argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Income Equality and Sustainability — House of Lords, 2020-05-06
Topic: Social Welfare
Anna Mary Healy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too thank the most reverend Primate. This is the time to take bold action to tackle poverty and economic insecurity. A brutal light has been shone by the coronavirus on the underlying inequality in this country, where people in poor and deprived areas are twice as likely to die. Income insecurity, low pay, temporary work and poor housing have all taken their toll on health, as the recent Marmot report showed. A recovery of universal basic income must be the way forward as the country tries to emerge from this crisis. We need to begin to build a fairer, more resilient and good society and economy, as we did after the Second World War Welcome though the employment support schemes put in place by the Government are, they will soon come to an end without a further commitment to extend. With over 2 million people applying for universal credit in the last two months, delays in paying out cash mean that families have gone hungry. Now is the time to put in place a mechanism to distribute cash to everyone without delay, to provide an income floor that nobody falls below, and a springboard to recovery As the lockdown is eased, many sectors such as aviation and hospitality may never recover, and the jobs lost permanently will mean that people must be helped to retrain and reskill. Many are calling for temporary hardship schemes to cover the gaps that the self-employed must endure while they wait for funds, but a UBI would ensure no one had to rely on a food bank or face homelessness because of benefit sanctions or delays with universal credit. It would not replace wages but would instead help to boost them, especially for those front-line staff in the care sector, who have finally been recognised as key workers that society relies on to look after the most vulnerable.
Income Equality and Sustainability — House of Lords, 2020-05-06
Topic: Social Welfare
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): I strongly agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Young, has just said. The last Labour Government introduced one higher band in respect of council tax. The noble Lord’s pro1posal for another higher band and using the resources for social care should be taken forward I, too, join the tribute to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York. As a spiritual and a pastoral leader, he has touched the lives of many of us, and his international work has also been seminal. Most of us will never forget the way he took Mugabe to task—particularly Zimbabweans On the big issue of youth poverty that he has raised and what we do about it in the coronavirus crisis, I shall follow my noble friend Lord Boateng and make a few concrete suggestions. I shall just rattle through them almost like tweets as we have so little time First, as my noble friend said, we should revisit the two-child rule. This relates to families who are on benefits and it goes to the heart of poverty. It is completely unjustifiable, and it targets further poverty on the poor, which is the opposite of what we should be doing Secondly, everyone in the education world knows that there is a big crisis at the moment over the provision of free school meals, because the voucher system is not working and the meals are not being provided in schools. We need a quick and targeted fix for this. The best proposal I can come up with about what we should do immediately is to double child benefit—which is to some to extent targeted because it is taxed away for the better off—for the duration of the crisis so that families have the money they need for schools meals rather than complicated school meal vouchers Thirdly, we need to give people the right to repeat years in school, because a lot of young people are losing out on education at the moment Fourthly, we need to give people the right to do additional years of further education, because a lot of young people are going to be unemployed or will not get the results they need. That should be tied into an urgent review of apprenticeships and the right of people to study in FE if they cannot get apprenticeships because the numbers are falling Finally, on university fees, it is clearly unconscionable that students should have to pay fees for substandard courses from this October. The Government should have either a reduced fee or no fee for next year.
Income Equality and Sustainability — House of Lords, 2020-05-06
Topic: Social Welfare
Barbara Young (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, our record in the UK on income inequality and poverty is not very good. We have a higher level of income inequality than most European countries; 30% of children still live in relative poverty; and one in nine of the workforce has little or no job security. Covid-19 is making this worse, as many noble Lords have outlined However, this is not just about income inequality. Another inequality has been thrown into stark relief by Covid: the lack of the basic human right of access to green open space. The public have fully recognised that their physical and mental health depend hugely on being able to access green open spaces, the countryside and nature, yet 2 million homes do not have a garden. The most affluent areas in this country have five times more public green space per person than the most deprived areas A key part of the post-war settlement was a visionary programme to guarantee access to open space and nature in the form of our much-loved national parks system. I urge the Government to now follow that lead to ensure a fair and inclusive recovery that also delivers green equity—a nature recovery network both urban and rural to ensure that all our citizens have a right of access to green open space in the future.
