argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-02-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I am not shy about admitting that I am critical of this Government, whose majority in the other place has made them quite shameless. They have, on occasion, asked your Lordships’ House to break the law, and this is another such occasion. Sometimes we are tough and we refuse; I hope that that is what will happen today It was superb listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. Of course, both Greens will be voting for the amendments because this is about the rule of law and human rights. I do not very often agree with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis —probably never, in fact—but on this occasion I agreed with every single word he said, and I wish I had said it first. On the enhanced protections for children, I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Young of Cookham, feel that something is better than nothing. But quite honestly, this is child abuse. It is child abuse by the Government—using children as spies. I cannot see how any Government who care about the rule of law could put this in legislation. It is obvious that this Government do not care about the rule of law; they protect their own while throwing others to the dogs This Bill provides blanket legal protection for undercover police and their informants—who could be criminals—for crimes with pre-authorised immunity. Similarly, the forthcoming overseas operations Bill creates new protections against prosecution for military personnel acting overseas. The Government have fought strongly for these protections against prosecution for the police and the military. They fought against any attempt by your Lordships’ House to reduce or check these protections Yet, having granted such broad protections to the police and military, even in cases of fundamental wrongdoing, the Government then refuse what is a comparatively far more limited legal defence for survivors of domestic abuse—usually women. A public inquiry is under way examining the 40-year history of government agents abusing their power while spying on trade unions, green campaigners and those in the black community fighting for justice. Police officers were using sexual relations with women as a deliberate strategy, although we are now told that it was unlawful all the time. We see this Government protecting their own from the law while allowing the abuse of vulnerable people and women. That is what this Government do I do not want to pile in on the noble Lord, Lord West, who said that the safety of CHIS should be paramount, but quite honestly, I thought the rule of law and the safety of the realm were meant to be paramount. If you continue to break the law as a Government, you are not increasing the safety of the realm; you are actually making it more dangerous for us all. I very much hope that noble Lords will vote for these amendments today and refuse again to let the Government abuse the law.
Financial Services Bill — House of Lords, 2021-04-19
Topic: Mixed Topics
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, suggested that what this amendment covers is actually a core function of the Treasury. That is very much not the case. The Treasury is the definition of the establishment, part of the Government; this is an outside, independent oversight body. She also said that Parliament takes a keen interest in financial regulation. That conclusion can be questioned by looking down the lists of speakers through the progress of this Bill and contrasting them to the lists of speakers for, for example, the Domestic Abuse Bill.
Financial Services Bill — House of Lords, 2021-04-19
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the reflections of the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, on how oversight of this Bill has been truncated, despite all the hard work put in, and the fact that we still do not have a clear picture of what the Government propose, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said in introducing Amendment 37F As this is the last amendment, and we have already covered this ground extensively, I will be brief. I wanted to speak on this group to offer my support for the amendment in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Kramer and Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, both of whom have done extraordinary, sterling work on this Bill We have a real problem of oversight, which has been seen and expressed on many sides of your Lordships’ House. Looking at the real-world situation, the circumstances now and the headlines coming out, we have huge problems with our financial sector, and any independent outside observer would see that clearly. Although we know that this amendment will not be put to a vote, it would ensure that there is a chance to properly question and scrutinise the work of the regulators, which has to be at the heart of the system, and of trying to fix our broken system It has been a long debate, if often cut up into different stages and occurring at odd intervals, and we have a long way to go. The Government tell us we are to expect many more financial Bills coming down the track. We will have to keep coming back to these issues again and again, until we finally see progress.
Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-01-13
Topic: Civil Rights
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): I declare an interest as the mother of a journalist and the friend of journalists, even. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, who laid out the reasons for the amendment extremely well. I would add that because of journalists’ work in reporting important issues and holding power to account, they are often the target of police and state interference, as we have seen many times. Journalists and their sources need extra protection in the Bill. That must be nothing short of judicial oversight and approval. Again, I express my total exasperation that the issue even has to be debated. It seems so obvious that journalists need this protection. State abuses of power and criminal acts will be committed as a result of the legislation, and we must protect journalists.
