argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Lords, 2016-10-31
Topic: Law and Crime
Alan William John West (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support these amendments and I strongly support my noble friend Lord Rooker in everything that he has said. This Bill is a classic example of how a Bill should come through this place. The way in which it has been built up across Parliament has been remarkable. It meets all the requirements for our security and for personal liberty, and we should be very proud of it.
Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Lords, 2016-10-31
Topic: Law and Crime
Paul Murphy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. She played an important role in the course of this Bill in reminding your Lordships of the need to deal with the liberty of the citizen. But the greatest threat to the liberty of the citizen is the threat to life. This Bill, which is now in its final stage, is extremely important in ensuring that in future our citizens are protected against terrorism and the threats that face this country and beyond Of course, there were and are still issues that need to be taken very seriously with regard to the liberty of the subject. But in all the years that I have been in Parliament, I have not seen as much scrutiny of a Bill as this one. Not only did the Joint Committee, which I had the honour to chair, go through all the details of the Bill over a number of months, the other committees in Parliament also dealt with it, not least the Intelligence and Security Committee I commend the Government—not something that I usually do, but I will on this occasion—on accepting a great number of amendments to the Bill, which have improved it in the sense of ensuring that our liberties are safeguarded but that the basic thrust of the Bill remains the same. This has been a tremendous exercise in parliamentary scrutiny. As my noble friend Lord Rooker said, it is Parliament’s Bill as much as it is the Government’s.
Nissan: Sunderland — House of Lords, 2016-10-31
Topic: Foreign Trade
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, perhaps I may press the Minister on the deliverability of what she is saying. If she had said, "Yes, we recognise that we’ve got to be fully in the single market", or, "We’ve got to be in the customs union", perhaps she would be able to say to us that she could deliver. Her refusal to say that effectively means that the Government are trying to negotiate a series of sectoral agreements without the wider obligations of single market membership. Does not she agree that this is an extremely hazardous process for the United Kingdom and that there is very little prospect of it being completed within the two years of the Brexit timetable? What will be the position in 2019 in those sectors if negotiations have not been completed? I strongly support Nissan, but does she agree that it will be much easier to get a sectoral deal in goods—where, overall, Britain has a trade deficit—than in services, where we have a huge surplus? If we are looking at our interests overall, how does what the Government are saying add up to an adequate pursuit of the national interest?
Nissan: Sunderland — House of Lords, 2016-10-31
Topic: Foreign Trade
David Edward Lea (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, is it not abundantly clear that what was worrying Nissan was the repeated statement that "Brexit means Brexit"? Is it not equally clear, from today’s Statement, that Brexit does not mean Brexit and that the absence of access to the internal market and the customs union was starting to worry the management of Nissan? If these guarantees are now being given—and we hope that people on the continent will accept them, which is another question which I have not heard much about—can this be replicated in other sectors? At the end of all this, I hope the agreement with the European Union will include a lot of industrial policy and, as my noble friend Lord Liddle said, that things will be much nearer to acceptance of the internal market and customs union.
Nissan: Sunderland — House of Lords, 2016-10-31
Topic: Foreign Trade
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, since the great bulk of Nissan Sunderland’s production is exported to the European market and the typical life cycle of a new model is five to 10 years, can we assume that Nissan has been promised either tariff-free access to the single market or a transitional access of that kind over a 10-year period?
