argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Government Operations
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): I, too, support the amendment tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Storey. I declare an interest. As I am sure Members of your Lordships’ House may know, I was leader of Norwich City Council, but also I was a member of the Press Council for a number of years under Louis Blom-Cooper. So I come at this from both ends At no stage in my time on the Press Council do I recall receiving a complaint about the regional press because it was accountable to its local community for everything from advertisements to news, from fetes to weddings, funerals, baptisms and the like. All the complaints that were sensitive or difficult were about the national press, which was essentially promiscuous in the 19th century sense of the term as it was not accountable to a readership, which fluctuated from day to day and of which it had no intimate knowledge. So the regional press served its community in a way that the national press did not, and served it faithfully When I was leader of Norwich council an issue started boiling up while I was in Australia. The Eastern Daily Press would not run with the story until it had contacted me in Australia to get a countervailing view. That would have been unthinkable with the national press. That is why the amendment is so important. If we do not support the amendment and encourage the regional press to scrutinise mayoral and other meetings, as it does meetings under the existing local government structure, I fear that reportage of local government, much like reportage of court proceedings, will die on the vine. Twenty years ago we could expect our court proceedings, local council meetings and some of the important committee meetings to be reported. The press would expect to be briefed on them in advance. What we get now—in national newspapers as well—is sketches rather than reports of debates Political coverage is shrinking in this country because it is not regarded as sufficiently amusing for people with only 30 seconds’ attention span. The regional press has held on, trying to make both Westminster and local authorities accountable and transparent to the members of their community, to whom it also feels accountable At the moment, the leader of a local authority will be monitored by his or her group, the opposition or the press and also by the chambers of commerce and local pressure groups and lobby groups such as the local branch of Age UK, the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society or whatever, for example, on access to buildings. There must be stringent protection of the right of access of the press. We must not accept one person’s view of what counts as confidential or private, or what he or she would rather was not made public because it might be faintly awkward or embarrassing. Without that protection, I fear that the regional press will continue to opt out of the coverage that we absolutely need if we are to grow a healthy democracy in our localities.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Government Operations
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I suspect I may know the answer to this. Would it be possible for a local authority in the negotiations with the Secretary of State for devolution and financial arrangements to, for example, have the right to include extra tiers of council tax bands when raising their council tax for their area?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Government Operations
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): Given everything the Minister has said, that proposal, which has had a fair degree of support in this Chamber in the past, would be one way in which a local authority could raise funds within the existing structure in a way that most of us would think was fair and progressive.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Government Operations
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): I know that we deal with situations where the best can happen in the best of all possible worlds, which is where we are on the Bill. However, could the noble Baroness confirm that in a whole range of functions being devolved to a combined local authority and the budgets to go with it, the prospects of those budgets being aggregated—with freedom for the combined authority to spend as it wishes, given those particular functions, and not have to follow the Bill above those amounts—would be perfectly possible, feasible and welcomed?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Government Operations
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): Will my noble friend read into the record, if he happens to have the information to hand, the 10 most rewarded local authorities and the 10 most deprived, in terms of grant, and their political complexion?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, one of the amendments put forward by my noble friend Lord Beecham has reminded me that in Greater Manchester we had an argument with the Government about getting back our share of growth in business rates for the actions that we were taking. Through the city deal process we managed to convince Ministers that it would be a good scheme to take up, but unfortunately we then had to go to the Treasury and it took 18 months or more to get agreement on that. However, it is a model by which we can clearly demonstrate that the growth created through the work of the combined authority could be used for further investment to benefit and create further growth in the area I am certainly a supporter of fiscal devolution, which in a sense is the missing clause in this Bill. We need to think about what it is and what we mean to achieve. However, if we are to get the allocations of money from central government, which is a form of decentralisation, we need further freedom to agree with the Government what would be provided by the money. We can transfer funding from one field to another in a different and more effective way in some areas, provided that we do what was agreed in the deal with the Government I have said a number of times in this House—sometimes late at night a couple of years ago when my noble friend Lord McKenzie and I were talking to the Government about the change to business rates—that our system of local government finance in the UK is now a busted flush. There are two main taxes that we rely on. The revaluation means that business rates are no longer justifiable. There needs to be a major review and I am pleased that the Government are carrying that out. The other main form of taxation—council tax—has not been revalued since 1991, so a new house built in 2015 has to be valued as though it was built in 1991. A connection to broadband would not be a feature, because clearly in 1991 such things were not invented. There obviously has to be all-party agreement on this, because we do not want a system that is going to be changed when there is a change of government. We have to have a system, built for the 2020s, that gives local authorities the independence and freedom they need On fair funding, I am surprised that my noble friend Lord Beecham and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, did not quote their former council, Newcastle City Council. It has done some wonderful work on this and produced what it referred to as a "heat map", which shows in red the areas that have had the greatest reduction in council funding and in green those that have had the least. Guess what: most of the red areas are in the north or in urban areas, and this could be substituted for political control.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, perhaps my noble friend would agree with me that a major part of the problem is that the council tax embodies a significant element of the poll tax, and that that is what leads to such narrow banding.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Government Operations
