argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Brexit — House of Lords, 2019-10-02
Topic: Other
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): I have huge respect for the noble Lord and I value his advice. He is arguing that the process of Prorogation did not constitute proceedings in Parliament. Does he think the same is true of giving Royal Assent to Acts of Parliament?
Brexit — House of Lords, 2019-10-02
Topic: Civil Rights
Norman Stewart Hughson Lamont (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness is making an interesting speech about democracy, but would she explain one mystery that I really do not understand? How is it that the Liberal party was the first party to propose an in/out referendum on this issue? Indeed, the present leader of the Liberal party repeatedly criticised David Cameron for not proposing an in/out referendum before he did. How can the Liberal party, having been in that position, now say it is going to ignore the results of the referendum?
Brexit — House of Lords, 2019-10-02
Topic: Mixed Topics
Archibald Gavin Hamilton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am glad to have listened to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and I thought for one brief moment that I was going to actually agree with him on something, because he said he had growing reservations about our unwritten constitution—but then that took him off to saying there should be a second referendum. I do not quite follow that one. I will talk about the judgment of the Supreme Court and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, which is remarkable on two counts. The first is that it was unanimous. All 11 judges on the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion, when we all know that the judiciary is totally divided on this issue. Does this not raise slight questions in people’s minds as to how they came to a unanimous conclusion when the previous court, the Divisional Court, had voted the other way? They overturned the verdict of the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and the Master of the Rolls. Was it not rather strange that they should reach a unanimous verdict when so many other very distinguished judges across the country had decided the other way?
Brexit — House of Lords, 2019-10-02
Topic: Other
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): The fact is it is an Act of Parliament. I have a Question on the Order Paper tomorrow. Can my noble friend assure me that he will give me a clear, unequivocal Answer to that Question? Parliament has the right to know what the Government are going to do in the circumstances to which I referred in my speech and to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, just referred.
Brexit — House of Lords, 2019-10-02
Topic: Other
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): There were 51 noble Lords who spoke in the debate. I made an extensive set of notes and endeavoured to respond to as many of the points as possible. I will look again at my notes on the speech from the noble and learned Lord and reply to him in writing. I apologise for missing him out.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Lords, 2019-07-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Annabel Goldie (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my noble friend. That is a very interesting suggestion and perhaps an echo of a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Collins. There is always a facility for greater use of other intermediaries or interlocutors. It may be that the communities of faith can come together on a cross-faith basis and be a medium for further communication. I see the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle sitting in her place. It may be that the Church, through the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, has some role to play in this. I was struck by something that the honourable Member for Rhondda, Chris Bryant, said yesterday in the other place—that Islam is, "a religion of phenomenal humanity, generosity and magnanimity". —[Official Report, Commons, 17/7/19; col. 853.] It is possible that there is scope for some cross-faith, multifaith approach. I am sure that if the communities of faith were to consider that and see whether there was something they could do, that would be a very welcome development.
Immigration Detention: Victims of Modern Slavery — House of Lords, 2019-07-18
Topic: Immigration
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given by my right honourable friend the Immigration Minister to an Urgent Question in the other place. The Statement is as follows: "Modern slavery is an abhorrent crime, and the Government are determined to stamp it out. In my role as Immigration Minister, I am especially aware of the shocking exploitation of vulnerable individuals from overseas who are duped by the promise of a better life in the UK, only to be trafficked and sold into modern slavery. Identifying and protecting victims of such crimes is a priority. In October 2017, we announced an ambitious package of reforms to the national referral mechanism. As well as improving the support on offer, these reforms are intended to provide quicker and more certain decision-making, in which victims can have confidence I must make it clear, however, that being recognised as a victim of modern slavery does not automatically result in being granted immigration status in the UK. There may be victims of modern slavery who have no lawful basis to remain and for whom support is available to leave the UK voluntarily. It is important that we recognise the important role of our immigration policies. Although we are committed to supporting individuals to leave voluntarily, including with reintegration support, there may be occasions where they have exhausted all options and are refusing to leave, and we are faced with the difficult decision of detaining people to secure their return. I want to reassure the House that we do not take these decisions lightly, but it may be necessary to detain individuals, even if they are vulnerable, to effect their removal. When that is the case, we seek to keep the period of detention as short as possible and place their welfare and safeguarding at the heart of what we do The Home Secretary made clear his commitment to going further and faster with reforms to immigration detention, including by reducing the number of people we detain, increasing the number of voluntary returns and working with partners on alternatives to detention. We have made real progress in delivering these commitments. A number of women who would otherwise have been detained are now being managed in the community. Other pilots will begin later this year. As we approach the first anniversary of Stephen Shaw’s second independent review of immigration detention, it is important to take stock of how far we have come, while acknowledging that there is much more to do to ensure that our approach to immigration detention is fair and humane".