Income Equality and Sustainability — House of Lords, 2020-05-06
Topic: Labor
John Hendy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the most reverend Primate for tabling this debate, and for citing in his opening remarks the speech of Sir Winston Churchill introducing the Trade Boards Act 1909. A wealth of academic research shows that greater even than the effect of progressive taxation and minimum wage legislation on diminishing inequality is the impact of extensive collective bargaining. That is what marks out the more egalitarian economies of Scandinavia From 1909, we had extensive collective bargaining in this country. By 1979, at the end of the most egalitarian decade in British history, when 65% of GDP was in the form of wages, 82% of British workers were covered by a collective agreement. Today, collective bargaining coverage is less than 25%. Consequentially, the wage share of GDP has fallen to less than 50%. Workers have lost their collective voice in determining their terms and conditions, as the current crisis has emphasised I urge the Government to take a leaf out of Winston Churchill’s book and, in discussion with the TUC, CBI and experts, reintroduce compulsory sectoral collective bargaining as Churchill did in the Trade Boards Act 1909. The wages councils, as the trade boards were subsequently renamed, were abolished in 1993 and voluntary sectoral agreements terminated and undermined in both public and private spheres. To cope with the transformation needed after this crisis, we need to bring them back to life, as we did to deal with previous crises: after the First World War, in the 1930s after the crash, and during the Second World War.
Income Equality and Sustainability — House of Lords, 2020-05-06
Topic: Social Welfare
John Stephen Monks (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am pleased to take part in this debate. I wish the most reverend Primate very well for the future and thank him for his outstanding service to date Inequality has widened since the 1980s. Some have argued that it has been inevitable, but it is not. There are other reasons, but it is in part a result of the decline of collective bargaining, as my noble friend Lord Hendy argued. Collective bargaining needs a boost; Stanley Baldwin did it in the 1920s and 1930s. That would do quite a lot to end the self-servicing ethos that lurks in the corners of too many boardrooms We know that more equal societies do better on a range of issues, including education and health, to pick out two. They are also doing better with the virus, which is disproportionately affecting the UK’s poor, as others have argued. This must not be repeated in the post-Covid world. We have a chance to do something about that I have a couple of questions. Will the Government agree to the TUC proposal to establish a national economic and social council to forge a national strategy on equality and recovery in a way that is fair to all sections of the community? Secondly, as my noble friend Lord Wood suggested, will the Government consider a one-off solidarity tax, including on wealth, to fund job creation and the NHS, and perhaps even bite into some of the debts that we have recently been running up at a tremendous rate This week, as we commemorate the spirit of VE Day, can we recover that kind of spirit as we go forward to tackle our problems and let the broadest shoulders carry the heaviest burden?
Income Equality and Sustainability — House of Lords, 2020-05-06
Topic: Macroeconomics
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I join with others in thanking the most reverend Primate for his service to the House and to the country. His excellent speech caps a career spent campaigning for greater equality in income, notably the living wage. His time has surely come. I declare an interest as a former chair of StepChange, a debt charity, and I would like to make two points First, we are seeing a welcome attempt by the Government to mitigate the supply shock being caused by Covid-19. Keeping sufficient liquidity in the economy to ensure that companies can survive and hold jobs open is crucial. But as the IPPR reported today, once the immediate crisis is over, the economy will be scarred and we will need a broad-based stimulus to drive up demand, reduce risk and support the creation of high quality jobs—particularly, as other noble Lords have said, for young people about to enter the job market. Can the Minister confirm that plans for this are under way Secondly, the figures show that the Government need most urgently to support the debt charities that are working with those who are suffering because of unmanageable debt. ONS figures show that 8.6 million people have experienced reduced income as a result of the coronavirus crisis, while Citizens Advice has reported that over 13 million people have already been unable to pay or expect to miss at least one bill, and there has been an 81% increase in the use of food banks The Government should lead by example by taking measures to reduce the impact on households which are falling behind on bills. These could include bringing forward the statutory breathing space, temporarily suspending the rule that people become liable for their full council tax bill if they miss one payment, temporarily halting all bailiff activity and agreeing with the proposal from Citizens Advice for better protection for renters.
