argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Deregulation Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-05
Topic: Technology
Charles Colville (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am a producer at the BBC and I support this amendment. I want to emphasise and support what the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, just said. We are not being asked today to decide whether the enforcement regime for the failure to pay the licence fee should be decriminalised or not—that is the subject of a review by David Perry, which seems to be a very wide-ranging and fair review However, if the review decides in June this year to go ahead with decriminalisation, and the Government implement that decision immediately, it will blow a huge hole in the BBC’s budget—the figure is actually £200 million rather than the £20 million suggested by my noble friend Lady Howe. The BBC has already made cuts of 26% over the present charter renewal period, which has resulted in great efficiencies. Thousands of jobs have gone and there has been a reduction in programme hours of current affairs, history, science and arts. A future £200 million cut, I fear, could put the existence of whole channels at risk. We have seen BBC3, the digital youth channel, go online. Between them, the local radio network and the children’s channels CBBC and CBeebies cost £200 million In Committee, the Minister said: "It is right that the Government of the day must be free to consider the report when it completes in June 2015 and be able to act without unnecessary limitations at that point".—[Official Report, 11/11/14; col. GC 42.] I ask the Minister why the Government would want to blow a hole in the BBC’s finances at a time when the results of the review can be considered within a year or so as part of the charter renewal. I urge noble Lords to support the amendment and stop a very sudden and damaging reduction in the BBC’s revenue.
Deregulation Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-05
Topic: Technology
Ruth Deech (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I declare an interest as a former governor of the BBC. I recall charter renewal as a long, drawn-out process involving all sorts of different elements, and it would be wrong to pick this one out for fundamental change before the entire charter is reviewed. The other issue is that the licence fee is clearly due for the most fundamental reanalysis because both those who can afford it and those who cannot are very likely to be looking at BBC output on their iPads or computers. That is something that the licence fee arrangements have yet to grapple with. It is an enormous question that deserves careful attention—but in the holistic review of the entire charter. Therefore, I, too, support this very sensible amendment.
Deregulation Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-05
Topic: Law and Crime
Elspeth Howe (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank the Minister for his attempts to persuade me and many others that our amendment, which is a thoroughly cross-party amendment, is unnecessary. This debate was one of the most interesting that I have heard in this House—and I listen to a lot of debates. It covered a huge range of issues, approaches and experience. The more I listened to the various questions about why the Government should be able to accept the amendment, the more convinced I was when the Minister argued the other way that there is little doubt about the need to put the question to the vote When I introduced this amendment, my approach was a little short of perfect, and I apparently misquoted the odd figure—although £200 million was certainly right. I had it written down, but I read it badly. There were one or two other points. I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, because I had a word with her outside and I think that she has a point, but not one that is even remotely relevant to what I and many other Members who have spoken were trying to put over. It is something that I would be more than happy to take up with her, because quite clearly if it results in this number of women ending up in prison, with detriment to various members of their family, something is wrong. Let us face it, nothing in this life is perfect and not subject to the need to change at some stage I shall not go on because everything that needed to be said was said in the debate. It has completely convinced me that there is a need to test the opinion of the House.
Deregulation Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-05
Topic: Technology
Charles Colville (Crossbench, Unknown): I rise to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and declare an interest as a producer at the BBC. The pay TV platforms already pay to transmit the digital channels from ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, so what can their objection be to adding the main channels of ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5? They say that the transmission fees would represent a double tax for consumers, but in the case of the commercial PSBs at least this is obviously untrue. Viewers do not pay to watch the commercial PSBs, but they have a news and current affairs obligation, which costs ITV, for example, at least £100 million a year. All that could benefit from the extra revenue provided by the new fees, which is what we have seen happen to channels in America There have also been scare stories from Virgin Media saying that full-blooded commercial negotiation could led to blackouts, with PSBs removing their channels from the platforms. This may have happened in the US, but it is not being threatened by the PSBs in this country, and it is clearly an absurd allegation as the commercial PSBs are legally committed to put their main channels on the digital platforms as part of their licence agreements. I agree, of course, with noble Lords who want the Minister to elucidate the timeframe and the terms of the review. When it is completed, the recommendations should not be put on the back burner The introduction of retransmission fees will allow PSBs to maximise investment in UK-produced programmes, so that we can build on the world-beating programmes that we all enjoy so very much.
