argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-10-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Ian Warwick Blair (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have not read the speeches of the two noble Baronesses. I am about to make a speech on an amendment that I am about to move. I can only say that it completely dovetails with what has just been said. I am not entirely certain that the superintendent is the most important rank in the police service, but I probably have a special interest in some of that. However, I absolutely subscribe to the point of view that superintendents are the workhorses of governance and practice and I support this amendment.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-10-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Geoffrey Dear (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 176, 177, 178 and, tangentially, 178A. I am pleased to support the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, in his amendments. I want to underpin much of what he has said and, to use his words again, to identify what I think is a growing law of unintended consequences that has flowed over the last five or six years in policing. To many of our minds, there is a growing shortage of leaders as opposed to managers, which the noble Earl has already alluded to. I might take that a little further and say that in my view there is some sign that the quality is diminishing among the senior ranks, and those who are putting themselves forward for senior ranks, within the British police It might be helpful if I go very quickly through the history of selection for the British police service, without taking too much of your Lordships’ time at this hour of the evening. Prior to 1948—there was a Police Act around that time—there was a superabundance of police forces in this country, many of them very small and most of them not talking to each other. The powers that they could exercise in neighbouring forces were severely limited or indeed non-existent. The words "parish pump" come to mind. This did not matter too much in those days because society was largely static; the great mobility of motorways, railways and that sort of thing had not yet come, so it was more or less okay for the time However, by the middle of the 1960s, following the royal commission of 1962, things had begun to change. There was a huge wave of amalgamations, which helped to fashion police forces in such a way that the parish pump largely disappeared, forces were largely aware of what was happening alongside them, co-operation began to grow and the whole policing scene changed for the better Underpinning all that was the establishment in 1948 of the Police Staff College. It started off originally in temporary accommodation at Ryton-on-Dunsmore in Coventry but moved fairly quickly in 1960 or thereabouts to Bramshill House in Hampshire. I venture to suggest, having been there as a student and on the staff, that it was probably the Bramshill staff college experience that helped to co-ordinate and make a cohesive whole of the police service in a way that nothing had done before. It brought together officers of various ranks on various courses, opened their eyes and broadened their horizons. It broke down, if you like, the old fetter of local training that was still going on in those days.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-10-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Ian Warwick Blair (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I should say to the noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Rosser, that the reason I did not consult either of them was that I never expected that we would reach this clause on this day. It was only on Friday that I discovered, through the excellent Bill team, that we were going to reach this point. I would like the opportunity to talk through with Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Government whether we can move forward Peel said something very interesting—that, "this should not be an occupation for gentlemen" It took me 30 years to understand what that remark meant. It meant an extraordinary Victorian experiment, because that was the period in which you bought commissions, you bought livings and you bought places in the Civil Service. Peel was saying that the police service should be a meritocracy.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-23
Topic: Government Operations
David John Ramsbotham (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I, too, added my name to the noble Baroness’s amendment, and I echo what she said about the many organisations which have supported it. Many times during the Bill’s passage, mention has been made of the postcode lottery regarding the performance of local authorities around the country. If this assessment procedure is adopted, who will perform the quality assurance of the delivery of the assessment around the country? It cannot be the expert advisory board, which has a completely different purpose.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Norman Warner (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I, too, support the amendment, to which I added my name. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, on her persistence on this, which has been well recognised by those who work in the sector As a former director of social services, I think it is essential that we recognise the need to assess many of these children. That is not to say that large numbers of them will necessarily progress to the most demanding parts of the system, but we know that if you do not assess and pick these problems up early, they go in only one direction: they get worse. We end up with children who have already had a pretty tough time having to fight their way into a CAMHS system which is itself struggling to cope with the demands made on it. We need to give children coming into care, those who are looked after, a good shot at getting access to the services that they need I think that the amendment has met the Government’s concerns about flexibility, which were legitimate. This House and the Government have always argued for parity of esteem between mental and physical health. This is another piece of the jigsaw to try to ensure that.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for his work and persistence in this area. I recall a 28 year-old woman with experience of the care system who recently married a lovely man, an accountant. She had had the most terrible start in life and never met her father until she was 16. She talked in public about her experience at university and the relationships she had with the women with whom she shared a house while at university, who visited her and comforted her when she often fell into depression and withdrew to her room and isolated herself. I commend the noble Lord for his perseverance on this matter. I am very grateful to the Minister for listening to him and bringing forward this amendment today.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-23
