argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
UK Net Zero Emissions Target — House of Lords, 2019-06-12
Topic: Environment
Bryony Worthington (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, when we passed the original Climate Change Act in 2008, the UK was the first country to pass a legally binding target for reducing our climate-damaging emissions. I am glad that in setting that example we triggered action from other countries; Sweden and New Zealand have now also legislated. Now that we are taking this bolder step to remove all our domestic emissions, we will see others follow. In the past few weeks, both Chile and Japan have committed to moving to net zero targets. I commend the Government and everyone who has contributed to getting to this position. The UK is taking the morally correct path. We are showing leadership at a time when the world is completely distracted by the rise of nationalism and populism. We are saying that there are more important issues that unify us as citizens of this sole planet that we share. We must take every step to ensure that this is not just a paper target but is backed up by policy. We have decades of examples of how we have done this; we are not starting with a blank sheet of paper. We have shown that we can decarbonise fastest among all OECD countries without it affecting our growth or economic development. We are a shining of beacon of hope in fairly dark times. I sincerely hope we will take our message to the UN in September, to Washington and Beijing, and that we will see others stepping up and increasing their ambition. It is easier and cheaper to do this than it has ever been. The technologies are there, the political will is growing and the children are out on the streets demanding that we do more. I am delighted that the Government are showing such leadership. Now we need to take it to Parliaments all around the world.
UK Net Zero Emissions Target — House of Lords, 2019-06-12
Topic: International Affairs
Helene Valerie Hayman (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, earlier today this House discussed the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kigali. The Statement refers to the UK’s bid to host COP 26, but does the Minister agree that it is important to raise these issues with other countries? We want to lead and ask our own citizens to take action, but we also need to discuss this with other countries, particularly the Commonwealth, and encourage them to make this a priority.
Hong Kong Protests — House of Lords, 2019-07-02
Topic: International Affairs
Frances D'Souza (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, will the Government press for an independent, judge-led inquiry into the events in Hong Kong since 12 June, rather than the police-led inquiry that is currently on offer from the Hong Kong legislature? Will that inquiry look into allegations of sexual violence against women perpetrated by the police, some of whom—the senior police—are British citizens?
Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2019-07-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Igor Judge (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support not only the amendments to which my name is attached but all the amendments proposed today. Taken with the earlier amendments which the House considered and which the Government have added, this makes for a much better Bill than ever it was. The particular point I wish to emphasise is that, as a result of these changes, the House, and in particular the Government, have recognised the impact of the constitutional reforms of 2005. The emphasis ought now to be recollected whenever there are any proposals to address the way in which the courts system works. Beyond that, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, for his personal contribution to the discussions and improvements—and, through him, I thank his team.
Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2019-07-02
Topic: Law and Crime
David Pannick (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I too thank the Minister very much, even in relation to a Bill which, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, has just said, seeks to reduce the role and importance of lawyers in litigation. I want to add two points. The first is to remind the House that the concerns which the Minister has so satisfactorily addressed arise from the report of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee, under the distinguished chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton. This confirms the value of the committees that serve this House—I am of course a member of that committee—and reinforces the importance of the non-partisan nature of these committees and the value of the work they do Secondly, without in any way undermining the sense of unanimity and gratitude to the Minister, I just remind him that there is one contentious issue which goes to the other place. Your Lordships’ House insisted on amendments, against the wishes of the Government, to what are now Clauses 9(4) and 10(3), requiring the concurrence of the Lord Chief Justice. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to use his good efforts to ensure a satisfactory resolution of that issue, as well as all the other issues. The Minister’s role in this Bill has been quite exemplary, and he has done a great deal to ensure that it will leave this House in a much better state than when we started it.