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): My apologies—I meant Elmbridge in Surrey. I looked on my iPad at the description of Elmbridge, which started by saying that that part of Surrey, "is known as the ‘Beverly Hills’ of England" The Minister, who is a fair person, must admit that such extraordinary unfairness is where we end up. We need a much more independent and objective look at these questions, and that is of real importance if we are to get an effective devolution of power in this country.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, while individual council tax payers might well feel a little more comfortable, of course the impact on services for their communities has been very marked, particularly in adult care and children’s services, as we are increasingly seeing. In any event, most of the £5 billion has been top-sliced from moneys that would have gone in the local government finance settlement in any event. It is a bit much for the Government to claim credit for the freeze. It is more than a freeze for some services because it is actually inflicting a cut That brings us to the central question about the impact of these devolution proposals between different areas. One of the objectives of the amendment, although perhaps we will need to look again at the wording, is to ensure that in the process of devolving functions and resources to the combined authorities, both of which would be welcome, fairness in respect of other areas and between the combined authorities themselves is a cardinal objective and is something that the Government will address. It is that which we want to see in terms of the report that Amendment 44B seeks to advance. Looking at it again and listening to the Minister, perhaps the objective was not made sufficiently clear in the amendment, so it is something to which we may have to return on Report Unless we have a fairer funding system for local government services and the people who depend on them across the piece, including those in combined authority areas, then, in our submission, the talk about devolution will prove to be more of process than of outcome, and that would be unfortunate. Let us credit the Government, and particularly the present Secretary of State, with good intentions in this respect, but unless this is accompanied by a much more rigorous examination and the necessary change in the funding of local government, including the combined authorities, those objections will not be met. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, Members of your Lordships’ House will have observed that I am short. I intended this speech to be equally short, but I will give it a minute or two, in order to allow this debate to be kept to five minutes or thereabouts. Then we can proceed with the very important Statement which is to follow. Between us, the noble Baroness and I will no doubt get the clock to 4.30 pm It would be anomalous if the existing general power of competence which applies to local government in its manifestation across the country was not to be matched with a similar power for the combined authorities. The whole point of the combined authorities is to give them a wider range of functions than local government generally enjoys and for them to take on a wider role across the provision of a range of public services. Therefore, a general power of competence would facilitate the implementation of the Government’s objectives, which are shared by Members on all sides of your Lordships’ House. I hope that the Minister will concur with that view at some little length. I beg to move.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, if the noble Baroness is right, the general power of competence would seem to be more limited than, on the face of it, it appears to be. Certainly it might inhibit a kind of development across a combined authority area that might be thought to be most appropriate. For example, in another area in which I have an interest, the justice arena, a combined authority might be in a good position to develop schemes for assisting the rehabilitation of offenders. That is not a duty of local authorities at the moment but, particularly given the area involved in a combined authority, they might well have something to offer which they should be able to carry out. Their potential partners in the Prison Service or the probation service might want to join them in such an effort. I am a little puzzled as to why the noble Baroness should be reticent about extending a power in that sort of area.
Tunisia and European Council — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: International Affairs
Elizabeth Conway Symons (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in answering an earlier question on the Statement, which she repeated, the Leader of the House said that the issues would take time. One of the really difficult things is the feeling that we may not have an awful lot of time to deal with some of them. There are now 4 million displaced people in Syria, which is causing huge disruption and real difficulty in Jordan and Lebanon. We know that this is not happening just in Tunisia; we are seeing it split apart countries such as Syria, Iraq and Libya. What progress is being made in the work undertaken by Sir John Jenkins to look at the sources of funding and weaponry for ISIL? That very important report was announced some time ago, and it would be enormously helpful to have an idea of when we might expect publication.
Greece — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: International Affairs
John McFall (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it is clear that a Greek exit would provide an existential threat to the whole European monetary and economic framework, with knock-on effects geopolitically and also for the United Kingdom. As Angela Merkel said, if we lose the ability to compromise, we will lose Europe. Even at this late stage, is it not incumbent on the UK Government to ensure that their voice is heard and that a compromise is agreed with a degree of debt write-down and concomitant structural changes in Greece itself? That is still a possibility and every effort has to be made to ensure that before the weekend.
Greece — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: International Affairs
John Davies (Labour, Centre-left): Would it not be a good idea for the Government, when they refer to ever closer union, to quote the phrase correctly? It is the ever closer union of peoples. It has never been a legal or an institutional matter. On Greece, I am sure that the Government have given some thought to what follows, or what might follow, from the referendum on Sunday. Presumably, if the vote is no, Greece will continue down the tube of bankruptcy, and no doubt leave the euro, have high inflation and so forth. If the vote is yes, will the package, which was so petulantly rejected by Mr Tsipras the other day, be revived and be on offer to a new Greek Government? Will our Government use their influence with our eurozone partners and the IMF to urge them to adopt that cause?
