argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Lords, 2016-07-13
Topic: Law and Crime
Jonathan Toby Harris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, first, I should draw attention to my interests in the register on policing and counterterrorism matters. Secondly, I should make clear that my starting point on the Bill is that it is important that the developing gaps in access to communications data are addressed to protect the nation against all sorts of threats In any set of counterterrorism or counterespionage measures, or whatever else it might be, you have to look at the balance and weigh the benefit to the nation in protecting its citizens by having those powers against the potential downside or consequences of exercising them When we come to the question contained in this group of amendments—essentially about enabling or requiring companies to break the apparent encryption—we have to look carefully at the potential downsides presented by this. The first downside, or danger, is that by enabling this to happen—by creating the mechanism and requiring companies, as my noble friend Lady Hayter said, to make new arrangements so that encryption can be broken—you create a back-door mechanism. This would be available not just to the forces of good—those who are trying to protect all our security—but to cybercriminals and those who would do us ill. Therefore you need to weigh clearly what you are trying to do against whether you are creating something that will make it easier for criminals and those who would do us harm The second element is the extent to which what we do in this country sets a precedent that will be seized in other countries, whose interests may not be the same as ours or as positive as ours towards their citizenry. If we create that precedent, what is to prevent Governments in other countries saying that they want the same powers and therefore doing the same? That test has to be applied to quite a number of the measures in the Bill. As I say, my starting point is that I want the state to be able to fill the gap in its access to communications data that is emerging and opening up. However, I want to hear from the Government a clear explanation of why in this set of cases the benefits outweigh the potential disbenefits.
Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Lords, 2016-07-13
Topic: Technology
Jonathan Toby Harris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, can the Minister clarify for me—I am sure that other noble Lords have got to the point precisely—that the requirements that the Bill seeks to create will apply only where a service provider has offered a service which most people might assume is secure and encrypted but has built in an existing arrangement which allows it to access it? Would it apply only in those circumstances? If that is not the case, perhaps the Minister could explain in what other circumstances it might apply. Can he further tell us whether there is an expectation in the Bill that, where a service provider is developing a new service, it must ensure that it has the facility to access what the user would assume are encrypted data?
Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Lords, 2016-07-13
Topic: Technology
Jonathan Toby Harris (Labour, Centre-left): I am sorry to press the point, but I need to understand it. I understand the Minister’s answer in respect of the requirement applying where it is reasonably practicable because the encryption arrangement has been applied by the service provider, but is he saying that there is an expectation that in building new services a service provider should create something where it is technically possible for it to undermine that encryption? If so, that would raise a very different point which is important to clarify. Is the service provider required to make it technically practicable in future services as it develops them for this to be allowed?
Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Lords, 2016-07-13
Topic: Technology
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Minister spoke about what is possible and reasonable, but the point of our Amendment 93 is that a notice may not impose the requirement to build a facility that would break end-to-end encryption. We may need to return to this on Report, but it would perhaps be useful to have a discussion between now and then about imposing the requirement to build capacity to break end-to-end encryption.
Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Lords, 2016-07-13
Topic: Technology
Jonathan Toby Harris (Labour, Centre-left): Is the Minister therefore saying the Government’s expectation is that service providers will in future ensure that it is reasonably practicable for them to access those communications? If that is the case, I think that he is raising a whole new group of issues.
Defence: Continuous At-Sea Deterrent — House of Lords, 2016-07-13
Topic: Energy
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the noble Baroness for giving way during a short debate. I am very interested in what she is saying. She has been very candid about the Liberal Democrats’ position—in favour of retaining a nuclear capability, but not supporting this particular move. In what form would they retain a nuclear capability?
Prisons: Violence — House of Lords, 2016-05-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. Given the long-standing concerns about overcrowding, self-harm, violence and suicides in prison, last week’s revelations about the use of synthetic cannabis and the damning reports on the misuse of force and restraint of young offenders in Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre last March and Medway Secure Training Centre last week, is it not time for a judge-led review of the management of custodial services and the Youth Justice Board along the lines of the report from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, published in 1991? Should that not include reconsideration of the outsourcing of provisions to overseas private companies and palpably overstretched organisations such as G4S?
