argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-09-06
Topic: Government Operations
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for moving Amendment 45 and then demolishing it, which saves me the task of so doing. I confirm that we are absolutely clear that any help funded by the new body will be free at the point of use. The difficulty we have with his amendment is that it may be appropriate for the body to enter into arrangements with organisations which provide free-to-client advice but also make a profit elsewhere. He made it clear that as long as it is free at the point of use to the client, he was relaxed. That deals with that amendment Turning to Amendment 46, we agree it is important that delivery partners refer members of the public to additional help when they are unable to provide the information themselves. The difficulty with the amendment is that it prevents delivery partners referring members of the public to the most relevant source of help in the first instance. For example, if a member of the public needs legal advice, we do not believe that delivery partners should be obliged, as the amendment requires, to refer that individual back to the SFGB. They should be free to refer that person for appropriate legal advice Finally, I may need to write to the noble Lord on Amendment 47. Given the SFGB’s relationship with government, it would be inconsistent with the precedent set by other arm’s-length bodies if the sponsoring department sought to interfere with, or have direct involvement in, the contractual arrangements that the body seeks to enter into. But I assure the noble Lord that as an arm’s-length body the SFGB will be required to comply with government policy on public procurement. The sponsoring department will support the SFGB in dealing effectively with any issues that may arise in the area of delivery partner governance and accountability. If the noble Lord wants more information on that, I would be very happy to drop him a line. Against that background and given the hour, I hope he will be able to withdraw the amendment.
Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg noble Lords’ pardon: the UK exits the EU with certainty, continuity and confidence. I am pleased that noble Lords are listening Our approach to commerce will be key to unlocking the opportunity that Brexit brings. When it comes to trade, our challenge is to forge an independent framework enacting our priorities and ambitions, so the Government will introduce a trade Bill, preserving, as far as possible, existing trade access and arrangements for UK businesses on exit, while developing an independent trade policy outside the EU To deliver our goals, the Department for International Trade is expanding. Since the department’s formation, its head count has increased by more than 20% to create a global workforce of more than 3,100 people. Its trade policy team has quadrupled in size and it has hired New Zealand’s former trade head, Crawford Falconer, as chief trade negotiation adviser to manage the UK’s free trade deals once the country leaves the EU. All the while our Ministers have been travelling the globe, banging the drum for British business and cementing bilateral ties. A series of nine working groups with 15 countries and high-level dialogues have been established to explore the best ways of progressing our trade The challenges our nation faces today are unprecedented. We do not underestimate what lies ahead, yet we also have no doubt that the bold reforms set out in this gracious Speech for defence, development, foreign affairs and trade will lead to a stronger global Britain, facing up to its responsibilities, reaching out to old friends and new, and opening up the opportunity to secure a better future for our people. I beg to move.
Terrorist Attacks — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for the points they have made. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, made some very constructive points about police numbers and having the resources to meet the needs of the police in the work they do. Since 2010, police forces have increased the proportion of officers working at the front line and proved that you can continue to cut crime with a smaller, more agile workforce. This is going to be important as we consider capabilities going forward. Since 2015—I hope this goes to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick—we have protected overall police spending in real terms. We have increased the counterterrorism budget, and we have funded an uplift in the number of armed police officers. We have also increased the budget of our security services. There are more officers and staff involved in counterterrorism policing than ever before. However, the challenge is not simply about maintaining police numbers. As the nature and complexity of the threat changes, as noble Lords have said, so does the nature of the skills needed to tackle that threat. We have all seen that in recent weeks. We are in an ongoing and constructive dialogue with the police, including the Metropolitan Police. I do not recognise the cuts that the noble Lord talked about, but we will be talking to the police about ensuring that the right powers, capabilities and resources are in place The noble Lord talked about the David Anderson review, which will look into why the attacks took place and whether further work needs to be done. It will look into the historical aspect; not just things that have happened over the last few weeks but those in the past as well. Going forward, the review will also look at how we protect our citizens and whether any changes, including legislative changes, are needed as we proceed. But of course it is very early days. We want a thorough review, not a quick one, to make sure that we get things right in the future and respond to changing threats and those which might emerge The noble Lord also talked about the Manchester attacker and whether he was known. I hope noble Lords will understand that these matters are subject to police inquiry and that it would be wrong of me to start discussing any of these details, but of course the review will look into what the answers are. I think I have answered both noble Lords’ questions, but I might have missed one from the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. If he wants to repeat anything, I would be very happy to answer.
