argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-04-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Ilora Gillian Finlay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, it is most helpful that the Minister has given a reassurance and further clarified the position. However, I have a lingering concern about what happens if we do not have Article 168 in the Bill. If a trade deal and negotiation end up going to court, something has already gone terribly wrong. The advantage of having this stress on public health in the Bill is to strengthen the arm of the Government to make sure that public health is not inadvertently compromised I found a recent review of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which looked at the health impact in the context of trade negotiations. Particular areas of concern related to food labelling, alcohol labelling, tobacco control and the cost of medicines. As this House knows, we have a major problem with obesity in this country. If people are to make real, sensible choices over what they are buying, they have to know that food labelling covers all aspects of food safety, including exposure to toxic pesticides, herbicides and so on, and animal husbandry methods, which have been of concern Our producers may not want that degree of labelling because it may damage their profits. I can see that in negotiating trade deals there will be, at times, a balance between profits and establishing the trade deal and holding back in some areas because of public health. The same may happen with atmospheric pollution. and so on. So while I fully accept the intention of the Government to make sure that as, in that article, public health protection and health improvement will remain unequivocal and at the centre of things, I have a lingering concern that there may be drift over time and difficulty in negotiations if we do not have this formally in the Bill.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-04-23
Topic: Other
Norman Warner (Crossbench, Unknown): Well, my Lords, if you just sit here, things work themselves out. I am grateful to the Minister for his intervention and I am extremely grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, for all the help that he has given behind the scenes and to me personally on this matter. What I have to say to the Minister is aimed not so much at him as at a few of his colleagues. They have been a bit slow in coming to the party. These legal judgments have been around for quite a long time and one would have expected DExEU to have mastered these things at an earlier stage. However, in the circumstances, and with my thanks to the Minister for showing flexibility while he was on the Bench, as well as in his interventions, we will come back to this at Third Reading. I will make sure that all the backers of the amendment have time to read everything, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-04-23
Topic: Other
David Pannick (Crossbench, Unknown): I thank the Minister for giving the assurances that I sought on each of the four points that I raised. He has been exceptionally helpful in addressing these issues under Clause 6 which have caused great concern, and Clause 6 is much improved by the government amendments. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 21.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-04-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
David Pannick (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, your Lordships’ Constitution Committee recommended at paragraph 51 of our report—HL 69—that the Bill should address the legal status of retained EU law; that is, whether it has the status of primary legislation, secondary legislation or something distinct. I am pleased that the Government have considered this matter—I am grateful to the Minister—and have produced the amendments in this group. My understanding is that they address the problem by ensuring that any domestic law which becomes retained EU law under Clause 2 continues to have the same legal status that it has at the moment: it is either primary legislation or secondary legislation In relation to retained EU law under Clauses 3 and 4, the amendments do not so much confer a legal status as address the problem by reference to the circumstances in which the retained EU law can be modified. The provisions are complex, and, I fear, necessarily so, given the inherent difficulty of the exercise.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-04-25
Topic: Mixed Topics
Ruth Deech (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am trying to clarify what the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, said. I think the issue is not "appropriate" versus "necessary" but "the Minister considers". I believe the point the noble Baroness was making is that, if something has to be "necessary", that leaves it open for a court to say whether or not it was necessary. If you say "the Minister considers it", then the issue is whether the Minister genuinely considers it.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-04-25
Topic: Civil Rights
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am very much in favour of the idea that lies behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Trees, and Amendment 41A, which the noble Baroness has just addressed us to. However, I have a technical problem with the amendment. In making this point, I wish to make it absolutely clear that I am not in any way criticising subsection (1) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 40 or the idea that lies behind it. My point is directed at proposed new subsections (4), (5) and (6), which, as I think the noble Lord hinted at, are designed to exclude judicial review as a means of holding Ministers to account. As the amendment is worded, it is for the Parliament, "exclusively in the exercise of absolute discretion, to hold", Ministers to account. I think that the word "exclusively" is there to make it clear that there is to be no other remedy except to raise the matter before Parliament I recall arguments about 15 or 20 years ago when there was a real risk that the Government of the day would put provisions into Bills excluding the possibility of judicial review. There were occasions when the judges made their position clear and they were very unpopular as a result. There was a real risk of the Government taking that measure, and I think that that risk was diminished through various representations made through the Lord Chancellor and others. Eventually it was established as a convention that the Government would not seek to exclude judicial review. They might limit it in some respects, as they have done, by the length of time that can elapse before a petition is brought, and there have been other ways in which the opportunity for judicial review has been narrowed, but they have never excluded judicial review, because it is one of the essential protections of individuals against the state We are talking here not about people but about animals, and I can quite see that there is room for some difference, but I respectfully suggest that it would set an unfortunate precedent for us to pass a measure that excluded judicial review. If that were to be picked up later by a Government in areas where individual rights were involved, I think that we would greatly regret it I am sorry to raise that technical objection. I wish that we were not on Report but in Committee, where this matter could be sorted out. However, I feel it necessary to make that point clear at this stage.
Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 (Amendments to Audit Requirements) Order 2017 — House of Lords, 2018-02-01
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Andrew Mawson (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. Although I am not sighted on the detail of the co-operative and community benefit societies order, it feels like the right direction of travel. My point is really just a general one. I spend a lot of my life in SMEs and small charities, and at the moment many of them are becoming overwhelmed by the amount of bureaucracy, red tape and other things that are appearing on their desks. My question is really one that the Minister might take back to government. Someone needs to look carefully at what is happening to these small organisations, in terms of the amount of red tape and things that are appearing on their desks, and whether we can create this direction of travel for some of them. It is just a general point and a concern I was at a small charity last weekend, with one member of staff and two part-time people working in it, which is doing a great piece of work around education in the local community. The amount of treacle and stuff they were having to deal with was immense and extraordinary. You can feel many good people, who want to do good things in their community, wondering how much longer they can have a role in these kinds of things. They become very fearful of the 92-page document that appears on their desk. It is a general point, but one that needs to go back to government.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robert Rogers (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, this amendment is in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Pannick, my noble and learned friend Lord Judge and the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. It is grouped with Amendment 355ZZA in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, which I venture to suggest has a great deal of merit Amendment 355 may appear to address a minor matter but it is an important matter of principle. The exception from the duty to publish provided by paragraph 2(1) of Schedule 5 depends on a Minister being satisfied that a relevant instrument, as defined in paragraph 1(2) of the schedule, has not become or will not become on exit day retained direct EU legislation. I entirely appreciate the argument that, in that case, there may be little point in publishing some or all of it. However, where the argument goes off course is that, while paragraph 2(2) allows a Minister to give a direction to the Queen’s printer not to publish a specified instrument or a category of instruments, paragraph 2(3) allows this to be done by mere ministerial direction The Delegated Powers Committee, of which the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and I are both members, was critical of this. At paragraph 49 of its 12th report, the committee said: "Amending the law by direction … is highly unusual. The delegated powers memorandum"— that is, the Government’s delegated powers memorandum to the committee— "justifies this on the ground that it is a ‘limited administrative power’. Even so, to allow Ministers to amend the law by a mere direction, with no associated parliamentary procedure, sets an ominous precedent. Such a direction is what Henry VIII might have called a proclamation" It does not matter that this power is proposed to be used in relatively uncontroversial circumstances and that the identification of any instrument or category of instruments may be relatively straightforward. The important point is what the Delegated Powers Committee calls an "ominous precedent". This may seem a little Cassandra-like, although I think that the Delegated Powers Committee is believed rather more often than was Cassandra with her repeated nul points, but, right on schedule, along comes the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill, which makes much use of the unwelcome concept of making law by public notice—in effect, by proclamation, with no role at all for Parliament In the referendum campaign, much was made of parliamentary sovereignty, and it has been a recurrent theme of our debates in Committee. I suggest that we should be sharply aware of procedures or processes that tend to diminish or extinguish the role of Parliament in favour of that of the Executive. I beg to move.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-28
Topic: Immigration
Nicholas Trench (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I added my name to an amendment in this group. I spoke at length to a similar amendment, my own Amendment 210, earlier in the Bill, so I will be fairly brief I fully support everything the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has said. It is important that we should understand that the loss of EU citizenship would affect British citizens resident in the UK as well as those living abroad. That is a huge number of individual citizens whom the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, avoided referring to in reply to my own amendment but who are aggrieved at that potential loss of individual citizenship. In that same reply, the noble and learned Lord said: "Let us be clear that EU citizenship is linked directly to citizenship of a member state". —[Official Report, 7/3/18; col. 1081] I do not argue with that. The court case begun in Amsterdam is to determine the nature of such linkage and whether a citizenship, once held by