argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-15
Topic: Technology
John Krebs (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I, too, echo the thanks of the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, to the Minister, the Bill team and the honourable Member for Orpington for the fruitful discussions and for listening to the points we raised at earlier stages of the Bill. I strongly support the government amendments in this group. There are two amendments with my name on them, which have already been discussed: on the establishment of an executive committee of the executive chairs of the research councils. I should declare that I am a former chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, so I have first-hand experience of this issue The noble Baroness, Lady Brown, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, both mentioned the importance of Amendment 181, which sets out that one of the research councils’ objectives is the advancement of knowledge. In fact, I would go further and say that the core objective of research is to advance knowledge. The fruits of that may be to improve the economy or quality of life but, as I said at Second Reading, one can never predict where those fruits will grow. I quoted the words of Nobel Prize winner Andre Geim, saying how important the advancement of knowledge for knowledge’s sake was in helping to promote the well-being of society and of the economy Amendment 164A concerns a senior independent member. I would have preferred to have a non-executive chair because I know from my own experience as the chief executive of a research council that it is quite hard to fill the roles of both the chair of the board and the proposer of initiatives to the board, but I understand that for various reasons the Government are not willing to go down that road. The role of the senior independent member who can be a mentor to the executive chair, and in difficult circumstances perhaps chair the board if it wishes to take the executive chair to task, is an important addition Also from my own experience, I strongly support the notion of lay members on the council as set out in Amendment 165A. There were occasions when I was the chief executive of the NERC when disputes between the warring factions of the academics—the earth scientists, the oceanographers, the ecologists and the atmospheric scientists—became so severe that I had to call upon the lay members to act as brokers in order to resolve them. I can hear the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, laughing at that remark, so obviously he has seen that kind of phenomenon before. The lay members of the research councils will have a key role to play and we should certainly support their inclusion among the 12 board members That is all I want to say at this stage, other than to repeat my thanks to the Minister and to noble Lords on these and other Benches with whom I have worked in trying to improve the Bill; I think we have significantly improved this part of it.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-15
Topic: Technology
Julia King (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 166 and support the other amendments in this group, which focus primarily on ensuring that Innovate UK—a very important business-facing council which is joining a group of academic research councils in UKRI—retains its unique character, strong business focus and ability to act in different and innovative ways. Innovate UK is, for good reason, a very different organisation to the other research councils My Amendment 166 goes beyond the earlier proposal for senior independent members. I was delighted to hear the Minister’s response on that, and I very much welcome the approach he will take on senior independent members. My amendment proposes that Innovate UK retains a non-executive chair and that a person appointed to the role be a senior figure from business Most of Innovate UK’s funding goes to companies, not to universities or research institutes. This funding is used to support innovative and strongly product and process-focused research and demonstration. Innovate UK’s support has direct economic benefit and will be all the more critical as we exit the EU, with a change in relationship to the industry-focused programmes of Horizon 2020. Innovate needs to retain its strong business voice, both inside UKRI and, critically, also outside it. That voice will be very much amplified if Innovate is chaired by a leading industrial figure and has a majority of business members on the board. This is the purpose of Amendment 166 Government Amendments 173 and 183 are enormously welcome, recognising the need for UKRI and Innovate to be able to provide a wide range of forms of support to new products and companies, which could include investing in and forming companies as well as giving grants and loans, reinforcing Innovate’s role in supporting UK business—as indicated in Amendment 183. I beg to move.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-15
Topic: Technology
Ernest Ronald Oxburgh (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 173A. On the face of it, it appears that the provision, under "Supplementary powers", in paragraph 16(3)(b) of Schedule 9 prevents the research councils from doing a number of things that are important to their fundamental function. Clearly, they should be able to continue to do them. I hope the Minister will be able either to explain to us that this amendment is unnecessary because of provisions elsewhere in the Bill that I have not spotted or to accept that this is something that needs to be changed.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-15
Topic: Technology
Julia King (Crossbench, Unknown): I thank noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate and the Minister for his detailed response. I recognise from what he said that we have a strongly shared objective of retaining the different role and character of Innovate UK. In the light of the government amendments, which go a long way towards doing that, and of his earlier and very positive assurances on an important role for senior independent members of the councils, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-15
