts the slightly bizarre argument that this is not an issue for amendment in that context Regarding universal credit, the Minister said that it would be administratively difficult because the electricity suppliers are charged the RAB charge and would have to pass it on to consumers. It would, of course, potentially be possible for the Government to exclude the relevant amount for universal credit and other legacy benefit users. It would also be possible and open for the Government, if they wanted to, to assess whatever the RAB charge is and give that as an additional benefit to those people. But the essential issue is that we cannot put further burdens on people who are already suffering enormously with the cost of energy and cost-of-living increases. This has to be solved. I am sure it is not beyond the Minister and his colleagues, if he says that there are technical problems with putting universal credit or other legacy benefits into the Bill, to correct that when it goes back to the Commons and bring forward an amendment that they think would work Overall, we have to take some action to protect these very vulnerable consumers. I think we can all agree on that and I hope the House will support the amendment when we come to it. As I said to the Minister, I am grateful on the issue of value-for-money assessments. I am sorry he could not go further on the impact on consumers’ bills as a whole. We really need more transparency on that Finally, I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, that I am absolutely delighted by his interest in Liberal Democrat policy. Knowing his deep and clear affection for the Liberal Democrats, as shown in these debates, I am surprised that he has not already read our excellent policy paper Tackling the Climate Emergency, which sets out in comprehensive detail, as only a Liberal Democrat policy paper can, how to decarbonise the grid without the need for new nuclear. However, if by any chance he has not had the chance, I would be very happy to send it to him. With that, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 1.
Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-24
Topic: Energy
Jonathan Oates (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am happy to give Amendment 11, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, the support of these Benches. It is particularly important given the failures of the early cost recovery model in the United States. Whatever one’s view of nuclear energy, we really do not want to end up spending more than $20 billion, like they did, and getting no new nuclear plants at all. South Carolina in particular spent $9 billion before Westinghouse went bankrupt. If we are to go ahead with this, we certainly need to ensure that it delivers something at the end of it On Amendment 12, I will not go into the detailed debate about the taxonomy issue. The one thing I will say, in the context of the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, is that whether or not nuclear is regarded as a sustainable means of producing energy, it is certainly not clean. It produces significant amounts of waste that have to be dealt with. Nearly 70 years after our first nuclear plant came online, there has been a scandalous failure to provide a permanent solution. We heard from the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, that discussions are ongoing about the geological disposal facility. I am sure we will hear more from the Minister on that. This has been going on for years and years and there is no permanent solution I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is not going to move her amendments. We certainly discussed this in some detail in Committee so I will not dwell on it further, but the nuclear industry’s failure to take its responsibilities seriously in this way is notable. Indeed, until the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority was set up there was no national plan to deal with waste at all. It has done a great job trying to quantify the level of the situation—of course, we have seen bills and disposal costs go up and up year on year—but it is a really important point and I am grateful to the noble Baroness for bringing her amendments to the attention of the House.
Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report — House of Lords, 2022-03-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael John Storey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, obviously, our thoughts are with Daniel Morgan’s family. I speak as somebody who does not have detailed knowledge of policing. Like, I guess, millions of people, I find the situation difficult to understand. In our schools, for example—the area where I come from—nobody is allowed to work unless they have a safeguarding qualification, a DBS safeguarding check. However, we hear that police officers and people working in the police service do not necessarily have that check. Nobody would be allowed to work in a school if they had a criminal record, and yet we find that some police and ancillary staff have criminal records. If it happened in a school, the head teacher or the principal would be immediately disciplined. Why does this happen in the Met? It is not difficult to ensure that everyone has a safeguarding qualification or to check that everybody does not have a police record—and if they do, they should not be there. Somebody has to take responsibility, and if that responsibility is taken, the person who allowed that has to step down.
Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report — House of Lords, 2022-03-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): With the leave of the House, I shall ask a question for clarification. I thought I heard the Minister say that the Home Secretary would respond once the Metropolitan Police had given its response to the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel report. My understanding was that the Metropolitan Police gave its response last week, which was then largely contradicted by the HMICFRS report. If I am right, can the Minister tell us when the Home Secretary is likely to respond to both reports?
