argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Transportation
Terence O'Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as I think was touched on in part of the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, the cuts are in the Department for Transport’s operational budget. There is a significant increase in capital spending. With respect to a number of our investment challenges, I would also highlight that some of the additional £12 billion capital investment is specifically for transport. Tangential to that, I also highlight the more specific commitment to HS2, as well as—very importantly for the northern powerhouse project—a significant allocation of money for the rollout of Transport for the North, particularly the state-of-the-art ticketing proposals that we hope will come to the fore.
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Terence Langley Higgins (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the Chancellor is determined to eliminate the deficit, but the results so far show very clearly that this is entirely consistent with having a rate of economic growth that compares very favourably with those of other countries around the world. To add one particular point, the Chancellor was clearly frustrated at being unable to zero-rate VAT on certain items because of the European regulations. When negotiating with the European Community, would it not be a good idea to include negotiations on this particular point, which inhibits us from taking the tax decisions that we wish to take?
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Terence O'Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, on the second question, which I assume specifically refers to the so-called tampon tax, the Chancellor took great delight in announcing to the other place that a number of women’s charities would be direct beneficiaries of the money we accrued from the imposed tax from the EU. In the mean time, the Government will continue to debate the merits of that tax with the EU On the first question, as I touched on, the basis for the OBR’s improved forecast is of course the circular connection between the improvement in the economy—which I repeat that the OBR has become slightly more optimistic about—and the improved nominal GDP outlook for the rest of this Parliament, as well as tax revenues. That has given the flexibility for the Chancellor to commit—or recommit—to the mandate that the Government successfully achieved from the electorate to reduce the level of debt and to move towards a fiscal surplus, while choosing various priorities in domestic spending. Indeed, it is that economic success that has been so helpful in giving the flexibility highlighted in today’s policies.
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Terence O'Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as is highlighted in the documents, the removal of the two particularly contentious parts of the tax credits cuts will result in a figure somewhere in the vicinity of just over £3.5 billion. A number of other policies have been adopted, which were there in any case, and have been announced today. Together with the planned phasing-in of universal tax credits, these will achieve over the course of this Parliament the £12 billion of planned savings that were scheduled at the start of it. I highlight the fact that the OBR documents suggest that that is likely to be achieved.
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Terence O'Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as I have already said, it is indeed the case that the new baseline that the OBR presented allowed for considerably more flexibility in today’s announcements. However, it does not change the overall thrust of economic policy. What it has done, as I emphasised, is given more flexibility across the board in respect of three areas. As has been debated considerably in this House recently, there is a £12 billion increase in public sector investment spending over what was previously planned, which covers particularly housing but also transport, including both road and rail. Relative to the Budget in March in particular—the coalition’s final Budget—but also to the summer Budget, there is also a lesser pace of spending reductions across the board. The Chancellor highlighted that, going forward, the aggregate real cuts would be something like 0.8%, compared with 2% previously, and that is a slower pace than was previously the case. If one looks at the mix—and there are some very interesting tables presented in the Treasury document and particularly by the OBR about the shifting balance—previously spending reductions made up significantly more than 50% of the planned savings but are now a bit less than 50%, and the balance is made up in other areas, including lower debt payments, which I think the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, indirectly referred to.
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Transportation
William Spicer (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, one potential massive investment that could take place, which would not require taxpayers’ money or affect the public borrowing requirement, would be investment in Heathrow and the London airports system. Why is more not being made of that?
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Transportation
Terence O'Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am pleased to say that the matter of Heathrow Airport is a bit above my pay grade, but I think that a decision on that subject will be made and announced before the end of the year.
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Norman Beresford Tebbit (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, did my noble friend share my surprise at the allegation made by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that our economy was performing very poorly compared with our overseas competitors? If that is indeed the case, why on earth are all those people at Calais fighting to get here instead of fighting to stay in President Hollande’s paradise of a socialist France? They must be mad.
