argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-15
Topic: Government Operations
William John Lawrence Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the scars are still on my back from having taken the transparency of lobbying Bill, now an Act, through this House. I remind the Minister that we paused it when we ran into waves of criticism from all sides and arguments that we had not entirely got our own arguments in line. It was not quite as messy as this Bill, but we did at least manage to sort out something which did not displease everyone too much I have read the very useful report by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, which I compliment him on. It does its best to strike the balance between a number of very difficult and different priorities. All of us who have been involved in politics know that there are many civil society organisations. Some are easily politically neutral—as the Church is, most of the time—while others are inherently a bit on the right. Those of us who are old enough to have fought campaigns that the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children was active in will remember how vigorous, to say the least, it could be in its campaigns and how biased it was. Development NGOs and poverty NGOs, being in favour of greater public sector spending and greater equality, tend naturally to be more on the left. The balance between advocacy and electoral campaigning, as the noble Lord has said, is a difficult one, which we must all strike. In debating this issue with some of the organisations concerned, there were those who felt that they were entitled to campaign entirely as they liked because they were morally right and therefore should not in any sense be controlled in an election campaign I agree strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that 120 days is much better than 365 days. We no longer know when the election will be. It is one of the many bits of incoherence of this Government that putting through the abolition of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act in the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill has not sorted out entirely the knock-on effects of that for this Bill. If I recall correctly, in his report, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said that looking back on how various NGOs and civil society groups have spent on their advocacy and campaigning, the spending does come very much in the last few weeks and months before the election, rather than being spread evenly over the previous year Therefore, I strongly support Amendment 39 and hope that the Minister will accept that this is a reasonable adjustment in the Bill which the Government could accept, and which makes life simpler for those civil society groups which we all want to see engaging in campaigns and public debate. This tidying up would be a help to all concerned.
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-15
Topic: Government Operations
Robert Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, very generously attributed to us two items of business on this string that were actually submitted primarily by her colleague, the noble Lord, Lord, Collins—that is Amendment 45A—and herself in respect of opposing the Question on Clause 24. I refer to page 8 and 9 of the second Marshalled List of amendments to support the validity of the counterclaim I am making The intention to oppose the question of Clause 24 was tabled in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Meacher, who is in her place and may well want to speak to that proposition. All I wanted to say at this stage is that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has opened up the big questions that lurk in relation to Clause 25. We will very certainly and definitely want to return to that, and we have stated our intention to oppose the Question that Clause 25 stand part of the Bill. But that is clearly not part of this string, and I think we will be resuming discussion on that at another time My noble friend Lady Barker has quite rightly pointed at the fog that surrounds the intended purpose of Clauses 24 and 25, and the lack of what I would describe as a credible justification for the alterations proposed in these two clauses, particularly in relation to Clause 24, seeing as that is the one that is in front of us at the moment. My noble friend Lady Barker pointed out some of the questions that arise from that. My understanding—maybe the Minister in replying could confirm it—is that an unincorporated association would, for instance, include an organisation which I believe is called the West Midlands Industrialists, which channels funds directly to the Conservative Party—entirely legitimately; I am not suggesting anything different. An unincorporated association could be a trade association, formal or informal; it could be some kind of NGO; it could just be an informal grouping that has got its constitution together. It is an entirely separate issue whether they are legitimate bodies to be funding elections—but the law as it stands says that that is legitimate. Except insofar as deleting Clause 24 might form part of the agenda for the rest of this evening, there is no proposal before us to change that. But I think we should perhaps ask the Minister if he or she can rehearse the unincorporated associations question, so we can understand, perhaps a bit more fully, what we will in essence eventually finish up this evening by nodding through. With that, I defer to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who I am sure will want to speak on Clause 24.
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-15
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Scriven (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Organisations which at the moment spend below £20,000, which will now go down to £700, will be affected. My question is: how many UK-based organisations that will spend between £700 and £20,000 will be affected by the change? I accept what the Minister says vis-à-vis foreign interference, but there will be organisations in the UK that spend between £700 and £20,000 within the 365-day period that will be affected by this, that are not registered. How many organisations have the Government assessed will be affected?