Deregulation Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-05
Topic: Technology
Elspeth Howe (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I very much support the amendment. There is a clear case for removing a superfluous piece of legislation such as Section 73, which is causing demonstrable damage to the public service broadcasting system and leaking value each and every day. Deregulation to remove harmful out-of-date legislation makes sense and is the point of the Bill, but I do not think anyone can sensibly argue that the prominence we give to public service broadcasters is damaging or harmful or needs deregulating. Put simply, what is the point of public service content if it is not discoverable Prominence enables huge levels of investment in original UK content by our public service broadcasters each and every year. Prominence is a key pillar of the PSB system and removing it or even watering it down would be nothing short of a death knell for public service content in this country. Prominence not only ensures that people can actually find the public service content we require our PSBs to produce, but it enables the PSBs that are funded by commercial means to maximise viewing figures and therefore maximise the value of the advertising they sell. This is what enables them to pay for what is often loss-leading content, such as impartial news and current affairs coverage, which we as a society have deemed important and require them to produce because the market simply would not produce this kind of content by itself. I very much hope that the amendment will be accepted, and I support it.
Deregulation Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-05
Topic: Technology
Helen Warnock (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, there could hardly be a more learned, well informed set of people than those of your Lordships who have spoken up till now. My connection with commercial television ended in 1980. The amendment before us sets right what was put wrong then. It was put wrong largely out of prejudice against the commercial sector and a failure to believe in the public service broadcasting demands that were even then made on commercial television, which were often regarded with suspicion. It seems to me well beyond the time when this amendment should be accepted. The thought that we have to wait still longer for a review, the contents of which we do not know, is quite absurd. I urge the Government to accept the amendment here and now.
Deregulation Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-05
Topic: Government Operations
Valerie Howarth (Crossbench, Unknown): The Minister and indeed the Government are clearly set on this path, but one of the requests in the amendment is that there should be a review and that this should be looked at carefully. Will the Government ensure that they can review any of these arrangements that are put in place and learn from them?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Law and Crime
John Lytton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, having not spoken on the Bill before, I must declare a few interests as a former president of the National Association of Local Councils, a vice-president of the LGA and a practising chartered surveyor with urban interests of all sorts. Apart from apologising for my lack of involvement in the earlier stages through a clash of diaries, my reason for intervening is to remind noble Lords that the Committee on Standards in Public Life will shortly produce a report on the subject of police accountability. I suspect that part of it will look at the role and efficacy of police and crime commissioners. Before the Minister responds, she might like to bear in mind that that particular issue is in play Your Lordships would not expect a comment from these Benches that is unequivocally in favour of the normal democratic processes for deciding the best way of governing accountability. I always think of my late father’s nostrum that vox populi is not necessarily vox Dei—he was a man of great religious conviction—and I think that the saying may possibly apply here. I am not convinced that mixing these two functions together is necessarily a great idea. It may be, but I do not see that it is guaranteed to be so At the moment, I suspect that we have a growing problem that boils down to the question of who has oversight of the regulator. That is an issue where powers are extensive and largely not subject to any sort of external oversight. They gradually accrue to themselves things that perhaps should not be accrued. There is a natural tendency—it is a tendency in human nature and I do not apportion blame for that—to try to exclude those who might loosely be termed the prying eyes of external forces. The question is one of accountability: how it sits with elected mayors, who are elected on a rather different template, and how it actually keeps the two functions separate. I would hesitate to suggest that it would be appropriate for the hard-nosed commercial thrust used by the elected mayor of one of these great metropolitan combined authorities to be applied to dealing with the police. I do not think the two are quite at one. I thought that I should flag up those points—particularly the Committee on Standards in Public Life which, as your Lordships will know, is under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Bew. I think that its deliberations and its report will throw some light on this whole question of accountability.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Social Welfare
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I wish to echo a concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, if I understood him correctly This brings to mind the Queen’s Speech of 2010 in which the Government said that their ambition was to move power back to doctors, teachers and front-line professionals and let whoever is closest to the patient, the pupil and so on, make the decisions. One has seen following on from that the academy schools programme, powers for head teachers, and changes in social work with more responsibility being given to social workers. The delegation of power is moving downwards to those who are closest to the particular client. I see a similarity here The big question that one needs to be reassured about is that, for instance, a social worker—this is of concern to me—is sufficiently experienced and supported to make the right decisions about children and families. Perhaps what the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is saying is that in giving these responsibilities, we must make sure that the new authorities have the capacity to make the right judgments. We do not want to tie their hands and we want them to be free, as long as they have the capacity to make the right decisions. I realise that this is bit of a chicken-and-egg situation: the more freedom one gives, the more people of the right calibre one may attract to take up those posts. But given that these are such important decisions for the lives of families in our society, it is quite fair to ask that reasonable checks be made on the quality of what is produced. I hope that that makes sense.
Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-13
Topic: Government Operations
Susan Lilian Primrose Cunliffe-Lister (Crossbench, Unknown): I agree that there should be a culture of openness, honesty and transparency. When things go wrong, most people say, "I don’t want this to happen to anyone else". There should be lessons learnt from mistakes, not cover-ups. This should be made as clear as possible.
G7 — House of Lords, 2015-06-10
Topic: Law and Crime
Raymond Jolliffe (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the Statement says that there is a central register here of beneficial owners and companies. Will the Government do the same for valuable properties, and would that not be a very good way of reducing money laundering? Secondly, if it is right to fight ISIS in Iraq, surely the same must be true for Syria. Is there not something that needs reconsidering on that point?
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Paul Leslie Condon (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I cannot support these amendments, not because I challenge the sincerity of those who wish to encourage wider debate about drugs and the value of criminalising or decriminalising them, but because I think this is the wrong Bill at the wrong time to try to bolt on this wider debate. There is a real mischief that needs to be dealt with now: the mischief of so-called legal highs, which, tragically too often, are lethal highs. Many families are grieving in this country because youngsters, in particular, have taken these substances and died as a result. The mischief that needs remedying as soon as possible is the spread of so-called head shops and other such shops in many of our major cities around the country. We are just getting into the serious music festival season. Many of those festivals will have the equivalent of head shops on open display. There is real confusion among many vulnerable, naive youngsters, who assume that, because there are head shops or stands at music festivals selling these substances, they must be medically safe I spoke yesterday to the chief constable of Hertfordshire, Andy Bliss, who leads for the police service on these issues, and the police are adamant that there is a real need for this legislation as soon as possible. So let there be a wider debate around the big issues of evidence, prohibition and legalising or not legalising drugs, but we need to deal now, laser-like, with this real and present mischief. Any attempt to make this Bill into a wider debate will dilute, probably defer and possibly damage our intent to deal with this real and present mischief. Although there is a need for this wider debate, I hope that it will not destroy the laser-like focus of this Bill, which deals with a real and imminent problem.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Molly Christine Meacher (Crossbench, Unknown): I wonder if it might help the Committee if the noble Lord withdrew Amendment 115 simply so that we can debate the need for a review of the Misuse of Drugs Act without setting it in the context of a delay to the psychoactive substances ban.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Molly Christine Meacher (Crossbench, Unknown): I would like to point out that the Government introduced what I consider to be a very good instrument, the temporary class drug orders. These could be sped up. You can, or should be able to, put an order in place quickly for a 12-month period while an assessment is undertaken. If the drug is not deemed to be safe, it is placed under the Misuse of Drugs Act. There is an instrument in place.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: International Affairs
Molly Christine Meacher (Crossbench, Unknown): It may be relevant to note on the record that when the BBC journalist began interviewing a very senior official, that official said, "Oh yes, the ban has been going well", and it was only through rather expert probing by the BBC journalist that gradually the truth came out that the ban was not working at all as anticipated. So in terms of an expert panel from Britain going over, I think we need to be aware that the Government need to do more work on Ireland.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Molly Christine Meacher (Crossbench, Unknown): One has to think about whether the demolition of the head shops is a positive or a negative when you consider that the young people will have moved from the head shops, which do not sell very dangerous substances, into the dark web and the back streets, where they will buy very dangerous substances that are completely unknown to them, which probably do not have any kind of labelling at all.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Molly Christine Meacher (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, Amendments 4 and 6 seek to ensure that following commencement of the Act, the Government will undertake an annual impact assessment of the Act—as the Minister has indicated he might be willing to do anyway—including an assessment of, "deaths and other harms caused by all controlled or banned substances" The important points in that sentence are "all controlled", under the Misuse of Drugs Act, and "banned substances" under the Bill. Of course there is always an interrelationship between those two groups of substances, as I mentioned in an earlier debate. In addition, the Government would have to, "publish a report annually setting out the impact of this Act"— again, including information about the impact on the number of deaths and other harms caused by all