Topic: Government Operations
Norman Warner (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I, too, strongly support the amendment, but as a sceptical old Whitehall warrior, I will open up an issue that may suggest it is not the Minister and his colleagues in his department who might be the villains in this area, but other interests across Whitehall. As I understand it, if the Government accept the amendment they will then have to accept amendments relating to all the other services that are of concern to children. It would be very difficult for them to accept the amendment if they have reservations about the cumulative effect of implementing the convention in this way through statute for all the services that may affect children My suspicion about Whitehall, because I am of a suspicious nature given my background, is that there are problems around an impact assessment on what the implications of all this may be. Instinctively I feel that somewhere in this mix are our old friends at the Treasury and the control of public expenditure. They are often to be found when we have these long periods of inaction in any particular area. Some of the areas where children could be seriously affected—clean air, benefits and access to health services to name but a few—go much wider than the scope of the Bill I do not expect the Minister to divulge the workings of government, but can he throw any light on whether it is necessary to provide across Whitehall an impact assessment on what the costs of implementing this through statute would be? Do the processes by which these things have to be agreed across Whitehall have any chance of being agreed before the Bill completes its passage through Parliament?
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-23
Topic: International Affairs
David John Ramsbotham (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support everything that has been said and pick up on the words of my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf. It is very sad that the last two reports of the UN committee coming to this country have started with the words that they regret that so little has been done to implement the recommendations they made five years earlier. If, as my noble and learned friend has suggested, the convention or the causes should be made the centrepiece of cross-government action in this area, then there is a solid basis for all affected ministries in Whitehall to rally round and make certain that their contribution to what is required is not criticised the next time the committee visits.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, before the Minister finally resumes his seat, perhaps I may say how grateful I am to him for his consultation. For instance, there was a meeting yesterday with Damian Hinds, the Minister of State for Employment, about our concerns about sanctions for care leavers. Make no mistake: the Bill will make a difference on the ground for young people with the worst start in life. For that, I am very grateful to the Government, the Minister and his officials and colleagues.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-23
Topic: Government Operations
Igor Judge (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have the privilege of being a member of the Constitution Committee, but I speak on my own behalf. I do not have the privilege of being a Welshman but I have the privilege of looking at a statute; I have the privilege of remembering what a baleful influence Henry VIII was on the history of Wales, and his baleful influence looks as though it will continue. The 1536 Act was intended to crush the Welsh nation and the Welsh language. The devolution process was intended to row back hundreds of years of history We are being invited to give Henry VIII powers to a Minister, by secondary legislation, to amend, modify, repeal or get rid of—whatever language we care to use—primary legislation. I have a very strong view on this, and shall address the House interminably about the besmirching effect on our constitutional arrangements of such clauses. However, I do not have to stop there in this instance. If Parliament chooses to give Henry VIII powers to the Minister, that is Parliament’s choice, but here it is giving Henry VIII powers to a Minister to reject, modify, get rid of or dispose of the legislation of the National Assembly—in other words, to eradicate, nullify or replace a statutory provision, enacted by a democratically elected legislature of our United Kingdom, on which the people living in Wales will have acted while the particular legislation has been enforced, and all without any consent from the Assembly. That seems an astonishing insult to the democratic process. The affirmative procedure that will undoubtedly be suggested as the solution does not—I say this with great respect—address the democratic deficit The solution to the problem involves having another look at Clause 2 and transposing it into Clause 53. I do not need to spell this out. It is perfectly obvious that the consent of the Welsh Assembly is needed. I reject in Clause 2 that weasel word "normally", which has all sorts of connotations that are not helpful to the analysis. There is another word beginning with "n" which should take its place: never.