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Terence O'Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, my noble friend Lord Tebbit goads me to spend a lot of time talking about the economy, which—looking at the clock and avoiding my own tendency—I will desist from rising to. But I implied in my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that I was somewhat baffled by his tone about the economy. I suspect that many noble Lords have not yet had the chance to read everything that has been said, particularly by the OBR, but in a number of areas of frequently highlighted vulnerability, particularly the balance of payments, the OBR is somewhat cheerier than is typically the case. As the Chancellor pointed out very clearly at the start of his speech, our economy continues to perform at the highest levels of the G7 economies and somewhat better than generally expected by the consensus over the medium term, including the OBR’s own forecast beyond this year and next year.
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Foreign Trade
Ian Livingston (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, my noble friend the Minister is absolutely right to point out that the UK has an improving balance of trade. It is one of the best performing economies in the G7 and the strongest place in the whole of Europe for foreign direct investment. How does he think that may change when we have a shadow Chancellor who—God forbid he should ever get into power—likes to quote Chairman Mao?
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Terence O'Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, again, I am very tempted to rise to the bait of my noble friend’s question, but I have to be careful in this regard, given my own interest in China. All I would say is that as we creep through time, a number of the more sceptical voices about the performance of our own British economy in a sea of great turbulence and unpredictability around the world continue to improve, as does the most up-to-date, ongoing evidence of the economy’s performance.
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Transportation
Terence O'Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am slightly surprised at the tone of this question with respect to infrastructure, along with a couple of earlier questions. Let me repeat that within the £12 billion additional commitment to capital spending, much of it, in its broadest sense, is indeed on infrastructure. I also point out that since the summer Budget, an independent commission has been looking at the nation’s infrastructure needs. It will give advice and report back ahead of the next Budget I will add that, based on the involvement that I personally have with many other countries around the world, the guarantee scheme that the noble Lord refers to in terms of its low take-up is generally regarded as one of the most sophisticated and credible in the world. It will continue to be used, as we have highlighted in today’s Statement, and we will welcome many more proposals for infrastructure spending from the private sector, which may be interested in using that guarantee.
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Education
Andrew Lansley (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the announcement that a national funding formula for schools will be introduced from 2017 will be immensely welcome after years of campaigning. Clearly, this formula will not be simply a flat rate. It will mean that pupils in similar circumstances should receive similar funding, coming directly from the Government as it does. Can my noble friend say at all when we might see the consultation on the structure of that funding formula?
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Education
Terence O'Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, given my own previous specific involvement in education as a non-exec at the Department for Education and a long-time educational philanthropist, I also welcome this measure. I suspect that it will be particularly helpful for young children and adults in the most disadvantaged parts of urban Britain, particularly outside London. I do not have the information to provide the details here on how it will be worked out but I am sure that, in the fullness of time, it will be made available to everybody, especially Members of this House.
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Terence O'Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I would love to give a very long answer to this question, not least because I had the pleasure of graduating through the comprehensive system, and of course I am very passionate about the northern powerhouse. I will say one or two very quick things. First, the BBC published an interesting poll last week of the views of people in the north about the northern powerhouse. The BBC, predictably, did not highlight what was possibly the most interesting part of the response, which was that nearly 70% of young people in the north believe that the Government could make a difference to their futures. That was very gratifying to see The second thing is about the new national funding formula. My strong suspicion is that this will benefit particularly the most disadvantaged parts of the country, including the north, relative to what would have been there before—although, as I said a few minutes ago, the details of that are yet to be provided even to me, never mind to everybody else.
Spending Review and Autumn Statement — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Transportation
Terence O'Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I expressed my irritation about the unfortunate pausing of the trans-Pennine project, whenever it was. I am equally pleased that it was unpaused some weeks ago. It is inappropriate for the Chancellor or me to give a specific time when the trans-Pennine link will be completed. Let me finish with a point I touched on earlier. One of the many highlights of today’s announcements was the further significant commitment to transport for the north. What I would call phase 2 of the northern powerhouse project, beyond giving devolution to areas that want more responsibility, is building a state-of-the-art transport infrastructure between different parts of the northern powerhouse. Today, there has been a substantial announcement to take that further along this very exciting journey.
