argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-08
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed and to the Minister for his response. I am afraid my view is that, however much he may say there is existing legislation, it is not working. That is clear. It is quite difficult for a driver to find the height of his vehicle. I spent several decades working in the rail freight sector, and trying to get a container on a rail wagon under a road bridge going over a railway was difficult because all these vehicles, be they rail or road, have suspensions so, depending on the load, the wagon or vehicle goes up and down. Still, given the rules that affect the railway sector, what we have in the road sector is frankly pretty weak. I fully support the idea of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that there should be much greater emphasis on putting the information on to electronic GPSes, which I think most lorries have. One has to assume that the driver can read; that is probably not always the case but it is something to start from. He asked whether Network Rail had the power to build something away from the network. My answer is: in most cases, no. It would have to talk to landowners, seek planning permission and so on, although putting up a post with an electronic beam going across would be all right. On the continent, people do something rather better, and in France it is particularly evident: on a low bridge there is a steel structure, a portal frame, with bells and spikes on. It is clearly marked with its height, but if you see something up ahead with spikes and you are driving a lorry with rather a valuable load, you will probably stop and think before going through it. A few of those on the worst-offending bridges would be quite good Lastly, I suppose, I hope that the Minister will encourage Network Rail to take proceedings to reclaim as much of the cost as seems relevant, because some of them behave like a good old-fashioned nationalised industry and say "Well, you know, this is one of those things: let’s try to get a bit back." They should be quite aggressive about it, while making sure that their own information is on these electronic guides and maps and everything like that I will look carefully at what the Minister says, and we may come back with something on which to seek a meeting before Report. I am conscious that the wording in my amendment is rather amateur, and after listening to what he has said it would be good to talk to him and Network Rail again, as well as to other colleagues, to see whether we can come up with a solution that encourages and educates but also takes action against people who do not do as they should. On that basis, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Charles Falconer (Labour, Centre-left): We move to Part 6 of the Bill, which is important. It creates two new types of caution: diversionary cautions and community cautions. These are described by the Government as "the least onerous types of disposal a person can obtain for offending." Both types of caution must have one or more conditions attached to them. These can include requirements to do unpaid work, attend a specified place for a specified purpose, and pay a financial penalty This is an important part of the Bill. We are reaching this stage of the debate at 11.12 pm, which is one hour and 12 minutes after our normal stopping time. We have, I am very happy to say, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, in the Chair, but she is not permitted to speak on issues; she may only call speakers and announce whatever the Motion may be. There is not one Cross-Bencher here, apart from the noble Baroness. There is only one Back-Bencher here for this debate on the introduction of two important new measures into the criminal justice system. It is a mockery of proper consideration The proper way for the Government to deal with this is not by extending the debating hours to a point where very few noble Lords take part. They should instead make extra days available. That is the consequence of having a Bill like this, which lays open to debate the whole criminal justice system. We should not do this. I understand that it is proposed that on Wednesday the Committee sit for another three hours beyond its normal stopping time. If the Government wish to hold the reputation of the House up for scrutiny, they should not do this; they should make proper arrangements Turning to the amendment itself, the first group we deal with in Part 6 relates to the delegated powers. I remind the Committee, which has been told this on a number of occasions, that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee took a very unfavourable view of this.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Charles Falconer (Labour, Centre-left): First, in the light of the evidence given by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, I unreservedly withdraw the suggestion that we are in any way disadvantaged by the officials not being in the Box. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for bringing that to our attention What a disappointing response that was on the substance. First, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, for saying that there might be something more coming, although he did not indicate what that might be. We have had the report since September. Why has it taken so long to get to this? Secondly, in relation to the point which the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, did address—about the offences that would be excluded from community cautions—the Delegated Powers Committee is saying, "Put your initial cut in the Bill" The noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, gave no reason why that was not to be done. He referred to the 2015 Act to which the Government had not referred when they put their memorandum to the Committee. I have not had a chance to look at the 2015 Act. It has only been mentioned now. Changing defence, as the noble Lord is doing, is always an indication of shambles on the part of the Government. What is the reason for not giving the Commons and the Lords the opportunity to debate the initial cut? It does not make the Bill too cluttered. It would not add much more than half a page. It is a ridiculous defence I hope that the Minister will have the time to think about it for when he comes back with the Ministry of Justice’s conclusions on this absolutely damning Delegated Powers Committee report. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Frederick Ponsonby (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I want to say something from the Back Benches about my experience of sitting on scrutiny committees, which the noble Lord has just spoken about. I have sat on scrutiny committees for reviewing out of court disposals for both the British Transport Police and the Metropolitan Police. In my experience, they are good committees because they bring together a range of interested parties on whether out of court disposals are appropriate—magistrates, probation, CPS, police, YOTs and sometimes, in addition, there may be housing, education and health people from local government to review the appropriateness of out of court disposals In my experience, this system is extremely erratic and not systemised in any particular way. My experience is that the results of reviewing out of court disposals are not fed up through the Home Office, so when I have asked questions of both the MoJ and the Home Office, there is no way of reviewing whether out of court disposals have been appropriately used or of collating the numbers, because the use of scrutiny committees varies so much across the country—that is my understanding. I was interested to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, talk about the amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and whether he is trying to introduce a code of practice to try to regularise these out of court disposal scrutiny committees. They are a good idea, but they need to be standardised across the country.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Charles Falconer (Labour, Centre-left): I am very much obliged to my noble friend Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede for that intervention, which goes to an incredibly important point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, which is that there needs to be proper scrutiny of the police being given a power to, in effect, punish people and impose conditions. There are two aspects to that, which the noble and learned Lord identified in his speech, so beautifully read by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, even though it is so late: first, that the code of practice is complied with and, secondly, that there is consistency throughout the country in relation to the application of out of court disposals. I would be very interested to hear what the Minister has to say on how that point will be dealt with. We support the amendment proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd I also agree with Amendments 170, 171 and 190, which seek to ensure that a person may be authorised to give a discretionary or community caution only if they have been authorised by a prosecuting authority for those purposes and a prosecuting authority must be satisfied that that person has received adequate training and is suitable to carry out those functions. Amendment 190 is a consequential amendment on that. I support these amendments and am very interested to hear what the Ministry of Justice has to say about them. I cannot think that it would not agree with this; some level of quality must be required for somebody who is going to give that caution Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made points to the effect that this will be more expensive. He did not mention, because he is too kind—or he may have done, but I missed it—the additional £13 million that the Commons paper identifies for the cost of introduction, in addition to the £105 million and £15 million. We are going to spend all this money to achieve no greater victim satisfaction and without any evidence that it reduces reoffending. Why?
Armed Forces Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-08
Topic: Law and Crime
John Morris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am disappointed that the Government are maintaining their opposition to civilianising the courts martial for serious cases, such as murder, manslaughter and rape. The conviction rate for rape alone is 16% in the military courts, as reflected in the remarks from Mr Johnny Mercer in the other place. The Minister has given certain other figures for the last six months. I am very interested in this. Perhaps she could give me the size of the sample when she is winding up? Perhaps we could have a bigger sample, perhaps of a year. I would have thought that these figures alone would cause concern that something was wrong Service personnel do not have the statutory protection that other people have when they are tried in ordinary criminal courts or the statutory protections that are embedded in law to ensure that, where there is a majority direction, it is made known, the numbers are made known, and everyone knows where they stand. Nothing of that kind happens in courts martial. According to the Minister on a previous occasion, in some cases—they may be small in number—a verdict of 2:1 is certainly not in conformity with modern criminal jurisprudence.
Armed Forces Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-08
Topic: International Affairs
John Morris (Labour, Centre-left): If there is any technical difficulty regarding the extension of the jurisdiction to include Northern Ireland and Scotland, surely it would not be beyond the wit of the Government, if they accepted the principle of civilianisation, to deal with that matter in an appropriate way.