Education: Academies — House of Lords, 2016-05-09
Topic: Education
Genista Mary McIntosh (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Minister made it fairly clear that although the element of compulsion has been removed at least from the rhetoric for the time being, it is still the determination of this Government to encourage, by whatever means, all schools to become academies. Building on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, when he said that a poorly performing multi-academy trust is no better than a poorly performing local authority, can the Minister say why the Government are so bent on creating this new monoculture? A well-performing academy trust is obviously a very fine thing and we all like to see schools succeed, but some local authorities are also succeeding and are creating and supporting schools that are doing well. Should we not celebrate that success as well as the success of academies I shall follow on from the question asked by my noble friend on the Front Bench. The issue of autonomy for schools—much vaunted in the progress of this Government’s determination to encourage academies—is surely diluted in multi-academy trusts where there is, of course, one leadership team. The degree of autonomy that then resides with the individual school must by definition be reduced. Is that really what the Minister has in mind?
Schools: Funding — House of Lords, 2016-07-21
Topic: Education
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement. I remind the House that my wife is an education consultant to the Education and Training Foundation As recently as Tuesday, Ministers said they remained committed to the original timescale. What has changed in the past 48 hours? Was it a dawning realisation of the funding problem currently facing our schools? I noted that the Minister said that no local authority will see a reduction in its 2016-17 funding to schools next year. But we have a growing number of pupils and a growing teacher shortage, and the Minister will know that schools are already struggling to cope with the effect of the 5% funding cut because of the increase in national insurance and teacher pension contributions that schools have had to pay As part of this approach to fair funding, can we see a reappraisal of the funding of schools in their entirety? As the Minister’s department is also having higher education and further education transferred to it, can he also say whether the further education budget will be protected next year, having been decimated by the BIS department over the last two years? Finally, I am sure we all agree with fair funding but I have noticed that when it came to police areas, the fire service and the NHS, fair funding has meant greater funding in Conservative constituencies. Would the Minister care to tell me what fair funding will mean for schools?
Warm Home Discount (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-07-21
Topic: Social Welfare
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): At end insert "but that this House regrets that two million low-income and vulnerable households will have substantial delays to their rebates for most of the winter, despite government promises to have the rebate in place by 1 December 2016; and agrees with the assessment in the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s 6th Report that "the unattainability of this objective [that rebates should reach customers before the winter period] would appear to result from the tardiness in securing cross-Government agreement".
Warm Home Discount (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-07-21
Topic: Government Operations
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the regret that she expressed about the timetable and the late registration of the regulations before the House. Obviously, that goes some way to addressing our concerns We could argue about the five months. I do not think that the unusual circumstances—or however we want to describe them—go back to November of last year. Still at the heart of this issue is a fundamental problem about cross-departmental working and cross-departmental policy discussion, which seemingly remains unresolved. We were looking for the opportunity to hear from the noble Baroness that the Government understand that, are taking it seriously and are addressing it.
Warm Home Discount (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-07-21
Topic: Social Welfare
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for that intervention. I have one other point. The timetable that is set out assumes that the data matching will go to plan—the timetable with the DWP is 10 weeks. A lot of those IT projects tend to have optimistic timetables in my experience, so we are relying on that data-matching being done within 10 weeks. Otherwise, there will be a further delay which everyone would find very regrettable. There is clearly more work to be done on targeting and how we can get the rebates and the payments to those in greatest need. I understand that this cannot necessarily be resolved within this particular set of regulations, but there is more room for dialogue on that issue in the months to come Having heard what the Minister has to say, I will not detain the House any longer. I do not intend at this stage to press this amendment to a vote. It is the Lord Speaker’s last day in post barring disasters over the summer, so it is only fair to give her a gentle ending to her distinguished service. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment Amendment withdrawn. Motion agreed.
European Union Migration: National Insurance — House of Lords, 2016-05-12
Topic: Labor
Jeffrey Rooker (Labour, Centre-left): What most people do not really appreciate—of course, the media never explain it; they exploit it—is that millions of female pensioners in this country carry two national insurance numbers because their pension is based on their late husband’s contributions. That number has to remain active in the system. That is why the numbers are always greater than the population, and always will be. There is no connection whatsoever between the number of active or inactive national insurance numbers and the number of people present in the country.
