argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Child Safeguarding — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Social Welfare
Michael Farmer (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, can I ask my noble friend the Minister whether the review will look at the contribution of family breakdown? Evidence shows that children on the at-risk register are eight times more likely to be living with a natural parent and their current partner than the general population. Children living in households with unrelated adults are nearly 50 times as likely to die of inflicted injuries than children living with two biological parents. Will the review consider the contribution that robust prevention and early intervention can make to safeguarding children?
Child Safeguarding — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Social Welfare
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, on my noble friend’s last point, I know that he is aware, and extremely supportive, of moves that this Government are making to focus more on early intervention and on the first thousand days of a child’s life. In terms of whether the review will look specifically at family breakdown, I am not aware of that although clearly that appears relevant in this case. If it is different to that, I will let my noble friend know.
Child Safeguarding — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Education
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): The issue of children being out of school is an important one. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that schools are an incredibly important protective factor for many children. That is why we are so keen as a Government, public health permitting, to keep our schools open with a real focus on attendance and working very closely with schools and children’s social care so that where children are not in school that is followed up and properly understood. In terms of the details of the review in relation to Arthur’s own attendance, as I said, the terms of reference are being set at the moment and I am not aware of the details.
Child Safeguarding — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Social Welfare
Elizabeth Sanderson (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, there are so many distressing factors involved in Arthur’s death, but perhaps one of the most upsetting is that he had family who loved him and who raised their concerns. Can my noble friend the Minister say whether the Government will consider giving more focus to raising the awareness and status of kinship care, as recommended in The Case for Change?
Child Safeguarding — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Social Welfare
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope my noble friend will be pleased to know that in the Government’s independent review of social care we will be looking at how we can further support kinship families for all the reasons that my noble friend touched on. There are about 150,000 children in this country living in kinship care arrangements, so it is a really important element. In recent years, we have provided extra support to kinship carers who are looking after a child who was previously in care under a special guardianship order. Those carers can now access therapeutic services funded by the adoption support fund to help those children deal with the trauma that they have experienced. We have also recently changed the school admissions fair access protocol so that more children in kinship care will have access to schools that will support them with their kinship placement.
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Agriculture
Hugh Trenchard (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I intervene briefly to support Amendment 2 in the names of my noble friends Lord Mancroft and Lord Marland. I also wish my noble friend a speedy recovery from Covid. As my noble friend Lord Marland, who spoke so convincingly to the amendment, said, the animal sentience committee will be both judge and jury. My worry is that it will also be legislator, since it seems to me almost certain that, in the way the Bill is currently drafted, it is likely to stray into the area of scrutinising policy as well as process I remain worried that the committee will also overlap with the work of the Animal Welfare Committee, as the Countryside Alliance and other institutions that actually understand nature and animal behaviour have pointed out. This committee is likely to be comprised of people who may have a huge understanding of matters of science and parts of the countryside but lack the experience to really appreciate the relationship between the countryside and the animal kingdom What about this animal welfare centre of expertise? I understand it is supposed to settle points of dispute with other committees. Which other committees is the new committee likely to be in dispute with? Obviously, it will be the Animal Welfare Committee. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why we would wish to create an animal sentience committee which is obviously going to cover points that are already covered by the Animal Welfare Committee. I thought that, under this Government, we were likely to see some rationalisation and reduction of the number of committees and quangos being established. I regret very much that it looks as though we are likely to see the reverse I would also like to comment on Amendment 27, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, spoken to very well by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. My noble friend Lady Fookes has just pointed out, quite correctly, that there are already exemptions for medical science in some legislation, but I think those exemptions are very much narrower than the exemptions that would be achieved by the amendment in the name of the noble Earl. The amendment is quite welcome, and I strongly support it, particularly as, having spent many years in Japan, I came to be very partial to Japanese cuisine. I fear that most methods used, including in this country by Japanese restaurants, to kill fish might fall foul of the opinions of the animal sentience committee. I think it could easily lead to a lot of unwelcome interference I also very much welcome the speech by my noble friend Lord Moylan, who explained so well that the sentience of animals is different from that of us. It is relative, and nobody would argue that the sentience of a dog is the same as that of a lobster I also strongly support Amendment 48, because to set up a statutory committee of this kind without including a schedule clearly setting out the committee’s role and functions is bound to lead to trouble.
