argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-17
Topic: International Affairs
Christine Humphreys (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I support Amendments 60 and 92 in the name of my noble friend Lord Bruce, and have added my name to them. As he has already said, Clause 20 gives the Secretary of State the power to modify the retained direct EU legislation for England relating to public intervention and private storage aid, and, as the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee points out, this power is replicated for the Welsh Ministers I welcome these powers, of course, as it cannot be expected that legislation should remain relevant in perpetuity; as time passes and situations change, the requirement for legislation to be modified will become inevitable. But nowhere in this clause is there a recognition that, with all four countries in the UK having the power to modify and intervene, a mechanism will be required to ensure that a decision taken by one country does not have an adverse effect on the other three countries of the UK. Nowhere is there a recognition that a mechanism will probably be required to avoid or resolve disputes. My noble friend’s Amendment 60 highlights the issue and offers a solution.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-17
Topic: International Affairs
Malcolm Bruce (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken in this debate for their support for my amendments and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and noble colleagues who have spoken on the Northern Ireland sunset clause so clearly and unequivocally. I believe that all three of these amendments are central to how our devolution settlement is to proceed The Minister is a face of government that we all find attractive: he is constructive and conciliatory, and I am sure that, given his background, when he talks about engagement and discussion across the devolved Administrations, he does it in entirely the style that we see here. However, I am afraid I have to say to him that there are other members of the Government whose style is far less conciliatory and can be abrasive We have legislation coming down the track that is absolutely crucial to the future of the devolution settlement, especially the Trade Bill and the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, where it would appear that the Government, frankly, are bent on centralising control and weakening the devolution settlement. Given the point about agriculture being so important to the devolved Administrations, there is perhaps an opportunity in this Bill to put those markers down. Actually, I would have liked it if the Minister could have accepted Amendment 60; I accept that Amendment 92 was a tease for further discussion about some form of qualified majority voting However, with regard to just saying, "We consult; therefore, we do not need to consult", I say that the time will come when some decision will be taken without consultation, and there will be no recourse because there is nothing in law to prevent it. That will be disruptive and a shame. The Prime Minister says that he is moving his legislation to protect the future of the union. The reality is that nobody threatens the future of the union more fundamentally than our current Prime Minister, and Ministers should understand that the precious union is very delicate at the present time Ministers need to reach out not just with reassurance but a willingness to create a mechanism, as my noble friend Lady Humphreys said, that will enshrine the way decisions are taken and disputes are resolved in ways that do not leave it—because this it is where the Bill leaves it—to Westminster and the English Secretary of State to override devolved decision-making. The Bill allows that to happen; these amendments were designed to prevent that happening, and I regret—but am not entirely surprised—that the Government have not accepted them. However, I can assure him—and I am sure that other noble Lords will agree with me—that these issues will return in spades in the debates we will have on the coming legislation between now and Christmas. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-17
Topic: Agriculture
Rosalind Scott (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I had an exchange of emails yesterday with the noble Lord, Lord Empey, to make sure that I understood his amendments correctly. He basically put it to me that he wishes to place an obligation on government rather than for it to have a discretion, which is as the Bill is drafted, to make regulations on fair dealing. I have told him that I support the fair dealing provisions in the Bill—I said so in Committee—particularly with regard to food waste, which is often in effect forced on farmers, making them less competitive and environmentally more wasteful, by the requirements of supermarkets, which I do not think is fair dealing. I am all in favour of that, but I am less convinced about the placing of such an obligation on Ministers. However, these issues can be well discussed in the next set of amendments, about the role of the Groceries Code Adjudicator.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-17
Topic: Agriculture
Catherine Bakewell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. I have added my name to Amendments 63 and 64 in this group, as I believe that the Bill needs to be much clearer on who will take responsibility for complaints into alleged non-compliance Fair dealing in agriculture is vital to the reputation of the farming industry, and the public need to be reassured that there is someone watching their backs. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, for setting out the argument so clearly. The aim is to widen the remit of the Groceries Code Adjudicator, who is a truly independent person A "specified person", as stated in the Bill currently, could be anyone. Can the Minister say who the Government had in mind to be this person? Would there be open recruitment, with advertising, or would this be an appointment through the old boys’ and old girls’ networks? The Groceries Code Adjudicator is a far better choice: a nationally recognised person who has a reputation and inspires trust and confidence. This is the proper person to take forward alleged non- compliance Amendment 64 sets out how the Groceries Code Adjudicator will interact with the Agriculture Bill in determining a complaint being carried out. I have not added my name to Amendments 65 and 66, but I fully support them. It is somewhat surprising that the Bill just refers to functions being conferred on "any" person. This does not fill me with confidence. Of course, this person must be competent and appropriate, and this should be in the Bill; otherwise, it might be somebody like me The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, has spoken about fairness and contracts. Dairy farmers are at the start of the supply chain and need to be considered carefully. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, has tabled an amendment which would also give the Groceries Code Adjudicator responsibility for the supply chain in the regulatory clauses of the Bill. There seems to be a wish to achieve the same aim, as has been reiterated by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick Given the very reasonable arguments which have been put forward this evening, I hope the Minister can give a positive response to this debate. I look forward to his response.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-17
Topic: Government Operations
Lindsay Granshaw (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, we are, again, addressing how matters might be properly devolved. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has identified some key challenges in his amendment, and the amendment in the name of the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, is complementary to it. It seems to me that these amendments need to be taken very seriously by the Government, who need to assess the implications laid out by noble Lords.
Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-17
Topic: Agriculture
Catherine Bakewell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I have added my name to Amendment 70. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, laid out the case for it very well and I support her comments Both at Second Reading and in Committee, Members of this Chamber raised the issues of the safety of agricultural workers and their access to training. Despite safety measures, it is not uncommon for farmers to have fatal or life-changing accidents during the normal course of their working day. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, referred to the levels of mental illness and suicide among the farming community. Training is important to help prevent this, and it is vital, too, to ensure that new methods and technological advances which could make their lives easier are also readily available.
Covid-19: Response — House of Lords, 2020-07-27
Topic: Transportation
William Bradshaw (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): The rail industry is keen to introduce a flexible form of season ticket to support a return to rail travel for those who have been working from home so that they may in future work flexibly. Will the Minister seek on my behalf assurances from his colleagues in the Department for Transport that they are treating this matter with urgency and not obstructing it? If he could write to me about that, I would be grateful. Will he also acknowledge the health benefits of getting people out walking, cycling and using public transport again, instead of relying solely on their cars, which lead to more congestion, more pollution and little or no exercise on the part of drivers? Further government encouragement would be welcome in bringing that about.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-27
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Rennard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 was the subject of the fiercest and longest debates I have witnessed in this House. At the time my party was seeking a route to change to the AV voting system through a referendum, while the Conservative Party was seeking to address what it wrongly considered to be a bias against it in the system. My party failed to persuade people to vote for its preferred option in that referendum, and the Conservative Party failed to persuade either House of Parliament to accept the proposals for new constituency boundaries in 2013 and knew it would fail again with those of 2018—so the 2011 Act must be replaced. But to say that this Bill has been approved by the other place means only that it has been approved by the Conservative Party The Bill before us is better than that of 2011 in that it retains 650 constituencies and proposes reviews every eight years, not every five, but the basis of it remains flawed in at least two major respects. First, we still have a hopelessly inadequate system of voter registration, which provides the building blocks for drawing boundaries. Secondly, as we can see from the last two aborted review processes, the tiny variation of just 5% permitted to the quota for electorates in each constituency will prevent the creation of sensible constituencies based on recognised communities and will result in major disruption to many constituency boundaries with every review In 2015 the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee concluded that a variation of 7.5% or 8% would be consistent with the government aims and with avoiding these problems. We see from the 2013 and 2018 proposals how this inflexible figure of 5% results in great changes to many constituencies even though both sets of proposals were for the same number of seats. It was argued in the other place that splitting local government wards could limit this disruption, but an excellent and detailed note from the Boundary Commission for England explained very carefully and in detail why splitting wards is not practical on a widespread basis. This time we must properly address the problem of being unable to create sensible constituencies all within the 5% quota and which will otherwise often cross county and other local government boundaries and involve major disruption to boundaries, splitting up many constituencies every time a review is conducted.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-27
Topic: Government Operations
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am not grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, for reminding noble Lords that it is my birthday, but I thank him for the commemoration anyway. At my age, I try to forget about it. I agree entirely with my noble friends Lord Tyler and Lord Rennard, so I will try not to repeat what they said. I have to say to the Labour Party that, if we want, we could spend the whole of the Bill refighting battles and arguments from 2011. I do not think that would be useful, because we need to co-operate to scrutinise carefully the legislation that the present Government are putting forward. That requires us to work together The 2011 legislation, the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act, was a shambles in almost every respect—while it was taking place, in this House and in the way it came out, on all sides. We should learn from that. It teaches a great deal of lessons that are not for today about how to work coalitions, should there ever be another one, and their internal workings. The shambles were a direct result of the internal structure of the coalition, which was far too top-down and dependent on negotiations and deals done between two people, who did not know much about many of the things they were dealing with The 5% is important. I have no problems with the Bill increasing the number of constituencies back to 650. I have no problems with 650, and could not understand why everybody was getting so worked up and agitated about the difference between 600 and 650. If people want to reduce it to 300 or 350, it would be something to talk about. I would not agree, but it would be an argument worth fighting if you did. This 600 to 650 is neither here nor there, nor worth talking about However, it will not help in Lancashire, where the two proposals were both very similar. People are restricted to 5% and, because they had to start somewhere—and they started on the coast and came inland—by the time they got to the Pennines, it was a complete botch-up. Since we will probably lose a seat because of the changes from present, I do not think it will make much difference. We can talk about that in Committee. I have used up my time. All I will say is: if we and the Labour Party want something sensible from the Bill, let us work together.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-27
Topic: Government Operations
