argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Global Climate Change — House of Lords, 2015-10-29
Topic: Environment
Ian Bruce Lang (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the flow of the noble Lord’s speech. He referred to carbon dioxide. Some of us in this House who are not of a scientific bent have been surprised to read recently that carbon dioxide has contributed in a big way to the greening of the world and to improving agricultural productivity, whereas another gas, nitrous oxide—which again, we are told, is derived in part from diesel fuel—is a much more villainous piece. Can the noble Lord enlighten those of us who ought to know more about this sort of thing?
Global Climate Change — House of Lords, 2015-10-29
Topic: Environment
David Arthur Russell Howell (Conservative, Centre-right): I have to ask one more question from the lay point of view about some of the things that the noble Lord is saying. Is he saying that CO2 causes air pollution or that nitrous oxide causes it? He is absolutely right that CO2 causes global warming, but does it actually pollute the atmosphere? He seems to be saying that it does.
Global Climate Change — House of Lords, 2015-10-29
Topic: Energy
Nicholas Bourne (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course I do: there is no shortage of challenges here Just to bring us back to the reality, which was again outlined by the noble Baroness opposite, there are three key aims for the department. I do not think they have changed from the previous Government. Those aims are affordability, security and decarbonisation. Noble Lords will recognise the reality of government that sometimes hard decisions must be made. There is no better example of that than the steel industry. I was at the steel summit. Many Labour MPs, understandably—and, in one sense, rightly—argued that there should be relief for those businesses. We seek to go forward with all three aims together. I do not disagree with that All I am saying on this particular point is that there is a massive opportunity for British businesses. I will come on to that in a minute. It is not just the Government that must address these issues; it is also cities, businesses and individuals. We have touched on all that. A massive part of the UK economy is already low carbon. If we translate that, say, to the opportunities for zero-carbon cars, again we are already the second-largest producer of those. This is another massive opportunity for the United Kingdom. Work is being done on this, but again it is not simple. It is a question of ensuring that we have battery storage and so on. This work is going on.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-09-09
Topic: Energy
Nicholas Bourne (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I will now speak to government Amendments 33 and 34. Amendment 33 inserts a new Part 2A into the Bill which amends the third-party access to upstream petroleum infrastructure regime found in the Energy Act 2011. Specifically, it amends Section 87 of the 2011 Act, which relates to powers to require information, and inserts new Sections 87A and 87B, which make provision for appeals and sanctions respectively. This amendment requires that where the Oil and Gas Authority issues a notice under Section 87 of the 2011 Act requiring information to be provided, it must specify a time for compliance with that notice The amendment also provides an appeal right to the First-tier Tribunal against the issuance of a notice on the grounds that the information required is not relevant to the Oil and Gas Authority’s functions relating to third-party access or that the length of time given to comply with the notice is unreasonable Amendment 34 also allows for any requirements imposed by such a notice to be treated as petroleum-related requirements and therefore to be sanctionable under Chapter 5 of the Bill. However, the Oil and Gas Authority will not be able to revoke a licence or terminate an operatorship in relation to such breaches. Amendment 34 inserts two new sections into the Energy Act 2011, which established the third-party access to upstream petroleum infrastructure regime. New Section 89A allows for applications for access to upstream petroleum infrastructure made under Section 82 of the 2011 Act to be assigned to another party. New Section 89B allows for a new owner of infrastructure to which an application for access has been made to be treated as a party to that application. The amendment also ensures that where ownership of infrastructure in respect of which a notice under Section 82(11) imposing access rights has been issued is transferred, the obligations under the notice transfer as well Once such an assignment or transfer occurs, anything that was done by the original party is treated as having been done by the party to which the application was assigned or the ownership transferred. The provisions allow for the third-party access regime to continue rather than having to restart on a change of party, facilitate the transfer of non-commercially sensitive information already provided to the Oil and Gas Authority and ensure that all new parties are aware of the relevant history of the application The amendments will increase the utility of the third-party access to upstream petroleum infrastructure regime, which is an important tool in the Oil and Gas Authority's pursuit of maximising economic recovery for the United Kingdom. I beg to move.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-09-09
Topic: Energy