a citizen, cannot be taken from them against their will whatever actions are taken at the national level It is young people who will feel the loss of EU citizenship most keenly, not just the principle of European citizenship; it is young people who feel most European. Also they will feel the real practical effects of that loss, particularly if we also leave the single market. As others have pointed out, young people have found a strong voice in the group Our Future, Our Choice—one of whose founder members, incidently, was a leaver who changed his mind. We have all learned a lot since the referendum; that is something that, as a country, we should freely admit In the EU citizenship debate in the House of Commons on 7 March, the Immigration Minister, Caroline Nokes, said: "We are content to listen to proposals from the EU on associate citizenship for UK nationals".—[Official Report, Commons, 7/3/18; col. 351] So I ask the Minister: has there been any development on that front, bearing in mind that such a citizenship, according to Voelker Roeben, would not depend on revision of the founding treaties? I warmly support the amendment.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-28
Topic: Immigration
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): I have the greatest respect for the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, but my head says that this will not work and that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is absolutely right. Citizenship is defined in the treaty as being a citizen of a member state. When we cease to be a member state, we all lose our citizenship, unless we are lucky enough to live in Northern Ireland or to be born in Northern Ireland. I do not think the Greenland precedent works, on the grounds of chronology. It was not actually Greenland seeking independence, and it preceded the concept of citizenship emerging in the European Union in the Maastricht treaty.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): I am afraid it does not apply to 60 million of us. It did apply to 40,000 Greenlanders a long time ago. My concern is that we should be careful in what we ask the Government to do. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, said that this is purely a matter of political will, and that the Government could fix this if they chose to. I am afraid that this is not the case I would like to ask the Government if they could construe for us the missing paragraph 32 from the draft withdrawal agreement of 28 February. The Minister will remember the Leader of the Opposition’s question on the Statement on Monday. Paragraph 32 was in the draft of the withdrawal agreement of 28 February. It read: "In respect of United Kingdom nationals and their family members, the rights provided for by this Part shall not include further free movement to the territory of another member state" It seems to me that the Government should exercise political will here and carry on negotiating. I was encouraged to see that the paragraph had dropped out, because it limited the rights of UK citizens living in continental Europe after we leave, if we leave, to the particular country in which they live. It seemed to me that these rights ideally should be portable, so that somebody living in France could live in Italy or Spain and retain these rights. I have always thought it a little harsh of the European Union side in this negotiation to take the opposite view. I was encouraged to see that prohibition on the rights extending to residence in another member state had dropped out of the text that was looked at in the European Council I hope this means that the Government have either succeeded in killing that prohibition or, perhaps more likely, are themselves continuing the fight to try to get rid of that prohibition. It would be very useful to know. I think that leaving the European Union will be a disaster for all of us. I resent the fact that I will no longer have any rights as a citizen. But it seems to me that it is particularly awkward for those people whose legitimate expectations when they chose to live in France, Italy, Spain or wherever will be reduced. They will still be able to exercise their rights when they live in the country to which they chose to move, but they will not be able to choose to move to another country and retain these rights. I would be glad if the Minister could elucidate the answer to the Leader of the Opposition’s question on the Statement on Monday.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-28
Topic: Immigration
John Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I apologise for not being here at the start. I will say very briefly that one aspect has not come under consideration: namely, UK citizens who have their prime residence on the continent. If a UK citizen has restricted access to the country in which they have their residence and the situation arises where the spouse is not allowed to enter the UK—of which I have first-hand knowledge, as my colleague the Minister is aware—that could mean separation for many people and it will further complicate this whole arena.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
