argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Lords, 2021-05-26
Topic: Law and Crime
David Wolfson (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it is not correct that the review was delayed solely because of the judicial review of the CPS policy. The noble Lord will be aware that the court concluded that there had not been a policy change, although, frankly, I accept that that does not mean that there were no important issues for the CPS to address. The delay was also in part because we wanted more engagement with victims’ groups. We are delighted that Emily Hunt has joined us; she can give us, and has given us, invaluable insight from her position as a victim As far as the culture is concerned, the noble Lord is absolutely right. This is a cross-governmental issue. It is fair to say that, in schools and colleges, there is now more understanding of what consent means and, if I can put it this way, of what consent does not mean. If I may be personal for a moment, frankly, I see that in the education my own children get at their schools. They get an education that I do not think people in this House would have got when they were at school On legal proceedings, the noble Lord is absolutely right. There are careful rules now over when a claimant’s sexual history is relevant to the case. Often, it is not. We have put in place a number of changes to ensure that complainants are better looked after by the courts system. For example, Section 28 is currently being rolled out. It will enable vulnerable victims and witnesses who are subject to intimidation to give evidence and be cross-examined online and on-screen in advance of the trial.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Lords, 2021-05-26
Topic: Law and Crime
David Wolfson (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I will not quibble over the adjectives we use. The present position is entirely unsatisfactory. We need dramatic improvement, and it is my hope and that of the whole Government—particularly my honourable friend Mr Malthouse—that we will see that improvement On the specific point about data, we recognise the need for all partners across the criminal justice system to be held accountable for their part in improving outcomes for victims of rape and sexual violence, as well as for delivering on the action plan in the review. We will look for ways to address this. As Mr Malthouse said in terms in the other place yesterday, "transparency is one of the key themes that we have been looking at … There will be an announcement, when the plan comes",—[Official Report, Commons, 25/5/21; col. 267.] as to how we will approach and publish the reporting of data.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Lords, 2021-05-26
Topic: Law and Crime
David Wolfson (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am absolutely aware of the figures referred to by the noble Baroness and recognise the need to do more to drive up the number of prosecutions and convictions. That is why this matter is a major focus for the Government and the CPS as we work to reverse what has been a negative trend over the past few years. It is fair to say that, if you look at the very recent history over the past quarter or two, the volume of prosecutions and the proportion of suspects charged have increased. However, progress is too slow and we need to do far more. I know that the CPS is working hard to continue the current trend We are putting in significant extra funds. I referred earlier to the independent sexual violence advisers. We have also put in an extra £51 million to increase support for rape and domestic abuse victims. However, more needs to be done, and the Government and I are determined that more will be done.
House of Lords Commissioners for Standards — House of Lords, 2021-05-26
Topic: Government Operations
Archibald Gavin Hamilton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I also welcome the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, being in the House today. I have two questions for him to do with Valuing Everyone. I apologise, because I know that the Motion he moved has nothing to do with that, but there are very rare occasions when we can question him and his committee on what they are doing When I last spoke on this issue, the Valuing Everyone course was costing the taxpayer £750,000. That now seems to have gone up, and is little short of £900,000. That seems an awful lot of taxpayers’ money to spend on a course of extremely dubious value. When the noble and learned Lord’s committee were spending this amount of taxpayers’ money, why did it not get the people it was commissioning to come and give the course to it before it signed the contract to spend all this money, so that the committee at least knew what course it was inflicting on everybody in your Lordships’ House and in the other House The other question is this: is this really the right reaction to a handful of people behaving in a very bad way? It seems an incredibly broad-brush approach to send everybody on a rather questionable course, when most people in your Lordships’ House behave, I would have thought, pretty immaculately. We are talking about a very small minority of people, yet we subject everybody in your Lordships’ House to going on this course and to facing certain restrictions if they do not attend. This is where I might fall out with my noble friend Lord Balfe, but I wonder whether exemplary punishments of the few people who do misbehave would be a much better use of resources and save the taxpayer enormous sums of money.
Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Howard Emerson Flight (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on his lively introduction, but I regret to say that I am in the camp of my noble friend Lord Moylan. The points that he made, particularly about capitalism, are absolutely right There are factors within our control and factors not within our control, and the big ones are invariably not within our control. What Covid has taught us is just that. It has been the biggest factor to affect the world probably since the Second World War, and there was no forecasting of it. A lot of the task of forecasting practical things that we can control already happens and can probably be improved. Think about the military, which is organised to reflect forecasting and an assessment of things that we can control Reference has been made to a hindsight Bill. In my experience, history rarely repeats itself. There is a danger of spending a huge amount of effort and money on something because it was important in the past but will not be important in the future. The sort of things that are forecastable include switching to electric cars and more money being spent on the NHS—lots of practical things that can be, and already are, controlled. But as I say, do not rely on government, which will always make decisions and change its views for political reasons As another speaker pointed out, the Bill has 44 clauses, two schedules and six parts. Goodness me—where is all this leading? It represents an attempt to control far too much and, to my mind, slightly reflects motherhood and apple pie. Of course valuable work can and should be done to assess likely future trends, but my crucial message is not to forget that the big issues will always come and take you by surprise and can rarely be planned for.
Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-25
Topic: Environment
Peter Lilley (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on securing this debate, even though I am not keen on Bills that attempt to bind future Parliaments to adopt currently fashionable approaches. They are futile because, mercifully, we cannot bind future Parliaments—and nor should we, because future Parliaments should make policy in the light of the experience, evidence and values of the future, not of the past However, I warmed to the Bill’s definition of what it calls the "future generations principle", which the noble Lord defines as "acting in a manner which seeks to ensure that the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." I agree that that is a principle which we should adopt, even though we do not need to enshrine it in law. Sadly, however, we have been doing exactly the opposite. As my noble friend Lady Stroud said, our pandemic policies have sacrificed young people, the next generation, to the benefit of their elders and not-so-betters. Even though children almost never suffer badly from Covid, schools and universities have been closed for much of the time and young people’s education curtailed, at the behest of teachers and parents, and to save granny Our climate policy sacrifices the poor of the world today for the benefit of their descendants, who will be far richer, in future. It is true that poor countries are more vulnerable to climate change than rich ones, but they are vulnerable because they are poor. The cure for poverty, and therefore for vulnerability, is economic growth, which requires energy. I do not often quote Lenin with approval, but he did say that the future well-being and prosperity of the workers’ paradise would come about as a result of communism and electricity —and he was half right. It is electricity that you need for growth and economic prosperity, and to make a country more resilient To require poor countries to replace cheap fossil fuels with far more expensive and less reliable intermittent renewables, which are several times more costly when you take account of dealing with their intermittency, means that poor countries will be able to invest far less in growth and development and will therefore remain poor for longer. Yet Stern shows that, even on his most pessimistic assumptions that we do nothing to mitigate climate change, people in developing countries will, by such economic growth as is then permitted, be six times richer a century hence than they are now. Why should we prolong the poverty of poor people now in order to make richer people in future generations better off?
Higher Education Cheating Services Prohibition Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-25
Topic: Education
Rachel Trixie Anne Gardner (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I commend this Bill for its intent to stop third parties from completing someone else’s higher education assessments for a fee, or even advertising their services to do so, and thereby preventing students seeking out such services. They are the equivalent to a drugs cheat winning the Olympics and are grossly unfair on other pupils. I have three areas on which I would appreciate the Minister’s comments First, is there sufficient clarity as to what is a higher education establishment? This is not defined in the Bill, nor is it clear in what other legislation it may be defined Secondly, why does the Bill not cover A-level students, who often have dissertations to write as part of their courses and may be tempted to use such services? Thirdly, we have heard many stories, particularly in lockdown, of family members or friends doing a student’s work, which is then passed off as that student’s work. Why does the Bill not cover the provision of such services, even if unpaid, as surely the intent is to ensure that the students do their own work and do not use another person to do this?
Health and Social Care Levy Bill — House of Lords, 2021-10-11
Topic: Social Welfare
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, more detail will be set out in the Budget and spending review in the next two or three weeks to address the noble Lord’s question The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, my noble friend Lord Bethell and the right reverend Prelate asked about help for carers specifically.
