argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
High Speed 2 (Economic Affairs Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2020-01-23
Topic: Transportation
John Stephen Monks (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, as a former member of the Economic Affairs Committee, I continue to appreciate its work. It has been a forensic and challenging commentator on HS2 in recent years. This report, like its predecessor, shines a pretty sharp light on the many questions that continue to dog the HS2 project. To emphasise the point that the chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, made, it does not call for the abolition of the project; it calls for a reassessment of certain aspects of it. That is an important distinction that may have got lost in some of the debate recently From my point of view, we are where we are. HS2 has started: the first phase is under way and 9,000 jobs are supported by the project. Early works are under way at the London terminals and elsewhere on the HS2 line to Birmingham. Billions have been spent and more are committed, so to scrap it now, as many are arguing, would represent a failure of epic proportions. This is not a white-elephant project, as some have suggested; it is not Concorde, or something relevant to only a tiny proportion of the population. This is a great north-south railway that could last 100 years or more, just as the Victorian railway network has done, and be a great national asset. To look just at what the project is costing now without looking at its lifespan seems very foolish It is not an alternative to investment in northern and Midland rail links. We have heard some interesting remarks about their limitations. As a Mancunian, I am only too well aware of the bottleneck at the Oxford Road/Piccadilly station. But, as the four metropolitan mayors said in the Sunday Times last week: "Modern railways such as HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail are the single biggest means to transform jobs and opportunities for people in the Midlands and the north." The danger is that the reviews and debates will go on and on, and that the political will is going to fade, which in time will lead to the cancellation of the project. That is a real danger as we undertake this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, is right in one respect: he senses that the political wind may be blowing his way at present Can we do major infrastructure projects in this country or can we not? HS2 is a test of whether we can—and, like the committee, I am very concerned about spiralling costs. I can well understand that this is eating into public support for the project.
High Speed 2 (Economic Affairs Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2020-01-23
Topic: Transportation
John Stephen Monks (Labour, Centre-left): That is where we disagree. We are all against nonsenses, by the way—on that we agree—but a railway open to all, going from the north of England to the south, seems to me anything but nonsense. It is a great national asset and I would have thought that the noble Lord would recognise that. When we look at costs, I know that France is a larger and less populous country than us, with less opposition. But the advocates of HS2 have a real question to answer: why can France do these things so much more cheaply than we can? One thing I wonder about is the labour market that surrounds these projects. It is populated by armies of consultants and self-employed workers. The main contractors have very few directly employed people working for them for years, in a loyal and determined way. It seems that when we undertake these kinds of projects, it is well worth looking at the labour force and how it is organised I want to emphasise, however, that people in the northern sections should not be treated as second-class citizens. If there is an idea, as is rumoured in the current review, that we will get away with a cheaper, mixed, existing mainline hybrid scheme north of Birmingham, that would be very much resented in the northern parts of this country. They would feel it very strongly As I mentioned, the UK’s record on large-scale infrastructure management is not good. The Olympics were a conspicuous exception; on the other hand, Crossrail is a nightmarish example of the kind of problems that we have. But if we do not attempt these things, and if we do not seek to improve and learn from the way others do them, we will never do better—and we will not do better by cancellation or dithering or perpetual review. We must get away from that It is important to emphasise to those who have raised environmental concerns that the new line would be, on balance, a great environmental advantage over the years. I know that there are problems with the route and woodlands, but taking things off the roads and away from the air seems to me to be important. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has reminded us previously that HS2 would free up the existing lines to run more local and freight services. The Government have made many promises to the north about fresh infrastructure investment. If HS2 is collapsed, who in the north or Midlands is going to believe any of these promises? The Government need to keep their word, hold their nerve and complete HS2—all of it—as soon as possible.
Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-02-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, there is a remarkable similarity between the discussions on this amendment and the discussions we have had over the years on self-driving, autonomous cars. The only difference is that this is three-dimensional and the other one is generally two. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, both gave examples of a question I have long had. The noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, mentioned two drones meeting over a pipeline or something, but the problem remains: how does a constable identify the person who is in control, or whatever? He is sitting in his car with his machine—or however he is going to do it—but how will he identify that? He cannot really arrest either the drone or the person unless he can identify them first. I hope that the noble Baroness will be able to explain this rather simple bit of logic which has escaped me so far.
Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-02-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, has made an interesting comparison between drug and tobacco smuggling and the action of a drone. The difference is that a drone can do monumental damage, if a rogue operator gets in the way and starts doing things that they should not be doing. I saw an instance of drug smuggling in the Isles of Scilly a few years ago; not only was the boat being used to smuggle confiscated, but the man who was single-handedly bringing these drugs into the country was so frightened of being caught that, when the yacht was tied up in St Mary’s harbour, he decided that the best way to get away was to climb the mast. He fell to his death on the quay, which was very sad. He was desperate not to get caught, but the boat would have been confiscated, and I cannot see why a drone cannot be confiscated My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours gave some wonderful examples of the numbers involved. The drones should obviously be confiscated, and anyone who wants to get their equipment back should have to apply to a magistrate. The amendment seems very reasonable to me.
Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-02-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): I am pleased that the noble Baroness will write a letter. It might be a long one, but that is good. In this debate we have swung between saying, "Most people are just doing it in the garden. They might have the drone under their bed. If they go up, they do not fly hard, it is not going high and it won’t hurt anyone much," to the other extreme when it could bring down an aeroplane or worse. My noble friend and others commented on the number of drones that may be flying and wondered how many will be flying illegally—in other words, without notification, without a licence or whatever. The question of proportionality is therefore quite serious; for some offences confiscation may be too strong a penalty and for others nothing like enough. In her letter, will the Minister give us some idea of how many constables or whatever we are to call them—the enforcement agency—will be trained to do this work and how many offences might they have to follow up each year? I have not a clue. You can think of every policeman in the country being able to do this—which is stupid—or of it all being done centrally. However, it would be good to have some idea of how enforcement might take place so that people like me, who have no great experience of this, can compare it to what happens on the roads or anywhere else. I will be glad to hear the Minister’s comments.
Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-02-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for her response to the amendments on which I and others have spoken. I will of course withdraw my amendment, but am not entirely convinced on her point about police resources. I asked some fairly specific questions about the percentage of police officers who would be required to have the training; I still do not know whether it is envisaged that all police officers will have this knowledge or whether it will be a much smaller grouping. I also asked about the tactical advisers; I suspect on that one it will be a case of waiting to see what happens—whether the Government’s view of the extent to which it will involve an additional responsibility or duty on the police materialises or whether it will prove somewhat greater than the Government anticipated. But for now I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-02-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): I have written down an item about Schedule 10 and I will speak in particular to paragraph 6 of Schedule 10, which allows for supplementary provision to be made by regulations with respect to fixed penalty notices, including to the extent of amending or repealing provisions by an Act of Parliament. Paragraph 6(1)(b) of Schedule 10 also states that the Secretary of State may by regulations make "provision about the consequences of providing false statements in connection with fixed penalty notices, including provision creating criminal offences." In their memorandum to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, the Government’s justification for this power to create criminal offences through regulations, which cannot be subject to amendment, appears to be at least in part that there is a precedent in Section 54 of the Space Industry Act 2018. That Act was in essence a skeleton Act, which the Government told us was needed on the statute book before it could be properly fleshed out—hence so much being left to subsequent regulations—to provide assurance or comfort to the emerging UK space industry that the Government were prepared to give it the legislative backing and certainty it required. I suggest that the same consideration hardly applies here in relation to fixed penalty notices and the creation of criminal offences The Government say that the powers in paragraph 6(1)(b) to create criminal offences are needed to ensure that provision can be made for the consequences of providing full statements in connection with fixed penalty notices. But what kind of criminal offences are we talking about which are apparently so unique that the Government cannot formulate them now and put them in the Bill? Alternatively, since the Government refer only to the "possibility of creating criminal offences in relation to false statements," why not first determine what those new criminal offences are that need creating and then include them in the next suitable Bill, where they can be fully debated and amended The Government clearly regard this Henry VIII power to be of some significance, since they state in their memorandum to the DPRR Committee that "the regulations may create criminal offences and make provision about the process around appeals, and there is therefore the potential for significant impact to the public, police and judicial system." However, despite that potential for significant impact, the Government think it appropriate to use Henry VIII powers and regulations rather than primary legislation, which is invariably more fully debated and which, unlike regulations, can be amended. So can the Government give a somewhat fuller explanation of why having the powers to which I have referred in Schedule 10 is so crucial and, in their view, unavoidable, as opposed to them being powers, frankly, of administrative convenience to the Government?
Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-02-12
Topic: Transportation
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I only wish that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, had been here during earlier proceedings on the Bill because we dealt with the issues that he referred to I wonder whether Ministers have considered the 22nd report of the Commons Select Committee, entitled Commercial and Recreational Drone Use in the UK, and its recommendation. I want to read that recommendation out because it is at the heart of the amendment moved by the noble Baroness from the Liberal Democrat Benches. The committee said that they are "concerned that there are differing accounts within the aviation community about the likely severity of damage of a drone collision with an airplane. Furthermore, there are differing accounts of the number of near misses and the reliability of airprox reports has been disputed. The Committee is concerned that there is no agreed position on the likely consequences of a drone-airplane impact. The Government should complete a substantive risk assessment"— exactly what the noble Baroness said— "by the end of 2020." That is the end of this year. The report went on: "If it is not possible to publish the result of this assessment due to security concerns, the Government must provide this Committee with evidential assurances that this work has been done." Well, it has not been done. The Select Committee recommendation has been ignored To go back further in the committee’s evidence, the CAA said that "It is considered unlikely that a small drone would cause significant damage to a modern turbo-fan jet engine" I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, will be interested in what the report then states because he was a BALPA airline pilot, if I recall correctly: "Captain Tim Pottage, representing BALPA, voiced caution about the CAA’s position. Captain Pottage said that he was … ‘Concerned that the CAA had that view. There has been no testing of a drone against a large commercial high bypass jet engine—none at all. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it would cause a catastrophic failure, causing a blade to shed and not to be contained within the engine cell.’" That is what is worrying us in the House. We will have a lot of people telling us not to worry about it and that it will not happen, but if it does happen, who will be held to blame? I believe that it will be this Government.
Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-02-12
Topic: Technology
John Lawrence Whitty (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, unnecessary conflict has developed in this debate. I declare that I am the vice-president of BALPA, whose position, broadly speaking, is to support this Bill as far as it goes and strengthen it where we can, but also to recognise that there will be subsequent information and knowledge, and that regulation will be required as the impact of the technology changes. The noble Baroness’s amendment—building into this legislation the fact that we continuously review the specifics that she outlines, but also any other changes in technology—is the most sensible way to do it. We are not going to complete in the next few days a Bill that will last very long in its totality The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, with whom I sat on the same committee, knows that five years ago the technology was very different. Some of the concerns were the same; some have been overcome. Hopefully, we can develop a situation in which we have a continuous review, but the request that that should be built into this Bill does not seem to me unreasonable. For the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, and my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours spelled out, and as I spoke about at Second Reading, we already know about the lack of testing on the effect of drones going into jet engines. We need that testing before we can effectively legislate. It is a potentially serious issue. We need a next stage built into the legislation. If the noble Baroness’s amendment is not accepted in total, I hope that its spirit will be taken on board by the Government.
Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-02-12
Topic: Transportation
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): It is a sobering thought that, as I understand it, the Government have said that no legislation could prevent what happened at Gatwick happening again or even reduce its likelihood. That seems to be the Government’s stance. I apologise for my ignorance in advance, but can the Minister confirm that there is a report into the incident at Gatwick Airport in December 2018, and can it be made available?
Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-02-12
Topic: Law and Crime
John Lawrence Whitty (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in moving Amendment 33A, I will speak also to Amendments 33B and 33C in this group. I declared earlier that I am vice-president of BALPA. It will come as no great surprise that these amendments emanate largely from BALPA. It supports the general direction of the Bill and wishes to see it enacted. It recognises that there are additional issues that will have to be addressed by the Government subsequently, but in the immediate term some of the enforcement measures, and the description of what needs to be enforced, can be clearer and more effective, and these three amendments pick out three of those. They do so in a way that does not leave to secondary legislation a description or an invention of another criminal offence. They would put it in primary legislation in the context of this Bill and of the various Acts, such as the Air Navigation Order and the police powers Acts, that already exist.
Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-02-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): The two amendments in this group would require the Secretary of State to consult those involved in or affected by the incident at Gatwick Airport in December 2018 and to report on the consultation to both Houses of Parliament. What has driven these amendments more than anything else is that I am still not clear about the extent to which the Government went back to consult those who took part in the original consultation, to see whether they had anything useful to add in light of their experience of what happened at Gatwick in December 2018 that might have had relevance for what appears in the Bill we are considering today. As we know, two public consultations took place prior to this Bill and, indeed, prior to the incident in December 2018 My noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe referred to this at Second Reading, when he asked whether there had been any consultation on the legislation with those involved in the Gatwick incident. The Government’s response was less than explicit. They said only that there had been contact with the police force "around Gatwick and … all over the country" and meetings with "other stakeholders to discuss these matters in general." The Government also said that "a cross-government working group … looked at stop and search powers" and "agreed that the focus of the powers should not only be directed towards aviation and airports but be applicable to other areas such as prisons".—[Official Report, 27/1/20; cols. 1291-2.] In conclusion, they said they could not "delay any longer". One might draw an inference from that comment that few of those organisations or individuals involved or affected by the Gatwick incident were consulted so that their potentially useful recent information or experience could be taken into consideration when determining the provisions that should be in this Bill or what provisions of a non-legislative function might be taken.
Committee of Selection — House of Lords, 2020-01-07
Topic: Government Operations
John McFall (Labour, Centre-left): That in accordance with Standing Order 63 a Committee of Selection be appointed to select and propose to the House the names of the members to form each select committee of the House (except the Committee of Selection itself and any committee otherwise provided for by statute or by order of the House) or any other body not being a select committee referred to it by the Senior Deputy Speaker, and the panel of Deputy Chairmen of Committees; and that the following members together with the Senior Deputy Speaker be appointed to the Committee: Ashton of Hyde, L, Craig of Radley, L, Evans of Bowes Park, B, Judge, L, McAvoy, L, Newby, L, Plant of Highfield, L, Smith of Basildon, B, Stoneham of Droxford, L, Ullswater, V.
Middle East: Security Update — House of Lords, 2020-01-07
Topic: International Affairs
Donald Anderson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, no one here mourns the death of such a man of blood. It is understandable that the Foreign Secretary called for restraint and de-escalation, but does the Minister agree that, in situations such as this, it is often helpful to try to imagine what would happen if the reverse were true? For example, if a US Vice-President or Secretary of State were assassinated by an Iranian or an Iranian proxy in the Middle East, would we call for restraint?
Middle East: Security Update — House of Lords, 2020-01-07
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, does the Minister agree that, as a result of this reckless unilateralist act by President Trump, Iranian and Russian influence in the region is likely to increase—and what does that do for British influence?
Middle East: Security Update — House of Lords, 2020-01-07
Topic: International Affairs
Jack Wilson McConnell (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, clearly, the events of the last few days will strike terror into the hearts of those hundreds of thousands of Iraqis still displaced as a result of the events in Iraq and Syria over the past 10 to 15 years—many of them in northern Iraq, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has already said. As a responsible member of the Security Council, will the UK Government play a role in ensuring that the operations of the United Nations, UNICEF and the other agencies looking after refugee camps—and the progress made there over the last 12 months—can continue somehow under the surface, and that those displaced and still living in refugee camps, in many cases after seven or eight years, will have some relative safety within this overall escalation of tension?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-20
Topic: Transportation
Iain McNicol (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Baroness is correct that the paper part of the licence has been phased out, but when you go abroad you need proof for the insurance to hire a car. The noble Baroness might well be correct that you can just use a code but, as we have heard, if you go with just a code there is no proof with it. I, many other noble Lords and many other people would print out proper documentation and proof that you have that code with the DVLA’s name at the top of it. That is what we are saying: it does not just show it when you hire a car, but proves it.