Immigration Detention: Victims of Modern Slavery — House of Lords, 2019-07-18
Topic: Immigration
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for his questions. He asked why victims of modern slavery were not detected prior to detention. Quite often, Home Office staff pick up the fact that people are victims of modern slavery. It is not the case that the 507 individuals were detained after getting positive reasonable grounds. As stated clearly in the FoI response, the figure relates to people who had positive reasonable grounds when entering detention or while in it. Further analysis of the figures shows that, of the 507 people in question, 479 received the positive reasonable grounds decision during a detention period. Of those, 328—68%—were released within two days of that decision. In total, 422—88%—were released within a week of the positive reasonable grounds decision. Of the 57 who were detained for eight days or more following the positive reasonable grounds decision, 46—81%—are foreign national offenders On the data and the differences in the figures, my right honourable friend the Immigration Minister was absolutely correct to say that there is no central record of those who received a positive conclusive grounds decision and are detained under immigration powers. While the information might be available from the live Home Office case information database, known as CID, it would be for internal management only. For example, some data may be incomplete, and every FOI response is caveated as such.
Immigration Detention: Victims of Modern Slavery — House of Lords, 2019-07-18
Topic: Immigration
Zahida Manzoor (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I totally concur with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I have two questions. First, is it correct that it is mostly Chinese women who are detained? Secondly, I agree that these kinds of modern slavery cases should not sit with the Home Office, because the issues of immigration, modern slavery and vulnerable people interlink. There are some real sensitivities and we need to do a lot more than just trade statistics. These are individuals with real issues and problems and they need help and support.
Immigration Detention: Victims of Modern Slavery — House of Lords, 2019-07-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend asked whether it was mostly Chinese women who are detained. I do not think that we can give an answer to that—I do not have the statistics before me. However, we can all see in our day-to-day lives examples of where modern slavery may be going on, and in some cases those people are Chinese. On the claim that this should not sit with the Home Office, I am not sure where my noble friend thinks it should sit. The whole point of the national referral mechanism is that it is a multiagency mechanism which keys into NGOs and other agencies, all of which are there to support the victim and help them to move on from what has been terribly traumatic.
Immigration Detention: Victims of Modern Slavery — House of Lords, 2019-07-18
Topic: Immigration
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness will probably know that, first, we do not detain children —she is absolutely right that children are granted our protection—and all children, no matter what the circumstances of our protection here, are reassessed as they approach their 18th birthday. On sending someone back to face a repeated danger, that would be taken into consideration. We would not send someone back somewhere where they would face harm.
Detainee Issues — House of Lords, 2019-07-18
Topic: Other
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I begin by saying that I understand the disappointment of both Front Bench spokespeople at the decision not to hold a further judge-led inquiry. Perhaps I can amplify the reasons that I gave in the Statement.