Armed Forces Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-08
Topic: Law and Crime
John Morris (Labour, Centre-left): Before the Minister sits down—I hope she will forgive me—I asked specifically about the size of the sample for rape cases, an issue which my noble friend Lord Coaker also raised. The figures are quite different and much more encouraging than those given by Mr Johnny Mercer in the other place. Can the Minister tell me—I did give notice of this in the course of my short remarks—what is the size of the sample?
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Frederick Ponsonby (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I stand on these Benches to support, or at least not to oppose, the Government. But I have to say that I am reluctant to go ahead and make this speech, based on the contributions we have just heard. The amendment inserts provisions into the Sentencing Code that require a court to impose a life sentence on an offender convicted of unlawful and dangerous act manslaughter against an emergency worker. As we know, this is known as Harper’s law, and it has been campaigned for by PC Andrew Harper’s widow after he was killed in the line of duty in 2019 I listened very carefully to the Minister, and he made much play of the word "exceptional". My noble friend Lord Carlile made the point about the interpretation of the word being fairly narrow in the Court of Appeal. I have to say, in the more "wild west" approach of magistrates’ courts, we interpret "exceptional" quite liberally at times. Having said that, I acknowledge that the Minister did make the point that this excludes those convicted of gross negligence manslaughter and includes only those convicted of unlawful act manslaughter, which I thought was an important point As I say, we on this side will support the Government in their amendments. However, I do recognise that some very serious points have been raised in this debate.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Charles Falconer (Labour, Centre-left): This is pretty shocking. There is a lot of support for the principle that the amendment could be so much better if it could be debated. I completely understand the noble Lord’s embarrassment. He does not want to go back to the Ministry of Justice and not have the amendment, but if you want good law, recognising that the Government want this, there is so much that could be discussed to make this provision better The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, agreed without any pressure on two things in relation to the additional protest measures. First, she agreed that they should come at the end of Committee and secondly, she did not move them in Committee because of the exact problem that has arisen in this case. She indicates the right way forward. We would greatly appreciate in the House if the noble Lord would show us the same courtesy that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, showed us.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too will be brief. As has been said, this group includes government amendments relating to recommendations from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that the Government have accepted. It includes the requirement that strategies under the serious violence reduction duty are published, and that guidance on the series violence duty, police powers under Part 4 and serious violence reduction orders must be laid before Parliament. However, the Government have not accepted every recommendation of the DPRRC, and on some they have gone only half way. For example, the DPRRC recommended that guidance on serious violence reduction orders should be subject to the affirmative procedure, but the Government have made it subject only to the negative Like other noble Lords, I extend our thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for the invaluable work that they do and no doubt will continue to do. We welcome the amendments in this group that go some way towards accepting a number of recommendations from the DPRRC, but it is interesting to note that, in its report on the powers in the Bill to introduce unpublished strategies and guidance without parliamentary scrutiny, the DPRRC said: "We are disappointed that the inclusion of these types of delegations of power—on flimsy grounds—suggests that the Government have failed when preparing this Bill to give serious consideration to recommendations that we have made in recent reports on other Bills." This group of amendments introduces some improvements into the Bill, which we welcome. On that basis, we hope that the Government will be in listening mode over the next few days of debate on Report. Perhaps the next Bill that appears before us will not have such powers in it to begin with.
