argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
West of England Combined Authority Order 2017 — House of Lords, 2017-02-07
Topic: Macroeconomics
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the west of England has actually seen the strongest economic recovery outside London since 2008. Its economic output is reported by the Resolution Foundation to be 7% higher than its pre-crisis peak, while the output in many British cities has yet to return to pre-crisis levels. Its employment, at 76.8%, is higher than any other city region in Britain. That is the background to this combined authority order. I think that the order will enable the west of England to build on the success it has had in riding out the financial crisis—but we need to note that, according to the Resolution Foundation, rising house prices and rents are swallowing up the gains in living standards made from the strong economic performance of the three councils that comprise it I have three specific questions for the Minister. I understand that North Somerset has made a decision not to be part of the combined authority. However, given its very close proximity to Bristol, I have not understood how the transport investment decisions will be made and who will be responsible for what Secondly, will the Minister confirm that the powers of the mayor for the west of England combined authority will be the same as those of the other combined authority mayors in other places? The legislation is slightly different because it covers slightly different matters. Therefore, I seek assurance that the mayor does not have any form of enhanced power against a comparison with, say, Greater Manchester or any of the others. Thirdly, the mayor for the west of England has the power to pay grants; there are other powers, but there is a specific power to pay grants. I would like to be reassured that the same involvement of the combined authority in reaching decisions and the same rights and powers for each council separately have to be considered by the mayor. In other words, this is not simply a mayoral order where a single person has an absolute power, subject to scrutiny and audit, to make a decision without the agreement, first of the combined authority and, secondly, of the constituent councils.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
Susan Garden (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, which is self-explanatory. She has set out very clearly the reasons behind it: to ensure that the OfS can place restrictions on the number of new students a particular higher education provider may enrol, if it has reasonable grounds for believing that the provider is in breach of a registration condition Given that the Bill aims to improve the student experience, it is particularly important that, if a higher education provider is falling short in the provision it should be offering, the OfS should, as part of its duty, have powers to intervene to prevent cohorts of new students being enrolled. The registration conditions in the Bill are important but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, set out, it is important that the OfS should have a range of sanctions available if a particular provider is not abiding by the registration conditions, and that those sanctions should be proportionate. On the amendment’s second paragraph, it is only right that that there should be regulations setting out the procedures, but only right too that rights of appeal for any such sanction should be added to the clause.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
Susan Garden (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 171, 202 and 213 in my name. Amendment 171 proposes that the chair of the quality assessment committee should be independent of government and party politics and builds on the remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, on the importance of independence. There are concerns that, throughout the Bill, the Government will have powers more than is healthy in the affairs of higher education institutions. It is important that the chair of the QAC should be a non-party-political appointment Amendment 202 brings us back to a may/must debate—so beloved of your Lordship’s House across a whole swathe of legislation. Here we propose that the OfS "must consult", rather than "may consult", about whether there is a body that is suitable to perform the assessment functions. This should not be a matter of choice. Amendment 213 adds additional conditions to any directions given by the OfS to a designated body, such as ensuring that the powers of the OfS to give directions to a designated body do not adversely impact on that body’s suitability to carry out assessment functions, must be compatible with other duties, and must not relate to operational activity without previous concerns having been raised. These measures are designed to safeguard the authority and autonomy of the universities while acknowledging the duties of the OfS. I hope they will be seen as helpful additions to the Bill I support the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for the quality assurance office. Without doubt, with the new measures in the Bill, we need a really robust quality assurance system, and I think the measures proposed could provide that.
Industrial Strategy Consultation — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Jeremy Ashdown (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, there is no point in having skills if we give away industrial capacity. The Government will know very well, because I have raised it several times, that there is deep concern about the lack of Government commitment to maintain Britain’s only standalone helicopter production facility in Yeovil. I have asked the Government repeatedly, here and elsewhere, to use the opportunity of the industrial strategy to make it clear that they wish to see that preserved. Everything else is mentioned here: Airbus, Rolls-Royce, Bombardier, Boeing, BAE Systems, GE Aviation, GKM, Solihull, Loughborough—all points north and east, but not a word about helicopters, or the commitment that we now need. Does the Minister realise how much disappointment, and indeed anger, there will be in the Yeovil community for that? Will he give a commitment that in the so-called refresher industrial defence policy that is about to be published this very dangerous omission will be corrected?
Industrial Strategy Consultation — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Transportation
Paul Scriven (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, pillar 9 is about driving growth across the whole country, which is welcome. However, it will take more than words—it will take actions. What change will be made in infrastructure investment where, at present, on the DfT figures, investment in transport infrastructure right up until 2021 will be £1,870 per head in London and only £280 per head in the whole of the north? Based on this strategy, how will this change?
