argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Other
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): On the subject of the House resuming, we have now been going for nine and a half hours. We have a very important Statement coming up, on relations with Russia, which many noble Lords who have been party to the debate for the past nine and a half hours wish to stay for. I have just been told that the Government are proposing that we do not have any break at all after the Statement, before we resume Committee stage. I see the Leader of the House is in her place. This is totally unacceptable behaviour on the Government’s part. Does she expect us to remain in session for 12 or 15 hours, conducting the business of the House, with no break whatsoever? The way in which the Government are handling Committee stage is simply unacceptable. If the Government do not give us a break, I intend to move a further adjournment when the Government attempt to resume Committee stage in, I assume, 40 minutes’ time.
Salisbury Incident — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Desmond Browne (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement. I support entirely the Government’s robust response in these dreadful circumstances. On 29 September last year, President Putin declared that the Russian Federation had destroyed all its chemical stocks and chemical production facilities. It was congratulated by the then director-general of the OPCW on having done so. The logical conclusion that Russia has a production facility in contravention of international law exposes a serious flaw in the inspection and verification system of the international prohibition and nuclear weapons regime. This may not be an immediate priority, but soon will we not need to convene with our allies—at the very least a conference of experts—to look at how this international regime can be improved and, in particular, whether modern technology, of which there is much, can significantly improve our ability to inspect and verify countries that claim to be free of these dreadful weapons, when perhaps they are not?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Other
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, we are now well into the 11th hour of consideration of the Bill. There has been no break of any kind since lunchtime. I do not believe that noble Lords have been guilty in any way of prolonging the debate unnecessarily; I think the discussions have been perfectly reasonable, and the contributions have been precisely what we would expect of this House. To expect us to carry on with no break whatever is treating the House with contempt. I will oppose this Motion, and subsequent motions, unless the Chief Whip is, very graciously, prepared to allow us to behave in a reasonable manner in respect of the Bill.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Other
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, will the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, give us an indication of when he proposes to adjourn the Committee this evening? Many of us came here on the basis that it would adjourn at 10.30 pm. Can he tell us why a decision appears to have been taken that this will no longer be the case?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Other
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): Is it the noble Lord’s view that the Committee has not been reasonable in its treatment of these amendments? We have had four very big, serious debates today which, in my view, have been of the highest quality and have shown the House of Lords at its best. Is the noble Lord telling us that there has been time-wasting?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I think the noble Baroness was speaking to Amendment 183, but that is grouped with Amendments 167, 187 and 227BC, which relate to the European Investment Fund and the EBRD We had a brief discussion about the European Investment Bank on 28 February, in which I made comments, which I will not repeat—at columns 731 and 732—about the value of the EIB, particularly for infrastructure investment, where it is a key partner, both in its own right for the investments it makes but also, crucially, in catalysing private sector investment. It acts as a strong guarantor of the determination of the state and partners to take projects forward. In my experience as a Minister, having EIB support for projects has been crucial in putting together funding packages from the public and private sectors, including different public sector partners, to make it possible for projects to go forward. Therefore, the big collapse in EIB lending—particularly the significant collapse after the notice under Article 50 was served—is of immense concern. The collapse is partly because it has been difficult getting projects going, but also because the European Investment Bank itself has withdrawn from engagement in projects because it is not at all sure of the security of its investments after 29 March next year.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I can at least discuss the EIB with the qualification of someone who nearly borrowed money from it. I commend the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, because it was EIB expertise that helped me to persuade the Government to fund the Jubilee line extension. We were then able to have even cheaper money called government grants, so it was all right in the end This group of amendments illustrates that in the whole Brexit debate there are unintended consequences that were clearly not thought through at the time of the referendum. We discussed some on Monday, such as haulage, airlines and so on. What we need to hear from the Government tonight is either that they intend to pursue this course and try to produce appropriate associate agreements—or whatever the right term is—with these institutions, or that they will set out how they will provide the money and expertise that make sure that they do not put a serious dent in the already inadequate investment programmes in the United Kingdom.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Other
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): I am still anxious to speak about roaming. The only reason why I was unable to move my amendment is that I was in a Division Lobby, not because of any lack of willingness to move it. Yet again, we see how these proceedings are not being well conducted, if noble Lords are unable to move amendments because of procedural matters.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Other
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I have to admit to be stunningly underwhelmed by that response. It seems to me that the request is perfectly reasonable. It may need some tuning to fit in with timetables and so on or a condition here and there, but I hope the Government will take this idea away—it is clearly popular around the Committee—and come back with a more positive view so that the Government and Parliament at the time can be better informed. With that comment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, that was even shorter than my speech. The Government have to accept that they have to come to some sort of accommodation on statutory instruments. We all know that a lot of them will be required, and we have got to have a good system that satisfies everybody, both in this and the other House. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, sensibly makes that task simpler by making it uniform across the Bill. I am very persuaded by his argument and that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and I hope that the Government are as well.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Immigration
