argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-06-25
Topic: Government Operations
David Goddard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, as I have said in previous debates, this legislation is highly retrospective, and that is to be regretted. Regarding devolution, Greater Manchester has a long history of integrated partnership working across all services and sectors. Throughout this crisis, we have worked closely with government to support and develop responses to the pandemic. The Government’s response has in many ways been commendable. However, as we reach the end of this period of lockdown, it is an opportunity to reflect on the lessons learned, particularly in relation to devolved powers and funding for local and city region authorities, along with the co-ordination between national and regional government My noble friend Lord Scriven’s comments were right on the nail, as usual. This is about emergency legislation and, in certain cases, the misuse of it. I have heard people such as the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, who I respect immensely, talking about how the British people know best and letting the forces of nature take their course. But did he see pictures from the beaches at Brighton or Bournemouth yesterday, or the pictures from Brixton last night? That is the real problem. The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, quotes figures. Perhaps we should have T-shirts made, "I am the 0.65—one of the lucky ones". Someone has to take control of the situation. If this is a long, hot summer and we ease the lockdown for lots of people up and down this country, it is not rocket science to understand what will happen The best people to deliver and control this would be local authorities, city regions and people who understand the make-up of their areas. The sooner the penny drops with devolution, that is where the real power will lie. We can control isolated outbreaks of the pandemic in isolated areas, but I do not know about the problems of Hartlepool, Southport or Plymouth. We know about Greater Manchester, and those powers should be devolved so that we can help even more to suppress this terrible virus.
National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-06-25
Topic: Labor
Lorely Burt (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I too welcome this order, which closes a loophole that allows companies operating in British territorial waters potentially to pay their workers below the minimum wage. The order amends Article 2 of the National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) Order, but I would like to ask the Minister why it has taken so long to close this loophole. Have some seafarers been paid below the minimum wage for many years? Did anyone know about that and did any of the unions complain The order newly applies to shipping, with certain exceptions as described by the noble Viscount, operating in UK waters whether or not the vessels are UK-registered, and to workers who may or may not ordinarily be employed in the UK. I welcome this: anyone employing people working in British waters should not be allowed the undercut the competition by underpaying its staff My second question relates to the estimated cost of implementation. The Explanatory Notes state that HMRC cannot estimate this exactly because there is "no robust data as to how many employees are in this position, and a lack of concurrence amongst sources which are available." How will the requirement be policed and how can the legislation be enforced? I would be grateful to the Minister if he could explain that Apparently some ship owners have said that certain services will no longer be viable on the implementation of this order. My heart bleeds for them. Any business that makes money on the backs of underpaid and exploited workers does not deserve to be in business. I remember business groups using the viability argument before the national minimum wage was first introduced. Today, it is an accepted part of business practice in this country and only cowboys, as opposed to pirates, exploit it Finally, on the Day of the Seafarer, I would like to ask a slightly tangential question about the estimated 150,000 international and British seafarers who have been trapped at sea since the beginning of the lockdown, awaiting crew changes. They cannot get home and their relief crews cannot get to ports to board. As I said in a debate on 19 May: "Tragically, suicides have been reported as individuals suffer mentally, trapped on board and trying to get home, but unable to because of the lack of organised transport."—[Official Report, 19/5/20; col. 1004.] There are also issues with visas. Will the Minister please favour the House with an update on this?
