argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Representation of the People (Electoral Registers Publication Date) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-09-03
Topic: Government Operations
William John Lawrence Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it matters enormously to English democracy to get the 2021 local elections right, after cancelling the local elections this year. Delaying the date for completing and publishing the electoral registers from December to February 2021 is therefore entirely justifiable. I therefore support this statutory instrument, but I have a number of questions for the Minister on how electoral registration will be improved further I note the references in the guidance notes for electoral registration officers to local and national data matching with other local authority datasets and the DWP dataset on national insurance. How does this evolution of data matching fit in with the ambitious proposals that we have just heard about to establish online identity verification throughout the UK, a project that we know is close to Dominic Cummings’ heart? Does the Cabinet Office intend to integrate data matching for electoral registers with identity verification for other purposes beyond the DWP? Will it report to Parliament on how this will be carried forward, and what safeguards against errors will be built in? We know from the controversies over AI that errors can easily be built into such activities The more suspicious among us sometimes suspect that Conservatives are more concerned to keep doubtful names off the register than to make sure that every citizen is registered. All democrats ought to be worried that our electoral registers remain incomplete, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, just pointed out, and that citizens at the margin, in poverty or out of work are most likely to be left off. The references to data matching that I read in the guidance implied that it would be used to remove names from the register, but not to add any of those missing. Are the Government considering moving, in good time, towards automatic voter registration for all citizens, which the move to digital government, at both national and local level, should make possible? If not, will the Minister commit to raising this issue within government as one that the digital enthusiasts around Mr Cummings should include in their plans I welcome the debate on this SI in the Chamber. The House must anticipate a flood of SIs this autumn, as the Government struggle to catch up with the legislation needed to complete our break from the European Union. Will the Minister and the Government Front Bench also note that Members will expect to be able to scrutinise and approve these SIs, not to face ministerial attempts to cram them through in large batches. The Brexit campaign promised to restore parliamentary sovereignty. Our current Prime Minister wants instead to restore executive prerogatives. We will resist his efforts.
Mobile Homes (Requirement for Manager of Site to be Fit and Proper Person) (England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-09-03
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael German (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I strongly support these regulations, which are very important for the protection of vulnerable people living on mobile home sites. The need for these regulations, which ensure the safety of those living on mobile home sites, is illustrated by one of the most despicable cases in recent years: the 2013 discovery on a mobile home site in south Wales of two persons who had been enslaved for 13 years. In September 2013, following a tip-off, police raided a site outside Newport and discovered human slavery at its worst. One of those rescued, Darrell Simester, who was originally from Kidderminster, published a book some three years later describing the 13 years of hell that he had endured as a slave. Darrell, who has autism, was first forced to work for 15 hours a day, without pay, in appalling conditions. He worked on a farm for two meals a day, and for 11 of the 13 years had to wash himself in a horse trough. For the final few years, he lived in a caravan in terrible conditions, wearing filthy clothes and losing some of his teeth. Thankfully, Darrell now lives independently with support, and the perpetrators have received long prison sentences This site was, however, listed by the local authority—certainly for most of the time Darrell was incarcerated there. That is why this legislation is so urgently needed: to give protection to vulnerable people like Darrell and to support those harassed by unscrupulous owners of sites I have some questions that I hope the Minister can answer. First, what reassurance does this legislation provide for close collaboration between the police and local authorities? In the case I referred to it was the police who received a tip-off and initiated action. This legislation places the responsibility on much-stretched local authorities. How will this important relationship between local authorities and the police be managed? I understand that some of it will be covered by DBS certificates My second, and not unrelated, question, is about the nature of "a fit and proper person". Schedule 3 lists the criteria for judging whether the site manager is fit and proper to do the job. Most importantly, the criteria on harassment need to be clarified, because they refer to whether the relevant person "has harassed any person in, or in connection with, the carrying on of any business" Does that mean a conviction for harassment, or would a recorded complaint of harassment be sufficient for the police In supporting these regulations, therefore, I hope that the Minister can answer those two questions.
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office — House of Lords, 2020-09-03
Topic: International Affairs
Malcolm Bruce (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I urge the Government to make an early statement of coherent development policy objectives for the new department. I am glad that the Minister has reaffirmed the 0.7% but the Government have given conflicting messages on this issue, implying that the already slashed budget may be diverted elsewhere. The Secretary of State gave an evasive answer to my colleague Layla Moran yesterday, so I am glad that the Minister here has given a straight answer today. The workload of monitoring development and working with ICAI is surely beyond the effective capacity of one committee, so will the Government recognise that we need a dedicated committee to deal with this, which happened when the ODA was within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the time of the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker?
Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-17
Topic: Labor
Barbara Janke (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I, too, thank noble Lords for their contributions to our deliberations on the Bill, and I thank the Minister and her team for providing us with advice and information to help us understand the issues raised by the Bill. We very much welcome the Government’s commitment to the triple lock and hope that it will not be abandoned as a short-term political fix in the face of the economic difficulties that are no doubt ahead of us. I am sure that the Government have listened to the issues raised in the debate, and I hope they will look again at the position of overseas pensioners whose pensions are worth so little despite how much they have contributed over the years. It seems that the Government have committed to consider the numbers of pensioners living in poverty. I draw attention particularly to the plight of many women who have received very unfair treatment and unfair settlements on their pensions I welcome the work that is being started on pension credit and I believe that the Government are committed to ensuring that those who need it most are, in fact, able and willing to claim it. I thank the Minister again for the meeting yesterday, which I thought was extremely positive, and I look forward to working with her on that project. I also thank my colleagues for supporting the Bill and Sarah Pughe in the Liberal Democrats office, who supported us so ably. So saying, I give my support to the Bill.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Alison Suttie (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I also add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on her excellent maiden speech. I look forward to hearing her speeches in the future What is perhaps remarkable about the speeches we have heard is that the overwhelming majority, on all sides of the House, agree that the Bill is both unnecessary and deeply damaging. As has been pointed out, we have only four minutes, and so I will make three points The first is simply to recall, as other noble Lords have, that this is a problem of the Government’s own making. The fact is that the Prime Minister insisted that it was possible to do three incompatible things. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke, so eloquently explained, the Government insisted that the whole of the United Kingdom could leave both the customs union and the single market while simultaneously avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland, as well as down the Irish Sea. Their solution was the Northern Ireland protocol. Just 10 months ago, the Prime Minister referred to the withdrawal agreement with the protocol attached as "fantastic" and "historic". The Northern Ireland protocol, which is far from perfect, is none the less a carefully constructed compromise to try to maintain peace and stability on the island of Ireland and to protect the Good Friday/Belfast agreement My second point is that the Bill in reality does little to address the actual problem about which Ministers claim to be concerned. It does nothing about checks on goods crossing from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, only theoretically providing a power to avoid checks in the other direction. If the UK Government are concerned to ensure that everything possible is done within the protocol to facilitate GB-NI trade, they have the legal means at their disposal through the joint committee My third and final point is this: the people in Northern Ireland, from all communities, have been let down too often already by this Government. It is just less than a year since the Executive in Stormont were restored. The progress made in the last 20 years is not something that can, or should, ever be taken for granted. Repeated polling makes it very clear that a majority of people in Northern Ireland recognise the need for the protocol, despite its challenges. They do not want the Government to break international law on their behalf. Businesses need economic certainty and the people of Northern Ireland deserve much better than being used as a political football in the Brexit talks. The solution is clearly to negotiate a better, closer deal between the EU and the UK, and then to use agreed mechanisms to protect trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If the Bill is intended to strengthen the mechanisms that hold together the United Kingdom, it is clearly not succeeding. If the Bill is a short-term tactic to strengthen the Government’s negotiating hand, it is hard not to conclude that the loss of trust that it has generated will do long-term harm to our international reputation.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the Bill will represent a further stage in the eventual break-up of the United Kingdom should it proceed unamended. It centralises power away from the devolved Administrations, gives excessive powers to Ministers, and undermines the rule of law In the Minister’s opening address, in which he justified the Bill, he said that the Government wanted a coherent internal market in the UK, with control of subsidies and fair competition. This approach sits oddly with this Government’s negotiating position with the EU, where we are leaving a coherent internal market seemingly to do the opposite with regard to subsidies and fair competition, and, in the process, to override the devolution settlement The Minister referred to a huge transfer of powers from the EU to the devolved nations following Brexit. He neglected to say that under this Bill the devolved nations would lose some crucial powers. It is little surprise that the devolved nations have reacted as they have In the face of the coronavirus pandemic it has been beneficial to have the devolved Administrations devising and piloting different approaches. We need to encourage new thinking that tests potential solutions, not stifle it on the basis that Whitehall knows best. As an example, the Welsh Government are proposing a ban on the sale of nine single-use plastic products, while the UK Government are proposing to ban only three. This Bill would mean that in Wales the six other products could still be sold, because they have been made in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland. We would therefore have lower environmental standards—levelling down, not up. The Bill should include derogations that limit the primacy of mutual recognition for matters of environmental protection. In 2011, Wales led the way in introducing a charge on plastic carrier bags. It worked so well that the other parts of the UK followed, and the outcome today is a higher standard of environmental protection for us all. Public health is another area where devolved powers really matter, because they can help to effect positive changes more quickly than centralised structures. We have seen devolved Administrations give the rest of the UK a sense of direction with policies that improve public health. One example is Scotland’s minimum unit pricing for alcohol, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, has mentioned. There are other examples. As it stands, however, the Bill could lead to poorer public health outcomes in one country because of the right of market access from others There is a solution: the Government could set out a general public health exception to the mutual recognition principle, along with the necessary derogations on matters of environmental protection. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, pointed out, these are matters, first, for common frameworks. Market access principles should be considered only when discussions on common frameworks have failed. Even then, the power to introduce derogations would remain essential.
