argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Donald Thomas (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the House of Lords is coming to a watershed. When we threw out the statutory instrument in relation to tax credits in 2015, the reaction of the Government was to wheel in the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, to set up a review. His report advised that the House of Commons should be given the power to overrule this House should it ever have the temerity to do the same thing again. Since then, the Labour Party has followed an unwavering policy of abstaining on fatal amendments to statutory instruments.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-28
Topic: Government Operations
Donald Thomas (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it is always a delight to follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who always helps us with his wisdom and experience. I join him in commending this understandable attempt by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, to strengthen the scrutiny of any regulations made by the Minister under the proposed Bill, whether in the exercise of Henry VIII powers or otherwise. While I entirely support their purpose, I cannot support the precise method that the noble Baroness puts forward. The trouble is that there is no single super-affirmative procedure; there are, as the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, pointed out, a whole host of procedures.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-28
Topic: Education
Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s comments on Amendment 25. It was a question linked to the previous group that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, did not respond to, so I am very grateful that he did The Minister talked about how "substantive change" is now defined. We are now in the realm of what the Minister said is a Pepper v Hart moment because what is said on the record at the Dispatch Box is very important, and these measures require a different outcome. The policy outcome intentions of many of these measures might remain the same, but some elements would be different. If the Minister is saying—on minimum unit pricing, for example, or on environmental or public health considerations—that if the intended outcome of the re-enacted or updated requirement remains the same, would that continue to be exempt? That is important because, in both the legislation and the Explanatory Memorandum, that is not so defined. If minimum unit pricing changes the level of the price, or if tuition fees continue but their level changes, if the policy intent is the same, the exemption will carry on—is that the correct understanding?
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-28
Topic: International Affairs
Sharon Bowles (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 37, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. However, there are several other amendments on the same theme, all highlighting important considerations that should be legitimate aims. The legitimate aims in Amendment 37 have been in use from the EU treaties, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, explained. That makes a starting point: they have been tried and tested as well as embodying the status quo, even though, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and the noble Lord, Lord Young, explained, in the EU, they apply in a wider context to mutual recognition as well.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-28
Topic: Foreign Trade
Christopher Fox (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I sometimes wonder whether the Minister sustains himself through the long periods of Committee by imagining himself throwing off the yoke of hideous EU conformity. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. How does the noble Lord explain all the examples of diversity across the four nations of the United Kingdom if there is this conformity? How can his comment that the market has worked very well for 20 years stand up, if this conformity was so bad? Indeed, the 2020 assessment by the Government of the frameworks says that they will maintain, as a minimum, equivalent flexibility for tailoring policies to the specific needs of each territory, as afforded by the current EU rules. The Government clearly recognise the flexibility in the current EU rules I commend the Minister for getting through that lengthy statement without once mentioning the words "common frameworks". There is still no explanation of how the common frameworks inform the Government’s view today of the internal market. Will he please answer that question?