Fisheries Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-03-09
Topic: Agriculture
Christopher Suenson-Taylor (Labour, Centre-left): I will speak to Amendments 85 and 87 in my name, tabled for probing purposes. Amendment 85 concerns conditions being imposed on sea fishing licences regarding matters that are not themselves directly related to the regulation of sea fishing. I am sure there will be a number of examples of conditions that it would be both logical and reasonable to impose, and I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify for the record what these include Amendment 87 deals with the duty of a sea fish licensing authority to comply or not with a request submitted by another licensing authority. In paragraph 4(3) of Schedule 3, there is an exemption to the statutory duty to comply: "unless … it is unreasonable to do so." This amendment merely seeks clarity from the Minister to highlight the designation between reasonable and unreasonable, as presumably the requesting authority may consider the request entirely reasonable. What steps must a fish licensing authority take when a request is denied, and is that the end of the matter? Would the licensing authority need to justify that denial and, if so, is there a timetable for this, should the requesting authority wish to follow up I turn now to other amendments in this group. Amendment 76ZA in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, brings into focus in my mind the interplay between farmed salmon, which is not regulated in this legislation, and the Fisheries Bill. The Norwegian Government believe that farmed salmon escapes are the biggest threat to Norway’s wild salmon population. The Scottish Government are certainly aware of the significant risk to the vital recovery of remaining west coast salmon stocks. Experts estimate that the number of escapes—often laden with disease, especially lice burdens—is around double the number of wild Atlantic salmon that return to their spawning rivers on the west coast of Scotland. During Storm Brendan in January, around 73,000 farmed salmon escaped from the open-net cage near Colonsay. I draw attention to the considerable effect this may have on west coast fisheries I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his amendments in this group. In Amendment 76A, he poses the question of whether the recreational use of a charter fishing vessel requires a full licence and in what circumstances. Would the planned exemption for recreational activities still stand? The Committee has welcomed the previous positive comments from the Minister about recreational fishing. Indeed, my comments on salmon are apposite. It is an often overlooked yet important part of our fisheries industry, reported to be valued at over £2 billion annually and supporting more than 18,000 jobs. I am grateful to David Mitchell at the Angling Trust for making contact regarding the size of recreational fishing and the economic impact it has. This merits some attention Finally, I thank the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, for his careful scrutiny of the provisions under Schedule 3, seeking clarity on the balance and pertinence of information required by a licensing authority.
Fisheries Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-03-09
Topic: Agriculture
David Stephen Geoffrey Pollock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I apologise to my noble friend for jumping in here, but I would like to go on for a bit to address exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has said. I could not concur more strongly with the aspersion that he made against the mantra of fishing at the level described as the maximum sustainable yield. I reiterate that it is absolutely perilous to do so The MSY represents an unstable equilibrium. It is akin to the equilibrium of an egg balanced on one of its ends; it is almost impossible to achieve even for an instant. One small disturbance will topple the egg, which is liable to fall on the table and break itself on a hard surface. In the case of fish stocks, that hard surface is total species extinction It is by an unfortunate misuse of terminology that the maximum possible harvest has acquired the misleading description of "maximum sustainable yield". The words "maximum" and "sustainable" have specious connotations, which are spurious in this case. For a start, as I have emphasised, this level of harvesting is not sustainable. Moreover, if it could be sustained, it would not correspond to an economic optimum. To achieve this level of harvest requires an uneconomic expenditure of effort. A vision of fish-stock ecologists is that we could harvest an ample supply of fish from an abundant stock with the least expenditure of effort. This would require the fish stocks to have an opportunity to regenerate themselves by the suspension of excessive harvesting. Such circumstances prevailed in the years immediately following the two world wars, during which fishing in European waters had been largely suspended. This did not last for long. Soon, fishing fleets armed with technological innovations were chasing an ever-diminishing supply of fish through marine deserts of the fleets’ own making In the face of the depletion of fish stocks, British fishermen have adhered to the myth that they have been robbed of fish by the depredations of foreign fishing fleets. They now urge the Government to give them exclusive access to our supposed national waters and to allow them to substantially increase the size of their harvests. This is a recipe for disaster. I thank my noble friend for allowing me to jump in.
Fisheries Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-03-09
Topic: Agriculture
Barbara Young (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank my noble friend and speak to Amendment 112 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, to which I put my name—although I may now regret it, since he poked me in the eye. I will also speak to Amendment 124 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. I will not repeat the arguments, which both noble Lords made so eloquently and passionately What is the Government’s stance on remote electronic monitoring with cameras being brought on to all vessels fishing in UK waters? Noble Lords have heard the reasons: we need to capture data on non-target and protected species and on the bycatch and discards regime, as well as better data on fish stocks to inform scientific assessments; there needs to be effective monitoring and enforcement of fisheries measures and legislative requirements; and it would provide very useful information on vessel location. The current fisheries management system is lacking in effective measures for accurately collecting data on what is caught, and lacks robust monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. That seems really strange in the context of the UK priding itself as a global leader in technological progress We can hardly stand as a world leader in the white heat of technology if we cannot see a better way of producing that data, that monitoring and that enforcement without the current stone-age solution of human observers going on to vessels and monitoring only 1% of what vessels catch—and of log books, and of surface and aerial patrols. It is really not a 21st-century solution. What improved system do the Government intend to introduce for all these purposes, which are absolutely vital in the context of our running an effective fisheries management policy, if not remote electronic monitoring with cameras on board all vessels fishing in our waters?