Dormant Assets Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-11-23
Topic: Social Welfare
John Bassam (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Minister will be pleased to hear that I will be brief, but some thanks are worth echoing. I thank the Minister; it is never easy taking up another person’s Bill halfway through. I have had to do it myself and, at times, I lurched from being completely out of my depth to being a total shambles, so I know how it feels. The noble Lord was neither of those things; he was courteous and considerate of the points that we made and the amendments we moved Like the noble Lord I am delighted that we are moving to unlock previously untapped assets. I hope that the next iteration of this legislation—this is, after all, the second Bill on dormant assets—will bring forward even more dormancy and unlock it, so that communities can benefit I also thank the Minister’s predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for her time spent on the Bill. She was, like him, very courteous and open-minded about ways in which we can forge improvements. She was also willing to meet and discuss aspects of the legislation. I echo his thanks to my noble friend Lady Merron—my good friend—for her part in this. It is always a pleasure to work with her. I also thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Kramer and Lady Barker, on the Lib Dem Benches, who also played an active and energetic part Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, played a decisive role on Report in helping to support the amendment that we sponsored on the community wealth fund, for which there was all-party support. Before the Commons is invited to reject that amendment, I suggest to the Minister that it might be an idea to sponsor some discussion between his ministerial colleagues and other Benches in your Lordships’ House to see if there is a way in which we can find some common ground on this—because I am very persuaded, as I know others are, of the benefit of the community wealth fund as a way forward. As he said, these resources can do a lot to take forward the shared agenda of levelling up and bring additional resources to bear in hard-pressed communities. We for our part would be very happy to meet and discuss this to see what common ground we can secure, because this is an important opportunity for us all, if we want to make it stick We wish the Bill well. It has been improved by your Lordships’ House, not just by the amendment on the community wealth fund but in other aspects as well. I thank the Minister for his comments on additionality, which will be very helpful. I am happy to support the Bill as it goes on its way.
Armed Forces Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-23
Topic: Government Operations
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I believe that in order for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, to move his very important Amendment 4, I need to withdraw my Amendment 3 as the lead amendment in that group. In doing so, I thank the Minister for her response, which tried to address some of the concerns that I raised about the covenant reference group and the fact that the group could make suitable additions in future. That takes on board the point of the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, about incrementalism perhaps being a better way forward than the "all in at once" approach in my amendment. I thank the Minister for her reply but, in withdrawing my amendment, I want to say that I very much support Amendment 4 As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay—and all noble Lords across the Committee apart from the Minister—said, at the end of the day, whatever the rights and wrongs of this, the people of this country would be incredulous to find that the due regard principle was applicable to local authorities, public health authorities and so on, but not to central government. I think people would find that incredible, and that is why it is so important for us to support Amendment 4 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Armed Forces Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-23
Topic: Government Operations
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, we welcome the increased parliamentary scrutiny for the statutory guidance on the application of the duty for due regard. This was a recommendation of the Delegated Powers Committee, which we thank for its work on this. Could the Minister give us some indication of how the consultation with the devolved Administrations on drafting the guidance is going? We also welcome the Government’s acceptance of the Delegated Powers Committee’s recommendation to ensure that regulations defining "relevant family members" are subject to the affirmative procedure.
Armed Forces Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, we strongly support Amendment 23 moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, to which my noble friend Lord Robertson, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, and I have added our names. I thank the noble and learned Lord for the clear and concise way in which he outlined the need for this amendment and why the Government should think again with respect to it We welcome the establishment of the DSCU but remain concerned as to why the Government will not accept something as seemingly sensible as this amendment. It seeks only to implement Henriques’ full vision for the unit. Without it, independence is not necessarily guaranteed—a point that a number of noble Lords have made—and nor are the other recommendations for how the unit will function. If the Government accept such recommendations, why not put them on the face of the Bill The Minister has argued that the other Henriques recommendations remain in the mix but do not need legislative underpinning; however, there is a difference of opinion between what does and does not need legislative underpinning. For example, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, has argued that there needs to be a statutory provision for the witness and victim care unit, but the Government seem to say that it is not needed. Can the Minister tell us what legal advice the Government have received to come to such a very different conclusion?
Armed Forces Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-23
Topic: Education
Desmond Browne (Labour, Centre-left): I am very much obliged to the noble Baroness for giving way; she is very generous. However, at this point I think it is appropriate to ask her specifically if it is true that there were 60 complaints between 2014 and 2020 from parents or trainees about bullying behaviour at AFC Harrogate. Is that true?