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Agriculture
Archibald Gavin Hamilton (Conservative, Centre-right): Can I just add to my noble friend Lord Strathclyde’s remarks? The Government certainly have the capacity to create this committee, but why are they bothering to create a new one? I raised this in Committee and was told, "Oh no; the Animal Welfare Committee and the animal sentience committee are doing two totally different things." If you took that outside and asked people in the street, "Do you think there’s an enormous difference between animal welfare and animal sentience?", they would slightly wonder what you were talking about. It is extraordinary that, as a Conservative Government, we did not take a well-respected committee—the Animal Welfare Committee—and extend its remit to include animal sentience. Surely that would have been the most sensible, straightforward way, without creating new bureaucracy, as well as massive expense and giving it a statutory basis.
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Agriculture
Malcolm Sinclair (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have listened with care to what has been said and find the arguments convincing. However, I am slightly concerned about the proposition put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and supported by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde. As I understand the procedure now, if the Minister agrees to such a meeting but then decides to do nothing, we can do nothing at Third Reading. I would like clarification that we could not bring forward an amendment at Third Reading unless there was an indication from the Government today that it would be accepted. I think that is the new procedure I have two questions for my noble friend that are relevant. Does he agree with the situation north of the border and the attitude taken by NatureScot that: "The death of an animal, at an individual level, is not a welfare issue but the manner in which an animal dies is" If he agrees with that, will he give an instruction to the committee to follow that same principle? Does he also agree with the thoughts of the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee in New Zealand, which distinguishes between societal ethical values and public opinion? Again, if he agrees with that animal sentience committee’s thoughts, would he give the same instruction to the committee that he proposes to set up?
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Government Operations
Jonathan Peter Marland (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank those who have spoken so eloquently, including those who have supported my amendments The Government really are in a mess on this subject. They cannot defend the reason for the committee. They do not know who is actually running these decisions—whether it is Ministers or the Government. Most people, once torpedoed beneath the bows by the very eloquent and eminent noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, would have given up and said yes, especially when followed by my noble friend Lord Howard, who underlined the terrible mess that the Government are in. The very fact that Defra has defended itself from legal disputes shows us the onslaught that is going to happen. If that were not enough, the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, made a brilliant intervention showing that committees are already in place to help them We on our Benches want to help the Government, not to hinder them—we want to make this better for them. But I fear they have lit a long fuse that is going to explode in our faces in five to 10 years’ time, and there will be nothing that we can do about it. It will traipse through the courts, there will be no defence to it and all the warnings that we have given will have been to no avail I am a loyal member of our party, so I am not going to invite the opinion of the House, but I sense that there is a strength of opinion in support of the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, so I would certainly not want to interfere on any decision that she might make on her amendments—but I hereby withdraw my amendment.
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Government Operations
Daniel Hannan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this block of amendments goes to the heart of what is wrong with the proposal. We all have an idea of who "the expert" is and what kind of person will give us the answers we want, whether that is a vet, someone banned from being a member of an animal rights movement, or whatever. The idea that there is some disinterested, impartial, patriotic expert who can somehow rise above the rest of us and be the only objective person is one of the most pernicious ideas in modern politics. We all have our opinions and starting assumptions, the "expert" more than anybody, if by "expert" we mean someone has spent his or her career in one field. They are the last person to whom we should contract out our decisions as a parliamentary assembly I totally understand that the Minister will want some flexibility, but a later amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising proposes a sunset clause. Maybe we could see whether the committee works out with the experts as proposed in the way the Minister assures us. If it does there will be no problem, and, if not, we will have another go at it. Perhaps that would be the wise amendment for the Government to accept.