Detainee Issues — House of Lords, 2019-07-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): I begin by paying tribute to my noble friend who founded and chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition in another place. He has consistently campaigned, in another place and now here, for greater transparency on this subject On the UK’s reputation, it is worth quoting what Sir Adrian said in his letter about the posture we have adopted. He says: "The Consolidated Guidance was drafted and published in 2010. It can fairly be said to have led the field internationally in terms of providing guidance to personnel on intelligence sharing in a manner that protects human rights" We want to build on that reputation by implementing the proposals mentioned today On the ISC inquiry which my noble friend referred to, I very much regret that it was not possible to find a way for the ISC to conclude its inquiry. The Government’s Memorandum of Understanding with the ISC under the Justice and Security Act 2013 permits the committee to take oral evidence from Ministers, agency heads and senior officials. The committee wanted to take evidence from junior officials, but this is not the usual practice with Select Committees—as a former chair of a Select Committee, my noble friend will know this. We offered senior officials to speak on behalf of more junior ones, but this did not turn out to be acceptable. Having said that, all relevant documentary evidence was provided to the ISC. It took 50 hours of oral evidence and had 40,000 original documents and 30,000 staff hours. I pay tribute to its thoroughness and just have to disagree with my noble friend about his conclusion that, without the further judicial inquiry, this matter remains unresolved.
Detainee Issues — House of Lords, 2019-07-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as one who shares the concerns and misgivings of the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, I ask my noble friend: might it be possible to have a judicial panel to review and monitor the implementation of the Fulford recommendations, so that we can have real confidence that they have been properly implemented?
Detainee Issues — House of Lords, 2019-07-18
Topic: Other
William Garel-Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): I apologise to my noble friend for intervening during the time set aside for Front-Benchers. In addition to the reasons he has given, will he let the House know to what extent the cost of a judge-led review has influenced the Government’s decision? If it has, can he refer to any other similar judge-led reviews and their cost?
Detainee Issues — House of Lords, 2019-07-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Gummer (Conservative, Centre-right): Is it not rather surprising that only now is it suggested to people that if they become aware of such a matter they should report it? After all, any company that becomes aware of such a matter in its supply chain has a legal requirement to report it and can be held responsible. This is, in a sense, part of our supply chain and I find it extraordinary that we did not take that view before. It is for that reason that I am not surprised that the public as a whole are pretty questioning about the degree to which we are prepared to own up to our responsibility in these circumstances. Perhaps further measures should be taken, merely for public confidence.
Detainee Issues — House of Lords, 2019-07-18
Topic: Civil Rights
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): Perhaps it would help my noble friend if I refer to the specific paragraph in Sir Adrian’s letter. He said: "It was argued in number of responses to the consultation that there should be a post-notification process for individuals who have been mistreated following a failure properly to apply any new guidance or principles. This would enable them to seek redress. Reprieve and Freedom from Torture, in a joint submission, made substantive representations regarding the UK’s international obligations in this regard" I will write to my noble friend when I have discovered the other part of Sir Adrian’s recommendations, which builds on the current position, but makes more explicit that there is now an obligation, if people come across mistreatment, to pass it up the chain. I recognise that the paragraph I just read out was not directly relevant to my noble friend’s question.
Detainee Issues — House of Lords, 2019-07-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord may be right. If it were an offence under the law just referred to, as Ministers are obliged by the Ministerial Code to abide by national and international law, they would be precluded from taking action that ran the risk of that breach.
Online Pornography: Age Verification — House of Lords, 2019-10-17
Topic: Mixed Topics
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): I am glad that the noble Lord supports the duty of care approach, as set out in the online harms White Paper. I think all sides of the House can agree that a voluntary approach has not worked to date. In terms of the administrative oversight, that is still the reason for the original delay.
Online Pornography: Age Verification — House of Lords, 2019-10-17
Topic: Mixed Topics
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not think that anyone is smiling about this. I hope the noble Lord will accept that. Dealing with online pornography is not a smiling matter. Clearly, both the Secretary of State and the Minister in the other place reflected long and hard before making this decision. They genuinely believe that by applying a more comprehensive approach we can end up with a better result for our children and grandchildren.
Online Pornography: Age Verification — House of Lords, 2019-10-17
Topic: Mixed Topics
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): I refute as firmly as possible any idea that DCMS is against protecting children; clearly, that could not be further from the truth. On the work that I know the noble Earl has done in relation to introducing more digital ways of establishing age verification, we are working actively with the industry on that and absolutely recognise the potential role that technology can play. Those costs are not wasted, because age verification will clearly be part of any solution going forward.
