argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-12-15
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I have no wish to detain the House. The Government have listened to the concerns that we raised at previous stages of the Bill and in the discussions that the Minister generously agreed to. The amendment that the Government have brought forward does not go as far as we would like but we feel that it addresses the most essential issue, which is the independence of the non-executive directors of the court, and that it provides a mechanism so that they can resist capture by officials of the court. For that reason, we are satisfied.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-12-15
Topic: Government Operations
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will not detain the House very long. The National Audit Office and the Bank of England are crucial institutions. It is absolutely necessary that both are not only independent but perceived to be independent. In earlier stages of this Bill, we asked that those two organisations should be brought together to come to a common understanding and agreement of how we could go forward. That has been achieved and, with that, we are pleased that "peace has broken out"—to quote what has just been said. It was essential that that should be done and I congratulate the Minister on the role that he played in this.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-12-15
Topic: Government Operations
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, our one concern with this amendment was that it could in some way compromise the statutory objectives of the FCA as laid down by Parliament. The Government wrote to us with an assurance that that was not their intention. Today, the Minister read into the record the text of the letter. He said that the recommendations would not compromise, modify or override the FCA’s statutory objectives in any way. Given that a Minister’s statement in Hansard is a weighty commitment, we are satisfied with the amendment.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-12-15
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I will just make a point of clarification, because a number of noble Lords have made this comment. The reversal of the burden of proof applies not to a criminal offence but to a civil offence.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-21
Topic: Social Welfare
Zahida Manzoor (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 70 and 71. I do not want to repeat what has already been so well put by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, concerning Clause 3 and reporting obligations. I want briefly to summarise something that the Guardian found under a freedom of information request in November 2015. That request showed that in the 120 councils that responded, only 79,000 families were turned around through a family intervention, which is meant to be an integral part of the troubled families programme. The research also found that more than 8,000 families in more than 40 local authorities had not received any kind of family intervention but had instead been turned around solely on the basis of data-matching exercises. The research found that councils might, for example, trawl through employment, youth crime and truancy data to identify a family that would have been eligible for the programme and which, without receiving any help from the troubled families programme, fulfilled the criteria for being turned around because school attendance had improved or one of the parents had found a job My Amendment 71 is an attempt to prevent this. It asks that a report prepared under this section must include an assessment of, "the types of interventions provided by local authorities in the previous financial year, and … the success or failure of the types of interventions provided by local authorities in the previous financial year" I hope that the Minister will feel that this amendment would enable an improved assessment of the interventions provided by local authorities and will accept it because without this kind of data, we are not going to get underneath exactly which services local authorities are providing. I believe that the Government believe they must have an evidence-based approach, and this amendment will enable them to do so.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-21
Topic: Social Welfare
Archibald Kirkwood (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I want to make a short intervention in support of the two excellent speeches that have been made in introducing Amendments 70 and 71. I agree with everything that has been said, and I think we need another name for this programme as "troubled families" is a terrible name for it. I do not know whether we should have a competition for it—it might be too late. However, those families are certainly more troubled for being called troubled, so we need to think carefully about this. I hope that these suggested annual reports will not just be analytical and statistical but will come up with some policy advice and dynamics about change, to make these programmes better for the future I have had a bit of experience of working with a troubled families programme indirectly as a non-executive director of the Wise Group in Glasgow. It had a pay-as-you-go performance contract in the north-east of England, which was very interesting. I am in favour of the multiagency approach, but it is still in its early days and needs to be developed. I hope that these annual reports will look at a snapshot year by year and look across the different experiences and the different programmes mounted by the different local authorities to try and get best practice established and shared. That would be really useful.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-21
Topic: Social Welfare
Archibald Kirkwood (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): May I try to make sense of this? I do not think that the Government know what the disposable income per head is of the families that are subject to the benefit cap. That is my objection, because big families obviously have a disposable income that is divided by the number of people in the house. I do not think that these metrics exist, and therefore the noble Baroness is absolutely correct: it is not safe to rely on earnings, because you are not comparing like for like. The really important question for me is: how do we know, in relation to the impact it has on children, what the disposable income per head is in those families that are subject to the cap?