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-28
Topic: Energy
Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I am grateful for how the Minister responded. I think that the last point she made was really important. The Government have been talking about restrictions on the ability of the devolved Administrations to sell, yet on the point that my noble friend Lord Fox made—that the Government for England have banned not the use but the sale of household coal—the Minister said that it would be possible to continue to provide household coal in England through a Welsh or online retailer. It is quite extraordinary that the undermining of public policy along those lines could be operated, but the Government seem to be perfectly content about that. However, the transparency on that, at least, has been helpful.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-28
Topic: Education
Michael German (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for raising this issue. It is of significance, and the Government will need to make some clear statements in order to avoid a very large flaring up of problems as a result of this matter Professional teacher registration is a devolved matter. The General Teaching Council for Scotland was established in 1965 and has ownership of the standards for teachers seeking registration and employment as a teacher in Scotland. The Education Workforce Council for Wales, Cyngor y Gweithlu Addysg, was established by the Education (Wales) Act 2014 to register schoolteachers who wish to work in schools in Wales. Teachers in Wales have to have qualified teacher status and be registered with the body in order to work in the profession. In England, since the introduction of the Teaching Regulation Agency, there is no longer a register of teachers Access to the teaching profession differs greatly between England, Wales and Scotland—and there are different qualification entry levels. The General Teaching Council for Scotland has an auto-recognition process for UK teachers who possess adequate qualifications for registration in Scotland. However, that does not mean that all teachers who teach in England or Wales can teach in Scotland. As such, teachers in Scotland should hold a qualification that is the equivalent of Scottish qualifications to enter the teaching profession in Scotland Teachers moving to Wales have to have equivalent standards. FE teachers, who are recognised by the National College for Teaching and Leadership in England and who are qualified to teach in England, are not recognised in Wales, and that means that they cannot be registered. Both Wales and Scotland have set different qualification levels to be able to work in the teaching profession There is an additional factor in Wales because of the bilingual nature of our education system. I know that noble Lords are aware that the Welsh language has equality status, and teachers have to be able to manage aspects of the school curriculum where they intersect with that language requirement. That does not mean that they have to speak Welsh, but they have to be able to manage aspects of the curriculum in English-medium schools Any flattening of qualification requirements would have a detrimental impact on the education provided in schools in Wales and Scotland and would dilute the standards that each country has set. I cannot think of any pressure to change these structures that has an impact on the internal market. The teaching profession should be excluded from this Bill as a result.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-28
Topic: Education
Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I wish to obtain absolute clarity from the Minister on the exemption in Schedule 2 with regard to: "Services provided by a person exercising functions of a public nature"— that is, a public body. That may apply to Wales but the General Teaching Council for Scotland is a charity as well as a regulatory body. The Minister outlined what it would be able to do to change, if challenged, those seeking to be registered in Scotland under the English criteria but who do not meet the Scottish criteria. The fear is that because the council is a charity—it is the oldest regulatory body for teachers in the world—it would be forced to accept teachers of a different standard than the English standard, which I automatically assumed would be a lesser standard. Will the Minister clarify that charities, such as regulatory bodies like the GTCS, are included in Schedule 2? She said it applied just to public bodies.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-28
Topic: Education
Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will be brief because of the hour. It would be churlish not to welcome amendments that have the purpose of clarification within this legislation. I just say to the Minister, "Don’t stop here. Keep them coming". We will certainly welcome further government amendments to add more clarification to the legislation I am glad the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, mentioned the point about languages, as an example of something that the Minister did not respond to in the previous group. If certain elements are set down as part of the regulatory requirement—such as language capability, for example, or other characteristics that would have been permitted under the current legitimate aims but are not allowed under the new legitimate aims—what is the status of those? Would that be considered as putting providers at a disadvantage under Clause 20(2)(b) My second point was that, under Clause (20)(2)(c), the regulatory requirement has no effect. I note that I do not think there has been a sufficient answer to the question in an earlier group about what "no effect" actually means when it comes to a regulatory requirement. It has no effect if it has "an adverse market effect". I wonder if the Minister could outline in clear terms what the test for that adverse market effect would be. Where and how would it be judged, and who would judge it? What would the test for that be, given that, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and my noble friend Lord fox said, this is likely to be tested in court because of the lack of clarity My final point is this. Given that service providers for higher education are not considered to be public bodies—and this was not answered in the previous group—and higher education is not considered to be within a legitimate aim, if a higher education provider outside Scotland were seeking to deliver services, the higher education system within Scotland would not be able to restrict it on the basis of the indirect discrimination element. If the Minister could state whether that would be the case, I would be grateful.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-28