Covid-19: Education Settings — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, reflected on the extensive efforts made in Germany to improve ventilation in schools, on the day that the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said in your Lordships’ House that "aerosols remain in the air for a long time". The noble Baroness, Lady Blower, also highlighted this issue. The Government have been very slow and, I suggest, still inadequate in informing the public of this risk and of the importance of ventilation. I note that, in her answers to the Front-Bench questions, particularly those of the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, the Minister talked about providing information based on the pilots that are just getting going, late in the day. But will there be funding for action on ventilation, particularly where work might be done over the summer holidays, often in new buildings that are without windows that open?
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-08
Topic: Public Lands
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. I support all these amendments. As an ex-archaeologist I feel strongly that this is something we must take notice of. We cannot keep trashing our heritage. I will try to be brief, if not as brief as last time, but will give two examples of where we have absolutely blundered The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, mentioned "historic", but my area of study was prehistoric. For example, the way Stonehenge has been treated, with plans for a tunnel and a road, is absolutely outrageous. Why is there no understanding that these monuments contribute not only to wildlife, the landscape and the soil in lots of ways but to human happiness? Luckily, the plans for the monstrous Stonehenge road have been turned down by a British court That is a prehistoric example. An historic example is Bevis Marks Synagogue, which has just celebrated its 320th anniversary of continuous use, which is absolutely incredible for a building in London. However, an application has been made to build three high-rise tower blocks around it, which would plunge it into darkness for most of the day. This will impact on the people who go there, and it will be a tragedy to degrade this stunning monument in this way. It seems that, with ambition, development and building, people lose sight of what is good for us all. The local community is, of course, absolutely up in arms and trying to stop the City of London Corporation’s planning committee The Green Party is incredibly keen to support these amendments. I am astonished that the Government do not understand rather better the need for our heritage. They make a lot of fuss about statues at Oriel College but somehow, these other wonderful monuments do not seem to play any part in their thinking.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, who has contributed so much on these issues to the House over many years. I want chiefly to reiterate a point that I made on Monday, when your Lordships’ House backed Amendment 2. There is no conflict between that amendment and this one, so ably introduced by the noble Earl and supported by all other speakers in this debate today The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, pointed out that the 25-year environment plan mentions soil quality 19 times. In that debate on Monday, the Minister talked about how the sustainable farming initiative scheme includes practices such as the introduction of herbal leys, the use of grass-legume mixtures, cover crops and so on—as the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, just referred to. The Minister talked also about how complicated it was to measure soil health but said that the Government were doing that work. So we have these suggestions here, there and everywhere, but what this amendment would do—I hope that we might hear some good news from the Minister when he stands up shortly—is join this all up. Joined-up government is one of those favourite phrases we hear very often. It is clear that your Lordships’ House believes, and it is clear from the science, that soils absolutely are the foundation. As the noble Earl said, we have a water strategy and an air strategy; we have to have a soil strategy, just as we have to make soils a priority. This is joined-up government; this is sensible, practical work to make sure that the Government are working towards one goal, which has to be healthy, high-quality soils.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-08
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): The Minister said that the Government would seek to help businesses understand their obligations. I hope—perhaps he can reassure me—that the intention is to regulate the activities of businesses so that they do not continue to profit while the rest of us pay.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-07-12
Topic: Public Lands
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, it is a great pleasure to again follow the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and to speak in support of Amendment 251A in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. Indeed, I would have attached my name to it, had I not missed it The case has already been very clearly made that we need strengthened protections for national parks—"have regard to" is simply not strong enough in this legislation. I think it is worth going back to the purposes of national parks in the 1949 Act, which include "conserving and enhancing the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the areas specified" This goes back to a debate that we had some weeks ago about how cultural and natural heritage are linked, but the main point to make on Amendment 251A is about "conserving and enhancing" wildlife Just last week we saw a campaign launched to raise £100 million to renature 13,000 hectares of land on the