D-day: 75th Anniversary — House of Lords, 2019-06-04
Topic: International Affairs
David Hugh Alexander Hannay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, a commemorative debate, such as we are having today, needs both to look back to the event being commemorated and to situate the lessons from that event in the context of today, never more so than in the present instance when the controversy surrounding the state visit of President Trump risks overshadowing the real and continuing significance of D-day. First and foremost, we should salute the courage and the sacrifice of those Americans, Canadians and others who joined our own Armed Forces in a truly unprecedented military operation that led a year later to the liberation of Europe. Let us face it: they saved our bacon and helped deliver a victory that we could not have delivered on our own Are we sufficiently grateful? I sometimes doubt it. For example, why have we not, as the French have so generously done towards our D-day veterans, honoured all those surviving? Should we not now be honouring all surviving US veterans of D-day? I think we should. In the context of today, we need to realise that the Anglo-American alliance remains as important to our continued security as it was then. This is easy to forget when the Trump Administration take a whole range of decisions contrary to our view of our national interest—for example, on policy towards Iran, on the United Nations, on climate change and on trade policy—and does so without paying much attention to our own Government’s views. But we must not let our criticisms of and our opposition to this Administration metamorphose into that ugly brand of anti-Americanism which so disfigured our politics 40 years ago. We must do our best to ensure that the NATO summit to be held in this city in December strengthens the alliance and demonstrates its continuing validity Then there are the lessons of D-day for our own place in Europe, of which we are an integral part, not just geographically but culturally, economically and historically. Our failure to recognise the full implications of that in the 1920s and 1930s contributed to our having to fight our way ashore in Normandy 75 years ago There are of course no direct analogies with the present day but we need to realise that no isolation-from-Europe option for our present predicament is available to us that will not damage our future prosperity and security. We need to remember that D-day was fought to uphold a range of values—democracy, freedom of thought and speech, and many others—that were eloquently set out in the Atlantic Charter, which was drawn up by Roosevelt and Churchill two years or so before D-day, and which then became those of the United Nations when that organisation was founded in 1945. Among a lot of loose talk in recent months about the rebirth of nationalism, we need to recognise that our compatriots died to uphold those values and we must not desert them now.
Immigration (European Economic Area Nationals) (EU Exit) Order 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-18
Topic: Labor
Andrew Fleming (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, we risk getting somewhat lost in the detail here. It seems that the Government are now proposing to open up some 9 million jobs to worldwide competition, while at the same time effectively continuing with free movement to the European Union, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said. As I said before, the risk is that this will run straight out of control. We really need to get hold of this, stay on the main points and be quite sure that the Government are ready to react if the numbers start getting really difficult.
Probation Reform — House of Lords, 2019-05-16
Topic: Law and Crime
David John Ramsbotham (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for quoting the interim report that I was required to write by the Shadow Minister for Justice. I note that he quoted my paragraph saying that not all had been lost by the community rehabilitation companies and citing the economic rigour that they had to bring to their role. Perhaps I might ask Minister two questions. First, he will have noted that the Justice Select Committee and the Public Accounts Committee—plus the National Audit Office and Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Probation—issued very critical reports of the whole transforming rehabilitation process. They said that the procedure had been rushed and unpiloted. Are the new proposals again to be rushed through unpiloted? Secondly, will the 11 areas correspond to the existing 11 government regions within which the police and crime commissioners operate, or will we have yet another division? By adopting Department for Work and Pensions boundaries, Transforming Rehabilitation completely crossed every single common-sense boundary that had been followed by the probation service for years.
Probation Reform — House of Lords, 2019-05-16
Topic: Law and Crime
John Birt (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I declare an interest as my wife was the founding director-general of the National Probation Service. The Minister is surely right to observe that it was a vast improvement on the hotchpotch of arrangements that had preceded it. I welcome the Government’s Statement; first, because it is entirely right that the state should take back full responsibility for managing all offenders; it is right too—and here I disagree with the Opposition Benches—that both the private and voluntary sectors should continue to provide specialist services to the NPS. Secondly, I welcome the Statement because of the Secretary of State’s willingness to reverse an error. That genuinely took courage and is to be applauded.
Liaison Committee Report — House of Lords, 2019-03-28
Topic: Government Operations
Ruth Deech (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, Members might recall that this time a year ago anxieties were aired in this House, not so much about the subjects chosen, which seemed interesting, but about too much government control over membership and a lack of input from Members of the House over the subjects chosen. Indeed, I believe reform of the method of selection of members and subjects was aired; I think I gave evidence. Could the Senior Deputy Speaker tell us whether any reforms have taken place?