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Fox (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, Amendment 102A is a probing amendment to probe the legal basis for the introduction of the provisions in this part and whether they are covered by existing law It is a human trait to disregard history that happened before we were born. Most of what we have been describing as previous law and previous regulation has centred on EU law and devolution settlements. However, in their Command Paper, the Government hark back much further than that to the 1700s and the Act of Union. In their July paper, the Government stated that "the Internal Market has been enshrined in British law for over three centuries" on the basis of the Acts of Union. I will spare noble Lords the lengthy history lesson, but within this document it says: "For centuries, the UK Internal Market has been the bedrock of our shared prosperity ever since 1707 when the Acts of Union formally united England and Wales with Scotland." The reason we were talking about the General Teaching Council for Scotland regulating Scottish teachers was because that Act of Union specifically carved out education as a Scottish prerogative. That particular activity of regulating Scottish teachers is a direct result of the Act of Union. It has nothing to do with devolution and nothing to do with the European Union Quite simply, I am asking for clarification: where does the Act of Union sit within this scheme of things? And where does previous law, made as a result of that Act of Union over the centuries that have followed, but before all these other bits of history we have been talking about, sit? It is not a philosophical question; it is real, because the example I have just given is real. I am sure there are many others for clever people to uncover Therefore, I would like to have some sense of the Government’s position, which appears somewhat ambivalent towards the Act of Union. They mention it in the Command Paper but, in a sense, disregard it thereafter. With that in mind, I beg to move Amendment 102A.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-28
Topic: Education
Michael German (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I happen to have spent 10 years of my life working on the mutual recognition of qualifications in Europe. I left that role and, 20 years after that, it was applied to about only four or five professions across Europe. Trying to understand where people are able to employ the appropriate skills, knowledge, understanding and practice in another surrounding is an amazingly complex area. That surrounding might have a different framework of regulation and perhaps a different framework of operation The intention to have mutual recognition of qualifications is fine, but the timing for putting it in place is not fine, because the Government want it to happen very rapidly. It seems to me that the most sensible way of doing this would be to try to work through the professions in relation to their activities, trying to make sure that, where there are barriers, those are reduced, or where there are barriers that are appropriate, they are not legislated for by accident in advance The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has already talked about the Welsh language. There is a very interesting debate to be had about professions that can or cannot operate through the medium of Welsh. It depends on the services being provided and on the context of where those services are provided. A profession operating in a context that is different in different parts of the United Kingdom will have different requirements because of the geography, culture or operation of the services that are to be provided. Therefore, my request to the Government is that they step back a little, take some time, concentrate on trying to fix the things that they can fix and, for goodness’ sake, allow this thing to mature properly before going in with legislation that will be doomed to failure in the end.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-28
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Fox (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the noble Baroness for her answer. I heard the answer she gave two groups ago, which is why I did not repeat the question; I actually asked a different question, about the status of the Act of Union. It was not I who brought it up, but the Government in their Command Paper. It having been brought up, it would be quite helpful to understand how the Government see it fitting into all this. It is a perfectly reasonable question and I hope that, perhaps in writing, I could have a perfectly reasonable answer The market the noble Baroness described in the Government’s eyes appears to need fixing. What is broken in professional services that this Bill is seeking to mend? If this Government had a reputation for overwhelming competence, and an ability to really get hold of things and make them better, perhaps I might understand what it is about. There are many things that this Government could focus their laser attention on; mending something that is not broken is not one of them. That said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Covid-19: Economy Update — House of Lords, 2020-10-27
Topic: Macroeconomics