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-20
Topic: Education
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this amendment would require the Secretary of State "to create a framework for careers education in primary schools and to give financial assistance to primary schools in areas of disadvantage to deliver the programme." I am grateful for the advice given by Teach First on this amendment, which also draws on the success of the North East Ambition project, supported by Ernst & Young’s EY Foundation. It also reflects the conclusions and recommendations of this House’s Select Committee on Youth Unemployment, which reported six months ago Last week Teach First, the education charity, launched a report entitled Rethinking Careers Education: Investing in Our Country’s Future, which highlighted the impact of the pandemic on young people’s career opportunities. Teach First concluded that schools with catchment areas covering the most disadvantaged communities have been hardest hit by the pandemic and that specific extra resource is needed for them. It also concluded that careers education should start in primary schools. Teachers support this, with clear evidence of primary teachers believing that career-related learning for their pupils would raise those pupils’ awareness of different career pathways, with two-thirds feeling that pupils’ aspirations would be raised by this These conclusions are similar to those underpinning the work of the North East Ambition project, which aims to put in place the good career guidance benchmarks in all schools in the North East Local Enterprise Partnership area by 2024. This is welcome, and we know from the recommendations of the Youth Unemployment Select Committee that those career guidance benchmarks should be "rolled out to primary schools and be more effectively embedded in the national curriculum so that all young people learn about the myriad opportunities that are open to them from an early age." This is about raising aspiration and personal ambition, and through that, crucially, social mobility. The committee heard conclusive evidence that children begin to think about their futures when they are as young as five or six. By the age of seven, life-defining decisions are being formed in their minds. By the age of 10 many have already made career-limiting decisions, and by the age of 14 those decisions will be very firm. Such decisions can be based on where they live, who they know and what jobs those people do. For social mobility to be successful, it requires much earlier intervention Recently, statutory careers guidance advice in schools was rolled out to include year 7 pupils. Now is the time to take a further step and to extend statutory provision to our primary schools. I beg to move.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-20
Topic: Education
Susan Garden (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Shipley and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, on Amendment 91, to which I added my name, to ensure that careers education is supported in primary schools. It is really important that young people are introduced to a range of careers before they become convinced that some jobs are boys’ jobs and some are for girls. We need women engineers, firefighters, police and military officers, just as we need men to become nurses, teachers, hairdressers and carers. If very young children are encouraged to see where their interests lie, it will serve them well later on There was a wonderful programme—I do not know if it is still going—called Drawing the Future, where primary children drew their ambitions. One eight year-old girl had drawn a very accurate picture of an RAF Hawk aircraft and written "When I grow up, I want to be an RAF Red Arrows pilot"—no matter that the Red Arrows have hardly ever had women; that did not daunt her. What a wonderful aspiration. She and the other prize-winners were then greeted by an appropriate adult in their chosen field, and an elegant woman pilot appeared to give her a prize and talk to her about her aspirations.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-20
Topic: Education
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for her reply. We have now been on this group for two hours, 21 minutes and 51 seconds. I think it rather demonstrates the problems that we have been experiencing in the first three days of this Bill—it is now day four—where a whole set of matters being proposed have not been properly thought through. I hope the Minister will understand my concern—and I think that of others in your Lordships’ Chamber—that perhaps Report should be deferred until the autumn However, I am slightly encouraged by what the Minister said in relation to my Amendment 91 on careers guidance in primary schools. I hope very much that the Government will come forward with proposals, maybe before we get to Report. If that is not to be, I need to give notice that I am likely to come back on Report with a further amendment and debate on this matter. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment in my name.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-20
Topic: Education
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will try to be as brief as I can. Four of the five amendments in this group are mine, so I rise to move Amendment 91A and to speak to Amendments 91B, 171A and 171B. These amendments will ensure that colleges delivering education to 14 to 16 year-olds are funded at the same level as schools delivering the same curriculum and experience. They will strengthen partnerships in education to benefit 14 to 16 year-olds and, finally, they will create a duty for all parties to consider greater collaboration in the education system The reason for wanting to strengthen existing joint working and generally to re-establish partnership working between schools and colleges more strongly reflects the successes of the increased flexibility programme that was abandoned a decade ago. That programme encouraged more school students with strong vocational interests to follow opportunities in a college setting while studying academic subjects at school. Student confidence, attitudes and behaviour were found to be improved. Students were more engaged in learning and in developing their social skills. Extending such collaborative methods of working would enable young people to have a wider range of opportunities across vocational and academic routes. They would also, I submit, support stronger outcomes at key stage 4 Amendments 171A and 171B would strengthen partnership working between colleges and schools and include