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): The referendum was won on the basis of controlling immigration by using posters that had 5 million Turks about to enter Britain. People who support Brexit have the gall to say that we are all in favour of people coming to Britain. That is the basis on which the referendum was won. Brexit is withdrawing the fundamental rights of EU citizenship, rights which are in the treaties. We have these rights because we are a member of the European Union. It is the treaties that give young people the right to work, study and travel without let or hindrance anywhere within the European Union. People on the Benches opposite are responsible for taking those rights away.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, if I may take over from where the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, left off, of course even the access we have to Australia is hugely facilitated by the fact that it is a former colony which has the same language and so many practices which are familiar to Brits, and is therefore a comparatively easy and familiar place to travel. It does not at all make the argument that somehow divorcing ourselves from the continent will enlarge opportunities for young people. However, I am a natural optimist—indeed, one could hardly be otherwise in the hours we are all investing in seeking to improve the Bill. Some good things are coming out of the Brexit process; actually, the whole thing might stop as a result of them The noble Baroness is completely right that one thing that is happening is the massive engagement by young people in politics and the political process. That did not take place before. We had all bought into the idea that the young were not voting or taking an interest in the future, and that politics was decided by the elderly. We had the triple lock on pensions at the same time as we were trebling tuition fees. Those two policies, more than anything else, symbolise the political centre of gravity in the last 10 years—students were expected to pay more and more of the burden of university education while the retired got a better and better deal. That is all changing now. The young are voting and are engaged as never before. They voted in the last general election in numbers which we have not seen for a generation. It is very clear to me that if we move, as I think is increasingly likely, towards a referendum on the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal, then either in that referendum or whenever a general election comes we will see very high levels of engagement by the young. I think it is now very likely that that will include votes for 16 and 17 year-olds—there is probably a majority in the House of Commons for that now. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, who is a natural conservative, will be fiercely opposed to that.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Civil Rights
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): If knowing anything about issues was a criteria for voting, we would need the noble Lord sitting in the judgment of Solomon over every member of the electorate to decide whether they qualified for the franchise. Being a conservative, he would probably approve of that, but we tend to have more objective criteria What we need in this country is to get young people more systematically engaged. A number of members of the noble Lord’s party in the House of Commons, including two former Secretaries of State for Education, are now in favour of votes for 16 and 17 year-olds, and there appears to be a majority in the House of Commons. I very much hope—and this could be the ultimate irony of Brexit—that the first time that 16 and 17 year-olds get to vote in a poll in this country is in a Brexit referendum held early next year, where they make the decisive difference in the decision this country will take to stay in the European Union. If so, the noble Earl’s great ambitions may be realised to an even greater and more positive extent than he may realise.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): I do not think so. The point I am making is that the party opposite’s visceral hatred of the EU and its obsession with past glories is taking us down a path which will have a hugely negative impact on many young people The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, moved this amendment to see whether the Minister has been able to reflect on our earlier debate. Perhaps I may take him back to the debate about the Erasmus programme on 26 February. The Minister may well recollect that he made some encouraging noises about the value that the Government place on that programme. He then went on to say that, "no decisions have yet been made about post-2020 programme participation as the scope of that programme has not been agreed".—[Official Report, 26/2/18; col. 478.] If only the Minister would go a little further and say that it is the Government’s intention that this country will participate in the post-2020 Erasmus programme, that would give some grounds for optimism among young people who need to make a decision very soon about applying for the programme because it will take them past 2020. He would do them a great favour were he to do so.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Other
Alfred Dubs (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I should explain that this amendment to my Amendment 208 is a technicality. I have been told that there is a slight flaw in the original amendment, so I have deleted four words. I have decided that this is the way it should be done. I beg to move.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Civil Rights
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I would like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, for that speech—not just for the speech but because it was the voice of compassionate, socially engaged conservatism, which I have always respected. May that tradition in the Conservative Party reassert itself. It is desperately needed at this juncture in our history. What the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said about the legal situation was also a powerful argument, which the Government must answer. Are we going to strip what have been legal rights away In the context of this Bill, we debate from time to time what sort of Britain we want to be, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, was absolutely right. I share completely her view about the sort of Britain we should be. I want us to be a Britain in which the world sees "Compassion" in capital letters in all our approach to public affairs. We seem to have lost that and I want to see it reasserted. I thank my noble friend Lord Dubs for having moved this amendment. His consistent and tireless work on this issue challenges us all. If we talk about family and its importance in society, this is an issue which we can no longer prevaricate about.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Immigration