these controlled and banned substances The point behind these amendments is that, as I mentioned earlier, we do not have two separate markets: one for substances controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and another quite separate one for psychoactive substances that will be controlled under this legislation. The reality is that once substances are illegal, they join a single market and are purchased from the same illegal drug barons or from the web. This is an absolutely crucial point, which runs through a number of these amendments. Social media are also absolutely vital in this. It is through social media that young people immediately communicate about a banned psychoactive substance or something new arriving from somewhere, or that a traditional drug such as ecstasy has suddenly become more pure, and the young people will all rush into that area of the market rather than moving from one market to another.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Molly Christine Meacher (Crossbench, Unknown): I just want to explore the point in Amendments 4 and 6 that, because there is only a single market that incorporates all the controlled drugs under the 1971 Act and psychoactive substances, post-legislative scrutiny will not make any sense unless it looks at the overall impact of this Bill. For example, what we can expect to happen is that if you ban synthetic cannabis, people will move straight over to the cannabis controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act. If you ban a substitute for cocaine, people will move straight back to the natural cocaine, if you like, that is controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act. In order to assess the impact of the Bill, it will be essential to look at the overall consumption of illegal, banned drugs and the deaths from those drugs. The deaths may move across from one type of drug to another, as would the harms and so forth. It is essential that the Government begin to look at this as a single, illicit market for banned substances. Does the noble Baroness agree that, therefore, post-legislative scrutiny has to look right across the piece?
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Molly Christine Meacher (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank noble Lords who contributed to this debate, particularly the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, for his helpful proposal that there should be post-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee. I hope that that can come about. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, that that sort of scrutiny does not detract from the need for the Government’s post-legislative scrutiny, so I think that we are all going in roughly the same direction I was very pleased with the noble Baroness’s response about the recognition of the single market for these illegal drugs, because it would be an enormous step forward if we stop seeing these things as separate and start examining what is going on across the piece. That has all been extremely helpful. The timeframe is an issue: three to five years seems an awfully long time particularly as some of us do not really expect this legislation to work, especially bearing in mind the Irish experience. It is a great pity—Ireland is now four years on and still wondering what to do Given all of that, this is Committee and we have had a useful debate on this issue. I look forward to meeting Ministers between now and Report. On that basis, I am more than happy to withdraw the amendment.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Molly Christine Meacher (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, in moving this amendment, I will also speak to Amendment 8. I apologise that these have all come one after another and I was not anticipating that, but I will speak extremely briefly, noble Lords will be pleased to hear These amendments seek to limit the scope of the Bill to those substances that are synthetic—produced by chemical synthesis rather than grown naturally. The Government’s manifesto commitment, if I understand it, was to ban new psychoactive substances. All such substances identified by the EMCDDA have been of a synthetic nature. To broaden the scope of the ban beyond the limits of substances that are synthetic will create far more unintended consequences than I believe the Government really had in mind The point behind this amendment is that the Bill as it stands is disproportionate and will engender an intolerable degree of legal uncertainty for an awful lot of people—researchers, medical people or whoever—who have no interest in consuming these substances but may be involved in handling them. Actually, one should extend that to people who are in the commercial sector trading, producing and so forth who may need to use these substances and really do not want to be questioned by the police It would be helpful to know why the Government have extended the scope of the Bill to include natural psychoactive substances. Are the Government aware that there are many natural substances, included in perfumes and other products, for example, which could be caught unintentionally by the Bill as it stands? We had a debate earlier about the whole business of definition and in a sense that comes up here again. Things might be a bit simpler if the Bill were limited to synthetic substances. Will the Minister explain to the House what investigations have taken place to establish the unintended consequences of the extension of this definition to include natural substances? I beg to move.