argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Refugees and Migrants from Asia and Africa — House of Lords, 2015-07-09
Topic: Immigration
Robert Maclennan (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on initiating this debate and allowing the House to confront the deep tragedy facing the world. We cannot in this country deal with the 54 million migrants whom the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has spoken about. But we should be coming to terms with the European Union in dealing with those migrants from north Africa who are flooding into Europe. We ought to recognise that other countries in Europe are doing far more than we are to face this tragedy. Since the resolution of the European Union in April, following the death of 800 people, we have given some support to the saving of lives. We have initiated the work of the Navy—HMS "Bulwark" and, later, HMS "Enterprise". It seems that we need to maintain this at the level which we started at, as the risks are very serious. A UN study indicates that this year 137,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean and that migrant deaths amount to almost 2,000. That is a human tragedy of gigantic proportions for which we must take responsibility In particular, we must recognise that we need to help the Italians and the Greeks, who are making considerable financial and social efforts to deal with the problem. The Italians have indicated that the majority of the people arriving in Italy by sea are from Syria—42,323 out of 170,000. The second-largest group comes from Eritrea, at 34,329. The UN inquiry into Eritrea demonstrates that, contrary to the view of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the country’s citizens are suffering greatly from crimes against humanity. There are extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, indefinite national service and forced labour. Recently the UK Government have indicated that the Eritreans are reducing national service to 18 months but, according to the UN inquiry, there is no evidence of that at all. Forced labour is not something that we should reconcile ourselves to We must also recognise that the neighbouring countries of Syria have been burdened almost beyond belief by the high numbers of refugees. One in four people now in Lebanon is a refugee from Syria—25% of the population. Some 2 million people in Turkey are refugees. We have offered 187 places to the Syrians. That is ludicrous and we really must do something about it. On 13 May, the EU Commission issued an interesting and constructive report which advocates an emergency relocation and resettlement system. Unfortunately, we have not responded positively to the decision reached by the EU Council on my birthday, 26 June, that EU leaders should agree to the relocation from Italy and Greece of 40,000 people in need of international protection. We have opted out of this. If we want to take a leadership role in global society, we should work with our partners in Europe to tackle these problems.
Electricity System Resilience (S&T Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2015-11-03
Topic: Other
Robin Teverson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, just before the right reverend Prelate speaks, I want to apologise to the House. I think I referred to "the noble Earl" when I meant the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, when I addressed the House. I apologise for getting my titles wrong.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-11
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, of course the FSA failed in its task as the problem developed over the several years leading up to the financial crisis of 2007-08. But I think it is very wrong to claim that the Bank of England did not also fail during this period, despite its access, as he reasonably said, to very extensive market intelligence. One of the frustrations of this House was that although the FSA recognised its failure, I am not sure that even up to this day the Bank of England has ever accepted that it played its role in an inadequate way during that period. Indeed, that has been part of the problem in putting remedies in place because, as many have said, a change in culture is an essential part of that process.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-11
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Robin Teverson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the Green Investment Bank has been one of the great successes of the coalition Government. To quote the words— which I fully endorse—of the Conservative manifesto of 2010, "we will create Britain’s first Green Investment Bank—which will draw together money currently divided across existing government initiatives, leveraging private sector capital to finance new green technology start-ups" Absolutely. It was also in the Liberal Democrat manifesto and, I think, the Labour manifesto. After the Wigley commission, set up by the Conservatives, we all felt that this was an excellent way forward and one that would be successful. The management team at the Green Investment Bank has delivered that well over its first three years We on these Benches would prefer that privatisation did not take place quite so quickly. We do not feel that the Government will get its full value at the moment, but we accept that that is the Government’s policy. If the bank does not have proper access to additional private funding, in reality, it will be starved of sufficient future investment by the Treasury. Hence, we want to co-operate strongly with the Government to find a way to ensure that we do not just remove the legislative requirements in the Act, but keep those principles of the bank’s operation not just in its constitution but in the way that it can operate We are not happy about the fact that the five principles currently in statute will be put into the mem and arts of the company, because clearly those can be changed by a special resolution of 75% of the shareholders. As my noble friend Lady Kramer said so well, we have no guarantee that the bank will not be purchased just to run it down, make the most of its income stream and use it as an investment for future cash flow. That would be a tragedy for everybody. I am sure that that is not the Government’s intent but at the moment we have no guarantee through legislation that it would not be the case.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-11
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Robin Teverson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I am that sure my question is as much of a concern to the Minister as it is to me. The purchasers of this bank could just buy it as an asset to wind down—just to buy the cash flow into the future—which none of us would want. But if there was a public sale, it could indeed happen. That is separate from the ongoing green credentials. Do the Government have an approach to how that might be solved or prevented?