Intellectual Property (Unjustified Threats) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-23
Topic: Law and Crime
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am fairly new to this argument as unfortunately I was not able to be present as a member of the committee. Judges faced with the nature of this clause, in looking at the word "instructions", would give the word a purposive meaning and would tend to look for a specific instruction as a necessary condition even if the words were not expressed in the Bill. For the avoidance of doubt, I respectfully suggest that the amendment moved by my noble kinsman has great force behind it. One would want to put the matter beyond doubt. For what it is worth, I support the amendment.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-12
Topic: Law and Crime
David Pannick (Crossbench, Unknown): Before the noble Lord sits down, does he think it is in the interests of the potential defendant for a judge to determine that there really is something in the allegations, and therefore to authorise that publicity is appropriate? Is that not seriously damaging to the presumption of innocence?
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Ann Butler-Sloss (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have been listening with a great deal of care to all that has been said. I have no doubt that Amendment 182 does not go quite far enough, in the sense that if there is to be the intervention of legal process before a court, it needs to be by a judge and not a magistrate. I am in the extremely unusual position of not knowing which way I am likely to vote. I find it very difficult. I am very attracted by what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, says: that prior to charge, no one who is being investigated should have the information disclosed. But I do think that one has to point out—as, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and other noble Lords pointed out—that sexual offences, particularly with celebrities, are a special case that sells newspapers. In one of the magistrates’ courts where I used to prosecute and defend as a very young barrister, the custody officer told me that it was £25 for the information to be provided. So one knows about it, and the police have, indeed, been criticised I happen to know someone prominent in a particular career—I will not say which—who is about to be charged with an offence committed at the age of 13 against a girl of seven. Everybody locally knows about it. For him, that is quite as awful as it would have been for Lord Bramall or Lord Brittan, save for the fact that this man is not likely to be dying. But this very personal thing—it may or may not be true—of someone in their forties or fifties accused of what he did at the age of 13, which has suddenly come out in relation to a girl of seven, is a shock The question that I pose to the Minister is this. If we do not do anything by way of legislation, what can we do to protect those who are innocent and have been vilified, and those who may be innocent, and the presumption of innocence, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has rightly pointed out, is there but is totally ignored by the media, and consequently largely ignored by the public? The approach that "there is no smoke without fire" is attractive, and if the press say something—well, it may be true. If we do not do anything, how do we stop an injustice? With huge hesitation, therefore, I am likely to support the argument of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, rather than my very close friend, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Elspeth Howe (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 185 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for all the reasons he has explained so eloquently, even though pushed to deliver them very quickly. I shall be much briefer If someone has been sexually assaulted by a complete stranger and has then reported the details to the police, it is clearly important that when the police then interview potential suspects they do not under any circumstances, whether the potential offender has been charged or not, disclose the identity of the victim to such suspects. In the past, perhaps, this would not have been so vital, but today if the attack has been carried out by a sexual predator, the availability of the internet, Facebook and all the other many ways of identifying where a victim lives will inevitably mean that the attacker can continue to harass their victim via all or any of these means. Indeed, I am sure noble Lords will have read many harrowing stories of just such instances—we have heard one or two of them already—where the named victim has ultimately been forced to leave the area and resettle in a completely different, new part of the country, changing their names too The noble Lord’s amendment is vital. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to accept it in its entirety.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-12
Topic: Law and Crime
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I recognise the point that the noble Viscount has made about the general increase in the level of sentencing, which has caused me considerable concern for quite some time. However, there is force in the point that the noble Baroness made about repeat offences. The people who commit this kind of offence tend to be victims of an obsession. There must be a risk that a number of these perpetrators will do it again, and if the first sentence is ineffective as a deterrent a judge is really inhibited in visiting the appropriate penalty on a repeat offender, particularly if it is even a further repetition, if he is restricted to the levels that presently exist. For that reason, among the others that the noble Baroness mentioned, I would be inclined to support her amendment.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-12
Topic: Law and Crime
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I will add just a footnote to what the noble Viscount said. Some years ago, there was a challenge to Section 41 of the 1999 Act on the ground that it was incompatible with the convention right to a fair trial. I sat upstairs in a committee room as a Law Lord with the Appellate Committee. We were very careful to restrict the ability of counsel to explore these matters, as far as we possibly could consistent with the right to a fair trial. I am glad to hear that, from the noble Viscount’s experience, the system is working very well. On the other hand, when we were framing our restrictive view as to how the section should be applied, we were looking to the future; we did not have the benefit of experience. Like the noble Viscount, I have no objection to a review, which I suppose might serve some useful purpose by informing everyone as to whether the system is really working as the Law Lords expected it should.