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-10-31
Topic: Government Operations
Paul Murphy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support both the noble Lord and my noble friend in their remarks. My noble friend Lady Morgan has outlined very well what "devolved matters" means in the Bill, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, quite rightly spoke about the sloppiness of the term "normally". I think that it opens up huge possibilities for rift between Cardiff and Westminster unless there is a proper definition, if the Government want this, as to when the Assembly is not allowed to pass its comments upon legislation going through this Parliament which affects so-called devolved matters. Is it for the Secretary of State for Wales or a Cabinet committee to decide what is "normal"? No, this is an absolute recipe for conflict between the Assembly and Parliament, and between the two Governments. I hope that the Minister will take this back and either strike it completely from the legislation or, if they insist that there should be qualifications as to when the Assembly cannot utilise its powers, these should be defined very precisely indeed.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-10-31
Topic: Education
Paul Murphy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I understand what the noble Baroness said about the charitable status of Welsh universities, and it is important that the Minister goes back and examines whether it is put at risk by this part of the Bill I cannot for the life of me understand Amendment 14, which excludes the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales from the Welsh public authorities list. It is not a university; it is a body that administers funding to the universities. It gets all its money from the Welsh Government, so I cannot quite understand the amendment, particularly because a recent review of non-compulsory post-16 education in Wales indicated that this body will be replaced by a new body dealing with funding for higher education and further education, which is a good thing. The amendment is an incongruous insertion when the argument is about universities and, to a certain extent, further education colleges somehow losing their charitable status, independence, right to borrow and so on. I would value the Minister’s comments on why the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales is part of this scene.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-10-31
Topic: Government Operations
Mair Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, Schedule 3 will provide some welcome clarity about competence in relation to Welsh public authorities. So long as Assembly Bills meet the competence tests in the Wales Bill, the Assembly will be able to legislate in relation to Welsh public authorities without needing to seek the consent of the UK Government. Most of the UK Government’s amendments add to or clarify the list, and we support them. We are also very content with the removal of special health authorities. I understand that they will be treated differently and need not be in Schedule 3. I beg to differ with Liberal Democrat Peers who suggested removing from the list of institutions in Wales a reference to the further or higher education sectors, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and the regulated institutions under the Higher Education (Wales) Act, to which my noble friend referred We do not think it appropriate to support any amendments which might act in such a way as to restrict the legislative competence of the National Assembly in respect of these further and higher education bodies. Having said that, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for outlining the real concerns of the institutions, which need to be addressed. I thank the Minister for agreeing to clarify this issue and for looking at attempting to reflect that special position and ensure that they can continue with their current status However, I am afraid that removing these institutions could create uncertainty in the future over the need for ministerial consent where a provision of an Assembly Act confers functions on such a body or removes them from it. No such uncertainty exists in relation to the current legislative competence of the Assembly, and the uncertainty would not arise in the future if these bodies remained on the list.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-10-31
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Murphy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I agreed to put my name to the amendment of my noble friend Lord Hain because it is both timely and relevant as the Wales Bill passes through this House. It is not all about Neil Hamilton but it is a bit about him in the sense that he is, as far as I am aware, the very first Member of the National Assembly for Wales who has not lived in Wales. Not only has he not lived in Wales but he lives a long way from Wales, and it highlights why we, as a Parliament, should address this issue—it is different from the franchise that we have known in our country for generations. We are talking about a country; we are not talking about a constituency. I think it is important that you live in your constituency but that is another issue; sometimes it is not practicable or reasonable to do so. However, we are talking about a country that now has a legislative Assembly which passes primary and secondary legislation for that country and which runs the country in many different ways The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, asked, very relevantly, what happens if you live in a town or village bang on the border. Of course, the border between England and Wales is very different from, for example, the Northern Ireland and Ireland border and it is different from the Scottish/English border, which has lots of built-up areas on it. However, there is a big difference between being a few hundred yards away in Monmouth and being in Wiltshire, and that in a way—
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-10-31
Topic: Government Operations
Paul Murphy (Labour, Centre-left): I think that can be addressed if, in dealing with this amendment, the Government look at what happens in local government. You can be a member of a local authority and live within, I think, three or four miles of the boundary of the local council, and I suppose that could happen with the Welsh situation. Thus, if you lived within a mile or two of the border but felt very much part of a town or village in Wales and you felt Welsh, the accident of the border could be overcome by applying local government laws to the Welsh Assembly I turn to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, about the ability of electors to elect an individual to represent them in the Welsh Assembly. There is an awful lot of merit in that. People should be given that choice but, again, there is a difference. The only example of someone living in England and not in Wales is the UKIP leader in Wales. He was elected as a top-up Member. He does not represent an individual first past the post constituency; he is part of a top-up regional list. The difference is that on that regional list, one generally elects the party and not the individual. When people voted as they did in that region in Wales, they voted for Mr Hamilton not as Mr Hamilton but for UKIP. Therefore, they did not really have a choice of saying, "I don’t want this person because he doesn’t live in Wales". They did not get a choice in that. In one form or another, I represented people in Wales for 43 years. People then had the option of saying, "I don’t want him on the local authority or in Parliament", because, perhaps, the candidate did not live in the constituency, ward or whatever. They had that chance, but they do not have that chance with regard to the top-up seats.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-10-31
Topic: Government Operations
Paul Murphy (Labour, Centre-left): If I had my way I would change the whole system—probably not to what the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, wants, but to the alternative vote system, for example. The point I am making is that the people in that part of Wales did not get the opportunity to say, "I don’t want that person because they do not live in Wales". They were voting for a party instead of an individual. I cannot see any reason why, when we set up a Parliament or an Assembly in one of our devolved parts of the United Kingdom, a person should represent it without living in it. All the arguments that have been addressed are valid and I hope that the Minister will look favourably on these amendments.
Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-10-31
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. I will briefly respond to his points at the end of my remarks When I moved this rather innocent, inconspicuous amendment, I had no idea that it would provoke such a rich debate about political principles, political theory and the nature of democracy; it has been very instructive and valuable indeed. My noble friend Lord Murphy really came to the nub of the matter when he said that this was about a country’s parliamentary legislature. This is something very precious to Wales and which needs to be given proper respect. That, in a way, links to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, which she expressed very eloquently indeed. She said that Assembly Members should—by living in Wales, in this case—be subject themselves to the laws that they are passing and subject themselves to the policies that they are instrumental in enacting. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, made a number of interesting points, but at one point he was almost saying that there should be no restrictions at all on candidature, or at least on Assembly Members. The main gist of his argument was about candidates, and I anticipated that, with my noble friend Lord Murphy, with our Amendment 21, as did the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, with his amendment. I do not think that this is the same issue as that about Members of Parliament, because the constituency boundaries are not being changed by the change in the parliamentary constituencies at all. Of course, the parliamentary constituencies do not cross the border of Wales. The new legislation, if eventually enacted, does not do that either I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, about his amendment. Frankly, I could not have done as effective a job as MP for Neath as I hope that I did without living in the constituency. That means living and breathing the life of the local rugby clubs, the local businesses and the local schools and hospitals, as I did for nearly a quarter of a century. He made a series of fair points in relation to pressing his amendment, by which I am rather persuaded. We can happily concede that. He asked about the Neath by-election. I had actually bought a house in the constituency five months before that by-election, although I must admit that I had a crazy mortgage, in retrospect. That was an important principle that I, like the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, felt was right The noble Lord, Lord Norton, raised some very interesting points, but he seemed to offer no restrictions on where one must live in order to stand for, or be a Member of, the Assembly. You could be living anywhere—hundreds of miles away from Wales. I simply do not think that that is acceptable. My noble friend Lord Murphy made the point that, in practice, Welsh voters do not have a real choice about the particular Assembly Members they get through the regional lists, and I do not think that he addressed that point. It is, as my noble friend Lord Murphy said, a question of voting for the party.
Train Operating Companies — House of Lords, 2016-12-06
Topic: Transportation
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer to the Urgent Question asked earlier in the other place At the moment, Network Rail has responsibility for the signalling of trains, including employment of the signallers. Will the signalling control of a reopened link from Oxford to Cambridge, including into Oxford station, come under the proposed new entity for the line rather than under Network Rail? Does this apparent intention to exclude Network Rail from a reopened Oxford to Cambridge line indicate that the Government have lost confidence in the ability of Sir Peter Hendy, whom they appointed as chairman just 18 months ago, to further improve the performance of Network Rail? What existing responsibilities do the Government intend to take away from Network Rail with their announcement today about "integrated operating teams" and joint ventures—between whom?—for some of the existing network? Alternatively, is this announcement of integrated working and operation largely a rehash of the now-abandoned closer working arrangements between South West Trains and Network Rail, and an extension of the current arrangements in that regard between ScotRail and Network Rail?
Train Operating Companies — House of Lords, 2016-12-06
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. If the passenger operators are in charge of the signal box, how will freight grow? The Government have already published a freight strategy, but I cannot see the passenger operators wanting more freight if they are going to be in charge of the signal box.
Train Operating Companies — House of Lords, 2016-12-06
Topic: Transportation
Richard Oliver Faulkner (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I remind the House of my railway interests, as declared in the register. On the east-west route, the Oxford to Cambridge line, the Minister will know that it was the most inexplicable of all the post-Beeching closures. It was not even listed for closure in the Beeching report. It closed in 1967 at exactly the time that Milton Keynes was designated as a new city capable of taking 250,000 people. The East West Rail consortium has been campaigning for 47 years to reopen the line. Can he give an assurance that the announcement he has made today will not delay that a day longer than necessary.