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-11
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I cannot in any way better the speeches of my noble friend Lord Sharkey and the noble Lord, Lord McFall, but maybe I could make a few additional comments First, there is the argument in favour of a two-tier system. The regulator is already managing the banks and the financial services industry as a two-tier system. There are different rules for systemically important institutions and for the much smaller institutions whose behaviour cannot disturb the financial stability of the country. If the principle is that the banking industry and the financial services industry should be regulated only under a single tier, the Government are, in a sense, demanding that a great deal of regulation be rolled back, which, they are currently arguing, makes us more secure. We have a two-tier system; we are arguing that that two-tier system should encompass this kind of liability I want to also talk about the difficulties in pursuing senior managers when their institutions have been involved in outrageous and illegal behaviour. These are not victimless crimes, although they are often treated as though they are. The collapse of the banking system had a huge impact on people up and down the country: people lost their jobs, had to live through a period of suppressed wages and have seen public services cut. The experiences of ordinary people over the last five years have been wretched, and the trigger for that crisis was a financial crisis created by systemic financial institutions—so many people suffered as a consequence of that If I look at the misbehaviour inside the banks, I see that those were not victimless crimes. The families that paid for PPI that they did not need and could not use were often families without large resources—the cost mattered. Small businesses were persuaded to enter into interest rate swaps that were completely inappropriate for them, and some went under as a consequence of the problems generated by those swaps. Money laundering, which was on an industrial scale across many of our institutions, supported the drugs trade, prostitution and people trafficking, all of which did extensive damage to our communities. LIBOR mis-selling and mispriced mortgages and loans for individuals over a long period of time came at a significant cost to them, as well as, frankly, bringing the City of London into disrepute and, for a time, putting it at risk as a financial centre. We know that the United States seriously considered whether or not London could continue to be a major player if it could so poorly regulate its financial institutions as to allow manipulation of a core measure such as LIBOR.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-11
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I do not mean to be in any way offensive to the noble Lord, but we cannot afford to be naive. We were naive for decades and in that period significant abuse took place. I am not talking just about a failure to make proper credit decisions. If we look at RBS, we can see that it lost money the old-fashioned way. It made very foolish loans and abandoned appropriate credit standards. You could call that incompetence rather than venality. But what of money laundering, LIBOR mis-selling and PPI mis-selling? These were not failures of competence; they were quite deliberate abuses of the customer on an industrial scale, year after year after year. The assumption that all the people engaged in those activities have either changed who they are or have left the industry is, may I suggest to him, naive? Part of the underlying problem is that so much money is at stake here. For senior people who turn their eyes away from abuse, there are very substantial financial rewards. As we have seen, even when there are some penalties such as clawback, they are only a small proportion of extraordinary rewards. We are in a situation where the risk is high if abuse continues. I understand the noble Lord’s concerns over the reverse burden of proof, and I do not support it lightly, but as my noble friend Lord Sharkey said, we have on the statute book at least 10 or 11 other Acts, frequently supported by Members of this House, which have decided that the reverse burden of proof is necessary because it is the only way for the law to be effective.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-11
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, is referring to the FCA, but regardless of that, he has mentioned email trails. Is he aware that the absence of email trails was a fundamental part of the regulator’s decision that it was not able to pursue a single case to senior management level? There was an absence not only of email trails but of any other record which would enable pursuit of a trail from the bottom upwards. The evidence for that is very clear in the transcripts of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-11
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Kevin Sharkey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. It has been a very good one. It is clear that there is a strong division of opinion on both the desirability of a two-tier system and the reverse burden of proof regime. As the Minister said, these issues are both absolutely central to the regulation of our financial services industry It still seems to me that Parliament was right the first time. After a thorough and comprehensive investigation, it was right to put the reverse burden of proof regime into law. It was right to conclude that, if we did not do that, we would remain unable to hold senior managers effectively to account We have two categories of financial service organisations—those that constitute, or may pose, a threat to our financial stability and those who cannot pose such a threat. I agree with the Minister that we need a proportionate regulation and that what is proportionate for one of these categories is not proportionate for the other. I accept the difficulty in drawing the line. However, I remind the Minister that we have already drawn the line. The previous Act drew a very clear line. I do not think that we have resolved anything today but it was good to have the arguments in play. I look forward to discussing this issue further on Report under, of course, Committee stage rules. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): The argument the Minister has made suggests that he does not believe that whistleblowing is a justified process. Almost every whistleblower who raises a suspicion is very unlikely to be able to present a signed and sealed case. It is surely the responsibility of the organisation where the whistleblowing has taken place to explore that. In fact, they constantly guarantee that that is exactly what they will do. The Minister is now saying that that is far too onerous. I find that incredible.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-11
Topic: Other
John Kevin Sharkey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the Minister for that answer and those clarifications. I cannot help feeling that removing the statutory obligation and replacing it with something that is still not yet entirely clear is perhaps not the best way of proceeding. However, under the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-11