National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-06-25
Topic: Labor
Lindsay Granshaw (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Viscount for introducing this statutory instrument, and his officials for their very useful Explanatory Notes. The noble Viscount’s party opposed the minimum wage when it was first introduced by the Labour Government. We supported its introduction as long overdue. There was concern at the time that paying the minimum wage might price people out of jobs, but that proved not to be the case. It is interesting and encouraging to see how times have changed, with widespread support for the principle. The debate has now moved on to a discussion of the more substantial living wage, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said. I am sure that we will come back to that as we come out of Covid, with the Government talking about levelling up yet facing an economy in crisis When the national minimum wage was introduced in 1998 and then applied in 1999 to offshore workers, it did not include seafarers, and this SI remedies that. It is surprising that it has taken more than 20 years to do so, as my noble friend Lady Burt noted. The SI excludes boats that are in transit through our waters, and I note the UN definition of those with right of innocent passage. That rather begs the question of whether we should include in the minimum wage those invading us, which would certainly be very generously turning the other cheek As the notes explain, the SI aims to include those whose work is on, for example, fishing vessels and dredgers in UK territorial waters and the UK sector of the continental shelf and other seafarers working domestically in UK territorial waters. It is striking to note that the question of whether they should be covered was raised more than a decade before the working group was set up. I am glad that the group included the maritime unions as well as the UK Chamber of Shipping and shipping companies, and that it seems to have made very clear and agreed recommendations. Has any estimate been made of the nationalities of those covered? What proportion are UK nationals? What proportion come from the EU and what proportion from the rest of the world? Are there any other groups which as yet have not been properly included in minimum wage legislation? If there are, what plans are there to remedy that I welcome this statutory instrument and look forward to the noble Viscount’s response.
National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-06-25
Topic: Labor
Michael German (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Like many other noble Lords, I welcome this order, but I believe that it could go further. In particular, I wish to make the case for the inclusion of workers on short sea crossings from the coastline of the United Kingdom The rationale given for leaving these services out of the scope of the order is given in paragraph 7.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum. It is because short sea crossings are designated as exercising the "right of innocent passage". It is correct that if you applied this criterion universally, these short sea crossings would be ruled out of the requirements of the national living wage legislation. However, Members of your Lordships’ House will be familiar with the not infrequent use of carve-outs, where exceptions are created. Why have the Government not created one for UK-resident workers on short sea routes? These workers are being treated differently from other UK-resident workers doing exactly the same job. Is this legislation needed for them It is difficult to find exact levels of pay for those working on short sea crossings, but some job placement agencies are posting jobs with salary levels below the £8.20 national minimum living wage. That national minimum living wage, based on a full-time 38-hour week, gives a yearly equivalent of about £17,200. At that level, all will pay national insurance contributions, as they are earning above the £9,516 earnings threshold, and they could possibly also pay income tax, depending on their individual circumstances Short sea-crossing ferries are a strong component of local economies around the ports they serve. Therefore, it is difficult to understand why the Government have stopped short of ensuring the national minimum wage for those who work on these ferries, both passenger and freight. Let us take the examples of Heysham and Liverpool. Ferries go from these ports to Belfast, so are captured by this legislation. Other examples are the Isle of Man and Dublin, both of which fall outside this legislation. There is an additional level of unfairness for those working out of Holyhead, Fishguard and Pembroke Dock, compared with those in Stranraer or Penryn Treating UK taxpayers and residents differently depending on which short sea crossing they are working on is clearly unfair. Typically, those working short sea crossings will have a home at one end or the other of the crossing. The Government can easily identify those resident in the UK because they pay national insurance contributions. Therefore, in reality, this group of workers is being discriminated against by virtue of the fact that their place of work moves. Add to that the failure to apply the very sensible obligation in this order to short sea crossings to France and other nearby neighbours, and we have let down a number of low-paid workers across our country. I ask the Minister to explain why the Government have failed to include them in this order and to say whether the Government will bring forward further statutory instruments to correct this matter.
