argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, and in particular to my noble friend Lord Scriven for pointing out the importance of the Freedom of Information Act and its provisions in this respect I share some of the concerns of the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley of Knighton and Lord Heseltine. I understand exactly the points that are being made. However, the Secretary of State would, as part of this amendment should it succeed, be able to state in regulations how this would be managed This is an extremely important issue. This amendment is not asking for commercially sensitive matters to be revealed when it would not be in the public interest to do so or for informal day-to-day meetings with officers to be included. We are saying that the Secretary of State should recognise that the accountability of an elected mayor does matter. The Secretary of State should therefore regulate to ensure proper access to meetings and information to avoid a slide into greater secrecy in decision-making The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, said that the same rules should apply as for local government—if I recall correctly what he said. I understand that perspective, but we are talking about a single elected person. There is no precedent for the scale of the roles to which they are about to be elected, for the reason that existing mayors in some of our cities and towns have more limited powers. Here, there is to be significant devolution of power from central government across Whitehall and Westminster. There is not even the scrutiny system that is provided within London through the GLA—and we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, earlier about how the London system does not work terribly well. So I am still very concerned by this situation The public right of access to meetings and information must not be diminished as a consequence of this Bill. That is the risk that the Bill introduces. As a consequence of that, I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.
Universal Credit (Waiting Days) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Michael German (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I move this Motion because these regulations introduce additional waiting days before the first payment of universal credit. The period of waiting for this first payment is added to the already-existing waiting period of one month, plus the application and approval period before the award is made. In total, it is estimated that most applicants will wait about six weeks after an application before receiving their first payment The Government’s own Social Security Advisory Committee produced a very powerful and thorough report on these regulations. It had full consultation and went into great detail. It recommended, first, that these regulations should not proceed; and, if they did, that housing benefit should be removed from the waiting period. In their Explanatory Memorandum the Government agree that these waiting days are a cost-saving measure. This Motion asks the Government to agree the minimum change that the Social Security Advisory Committee asked for, to deal with the harshest parts of the policy. We on these Benches believe that a primary purpose of our social security system is to provide a safety net, to provide protection for those most in need who need help when sickness or unemployment hit them.
Universal Credit (Waiting Days) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Archibald Kirkwood (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I shall make a brief intervention in these two important debates. I congratulate my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, on securing the time. I should perhaps say at the outset—and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, rightly adverted to the fact—that I had a failure of nerve earlier last week and withdrew my prayer to annul. I did so because I think the Treasury is requiring the department to take the introduction of this fundamental flagship policy right to the edge of proper implementation. The Minister told the House last week that the department has already been required to make significant savings. Some £2.4 billion was the anticipated spend, but that has now been reduced to £1.8 billion. The Minister may be able to persuade me otherwise on the rollout of the digital element of the service, and I would like to hear him on that subject but, if not, I am really worried that we are cutting this so thin that we may lose the core benefit of universal credit. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock: everybody in this House, or certainly anyone who served in the Welfare Reform Bill Committee in 2012, is committed to the principle of a single working-age benefit that is blind to work. But if the Treasury is not careful, the house of cards will collapse. So if I had succeeded in a fatal Motion and the Minister had been sent back to the Treasury with his tail between his legs, it may have said, "It’s all too much—we’re just going to let you swing in the wind" I know that it is not the Minister’s fault at all, but the idea that this is a save-to-spend initiative is a complete nonsense, as far as I am concerned, and I just do not believe it. It is a departmental expenditure limit that will carry these savings and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, the claimants will carry the can, on top of everything else. We are talking about £200 million or £150 million—we do not know—but we really are in danger of putting people at risk Another thing that irks me is the fact that we are now beginning to confuse means-tested safety nets with income replacement benefits. Means-tested safety nets should apply in any circumstances; they are the point of last resort. I do not believe that the local government establishment, although it tries hard with reduced budgets, can pick up all of the downstream damage that will be done to low-income households that will struggle to stay alive. Therefore, we have to get behind the department to get the Treasury to recognise a bit more what is at stake here. That is one of the purposes that I hope the debate this evening will serve.
Universal Credit (Waiting Days) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I have been listening to the debate very closely and I wonder whether the Minister can clarify something for the House. He will be aware that Clause 25 of the Scotland Bill concerns, "persons to whom, and time when", universal credit will be paid. It will be a concurrent power lying with the Secretary of State and Scottish Ministers. How can the noble Lord make with so firm a view the statements about the operational aspects all being in place, when they are not necessarily in place in Scotland? Agreement will still have to be reached with Scottish Ministers about how this will operate. The figures that the noble Lord is giving and the assumptions he is making cannot necessarily be correct when the passporting of one system to another within Scotland is not resolved. Therefore, would it not be better to delay these regulations until these aspects, which could affect many people in Scotland, are clarified between two potential Ministers?