a duty on providers of pre-16 education in England to consider collaborative agreements with other education and training providers, including over-16 providers, with a "14-16 school-college partnership fund", which is proposed in Amendment 91A Amendment 91B is about the national funding formula, which aims to deliver funding to each mainstream school on the same basis. Funding for 16 to 19 year-olds in colleges has been allocated directly from the Department for Education and the Education and Skills Funding Agency, so this amendment relates to pre-16 funding. The issue is this. The three blocks of the DfE’s dedicated schools grant cover schools, early years and high needs. High needs amounts to £9 billion a year, £300 million of which goes to colleges to support some 30,000 students. When a student reaches the age of 16, funding drops and, despite recent increases, is still lower than it should be. There are several differentials between academies and colleges. Several thousand 14 to 16 year-olds study full-time in colleges, but they attract college funding only at the post-16 rate for pre-16 courses. There seems to be a clear funding disparity here, and the Bill offers an opportunity to re-examine 14 to 16 partnership working. I hope the Minister will be willing to do this, because it is in the interests of so many of our young people. I beg to move.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-20
Topic: Education
Susan Garden (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, given the way in which she champions the Roma community I support all the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Shipley and those from the Labour Front Bench. They indicate the important role of further education colleges in our education system. They link to the demand for young people in schools to be aware of all the possible programmes of learning available in colleges at an early enough stage to be able to make informed choices about future work and study opportunities. It is really important that colleges be funded at the same level as schools and that college teachers and tutors should be paid at the same level. It is quite wrong that college pay should be lower than school pay Amendments 171A and 171B would ensure better continuity of education. Too often, FE has been the forgotten element in our education system, but it is a vital part of the options available to young people, as it spans school, vocational options and university provision. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us of the value the Government place on the FE sector, and perhaps indicate the parts of the Augar review—whatever has happened to that?—which concern FE that the Government intend to implement.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-20
Topic: Education
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): In a moment, I shall, but I tell the Minister that I shall read very carefully in Hansard tomorrow the exact wording that has been used It is of course true, as the Minister said, that schools can collaborate with colleges. The problem is that there is not as much of that as there might be, and it would help enormously if my amendments had been supported by the Government. There is a huge amount of competition; we need a bit more collaboration between the various institutions at local level. That is where I am headed with the amendments I may well come back to this at Report. I will consider carefully what the Minister has said, but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-20
Topic: Education
Michael John Storey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am speaking in place of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, who was at a meeting at the DfE. As he arrived late, he did not want to be accused of not being part of the debate. He was talking about dyslexia at that meeting. I would rather hear from him than me, but I will just say a few words First, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for his very important amendment. I want to understand a bit more about the usage of language in respect of that. He gave some examples, but he did not give any real steer on the language we should use. Maybe that is something we could have between now and Report. I am conscious that special educational needs will loom large over the next few months in any case I was at a meeting at lunchtime hearing from families of children in alternative provision. These are children and young people who have been permanently excluded from school. The fact that linked them all was that they all had special educational needs. Had those needs been identified at a very early stage and provision made, maybe the problem of exclusion from school would not be as great as it currently is.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-20
Topic: Education
Sarah Virginia Brinton (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is right that we need to know about all children, whether in school or not. In this part of the Bill, the problem is the focus on a one-size-fits-all approach that is all about truants or bad children, when we have already heard about the complexity of the difficulties that many of these children are facing—often, but not only, SEND The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, talked about a unique pupil number. We had the same debate during the passage of the Health and Care Act about a unique child identifying number, and an amendment was passed. As a result of that, there are certainly discussions going on with the DfE to have a unique children’s number because often, for the most vulnerable children, the information is not shared between different departments—health and education are the two obvious ones, but there are others as well. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s response This group moves us on to some of the detail about how the register of children who are not in school will work, and I share many of the concerns that have already been expressed about whether this part of the Bill is ready to be enacted and whether it will actually ever really work in practice My Amendment 129AA picks up on the last group of amendments, where I outlined the long list of children currently being let down by schools and local authorities, many of whom are not in school for their own health reasons. I will not repeat that detail. My amendment in this group seeks to ensure not just that the local authority must have regard to the parent’s request but that it takes account of "the advice of an independent expert familiar with the particular circumstances of the child."