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
Dominic Hubbard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, in moving Amendment 226 and speaking to the other amendments in this group in my name and those of my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, I draw the Committee’s attention to matters to do with disability. There is not much in the Bill focused on this, except for access. When we talk about access, getting those with disabilities through the university system must be a fairly high priority, as they are a large group. Indeed, it is reckoned that 20% of the school population have a special educational need, many caused by a disability. So to draw a little attention to it is justifiable at this point I feel a little mean bringing this again to the Minister but we are still waiting for guidance about what universities are supposed to do about their changed and enhanced responsibility for dealing with those with disabilities. I am sure most of the Committee will have heard my speech on this on a previous day, but we have a major shift in that responsibility. Effectively, there are four bands reckoned to be a disability, although we cannot discuss it that clearly at the moment. Those in the first two are now the responsibility of universities. The guidance which was supposed to tell universities what those duties are and what is supposed to happen has still to be published, and we are now into the second term of the new regime. Indeed, when I asked a Written Question on this three months ago, the Minister said they were waiting to get the thing published. It is not his responsibility but I am afraid the person with the ball gets the tackle; it is just the way it falls. We need some guidance about what the Government’s thinking is, so a series of probing amendments is appropriate at this point The amendments are really attempts to extract information. At the heart of Amendment 226 is an attempt to find out what is going to happen. I do not defend the wording that closely; at this stage the debate is more important than the actual wording of the amendment. Amendment 227 looks to a precedent set within the rest of the education sector and brought forward in regulations last year, when the initial teacher training facility accepted that it must take on a higher degree of knowledge and expertise in dealing with special educational needs. The vast majority of the students who go into our university sector will come through the school system. If you have a degree of teaching, preparation and help for them at one level, merely dumping them out at the other side is something that we should not be doing, particularly as the university is supposed to be picking up this activity. Okay, it is only the bands judged to be of less severity, but if the lecturers—those doing the teaching at higher, university level—do not have some knowledge, they are going to make mistakes in their job of implementing this. The school system has proven to us that it is quite possible to have a duty and insufficient knowledge to carry it out. Let us avoid that here; let us get something in place.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
Dominic Hubbard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and thank the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York for pulling me up and reminding me about a bit of the amendment that I wrote myself, so I should have referred to it. I am glad to hear that the guidance is coming out. I have not received the letter yet, but it does not really matter. The fact that the guidance is coming is good. The fact that we have been waiting for it for this long is not. We are going to get it half way through an academic year, and in the vast majority of cases it will not be possible to implement it until next year. In certain cases, we are not preparing but patching up. We need to look at some of these issues in more detail. In fairness to the Minister, he was hearing about some of the specific points for the first time today. I look forward to arranging a meeting to see how this issue is progressing. I hope that bouncing between the Minister’s incredibly busy diary and my diary will be slightly more successful There are groups who do not know what is going to happen. They have been let down and have bad practices. I hope we can have clarifying amendments at the next stage, rather than confrontational ones, so we can find out exactly what is going to happen. At the moment, we are repairing trust and making sure this works slightly better—in a way we all thought the law was supposed to be working.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
Susan Garden (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 237 in this group, which complements the words of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. With the collapse in part-time student numbers, this would ensure that the Office for Students has a duty to ensure that equality of opportunity is not neglected for those whose only opportunity to study is via part-time provision and at a later stage in life. It would also provide an assessment as to whether the Government’s new initiatives, such as the extension of maintenance loans to part-time students, are having the desired effect of boosting current numbers. We remain concerned throughout the Bill that the opportunities for mature and part-time students should not be neglected. Putting them in the Bill will ensure that their contribution to higher education is fully considered.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
Michael John Storey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comments. I am speaking to Amendment 243 in this group. We welcome the government amendments. I agree very much that there needs to be clarity. There is a need to ensure that certain procedures within the Bill are applied fairly and proportionately and accommodate smaller providers of higher education such as further education colleges. It is also the case that the recently published BEIS post-16 skills plan includes proposals for colleges to make their own technical education awards, and it is important that there is joined-up thinking in this area. Unlike universities, colleges that offer foundation degrees are currently unable to provide both a foundation degree and a certificate of higher education to provide a flexible level 4 qualification option for students. The amendment would remedy this.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