National Insurance Contributions Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will be brief because we have a heavy agenda today, and we are going to be talking about the Economic Crime Bill, which is not unrelated to the issue I want to raise, which is that of freeports. The amendment this House introduced would have made that register of beneficial ownership of businesses in freeports public. There may have been a mistaken impression sometimes—I am sure the Minister did not intend this—that that information would be available to people, either through the properties register or through the revised Companies House register. But that is not the case except in the very rare circumstances where the business in the freeport would be a headquarters for the entity and therefore its legal address, or where the entity had sought to purchase property. Those are mistakes that no criminal organisation or kleptocrat would make. They would take advantage of the lack of disclosure that otherwise frames freeports I found the reasons the House of Commons gave quite extraordinary. It said this amendment was rejected: "Because it affects a charge on the public revenue." If there is to be a register of beneficial ownership of businesses in a freeport, uploading that to a public website rather than the internal site essentially has no cost difference. So, public revenue cannot possibly be the reason that this is an issue. So, where could public revenue come in? It is because the additional transparency that allows civil groups, activists, journalists and others to look at what is happening in the freeports would, in effect, deny to criminals, money launderers, kleptocrats and others of similar ilk the ability to claim exemptions in national insurance contributions. In other words, it would have reduced the demand on the public purse; it would have reduced the demand for public spending. Yet that seems to be the reason being given for overturning this particular arrangement. So I would just be curious to know, if the Minister speaks again—but we can deal with this in relation to other cases—why denying to criminals and money launderers various tax exemptions and reductions in national insurance payments is considered to be an issue of public revenue and therefore a reason for not including this particular measure. I am exceedingly confused On other matters, I supported the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and I am sure he will speak to them. But I do regret that both these measures have been overturned.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Fox (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Each time the Minister speaks on this, I do not hear him acknowledge that there is a problem. In order for there to be a solution, there has to be an acknowledgement that there is a problem. So, does the Minister agree with me that there is a problem with unscrupulous enablers currently operating in the City and the United Kingdom? Unless the Minister agrees, I do not think that we can have much hope of a solution.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Timothy Francis Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the Minister and slow the proceedings but, on that point, the Minister began to move, gradually, towards thinking about the enablers, and mentioned anti-money laundering legislation. But it is wider than that: it is about sanctions, economic crime in general and the provisions of this Bill. Is the Minister prepared to undertake to look more broadly across the piece?
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Fox (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): It did indeed, and I am glad that the noble Lord has had the opportunity to speak Once again, we have a huge number of varied amendments lumped into the same group, which I think is a side-effect of the process we are travelling through. I am going to focus on two themes. I am not going to interpose myself between lawyers on the subject of Amendment 92, but I look forward to the Minister’s response to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and my noble friend Lady Kramer I will turn to Amendments 56, 61, 80 and 83 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, and signed by myself. I will be brief because I do not think we have to speak for very long on this. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has been eloquent in this vein already in the unfortunate absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman During Second Reading we heard a chorus of disapproval on the six-month transition period, and there is a good reason for that. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was clear on those reasons, as were other speakers, including the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. We have to focus on what the Government are seeking to achieve and how they are going to achieve it. While that number is very important, the second number, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, may be even more important, and it is the one covered by Amendment 97 in my name. It seeks to bring commencement forward to the First Reading of this Bill in the Commons. When I tabled that amendment, I was thinking of the National Security and Investment Act, which did just that In one of the meetings that the Minister kindly invited me to, he set out a number of reasons why that commencement date is, in Government’s view, not popular. The longer the Minister’s explanations were, the more alarmed I became, because it is clear now that the commencement date is subject to the pace of the slowest moving IT project. That is a matter of great concern, and certainly should be to your Lordships’ House In looking at the six-month transition period, we cannot isolate it from the commencement period, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, wisely stated. What the Minister has to think about and convince your Lordships of is how these two times work together. Can they be concurrent? Indeed, can commencement start without the whole system being in place? In other words, can there be some flexibility in how parts of the Bill come in? That would be controlled through statutory instruments, which the Government have control over Commencement is one thing, statutory instruments are another and the transition period is a third. They all add up to either a long time or a medium amount of time. The Minister needs to explain the formula the Government have in mind, because at the moment it seems to be a blank number. We do not really know when the terms of this Bill will be in place.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Fox (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Given that your Lordships’ House has demonstrated that it can process statutory instruments at an insatiable rate, my point that the rate-determining step is an IT system in Companies House is entirely correct. Would the Minister confirm that?