Enterprise Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Labor
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for his comments, and particularly for the points that he made about confidentiality, which obviously is a very important issue. In relation to possible further amendments, this is to some extent contingent, but we want to make sure that there are appropriate provisions on matters such as pensions. We may have to return to this and we may not—but we will obviously write to the noble Lord and explain what we are doing.
Enterprise Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Government Operations
James Lindesay-Bethune (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have some sympathy for some of the issues these amendments explore, although I am not necessarily convinced that the exact proposals as captured in the amendments would be the right answer. None the less, with reference to Amendment 17, I fully accept that the regulatory target as measured by the Regulatory Policy Committee captures only part of the story. From a business’s point of view, the movement in the net burden of regulation goes beyond the quantum of regulation that the RPC is itself measuring. I fully respect the Government’s commitment to transparency in this area and believe that accessible information is available out there in terms of the additional regulations that are outside the scope of the RPC, but the fact that there is a regulatory burden sitting outside scope could be brought to people’s attention more energetically and more regularly than is currently the case The sentiment behind Amendment 18 is interesting. I would probably have approached this in a slightly different way and said that rather than there having to be a report every five years that sets out the methodology and the extent to which some regulations were or were not in scope, perhaps this would be better as an annual exercise. Given that the Regulatory Policy Committee reports annually on its work and the scope it presides over, that cycle might be the right one to link in some sort of wider dissemination or reminder of what exactly the methodology is and to report on the issues that are set out in Amendment 18.
Enterprise Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Government Operations
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her comments. All risk in relation to the proposals in this Bill has obviously been dealt with; the accreditation or reaccreditation is a wider matter. We sought to take on board the will of the House and talked to the EHRC. We dealt with the provision we were worried about at Second Reading and tabled the first amendment, which, as I said, applies more broadly. As a result of the discussions, we also tabled Amendment 37 because we identified with the EHRC a further possible risk. Certainly, we plan to manage the arrangement in a proportionate fashion My understanding is that the EHRC has signalled that it is content, but if the noble Baroness has reason to think that that is not the case I am obviously very happy to try and sort things out with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, again. My impression is that it is very pleased with the changes that we have made and the process that we have gone through.
Enterprise Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Government Operations
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am glad to be able to take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Curry, for his great work on deregulation. "Intelligent regulation" was the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, and that applies here. I also associate myself with earlier comments that he made about the Better Regulation Executive, which is the dynamite behind the Red Tape Challenge I thank the noble Lord for proposing this amendment. It is supported by the Government. The principle that new regulation should be kept under regular review is widely supported, but I accept the noble Lord’s argument that it is important that these reviews are carried out in a proportionate manner. In the case of EU measures, that must mean focusing the comparison on those other member states most relevant from our perspective.
Enterprise Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-25
Topic: Education
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for his constructive comments. He is right to explain that there could be difficulties and that it is important that we ensure quality as well as set quality standards. I apologise to the House that, as it were, an announcement tumbled into our Report stage today, but that is the way of the world. I emphasise that the issue of the institute and how we ensure quality is work in progress, as is the question of the levy. There will of course be further discussions on all this, and appropriate consultation processes are continuing. However, I hope that the provisions in the Bill on apprenticeships, limited though they are, will prove fruitful and helpful. I hope that the noble Lords have found my explanation helpful and, on that basis, will feel able to withdraw their amendment.