Online Pornography: Age Verification — House of Lords, 2019-10-17
Topic: Mixed Topics
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the right reverend Prelate for his question and the work he does in the Centre for Data Ethics, which clearly has an important role in this space. In relation to urgency, I hope I can reassure him that my honourable friend the Minister is absolutely determined to do this as quickly as is feasible. We plan to respond to the consultation before the end of the year and to introduce a draft Bill in the new year. Obviously, as noble Lords are aware, we announced pre-legislative scrutiny of that Bill, which we very much hope will make it as future-proof as possible.
Online Pornography: Age Verification — House of Lords, 2019-10-17
Topic: Civil Rights
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend raises a much wider issue about individual freedoms, which I am aware have been debated on many occasions in your Lordships’ House. The encouragement I offer him in that regard is twofold. First, I make a clear distinction between illegal and legal pornography. The online harms work gives us an opportunity to look again at the definition. Secondly, whether to look at pornography or not is clearly a choice.
Online Pornography: Age Verification — House of Lords, 2019-10-17
Topic: Mixed Topics
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): I respect the noble Baroness’s concern. I repeat that we believe that a more comprehensive approach will include social media, which, as the noble Baroness knows, is a channel through which children access pornography. It will be in scope and it was not in the original legislation. But she makes the fair point that we have to rebuild trust, and we will demonstrate that by the urgency with which we pursue this.
Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2019-10-17
Topic: Other
Joyce Anelay (Conservative, Centre-right): That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows: "Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament".
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019: Section 3(5) — House of Lords, 2019-10-17
Topic: Civil Rights
James Peter Hymers Mackay (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I take part in the debate because a gentleman in Northern Ireland asked me to do so. As your Lordships know, I was responsible for the judicial system in Northern Ireland when it was extremely difficult because the danger to life for people accepting office was very real. Personally, I am very concerned so far as Northern Ireland is concerned First, if the Assembly assembles on Monday, and if an Executive are in place on Tuesday, all the dangers in this business will disappear. I therefore emphasise as best as I can the responsibility resting on the Members of the Assembly, and on the Members who could constitute an Executive, to take their opportunity to act—otherwise, they pose a dangerous risk to the pregnant women of Northern Ireland. I will deal with this issue in a minute or two but I want to emphasise that point. Surely this should weigh with the people responsible so that, on Tuesday, we have a working Executive. Then, all the difficulty described in considerable detail by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, will not, in fact, take place If all that does not happen, the danger is considerable because the 1861 Act, along with the relevant provisions, will be taken out of the law of Northern Ireland. So far as I know, no other law protects an embryo up to the time when it is sufficiently mature to be delivered in a way that will bring forth life. Therefore, the object of this provision, which was put into Section 9 of the Act, was to help the women of Northern Ireland. I cannot think of a greater danger to the women of Northern Ireland than allowing unrestricted abortion again. It is a very serious matter. It does not affect clinics and so on; as has been pointed out, no real protection is available through the clinics because they escape registration if one employee is employed by the National Health Service Apart from that law, there is no protection whatever for embryos up to the point of sufficient maturity for life. Therefore, the backstreet abortions that were the great burden of life before the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, will again be possible in Northern Ireland. I do not know, and I do not suppose many of your Lordships know, how many of these would happen, but the Government and those responsible for the management of government in Northern Ireland will carry the responsibility if that happens Therefore, I will do my utmost to persuade the Members of the Assembly to meet on Monday and constitute an Executive on Tuesday, because then all this difficulty will immediately disappear.
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019: Section 3(5) — House of Lords, 2019-10-17
Topic: Other
Jonathan Caine (Conservative, Centre-right): Before an Executive can be formed, the first item of business is the election of a Speaker, as the noble Lord well knows, having served in that position himself. There is absolutely no prospect on Monday of a Speaker being elected.
Higher Education (Access and Participation Plans) (England) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-01-22
Topic: Other
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): They will, but to be able to put some meat on the bones of that, I will write the noble Lord a further letter to provide clarification. I know that this is an important and sensitive area, particularly for him. I beg to move.