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will speak briefly on this issue, because I am very much of the opinion, as are many in the Committee, that a combination of both a public register—so that civil society groups, journalists, activists and people in different countries will have access to different kinds of information—and vigorous verification is the kind of safeguard we need if we are to end the history of the London laundromat and prevent London remaining a magnet for a great deal of dirty money that is floating around the globe Like many people, when I heard that there would be a register of beneficial owners of property that would have a verification component and that verification would be introduced at Companies House, I was elated. Then I actually read the language in the Bill and it seemed, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said, so light touch that there might be something vigorous, but on an exceptional basis and not as a matter of routine. As there is little in the Bill to strengthen the responsibilities of the enablers, I am worried that we will end up with the worst of all worlds—a headline that makes it looks as though we are taking significant and serious action, but implementation that completely misses the mark I know the Minister has sometimes said that we have plenty of legislation to deal with enablers, and which has been strengthened somewhat, but if we had adequate legislation to deal with enablers we would not have a single instance of money laundering in this country, because nobody bringing in dirty money is able to buy a single piece of property, take control of a company or engage in any other activities without using an enabler. You need the lawyers, accountants and property developers. We clearly cannot choke off that particular avenue to sustain the London laundromat. All these things come together. I hope the Minister will look again at verification. It will partly be a matter of resources—those absolutely matter—but it also has to be standard practice that a very high level of verification is embedded to deal with every item in the register.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Fox (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, Amendment 43 is also signed by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. During Second Reading, I spoke at length on this issue, so noble Lords will be pleased to know that that allows me to be brief in Committee. The amendment is clear, but I shall briefly explain its purpose. Frankly, it is one of the simpler amendments we have before us. Clause 18 deals with exemptions. Subsection (1) gives the Secretary of State the power to write to a person to exempt them from this part of the Bill if said Secretary of State is satisfied that one of three conditions is fulfilled: "(a) in the interests of national security … (c) for the purposes of preventing or detecting serious crime"— I do not think any of your Lordships would find that an unacceptable condition—but "(b) in the interests of the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom" First, what does that mean, and secondly, why is it there The Minister heard not just my words but the compelling words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, my noble friend Lady Kramer and others who explained—and I hope the Minister understood—why Clause 18(1)(b) is the wrong message to be sending, particularly at this time. I explained this issue to some members of the general public—people who do not actively engage in the sport of politics—and asked them what they thought. Their reply was, "Isn’t that the approach that got us into this trouble in the first place?" Quite. That is the message that the clause is sending This part of the Bill is designed to deliver transparent information that can be used by authorities, potential business partners and others to avoid trading with kleptocrats, thieves and money launderers. Hiding that information unnecessarily cannot be good for the economy. Why would a Secretary of State want to do that in these conditions? Amendment 43 removes that power from the Bill, and I beg to move.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Christopher Fox (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I just have a question. In the context of this Bill, the choice of UWOs was regarded by many as curious because it was a niche activity until such time as it was plunged centre stage by this Bill. There is a whole range of other things. In choosing to deal with cost protection for one element, there seems to be an imbalance. My noble friend used the words cost protection regime. Would the Minister acknowledge that there is scope for going away and spending time on a review of the overall cost protection landscape and coming back with something that is joined up rather than piecemeal—which is what we have got here?
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Timothy Francis Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her responses. As she understands, one of my main motives is to bring pleasure to the Treasury. Given that the NCA’s budget—we talked about its budget—for crime prevention is, I think, something like £4 million and there was £1.5 million in costs in the Aliyev case, we would clearly all be winners if this review takes place. I thank the Minister for that commitment and, in the meantime, beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Christopher Fox (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Very briefly, my Lords, we thank the noble Lord and congratulate him on tabling this amendment. We on these Benches still remain concerned about the cumulative delay of transition and commencement—or the potential cumulative delay—so we are pleased that the Minister has another chance to respond to that particular concern. We also share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, about the speed with which ECB 2 arrives in your Lordships’ House.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Fox (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, reminded us, this is an emergency Bill. Your Lordships’ House has expedited it swiftly. In that regard, we should be pleased with how much scrutiny we have been able to pack into such a short time. The fact that there were 62 government amendments and two other amendments on Report indicates that quite a lot of work has been done, not necessarily all by us. I commend everybody who has participated in this, on Opposition Benches and the Benches opposite, towards a process where—I hope—Ministers believe that this is a better Bill than the one we received Looking forward, much hope is vested in the subsequent Bill. It is clear that the Government should expect that, when it comes, the level of scrutiny will be much higher and normal service will be resumed in the amount of time we expect to be available to give a quality look at it. In the meantime, we await the statutory instruments needed to drive this Bill and look forward to the six-week review on how commencement is moving forward I join the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in thanking the Ministers—the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and the noble Lords, Lord Ahmad and Lord Callanan—and their various Whips who have been here at different times. I particularly commend the Bill team. It is quite clear they must have lost an awful lot of sleep and weekends to get where we did; now all they have are a couple of dozen statutory instruments to sort out—so no pressure. I thank them very much for their hard work and thank the private offices of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, and others I also thank the Opposition Front Bench—the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, and her able sub the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. Of course, I give particular props to the home team of my noble friends Lady Kramer, Lord Thomas and Lord Clement-Jones, and of course Sarah Pughe, our legislation adviser, without whom everything would be incoherent In sending the Bill back to the Commons, we should remember that it is not an anti-Russian Bill. It is an anti-oligarch Bill and an anti-kleptocrat Bill. Of course, some of those criminals come from Russia. We should also turn the fire of this legislation on kleptocrats from Belarus and other such places and, in due course, on criminals from all around the world. This is against not the people of Russia but the criminals who have robbed the people of Russia, and we should remind ourselves of that. We look forward to the next phases of legislation in this area.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the amendments in this group were introduced by the Official Opposition and we supported them. We welcome the Government’s undertakings in Amendment 70A in Motion B to prepare and publish a report on spiking, for example of drinks, intentionally and without a person’s consent and with the intention of causing harm, so as to establish the extent of the problem and therefore to inform what measures need to be taken to address it We also welcome the Government’s commitment to undertake a consultation on whether the existing law in respect of requiring or arranging sexual relations as a condition of accommodation—so-called sex for rent—needs to be strengthened. The prevalence of the phenomenon and the lack of prosecutions under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which the Government believe covers these scenarios, indicate that such action is likely to be necessary. We are grateful to the Official Opposition, particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, for raising these important issues and securing government action to address them.