argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Voyeurism (Offences) (No. 2) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Igor Judge (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am grateful to be allowed to intervene at this stage of debate. I apologise for not putting my name down. As noble Lords have allowed me to speak, I shall do so briefly I welcome the Bill. It addresses a problem created by the availability of modern technology. It is a good Bill: we know exact what action is being criminalised; we know exactly what the intention of the perpetrator is. There is no messing about. It is a specific intention. We also know that it must be done—again no messing about—without the consent of the victim and without a reasonable belief in that consent I listened with care to some of the observations that have been made, and I shall make this point: any crime of this kind has to be dealt with by way of sentence. It has been an aggravating feature of any kind of sexual offence that the motivation is revenge. It has been a serious aggravating feature of any kind of sexual offence that the objective is money, gain or pressure. It is perfectly obviously an aggravating feature of any sexual crime that the victim has been chosen for whatever reason, whether sexual orientation, trans- genderism or whatever. Those features can be taken into account by the sentencing judge, assuming that it can be established that the offence is to obtain sexual gratification or to humiliate, alarm or distress. Those are very wide words. It would be difficult to think of many situations in which, we will say, a man decided to upskirt without having the purpose of humiliating his victim, probably alarming her and almost certainly distressing her There is a gap here that I would like the Minister at least to consider: the Bill does not cover distribution. The purpose of the taker of the upskirt may be to distribute it but the Bill does not cover the consequences if he and others do so. There is no distribution for fun—that cannot be so—but let us just call it "harmless fun" in the sense of what we mean by humiliation. That ought to be an offence by someone else who did not commit the act of obtaining the upskirt image. Certainly there should be an offence that covers the distribution of the image for financial gain. To close that gap, there needs to be consideration of all the matters that have been raised in the speeches today but also a specific offence relating to those who choose to distribute the results of someone else’s foul work.
Life Sciences Industrial Strategy (Science and Technology Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2018-10-23
Topic: Technology
Narendra Babubhai Patel (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the time is late and this has been a long, but very useful, debate. I thank all noble Lords who have so enthusiastically taken part. There have been some excellent speeches. Debate on any report of a House of Lords committee should not be confined only to members of the committee. The rest of the Members the House should be able to take part, and the speeches we have heard show that other Members have been able to take part I do not want to be ungenerous to the Minister. I well understand that, in a long debate with lots of questions, he did not have time to absorb them and produce a response that we might find satisfactory. I am glad that he has committed himself and the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, to take on board all the comments that were made and all the questions that were raised, and we look forward to a full response As we all want to support this strategy to be a success, we will no doubt come back to this. It may even be that the Science and Technology Committee may look at this again in a year’s time to see how the strategy is progressing. I thank all noble Lords.
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-31
Topic: Law and Crime
Alexander Carlile (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am somewhat shocked by the implication that there is anything illiberal about the proposed extension of the law in this clause. In November 2017, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, speaking in London at the School of Oriental and African Studies, included in his speech the following sentence: "While terrorism often starts in conflict zones, it reaches far beyond them, organizing and inspiring attacks and radicalizing people across borders and continents" The clause recognises exactly what the Secretary-General described. Those who have been interested in terrorism law for as long as the period since 9/11 will recall that the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, in a speech in Barcelona shortly after 9/11, made the point that the United Nations agrees in principle that terrorism should be prosecuted wherever the defendant is irrespective of where the terrorist act was committed If this Bill, as we are told by the Government, is intended at least in major part to modernise the law so that it faces up to the changes that have occurred at an exponential rate in electronic communications since 2001, this is exactly one of those measures that achieves just that. Let us imagine that somebody was in this country with impunity having committed an act somewhere else that is a terrorism offence in this country. We prosecute those who committed the act in this country, but not those who committed exactly the same act, which appeared on exactly the same postings on the internet and in exactly the same YouTube videos, in another country. That makes absolutely no sense I say to the noble Baroness—whom I much admire—who proposed the amendments that there is a danger of us losing touch also with the public view on these matters. A set of opinion polls appeared two days ago in which it was revealed that changes in the law of this kind are broadly supported by more than 80% the public. While I do not believe in legislating on the grounds of public opinion, in this instance I regard the public as being right and I urge your Lordships to reject the amendments and not to reject the principle in the clause.