Liaison Committee Report — House of Lords, 2019-03-28
Topic: Government Operations
David Alton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, although it is perfectly natural for anyone who submitted an application to the committee—as I did on the issue of genocide—to feel disappointed if it does not succeed, I would like to say a word in support of what my noble friend Lady Deech said about the process itself I have very high regard for the Chairman of Committees and the members of the committee. This is no criticism of them. It is a positive suggestion about how we might deal with applications in the future. It would add to the life of the House if we had a hustings. People could argue their particular proposals, if they have made it to the shortlist—there would have to be a sifting process in advance. Why could Members of the House not then have the opportunity to vote on that shortlist? Certainly, there is proper debate and a vote taken with my noble friends on the Cross Benches in deciding what issues we place before the House. That is a very good precedent. This is something which engages the House, which is a merit in itself—that these are subjects we care about and want to see looked at properly by committees. The fair way to do that would be to look at the process itself. Therefore, can the noble Lord say whether it would be possible for the committee to look at ways to engage the House more widely, after the sifting for the shortlist, in choosing the topics that then go forward for inquiry by Select Committee?
Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Act 2018 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-28
Topic: Environment
Charles Hay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank the Minister for his clear explanation, and I declare my interests as set out on the register. In particular, I am chairman of the UK Squirrel Accord, a body of 35 entities—the four Governments, the four nature agencies and the principal voluntary and private sector bodies—that are trying to deal with the problem of grey squirrels killing broad-leaved trees. The problem is extremely serious and is preventing commercial forestry planting such trees at the moment in large tracts of our country I have two questions for the Minister, arising from the Explanatory Memorandum. First, to follow on from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, I note that paragraph 7.1 says: "Selected functions continue to operate across Great Britain including functions relating to forestry science and research, tree health and common codes and standards" Where squirrels and tree diseases are concerned, a line in an atlas makes no difference at all to the problems; it is vital that things continue to be co-ordinated across the border. I think that sentence means, "Great Britain and Northern Ireland", not just "Great Britain". Could the Minister confirm that? Also, does it mean that various functions will remain at the UK level? That would be very helpful, given the necessity of moving forward on a co-ordinated basis, particularly in science My second question is on paragraph 7.3, which refers to Articles 3 and 4. It talks about maintaining, "a coordinated approach to issues such as the management of plant-based pests and diseases" Does the Minister agree it is vital to make sure that takes place? No individual bit of Great Britain has all of the intellectual power or money—or even necessarily a research institute—to do these vital things. It is so important that things remain co-ordinated. There is pretty much chaos at the moment, and staff morale is not good in some of the new bodies which will replace the current arrangements. If I have a fear, it is this: if the ball is dropped, the net result will be a big problem in plant health and broad-leaved trees.
Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Act 2018 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-28
Topic: Environment
Onora O'Neill (Crossbench, Unknown): Before the Minister sits down, I want to ask him a little more about treating Northern Ireland separately from the rest of the United Kingdom in these matters. It is surely one thing to treat the Irish Sea as an effective border for the movement of animals, but that has not proved true for the movement of plant pathogens. When one looks at the map of the distribution of both ash dieback and phytophthora ramorum across the island of Ireland, one sees that it would be a fiction to regard Northern Ireland as separate from the rest of the UK.
Households Below Average Incomes Statistics — House of Lords, 2019-03-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I welcome the Statement and much of what the Minister said regarding achieving high rates of employment, with its benefits to mental health and the importance of children having the role model of parents in work. However, I am very concerned at the rise in the number of children in poverty where the parents work. I highlight the two reports of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children on the funding of children’s services in local authorities. Cuts to local authority funding have reduced early intervention to support vulnerable families, and I hope that the Minister will take that into account when considering the pressures that these families are under. I particularly welcome the reference in the Statement to a new review of the future of the national living wage. What is the likely timescale for that? When will it start and when might it end? Might there be an interim report? The Low Pay Commission has been asked to produce recommendations on the national living wage and the national minimum wage in October 2019, and it will clearly need the report from that review well before then to be able to make good recommendations. I look forward to the Minister perhaps writing to me on those points if she cannot answer in detail now.
