argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Road Traffic Act 1988 (Alcohol Limits) (Amendment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-04-22
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Clive Brooke (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for that intervention but I cannot give a precise figure. However, if the noble Lord will be patient, I will come to tell him not only how the number of jobs in the hospitality industry will be secured but will, I hope, be increased The simple fact is that the drinks and hospitality industry will have to change its attitude, as it had to do with the smoking ban—when people talked about all the jobs that would disappear and said that it would be the end of the world when smoking in public places was stopped. The industry should not be plying drivers with alcohol but encouraging patrons instead to have a non-drinking driver. It should look to improve—this is where I come to the answer to the noble Lord’s question—its competitiveness to attract more customers than it is at present. It is not this legislation that is the biggest threat to the industry. The biggest threat is cheap booze that is sold in supermarkets and off-licences, which leads to people drinking more at home rather than going out. The industry’s competitiveness is, in the main, weak at the moment because it has to sell alcohol in hotels and pubs at quite high charges compared with supermarkets and off-licences. If, as the Prime Minister wanted, the Government were prepared to undertake and embrace higher minimum unit pricing to have a level playing field for competitiveness, the industry could look forward to getting more people back into pubs and clubs. They would not buy so much in off-licences and supermarkets because drink would no longer be so cheap there.
Road Traffic Act 1988 (Alcohol Limits) (Amendment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-04-22
Topic: Other
Clive Brooke (Labour, Centre-left): I was endeavouring to be brief but I did not expect so many interventions. These are technical amendments that follow from those I moved previously. They are straightforward and I am sure there will be no objection to them from the Minister. I am probably going beyond my brief at this point in the debate but I hope I can encourage the Minister to be more supportive than he has been so far, and that the Government will give some stronger leadership. Coming back to Scotland, I think the Minister is in favour of an evaluation taking place there. Will he tell the House when that is likely to start and when it is likely to report? I beg to move.
Road Traffic Act 1988 (Alcohol Limits) (Amendment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-04-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robert Hughes (Labour, Centre-left): If one follows the view put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, we should be changing things in the other direction so that people can drink as much as they like because that would help the drinks industry. Is that what he is saying?
Road Traffic Act 1988 (Alcohol Limits) (Amendment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-04-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, if the Minister is going to look at further evidence on the effect of lowering the alcohol limit on people driving to pubs, could he look at evidence relating to people, including younger people, not drinking alcohol but still driving to pubs with other people who may drink? There is evidence that suggests that some younger people are much more responsible than older people when it comes to drinking and driving.
Council Tax Valuation Bands Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-04-22
Topic: Housing
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): I was not planning to intervene in this debate and I very much support the position taken by the noble Lord, Lord True, but how does the noble Lord cater for those cases where very expensive houses are held by offshore companies and it is not the transfer of the asset within the UK which causes ownership to change but the ownership of the shares of the offshore company? It seems to me that that cannot be readily catered for within the system. Fundamentally, also, how does the noble Lord address the very telling point, made by the noble Lord, Lord True, that we are going to end up with two schedules of valuation? Properties next to one another, otherwise identical, will, under the noble Lord’s system, be paying completely different council tax. That cannot be sensible.
Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-16
Topic: Other
Elizabeth Conway Symons (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I put to him the point that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, made in putting this amendment before the House. The argument is not about the principle of the opt-in process—it was clearly put in the governing party’s manifesto. The argument is about whether it is being done fairly. The noble Lord simply argued about the principle but the amendment is about the fairness of applying the principle. I am afraid that he did not listen to the clear argument put by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and I am sorry that he did not.
Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-16
Topic: Other
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for that. I think we have made progress. The Bill will probably need to be amended to take account of the approach that the Government are now taking. On the basis of our looking forward to future discussions and returning to this, we hope very quickly, at Third Reading, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-16
Topic: Civil Rights
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): Before the noble Lord sits down, could he just deal with the point about the difference between non-trade union reps being covered under one set of regulations and trade union reps under another? Why is that discrimination being allowed in the Bill?
Enterprise Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-04-19
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, when it was first introduced, this Bill was described as a Christmas tree Bill, as have a number of Bills from the Minister’s department. Therefore, it is a particular pleasure to receive a Christmas present at the end of the process in the form of a wholly unlooked for, but none the less very welcome, strengthening of the powers that now apply to people who have to work within the existing legislation on Sundays I am not sufficiently expert in Whitehall matters to know how long it would have been until an appropriate Bill came round and these very important issues would have been taken on their merits. Of course, as the noble Baroness said—she did not give us the gory detail—there was a bit of a circuit round Whitehall to find, first, a Bill that would take the devolution proposals and then a Minister willing to put the proposals into a Bill. Indeed, I seem to remember the noble Baroness saying at a meeting, perhaps informally, that the last thing she wanted to see in her Bill was a measure involving Sunday trading. She has had to concede a very important set of small paragraphs which will help people who currently work on Sunday, and we are delighted to have them This should go down as one of those case studies that appear in books describing how awful Whitehall can be sometimes, because at the meetings I went to we could never work out what the Government were trying to do. Was this about tourism or an attempt to defeat the incursion of internet shopping into our high streets? Was it to promote high streets? Was it to make sure that smaller shops in smaller towns were supported? It never really got sorted out. As one of the participants at the meetings, the right reverend Prelate pointed out that at the end of the day, unless you sorted this out in a holistic way, involving the staff from the beginning, it simply would not happen —and it did not. With that ringing in our ears, we welcome this proposal and look forward to its early implementation.