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-21
Topic: Social Welfare
Archibald Kirkwood (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): How does this fit into the annual uprating statement? The Minister has just said that the Secretary of State, who has this power, must do it once in every five-year period. There is an annual social security uprating where all these things are considered. Surely we are not going to have, at random in the middle of the year, the Government coming up with a judgment on the cap that is in isolation from the rest of the established procedures for uprating benefits.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-21
Topic: Social Welfare
Archibald Kirkwood (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will add a few comments to what has already been said. I think that Clauses 9 and 10 are terrible. I object in principle, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, to the idea that we can forecast need. I am speaking for myself: I do not know what my party position is or will be, but I am convinced that nothing is more emblematic of the approach of this Government of attacking the working poor and dealing with austerity disproportionately That does not mean to say that austerity does not mean to be addressed. The low-income households in this country—in or out of work—will suffer; thankfully, that distinction will become less relevant as universal credit rolls out. I do not think universal credit will come on stream fast enough to help everybody. We have been waiting for the rollout; there are around 155,000 in full compliance with the universal credit system. That will be a much better place to be once the whole country is there but, in the interim, these four years in which we will be freezing these benefits will cost low-income families dear. Why? It is because it is on top of everything else, and I have said that before. One of the biggest disappointments—and I have said this before as well—in the coalition government days was the fact that we did not evaluate the results of the totality of the integrated cuts that were made. That applies to services as well. Now, we are having another four years’ freeze, which is £3 billion or more on top of everything else, without any metrics that begin to contemplate what that might mean for people caught in different, unforeseeable ways by a combination of the cuts I have been looking at this area of policy for as long as anybody here, and I am not sure that we will be able to look as far ahead as 2018, 2019 or 2020 with any confidence whatsoever about the conditions that some of these households will face. That is disgraceful and completely unjustified. Of course, the Government are able to found this on the fact that there was a mandate, as it is called, for these measures. Well, there was certainly not in Scotland—the evidence for that is pretty clear. I have said before in this Committee that I worry about the political aspects of this Bill and some of the consequences that will be felt in the coming weeks and months of the Scottish elections for the next Holyrood Parliament. This Bill will not have escaped the notice of some of the more hard-line nationalists north of the border, which is not in the long-terms interests of the United Kingdom. I am sure about that and feel really cut off at the knees in trying to explain to people north of the border what is going in.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-21
Topic: Government Operations
Jonathan Oates (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Would the Minister accept that there are people in the public sector who run very significant operations, but the Prime Minister and others in the Government have said it is not acceptable for them to be paid more than the prime ministerial salary? How does this differ, given that, as my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, have pointed out, 60% of the funding for this charity is provided by Her Majesty’s Government?