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, he has not explained why he argued so vigorously in Committee that, if the details that are now in the terms of reference appeared in the Bill, they might be subject to judicial review. His view must be that, because they are in the terms of reference, they are not subject to judicial review. In my view, they constitute an administrative act, so how is he going to get round this and avoid judicial reviews?
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Agriculture
Archibald Gavin Hamilton (Conservative, Centre-right): I have two questions for my noble friend before he sits down. Does he accept that the Animal Welfare Committee could have been put on a statutory basis and its remit expanded to take in animal sentience? Secondly, if there were a change in Government after the next election, could a Labour Secretary of State put totally new people on the sentience committee?
Health and Social Care — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Social Welfare
Syed Kamall (Conservative, Centre-right): In terms of tackling the social care workforce, there are a couple of things: £162.5 million is going on a number of different schemes to make the social care sector an attractive place to work and we are looking, longer term, at professionalisation, so that people feel valued. At the same time, the minimum wage will help lift the pay of many people in social care work, but in the longer term we want to make sure that social care is not seen as the poor relation of other parts of the health service. We want to make sure that we have professionalisation and that it is all joined up. Some of these things will not be tackled in the short term, but we have a short-term programme called Made with Care, which is aimed at targeting and recruiting people to come and work in the social care sector. We realise that we have to do the long-term things, but also to promote short-term measures to tackle the issues we have at the moment. On specific statistics, as I am sure the noble Baroness can imagine, I do not have the details at hand but I commit to write to her.
Health and Social Care — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Social Welfare
Syed Kamall (Conservative, Centre-right): When you look at our health and social care sector, you see that one of the issues is a lack of joined-up thinking over the years. We have seen report after report about the future of adult social care gathering dust on the shelves—not forgetting that lots of people who are not older are also in the social care system. The White Paper we published last week was a first attempt to try to tackle the problem long term. We recognise that you have to look at the long-term issue—which, frankly, successive Governments have kicked down the road for years, and not really tackled—and we have made an attempt to do that with the 10-year vision we published last week. But we have also committed to the first three years of funding, to realise that vision. We now have a framework against which to judge future progress in adult social care, so that, overall, it is no longer seen as a poor relation of the rest of the health system and is properly joined up on a number of different levels—not only career paths but also the data that can be shared, so that you do not have the drop-off that happens when someone leaves hospital and enters a social care home and you have to find all that data again; the home is prepared to accommodate that patient with all their specific needs at the beginning In the longer term, with increases in technology, we hope that, instead of patients leaving hospital to go to a residential home, they will be able to return to their own home with the help of technology. All that will take time, but we have laid out that vision In the short term, we have laid out the winter plan, which includes looking at how we tackle some of these social care issues and how we recruit more social workers via the £162.5 million. The Made with Care plan will make sure that social care seems more attractive. For a long time, no one has really "sold" social care as a career. We want to ensure that it is seen to be just as valid a career as any other and offers a real career path. We also want to see a professionalisation of the industry, so that people feel valued.
Drivers’ Hours and Tachographs (Temporary Exceptions) (No. 4) Regulations 2021 — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Transportation
John Attlee (Conservative, Centre-right): That a Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Drivers’ Hours and Tachographs (Temporary Exceptions) (No. 4) Regulations 2021 (SI 2021/1207), laid before the House on 29 October, be annulled because they fail to address the underlying cause of the shortage of HGV drivers Relevant document: 18th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)
Drivers’ Hours and Tachographs (Temporary Exceptions) (No. 4) Regulations 2021 — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Transportation
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): We must recognise that the vast majority of all haulage operators obey the rules. It is because we have such a good, targeted approach that we are able to target those that do not. A lot of work goes into connecting the dots between different vehicles belonging to the same operators Let us turn to cabotage, although I will probably write further on this subject. The cabotage extension is very limited, going from being able to do two journeys under cabotage to a period of two weeks. From what we understand, this is about a tiny percentage of haulage journeys. I will see if I can get any further figures for the noble Baroness. Again, I am not getting huge numbers of hauliers writing to me saying "This is terrible, they’re stealing our business." Most hauliers have more business than they can possibly cope with. I will write with that information but I do not think you can necessarily relate the two. It is the case that the vast majority of haulage operators and drivers follow the rules.