David Pannick (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support this amendment. One of the primary purposes of the Bill is to promote legal certainty: I cannot understand how it can be anything other than destructive to legal certainty for Parliament to enact a Bill that includes Clause 6, which removes the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union from exit day—defined as 29 March 2019—when the Government’s own intention, and that of the European Union, is that there should be a transitional period during which the Court of Justice will retain jurisdiction, and during which we will agree to that jurisdiction.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-28
Topic: Other
John Kerr (Crossbench, Unknown): The Minister has just been paying tribute to the delicacy of the drafting of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, whose language in this amendment copes with both eventualities. It sets out the contingency that there is a transitional agreement. I do not see the difficulty.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
David Pannick (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, this amendment is in my name and those of three other members of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee: the noble Lords, Lord Norton of Louth and Lord Beith, and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton Amendment 358C and Amendment 360A, with which it is grouped, address the powers tucked away in Schedule 8 to modify retained direct EU legislation by the use of delegated powers that relate to subordinate legislation. A power to modify is an important matter because "modify" includes a power to repeal—see Clause 14 (1) This Committee has debated on previous days the surprising omission from the Bill of any provision that identifies the legal status of retained EU law. Is it primary legislation, secondary legislation or something else? The powers in Schedule 8, in paragraphs 3(1) and 5(1), which we are now addressing, have attracted the attention of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee because those provisions treat retained EU law as analogous to secondary legislation for the purposes of powers to modify. That is a surprising position for the Bill to adopt, certainly in relation to that part of retained EU law which confers important rights: for example, in the fields of employment, the environment and consumer protection. It means that, in addition to the other powers to modify retained EU law, which the Bill will confer and which we have debated in detail—Clauses 7, 8, 9 and 17—there is yet another set of powers recognised by Schedule 8 that will give Ministers the power to modify the retained EU law, on important subjects, which is brought into domestic law My concern is not reduced by paragraph 3(1) of Schedule 8 saying that these powers can be used only, "so far as the context permits or requires", and paragraph 5(1) says that the powers may be used, "unless the contrary intention appears" These statements are opaque in the extreme and certainly do not provide any degree of legal certainty I therefore look forward to hearing from the Minister why these powers are needed at all in addition to the other extensive powers which the Bill confers, and I look forward to hearing from him what these powers say, if anything, about the legal status of retained EU law. I beg to move.
Legislative Reform Measure — House of Lords, 2018-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Ann Butler-Sloss (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am chairman of the Ecclesiastical Committee. As the right reverend Prelate has said, we have declared that this Measure is expedient, but I have to tell the House that that was after a prolonged process The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury informally told members of the Ecclesiastical Committee that he was extremely anxious to deal with obsolete and unnecessary legislation within the Church that had been running for years and years and was quite simply impeding the modernisation process. We took the extremely unusual course of inviting members of the Ecclesiastical Committee to come informally—not as the committee, because we are a statutory committee—to discuss with the members of the Church of England what they really wanted from us. They produced for us a draft that was not quite the same as the present, which was quite simply too wide. I made it very clear to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury that I could not get it through the House and nor should it get through the House. That was totally understood by the Church of England, and the lawyers took it away and tidied it up. They reduced that part, as the right reverend Prelate has explained to noble Lords, which, at the start, made it possible for the synod to change our laws that were not ecclesiastical laws, which is not of course ever what they intended. Consequently, we held some further informal meetings and the absolutely splendid secretariat of the Ecclesiastical Committee—particularly the lawyer advising and the House of Lords clerk of our very large committee—took a lot of trouble to discuss this. We were satisfied that what was required by the individual members of the committee, not sitting as a committee, was in fact found within this present draft I am extremely happy to tell the House that we took this very unusual, rather interesting step and that it turned out to be most successful. I hope that we might repeat it with other important pieces of legislation to make sure that we are all, if I may say so, singing from the same hymn book. I am very happy to say to the House that the committee at its most recent meeting, within just 10 or 15 minutes of discussion, said that this was expedient.