Topic: Technology
John Krebs (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction of these amendments. I shall refer very briefly to Amendments 189, 190 and 191 which are related to the Haldane principle. I am delighted that it is in the Bill. During the passage of the Bill we heard many different views on what the Haldane principle is, whether there is more than one Haldane principle and, indeed, whether it should be called the Willetts principle because one of the key references is the paper by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts Cutting to the core of what is involved here, it is about peer review and deciding which individual projects are funded within broad areas. Of course, it is reasonable for Ministers to have broad priorities, just as when the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, was Minister for Universities and Science, he described the eight great technologies that he thought were priorities for this country. However, within those, it should be the peer review system, the practitioners and others who are close to the action, who decide which projects are funded. Although the wording says "quality", if I were on a peer review committee I would interpret "quality" as including excellence, echoing the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. Therefore I warmly support this amendment.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-15
Topic: Education
Karan Bilimoria (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Smith, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, have said I shall read out the mission statement for the University of Cambridge, which is very short: "The mission of the University of Cambridge is to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence" That came home to me when I was a student there. We finished the last supervision of term in my favourite subject with a brilliant supervisor, and he said, "Have a good holiday. Now I can get on with my real work, which is research". That is the importance of research to our top academics. At the University of Birmingham, where I am chancellor, I chaired the annual meeting earlier this month. We announced that Birmingham had won three more Nobel prizes, taking our total to 11, because of our research The University of Cambridge Judge Business School, where I chair the advisory board, has in just over a quarter of a century become fifth in the world in the global FT MBA rankings. One of the main reasons for that is the absolute priority placed on research Anything we can do to make sure that we have robust support for our research—not just through advice but taking the expertise of UKRI along with that of the OfS, jointly—would be good for the future of research and the excellence of our universities.
Update on the Progress of EU Exit Negotiations — House of Lords, 2017-09-05
Topic: International Affairs
David Hugh Alexander Hannay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for the Statement. It seems to me to show that her right honourable friend in the other place has learned the good old American advertising adage that, when you have a fairly dodgy product, you must accentuate the positive I have two questions. First, on the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, the paper that the Government have put on the table, which the noble Baroness referred to, is interesting. It is a piece of rather academic research on the possibilities, but does not say a single word about which are the Government’s preferences among those options. It invents a rather peculiar concept, which is "indirect jurisdiction", if I understand it rightly, because I assume that the opposite of direct jurisdiction is indirect jurisdiction, which is apparently not so rebarbative as direct jurisdiction. Perhaps she could say something about the Government’s preferences among those choices. Secondly, can the noble Baroness also say a little bit more about the implications of the Government’s support for the idea of some transitional period after March 2019 for the budgetary issues which are causing so much trouble now? It strikes me, not being all that arithmetically advanced, that in fact if we stayed among many of the workings of the European Union—not in the European Union—for a transitional period, that might make quite a big difference to the way that the financial issues would be handled. Perhaps she could confirm that that would be so.
Update on the Progress of EU Exit Negotiations — House of Lords, 2017-09-05
Topic: International Affairs
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, picking up the Minister’s answer to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, about the devolved Administrations, I think I heard her say that the JMC (EN), the ministerial committee set up with the devolved Administrations to co-ordinate Brexit positions, will meet next month. Is that true? I see the Minister nodding. Excellent; I am delighted to hear that. Why has it not met since February? Why was none of these 10 papers, these little essays that were sent out in the summer, seen in draft by the devolved Administrations? Why did they not see in draft the only serious negotiating paper that the Government have put forward, the interesting paper on citizens’ rights? Why are the Government so determined systematically to break the promises given to the devolved Administrations about close consultation? While she is at it, could the Minister please give us an example of a successful money negotiation where one of the parties refused to put forward any numbers?
Update on the Progress of EU Exit Negotiations — House of Lords, 2017-09-05
Topic: International Affairs
Dafydd Elystan-Morgan (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the Minister has given the impression that there is complete amity between Her Majesty’s Government and the Welsh Assembly in relation to all aspects of Brexit. The reports emanating from Cardiff seem to differ. Indeed, the impression given by Mr Carwyn Jones, the First Minister for Wales, is that indeed Wales is treated with a lofty disdain in the matter. Those are my words, not his, but I think that is the description that he has clearly given. Who is right in this matter?