Households Below Average Incomes Statistics — House of Lords, 2019-03-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Rosel Boycott (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I wish I could believe all the things that the Minister has claimed the Government are doing about poverty at the moment. I declare an interest as a trustee of Feeding Britain and of the Food Foundation. I do not know how many people saw the recent ONS figures about life expectancy, which are completely up to date. They show that the gap between the richest and the poorest in terms of years of life lived with health has widened yet again. In fact, if a woman in this country is poor, she will have 18.4 years of ill health. The richer the person, the longer they will live with health Is there any reason for that? Right now—not two years ago or whenever—the poorest 10% of UK households have to spend 74% of their disposable income after rent to afford the Government’s "eatwell plate". That is not even up to the level of the House of Lords canteen; it is very basic food. If you do not have that food, you are 2.2 times more likely to be obese by the time you are five, and that gets worse. Recent material has shown that children who are badly fed, who get so little, are actually a centimetre shorter. We are sentencing a generation of children, the poorest 20%—one in five of our kids—to a lifetime in which they will not thrive or be equal unless we deal with some of the underlying causes I believe there are things that the Government could do. For instance, we could allow universal, free, healthy school meals to all children. We could also bring back meals on wheels for seniors who are struggling. I ask the Minister to think about this.
Commonwealth — House of Lords, 2019-03-28
Topic: International Affairs
Karan Bilimoria (Crossbench, Unknown): We have been trying to do it for over a decade Let us look at the irony of when we joined the EU 46 years ago. The Daily Mail celebrated by saying: "Now we can lead Europe!" The Sun spoke of, "an unrepeatable opportunity for a nation that lost an empire to gain a continent" How things have changed Before concluding, I would like to touch on the Memorial Gates at Constitution Hill, the trust on which I have the privilege of chairing. We celebrate the contribution of 5 million volunteers from predominantly the Commonwealth countries to the first and second world wars. The contribution of these individuals was extraordinary and we need to acknowledge that without it we would not have our freedom today. Yet The Royal British Legion says that the treatment of Commonwealth veterans is atrocious. Hundreds of Commonwealth military veterans, who risked their lives serving in the UK Armed Forces, face spiralling debts, being forced to pay "exorbitant" visa fees to remain in the country after their discharge. The fees have gone up by 127% in five years. Since their introduction in 2003, the fees have risen by 1,441%. If the veterans cannot pay, they face deportation. That is awful considering that, looking ahead, we want to recruit more members from the Commonwealth because of recruitment shortages at the moment We have huge and wonderful opportunities with the Commonwealth, but they are not instead of the relationship with the European Union. I conclude with Her Majesty the Queen’s Commonwealth Day message, where she said that, "many millions of people around the world are drawn together because of the collective values shared by the Commonwealth … We are able to look to the future with greater confidence and optimism as a result of the links that we share, and thanks to the networks of co-operation and mutual support to which we contribute, and on which we draw" In the words of the Booker prize-winning author Ben Okri, as inscribed on the Memorial Gates: "Our future is greater than our past".
UK’s Ambassador to the USA: Resignation — House of Lords, 2019-07-11
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Hastings Jay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I worked with Kim Darroch for many years, in many different capacities, under many different Prime Ministers from Lady Thatcher onwards, and I have the very highest regard for his integrity and diplomatic skills. I regret his resignation; I am not in the least surprised that those who worked for him regret it as well. I pay tribute to him for the work he has done. Can the Minister give us an absolute assurance that this Government—I know she will have no difficulty doing so for this Government—and, as far as she is able, the next Prime Minister and the next Government, will remain committed to the political independence and impartiality of the Diplomatic Service and the Home Civil Service?
UK’s Ambassador to the USA: Resignation — House of Lords, 2019-07-11
Topic: Government Operations
Frederick Butler (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, with some regret I express my support for the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer. There is a convention that when there is a prospect of a change of government, Governments do not take major decisions. There is a good reason for that, which is that the incoming Government should have full confidence in the person who is appointed. Is it not necessary that this convention should apply in this case?
European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Consequential Modifications and Repeals and Revocations) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: Government Operations
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank the Minister for clarifying a point which was left unclear in the Explanatory Memorandum. It is very important that these matters, in dealings with the devolved Administrations, are properly set out and clarified. I am extremely grateful.
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Henry Alexander Eames (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, will the Minister accept from me that, while those of us from Northern Ireland fully accept the reason for the Answer that he has made public this morning, there is a growing cynicism among the ordinary people of Northern Ireland, who see their health service, schools and social amenities—a wide field of activity in Northern Ireland—suffering day by day and night by night? That cynicism is largely based on bland statements that efforts are being made to fill the vacuum. I know that there is intent in the Government to be seen to be doing everything possible to fill the vacuum, and I accept that there are difficulties with the local parties. However, I urge the Minister to convey what many of us are saying in the Chamber: the frustration in the community at large is extremely dangerous at this time given the unrest leading up to Brexit.