Health and Social Care Levy Bill — House of Lords, 2021-10-11
Topic: Social Welfare
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, sorry. I lost my thread. There will be no changes to existing procedures Noble Lords asked about support for unpaid carers. Of course, they play a vital role in the care system. I suspect that there is hardly anyone here in the Chamber who has not been involved in the care of their parents at the end of their lives on an unpaid basis. I certainly had to—but luckily I am one of seven siblings and we all live in the same county. None the less, it is a considerable burden The Care Act encourages local authorities to support unpaid carers and to provide preventive care to stop people’s early care needs escalating. A new cap on care costs will offer greater certainty to unpaid carers and support informed decision-making and planning for the overall costs of care The Government will take steps to ensure that the 5.4 million unpaid carers have the support, advice and respite they need, fulfilling the goals of the Care Act. We will work with the sector, including unpaid carers, to co-develop more detail in our plans and will publish further detail in the White Paper for reform later this year—and on the matter of the White Paper, I say to noble Lords that it is not long now. It is only a couple of months; it has been promised before the end of the year, and I am perhaps a little more optimistic than some Members of the House.
Health and Social Care Levy Bill — House of Lords, 2021-10-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): I respectfully disagree with the noble Baroness on that. Your Lordships are having a much more detailed debate on health reform very shortly, so I am sure that will be teased out in those discussions The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, asked about the White Paper. As I said, we certainly hope to see that out in the next few weeks The noble Lord, Lord Desai, asked about the taxation of carried interest and private equity firms, but I suspect he was being slightly disingenuous as he knows we are not extending this to capital gains tax, only to dividends. No doubt there is a separate debate to be had on that, but at the moment it is a capital gain. The essence of this debate is the fairness of the way the tax is being structured—
Health and Social Care Levy Bill — House of Lords, 2021-10-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): I take on board the noble Lord’s points, but the reality is that the highest-paid in this country are paying the largest contribution to this tax and indeed PAYE itself. I accept entirely what he says about the impact being disproportionately greater on poorer people, but that is why we have designed the structure to protect as many people as possible. As I mentioned in my opening comments, some 6 million people will not be subject to this at all, and we have kept 40% of smaller businesses out of it. Those on higher earnings will pay a lot more, and that is an important principle, but I absolutely accept the point he made I am grateful for the opportunity to explain the Bill and address the issues that have arisen today, and I now commend the Bill to the House.
Ministerial Code and Register of Ministers’ Interests — House of Lords, 2021-05-19
Topic: Government Operations
Nicholas True (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I would never offer any reproach to the noble Baroness, for whom I have the highest respect. The only thing I would reproach her with is joining the wrong party—she would be an adornment to any party I am tempted to say that I could not possibly add anything to what was said by my right honourable friend the Paymaster-General, but I will say that of course standards in public life are essential and I think that every Member of your Lordships’ House and, indeed, of the Government aspire to them. I feel privileged to be a member of a Government who are led by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister who in his short premiership has led the country through Brexit and the Covid crisis with enormous distinction. On the publication of the register of Ministers’ interests, which was the substantive question the noble Baroness asked, the noble Lord, Lord Geidt, answered on this point to PACAC, but I can inform the House that he hopes that it will be published very shortly—that is, by the end of the month.
Ministerial Code and Register of Ministers’ Interests — House of Lords, 2021-05-19
Topic: Agriculture
Nicholas True (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I think the noble Lord does not give due weight to some of the things that were being said by spokesmen for his party last year about the need to make every effort to get those vital items of PPE for our country. Some 11,000 million items of PPE have been distributed, and the concerns that have been expressed attach to only 0.5% of the goods.
Ministerial Code and Register of Ministers’ Interests — House of Lords, 2021-05-19
Topic: Government Operations
Nicholas True (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the independent adviser has independence and authority. Indeed, the noble Lord opposite has underlined the authority that attaches to his record. In our constitution, the Prime Minister is responsible for hiring and firing Ministers. At the end of the day, that has been the case under Labour and Conservative Prime Ministers. The responsibility lies with the Prime Minister for hiring, firing and ultimately making judgments on the performance of Ministers.
Ministerial Code and Register of Ministers’ Interests — House of Lords, 2021-05-19
Topic: Technology
Nicholas True (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I try to make it a habit never to comment on the BBC, but I take note of what the noble Baroness says about television licences. She used a very important word in her question: "allegations". Some are allegations; I believe some are smears. Most of them have been answered, and they are also being investigated. I suggest that we see what happens.