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-31
Topic: Law and Crime
Igor Judge (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, before I address Amendment 33 let me go back to the debate on Monday when we were discussing Amendment 18 and new Section 58B(2). I fear that during the discussions I misunderstood something said by the noble Earl, Lord Howe. I understood him to be saying that the Act produced two different ways of approaching the burden of proof. I have reread Hansard and I misunderstood him—it is entirely my fault—and I objected to that. I would go on objecting to it if that was what he said, but it was not. I have studied the Bill and I find on page 83 that he is right and that the burden of proof in relation to any offence created by Section 58B(2) is in fact on the prosecution. I therefore apologise to the noble Earl—I am sorry that I misunderstood him—and to the extent that I misled the House, I apologise to the House. However, I just add that it would be so much more helpful if Acts of Parliament said what they meant, instead of telling us to look at whatever page it is to find the answer I want to add a word, in spite of the difference of view expressed here: we have to be careful about this provision. I am not going to take sides in relation to what may be a very serious offence or a very minor offence, but can we just reflect on this? Every citizen is presumed to know the law; every visitor to this country is presumed to know the law that applies in this country. Of course we do not: look at me, I got new Section 58B(2) wrong and I am supposed to know the law. The more serious point is that there is a basis and a quid pro quo for this. The quid pro quo is that the criminal law should be clear. I am expected to know the law and to obey the law: it should, at least, be clear what it is I am expected to obey We are all supposed to know the law here; every citizen of every country, applying the same presumption, is presumed to know the law in the country of which he is a citizen or to which he is a visitor. There will be occasions—perhaps I need to be less emphatic: there may be occasions—when something is not unlawful in a different country to our own. We have different rules. Bullfighting is unlawful in this country, but would we prosecute a Spanish toreador coming here for breaking what we would regard as our law which is not unlawful under their law? The Bill risks criminalising a citizen of another country for doing something that is not unlawful in that country Of course terrorism is unlawful—it is unlawful everywhere, you do not need a book of law to tell you that—but there may be minor matters, in relative terms, which we criminalise here but are not unlawful by the laws of a different country. We need to be careful not to extend the criminal law further than it should go.
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-31
Topic: Law and Crime
David Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I oppose this amendment and, in doing so, I will seek to explain why the issues are rather different from those considered under the previous group. If Amendment 32 is passed then Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000, as supercharged by Clause 1, will apply to any person anywhere in the world who expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of an organisation proscribed in the UK and who is reckless as to the consequences. The deficiencies of our deproscription regime, with which I have already wearied your Lordships, are multiplied when coupled with the indiscriminate grant of extraterritorial jurisdiction in this context To illustrate the point, I invite your Lordships to look to the Republic of Ireland, whose citizens would be criminalised by a law of this Parliament for expressing supportive opinions about organisations now committed to peace but in which their grandfathers or grandmothers once fought for freedom. I shall give one example: Cumann na mBan, the Irish republican women’s organisation. It was once aligned with the IRA and is still proscribed in this country, despite no evidence of which I am aware that it has been concerned in terrorism during this century at least. The commemoration of its centenary in 2014 in Dublin was a significant national event. The speakers included President Higgins of Ireland, who spoke stirringly and approvingly of the vision that animated the women of Cumann na mBan. The Minister will of course assure us that no one is going to seek extradition of Irish citizens who expressed opinions supportive of this proscribed group but, as noble Lords have done in relation to other clauses of the Bill, I must question whether this repeated heavy reliance on the discretion of our authorities is an adequate substitute for crafting a properly defined law This amendment comes in very late and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, without the benefit of JCHR scrutiny. Whatever view noble Lords may take of Amendments 31 and 33, I strongly question the wisdom of extending extraterritorial jurisdiction unqualified by limitations of citizenship or residence to countries where conduct caught by the expanded Section 12 is not a crime. However it is applied in practice, this amendment might be thought to have a regrettably colonial flavour, not just in Ireland but in other parts of the world. I have no doubt that it is unintended, but it is no less unfortunate for that. This amendment seems to have been an afterthought. I suggest that this is one of those occasions where the first thoughts were the best. I invite the Minister to withdraw the amendment or, at the very least, to qualify it in the ways suggested in Amendment 33.