Enterprise Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-04-19
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Jonathan Mendelsohn (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for their comments about the good work of the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Kelvin, and the good wishes that we have for the bank’s successful operation in the future I thank the Minister for her comments. I would just say that if you go to someone for a provisional view and they give it, you must have given them some assumptions for the basis of which they can take such a view, and you must have given them a potential range of assumptions. It is certainly true that a decision cannot be confirmed until the full facts are there, but some assumptions were given at the first stages in order to take that provisional view. All we are asking is to make sure that that view is made properly available because, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, so many of the measures are subjective. But I appreciate her comment that she will go back and look at what can be done. In light of that positive response, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-19
Topic: Other
Margaret Prosser (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Minister for that response and I am heartened by it. I have just a couple of points. The new amendment does not mention a code of practice. That was removed in the change on the basis that we wanted to ensure that we did not back the Government Front Bench into too much of a corner on this but we could leave open a way for proper discussion.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this morning we are discussing groups of amendments concerning the high-value vacant property levy. This is a damaging mechanism to deliver a policy for the Government. The right to buy should be funded directly by the Government not indirectly by local authorities. Forcing councils to sell off their high-value stock when it becomes vacant will have a devastating and immediate impact on the number of council properties. The Bill of course undermines council housing and seeks to drive people into a narrow group of options—either buy or go to the private rented sector with much higher rents. This policy will have a detrimental effect on people on low or modest incomes who are never going to be in a position to afford to buy. It actually makes the dream of owning your own home only ever a dream. As I have said before, localism, which we heard a lot about when we were debating the Localism Bill, now an Act, in recent times seems to have gone the same way as the big society and is hardly ever mentioned. Certainly the recent actions of the Government are about anything but localism This clause will allow the Secretary of State to require regular payments from councils which are to be based on an estimate of income from the sale of high-value council homes. The clause gives the Secretary of State considerable powers in effect to tax councils and to define what they think is of high value in their area. The clause allows for negotiation with individual local authorities, and the negotiations must be based on the impact of the policy as a whole Amendment 61 seeks to put in the Bill two very important additional points. These are, first, the payment of capital debt on any property sold and, "the cost of replacing any high value properties sold on a one-for-one basis within the same local authority area" If these matters are not taken into account when making a determination about the size of the payments, local authorities will be in an impossible position: having to make a payment to the Government but not being able to repay the debt on the property for the receipt is madness. Amendment 66A places a restriction on this section of the Bill coming into force until the regulations have been approved. This is necessary as these measures are so controversial and we need to be careful about what we are approving, so proper oversight is needed. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee highlighted this issue in its 20th report We on these Benches also fully support Amendments 62 and 62A proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. They seek to make similar changes and will be spoken to by both noble Lords shortly. I shall make a further intervention in the course of the debate, but I shall now bring my remarks to a close. I beg to move.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I intervene seeking clarification. I am a little perturbed about some of the new rent levels. I am sure the Minister will correct me if I am wrong but as I understand it, when a house or flat is replaced, it is replaced by a house or flat at an affordable rent, but affordable rents can be 80% of the market rent. I referred the other day to a number of flats in Westminster: a one-bedroom flat at £113 a week, a two-bed at £128 a week, a three-bed at £142 a week and a four-bed at £157 a week. That is a council house or flat in central London, and that might be a low rent. What interests me, looking at it from the consumers’ point of view, is that, to take the two-bed flat at £128 a week, on the open market, when flats have been sold off, they command rent of £450 and £500 a week. So at 80%, the new rent will be £400, charged by a public sector provider, which is three times the existing rent. In other words, it might be like for like in terms of rooms, but it is certainly not like for like in terms of rent, because the rents within the public sector will triple I do not think that people out there in the country have really grasped that that is the case—if my figures are correct. Perhaps the Minister, when winding up, will clarify the position. Is what I am saying accurate: that rents in the public sector, on a replacement basis, will triple in many parts of London? It is a simple question.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): Is there not also a danger that that £103,900 discount could rise? If the property for sale in central London is sold as a percentage of a market price, many people in London would simply not be able to afford it. If they cannot afford it, the only people who would be able to would be those who use tenants as vehicles to buy: people from overseas who can afford to spend that amount of money. The only way to ensure that, let us say, London residents buy those properties would be to increase the discount even further, but that would further aggravate the condition the noble Lord is talking about.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): Is not the noble Lord’s argument predicated on the sale taking place when the property is vacant? However, that is not what the Bill says. The levy can be imposed before the property is vacant, and it may never become vacant.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): Does the noble Lord agree that while his figure of a 20% discount may make perfectly good sense in terms of the finances for London, in cheaper areas outside the capital a discount of £77,000 or £80,000 can represent getting on for 40% of the value of the property?