argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Women’s Rights to Reproductive Healthcare: United States — House of Lords, 2022-06-28
Topic: Civil Rights
Nuala O'Loan (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, does the Minister not agree that it would be both illogical and embarrassing for the United Kingdom to make representations to the US on this issue? The US Supreme Court has simply returned the issue of the provision of abortion services to each state, leaving the decision in the hands of the democratically elected representatives of the people of each state. Is the Minister aware that there is no human right to abortion under either the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the European Convention on Human Rights, despite the regular but erroneous assertions that such a right exists? Is he also aware that the unborn child’s right to life is protected under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which we are a signatory?
Slavery and Human Trafficking (Definition of Victim) Regulations 2022 — House of Lords, 2022-07-20
Topic: Other
Ann Butler-Sloss (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am not at all sure that I am allowed to speak, and I seek the approval of the House. The reason that I arrived late was that I was having an MRI scan for a bad back. Am I too late to speak?
Human Rights Act 1998 — House of Lords, 2022-07-14
Topic: Other
Alexander Carlile (Crossbench, Unknown): Would the noble and learned Lord be kind enough to help Members of your Lordships’ House, Members of another place and, above all, the public by informing the remaining candidates for leadership of the Conservative Party of what he has just said so that they get it right during the TV debates that will start tomorrow?
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-07-12
Topic: Civil Rights
Molly Christine Meacher (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the Liberal Democrat Benches for their support. I am aware that the Labour Party is having a free vote on this amendment—out of respect for its Catholic members, perhaps. I very much thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham for his comments and for noting the fact that our only differences are those of timing. Bearing in mind the amount of time that legislation takes, if we miss this opportunity in the Bill, it will be many years before we have another one to recognise that schools that do not teach religion and worldviews are breaching human rights. We have legal cases that make this very clear and we have the example of Wales, which has put things right. I feel obliged to test the opinion of the House.
Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2022 — House of Lords, 2022-07-05
Topic: Mixed Topics
David Brownrigg Craig (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support this continuation order, but I shall refer to two points that I raised during the passage of the Act last year. It was agreed that the first would be dealt with in later work. It was whether having due regard for veterans’ treatment under the military covenant should not be restricted to issues dealt with by subordinate authorities and whether there were some which it would be necessary to grip at central government level. The Government undertook to report after due consideration taking place later this year and next. Can the Minister confirm that this is still the position? Does she have anything to add to it The second issue concerns the treatment of Hong Kong Military Service Corps veterans who did not retain their British passports as had some of their number in 1997. I raised this in the debate on the then Armed Forces Bill. The MoD passed it to the Home Office for further consideration. I raised it again in the debates on the then Nationality and Borders Bill earlier this year, which led to a commitment from the Dispatch Box that the Government would resolve this long-standing issue by the end of this calendar year with a further undertaking to report on progress in June. June has been and gone, and I have yet to have a response to my Question for Written Answer seeking information on progress. As this concerns veterans, I hope that the MoD will continue to take an active interest in the outcome which veterans have long sought.
UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-07-04
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Richard Gilbey (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, briefly, I support Amendment 20 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas. It is self-evident that the bank’s board should have the experience and skills that the noble and learned Lord proposes in his amendment, rather than just being Treasury placemen. The success or failure of the bank in achieving its objectives will depend entirely on the experience of the people running it, so I urge the Minister to accept this very common-sense amendment.
UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-07-04
Topic: Other
Roger Thomas (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I listened very carefully to what the Minister said but, in view of the great constitutional importance of ensuring that we put this into Bills and my wish to put down a marker on this point for the future, I would like to test the opinion of the House.
UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-07-04
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Richard Gilbey (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendments 30 and 32. I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes, Lady Kramer and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for their support. In fact, I think I may have achieved a world first in getting the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes and Lady Bennett, to sign the same amendments. I hope, therefore that the Minister might take note of this extraordinary event and take the amendments seriously First, I thank the Minister for her amendments in this group, and for listening to and acting on the concerns that were raised by noble Lords as the Bill has proceeded. Her amendments are very welcome, especially those that deal with the issue that was previously raised about the Treasury marking its own homework. Having an independent person carry out the review is an important step. I also welcome the reduction of the period before the first review from 10 years to seven years. I think everyone agreed that 10 years was way too long, but even after that change, there will still be a review only every seven years, which I still think is too long. Amendments 30 and 32 would reduce this to every five years The argument in favour of the longer period seems to be that infrastructure investment is long-term, which it is, and therefore it will take a longer period before the success of the bank can be evaluated. I think this rather misses the point. Although it is true that the success of a particular investment may take more than seven years—indeed, it might be 20 or 30—to become clear, the review should be covering how effectively the bank has performed in making investments. Is it making enough investments, are they appropriate, are they in the appropriate parts of the country and, importantly, do they meet the additionality principle and, as we discussed earlier, the crowding-out problem? We do not need to wait until the investments themselves reach maturity to be able to see how well or badly the bank is performing in making investments.
CHOGM, G7 and NATO Summits — House of Lords, 2022-07-04
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I think I heard the Leader of the House refer to agricultural investment; as a consequence of the war in Ukraine and the difficulties we all now face, it is right to consider this with a global approach. Moving on, recognising Togo and Gabon as aspirant members of the Commonwealth should, I hope, send a very convincing message to all our friends in La Francophonie that we in the Commonwealth would welcome an in-depth discussion with them. La Francophonie has tremendous opportunity for the UK. On that point—the Leader of the House may not be aware of this—was any attention paid to the situation with regard to Cameroon, which is exercising the minds of many?
Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-29
Topic: Housing
John Lytton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I cannot follow the amusement factor of the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey. As this is my first contribution on the Bill, due to force of circumstances, not least because on our first day in Committee I could not attend due to disruption on the rail system, I declare my interest as a chartered surveyor—still practising, just—with about 47 years’ experience in the public and private sectors. I hope that I can bring some of that to the debate As I understood it, in addition to being able to attach things to existing telephone poles, Amendment 18 would provide a right to create new overhead facilities of one sort or another. As a person who, from time to time, has occupied heritage property, I have a particular aversion to overheard telephone lines and to generations of cables being stuck to the outside of buildings—new ones are added but nobody ever removes the old ones. That is the first point that I would question The second point goes beyond this amendment but begins to address some of the points mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, on the use of existing facilities. These might be underground ducts. There is a bit of a problem when you get to blocks of flats, because there is a cut-off point at which the rights of, for instance, BT or Openreach end, at which point the wayleave or easement does not pertain. When you get into blocks of flats, there are other criteria. There are many instances of cables being run up, willy-nilly, through communal service risers, with firestopping material being removed and not put back correctly, and so on. No building manager in a block of flats will willingly allow someone from Openreach, who comes with a quite different set of instructions for what they are doing, to just get in there, willy-nilly, as of right. There must be safeguards somewhere along the line Further explanation is needed on other things. On numerous occasions I have come across situations where overhead cables have been put underground, perhaps because they were in the way or because it was convenient for visual or other reasons. But you then find that there is no easement or wayleave in relation to the underground bit—the easement or wayleave stops at the last pole, where it goes into the ground. That has certain disadvantages because every time somebody from Openreach wants to do some reconnection or give somebody a better service, they have no drawings of the underground system. I am told that this is an issue where new developments take place and the roads and common areas do not get adopted; they are retained not by the developer but are passed on to some management entity. We have all heard of the fleecehold, where the maintenance of that common realm is then jacked up and recharged through a rent charge I absolutely take the point that is being made, but if I am correct a raft of other issues needs to be resolved, including powers to take possession and use of things that are not currently within the existing wayleave horizon. I just flag up the difficulties associated with that.
Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-29
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Lytton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, in moving this amendment I will also speak to the other amendments in my name in this group. I must first admit that I am a landowner, although I have not had any telecoms masts since 2017, when I sold a farm not very far from an area known to the noble Earl, Lord Devon—the uplands of Exmoor—on which I had three masts. One was a conventional commercial telecoms mast, one was an Airwave emergency services mast and the other was a community Airband mast under construction. I see this across the spectrum of what is necessary, what delivers something to the community—and to me—and is therefore of value and part of the incentive, and what fundamentally does none of the above The one that did none of the above was the commercial operator. I was encouraged to give consent on a piece of land because it had trees on it; an upland area was needed and the national park did not want the mast stuck in the middle of a piece of open moorland. That was fair enough, as the idea was that this would improve mobile communications in the area. It did nothing of the sort. Having set off with hope in one’s heart that that would happen, it was something of a delusion. Indeed, I used to have to walk up to the middle of a 30-acre field to pick up mobile phone signal from a different network—probably from south Wales on the other side of the Bristol Channel I thank a number of noble Lords from across the House who have been very helpful in formulating my views, as well as a number of external consultants whom I have spoken to. I thank the Protect and Connect campaign for its input and Jeremy Moody of the CAAV, which has already been mentioned, for his invaluable assistance. I also acknowledge the efforts and briefings of Speed Up Britain, although I do not agree with its explanations relating to site value or on matters of fairness and balance. I also ought to say that I am an ordinary subscribing member of the CLA, although I have not communicated with it directly on this Bill. So much for the declarations of interest and so forth For all the training and experience one has as a valuer—I am a registered valuer with the RICS—it is acknowledged to be an art, not a science. It is based on many constructs, including market sentiment, risk and a host of other internal and external factors, from which the valuer is seeking to interpret an end-result. They are interpreting what the market is doing and trying to codify and make sense of what is happening in what are sometimes quite random situations.
Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-29
Topic: Housing
John Lytton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have a group of amendments here, all of them covering very technical bits and pieces and, rather than trying to deal with one at a time, disaggregate them and give an individual explanation for each, I felt it would be helpful for the Committee if I put them in context and dealt with in this way. I assure the noble Baroness that I shall be as speedy as I can, but I crave the Committee’s indulgence in that respect, and I should like to continue with what will be my principal contribution on the Bill I was talking about the question of fair value and had got to Amendment 24. This amendment would ensure that, where a site agreement is first renewed using part 5 of the code, the courts are unable to impose a rent reduction of more than 40% on the rents that fall under the existing consideration. This would ensure that the Government’s original expectation that rates would fall by no more than a maximum of 40% was delivered by legislation, and would prevent what I described to the Minister as the cliff edge that has occurred in the arrangements. Subsequent renewals under the code would then be made on a no-network valuation. It would also enable consideration of the effects of the policy on rollout and upgrade of sites and whether the objectives were being met. Amendment 25 would require the Secretary of State to publish guidelines on the level of factors influencing the expected value of the imposed considerations. This would ensure some clarity about the Government’s expected policy. Amendment 26 would phase in the application of a newly fixed rental consideration imposed by the courts. The intention would be for the new consideration to become payable only, if it was a reduction, after 24 months from the date of the court order. Prior to that point, the operator would continue to pay the previous rent. Amendment 27 is similar to Amendment 26. This amendment would create a tiered phase-in period for the application of a new consideration imposed by the court The amendments fall under two options. The first tries, as far as possible, to remedy the effects that have occurred under the 2017 code. The second lot gives a sort of halfway house to build in what the Government say they are trying to do but, at the same time, ameliorate the effects with the same long-term result. I apologise for dealing with this at length. I beg to move.
Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-29
Topic: Housing
Charles Courtenay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support the amendments from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and much appreciate his extensive exposition of them. I have also put my name to the stand part notices from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, for meeting me and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, since Second Reading. I note from that discussion that DCMS was largely unaware of the impact of the 2017 amendments on the negotiation of lease renewals. I wonder whether that is, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, indicated, because no consultation was undertaken on them. It really is important for such considerable and important amendments to be consulted on I also noted earlier, in response to Amendment 18, as proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, resisted it on the basis that he wanted to ensure sufficient protection for those with poles on their land. If this were the Government’s justification for resisting Amendment 18, why do they not have the same concern of providing sufficient protection for those with masts on their land, which are so considerably more impactful and damaging? Can the Government explain why they refused to consult on this?
Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-29
Topic: Mixed Topics
Charles Courtenay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I rise briefly to support the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, once more, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I note in response to the Minister on the last group of amendments that I am not parroting the words of lobby groups; I am reporting personal experience to your Lordships, and that of people personally known to me. I am not a mouthpiece of some body On the prevalence of litigation, the Minister pointed out in his last summation that it may be for the courts to provide definition. The Supreme Court ruled on three separate cases last week; clearly, there is far too much of this renewal debate going on in the courts system—that is coming from a litigator. The Supreme Court should not be ruling on three cases in one go. It should be possible to handle this in the marketplace, as the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said. It is indicative of a broken system I reiterate in the context of this further valuation group a question I posed before that has not yet had an answer. Given that landowners have such a plethora of tradeable ecosystem services to provide from their landscape, why on earth would they commit these days to a telecoms lease, with all the nefarious impacts of these amendments—the access rights that have been given and the heavy burden of renewal requirements—when they have so many other options to consider? I would like an answer to that point.
Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-29
Topic: Housing
John Lytton (Crossbench, Unknown): There have been instances where contracts of all sorts have been interfered with by government—for example, the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. There have been instances where rent control came in, nearly always for social reasons. I always like to compare the Rent Acts and rent control and security of tenure, which caused the collapse of the private rented sector for about 25 years, and the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, where the contracts were largely left in place and statutorily continued, but at a market rent and the market was not interfered with. By and large, it worked and investment continued. Contrast and compare those two situations.
Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-29
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Lytton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have an amendment in this group but I will also briefly voice my support for the other amendments to which my name has been added. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, referred to ADR. As I see it, ADR is highly desirable but easily avoidable in the commercial world of disputes. I believe that the application of ADR under the code as it stands is asymmetric in its treatment of site providers as against operators, which is entirely regrettable. Therefore, there ought to be mandatory ADR, and the avoidance of ADR in litigation generally is sufficiently common to make it clear that that needs to be dealt with I very much support the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. She referred to lack of confidence, which goes back to a key theme here. I agree, although I would use the term "overt mistrust" as being much nearer the mark to describe what is happening here I have put my name to Amendments 39, 40 and 41. The concern here is that Ofcom is a weak regulator in this field and the entire environment of regulation is not consonant with the changed balance between site providers and operators. That needs to be tightened up My Amendment 42A is a "see no evil" removal clause. The idea behind it is to mandate: the operator collating and reporting complaints and actions taken in consequence to Ofcom; that Ofcom has to consider this and have regard to it when dealing with its other functions as regards the operator; and that Ofcom must then publicise annually the outcome of that process. The purpose of this is to demystify this whole question of whether there are complaints and, if so, how many, where they come from and who is to blame for what. Let us get the facts. Let Ofcom, which is supposed to be regulating the sector, deal with the matter. It is one thing that would aid transparency. It was put to me that it might stir Ofcom out of its lethargy; I would not quite use those words myself but the sentiment would probably be well understood across the House. We need tough regulators to deal with quite a difficult emerging situation.
Healthy Homes Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-07-15
Topic: Other
Edmund Crisp (Crossbench, Unknown): I am delighted to know that many noble Lords think that is a good idea. We will not forget this Bill even if we do not achieve a Committee in the House of Lords on it. Once again, I am extremely grateful to everyone for their support.
Building Safety — House of Lords, 2021-02-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Ilora Gillian Finlay (Crossbench, Unknown): To "make the industry pay for its faults of the past", how will the Government recoup the full cost from those resistant to undertaking remedial work before they close their companies? Are those who deliberately concealed evidence of the flammability of ACM panels to be subject to corporate manslaughter investigations?
Building Safety — House of Lords, 2021-02-22
Topic: Housing
Richard Best (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, following the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, I understand that housing associations can apply for support from the extra £3.5 billion of additional funding for the rectification of these appalling building defects in high-rise blocks, but that help will be available only for flats sold to leaseholders for defects in housing association flats that are retained for letting. All the costs will fall on the housing association itself, requiring the diversion of funds intended for other purposes, particularly building new homes. Can the Minister give an estimate of how many new, desperately-needed social rented homes will be lost because of this?