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-20
Topic: Education
Dominic Hubbard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will briefly come in here. My interest in home education has been based around special educational needs. It is a fact that in the past—I hope that this is decreasing—many people have not felt that their needs were met by the school system. The child, because they are having a bad time, reacts badly. We have gone through all this before. I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to let us know what the Government’s vision is for supporting people who are occasionally outwith special educational needs and how the local authorities will give that support to them. How will they allow parents who are doing it to ask for that support? I do not think that we can do this without a register. We need to make it more viable. That is something that we have to do. If we can get some indication on that, not only would it put my mind at rest, more importantly, some of the people who are worried by this would probably feel much more comfortable. If the Minister cannot answer me now, I hope the information can be put out afterwards. A group of people has done home educating for the best possible reasons, not because their child has failed or is not getting the right support. How will the local education authority—indeed the state—support them in this? That is all I want to say on this.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-20
Topic: Education
Susan Garden (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, Amendment 98 in this group is in my name. I will also speak to Amendments 106, 107, 110, 113 and 114, and to support my noble friend Lord Storey on Amendment 103. I think we all need to try to speak as briefly as possible if we are not to have a totally hideous day on Wednesday, when we will be expected to finish Committee on the Bill All these amendments are at the request of home educators. Amendment 98 reflects that home educating may be undertaken by a single parent; the other may be estranged or simply not interested in the education of the child. Requests for the name and address of each parent may not be appropriate, and the alternative wording proposed— "the parent or parents responsible for the education of the child"— is much more relevant My noble friend Lord Storey will be proposing Amendment 103, but I recognise the value of a unique pupil number in ensuring that children can be identified as being secure and educated Amendment 106 reflects the concerns of home educators that all sorts of irrelevant information will be requested of them, so inserting "relevance" is important. Again, this follows on from some of the words of my noble friend Lady Brinton. This is also reflected in Amendment 107, where what the local authority may "consider appropriate" may not be universally appropriate. We do not need those two lines In Amendment 110, there is concern about the register being published, with too much information being put into the public domain. We want "publication" to be deleted, because this is not necessary Amendments 113 and 114 would both insert "reasonably". Once again, the concern for all sorts of information to be requested and recorded surely needs justifying in some way The home educators are very concerned about the Bill. They have sent me rafts of material, which they consolidated into amendments. I have tried to reflect this. We are naturally concerned about those who claim to home educate but are using it as a cover to abuse, indoctrinate or otherwise do damage to children. However, we are also aware of the amazing work that most home educators do and wish to ensure that they are not unduly disadvantaged by the Bill.
Bill of Rights — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister, whom I too welcome to his position, can unpack a sentence in yesterday’s press release, issued at the time of the Bill’s publication. It says: "The Bill will ensure courts cannot interpret laws in ways that were never intended by Parliament" That seems to be about something different from compatibility. It is not about ambiguity in legislation, where there might be a Pepper v Hart issue. Is this a suggestion that the courts should be reading parliamentarians’ minds if they have not managed to express themselves properly?