National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-06-25
Topic: Labor
David Chidgey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I support and welcome this legislation. First, I declare an interest because I have been a long-time supporter of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society, which has well advertised the issue. This is the international Day of the Seafarer, which will be followed by Seafarers Awareness Week in July. One reason for my support is that I come from a long line of master mariners in north Somerset, who, in the 19th century, sadly suffered severe loss when five members of the family were lost at sea in a storm off Land’s End. That affected my family for some time after The purpose of the order is to extend the provisions of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, the passing of which I remember well. I vividly recall taking the Bill through the other place for the Liberal Democrats. It was fiercely opposed by the right-wing press, which claimed that the legislation would wreck our economy. Evidence from the USA was to the contrary, where Senator Edward Kennedy had produced reports and studies demonstrating how introduction of the national minimum wage created uplifts in local low-wage economies. Notwithstanding that, the then Conservative Opposition fought the Bill tooth and nail, filibustering in Committee to the extent that one meeting continued throughout the night. It became the longest continuous Committee session ever recorded at that time As regards the order, I have several general points and I should be grateful for the noble Viscount’s response. I am particularly concerned about the assessment that the Government have made of the number of UK employees who could be affected by the legislation. I understand that we do not have definitive figures. When can we expect them There are other points on which I am not clear. Does the order apply to crews of pilot vessels? Perhaps the Minster can clarify that. How are employees stationed on offshore oil rigs and supply vessels affected? The wide exceptions in paragraphs (2) and (3) of the original 1999 order are replaced. These set out in detail which ships fall within the scope of the order, how they are crewed and how they sail. This appears to be a complex task for the regulatory process. Given the history of the national minimum wage and the lack of prosecutions for failure to comply, how will the logistics be managed? Which agencies will be responsible Finally, section 12 of the Explanatory Notes, entitled "Impact", states that "the total cost to business could be as high as £3.2m per annum." Can the Minister provide us with guidance on how and when we will know the total number of employees that the figure is based on, and what resources will be required to implement the order effectively?
Sentencing Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-06-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Menzies Campbell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I must confess to some diffidence in finding myself between the noble and learned Lords, Lord Judge, Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Mackay of Clashfern, since, unlike them, I have never had the responsibility of sentencing anyone. Indeed, it is difficult to resist the temptation to adopt the elegant observations of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, brevitatis causa, as lawyers are accustomed to say, but I wish to make some observations of my own There can hardly ever have been a legal Bill that enjoys such judicial and professional support as this one. Indeed, as has been said on at least one previous occasion, we could almost pass this Bill by acclamation. The Law Commission has fulfilled its responsibility to make the law clearer, shorter and more accessible, having rightly judged that sentencing legislation was inefficient and lacking in transparency. How could it do otherwise, as has already been referred to, when the analysis of 262 randomly selected cases from the Court of Appeal in 2012 revealed that 36% were illegal sentences? The question that arises from that is: what guidance was given to those who passed those sentences and what happened to those who had been sentenced in that way, illegally The Bill’s approach is novel, with the creation of a code allied to the use of a clean sweep. My question is whether a similar approach may be appropriate in other areas of the law. Indeed, I suppose that my question is really for the Law Commission: is it now looking for other such opportunities? I welcome the exception to protect the fundamental rights of an offender and the Bar Council’s pragmatic endorsement of the proposals on Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights and on retroactivity Finally, there is an excellent impact assessment that justifies close reading, but for some reason there are no Explanatory Notes to the Bill. Why not?
Sentencing Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-06-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Dominic Hubbard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I have to declare a lack of interest in this Bill. I am not a lawyer, nor one of those who has been involved in the changing of sentences, but one thing we can be absolutely sure of is that politicians do like changing them. Over the three decades that I have been here, I have heard numerous discussions in this Chamber about being tough on the law. It is one of the most constant discussions. Something that will simplify and codify the law on sentencing, even if it is a rather knee-jerk reaction—I do not doubt that that is the least important ground for doing it—has to be welcomed. Anything that makes the law easier to understand must also be welcomed It is easy for someone to play to the galleries, but there is a principle here which has been brought to my attention. It is Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights: "Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the criminal offence was committed" In other words, do not toughen up the sentence because the law has subsequently been changed. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, will be able to explain to me how, under this code, that cannot happen, but there are a few other variables that he could help to clear up as well. It is odd to be talking to an empty Bench, but I am sure that he is listening If we are now going to have minimum sentences for certain offences, along with ways of imposing them like second strikes and so on, how is that going to work? It would be very interesting to hear about that. I am sure that many legal minds will be listening and thinking, "Oh, that is covered in such-and-such." Can I hear the answer so that I can understand it? I am a lay person and I do not have legal training, so if I can understand it, probably just about anyone can. Please can we be helped to understand how this is going to work? If changes are made, will you be unable to go back and say, "We do not think that they should have come out of prison, and that sentence ought to have been changed." If we are working to the principle that someone is convicted under the law, how is that going to work Apart from that—I hope that that explanation will be given—I have no objections to this Bill. Someone referred to the physical size of this legislation. Having walked past it, I can say that it would be quite a feat for anyone to carry a copy into the Chamber, and I doubt if many of us could manage two. There is a lot of paper involved.