Korean Peninsula — House of Lords, 2017-09-05
Topic: International Affairs
David Alton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the judicious mix of containment, deterrence, sanctions and diplomacy was contained in the Statement read to us by the Minister this evening. On the specific point about sanctions, will she confirm that during the first six months of this year there was a 40% increase in trade between China and North Korea, and that, as she indicated, about 90% more trade is done with China? Therefore, in the context of the Security Council meeting next week, what information do we have so far that China will support, for instance, a crucial embargo on oil, which would be the one thing that would make a difference in trade with North Korea, or that a veto might be used? On justice, it is now three years since the United Nations commission of inquiry reported that this was a state without parallel. It recommended that North Korea should be referred to the International Criminal Court. Why has nothing been done to facilitate that recommendation? Does this not always have to run in parallel with all the other actions that we take In Questions earlier today, I referred to the lessons of the Cold War. Surely during that period we learned that, once mutually assured destruction was determined between the powers, other things had to be done to reach over the heads of ideologues and dictators. We should never confuse the people of North Korea—a country I have visited on four occasions—with the ideology of the regime. There is a need for the tyranny imposed on the people by that benighted regime to be lifted. Just as we had a Helsinki approach during the Cold War to change the nature of the former Soviet Union, surely we should be doing far more to promote a Helsinki with a Korean face in order to change the nature of that regime so that one day, like South Korea, which has a GDP 20 times greater than that of North Korea, there will be change. After all, it was in the lifetime of Members of your Lordships’ House that we saw South Korea move from being a brutal military dictatorship to being one of the greatest democracies and thriving economies in the world today.
Brexit: UK-Irish Relations — House of Lords, 2017-09-05
Topic: International Affairs
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): I realised the hour was late. Nevertheless, I would like to say something quite serious about the Good Friday agreement I am alarmed. Although the Government’s policy on Brexit and Ireland is no clearer than it was when the Select Committee’s report was published, the situation has worsened in at least three ways. First, the strand one institutions are, as we know, in abeyance. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, whom I am glad to see in his place, that whatever the reality is—and I do not know—the perception matters, and many in Northern Ireland will think it is more difficult for the Government to play the role of honest broker, cracking the present impasse, now that they have a political alliance at Westminster with the DUP. That may not be the case but it will be the perception of some. It is more difficult for the Government to appear to the nationalist community to be impartial. I put it no higher than that The second development was in the point so movingly put by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan.
Brexit: UK-Irish Relations — House of Lords, 2017-09-05
Topic: International Affairs
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): Thank you Secondly, on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, where is the voice of moderate constitutional nationalism now to be heard? Where is the voice of the majority of Northern Ireland, who voted to remain? With Stormont closed and the Assembly shut down, and nobody in the House of Commons—of course the root of the problem there is in Sinn Fein not taking its seats—this is a serious problem Thirdly, the strand two and strand three institutions seem to be mothballed. The North/South Ministerial Council, which brings Dublin in, has not met this calendar year; nor has the British-Irish Council, to which the noble Lord, Lord Cope, referred. It met three times last year but has not met this year at all. Lack of dialogue is very damaging. The peace process came about because successive Prime Ministers got extensively involved. I watched that happen from my perches in Brussels and then in Washington. I have yet to see a sign of the British Prime Minister’s engagement with the Taoiseach and directly with the parties.
Brexit: UK-Irish Relations — House of Lords, 2017-09-05
Topic: International Affairs
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): I shall say three sentences. What we need from the Government today is a clear policy which delivers a soft frontier across the island of Ireland, and that means a customs union. What we need to make sure that we do not let the peace process wither on the vine and the Good Friday agreement fall into complete abeyance is active, high-level UK Government political engagement, including with the Taoiseach, to protect the interests of the north and the interests we all share in active co-operation on a basis of equality across the Irish Sea.
Brexit: UK-Irish Relations — House of Lords, 2017-09-05
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Hastings Jay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I too am grateful to all those who spoke in the debate, whatever their point of view, and to the Minister for his thoughtful reply. We have heard some powerful and, indeed, moving speeches this afternoon. The debate has shown clearly the complexity, the sensitivity and the importance of the negotiations before us. I am sure your Lordships’ European Union Committee will wish to continue to focus on the implications for Ireland, north and south, as the negotiations continue, drawing on the wisdom of all those, including in this House, with real expertise and knowledge.
Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2017-06-28
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Armstrong (Crossbench, Unknown): As an amendment to the motion that a Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, at end to insert "but call upon Her Majesty’s Government to suspend, for the time being, the negotiations for leaving the European Union; and, to that end, to withdraw, for the time being, the notification of intention to leave the European Union in accordance with Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, conveyed in the Prime Minister’s letter of 29 March."
Neighbourhood Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2017-02-23
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Mawson (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I was not going to intervene but this is a very important conversation in relation to this microexperience and the behaviour of the examiner, who I am sure is a very good and honourable person. However, this is not just about him or her building a relationship with the people on the ground who know the detail of the situation. I suspect that this is a clue to much wider things going on in our society. I have seen this all over the country and am experiencing it in 10 towns and cities in the north of England in which I am actively involved. Lateral conversations are taking place between the Government, civil servants, policymakers, academics and so on. Those conversations are profoundly out of date and do not cut through into real situations with real people, real places and real relationships. The modern world in which we live is all about people and relationships. It is not about systems, process and policy. I suggest that if government could find a way to encourage far more of these kinds of relationships to develop in relation to this microproblem, we might find a way to take the communities of this country into the new more entrepreneurial world we need to build within which they are active partners, not people who simply have something done to them.
Brexit and the EU Budget (EUC Report) — House of Lords, 2017-04-06
Topic: International Affairs
Frederick Butler (Crossbench, Unknown): With respect, I do not take that view. These are employees of the EU and its institutions. If they are fired for whatever reason, their redundancy payment and severance terms will be determined by their contract and negotiation with the EU and the EU institutions. That does not seem to me a matter for which the UK has a liability I again agree with the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, about the other side of the balance sheet—namely, the EU’s assets. I shall not discuss those in any detail, because I doubt whether the EU would agree to distribution of these to a country departing from the EU any more than it would require a contribution as an entry fee from a country acceding. One exception to that is the UK’s stake in the European Investment Bank which, if it has to be surrendered, could be worth anything from €3.5 billion to €10 billion to the UK Unless there are other elements of a claim for an exit payment which neither the EU Committee nor others have thought of, it seems clear to me that any reasonable claim that can be made will not amount to anything like the €60 billion figure attributed to M. Barnier and his team. It follows that, leaving aside the legal aspects, UK negotiators do not have a great deal to fear from a negotiation on this subject. In a reasonable world, it should be possible to make sufficient progress to open the way to negotiations on a future trade relationship There is one final piece of advice that I would give—again, this point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas. By all means, let us seek to reach agreement on the principles of an exit payment and a future financial relationship, but it would be unwise to agree the details, the actual figure, until the principles of a trade relationship are also agreed. This is an area where, whatever the sequence of the negotiations, nothing should be agreed until everything is agreed.
Free Childcare Hours — House of Lords, 2017-07-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, are there any particular obstacles to accessing the free childcare hours for families living in temporary accommodation? Do they have difficulty getting information about what is on offer? As the Minister knows, 100,000 children are currently in temporary accommodation, 40% of whose families are in employment so many of them will be eligible. Will the Minister write to me on this point if he cannot elucidate now?
Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007 (Extension of duration of non-jury trial provisions) Order 2017 — House of Lords, 2017-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Anthony Elliott Bew (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this extension order, and I fully but reluctantly support it. I am grateful to him for describing so fairly and accurately the security situation that exists in Northern Ireland now. There is a problem in that the language that the Minister used, which was entirely justified, was actually sharper than we might have expected at this point in the proceedings; that is, 19 years since the Good Friday agreement. My hope is not so much that the Government are keeping this legislation under review and will be able to dispense with it in any reasonable short order, but that the next time the Minister comes to this House, he will at least be able to talk about the security situation in a more relaxed way than quite rightly he has done today I have one coda to add. I am probably slightly more optimistic than the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, about the return of devolution in the autumn. If it does return, the questions that he has raised in this debate are very important, and I can think of no reason why Her Majesty’s Government would not remind a new power-sharing Executive, when they are put into place this autumn, of the importance of these issues.