Drivers’ Hours and Tachographs (Temporary Exceptions) (No. 4) Regulations 2021 — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Transportation
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): I could possibly give an entirely new speech on this but I would probably not be popular if I did—my Whip agrees with me The RHA wanted something entirely different—we know that. It always wanted us to open the floodgates and allow EU drivers to come in. Indeed, I am looking at the noble Lord and trying to remember whether any good ideas have come from the Benches opposite as to how we solve the HGV crisis. I believe Keir Starmer wanted to open the doors to 100,000 EU drivers—that was the Labour way of solving this crisis. We have taken a very different stance. As the noble Lord will know, no EU drivers are willing to come flooding in anyway, as I have said many times. We have set out a range of short, medium and long-term actions. Some are very substantial; for example, we removed the HGV levy. That saves hauliers lots of money, and from that money they can pay their staff more. We have also frozen VED. As I have said right from the outset, there is not one thing that will fix this; it is a whole succession of things. Some are short, medium and long term, some are big and others are little; that is why we have 32 actions. I am proud of those 32 actions and I believe that they are fixing the crisis.
Drivers’ Hours and Tachographs (Temporary Exceptions) (No. 4) Regulations 2021 — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Transportation
John Attlee (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I am especially grateful to the Minister for explaining how limited the relaxation is to the drivers’ hours. It is very helpful for her to clear up the issue of the 27% infringement rate. I have always been very well aware that when the DVSA stops a commercial vehicle it is normally acting on intelligence, so it is not surprising that it finds a high rate of infringement both on drivers’ hours and vehicle condition. It does not go and stop a Tesco’s lorry, for instance The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, talked about the complexity of the drivers’ hours regulations. They are indeed very complex if you want to go right up to the limit. If you do not need to go right up to the limit, they are quite simple The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, talked about the lack of a strategic statement. The problem the Minister has with facilities is very wide-ranging, and the planning system is a very major obstacle to providing better facilities. I do not think £32 million will go very far; it will not be easy to change the planning system, and this is not even a matter for my noble friend’s department. However, I am extremely grateful for her responses and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Government Operations
Olivia Bloomfield (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, for moving the amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Mancroft. We have already debated this, but I understand my noble friend’s concerns regarding conflicts of interest and what they may mean for the committee We want the committee to succeed, and I am confident that the Bill and the draft terms of reference will ensure that that is the case. As has been said today, the Secretary of State for Defra will be responsible for appointments to the committee and appointments will be decided in accordance with the Governance Code on Public Appointments. Applicants would, in line with best practice, be required to declare any potential conflicts of interest to the recruitment panel. The draft terms of reference set out that the Secretary of State may decline to consider an application from an individual whose conduct suggests that their membership could damage the reputation or credibility of the committee—for example, their membership of an extremist organisation. My noble friend’s amendment is simply not necessary. Defra has shown that this tried-and-tested approach works. There are a number of existing Defra-owned expert bodies which give balanced, reasonable advice on animal welfare issues. Few would ever accuse the Animal Welfare Committee, for example, of being made up of zealous activists I say again that noble Lords can be reassured that the process of recruitment of members of the committee will be rigorous and that members will be chosen on the merits of their expertise. This is what is needed in order for the committee to perform its role. I hope that this reassures noble Lords and that, together with the reassurance given by my noble friend the Minister on the previous group, it will enable the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.