Prison Officers’ Association: Protest Action — House of Lords, 2016-11-15
Topic: Law and Crime
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, last week in his valiant if unavailing defence of the Government's prisons policy the Minister justified its failure, even in the light of recent events, to restore staffing levels to where they were four years ago by citing the fact that a number of prisons had closed. But it is not the ratio of prison officers to prisons that is the issue; it is the ratio of properly trained and supported staff to the number of prisoners which is relevant. Given that there is no sign of any policy calculated to reduce that number, how can the reduction in the number of officers—last week’s announcement that some 2,500 will be recruited over the next few years will still leave a shortage of 4,500—be expected to transform the situation Will the Secretary of State sit down now with the representatives of this dedicated workforce to discuss ways in which the present crisis can be urgently alleviated? Will she initiate a comprehensive review of the whole service as thorough as the Woolf review following the Strangeways riots as long ago as 1991? Is the issue of an injunction likely to lead to the kind of discussion that will resolve this matter?
Prison Officers’ Association: Protest Action — House of Lords, 2016-11-15
Topic: Law and Crime
Josephine Farrington (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Minister has twice recently referred, in answer to my questions, to the fact that the staffing levels the Government are bringing in will meet their benchmark as a refutation of the need for more officers. Would he care to write to me, and put a copy in the Library, if he can think of any other issues to be addressed beyond violence, escapes, suicides, self-harm, stabbings, attacks, riots, lockdowns—stopping the healthcare work just referred to by the noble Baroness going ahead—and preventing reoffending? How did the Government calculate their benchmark and which of these issues are now being tackled successfully in their prisons?
HS2 Update — House of Lords, 2016-11-15
Topic: Transportation
Peter Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I welcome the Statement made this afternoon and the Minister’s commitment to phase 2B of HS2. The economic benefits are in fact more than he said. He concentrated on the main regional centres but the recent publication from HS2 showed that the benefits will be wider than that and journey times will be improved. In fact the economic benefits will improve health in the north because people in work tend to be healthier. I want to press him on future investments and ask him to ensure that as the HS2 line will hit the west coast main line at Wigan, we will get improvements and an upgrade to that line. We do not want a 21st-century journey up to Wigan followed by a 19th-century journey to Glasgow.
HS2 Update — House of Lords, 2016-11-15
Topic: Transportation
Bruce Joseph Grocott (Labour, Centre-left): I warmly welcome the Minister’s Statement. Will he at least reflect that it is a question not just of how swiftly other countries manage to do these things in comparison with ourselves but of how we do them these days compared with how we managed to do them in the 1840s? Then we built thousands of miles of railway with picks and shovels but we have been told for some time that this link, which is ultimately maybe 300 miles of railway, cannot be completed until 2033. What did the Victorians have that we do not have today, and is there any possibility of this being speeded up?
HS2 Update — House of Lords, 2016-11-15
Topic: Transportation
Kenneth Woolmer (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, does the Minister recognise that in Leeds and West Yorkshire, today’s announcements will be very warmly welcomed? I look wryly at the comparison of spending on the NHS in a year with a project that will take 17 years before it is completed. Seventeen years is an awful long time, so while I welcome the strategic decision—many of the underlying details will be very beneficial in Leeds—can the Minister give the House two assurances? First, is funding of HS2 to Leeds robust and clearly thought through, and will it support the delivery of the strategy? Secondly, will the east-west connection, which we called HS3 at one time, not be held up until HS2 is completed, which is in 2033? Heaven forbid that there is no major improvement across the Pennines before 17 years is up.
HS2 Update — House of Lords, 2016-11-15
Topic: Transportation
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I declare an interest as a citizen of Newcastle and a member of its city council but, as I am approaching my 72nd birthday, I suspect it will be a posthumous interest in the HS2 programme. As we have heard, it will be 17 years before the network reaches Sheffield—we hope, the city centre. Is there any indication of how long it will take before the gap between Sheffield or Leeds and Newcastle will be met? It seems to me likely to be another 17 years. My children may be facing a posthumous interest in this matter at this rate.