Sentencing Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-06-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Sharon Bowles (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will speak about consolidation rather than the detail of sentencing, although I am glad that this project is reaching a conclusion Sentencing is a discrete and most serious matter. The fact that the law surrounding it was so amended and reamended that even the most senior lawyers in the land had difficulty knowing what it was with accuracy surely had to be addressed. With 1,500 pages of sentencing law spread across many instruments, the Law Commission said that sentencing lacked transparency due to complexity; regrettably, that is the state of many of our laws For some subjects, 1,500 pages is short. When we started scrutinising Brexit regulations, the Financial Services and Markets Act had far more pages than that. The Treasury admitted that it could not send us an up-to-date copy as it did not have one and did not know everything that was in it. When researching my response to the corporate governance Green Paper in 2016, I asked the Library for a print of the up-to-date Companies Act 2006. It used a commercial site as the GOV.UK pages were not up to date, then telephoned to ask if I could accommodate a pallet-load of paper in my office. Both those Acts contain criminal offences and neither is all that old, in the scale of things With Brexit, we have hundreds more multiple, nested regulations. As we have trade talks and decisions about equivalence of laws, can we be sure that we know what our laws are? Can anyone else be sure? The EU always mistrusted how we had complied, and Brexit transpositions have exposed various mistakes and left-out bits. It has taken five years for the sentencing consolidation to get to this final stage. With that overhead, I am beginning to understand why every statutory instrument says that the Government have no plans to consolidate law—but is that really a satisfactory answer Finally, I welcome the updating provisions and the table of origins, but when I was looking for things in my usual subject areas, I did not find listed all the abbreviations for legislation that were used in the subsequent table. For example, abbreviations for the Financial Services Act, the Bank of England and financial services regulations, the Secretaries of State for BEIS order or the crime and courts commencement order did not show when I searched the table.
Food Supply and Security — House of Lords, 2020-05-14
Topic: Foreign Trade
Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for introducing the debate. My admirable Lib Dem colleagues will cover the whole breadth of the topic. The broader issue in one part of the UK which is perhaps greater than any other is the fact that two-thirds of total Northern Ireland imports and exports are in bilateral agri-food and intermediate trade, so the pressure of the Covid-19 impacts are major. However, added to what the Government propose from January 2021, it should make us pause. For the first time in our nation’s history, United Kingdom businesses in Northern Ireland will operate under foreign laws, regulations and standards set by a body that we are not a member of and over which they have no say. Also for the first time in our history, one UK business buying from or selling to another UK business will have to do so through a customs border control post, with foreign tariffs applied as a default and checks decided by the EU being carried out. Animals and animal products going into Northern Ireland from Great Britain will be treated as if they have come from a foreign country We found this out through details in letters going to Brussels which have been disclosed to the Northern Ireland Assembly, not through information given to us here. Last November, Boris Johnson said that of course there will never be checks. That was repeated by the noble Lord, Lord Bates, during consideration last year of the Trade Bill, and the fact that that was still the position was repeated to me directly on two occasions by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. Moreover, in a feat of redefining the words "unfettered access", the noble Lord, Lord True, said in a rather sleekit way in the same paragraph during a debate last Tuesday that there would be "administrative measures", while today the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said, without a hint of a blush, "There were always going to be checks." My question to the Minister, who is an honourable man, is this. When will we see the legislative proposals for these new checks and the burdensome procedures at the new customs and regulatory border within the UK, so that we can scrutinise them fully and give them proper accountability, which so far these proposals have lacked?