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it is a great shame that there is not more of a consensus between the two—or three—parties on the issue of refugees. We have debated it much over the years. Recently, we have got to what I would loosely call an uneasy peace, which is essentially based on my noble friend Lord Dubs’s Section 67 and Dublin III. That has produced modest numbers, but there are very real numbers of people meeting very real problems. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, put her finger on it. The rights individuals have as a result of Dublin III must be maintained. I hope the Minister will be able to assure us that the Government will either accept these amendments or make a very firm commitment to assure us that, one way or another, the effect of Dublin III will be maintained after Brexit.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-14
Topic: Immigration
Alfred Dubs (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am very grateful for the first half of what the Minister said, but slightly less certain about the second half. I wish he had continued as he started. I want to consider his speech when we are all wider awake and in a calmer moment, but the fact is that the Dublin III mechanism is still a way in which unaccompanied children have been able to come to this country and join relatives. That has been a route for them, and more than 800 have come by those means—many from France, but also from Greece. Whatever the technical argument, it has been a positive right and a positive way to safety for some of these young people I appreciate what the Minister said about this needing to be reciprocal. Indeed, the wording of the amendment aims to achieve precisely that. It talks about our negotiating on that basis; it has to be reciprocal. I fully understand that otherwise it will not work, because if the French authorities are not interested, they will not identify young people in France who might be entitled to come by that path I also agree that the EU has a lot of improvement to go in for. I would like to see, as my noble friend Lord Bassam said, an EU-wide or Europe-wide policy whereby we get near to common standards on behalf of refugees. That would be more sensible, and Dublin III is part of that, although only a small part I thank the Minister again for the first half of his speech. I did not know he had been involved with the Scottish Refugee Council. Good for him, although the effect did not last long. That is a bit churlish of me. I did not mean to be so churlish; I appreciate anybody who worked with it. I used to work for the Refugee Council in London, so I know about the good work the Scottish Refugee Council did. I want to think about this and we will have to look at the best way of moving forward on Report. I am grateful to all noble Lords who were so supportive of this amendment and beg leave to withdraw it.
National Planning Policy Framework — House of Lords, 2018-03-06
Topic: Housing
John Bassam (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Minister referred to the need for a diverse mix of housing forms, and that is obviously a very good thing. He is very good at putting a gloss on government policy, but the fact is that since 2010 something like 60,000 social houses—council, local authority and housing association—have been sold off under right to buy, and only 10,000 new council houses have been built. When will we see a reversal of that policy and the expansion of a sector that is speediest in delivering new homes for rent at prices that people can afford?
National Planning Policy Framework — House of Lords, 2018-03-06
Topic: Housing
Barbara Young (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for the Statement and for the very welcome increased protection for ancient woodland that has resulted from the useful dialogue we have had over the last year. I also welcome the toughening up of the viability assessment process. It is true that those developers and local authorities that insisted on transparency have done a great service to local people, who can understand some of the commitments included in those assessments. However, we must be very careful that the housing delivery test for local authorities does not bear down on them to the point where they are so desperate not to lose their planning powers that they simply abandon the prospect of the right home in the right place and focus instead on homes anywhere, at any cost to the environment. There is increasing evidence that local authorities feel that they simply must produce viable land commitments and local plans that deliver the housing target at the expense of environmental considerations. May I press the Minister to tell us what safeguards will be put in place to make sure that the housing delivery test does not become overbearing?
National Planning Policy Framework — House of Lords, 2018-03-06
Topic: Housing
Alan Thomas Howarth (Labour, Centre-left): Is the Minister aware that, according to Oxford Economics, the number of dwellings in London rose faster than the number of households in the period 2001 to 2015, yet house prices continued to inflate? Does he accept that encouraging more housebuilding, necessary as it is, will not be sufficient to create a market that works for everyone, not just those who are asset rich? Will he discuss with the Treasury ways to reduce the attractiveness of housing as a speculative investment, working gradually and purposefully towards the removal of subsidies and tax breaks, taxing speculative foreign investment entering the UK housing market and penalising owners of empty homes, while doing more to increase the relative attractiveness of investments that actually increase productivity in the real economy?
Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-03-06
Topic: Mixed Topics
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, particularly the Minister for his helpful engagement with a number of points that have been raised, including the very useful suggestion on training from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. I am pleased that he acknowledged the national dimension of funding; I realise that there is a local dimension as well, but the national is important, particularly when survivors are moving great distances. I am delighted that he will be watching like a hawk how this works, obviously in the context of other provisions, and I welcome his commitment to keeping noble Lords updated on what is happening, which I think we all want At Second Reading, I said that this was a first for me in that I more or less unequivocally welcomed a Bill in your Lordships’ House. I am happy that I can now say that I totally unequivocally welcome this Bill with the addition of this amendment. That is thanks to a number of people: to noble Lords across the House who have supported me in pressing for the inclusion of such an amendment—I am thinking particularly of colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches, as well as my noble friend—and the Bill team and lawyers, who were willing to engage with what I call my informal legal advisers. Together, they agreed wording that we are all happy with. I thank once again Women’s Aid, which has been supportive to all of us with its briefings, and, last but very much not least, the Minister, because if he had not been willing to listen and engage I do not think that any of this would have happened. Clearly, officials have to take their lead from the Minister. His openness and willingness to listen to what we have said and to see where changes needed to be made, have made this possible. I am very grateful. It seems odd to say "with" as opposed to "against", but it has been a pleasure to work with him in this situation.