BBC — House of Lords, 2016-05-12
Topic: Technology
Waheed Alli (Labour, Centre-left): Before I start, I say this to the usual channels. On a day when we are adjourning for pleasure and there is no other business, you should not be time-limiting this debate to 20 minutes for those of us on the Back Benches. We deserve a proper share of time. We are adjourning for pleasure today: there is no other business. From speaking to colleagues around the House, that is the feeling of the Back Benches, and you should listen to us a little more often The test today for me is: does the White Paper leave the BBC more independent, or less, than it is today? My fear is that it will be less independent. We know that the Secretary of State is a little less ideologically bent towards the BBC. When I read the White Paper, I worry that there are ticking time-bombs in it in three areas. One, which we have talked about, is the appointment of board members. The second is contestability and whether that money will grow in time and be used as a mechanism to siphon off the licence fee. The third and probably the most worrying is trying to force the BBC to do distinctive programmes. My fear is that that will be used to make it move off doing popular programmes which, from the consultation, is what the public and licence fee payers want Will the Government confirm that nothing in the distinctiveness mandate will limit the BBC’s ability to produce the programmes it wants, schedule them when it wants to and introduce the new services it thinks are right? Will the noble Baroness answer that question?
BBC — House of Lords, 2016-05-12
Topic: Technology
John Davies (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I strongly object to the Government deciding at the last minute to reduce the question time from 40 minutes to 20; until the very moment they began, 40 minutes was on the screen. The Statement says that the Government are committed to the BBC thriving in future, but in practice do these proposals not actually reflect an agenda to cut back the BBC’s market share? Is that not really what this is all about? When the Government have achieved that in due time, will they not use that as an excuse in a future review of the licence fee to cut back the BBC’s income as well?
BBC — House of Lords, 2016-05-12
Topic: Technology
Michael Wills (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I have been waiting a very long time to get in. I want to return the Minister to one of these devil details: the public service content fund. She addressed the question asked by my noble friend Lord Collins but she did not answer it. I therefore ask her again: will she give a guarantee that that will not be used to salami-slice the licence fee? That guarantee is particularly important in view of the grudging acceptance in the Statement of the licence fee and the fulsome praise she gave for that public service content fund. Does the Minister accept that the licence fee is the foundation for the excellence of the BBC as the world’s most outstanding national broadcaster?
Economy and Finance — House of Lords, 2016-06-09
Topic: Macroeconomics
Simon Haskel (Labour, Centre-left): I thank all noble Lords for participating in this debate, which I have found fascinating. It is interesting that most of us agreed on the benefits of remaining within the single market. People spoke of the benefits to shop prices and the cost of living; the benefits to science and to the north-east and how important that is; the benefits to our national and economic security; and its importance to financial and capital markets, and to the hospitality industry. Several noble Lords spoke about the turbulence that the referendum is causing and how that could have been avoided, and questioned whether the whole thing was really necessary anyway My noble friend Lord Chandos spoke about the obligations of the single market as well as its benefits, and he is quite right. A number of other noble Lords raised other issues. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, about small companies. I myself built up a business and know exactly what he is talking about, although I do not agree with his views about small businesses and the single market I found the views of the noble Lord, Lord Polak, about Raspberry Pi very interesting. He and the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, raised the whole question of the importance of technology and technological entrepreneurs, and I agree with them entirely. Have there really been 8 million Raspberry Pis? I am amazed at the number; I thought there were about 2 million or 3 million. I know that the BBC gives out a similar device; in fact, my grandchildren set theirs going using their smartphones I thank my noble friend Lord Hanworth for raising the effect of our continually not paying our way, and the uncertainties of the pound for our deficit. He is quite right. The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, also told us about the importance of paying our way, and I agree with him. I thank my noble friend Lord Davies for his kind words. He is right to raise the whole question of productivity and how it affects us all, particularly our standard of living The Minister spoke about cutting the deficit and what our bookkeeping targets were, but we are still waiting for them to be achieved. Of course he did not tell us about the cost of all that—the social cost, the cost in inequality and the cost of lost investment at a time when the Government could invest at virtually zero cost. The other point to which I am not sure the Minister really responded was how much it all depends on inward investment. There is of course a great cost to that. The noble Lord, Lord Leigh, said that we ought to invest our money in other countries where we get a better return. I am not sure that that is the only consideration and that we are wise now to depend so much on inward investment. There is a democratic risk there Several things have not been mentioned, such as climate change and other risks. Of course, the overuse of antibiotics is a risk to us all. The noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, is doing work on that and I am glad that he is getting on with it My time is up, so I thank all noble Lords for speaking. I am most grateful to everybody for their contributions.