Terrorist Attacks — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Norman Beresford Tebbit (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I welcome most wholeheartedly what the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said about the duty that falls on all of us to condemn all terrorists. I think today of course of my friends—Airey Neave, Ian Gow, Robert Bradford, Tony Berry—all Members of the other place and all murdered by the IRA. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, will have a quiet word in the ears of the leaders of his party who have such soft and comforting words for the IRA.
Terrorist Attacks — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as we deal with extremism in all its forms, we look not just at Islamist extremism but at far-right extremism. My noble friend is absolutely right to point out that we cannot forget the events in our recent history that caused such damage in our communities, both here and in Ireland.
Terrorist Attacks — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it is fair to say, certainly in this House and in the other place, that when events such as this happen, there is broadly a consensus on how we should deal with things. We conflate matters sometimes when we talk about extremism, radicalisation or indeed terrorism and get mixed up in various activities, but the point is that we all seek the same ends. When the extremism commission starts its work, it will seek to get the views of Parliament on its recommendations. I think we all seek the same ends.
Terrorist Attacks — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Baroness for that question. I did not give much detail about the commission for countering extremism because I simply do not have much detail at this point. Recommendations will certainly come back to Parliament. There was a question in the other place earlier about Parliament feeling outside what the commission does, but Parliament will be consulted and have its say on the commission’s recommendations. As for stamping out extremism, will we always stamp out all types of extremism? No, we will not, but what we can do as a society is collectively be intolerant of extremism in our society, and the cohesion of our communities will, to a great extent, achieve this.
Terrorist Attacks — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Mark Schreiber (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, does my noble friend recognise that when countering terrorism, to preserve our national security, there will be occasions when there is a real and irreconcilable conflict with human rights? Will she assure the House that the Government will always carry out a careful and proportional assessment in order to decide in such cases whether counterterrorism or human rights should take precedence?
Terrorist Attacks — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I say to the noble Baroness that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary’s Statement on Monday was met with great praise, certainly from the Muslim community in Greater Manchester, because it expressed the same horror with regard to what went on on Monday as to what had gone on in previous terrorist events. I think that might be what the noble Baroness was pointing to I cannot go through the criteria for Channel, but broadly speaking it is a voluntary mechanism that is in place for people who are at risk of radicalisation. It does not target people who are at risk of radicalisation; it tries to protect them. That is the most important aspect of the Prevent programme. There have been 1,000 Channel referrals over the last few years, 25% of which, by the way, related to the far right. I am confident that Prevent is working. We have disrupted people from going abroad to fight foreign fighters On the noble Baroness’s point about language, I have already said this to my noble friend but I will reiterate it: we have to be careful about the language that we use. I can speak most of all for Manchester because I was there in the aftermath of the attack. The coming together of communities is our strength. There are things that government can do, but communities are very powerful bodies. I stood in Albert Square while we had the vigil and I saw people from all races, creeds and colours. The Sikh community were giving out water to people, and there was a great sense of coming together. Afterwards I stood with Afzal Khan at the British Muslim Heritage Centre in Whalley Range. For me, that immediate response from communities and that coming together are among the most powerful things that have come out of the attacks in Manchester.
Terrorist Attacks — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, should we not bear in mind that we are pandering to the terrorists the longer we delay the resumption of normal activities after a terrorist outrage? I condemn utterly what was done, but I believe that the suspension of ordinary activities was a little prolonged and gave them a victory.