Aleppo — House of Lords, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Caroline Anne Cox (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Islamist military is occupying eastern Aleppo, having inflicted sustained military offences against the civilians of western Aleppo, including using cluster bombs and gas warfare? Is she also aware that the Syrian army is helping 1,500 civilians to flee the fighting in eastern Aleppo, although the Islamist terrorists in control there are trying to stop them leaving, using them as human shields? Everyone whom we met in Aleppo is deeply worried by the West’s commitment to regime change, which would give power to such Islamists, creating a situation similar to that in Iraq and Libya. Is there any chance that Her Majesty’s Government would listen to the people of Syria and reconsider their policy of inflicted regime change?
Armed Services: Claims — House of Lords, 2016-11-24
Topic: International Affairs
Simon Denis Brown (Crossbench, Unknown): As this is a time-limited debate, I think I should be allowed to finish. As for human rights claims by our own forces, if the HRA is confined territorially, as I suggest it should be, such claims could be brought only in Strasbourg, and as to this, I tend to share the view of the minority in Smith that that court would itself shrink from adverse judgments based necessarily on reviewing the conduct of our military operations abroad All I have said is really but a thumbnail sketch of the many difficult questions that arise, and I now look forward to hearing the views of the number of real experts—all noble and several gallant, too—who I am delighted to note are to follow in this debate.
Health and Social Care — House of Lords, 2016-11-24
Topic: International Affairs
Norman Warner (Crossbench, Unknown): Before the Minister sits down, could he address the issue of reciprocity, which some of us raised? There is no incentive for the EU to give guarantees on reciprocity, so why should it move on this area at this point? We stand to lose because those people will actually leave unless they are given guarantees. If we are going to wait to reassure these people until there is reciprocity, we are bound to lose that argument. Why can we not move on this issue before reciprocity?
Aid Reviews — House of Lords, 2016-12-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Shreela Flather (Crossbench, Unknown): Will the Minister please tell me what the role of family planning is in these reviews? I have no idea what is in the reviews, but family planning was quite a high priority in DfID before the new Secretary of State arrived. I would be grateful if I had some assurance that it still is.
Aid Reviews — House of Lords, 2016-12-02
Topic: International Affairs
Edmund Crisp (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I welcome this review and the general direction it takes, including that it is in Britain’s interest to have an effective development programme. I note that the Statement mentions, "sharing skills from the best of British institutions", including the NHS, as part of this development programme. What is meant by that? More generally, we should recognise that in this process of development and indeed codevelopment, it is in our mutual interest to see that there is a lot we can gain from our partners in developing countries, as well as a lot we can give.
Strathclyde Review — House of Lords, 2016-11-17
Topic: Government Operations
Helene Valerie Hayman (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, like others, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness for her Statement and for the decision that has been made. I was delighted to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has returned to his normal tranquillity and confidence in the House’s ability to behave rationally and in a mature fashion, which was uncharacteristically absent, I felt, in some of his report and the consequent discussions To return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, the tenor of the debate following the tax credits issue was very much about the quality of the scrutiny that Parliament gives to secondary legislation. Although we all agree that in many instances we need primary legislation, in fact we have a great deal of secondary legislation and the challenge will be greater after the so-called great repeal Bill. Do not both Houses of Parliament need to look at how, together, they provide more effective scrutiny and greater challenge to the Executive? Will the noble Baroness consider again the suggestion made at the time that a Joint Committee of both Houses looking at ways to improve scrutiny could be very valuable?
Strathclyde Review — House of Lords, 2016-11-17
Topic: Government Operations
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): I do not think that this debate can conclude without mention of Henry VIII. Repeatedly, some Members—certainly on my Benches—have complained about the overuse of Henry VIII clauses. Can the Government look more carefully at that? It is not only the use of them but the wording used; sometimes one can see the force of having a clause of that kind, but can find it is overdone. There is really a major issue here as to whether this should be properly controlled.