Universal Credit (Waiting Days) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Michael German (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, first of all, I thank all Members who have spoken in the debate. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Freud, for his contribution. Many people in your Lordships’ House will recognise that one thing he is very passionate about is the success of universal credit. We on these Benches also support universal credit and wish to see it happen The issue raised today is about the very short-term responses that government makes to people who have the worst problems and are in the worst condition. The key question that I wanted to see answered in this debate was how people will manage in that period when they are at their weakest and most vulnerable through illness and unemployment. I know that some people are exempt, but not all are, and considerably fewer people will be exempted than the Government expected. It is about those very short-term measures. This is not about the response to people who are unemployed over a longer term. This is about the period when they have either lost their job or become ill and require support in order to do two things: support their family and pay their rent. The fundamental issue behind the Motion is that, in that period, when choices are being made, people will choose to feed their family first and pay the electricity bill to keep the lights switched on. They will then not be able to pay their rent. That is the period for which the very harshest part of the regime has to be dealt with. It is the very simplest and smallest of measures that we are asking to be changed today in order to allow people to be able to manage at that most difficult time A number of noble Lords talked about universal credit in the longer term. Of course we are impatient on these Benches for its rollout to occur more quickly, but it has to be right. That is why it is the smallest of measures that we are asking to be changed today I say to my colleagues on the Labour Benches that there is nothing incompatible with removing the housing element from the waiting days and then having a review on postponing the measures for the introduction—both go hand in hand. This is the most difficult part of the whole waiting-days regime and housing benefit is the crucial part that people will avoid when they have to feed their families To those who have said that there is an alternative in the form of emergency payments—universal credit allowance payments—I must say that, last year, in answer to Parliamentary Questions, we were told that two-thirds of claimants who asked for emergency payments to help bridge that gap, in this very short period, were refused by Jobcentre Plus. Nearly 150,000 out of 221,824 applications were turned down. We know from the Trussell Trust and others that food banks are about short-term financial crisis. It is that short-term financial crisis which we should seek to avoid.
Universal Credit (Waiting Days) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Michael German (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I say with the deepest respect to the Minister, who I know is an honourable man, that only a very small number of people—and they are not with families and children—have received universal credit. We have to take as an example the past year, where the same rules have applied about being able to afford to repay that advance on payment I come back to the fundamental point: how will those who are the most vulnerable manage? I am afraid that I have not yet been satisfied that we will do all we can, and I therefore believe it important to test the opinion of the House on this matter.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
Paul Tyler (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, before I speak to government Amendments 71 and 72, I just want to congratulate the Minister on managing to get Cornwall into so many of her speeches. I have campaigned for some devolution for Cornwall since 1968, and it lifts my heart, even at this time of night, to hear the Government recognising that we have a special case with the integrity of Cornwall. Indeed, it is fair to comment that the boundary between England and Cornwall is a great deal more resilient than the one between England and Scotland or the one between England and Wales. Our identity is therefore that much clearer I think the Minister will be aware that the comments I made earlier about the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee apply particularly to Amendments 71 and 72 too. These amendments are important. Although I understand her anxiety to short-cut and streamline matters, it should be put on record that their effect on the Bill would be to deal with very similar concerns to those we had in the committee about Clause 6. Members of your Lordships’ House may recall that the committee expressed the view that delegation was "inappropriate" in the light of an absence of any requirement on the Secretary of State to consult affected persons. That was in the committee’s first report to the House, but here we are again: in a similar way, it is being argued that the transfer of public authority functions to a local authority could be so urgent that the Secretary of State could permit a complete absence of any effective consultation of those most affected The two new clauses proposed in these amendments are very important. I recognise that the Minister and the Government have tried to move as fast as they can to meet some of the concerns of the committee and of your Lordships’ House, but I hope that she will be prepared to accept that once the committee’s report is published tomorrow—I think it will refer to the proposed new clauses—the House should have an opportunity on Wednesday to look again at the Minister’s proposals in the light of that report.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I do not wish to repeat anything that has been said on Amendments 31 and 32, because I am very happy with the debate we have had so far. I will draw the Minister’s attention to the very helpful words of the noble Lord, Lord Low, on Amendment 67, and will then take that and compare it to Amendment 34 and the list of public functions, which the Labour Party has identified as needed, and which I support. It starts to matter. We had a brief discussion in Committee around careers services and their role as regards the devolution of skills budgeting—what the exact responsibility of combined authorities would be as regards careers services. All that matters because it is not clear to all the organisations outside your Lordships’ House exactly what is in scope. Therefore the production of that list called for by Amendment 34 seems very important, because the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Low, were extremely important and appropriate.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-13
Topic: International Affairs
Julie Smith (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it is with some regret that I stand here opening for the Liberal Democrat Benches this morning as my noble friend Lady Ludford is not able to be with us for personal reasons. We send her and her husband good wishes It is also somewhat with regret that I participate in this debate at all. The Minister said she was delighted to open this debate bringing forward the Government’s proposals to hold a referendum on whether Britain should remain in the European Union. As a committed pro-European who joined a pro-European party more than 30 years ago, and believed that the question of Britain’s membership of the European Union had been resolved while I was still a child, it is somewhat demoralising to think that the question is being reopened, and that somehow a major constitutional issue which should have been resolved in 1975 is back on the drawing board.