Terrorist Attacks — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): As my noble friend knows, terrorists do not like democracy. We certainly had to perform a balancing act in the wake of the terrorist attacks. We wanted to give respect to the dead, which was extremely important. The feeling in Manchester was visceral; these were little children who had been murdered. I thought that after the Manchester attack it was right to give a longer period of respect during the election period. However, we did not want democracy thwarted either, so after the third attack, which was so close to the general election, activity was resumed at a much quicker pace. I think we got the balance right, and I think the cross-party view was that we got the balance right.
Terrorist Attacks — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Stuart Polak (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, at the Al Quds march in London on Sunday, Hezbollah flags were displayed in direct contravention of Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Separating Hezbollah into military and political wings is an untenable and artificial exercise. In fact, the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council designate Hezbollah in its entirety. In the wake of the awful deadly terror attacks against civilians in our country, is it not time that the UK demonstrated its commitment to combating extremism by joining our important allies in proscribing this terror group in its entirety?
Grenfell Tower — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
Natalie Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): Obviously, a lot of work is going on within government to learn the lessons. We are focused on dealing with the immediate aftermath, but as I have also said, we want the inquiry to look at the broader circumstances that led up to the tragic fire, and we will work across government to make sure that we address the issues, whatever they may be, to make sure that this does not happen again.
Grenfell Tower — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Natalie Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): Obviously, it will be for the head of the inquiry to decide exactly how they want to conduct the inquiry. However, as I have said, we want to ensure that voices are heard and that the terms of reference of the inquiry cover all the issues that, rightly, families, victims and others want to see. I therefore assume that the judge who is appointed will be taking soundings and will have views on the terms of reference. I cannot speak for them about what the interim report will include but I think we are all very conscious of the fact that we want this to be done speedily and that we expect an interim report.
Grenfell Tower — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert Hayward (Conservative, Centre-right): Perhaps I may follow on from the questions in relation to the public inquiry and the reference that has just been made to the legislation. Can we please ensure that when people give evidence, they do so in full and do not hide behind the fact that, if they answer certain questions, they might incriminate themselves, which could result in a criminal prosecution? People expect a public inquiry to be full and public, not partially full and partially in public.
Grenfell Tower — House of Lords, 2017-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Christopher Samuel Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, besides the issues of the public inquiry, it will also be necessary to look at the structure of local government taxation. Those of us who live in the middle of London—I live in the City of Westminster, not in the royal borough—are acutely aware of the very low differential between the taxes paid by those of us who live in desirable properties in desirable areas and the amount paid by people who live in less desirable properties in less desirable areas. There really ought to be a bigger bandwidth between the two.
Adult Social Care Services — House of Lords, 2017-07-06
Topic: Social Welfare
James O’Shaughnessy (Conservative, Centre-right): I reiterate the point I made to the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler. I completely agree that safety is paramount: it is the beginning of any good care setting. As I said, the new regime highlights issues of safety where they exist so that operators and commissioners, whether that is local authorities or whoever, can demand turnaround in those services. As I said, the response to that has been demonstrated I mentioned that more staff are, of course, getting the national living wage, which will continue to attract people to the sector. The noble Baroness is quite right about skills, which is why we have the skills for care programme It is also worth pointing out that one thing the CQC report did show, as indeed you would hope it would, is that 79% of settings provided either good or outstanding care. There is no doubting the motivations of the people who work in this sector, and we all pay tribute to them. It is about making sure that there are enough of them and that they are properly skilled. That is precisely why we have put additional money into social funding, to enable real-term increases over the next three years to address the fact that we have an ageing and growing population.
