argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Thomas Cook — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Labor
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my noble friend, who makes an extremely important point. I may be mistaken, but I did understand that BALPA wanted the Government to give Thomas Cook the £250 million, which, in my mind, would just be propping up a failing board, which, clearly, he does not have an awful lot of respect for It is top of mind to make sure that the employees are treated as well as possible. The Insolvency Service is preparing to pay statutory redundancy to employees. I will look further into exactly what payments will be made and when, and I will include payments that are due to pensions. I will provide as much information as I possibly can and I will put a copy of my letter in the Library to clarify what the Government and the Insolvency Service can do to support employees in the short term. In the longer term, as I have already said, the Jobcentre Plus rapid response service is there, waiting and able to help employees. I have been really heartened by so many companies, such as British Airways and Heathrow Airport, sharing their jobs’ pages on Twitter and saying, "Look, Thomas Cook staff, we respect you. You are good workers. We’ve got jobs, please apply to us".
Attorney-General’s Legal Advice — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Government Operations
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer to an Urgent Question given in another place earlier today by my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General. He was asked to make a Statement about his legal opinion on the advice given to Her Majesty the Queen to prorogue Parliament. The Answer was as follows: "As the honourable and learned Lady knows, the Supreme Court gave judgment on this issue yesterday, and that judgment sets out the definitive and final legal position on the advice given to Her Majesty on the prorogation of Parliament. The Government’s legal view during the case was set out and argued fully before the Supreme Court; the hearing was streamed live and the Government’s written case was, and is, available on the Supreme Court website. I took a close interest in the case and I oversaw the Government’s team of counsel. I have to say that if every time I lost a case I was called upon to resign, I would probably never have had a practice. The Government accept the judgment and accept that they lost the case. At all times, the Government acted in good faith and in the belief that their approach was both lawful and constitutional. These are complex matters on which senior and distinguished lawyers will disagree. The Divisional Court, led by the Lord Chief Justice, as well as Lord Doherty, from the Outer House of Scotland, agreed with the Government’s position, but we were disappointed that, in the end, the Supreme Court took a different view. Of course we respect its judgment. Given the Supreme Court’s judgment, in legal terms the matter is settled. As the honourable and learned Lady will know, I am bound by the long-standing convention that the views of the Law Officers are not disclosed outside the Government without their consent. However, I will consider over the coming days whether the public interest might require a greater disclosure of the advice given to the Government on the subject. I am unable to give an undertaking or a promise to the honourable and learned Lady at this point, but the matter is under consideration" My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Attorney-General’s Legal Advice — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Government Operations
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves—which the Supreme Court itself characterised as a one-off—it is likely that phrases are used in the heat of the moment that are judged inappropriate in the cool light of day. I do not believe that the noble Baroness quoted my right honourable and learned friend quite correctly when she referred to a statement to the effect that Parliament has no moral right to sit. I think what he said was: "This Parliament … has no moral right to sit" That was in the context of a debate on the other place’s inability to reach a conclusion on the outcome of Brexit, not about this particular matter I cannot comment on any suggestion that there should be a political process to appoint judges; that is well beyond my brief and I do not believe that it is under consideration at all. Even if it were, it would require lengthy and considered debate and judgment involving political parties of all complexions. It is not under serious consideration at the moment In these circumstances, we need to reflect on the judgment that the Supreme Court has reached. Instant comments on it are possible, of course. However, it has major constitutional and legal implications, as the noble Baroness will no doubt accept. It behoves us all to look at what was said and at how that impacts on our legal position as parliamentarians, but also for the Executive to reflect on how they should behave in the future regarding any future Prorogation.
Attorney-General’s Legal Advice — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General told the other place, this matter is covered by legal privilege. The convention that the advice of the law officers is not disclosed outside Government without their consent is one that it was felt should be observed closely. I am afraid I cannot comment further on that matter.