10-point Plan: Six Months On — House of Lords, 2021-05-19
Topic: Energy
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord has drawn attention to some important questions. Of course, as we proceed with decarbonisation there will be an inevitable rise in electricity use and in the dispersion of electricity sources as we move away from fixed nodes to more dispersed forms of power generation. He is right to draw attention to the important role that Ofgem and the regulators, working in close partnership with the grid operators, will need to play to ensure that there is sufficient capacity, and I reassure him that we are doing exactly that. The Energy White Paper gave a commitment that the Government would consult on a strategic policy statement for Ofgem during the course of 2021, so we will absolutely ensure that it is up to the job—fit, battle-ready and taking part in important debates, negotiations and strategies to ensure that there is sufficient electricity capacity to meet the demand that he refers to.
10-point Plan: Six Months On — House of Lords, 2021-05-19
Topic: Transportation
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sorry that the noble Baroness does not give us credit for the considerable sums that we have spent on transport decarbonisation. I took some time to run through some of the figures in answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. In March last year we published part 1 of the transport decarbonisation plan. We are working to ensure that part 2 is as ambitious as possible, and we intend to publish it shortly. We have been clear that our intention was to get the plan fully published by spring 2021, but of course we have been delayed by wider events. The noble Baroness is right to draw attention to the importance of cycling and walking. They will form a key part of the Department for Transport’s decarbonisation plans.
10-point Plan: Six Months On — House of Lords, 2021-05-19
Topic: Environment
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness is right to draw attention to the work of the devolved Administrations. I can tell her that we work very closely with the DAs, at both ministerial and official levels, when developing policies and measures to reduce emissions and in tracking progress against our respective targets. Regular engagement takes place through the bi-monthly net-zero ministerial group, which has been developed in the context of the review of inter- governmental relations, and the supporting director-level net-zero nations board, as well as money policy-specific fora and frequent ad hoc contacts. Separately from that, there is a DA ministerial group chaired by COP president Alok Sharma, and the offshore transmission network review looks at policy and regulatory changes across England, Scotland and Wales.
10-point Plan: Six Months On — House of Lords, 2021-05-19
Topic: Energy
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord is right to draw attention to the importance of nuclear generation in the mix of fuels that we will need to take forward. I am happy to provide an update for him. I am delighted to see that the noble Lord, Lord West, is fully in agreement with this The PM has confirmed the Government’s commitment to advancing large, small and advanced reactors as part of our 10-point plan for the green industrial revolution. We have announced £385 million in an advanced nuclear fund to invest further in the next generation of nuclear technology, subject of course to value for money and future spending rounds. The advanced nuclear fund announced as part of the 10-point plan includes funding of up to £215 million for small modular reactors and up to £170 million for advanced modular reactors. We are also investing up to an additional £40 million in developing the regulatory frameworks, including developing, funding and siting policies for small modular reactors, to which the noble Lord referred, and supporting UK supply chains in helping to bring these technologies to market The Energy White Paper confirmed that generic design assessment, the first stage of the UK’s nuclear regulatory process, will be opened up to SMR technologies this spring. We are pleased to confirm that the guidance for advanced nuclear technologies to enter GDA has been published on GOV.UK. GDA entry is an open and ongoing process, with a standing invitation for advanced nuclear companies to apply when they believe that they are ready to do so.
10-point Plan: Six Months On — House of Lords, 2021-05-19
Topic: Energy
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the noble Lord on his purchase of an electric car. I know he is from the north-east, too; I will not ask him what model it is but I hope it is one of the ones made in our region. He is right to draw attention to the need for charging points to be sufficient and widely accessible. We continue to engage with stakeholders to understand what support will be needed to enable the transition and minimise the impacts on businesses, workers and consumers across the UK. Prior to the 10-point plan, the Government have already committed £1.5 billion to support the early market and remove barriers to zero-emission vehicle ownership. Alongside the new phase- out dates, we have pledged a further £2.8 billion for a package of measures to support industry and consumers in making the switch to cleaner vehicles. That includes £582 million in funding for ZEV grants and £1.3 billion of infra- structure investment to accelerate the rollout of charging points, to which he referred With regard to the noble Lord’s point about gas boilers, when implemented in 2025 the future home standards will ensure that all new-build homes are zero-carbon ready. While building regulations themselves do not mandate or ban the use of any specific technologies, we intend to set the performance standard at a level which means new homes will not be built with fossil-fuel heating. In line with that ambition, the energy White Paper committed to consulting on whether it is appropriate to end gas grid connections to new-build homes from 2025 in favour of clean heat alternatives. The heat in buildings strategy reiterates our intention to consult on this. We will provide more detail on it in due course.