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-31
Topic: Law and Crime
Dafydd Elystan-Morgan (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, on the prosecution of William Joyce, I do not believe that any reliance at all was placed on the Treason Act. The basis of the prosecution against him was that he had left this country holding a British passport and, as such, had relied on the guarantee of safety of this country. There was, therefore, a reciprocal duty on him, which led him of course to commit treason.
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-31
Topic: Government Operations
Igor Judge (Crossbench, Unknown): Perhaps I may ask a serious question. If we are debating an Act that was enacted in 1351, which has absolutely no application to today, through which, among other provisions, the Chancellor doing his job in his place of work is protected but not if he is slain at a party conference, would it not be a good idea for us to get rid of it altogether?
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-31
Topic: Law and Crime
David Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, Ministers will know that the equivalent sentences in other European countries for the type of offences that we are talking about tend to be much lower than they are here. Perhaps that is no bad thing In light of these issues and the proposed very substantial increases to which the noble Lord has referred, will the Minister say what steps will be taken to address—or at any rate, given the sensitivities, to research—the disparities that have been observed by informed observers between sentencing levels for terrorism offences in England and those in Northern Ireland, where sentences imposed appear to be a great deal lower for conduct that on the face of it looks quite similar?
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-31
Topic: Law and Crime
Alexander Carlile (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, although I remain largely agnostic on the increase of maximum sentences which was discussed just now, in my view there is a much stronger and clearer argument for applying extended sentences to the offences to which we are referring. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, has just suggested that there should be more evidence from the judges. In my experience, and it includes some experience of sitting as a judge, judges are not in the habit of saying, "I would have passed a much heavier sentence if I had had the opportunity to do so". Occasionally they do, but most judges feel a great sense of self-restraint from saying that, and I know of no methodological research that has ever existed that seeks to tease out of judges whether in certain specific cases they would have wished to pass longer sentences.
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-31
Topic: Law and Crime
Alexander Carlile (Crossbench, Unknown): In fact, the Government have a working relationship with the senior judiciary, which is often conducted at a fairly subtle level. The Attorney-General, it is to be hoped, has reasonably frequent conversations with the senior judiciary, but one would not expect the content of those conversations to be published. I apprehend that this matter has been considered fairly carefully in the usual way, and I am sure that we can trust Ministers when they say that there is evidence in their view for extended sentences of this kind I was going to add that there seems quite a clear analogy between sexual offences and terrorist offences, save that the evidence for extended sentences in terrorism offences may be much clearer than in sexual offences. When a judge is sentencing someone for a sexual offence, he will often have a clear apprehension drawn, for example, from the probation officer’s pre-sentence report and from the evidence in the case that the person concerned, usually male, represents a serious risk to children for an unknown period. The person is then sent to prison and courses are offered which they may or may not follow. The judge will often have an indication at the time of sentence as to the likely willingness of the individual to follow such a course, and that may influence the judge’s decision on whether to impose an extended sentence, usually for the protection of children A terrorism case may come before a court to defend someone like—he is not unique—Anjem Choudary. He has a clear intention, depicted on numerous occasions, to ignore those who criticise what he has been doing and to continue to attempt, in the subtle way that he follows, to radicalise others. There are other cases of a similar kind, but it is not very difficult for the judge to form the conclusion that the person is someone from whom the public needs to be protected by the special measure of an extended sentence. That is not only empirically defensible but meets public concern, which is reflected in the attempt to modernise these provisions in these clauses I urge noble Lords to support the spirit behind these clauses and to support the clauses in the knowledge that judges have never been lavish in their passing of extended sentences. In my experience and observation, when it happens it is usually done with great care and much concern by the judges, who start from an impartial standpoint before passing sentence.
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-31
Topic: Law and Crime
David Pannick (Crossbench, Unknown): I suggest to the noble Lord that the provision in the Bill is concerned with "a right to use", which must mean any right to use. It is not confined to a right to use the vehicle for the terrorist purpose that we are concerned about. Therefore, it is not necessary to pursue an amendment here, given that there is a notification requirement if there is any right to use the vehicle; clearly the person has a right to use the vehicle.