Menzies Campbell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I begin by adopting the observations made by my noble friends Lord Rennard and Lord Tyler. I will take up the issue on which the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, commented, in which he was dismissive of those of us who argue for proportional representation. I wonder whether he understands that it takes a Green MP 33 times the number of votes as an SNP MP to be elected to the House of Commons. Mr Farage’s party fought a general election and got 3.5 million votes, and yet it did not have a single representative in the Commons. How would the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, deal with that problem while we wait for the remarkable achievement of all the opposition parties coming together? I certainly support voting for 16 and 17 year-olds in this context. If your Lordships have any doubt about that, accept one of those outreach engagements and go and talk to a class of 16 year-olds. You will find that they know just as much as anyone else about political issues and about the remedies which might be used to deal with them I am also of the view that the less influence that Parliament has, the better it will be for the system. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, referred a little earlier to something being grubby. Nothing has been grubbier than the fact that successive Governments of all colours, including the coalition, were willing to disregard the obvious way—the orthodox way—in which the reports of the Boundary Commission should be dealt with. In that respect, I am much attracted by the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, that the way in which to deal with the Order in Council is to make its laying subject to a time limit Finally, I come back to the issue of 650 constituencies rather than 600. The coalition Government took office back in 2010, and a great deal has happened in those 10 years. What has happened for Members of Parliament is that access to the internet has increased to an exponential degree among the public, and the contents of what we as MPs used to describe as our postbags has increased to a quite remarkable extent. That the demands are greater than they have ever been is reflected in the fact that IPSA has consistently raised the amount of money available to Members of Parliament for their staff. I favour some of the other parts of the Bill but I hope that we will have the opportunity to consider these issues later in Committee.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-27
Topic: Government Operations
David Trevor Shutt (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this Bill is about the appropriate use of the various building blocks of our democracy. The first building block is the electoral register. I have been privileged to serve as chairman of your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013. Committee members are very much aware that the register itself is the first building block, and we have been very concerned by its lack of completeness. The register is perhaps 80% to 85% complete, comparing very unfavourably with 96.4% in Canada. Completeness must be improved We are pleased that, following the rush to get on the register for the 2019 election, two-thirds of a million people registered on the last day. However, the extra registrations from those who just missed the deadline mean that March 2020 is the most accurate date for which we have numbers, and shows the radical reform that is much needed in register-making needs. In my view, the Bill’s requirement for all constituencies to be within 5% of a quota—somewhere in the region of 73,000 people—is too tight to achieve constituencies that have clear and understandably linked communities It is also important to note that although wards make significant building-blocks, they vary significantly in number. In North Yorkshire, there are wards of under 1,000 electors, but there are over 70,000 electors in both Leeds and Sheffield. Polling districts will often make better building-blocks in urban areas Let me give the House an example. In the borough of Calderdale, where I live, both constituencies, using the 2019 numbers, are near the quota: the Halifax constituency is about 3% under it, which is within the suggested 5%, but the Calder Valley is about 6% over it, and therefore outside the tolerance figure. The splitting of a ward and the transfer of three polling districts—which are themselves distinct communities—would meet the 5% objective. Either way, the Government could get a good result. I suspect that most people would prefer not to change. However, I have to say that, in our area, either of those results would be certainly far more suitable than any of the three ways put forward by the previous Boundary Commission. Happily, these were aborted, as they would have brought in three different areas from Bradford.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-27
Topic: Government Operations
Jennifer Elizabeth Randerson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this Bill is far from a great piece of democratic reform—it does not start to tackle the real unfairness in our electoral system—but it has some useful measures. The population is increasing and Parliament is struggling with a huge Brexit legislative programme, compounded by emergency coronavirus-related measures—so maintaining MP numbers at 650 is sensible. However, current boundaries are now almost 20 years old and a review is needed. Reviews every five years would put constituency boundaries in a continuous state of flux, so eight years is better So far, so good—but I have some serious concerns. The Bill confirms a strict electoral quota for each seat, with a limit of variability of 5%. Only in a few protected constituencies is there any real consideration of rurality or local geographic features. In my home country, Wales, it takes well over an hour and a half to drive from end to end of the constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire. It is one of at least five geographically enormous rural Welsh constituencies, each of them with a relatively small electorate. Such constituencies should be given protected status, just as Ynys Môn has been. The formula shows that Wales could lose eight of its 40 seats. This is worrying, as the Senedd still has only 60 Members. As Lib Dems, we would like to see many more—but that is up to the Senedd itself I am worried about the balance of seats across the whole of the UK. Projections suggest six additional seats for south-east England and 10 for England overall. Both Houses of this Parliament are already too dominated by the interests of south-east England. The union is in a precarious state, and increased dominance by the south-east should be avoided. Lack of trust in government is higher in the north of England and in the south-west. I suggest that a variance of at least 10%, combined with instructions to the Boundary Commissions to take account of rurality, and county and local government boundaries, should be implemented. That will produce an electoral landscape much more sensitive to community needs Finally, boundary reviews are a pretty well-kept secret beyond political parties, and that is unacceptable, so public consultation procedures must be strengthened. Currently, 9.4 million people are missing from the electoral register, which is also unacceptable. The commissions should be given a responsibility to promote electoral registration as well as simply counting the numbers.