South Downs. There was much pride about the fact that this would mean that 33% of the national park is managed for nature, which reports suggested exceeds a UN-backed target of 30% by 2030. Of course, that is a target for all of the countryside; one might reasonably expect that to be much higher in our national parks. Indeed, you would like to see that figure going somewhere towards 100%. Of course, that does not mean that you cannot have agricultural production associated with that; we are back to a very long-running debate about sparing versus sharing. But we must note that what we are doing now is not strong enough. We have to do much more, and we need the Environment Bill to do it To take just one example, the Yorkshire Dales National Park is a notorious black hole for raptors. When the national park did a consultation with the public about its management, the illegal persecution of raptors was one of the issues most raised. Just a few months ago, we saw a hideous video released by the RSPB investigations team of two buzzards being lured to their deaths in the area We also really need to think about whether there are not—and I am sure there are—more areas of the country that need to be protected, whether it is as a national park or in some other way, as the Glover review highlights. The South Pennines has been identified as a prime candidate for a different approach as the only upland region in England that does not currently have not a legal designation.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-15
Topic: Other
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I will speak briefly. When I first looked at these amendments, I decided to leave them well alone because I did not know what covenants were. Looking at them a little more closely, my working-class bigotry kicked in and I thought that if three hereditary Peers were dealing with this then I ought to be careful. But, in fact, I am convinced, soothed and reassured, and I will be voting for the amendment.
Health and Social Care Levy Bill — House of Lords, 2021-10-11
Topic: Mixed Topics
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, I wish to entirely dissociate myself from anything he said about general practitioners. That was an unacceptable attack on people who have given so much to our society under the extreme pressures of pandemics. The gendered nature of his remarks was particularly disturbing. I do not know if it is something that the House authorities will look at, but I certainly think that they should To go back to what I was going to say, it is a great pleasure to take part in this mostly extraordinarily high-quality debate, and its fine level of forensic scrutiny—most notably the tour de force from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, who is not currently in his place. I also applaud the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, who rightly labelled this as a Johnson tax, with the poorest hit hardest. I will circle back at the end to the reasons why I think that is a particularly accurate label We must look at what is happening here in this debate: we have a huge democratic deficit. We in your Lordships’ House have torn this plan to shreds, but we cannot do anything. Such is the state of our antique, dysfunctional political system, Boris Johnson won 44% of the vote in 2019 and now he can do what he likes on anything at all, including taxation. The phrase "no taxation without representation" comes to mind, because the strange thing is that your Lordships’ House is more representative of the country than is the other place. If we had a vote in your Lordships’ House, it would be the Cross-Benchers—the non-party people—who would have the deciding votes It is worth thinking about what the words "social care" actual mean. Nobody that I have heard has really defined this or looked in detail at what it means; we tend to talk in the abstract. So I decided to look at Scotland’s definition, where, of course, social care—in a far more democratic political system—is free.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-06-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, this is an interesting group. I will stick to talking about Amendment 281 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Nowadays, there is widespread recognition that animal testing is wrong and should be avoided. The expansion and development of human society has had huge impacts on all sorts of other species. Disruption to their lifestyles has been accidental and deliberate, and has resulted in suffering, death, and even extinction. Millions of animals are still abused every year in experiments that cause great pain and suffering. This is despite significant differences between the physiology of animals and humans, which can mean these experiments are ineffective or even pointless. I am sure that noble Lords know that biomedical researchers have often excluded women from clinical trials, even for drugs only for women, so how much worse to try to model on animals. A lot of non-animal technologies can be used instead, as can human tissue We must also not forget the harmful use of animals in education, where millions more animals are killed specifically for dissection and other educational experiments. Just as we would never think of killing a human so that trainee doctors can learn about anatomy, we should not be killing animals for people to learn. Again, technology can replace much of the need for using real animal specimens in education, but where dead animals are necessary, they can be sourced from animals that have died naturally or have been euthanised for humane reasons This is all about shining a light on our exploitation of other species and choosing a different course for our future. Hopefully, we are advanced enough to move beyond these barbaric practices and move positively forwards as stewards of the natural world.