Redcar Steelworks — House of Lords, 2015-10-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
Benjamin Stoneham (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, can the Minister confirm that £20 million of the £80 million that she says the Government are investing in Teesside is money that would be paid in any event in the form of statutory redundancy in a liquidation situation? Will she further say whether the Government, in the situation that they face in Redcar, would be prepared to consider a government-backed task force, as they did five years ago, to look at the diversification of the economy and would be prepared to consider additional funds to help that community if viable projects subsequently emerged?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-13
Topic: International Affairs
William John Lawrence Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, we have had a very interesting and constructive debate I will just comment on the "ever closer union" issue, having first studied how the European Union treaties were negotiated as a graduate student. Originally in the treaty it was, "ever closer union among the peoples of Europe", because those who had come through the war, often spending the war in London while their states were occupied, wanted to go beyond the nation state. They left the nation states out because Belgium had failed under occupation, as had France, Germany and Italy. The reinsertion of "states" into "ever closer union" was a later recognition that actually you needed to retain the nation state. It was a shift back, away from the original emotional, enthusiastic, idealistic federalism of those who came through the resistance and the war to a recognition that legitimacy depends on states as well and that there are limits as to how far one can go beyond the state. So while we are looking at the history of the evolution of all of this, that is part of this very wonderful phrase "ever closer union", which means so many different things to so many different people. That is why it is an ideal phrase; we can interpret it in so many different ways and perhaps we should not get quite so hung up on it.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-13
Topic: International Affairs
William John Lawrence Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): It is not a theory; I am actually giving the noble Lord some history. I have great admiration for him and his wonderful interventions —he is the best Commons debater in the Lords, I have to say. There were those of the original generation who really did want to build a United States of Europe and they followed the American lead in this. After the war, the Americans had wanted to press on Europe the idea that the Europeans should follow the American lead and build our own United States on their model, as the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, has hinted. All of us resisted American pressure because we did not want to go anywhere near that degree of integration.
Enterprise Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-30
Topic: Energy
Robin Teverson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate. I shall be very brief. We seem to have come to a point where we have a solution to everybody’s problem. The Minister has worked very hard, and I really appreciate that, but she was not able to say exactly why this amendment does not fit what we are trying to fix. I have gone through it all, and other people who know far more about the ONS than I do have gone through it all, and it works We have come to a point at which we need the GIB to be successful. We need to move it through to privatisation and we need to remove the shackles that it has at the moment. But, exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Barker of Battle, said, we need UK plc to have this body there for the green infrastructure for the long term. The only way we can do that is by using the method that we put forward in this amendment and have discussed in this debate. It is the successful way forward. On that basis, I would like to test the opinion of the House.
Enterprise Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-30
Topic: Labor
Benjamin Stoneham (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I said in Committee that there are a number of aspects the Government should be looking at. One was that they should retain some flexibility for dealing with special cases, particularly where value for money was involved. Given all the reforms in the public sector that will be required in the next few years, to miss out on the opportunity to compensate people who will be involved in those, and hit them with caps when they are seeking to co-operate, is not progress in any respect. We pointed out in Committee, as the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, did this evening, that these measures are not just aimed at people in the public sector on high pay. They are aimed at quite low earners who, because of long service, could reach the proposed cap. That is unfair. We have also heard that pension arrangements struck only quite recently are being further undermined by imposing this inflexible cap. For these reasons, we hope the Government will show some flexibility on these amendments, to give them the capacity to respond to the injustice they are creating through a commitment they made at the general election without really realising the unintended consequences.
Enterprise Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-30
Topic: Labor
Benjamin Stoneham (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I have a specific point for the Minister. These two amendments raise important issues and I am broadly supportive of them. In Committee, the Minister said that, where a whistleblower successfully brings a case to an industrial tribunal, the cap will not apply to the award made. That relates to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Low, that if you have the cap lifted only for tribunal cases and awards, it will encourage that process rather than a settlement, which would be quicker, probably cheaper and simpler. I therefore again put to the Minister the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Low: can we have a mechanism that does not confine this only to employment tribunal awards? Will it apply to tribunal conciliation settlements? More importantly, it would be helpful if it could apply to general settlements in cases where whistleblowers are particularly vulnerable. As the noble Lord, Lord Wills, said, often in public cases these people do not work in the sectors in which they have made their sacrifice.
The North Sea under Pressure (EUC Report) — House of Lords, 2015-11-30
Topic: Environment
Rosalind Scott (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and the Minister for his characteristically thoughtful response. As our report highlights, there is a major challenge in achieving the various economic development uses of the sea as encapsulated in the use of the new phrase "blue growth", and its environmental protection. We have identified that co-operation is the key to achieving that balance. The Minister set out a long list of areas of co-operation, but I would observe briefly that out of that list, many of the bodies are UK-only, many are regulatory in nature and some are really very technical. The point made in our report is that, to make progress, what is needed is political leadership, and that really does have to come from the top A few years ago, I was on holiday in Perthshire and we visited an old loch settlement, one that is around 2,500 years old. Among the artefacts that were found was some amber jewellery which had come from the Baltic. It is clear that for many thousands of years the North Sea has been our common cultural courtyard. It is something we should cherish and be proud of because we do not want to be the generation that failed it.