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-21
Topic: Government Operations
Archibald Kirkwood (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the moment that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, suggested to me that this was something worth looking at, I noticed that Motability Operations had set up a review of its remuneration committee’s decisions for its executives. The annual report, which has just been published, shows that it has merely tinkered with this. There was a real hope that it would respond to some of the external interest in what it was doing, yet it has come back with some tiny amendments to the remuneration package and increased the co-salaries in the way that I explained earlier I think that the Minister should tell his friends at Motability that Parliament is interested in this. It is in Motability’s interests to respond to the need to be more transparent and to be more assiduous in explaining what it is doing and why it is doing it. This will not go away; I will be standing shoulder to shoulder with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, so the sooner we can get a modus vivendi whereby Parliament shows that there is an interest in engaging, the better that would be for Motability and for everyone else. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-14
Topic: Government Operations
Paul Tyler (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Yes, but it is done now in a deliberate attempt to try to prevent us pursuing a very important issue. I suggest to your Lordships that we should be very careful of any attempt to do that, particularly in those circumstances. Look at the wider context. Taken with this House’s effective exclusion from discussions on English votes for English laws, which is now going on—we were not allowed in—and with the Strathclyde review, we will have only ourselves to blame if we fail to note the way the wind is blowing. Please observe the words of Mr Stewart Jackson, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Peterborough, in last week’s debate: "In conclusion, it is a constitutional outrage that the superannuated, unelected, unaccountable panjandrums in the House of Lords have told us what the elected House should be doing even though we have a settled view on this. They should learn their place. They must be subservient to the elected House, and it is high time that we had House of Lords reform".—[Official Report, Commons, 8/12/15; col. 880.] Amen to the last one. That is what is behind this: it is not to give new influence to this House, but to take away what little influence we have.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-14
Topic: Government Operations
Paul Tyler (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, let us wait and see. If the House of Commons and the Government do not take this House seriously, why are we here? That is the question we have to ask ourselves I take up in particular this issue of the elected House having a right to bulldoze through what they think is right for election law. I have been a Member of the other House. I have to tell your Lordships that it is not unknown for Members of Parliament to have a particular interest in the electoral arrangements that got them there. I reject utterly the idea that somehow your Lordships’ House is not allowed to have a view on electoral law. I have been here some time now—more than 10 years. I have been involved in revision of electoral law many times. No Government have ever sought to stop us.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-14
Topic: Government Operations
Paul Tyler (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am afraid that that sequence is not quite correct. I think the noble Lord will accept this, but if we have a difference of opinion, we can discuss it afterwards. The critical point about the process is that it is for the Government, first and foremost, to decide whether they want to table an amendment in lieu or simply reject the views of this House. That was the Government’s decision, not the Speaker’s. Whether there is advice or not, it is the Government’s decision that they wish not to pursue the idea of a more general review of the franchise. They simply wanted to reject the view of the House of Lords. They then triggered the issue of financial privilege and it is indeed correct that neither the Clerks nor the Speaker could then gainsay them. However, this figure has now got common currency and it is thought that that somehow justifies this process. If your Lordships’ House was only proposing a little baby, they might have let it through; but they thought it was a big baby and they produced it in the way they did to try and scare us. This rabbit has been inflated by Ministers for their own political ends. We should be told exactly what the calculation is; what, realistically, it is as a proportion of the total referendum budget; and who now endorses this figure.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-14
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Tyler (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, that is not absolutely true. First, it has not specifically rejected the amendment proposed by your Lordships’ House. Secondly, as I thought I had just explained, the issue of an amendment in lieu means that it is no longer necessary. If the Government had decided on such an amendment to express their apparent view that a general review is required, and that it should not be in this one Bill, financial privilege would not have been triggered in any way. That is the process that should have been undertaken The issue before your Lordships’ House today is no longer simply whether the electorate for the EU referendum should or should not be expanded, important though that is. I have given a lot of time and effort to trying to make sure that this referendum is one that we can be proud of because it has the same electorate as the one that was so successful in Scotland on a similar issue of the future of that generation. However, this matter has now been deliberately escalated by Ministers into an insidious attempt to undermine the constitutional role and responsibilities of your Lordships’ House. We must stand firm, pass Amendment A1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and reject this attack.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-14
Topic: Labor
Zahida Manzoor (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I accept everything the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, have said. The last time this Committee sat, noble Lords touched on the question of how we can learn lessons if we do not put reviews in place. If we do not review sanctions, how will the Government assess whether they have been effective or whether they can be adjusted to get people back into work? That is surely what it is about and why sanctions have been put there in the first place. We must have an independent review and I hope the Minister will look seriously at this issue.