David Arthur Russell Howell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, following the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, perhaps I may take the opportunity of this amendment to thank my noble friend the Minister for circulating overnight the impact assessment, which we have all read with interest. It does seem to have a discouragingly large number of "Not availables" in various boxes throughout, which rather puts one off. However, I can see that my noble friend has made a considerable effort and I am grateful to him The impact assessment states that last January the Oil and Gas Authority began to undertake an urgent piece of work involving industry to come up with practical measures to mitigate the immediate risks that the downturn in oil and gas prices present. That is a high ambition, but we open the papers each morning and read of thousands of redundancies, talk of fields closing down and a real sense of crisis beginning to envelope the industry, as the oil price for Brent crude remains resolutely down at around $50 and much lower for West Texas Intermediate. Can we be assured that as we go through this stage and the Report stage that we have a little more meat on the description of what these practical measures are and how, as the sense of crisis develops, it is going to be mitigated by the work and the powers we are assigning to the Oil and Gas Authority? I think that a new sense of urgency is coming to the debate which may not have been the case in January or when the new authority was set up, but we now need to incorporate that as we handle the legislation that is necessary to send the authority on its way.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-09-09
Topic: Energy
Matthew Ridley (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I apologise for not being here on Monday to take part in the debates then, and I hope that the House will indulge me in speaking today. I declare my interests in surface coal-mining in the north of England. None the less, and to their astonishment and probably horror, I would like to support the amendment in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. It has enormous merits and is a good suggestion, although they should not worry because I will disagree with them on things towards the end of my remarks I welcome the remarks of my noble friend the Minister that he wants to discuss CCS further, and I hope that he might be able to include me in those discussions. I want to suggest as an extra twist—and the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, touched on this—that we must link this to some kind of alleviation of the carbon imposts on the industry, which are throttling various British industries at the moment, in particular the carbon floor price. What I like about the suggested amendment is that it avoids the distortion of supporting carbon capture and storage through the contracts for difference, and that it should work at no cost to the taxpayer and makes use of market mechanisms I think that we now have to agree that the world needs fossil fuels during this century, if only to give the billion people in the world who have not got access to electricity the chance to have access. We cannot get emissions reduction without using CCS, if we are going to use fossil fuels. We are still searching for a way in which to get emissions down without hitting affordability and security, to solve the trilemma. So far, the two main ways in which we have tried that have not worked. Subsidising renewables has worked very poorly in getting emissions down and has done so at the cost of affordability. So far, wind and solar have managed to take 1.3% of global energy use, after billions of pounds invested in it worldwide, while having a minimal effect on emissions reduction. So the renewables agenda is putting affordability at risk without achieving its goals The other tactic that we have tried is simply to put heavier and heavier taxes on fossil fuels, and we can see the effect of that on our electricity supply in this country. Power station after power station is closing. In the Queen’s Speech debate on 4 June I suggested rather rashly that there was now a risk that Eggborough would close—and now that has come to pass. Therefore we are genuinely looking at a worrying lack of energy security in this country. The two mechanisms we have tried for cutting emissions have either hit affordability or security, so we are still searching for a way to do decarbonisation cheaply and without hitting energy security. The best way to achieve that would be to build more gas-powered power stations and to encourage the use of gas instead of coal, but that is not possible at the moment in this country, because renewables are making it uneconomic for anybody to build or open a new combined-cycle gas turbine.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-09-09
Topic: Environment
Matthew Ridley (Conservative, Centre-right): On the first point about the lag, yes, but the whole point is that I am comparing the rate of temperature increase with the rate predicted by the IPCC, which knew about the lag and built it into its models. Essentially, the noble Baroness is talking about the difference between equilibrium climate sensitivity, which is reached after many centuries, and transient climate response, which is what you immediately get. Yes, there is a big difference there, but the climate sensitivity figures—I was coming on to this—are based on 14 new studies, one of which Myles Allen co-authored.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-09-09
Topic: Environment