Attorney-General’s Legal Advice — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Law and Crime
John Gummer (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend knows that I am not a lawyer. What I have to say is therefore not a legal thing. It strikes me that most people will feel that, when the Supreme Court has voted by 11 to none, it would be proper for the Attorney-General not to have included the sentence, "There can be disagreement among people". Would it not have been better for us all if there had been a very simple statement to the effect that the courts have decided, the Government will accept this and whatever may have happened otherwise no longer obtains? I would like to feel that there was the odd bit of remorse in what he said.
Attorney-General’s Legal Advice — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My right honourable and learned friend has said, in terms, that he accepts the court’s judgment—the Government got it wrong. He has been clear that it is now right that we ensure that any future decisions of this nature conform to the judgment of the Supreme Court. If my noble friend is requiring my right honourable and learned friend to make an apology for the legal view that he took during the course of the case, I do not think that is appropriate. The Supreme Court has disagreed with the Government’s legal view, but that is not the same as saying that the Government’s position was not tenable in the first place.
Attorney-General’s Legal Advice — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Government Operations
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have already given the reason why that did not happen: any advice that was given to the Prime Minister would have been covered by legal privilege, and it was judged inappropriate to disclose anything of that nature to the court. The Government have been clear about why we need a Queen’s Speech—we want to deliver what the public want and we urgently need to consider how to advance that work in advance of a Queen’s Speech. It was against this background that the Prorogation of Parliament was sought.
Attorney-General’s Legal Advice — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Callanan made absolutely clear, the Government will abide by the law at all times—we cannot do anything other than that. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord McNally, about the Supreme Court. It has exercised its duties and functions in an exemplary way, it has reached its conclusions unanimously, and we should be grateful that we have an independent judiciary able to do these very difficult things.
Brexit Readiness and Operation Yellowhammer — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: International Affairs
Thomas Jopling (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister can help me. When I heard him replying to a question on the first matter on our Order Paper today—the Private Notice Question—I thought I heard him say that we shall leave the European Union on 31 October if we do not get a deal. If I am wrong and misheard him, this question has no moment. However, if I am right, that would be the most extraordinary statement. It would be clear that the Government’s approach to this is that, if we cannot get a deal, we shall leave anyway. As I understand it, I would have thought that this is against the law and contrary to what the Government have been saying. This all needs to be checked with Hansard. However, if I heard him properly, he ought to reconsider the statement.
Brexit Readiness and Operation Yellowhammer — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: International Affairs
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): I will stick by the statements that I made earlier. For those that were not here earlier, let me repeat that it is the Government’s firm intention to abide by the law—we can do nothing else—and it is also our intention to get a deal. We will work hard for that. Let me repeat the point made to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter: the Benn Act does not prevent us leaving with no deal. That is the legal default because of the notification of the withdrawal Bill that this House and the other place voted for. That is the default law of the country. It is now the European Council that decides whether we leave on 31 October.
Brexit Readiness and Operation Yellowhammer — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: International Affairs
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): Those Bills are not essential. We have all the appropriate legislation in place to enable our departure on 31 October. Secondary legislation that we do not yet have in place will be put in place by then.
Brexit Readiness and Operation Yellowhammer — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: International Affairs
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): I do in fact agree with a large part of the most reverend Primate’s remarks. I was not going to say it, but compromise is of course required. I remind the most reverend Primate that we attempted cross-party talks under the previous Administration, but they were not successful. I personally believe that the withdrawal agreement that we negotiated was a compromise. Those who would have preferred a so-called "clean-break" Brexit did not get everything they wanted. There were some aspects of the withdrawal agreement that I was not completely happy with, but I thought it was a good compromise with the EU. It was hard fought and hard negotiated but the fact is that it was rejected three times in Parliament It remains the Government’s objective to get a deal but, given the attitude of some of the opposition parties, I am not confident that, even if we did get a deal, they would be prepared to facilitate its passage through Parliament. We are between a rock and a hard place. I firmly believe that the strength of our democracy and political system depends on satisfying the wishes of the 17.4 million people who voted in the referendum that we should leave the European Union. We attempted to do it with a deal, but that did not prove successful: Parliament did not vote for that. In my view, Parliament is not complying with the wishes of the referendum Act that it passed and authorised. We asked people for their opinion in the referendum. We sent however many million leaflets to every house in the country saying, "We will abide by your decision", but we are not abiding by that decision and that is the problem. I would welcome the good offices of the most reverend Primate for some mediated way forward. I would be happy to engage with that, but I firmly believe that, for the strength of our democracy in this country, it is essential that we deliver on that referendum result.