Fisheries Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-03-09
Topic: Agriculture
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, my proposed new clause seeks to clarify whether we have sufficient resources to patrol British waters and enforce fisheries licences, an issue we did begin to touch on in previous debates Apart from the odd skirmish, we have had a settled agreement on the distribution of fishing rights in UK waters and shared waters in recent times. However, leaving the EU and the common fisheries policy will potentially change all that. We do not know the outcome of the trade negotiations with particular regard to fisheries, but there are bound to be winners and losers—and there may well be bad losers We very much hope that the settlement works to everyone’s advantage, but that seems unlikely. The truth is that most commentators expect fisheries to be a highly emotive part of the UK-EU negotiations. I am sure that the noble Lord will seek to reassure us otherwise, but it seems unlikely that UK fishers will see a return to the unconstrained access to UK waters that they were promised in the referendum and beyond. The potential for bad feeling and a sense of betrayal could prevail from a number of quarters This brings us on to the resources needed to manage these disputes, which is the issue covered by our amendment. The Minister’s helpful letter following Second Reading described how offshore fisheries enforcement in English waters will be primarily delivered by two vessels operated by the MMO. In addition, the Royal Navy is increasing its offshore patrol vessels from four to eight in 2020, but only two of these would regularly be available to support fisheries enforcement. This does not seem sufficient for what could be choppy waters, and it is not clear whether Ministers consider these numbers sufficient or how they intend to deploy this capacity once the UK is an independent coastal state Therefore, we are seeking to require a statement setting out whether the UK has sufficient resources to patrol our waters and to enforce the licences. This includes whether we have sufficient vessels and personnel. It should also clarify what training Royal Navy personnel will be given in this specialist, potentially somewhat diplomatic, enforcement requirement. For example, what orders will enforcement boats be given when interacting with those they suspect of breaching licensing arrangements Given the PM’s stubbornness on the transition period, everyone is having to work on an accelerated timeline. We need to be confident that the UK is prepared to take up these opportunities to bring the matter to Parliament. Unless the Minister can offer a guarantee of a debate in the weeks and months to come, it seems we will get clarity only by introducing a statutory reporting requirement as set out in this amendment. I beg to move.
Fisheries Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-03-09
Topic: Foreign Trade
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for that reply. We wish him well in his application in the spending review. I suppose that is what we should say first We here today really do not have an understanding of the scale of the problem. We are talking in a vacuum. Once the trade negotiations are complete, we will have a much better idea. We will really know who the winners and losers are—who is angry and who is not. At that point, I would like to think that the Government will have the flexibility to draw on other resources that may not be currently available I may be anticipating a problem that will not exist or will be 10 times worse than I have already described. It seems wrong when we have a Bill such as this to just say, "Let’s wait and see", but I do not think we have much of an option at this stage. I would like to think that we have the flexibility to look at this issue of resources again at some point, even if not through the structure of the Bill. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw.
Fisheries Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-03-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Suenson-Taylor (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I shall move Amendment 88 and speak to Amendment 89. These are the subject of this group. Clause 19 provides for penalties to be imposed for offences under various other clauses. I am using these amendments to probe the sentencing regime in relation to offences and the relevant merits and parity between the UK Administrations Clause 19(1) deals with having a licence and licence conditions, as well as the part of Schedule 3 concerning complying with information. It specifies that, on conviction, the penalty will be a fine in England and Wales. The amount is not specified. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, information penalties can be up to the statutory maximum but do not exceed £50,000 for any other cases It may be that this is a little confusing—merely a fine being given in England and Wales and that fine being a maximum of £50,000 or, in Scotland or Northern Ireland, the statutory maximum for information breaches. Can the Minister explain these discrepancies across the Administrations? It may be that each have their own powers that they wish to defend certain aspects of, or it may signify that there are certain fundamental differences in approaches between the Administrations in their penalty schedules. Can the Minister also explain why fundamental licence breaches receive only a fine rather than any other sanction? I beg to move.