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-19
Topic: Foreign Trade
Monroe Edward Palmer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it appears that Brexit will not only have queues of trucks on roads leading to the Channel ports but will lead to an expected plethora of disputes in the internal market between parts of the UK. The Bill, by its very existence, acknowledges the divisive self-harm being inflicted on our nations by this clueless Government. We already have a common frameworks programme, so well detailed by my noble friend Lord German, and a commitment to collaboration in a regulatory manner. So I do not see how this Bill in any way helps or adds to the resolution of disputes in the functioning of the single market The latest proposed quango is the Office for the Internal Market. Its role will be purely to provide independent advice on dispute resolution. Well, we already have the Competition and Markets Authority, which has become a very large body in its own right. It will now also include the Office for the Internal Market—an added and expensive creation. It appears that in the current crisis in health, business and employment, the only growth industry is an expanding Civil Service. Sir Humphrey Appleby of "Yes Minister" would have been proud of it. An article in The Times today suggests that there is one civil servant for every 152 citizens, not counting employees of arm’s-length bodies. This Bill moves us nearer to the doubtful utopia of a civil servant for each and every citizen We can see at this very moment in the Covid pandemic how there are divergent policies between Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. Can the Minister state clearly whether, in the case of a dispute not being solved after the valued advice of the latest quango, the UK Minister will make the decision? If so, that is a sure way to build up resentment in the devolved Administrations. Surely a more collaborative arrangement is required between the devolved parts of the United Kingdom This brings us back to the common frameworks programme, detailed, as I said, by my noble friend Lord German. There is no doubt that the advanced development of common frameworks has been complicated by the Bill before us today. The Bill aims for a draconian, even dictatorial, power to ensure that sales in one part of the UK will be acceptable in all other parts. This may be the desired result for some people under any arrangement, but it may not be the desired result in one of the devolved nations I require the Minister to explain how the Bill and the common frameworks are to function at the same time. The Bill is unnecessary and could well be very harmful. We should do all in our power to defeat the Bill in its current form.
Northern Ireland Protocol: Implementation Proposals — House of Lords, 2020-11-19
Topic: Foreign Trade
Malcolm Bruce (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Yesterday’s Statement in in the House of Commons was a bravura performance, but completely out of touch with reality. Is it not the case that any small business in Northern Ireland planning for Brexit is faced with a nightmare of distraction, with few hard facts on which to base any decisions? The five essential steps on InterTradeIreland pose detailed questions on the supply chain, customs, people and data, to which answers are not available. If you ask your supply chain, they do not yet have the answers; if you ask customs, neither do they, and so on. When will the trader support service be in a position to deliver to businesses that register? Does the Minister accept that, given the continuing uncertainty, services in support of the trader support service will be needed for years to come?
Towns Fund — House of Lords, 2020-11-19
Topic: Government Operations
Kathryn Pinnock (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I have relevant interests, as set out in the register, and I also welcome the towns fund. however, it is not quite correct that, as the Minister has just said, the top 40 towns, as assessed by the criteria, were chosen for the money in the towns fund. There were many towns in the highest-priority category that were not selected. Can the Minister explain why they were rejected? What can I tell their local representatives about why they are failing to meet the eye of the Minister when they meet the criteria?
Law Enforcement and Security (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-11-19
Topic: Law and Crime
Dominic Hubbard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for introducing this legislation. I was initially thrown by the language. I shudder to think how much time I spent trying to figure out exactly what an explosives precursor was. Basically, it is a chemical compound that can be used in explosives Given that, in the history of Northern Ireland, virtually all terrorists seem, at times, to have resorted to home-made explosives, these regulations seem extremely sensible and I can see no real objection to them. However, it would be good to know how the fertiliser bomb fits into the regulations. Are such chemicals trigger mechanisms or accelerants? A little more detail would be helpful, if the noble Viscount has it. If not, perhaps he would write to me. The noble Viscount may already have answered my next question—what do you do about weapons such as target rifles, which can be carried around? These weapons are potentially lethal, even if they are not the most efficient way of hurting someone. They fire a projectile at great pace and with great accuracy over a long distance I am trying to extract a little more information, which, having listened to what the noble Viscount said, is not quite fair. Nevertheless, how can we make sure that it will be possible to travel with such a weapon between Great Britain and the continent or Ireland? Are there any legal barriers or other stages that have to be gone through if you are competing across the whole of Great Britain and in Europe, for instance, and not just in Ireland? It would be interesting to know that, because it will affect people, especially at the elite end of that sport. The same can be said of sporting guns—shotguns et cetera—that are used for shooting game. How do they fit in, and what hurdles does one have to jump through? I do not dispute the fact that there should be some but it would be nice to hear what they are Perhaps I might be allowed to put my toe into slightly more controversial water. Would these weapons be affected if, for instance, the amendments that we passed to the internal market Bill were kept, or would the situation change if we went back to the original Bill? It might be interesting to hear that when the noble Viscount sums up. With that caveat, I give moderate approval to the regulations.
Law Enforcement and Security (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-11-19
Topic: International Affairs
William Bradshaw (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I agree with what has been said by my noble friend Lord Addington. I realise that there are all sorts of complications, to which the noble Lord, Lord Empey, has referred, which flow from the protocol and the decision to exit the European Union. Those problems are on the Government’s head; this Parliament decided to leave the European Union. In so doing, there will be all sorts of problems that they have to sort out. However, the specific matters under consideration today appear to be fairly peripheral and I do not need to detain the House any longer.