Brexit Readiness and Operation Yellowhammer — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: International Affairs
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not know what the noble Lord’s definition of ambiguity is, but in response to the question "Do you wish to remain in the European Union or leave the European Union", the country replied, "leave the European Union". The noble Lord might think that is ambiguous, but I do not.
Brexit Readiness and Operation Yellowhammer — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Environment
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, asks a number of questions. In response to his first question, yes, we are intending to update the Yellowhammer documentation and it will be published shortly. I cannot give him a precise date yet; it is a fairly weighty document. With regard to the level playing field, as the noble Lord knows very well, we already exceed EU minimum standards in most areas of social and environmental legislation. There is an ongoing question about whether we should continue to have identical legislation aligned to the European Union, or whether we might choose to do things differently. In my view, one of the huge advantages of Brexit is that we no longer have these things dictated to us—we can argue for them in this Parliament, and we can decide what standards we wish to have. I am in favour of higher environmental standards, and we already have higher environmental and social standards than many countries in the EU. Those decisions would be for this Parliament to take in future and I do not know why noble Lords are so keen to contract out those decisions to a foreign body.
Brexit Readiness and Operation Yellowhammer — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Agriculture
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): Unsurprisingly, no I would not agree. We can have different standards. A lot of the EU standards are irrational—the noble Baroness mentioned in passing its irrational opposition to genetically modified crops. We have some excellent research institutes in this country, and the opportunity to have safer, healthier crops with the use of fewer pesticides is one that we may wish to take up ourselves. The point is that we would be able to decide these matters for ourselves, and the same could apply in the other areas that she mentions. So no, I would not agree with her characterisation.
Brexit Readiness and Operation Yellowhammer — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Agriculture
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): I think the noble Baroness has had too much sun during her vacation. I think I am correct in saying that we already have higher caged bird standards—we certainly used to—than most other EU member states and higher animal welfare standards. It is EU legislation that permits the export of live animals, for instance. We have an excellent record of animal protection and welfare in this country, and that is something that we will want to continue.
Brexit Readiness and Operation Yellowhammer — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me explain to the noble Lord what these assumptions are all about. The Cabinet’s civil contingencies unit prepares the reasonable worst-case assumptions and then we do our best, working across the whole panoply of government, to mitigate those scenarios. In the case of social care, we are working closely with local authorities; this morning we had reports at a Cabinet committee from local resilience forums and from the devolved Administrations. The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government is working closely with all local authorities and with the local resilience forums to mitigate the possible impacts in social care, and across all the other areas that local authorities are responsible for. We have extremely good, collaborative working across the piece on this matter.
Brexit Readiness and Operation Yellowhammer — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Foreign Trade
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): We will of course do our level best to make sure that the flow at the border does not result in any undue delays. There is a considerable amount of effort going into ensuring that, and there are appropriate plans in place to help industrial sectors and businesses that are adversely impacted by any of these effects. These are all contingency plans and we hope that none of them will come into operation. All the work we are doing is designed to make sure that there is a smooth flow of trade at the border and that none of the producers in north-west Wales will have cause for concern.