Airport Capacity — House of Lords, 2015-12-14
Topic: Transportation
Jennifer Elizabeth Randerson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): The Minister has my sympathy this evening because this delay is clearly all about Zac and Boris and has nothing to do with the need to look at air quality in greater detail. However, it gives us an opportunity to push the Government on the issues mentioned in the Statement and to test them. Surface transport access to Heathrow and Gatwick airports is an essential part of solving this problem, yet there is no reference to issues relating to it in the Statement. Will the Minister say whether there will be public investment in the surface transport infrastructure that is badly needed, or only private investment by Heathrow and Gatwick airports? Heathrow seems to believe that public investment will be needed; Gatwick seems to believe that it will not. I will be grateful for the Government’s take on this issue Given the further delay to which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, just referred and the pressure it will cause, will the Government agree to look again at the increased use of regional airports alongside the work they are doing on the Davies solutions to airport capacity? Hub airports have moved on. We are in danger of answering yesterday’s question today; indeed, in the case of Heathrow, we are in danger of answering the day before yesterday’s question today, because this saga has gone on for so long. Dubai and Schiphol are now well established as the world’s hub airports, and a new generation of planes makes certain aspects of this issue redundant, so this question could be overtaken by events. The Liberal Democrats have always believed that there needs to be much better use of existing spare capacity, which will need better surface connection before we expand Heathrow or Gatwick in the near future. However, if there is to be another air quality report, who will do it, to whom will it report and will that report be published in full? Any additional work on air quality must have greater public confidence than the work the Davies commission was able to produce.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-14
Topic: Labor
Zahida Manzoor (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in discussing this group of amendments, particularly the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister, Lady Sherlock and Lady Hollis, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I also thank the Minister for his considered response and for allowing me to intervene when he was speaking. A number of issues have been raised. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, stated very clearly what happens to an individual when there is a change of circumstances. It is important that there is some guidance before Report. I have not been reassured by the answers which have been given. I have every sympathy for the Minister in terms of what he is trying to deliver, but I passionately believe that cuts are affecting people who want to work and will want to go into work under what is being proposed. I will consider what has been said, but I am likely to bring it back on Report. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, I would be grateful to receive any other information that would help us make our minds up. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-14
Topic: Labor
Zahida Manzoor (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 65. I recognise that my proposed new clause may be imperfectly drafted, as the word "disabled" should perhaps have been defined. As this is a probing amendment, I hope the Committee will make allowances My amendment is pretty self-explanatory, in that it requires the Secretary of State to, "lay a report before Parliament annually on the progress which has been made towards halving the disability employment gap" It also requires that, "the report must set out how the Secretary of State has interpreted ‘disability employment gap’ for these purposes" I would like the report to include, "an assessment of the sectors in which disabled people have primarily secured jobs … an assessment of the type and level of jobs primarily secured by disabled people, and … an assessment of the progression of disabled people within the job market" My amendment will help to improve the transparency of employment outcomes for disabled people and allow monitoring of the Government’s target I am, however, rather concerned because we have asked the Minister for reviews of sanctions, conditionality criteria and so on. From my perspective, we have not had an answer that might have given us some hope. However, I hope the Minister will give this measure careful consideration because, across the Committee, I see there is some support for it.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-14
Topic: Education
Zahida Manzoor (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 68. The only thing that I wanted to add—all other noble Lords have eloquently put forward the reasons why there should be reporting obligations relating to apprenticeships—is that I note that gender is missing from the amendment. It was an oversight, rather than because we did not care passionately about this particular issue. Once again, I am pleading with the Minister: we really need to be able to differentiate between the different groups to see where apprenticeships fall and who is getting what apprenticeship. The noble Baroness, Lady Nye, made a very important argument relating to young women, but the same applies to disability, race and so forth. There are variations that we need to bottom out so that employers can then have appropriate strategies in place to address the anomalies.
Education and Adoption Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-16
Topic: Education
Dominic Hubbard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Yes, I hope that it will be reported in Hansard Amendments 8A, 8C, 8D, 9, 9A and 10A concern the new definition of a school in trouble—that it is "coasting". If coasting is a bad thing, I suggest that all types of school should have it available to them. I also note that the Minister has tabled amendments in this group, so I will resist any further comment until after I have heard what he has to say, as I believe that he has made certain steps towards us.