Greece — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: International Affairs
David Edward Lea (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, is not one of the difficulties of the analysis that people assume that something follows on from having a referendum, which of course must be nonsense? It is not a logically connected piece of analysis. There can be all sorts of scenarios from where we are now, but Angela Merkel has said that the referendum question is simply, "Do you want the euro? If so, vote yes. If you want the drachma, vote no". Can it be as simple as that? Are there not a number of scenarios that could follow, and should we not be thinking through a number of them, otherwise the schizophrenia in this debate about whether a referendum is a bright idea has not been followed up by thinking through the policy scenarios? Montenegro is just up the road from Greece. It is a member of the United Nations and a singing and dancing country. It uses the euro without permission from Frankfurt. It is not obvious to me exactly what the connection is between the way the referendum is posed and the scenarios that follow.
Greece — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: International Affairs
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Minister said that the Foreign Office was updating its advice to travellers to Greece hourly, daily or something, which clearly is welcome. For humanitarian reasons and for the sake of people’s holidays, clearly we do not want to discourage people from going to Greece, but surely the only safe advice at a time when the banks are shutting and credit cards may not work is for people to take cash, probably in euros but any hard currency would do. Is that not the best advice to give people, rather than saying, "Well, you might be able to go to a bank or you might not?", or anything else?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for her comprehensive explanation, which might be summed up with "good try". As I said, it is a probing amendment. It has been an interesting debate, and I accept the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, about the detail. The amendment was basically copied from a GLA Act, which seemed a good place to start, but he has made some very good points The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, reminded the Committee that we are still waiting for the Government’s strategy on cycling and walking, which came in earlier this year, and that will be good. My noble friend Lord McKenzie hit the nail on the head by saying that all this is fine but unless it is accompanied by funding—and, one could even add, an ability to raise funds locally—how important will it actually be? I will read the Minister’s comments with great interest. I may come back on this again, or I may not. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Government Operations
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, if I may intervene on that, of course I understand that an affirmative order allows Parliament to have a debate, but so what? Nothing else happens. I think that the number of affirmative orders that have been rejected is seven. It is certainly a handful, so in reality we are giving executive power to Ministers to make absolutely any decision they like. The fact is that parliamentary scrutiny is virtually nonexistent. Of course, if we were able to amend or delay statutory instruments, as the royal commission on Lords reform argued some years ago under the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, that would be different—but we are not, so I am afraid that saying that an affirmative order is a protection simply is not true.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Transportation
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, there is a good deal of sense in this amendment. Of course, there are areas—my own is one of them—in which transport issues were effectively run, so far as the Metro system is concerned, for many years by the local authorities before the combined authority came into being. The combined authority currently oversees the function. In relation to roads in particular, I said at an earlier stage of the Bill that, in my part of the world at any rate, the experience of local authorities with Highways England—as I now understand it to be, as opposed to the Highways Agency—is far from satisfactory. What would be the relationship there? Would it be a direct relationship with the combined authorities—Highways England is not really organised on a basis comparable to local government—or would it be via the Secretary of State? It is a matter that needs clarifying. The general thrust in this is one which we would support.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-29
Topic: Government Operations
Kenneth Woolmer (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will address this issue in relation to combined authorities and take up the points raised by my noble friend Lady Royall. In relation to combined authorities, in reality a lot of the deals are being done in discussions between leaders of authorities, the department and the Treasury. There is a danger of a democratic deficit: that is, the deals that are being done are not necessarily devolution with the wholesale endorsement and support of the wider population. They are being done behind closed doors, with detailed and close negotiations, and afterwards people are being invited to accept that—indeed, not only to accept that but to accept an elected mayor, which in some cases fairly recently they have rejected So there is a problem: in order to make haste with the underlying drive of this legislation, there is a strong temptation to consult and persuade people after the event rather than beforehand. That is probably inevitable. However, I say to my colleagues, certainly in my part of the world, that ensuring that people accept this, agree with it and are enthusiastic about it will be an enormous job. They will be faced by what is pretty well a take it or leave it situation. They will not have played a great part in this. Of course, their elected representatives will have done—that is, indirect democracy—but that does not necessarily mean that people at large will have done. I said earlier that I am very enthusiastic about a combined authority for the whole of Yorkshire, which has 5 million people. However, it is enormously difficult to involve 5 million people beforehand and to find out whether they agree. Indeed, there will always be people who strongly disagree Therefore, there is a problem here that not merely the leaders of authorities but government Ministers have to deal with. To say to people, "We’ve done a deal behind closed doors and this is what the devolution package looks like", is hardly taking people with us. I say to my colleagues around Yorkshire—we have the former leader of Sheffield here—that there will be a big job to do in making the move from doing a deal with the Government to forming a large combined authority and it being something that people are enthusiastic about. I hope that in the fullness of time this will have the enthusiastic endorsement of the wider electorate and that they will be given an opportunity to express their opinion at the ballot box. There is no suggestion that there should be a referendum on a large combined authority or on a mayor, so there will be, in my terms, a democratic deficit. People will have to work hard to ensure that there is gradual and significant support for the driving aim of this legislation in the large metropolitan areas.