Spending Round 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Government Operations
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): You have not heard what I have to say yet As I was listening to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, I could not help but remember a speech that I heard at my first State Opening of Parliament way back in 1970. The Address was moved by the then John Nott, later Sir John Nott, and he made a remark that has always stuck in my mind: he said that the real poor of the 20th century are those without hope. You can repeat that statement and advance the century, because it is still those who have no hope—who do not feel that they have a future—who are the real poor. I very much hope that the various promises made in this document, unsubstantiated in some ways as it is, can be carried forward and expanded I really want to talk about something else, because this is an extraordinarily artificial debate. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, hit the nail on the head in his opening remarks. Here we are, back from a brief September session that was, it turns out, illegally brought to a close. I am very glad that, like the Leader of the Opposition, I boycotted what turns out to have been not the Prorogation ceremony. We are now in the middle of a constitutional crisis, the like of which this country has not seen for a very long time indeed. I am not sure I would go back to 1789, with the noble Lord, Lord Davies—
Spending Round 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: International Affairs
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord actually said 1789, but we will not bandy this across the Chamber. One could say that 1911-12 was a great constitutional crisis. However one looks at it, and whatever one’s views of the decision that was unanimously reached yesterday, I do not think that anybody can deny that this is a great constitutional crisis. I pay tribute to the Justices of the Supreme Court. I think that they did indeed act without fear or favour; they were not taking sides on the Brexit issue. They were ruling—and I say this with some feeling of embarrassment and shame—on the conduct of a Conservative Prime Minister who should not have played fast and loose with Parliament and who should not have sent us packing on 9 September, having himself even said that he might keep us here until 12 September. I believe that the matters we have been discussing today, in an unsatisfactory form, through Statements and now this debate, illustrate the fact that there is indeed an agenda that would have kept us more than busy for most of the five weeks. Now we still do not know what is going to happen. I imagine that there will be a short and perfectly proper Prorogation in a couple of weeks, followed by a state opening and a Queen’s Speech on 14 October. However, we do not even know for certain whether that is going to happen. We have an extraordinary situation: a Government who are in a significant minority and discussing financial plans and promises that they do not know whether they will be able to discharge No one wishes the Prime Minister greater success in reaching a deal than I do. As I made public on many occasions, I would have accepted the deal that Prime Minister May achieved, all those months ago. I very much hope that we can have a deal and that we can be out on 31 October, much as I will greatly regret that, because this long saga has to be brought to a close. The fact is that Parliament has now decreed—rightly, in my view; I strongly supported the Benn Act, as it is now called—that we should not leave without a deal. What I have been concerned about this afternoon, in answers to two Statements delivered by my noble friend Lord Callanan, is that he has not come absolutely clean, by saying what will happen if, on 31 October, the deal has not been concluded. I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to do so in a few moments’ time. Parliament has decreed that it should be concluded before we come out. Having had one constitutional crisis because of the way in which the generally accepted rules of Prorogation were neglected, we do not want another crisis because an Act passed in Parliament through both Houses is ignored. I hope that, tonight or before we rise tomorrow—though we are of course back next week—we will have a clear and unequivocal statement. I would appeal to the Prime Minister, though I do not suppose that he will necessarily read—
Spending Round 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Zahida Manzoor (Conservative, Centre-right): Forgive me, but I remind my noble friend that this debate is about the spending review. There will be an opportunity to address those other issues when the Leader is here so that we can hear her response. As a courtesy to the Minister, it would be useful to address the question of the spending review.
Spending Round 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): The Leader is perfectly able to read Hansard tomorrow. She is not here at the moment, but the fact is that we need answers to certain questions I very much hope that we will have a deal. But I appeal to the Prime Minister. If he wants to enact this spending review—and I hope that he can, with some embellishments and improvements—I hope that he will recognise that with a little bit of compromise, and if he would relax his absolute insistence on a particular date and time of day, there is a chance that we could move forward. I also appeal to him to bring back into the Conservative fold 21 of its finest members who were so peremptorily dismissed a couple of weeks ago. That would be a very real contribution The spending review, yes, with some embellishments such as money for the police and education of course and, as my noble friend Lord Horam said, for apprenticeships; all of these things are crucial, as are other points made by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. But none of that can come to pass unless and until we have a stable Government and a stable relationship with our European friends and neighbours.