Adult Social Care Services — House of Lords, 2017-07-06
Topic: Social Welfare
Angela Frances Browning (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, will my noble friend consult the CQC on a rather intimate but difficult problem? Elderly people admitted to busy trauma wards with fractures that result in them not being able to weight-bear very often find that, when they press the bell for the loo, they are not able to access a commode and there is no time for a bedpan. They end up being consigned to using adult nappies for an unnecessary long time. That has a knock-on effect on both their ability to rehabilitate and if they subsequently go into nursing or residential care. This is an outrage. Tackling this would save money and give more dignity to elderly people, but it is not something that one hears talked about very much. I have witnessed this happen with my elderly relatives and ask the Minister to take a look at it
Domestic Violence and Abuse — House of Lords, 2017-07-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Zahida Manzoor (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this very important debate for their individual, invaluable and thought-provoking contributions. All noble Lords made very moving contributions—particularly, for me, the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall, Lady Brinton and Lady Newlove—reflecting the importance of what it means for the victims and the society that we live in I thank the Minister for taking the trouble to have a meeting with me to discuss modern slavery and domestic violence, and for her response today, which was, as always, sympathetic and informative. I know that she will have listened very carefully to your Lordships and I hope that in her usual accommodating style she will consider how the issues raised today might be captured in the domestic violence and abuse Bill which, as we have heard, will come before your Lordships’ House in the near future Across the House we all want the same thing: domestic violence and abuse must end. It should have no place in our homes, communities or society. We need to do everything in our power to eradicate it. As we heard, legislation is a key component but it is not the only one. There are other things that we need to do. Again, I thank noble Lords for taking part. I beg to move.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-02-27
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): On the subject of giving away an option in advance, is my memory playing a trick on me in recalling that the noble Lord and others on the remain side during the referendum campaign argued that membership of the EEA would be the worst possible option because we would be bound by all the rules but have no say?
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-02-27
Topic: International Affairs
Rupert Ponsonby (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I wonder whether the Labour Party could find room for others in this debate. Even if the noble Lord, Lord Lea, were right that we did not have to go through a process of joining EFTA and the EEA—I do not think that he was, actually—being a member of the EEA means accepting EU laws, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth has said, without any political representation or influence over them. This would, of course, result in less control for the UK over its destiny, rather than more. That is not what people voted for in the referendum. I oppose this amendment for those reasons and because it is directly inconsistent with the White Paper.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-02-27
Topic: International Affairs
David John Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, there are those who say that, since voting to leave the EU was the only question on the ballot paper, it is legitimate to argue that people did not vote to leave the single market or the customs union. They are wrong, but we will deal with that in the fourth group of amendments. Those same people also argue that we can join the EEA and benefit from it while still leaving the EU. I believe that that, too, is wrong and misguided. However, your Lordships should not take my word for it: I will quote from the EEA website. After it describes what the EEA is, who are the contracting parties and when it was agreed, it goes on to say in point 4: "What is included in the EEA Agreement? The EEA Agreement provides for the inclusion of EU legislation in all policy areas of the Single Market. This covers the four freedoms, i.e. the free movement of goods, services, persons and capital, as well as competition and state aid rules, but also the following horizontal policies: consumer protection, company law, environment, social policy and statistics. In addition, the EEA Agreement provides for cooperation in several flanking policies such as research and technological development, education, training and youth, employment, tourism, culture, civil protection, enterprise, entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized companies. The EEA Agreement guarantees equal rights and obligations within the Single Market for citizens and economic operators in the EEA. Through Article 6 of the EEA Agreement, the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union is also of relevance to the EEA Agreement, as the provisions of the EEA Agreement shall be interpreted in conformity with the relevant rulings of the Court given prior to the date of signature, 2 May 1992" Therefore, if we join the EEA, we would, in effect, still be in the EU to all intents and purposes, with the exception of agriculture, fishing, justice and home affairs. All the rest of it we would have, lock, stock and barrel. We would not have control of our borders, our laws, our courts or much of our money. We would thus betray the people who voted to leave the EU, and that is why we should reject this amendment.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-02-27
Topic: Foreign Trade
Archibald Gavin Hamilton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, surely the problem with the EEA is that it is a waiting room for people who want to join the EU. It was never designed for people who wanted to leave it. I do not quite understand why we have to sit here saying that we must take one of the options on offer from the EU. We are the third-biggest economy in the EU. The EU sells 50% more to us than we do to it. Why can we not have a unique free trade agreement with the EU? Why do we have to go along with any of these things that are on offer from the EU?