Net Zero Strategy and Heat and Buildings Strategy — House of Lords, 2021-10-20
Topic: Housing
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, given that there are 19 million homes in the country marked on the bottom rung for energy efficiency—D or below—and that the Heat and Buildings Strategy stresses in its introduction the need for a fabric-first approach, can the Minister tell me why there are no firm proposals to replace the scrapped green homes grant or funding for improving the fabric of our homes?
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-06
Topic: Other
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in this very long and extremely important debate. I will carefully look at what the Minister said about this being covered in other ways and not needed in the Bill, but I think the passion and desire, along with the understanding in the House of the need for systems thinking, is clear. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment now, but this is certainly something we will come back to.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-06
Topic: Mixed Topics
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, today’s debate has not progressed very fast in terms of groups, but we have covered a great deal of ground and, through the debate, have almost developed a shadow Bill, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, suggested. I agree with much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, said, as I often do. It is clear that the structure of the Bill needs to be rethought. One crucial area is the place for local authorities and regional and city mayors in making skills plans, which a large number of amendments in this group address Although the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, talked about the economic strategy of the region, I would rather talk about a transformation strategy for a region. Levelling up is about much more than just the economy. It is not even about just the environment and the economy; it is about the well-being and social capital of the region contributing to every aspect of life, the community and family. You might even call it a public health approach to skills and post-16 education. If we are thinking about public health on that broad scale, this is something that clearly needs to be democratically decided. Elected people should be leading the development of skills development plans, or perhaps, as an alternative suggestion, we might want to think about drawing up a people’s assembly approach, something to put on the table at least, and something that the Minister might like to talk about to her colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, because I know that she has had very good experience with such direct, deliberative democracy The term "employer representative body" reminds me, very uncomfortably, of local enterprise partnerships. Some noble Lords have spoken of them with great approval and, in some places, undoubtedly some good work has been done, but they are not in any way representative of the people or the community. They are, by definition, the status quo in an area. They are invested in the way things are, in our current, unequal, poverty-stricken, planet-destroying system.
Afghanistan — House of Lords, 2021-08-18
Topic: Immigration
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, it is very difficult to express just how sad and horror-struck I am after the events in Afghanistan. Of course, it is not only now but in the weeks, months and years ahead that we will all feel the repercussions. My noble friend Lady Bennett of Manor Castle will speak later in the debate on the geopolitical aspects of the events, but I will concentrate on the people of Afghanistan who have become refugees, particularly on the fate of women, who are now living in Afghanistan under a Taliban regime Regretfully, our record as a welcoming and responsible country is very damaged. Last year, about 79.5 million people worldwide were forced to leave their homes and become refugees, and we took in just over 20,000 of those—approximately 0.026% of the world’s refugees. We must not forget that we are responsible, because of the way that we behave, for many of those people What could and should our Government do to demonstrate the best and most honourable intentions? Well, we can offer solidarity, humanity and refuge for as many as we can. Immediately, we should offer amnesty to undocumented Afghans in the UK. Many Afghan asylum seekers were refused on the grounds that they could return safely to Kabul, but that is clearly false now. Immediately, for those refugees en route, the Government should increase their shameful arbitrary limit of 20,000 over five years. To enable this, local authorities must be fully financed to help with the resettlement, with an especial aim to reunite families. We have to be bold, kind and generous And then, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger, mentioned, there are the women who are still in Afghanistan. We must support the women and girls facing Taliban erasure of their rights, education, freedom and, potentially, their lives. Afghan women, particularly those known to be feminists—that will be a very broad definition for the Taliban—will be heavily attacked in one way or another. We must demand that our Government commit to give refuge to women who are known because they are part of the women’s movement: because they are judges, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge mentioned, professors, high school teachers, women police, women firefighters, women in the army, and women who are taxi drivers, musicians, artists or journalists. All these women are vulnerable now. Of course, women who do not have passports for their children must be allowed in without their passports. Refugees are people who have lost control of their lives. We have to remember that, if our Government do not start to take climate change seriously, we ourselves could be refugees too.