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Kevin Sharkey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will be very brief. I know that the Committee is keen to move on to the simple and straightforward government amendments. This amendment is designed to do just one thing, which is to persuade the Government to ban cold calling in the service of debt management providers Cold calling lead generation and cold calling directly is banned for mortgages and has been for a long time. It was banned because it was felt that it generated high risk for consumers. Cold calling lead generation for debt management providers is a much higher risk for consumers. The FCA published its thematic review of debt management advice in June of this year. It makes extremely worrying reading The FCA acknowledged that debt management is one of the highest-risk activities in consumer credit. Its review found that: customers are not sufficiently made aware of the nature of the service being offered, including any fees they may be required to pay; customers are not being made aware, as is compulsory, that help in managing debt is available free of charge; the debt advice provided may not be in the customer’s best interests and debt solutions that are not suitable, affordable or sustainable are offered; customers are recommended or sold additional products that may not be in their best interests; the nature and level of fees charged by some fee-charging debt management firms is such that they affect the customer’s ability to make significant repayment towards their debt; and firms do not market themselves in a manner that is clear, fair and not misleading There is other stuff, too, about the lack of protection of client money. It is all extremely damning. I know that the Minister and the FCA are fully aware of this problem and of its scale. For example, StepChange, a free debt management advice company, had more than 500,000 people contacting it for advice in 2014 alone, which was a 56% increase on the number for 2012.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-11
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Kevin Sharkey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the Minister for that answer, a lot of which was, as I knew it would be, very encouraging. There remains just one issue. This is going to take some time, during which a substantial number of people will be exposed to risk. I think that that is unnecessary. The mortgages example suggests that we can, without interfering with the FCA’s processes, do something simple and quick now to stop this abuse. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-11
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I do not think that I can improve on anything that has been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, because she understands these issues with such clarity and works so extensively in this field. In a strange way, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, made the argument for how a duty of care should be at the heart of everything that banking institutions and financial institutions do. I hope very much that the Government will take on board the importance of embedding these kinds of responsibilities deeply within the requirements for the financial services industry.
Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-11
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and the comments of the noble Lords, Lord McFall and Lord Deben. The amendment addresses an issue which the Government now have to take seriously. The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, reminded me of the old adage: "What you measure, you manage". By measuring and reporting, which surely is not beyond any corporation of any size, we change the whole culture of short-termism which dominates at the moment throughout the financial services industry, and create the potential for many more players to start to look at the longer term and at issues of sustainability. Surely, when we have been doing so much to try to ensure financial stability, which is a long-term issue, backing that up with the kind of tools that are proposed in this amendment makes a great deal of sense I am very much a believer that one of the greatest risks that we face, if not the greatest risk, is climate change. However, we are also looking at a time when new technologies are disrupting the whole established structure, and we have to take that on board in some way. We are also looking at great population changes—migration and demographic changes—and this amendment seems to me to be rather good at highlighting that all those big, disruptive changes need to be captured to some extent in this reporting system I hope that the Government will take this seriously. I agree that no one takes particular pride in authorship of the language on these occasions, but this is about getting the principle properly embedded so that the Bank and the regulators can carry out their tasks in a way that deals not just with immediate risk but with the long term and encourage the financial services industry to play over that long-term arena as well. We have financial services businesses which are recognising the importance of long-term sustainability and are doing it exceedingly well, but it is very hard for them to communicate with potential investors when differences in reporting strategies and language make that communication so confused. Providing a level playing field in terms of reporting means that those who focus on this can get their message out and that investors to whom this is important can then shape their decisions based on that comparable information.
Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-20
Topic: Housing
Monroe Edward Palmer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, being on Report and bearing in mind all the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, I can keep my remarks to the minimum, although I agree with all that they have said—and I certainly support the amendment. My brief point is that we should put ourselves in the place of the charity itself, which in this case may be a housing association that is told by the Government that it has to sell off its properties at a discount, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, said, of up to £104,000 per property. That housing association has an ongoing business and ongoing logic of providing housing—not just the houses that it has already, such as in Peabody, but the houses that it might build for the future Let us put ourselves in the place of chief executives of housing associations asking their banks for finance to build more properties as registered social landlords. Any bank manager would look at them and say, "I would lend you the money, but how can you deal with the fact that the Government are going to take a proportion of those properties away by forcing you to sell them at a massive discount?". No bank manager would lend. Therefore, if the Bill is not amended, it will take away not only housing associations’ assets but their ability to borrow and build more housing for people in need. Therefore, I heartily support this amendment and hope that when we get the housing Bill we will be able to go into this in great detail When I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, how housing associations are going to build like for like when there are discounts of up to £104,000 she replied in this Chamber and in a letter that it is government policy. It is a government policy without any arithmetic. If that is the way the Government are going, they are headed for disaster.