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-31
Topic: Law and Crime
David Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, Clause 13 provides for a search power that Professor Clive Walker—who is, without much doubt, our foremost expert on counterterrorism law and not a man given to either naivety or overstatement—described in written evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights as "outrageously wide". As he pointed out, the clause is to be contrasted with paragraph 6(3) of Schedule 5 to the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011—the TPIM Act—which confines the purpose of the equivalent search power to that of determining whether there has been any contravention of the measures specified in the TPIM notice. That is essentially the approach that Amendment 39, which I support, adopts I echo the noble Baroness’s point that there is a human element to this. The families of convicted terrorists, through their support and influence, are often important factors in turning offenders away from violence. The extreme anxiety experienced by the wife of a control order subject whose house was subject to frequent unannounced searches, and the upset and trauma caused to her young children, were movingly conveyed in an article from which I quoted in my final report on control orders in 2012. I felt justified in doing so, not to give publicity to an unreliable witness—something which, like my predecessor as independent reviewer, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, I was always astute not to do—but because the woman in question had recently been described in a High Court judgment by the highly experienced Mr Justice Mitting as an impressive witness and a person whose evidence he accepted without reservation The risk of upsetting or alienating such people is surely evident. I have never heard it suggested in several years of, I hope, careful oversight that the powers to enter and search premises occupied by potentially extremely dangerous TPIM subjects are insufficient, so I am puzzled as to what prompted this further turn of the ratchet—at least on paper, even if reassuring words are spoken about how it may be used in practice It is important that the power of entry and search should not be used as an instrument of harassment and destabilisation. This reasonable amendment would help to ensure that.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-06
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Carlile (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, as another who took part in the earlier stages of this debate, my eye joined with my noble friend Lord Broers in expressing thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, for listening to the arguments that were made earlier, and to the Government for showing that the dynamic relationship that sometimes exists between your Lordships’ House and the House of Commons actually improves Bills, even in the febrile context of Brexit. I hope that this result today on Motion A, which I certainly support, will be a clear message to those who are given to say glibly that your Lordships’ House is merely trying to wreck Brexit. That is just not true. What is happening this afternoon is clear evidence, which the Government should cite, that there can be constructive work between the two Houses to improve even the legislation on this very difficult issue.
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-30
Topic: Government Operations
Ann Butler-Sloss (Crossbench, Unknown): I want to ask the noble Lord whether he thinks he was right in saying that this Parliament in Westminster could actually pass legislation. I think we would have to take over Northern Ireland and go beyond devolution when there is power for us to do that. But I think in the absence of that, we could not, today for instance, pass a law.
Extradition Treaty: UK and the State of Kuwait — House of Lords, 2018-10-30
Topic: Law and Crime
John Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): In the spirit of writing, perhaps the Minister might wish to reflect on this. Given that she has suggested that this is going to come before the House again, I have been reflecting on it during the debate but I have not fully worked out my thinking. Is there any question in relation to the European arrest warrant? Some odd cases have come through the system where the system has been somewhat abused, if I may say, by certain states. Is there any possibility that European arrest warrant issues will come into play and be relevant to this? People are shaking their heads but perhaps the Minister might wish to respond.
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-30
Topic: Law and Crime
Alan Brooke (Crossbench, Unknown): It may appear that, because the noble Lord, Lord Empey, is leading this on his own, he may not have support. I think he has support from everybody. I declare an interest in that I have had cancer of the throat. This sort of thing does not just affect the people. It affects their families and dozens of other people; it affects their friends. I feel that it affects their friends and families more because they are so worried that they cannot do anything to help, and yet the state, in the form of the National Health Service, is not helping them. Therefore, I cannot conceive that this is not in the public interest, yet the Minister is almost saying that if a senior civil servant thinks it is in the public interest he may come out in support of it The other point is that, on another amendment, on the PSNI, we have just spent five or six hours debating the fact that the primary aim of the Government is to restore the Assembly. Policing is absolutely vital to that, and we cannot see the police force denuded of pay or resources to achieve this end. I am afraid that all afternoon, whenever we have talked about any other part of it, the Government have been saying, "Our primary aim is to restore the Assembly". We will not restore it without enabling our security forces, the police, to manage the day-to-day situation. The Minister should give a slightly more reassuring answer than, "We’ll post it back and see what they think about it".
Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 Committee Report — House of Lords, 2018-07-02
Topic: Environment
Ewen Cameron (Crossbench, Unknown): That this House takes note of the Report from the Select Committee on the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 The countryside at a crossroads: Is the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 still fit for purpose? (HL Paper 99).