Online Safety Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-12-11
Topic: Technology
Joanna Shields (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank noble Lords for their comments. This discussion has gone way beyond the scope of the amendment, but I state at the outset that there is no reluctance on the part of the Government to take action here. We are talking not about what is going to be done but about how it is going to be done. We have talked about future-proofing, but the real issue is that by the time legislation is in the public domain, the world will have moved on. We are starting a consultation very shortly on age verification. It is part of our manifesto commitment. We have been seeking the advice of experts for the past couple of months and are going to open that up to the public. There is no wavering in the Government’s commitment to online safety. We are talking about how we are trying to do it versus what we are trying do. We all agree that this is an urgent issue that has to be addressed. We have talked about filters. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, has been very involved in the development of age verification systems and, as he said, filters are a very crude mechanism. We cannot rely on them completely. That said, we believe they are part of the parental toolkit, and we will make sure that by December 2016 we are in compliance with the EU regulations on net neutrality. We will not let that slip through our fingers We are trying to legislate about many bits and bobs, if you will. We have to continue the process of co-operating with industry to evolve the regimes that protect children online. That is the only way. If there is something wrong with the way that ISPs are doing this and if there are things that noble Lords want to raise, they should raise them. The ISPs will change their procedures and modify accordingly. They are committed to this agenda. We do not need to legislate here. We just have to continue to work with them through the UK Council for Child Internet Safety and the voluntary mechanisms that we have established and we will accomplish more.
Online Safety Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-12-11
Topic: Technology
Michael Nicholson Lord (Conservative, Centre-right): Governments always want everything to be perfect, and this is a rapidly moving target in a very modern world. The point has now been made twice, and I make it again, that these amendments are designed not to make the system safe but to make it safer. At this stage, anything we can do to make it safer should be done.
Online Safety Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-12-11
Topic: Technology
Joanna Shields (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank all noble Lords for their comments. I start by addressing the conflation of some issues and the confusion that has been raised. On the confusion regarding the filters regime and its legality in terms of Europe, we must legislate to make our filters regime legal according to the new net neutrality regulations. The date for that is by December 2016. To be clear: we need to do something to keep our existing regime viable and functional under the law. That is the first thing. As the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, so aptly presented in his comments, the Prime Minister said that we would legislate to make sure that our filters regime is legal under European law It is not fair to insinuate that by challenging the vehicle we are somehow not supporting or speaking up for children. That is so far from the truth. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, said that filters are not a silver bullet and explained to us how technically they work. The work being done by the British Standards Institution and the Digital Policy Alliance to define a standard for things such as age verification is vital to staying ahead of this problem. If the result of this work is something that the ISPs can then adopt, we will have an evidence-based technological solution that will support us going forward. That is much better than trying to tell the ISPs how to do it. We are looking to experts and developing an evidence base so that we can do this properly and voluntarily. The ISPs have said that they are willing to take that on board When the Digital Policy Alliance reports back to tell us how this can be done effectively, it will take time for these companies to go back to their engineering teams and develop solutions that enable them to implement those recommendations. That all takes time. You cannot legislate for that today. We are not talking about whether we are committed to it or the industry is committed to it.
Online Safety Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-12-11
Topic: Technology
Joanna Shields (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. The commitment to this is voluntary and clear. Of course it will take time, but it is evolving. The action of the industry is voluntary and the process has to be consultative. The UK Council for Child Internet Safety meets and provides an evidence base to the ISPs and the industry about what we know and how they should act—it is doing that. We are just talking about the vehicle to get us there, and we think we have a better approach. We will consult on age verification and bring something forward, enshrined in law or in whatever way we think is best, to ensure that the filters regime stays in place We have re-opened the conversation about many issues today. This particular amendment was on whether we should specify that Ofcom’s reports on filtering content and age-verification policies are set out as a duty. We are way beyond that at this stage. Ofcom is about to produce a report later this month that does just that. Therefore, the Government’s perspective is that this is already being done by Ofcom and there is no need to enshrine it in law.
Online Safety Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-12-11
Topic: Technology
Joanna Shields (Conservative, Centre-right): I would be absolutely delighted to meet noble Lords on this matter. In fact, maybe some noble Lords might want to join us at the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, where many of these issues are raised and discussed, and where evidence-based teams go off and research then report back with excellent suggestions that are taken on board by industry. That is a collaborative approach and ensures that, as issues arise, we can react—as an industry, as government and as NGOs, working in partnership.