Syria: Air Drops — House of Lords, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
Raymond Collins (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the noble Baroness for repeating the response to this morning’s Urgent Question. I am sure we all agree that the most important thing is to focus our attention on the plight of those 582,000 people—men, women and children—who have been denied access, some since 2012. The conditions in those areas must be absolutely appalling and dreadful—it is difficult to imagine—and it is important that we keep highlighting that The noble Baroness said—and I heard the Minister in the other place, the right honourable David Lidington, say—that this afternoon British officials will meet their ISSG counterparts to consider the response of the Assad regime to the UN request for access. There is no doubt that the best outcome is agreed land access. That is the most effective way to get support in there. But what will happen if the Syrian Government refuse permission or impose further unnecessary delays? Will we be able to persuade others that air drops are appropriate as a last resort? And what timeframe are we considering? As each day and each week go past, the conditions in these areas will become intolerable I heard the right honourable David Lidington say that Russia and Iran have the power to influence the situation. Apart from the discussions in the ISSG, what efforts are the Government making to put pressure on Russia and Iran to use that influence more appropriately? What can we do about that There is no doubt that political progress towards a settlement is made a great deal more difficult while Assad deliberately uses the denial of humanitarian aid as a political and military weapon. I know that the noble Baroness shares my view and I hope she will confirm that there will be no hiding place for individuals who flagrantly breach international humanitarian law.
Syria: Air Drops — House of Lords, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
Donald Anderson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, is there any evidence that Russia will be co-operative in the United Nations Security Council and not block an initiative? Is there any evidence that Russia is acting positively in respect of pressure on the Assad regime?
Government and Parliament — House of Lords, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
Kenneth Woolmer (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Lord mentioned an absolute veto. Is it not the case that a statutory instrument annulled by this House as a negative instrument can be brought back immediately with a change of title, and that an affirmative resolution instrument which is rejected can be brought back with minor amendments? So it is not an absolute veto. That is what happened in the case of the Rhodesian sanctions.
Government and Parliament — House of Lords, 2016-06-09
Topic: Government Operations
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, we talk about clauses, SI numbers and pages, but what matters and what the noble Baroness has so far not addressed in her constructive response is whether they are heavy-duty SIs carrying a policy load. Nobody has any objection to a number of SIs that technically adjust things such as the timing of when things will be brought in. What matters is whether they carry policy and therefore, by virtue of being SIs, put that policy beyond proper parliamentary scrutiny.
European Union Referendum (Voter Registration) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-06-09
Topic: Government Operations
Angela Smith (Labour, Centre-left): I am sorry to intervene on the Minister but I want to check a point. It does not affect support for the regulations in any way, but he said that postal votes would definitely not be opened until after close of poll. In most elections there are two stages and, in local and general elections, the postal votes are opened before the close of poll for verification that they are valid but are not counted until the close of poll. There are numerous reports of postal votes being opened as they come in, at the verification stage. If the Minister could check that point it would be helpful.
Brexit: Foreign and Security Policy Co-operation — House of Lords, 2016-10-20
Topic: International Affairs
John Davies (Labour, Centre-left): I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for her remarks and for giving way. Just to be absolutely clear, will it be the intention of the Government in conducting these negotiations with our EU partners that if we leave the EU, we remain nevertheless as part of Europol, of the European arrest warrant and of the arrangements for exchange of information between police forces, as at present?
Brexit: Environmental and Climate Change Policy — House of Lords, 2016-10-20
Topic: Government Operations
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, before the Minister sits down, can he clarify one thing? I absolutely agree with his sincerity. He talked about the great repeal Act. Will that be a blanket process, in which everything which is currently in EU legislation is absorbed into UK legislation, or will there be a process of sifting out what is fit for purpose and what is not?