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): Will the noble Lord expand on his first point, which concerned the situation of stock transfer authorities such as his own? I agreed with so much of what he said. Given that he has no high-value council property to enter into forced sales, as we have been discussing, to finance RTB for housing association tenants, his authority will, instead, be levied to fund it, in the absence of stock to sell. Has he made any estimate, in his budgets for the forthcoming year, of the scale of that levy and how it interacts with his ability to manage local authority finances?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): Yet some of us have been assured, as my noble friend says, that Clause 68(3) was drafted precisely to cover those authorities with stock transfer. In my county of Norfolk, Norwich has retained its council stock, there is limited retention in Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn, and the other four authorities transferred their stock into housing associations. Are we saying that authorities such as Norwich are not only supposed to fund the RTB discounts for housing association tenants in their immediate locality but are also, on top of that, to cross-fund all those stock-transfer authorities so that they do not contribute to the right-to-buy discounts of housing association authorities Clause 68(3)(b) says that the Secretary of State may, "treat the housing as being likely to become vacant whenever it would have been likely to become vacant if it had not been disposed of" The whole point of that, we were assured—I am sure the Minister will clarify this for us—was precisely so that stock-transfer authorities were levied in lieu of the fact that they do not have stock to sell, which local authorities that retain their stock may be in a position to do.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, for that explanation. In that case, it means that there is going to be double the levy, not just one levy, for RTB for local authorities that have retained their stock—mainly city authorities. The cross-subsidy will come from those local authorities not just to fund RTB in their own district—we do not yet know how much redistribution there will be or on what geographical basis—but to cross-subsidise local authorities that transferred their stock five years ago, two years ago or 10 years ago. It is monstrous. You are asking those local authorities with retained stock to pay twice over for their own retained stock to fund the housing associations in their district council or unitary authority and to fund those which are not in their geographical area, are not part of their local authority and, frankly, have chosen to go down a different route.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Other
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): Confusion has arisen over Clauses 67(4) and 68(3) regarding the ambiguity of the word "disposes", and what it actually means—past or future. Perhaps Ministers might consider redrafting that whole section to make the Government’s intention much clearer.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Other
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): That will put some of us in a very difficult position. Some of us always refuse to vote on fatal Motions, but we will have no option but to do so because of the whole way this Bill has been handled.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it would be helpful if the Minister, when she made the statement about the reduction in rents to the benefit of housing association and local authority tenants, had accepted that three-quarters of that money will go back to the Chancellor in reduced housing benefit. This is not a "helping tenants to afford their rents" policy; it is about reducing the housing benefit bill On a separate point, I know the Minister is trying to be helpful about the information we will no doubt get, but will we have all this key detailed information—the result of the consultation—before we get to Report, so that we do not have to rely on the statutory instrument proposal for stuff that should be in the Bill?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): Am I right to say that those 165 local authorities will be cross-subsidising not only the right to buy on their own patch but the right to buy in the other 300 or so housing authorities in the country?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am not sure that I declared it at the opening of the debate, but I am an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham; I declare that to get it on the record, as usual I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. This is without doubt one of the most controversial parts of the Bill, which is reflected by the time we have spent on this one group of amendments today The noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, did not make a very convincing case. We are obviously not going to agree with her case why the amendments should not be supported. Virtually every contribution to the debate highlighted the problems with and deficiencies in the Government’s proposals I have no problem with the right to buy, but I and other noble Lords have said that the funding mechanism is truly dreadful. Having no regulations while discussing the Bill has highlighted once again how completely unsatisfactory the Government’s handling of the Bill has been so far. The mechanism is a tax on local authorities, it is an attack on council housing. The noble Baroness needs to reflect carefully on today’s debate. In particular, I hope that she will reflect on the contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Horam and Lord Porter, from her Benches, as, without doubt, we will come back to this issue on Report. I am sure that she senses the strength of feeling across the House I was a little surprised that the Government have, so early on, started to rely on the manifesto defence. That normally comes forward just before a vote. Here we are in Committee, with no vote in sight, but we are back to the manifesto defence. That highlights the problems that the Government have with the Bill. I hope that they will recognise that and propose some welcome amendments. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Lord said that the right to buy was popular in its time. He is right that it was popular at the moment it was introduced and probably for a short while thereafter. But now, if you go to the areas that I know in Luton, where all the estates have been pretty much sold off, mothers and fathers are worried about their children and grandchildren being able to access decent accommodation. That gives a different view as to how popular or right that policy was.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): Why not leave the decision to local authorities within whose boundaries these high-value properties are situated? How can it be justified to levy on those local authorities a payment when the property is not yet vacant?