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this feels like déjà vu. Once again, the Government are forced to revise and increase their support for businesses. We need them to give up their bravado and recognise the depth of the economic crisis coming both from Covid and from the harmful economic realities of Brexit, undercutting investment and jobs, even with a deal. Frankly, we desperately need a new OBR forecast, even if without a Budget. While I understand the Government choosing just a one-year spending review, we should be getting open kimono on the long-term issues and choices for discussion in this House and elsewhere. This is not the time for secret spells cooked up in No.10. The situation that we face is far more dire and needs the resources of everybody’s minds and energy I want to make two pleas to the Government. First, feed the kids. I know that we have just taken a PNQ on that subject but the money provided to local government under the local authority welfare assistance fund and others was never intended to cope with the present scale of demand, when much of the country is necessarily closed down again, many people are facing redundancy at the end of the month in just a few days’ time, homelessness is rising, and mental health and other demands on local services are increasing exponentially. Many Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative councils have stepped in to provide food vouchers to children on free school meals, but that is at the price of financing other needs. Families who qualify for free school meals have by now exhausted any savings, borrowed anything that a respectable lender will let them have and tapped out family and friends. Please will the Government put in place a voucher system to at least carry us over to next Easter Secondly, will the Government finally step in to help the 3 million excluded people? They consist primarily of self-employed contractors with personal service companies but also include a range of other people in the self-employed arena. There has, by now, been plenty of time to set up appropriate schemes. The Government argued from the beginning that the issue was complicated, but there has been time to sort it out. As the Resolution Foundation pointed out, and as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, described, the SEISS has been badly targeted. The self-employed have suffered an even bigger market shock than employees, and with so many people facing redundancy and needing to look to self-employment for any future income, it is absolutely crucial that proper support is put in place for the self-employed, under whatever arrangements they have established.
Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-27
Topic: Labor
Dominic Hubbard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this is nothing more than a probing amendment to clarify the Government’s thinking. There is a commitment that the Government will uprate pensions and other benefits in line with practice. However, the economic situation may not trigger that increase via the triple lock and so we do not know what will happen. Without it being stated that that will automatically be in place through the triple lock, we do not know quite what the Government’s intentions are for this year. And what happens next year? What is going on? Some information on the Government’s ongoing intentions would help here. In the middle of the coronavirus crisis, we sometimes forget that there will probably be a world afterwards. I am not sure whether this is being glass-half-full on this occasion, but are we committed to the triple-lock or something like it? We should look at this issue, or at least pay half an eye to it, because of generational fairness, which is the idea floating at the back of this debate. This Government, and others, I hope, must ask: are we going to continue to make sure that the basic pension is enough to live on and will be a little more than it is now in the future? That might encourage people to buy in I look forward to the Minister’s reply and thank her for pointing out before I rose to my feet, with her devastating and scything charm, the slight change to my explanatory statement, in which I originally got the wrong year. I seek the Government’s thinking on this. It is an opportunity for the Minister to provide clarity on the process that will apply if the economic situation does not respond in line with the legislation. I beg to move.
Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-27
Topic: Labor
Barbara Janke (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I too welcome the amendment of my noble friend Lord Addington. We are all interested to hear the Government’s thinking, particularly on the future of the triple lock. I am sure that we all welcome their commitment to the undertakings in their manifesto and are pleased to see the Bill. However, in recent months, a lot of doubt have been shared regarding the triple lock’s future. Some people have said to me that there seems to be an almost systematic picking at the seams of the triple lock. With the Chancellor under pressure due to the economic implications of the pandemic, we would like some reassurance from the Minister that the Government are committed to ensuring that the pension keeps its value. The state pension is particularly important to give the poorest pensioners confidence. Everyone is suffering under the pandemic but there is no doubt that the poorest are suffering worst. We would like to know the Government’s thinking for the future. Will there be a commitment in the Bill to keep the 2.5%, as well as transparency and clarity to reassure those pensioners who are particularly dependent on the state pension? I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Dominic Hubbard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the Minister for her reply. I take it that the intention is to continue as we are for the moment. We will hold the Government to this. It is also quite clear from this short debate that changes to benefits should be brought in at the same time, as they work together under the current system. It might have been a little optimistic to expect some sort of long-term vision from the Minister in this House at this point, but we must bear this in mind in our discussions. We have not really covered the generational fairness point. Unless we get young people to buy in because they think they have something to look forward to, there will be trouble. The stroppy youth of today is the deciding voter in a few years’ time. I hope that we can draw more of this out in the debate on this Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.