Matthew Ridley (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not disagree—I was simply picking up on a couple of points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh. I will wrap up my remarks very soon, but let me point out that the only scenario that the IPCC considered in its models that gets us to 4 degrees by 2100 is RCP 8.5, which assumes that the world will be burning 10 times as much coal in 2100 as we are today. That is not very realistic, and it also assumes that by then, we will be getting our motor fuel from coal. Nobody thinks that is going to happen, so one has to be careful about which of the IPCC scenarios one looks at. That one is not very plausible Anyway, I think we agree that this is an excellent amendment, and I will leave it at that.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have made points on these amendments. I think that we are seeking the same ends but perhaps by a slightly different approach, as I will outline Amendment 1 would insert a new clause which places a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to provide annual reports to Parliament setting out information about devolution deals which have been agreed and those in discussion. Amendment 2 would add a new requirement that all Bills are to be accompanied by a "devolution statement". Noble Lords have heard me say a number of times that the Government are open to discussing devolution proposals with all places. We have been clear that our approach is for areas to have conversations with us about the powers and budgets they want to be devolved to them so that they can grow their local economies and improve the competitiveness and productivity of the area. The importance of this cannot be overstated. As the Chancellor said in the Budget, the great economic challenge we face is on productivity. It is by addressing that challenge that we will ensure that Britain is what we want it to be—the most prosperous major economy in the world by the 2030s. Devolution deals are one of the most important levers for generating growth and delivering this aim.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention. The process undergone by Greater Manchester, Norwich, Cornwall and other places can act as a learning tool for small seaside towns which I agree absolutely may not, in the early stages, have the capacity or capability to think about what might be appropriate. We learn from others and this is an important process The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, referred to our discussion on Cumbria. Either myself or my noble friend Lord Heseltine—or indeed both of us if we can manage to get our diaries free on the same day—are looking forward to meeting with Cumbrian representatives to discuss what I thought were some very constructive points raised by the noble Lord in the meeting The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, talked about the four reasons why devolution is not pursued. We understand and share the noble Lord’s analysis of why devolution can be slow or non-existent, and he gave a very pertinent example which I recognise from my local government days. However, where we differ is that I doubt whether these proposals for annual reports and statements are an effective means of challenging either silo working in Whitehall or the disruption, fear of difference and nervousness at the local level. The strong drive given by the Bill, backed by the early devolution of major powers and budgets, thus creating a whole culture of devolution, is the best way forward, not annual reports which may themselves become prescriptive, or at least perceived by local areas as a direction from the Secretary of State. Given those points, I hope that the noble Lord will feel happy to withdraw his amendment.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
John Gummer (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope that the Minister will not accept what has just been said. We are looking at the history of local government, which I have been involved in for a very long time—since I first sat on the Inner London Education Authority in my twenties, so I know a little about how it operates. I say to my noble friend that we need something entirely new in local government if we are to recover the kind of verve and real local contribution that local government ought to make I agree with the noble Lord opposite that both sides can be blamed for a lot on this. Local government pretended that it could replace the Opposition and therefore could have nuclear-free zones, foreign policies and the like. This was countered by a reaction from a Conservative Government who took away local government’s power to raise money through the business rate and the like. Both sides have a lot to answer for as regards the way in which we had that countervailing situation, and it took a long time for people to recover their respect and support for local government However, we have recovered our respect for a system that lacks vitality and deserves a great deal more opportunity. Our great cities should have the same kind of powers and the same sort of verve that you find in many continental cities. I do not see that we can do that under the present structure. What is more, all the amendments that come from the Opposition are about the perpetuation of the very systems that have helped to pull down local government and do not give it the sharpness that is necessary if local communities are to be properly represented I found the comment about the effect of mayors a bit odd. All I can say is that after a very long period of appalling local government in Bristol, in which all three parties were involved, the elected mayor of Bristol has made a dramatic improvement. He has no history of being a supporter of my party, so I speak entirely independently and objectively on that. Bristol is now extremely lucky in its representation and in the way the mayor can speak for that great city. It had years of destructive labour authorities, followed by the most peculiar system whereby each of the parties took control one by one and none covered itself in glory.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Heseltine (Conservative, Centre-right): I have listened to the noble Baroness with interest and I wonder whether she has not caught up with the news that both Alan Johnson, a former Cabinet Minister in the Labour Government, and Liam Byrne, the very perceptive Chief Secretary who noticed that there was no money left, have said that in the circumstances of there being mayors they would be interested in a nomination. The fact is that creating the job of mayor has attracted a degree of interest at the very highest level in government and opposition politics. To me, one of the attractive ideas of a mayor is that it will be a ladder up which budding national leaders will climb on their way to another place, or it will be the opportunity for people who have served at the highest levels of government to serve their local communities with all the experience that they have gained in government, having ceased to be members of a Cabinet. That is an interesting evolution of our constitutional practices that would enrich the political process. I very much hope that my noble friend will resist Amendments 3 and 4 because—let us be frank—they are wrecking amendments This Government were elected on the basis that there would be a deal—I quote the noble Lord, Lord Smith—of a sort "unimaginable" to local government in his experience. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said on this issue, we have taken power away from local government decade after decade after decade without a referendum and without any sort of consultation; we did it because we did not think local government was doing a good enough job. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, rightly said that it was done by both parties and admitted that her party played a part. But her party never did anything to restore any of the powers that my party had taken away; it loved it, shared in it and wallowed in it, as it exercised the powers that we had extricated from local government into the hands of central government.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Heseltine (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord asks me for my personal opinion on that matter and I give him my answer: yes. I think that we would have been incomparably better over 50 years if, instead of taking power away from those authorities, we had concentrated on their leadership and performance. Yes, that would have meant differentiating in the early stages about the financial support that one entrusted them with, but it would have left them with the potential of the power that we have taken away. I have no doubt that if we could rewrite the last 50 years we would have seen much stronger local government. Frankly, for those of us who remember Redcliffe-Maud: well, he was right, wasn’t he?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
John Gummer (Conservative, Centre-right): I worked with Bristol over a long period and it was one of the most difficult councils to deal with. Bristol succeeded in spite of its local government rather than because of it, and now it is succeeding because of it. That is the change.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
James Peter Hymers Mackay (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, first, the Bill confers a discretion on the Secretary of State which is not restricted in any way whatever. Therefore, to say that this Bill is restrictive and that the amendments are intended to increase the discretion does not seem to be in accordance with the wording. Secondly, there are two powers in proposed new Section 107B, under Clause 1, providing for the election of a mayor under subsections (1) and (3). For some reason, these amendments apply only to subsection (1). That is rather strange. There may be a reason for that and if so, I would be glad to hear it.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, Amendment 3 would set out in the Bill that the introduction of a mayor for a combined authority area would not be a precondition for the transfer of functions to combined authorities. We had a very lively debate on this amendment in Committee and we have had another very lively debate today. In that context, I am not surprised that we are considering the amendment I have been very clear on the Government’s policy on the devolution of far-reaching powers to local areas. I think we can all agree that if areas are to have such powers they must adopt strong governance and accountability arrangements. As my noble friend Lord Heseltine said, it is not for us to come up with the proposals. It is a bottom-up process, and we want to hear from areas what their proposals are for the powers and budgets they want devolved to them, and the governance arrangements that they think are necessary to support such devolution. As my noble friend Lord Deben said, we need something new What sort of governance arrangements will be necessary—the scale and scope of the powers—will depend on the sort of proposals put forward. Last week, in his Budget speech in the other place, the Chancellor was very clear when he stated: "The historic devolution that we have agreed with Greater Manchester in return for a directly elected Mayor is available to other cities that want to go down a similar path".—[Official Report, Commons, 8/7/15; col. 329.] Our policy is therefore clear and this amendment is directly at odds with it We have this policy for good reasons. We have it because where there is devolution of the ambition and scale as in Greater Manchester, there needs to be a clear, single point of accountability. People need to know who is responsible for the major decisions in their area—decisions which will affect their daily lives My noble friend Lord Deben highlighted the importance of there being real change in local government. That is why we committed so clearly in our manifesto to legislate to implement the Greater Manchester deal and to offer similar deals to other cities that choose to have a mayor. The Bill, with its provisions on mayors, allows us to implement the Greater Manchester deal and fulfil our manifesto commitment. The amendment would, in fact, frustrate it As other noble Lords have said, mayoral governance for cities is a proven model that works around the world. It provides a single point of accountability. As my noble friend Lord Deben said, it has made a big difference to Bristol. When the office of the Mayor of London was created there was not much excitement across the country. As either my noble friend Lord Heseltine or my noble friend Lord Deben said—I cannot remember who it was—it is now seen as a force for progress in our capital.