Susan Garden (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, in the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, who is unable to introduce it herself this evening, I shall speak to Amendment 269, to which I have added my name. I support all the amendments in this group that have already been spoken to. This amendment creates a new clause which confirms the role of the Advisory Committee on Degree Awarding Powers within the designated quality body to provide independent, expert advice before degree-awarding powers and university title are conferred, or creates a committee of the Office for Students which fulfils much the same function as the current Advisory Committee on Degree Awarding Powers where no body has been designated. This provides independent, expert scrutiny and advice to the OfS The Bill amends the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 to give the newly created Office for Students the ability to give and remove institutions’ degree-awarding powers and to award or remove the use of university title. This power currently sits with the Privy Council, which acts on the basis of guidance and criteria set out by the department for business, with advice from the Quality Assurance Agency. It is important that any new higher education providers awarding their own degrees, or calling themselves "university", meet the same high requirements as existing universities. Appropriately robust market entry standards serve the interests of students by minimising the risk of early institutional failure or the need for intervention by the OfS, and we are not reassured that this is currently the case in the proposals put forward by the Government. Of course, we support new providers in the system, but we need particularly to scrutinise the fast-track private providers, as proposed in the Bill We propose a new clause legislating for a degree of independent oversight of the OfS in awarding degrees and university title to provide checks and balances on these very important decisions. In practice, this would require the OfS to take the advice of an independent specialist committee within the designated quality body or, where no quality body is designated for the OfS, to set up a statutory committee along the lines of the existing Advisory Committee on Degree Awarding Powers. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the various amendments in this group.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
Susan Garden (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, in the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, I will speak to Amendment 311, in her name and mine. We support the option of identifying a central validation body. The current system of awarding bodies works well, although it is recognised that protectionist practices are sometimes adopted on both sides. We therefore agree that validating bodies should commit to competition, diversity and innovation, although that should not mean that all comers must be validated. Expertise in validation lies in the objective and impartial appraisal of an institution’s capacity to deliver and maintain appropriate standards of quality and student experience While the precise terms of such an arrangement will be decided between the provider and the OfS, the amendment would require any such arrangement to make specific provision for the national validating body to be able to refuse to validate a qualification if it has concerns about the quality of higher education provided. There is much merit in the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for using the Open University as a validator of last resort. It is a body with very wide-ranging expertise and would be a respected body for the task—much more appropriate than the Office for Students itself.
Northern Ireland: Political Developments — House of Lords, 2017-03-28
Topic: International Affairs
John Alderdice (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I want to emphasise the importance of both the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach being seen to be working together with the parties. The symbolism of that, as well as the practicality, is extremely important. I put to the Minister again the question that my noble friend Lady Suttie put. In the preparations for whatever outcome there is post-Easter, will the noble Lord and his colleagues at the Northern Ireland Office consider the possibility of the Assembly continuing even if the Executive Ministers are not in place? In that way there would be an elected body with which Northern Ireland Office Ministers and other Ministers could consult, with Members duly elected and their leaders, particularly about the question of Brexit as well as that of general devolution.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I was instinctively drawn to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. However, for many of the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, gave, and because this is a preventive provision, after thinking about it for a little while on Sunday, and rather to my surprise, I put a tick next to the Government’s amendment which states, "that there is reasonable cause to believe"— even though, like the noble Lord, I read that as reducing the threshold Our amendment to raise the threshold to £500,000 was tabled not in response to the proposal to lower it to £50,000 but because I wanted to explore whether £100,000 or £50,000 was the right amount. In this context, £50,000 is a pretty small amount, so I hope the Minister will share with the Committee the evidence behind the proposal to reduce the figure from £100,000 to £50,000. In evidence to the Public Bill Committee, the gloriously entitled prosperity director of the NCA, when asked about the amount, said that that was a reasonable value. The officer from the counterterrorism unit of the Met said that it was reasonable, "when we are dealing with a higher end".—[Official Report, Commons, Criminal Finances Bill Committee 15/11/16; col. 8.] UWOs are not included in Part 2, where smaller amounts would be more relevant. In the debate concerning the amount, the Minister said that the Government, "will be going for people worth £20 million, £30 million or £40 million and all the way down".—[Official Report, Commons, Criminal Finances Bill Committee 17/11/16; col. 87.] That was in response to an amendment to reduce the amount to £50,000. He said that £100,000 would catch serious criminals. The amendment in question arose from the value of property in Scotland, but the comments are still relevant Our concern is quite simply that if the amount is low the agencies might be tempted to go for the low-hanging fruit and fail to pursue those who commit grand corruption. It is a matter of human nature to do that. Although there is no direct read-over, the application of POCA has not been an entirely successful experience. I know that having a lower limit will not restrict going for the higher amounts, but practice and theory may not be the same thing We will come later to registers of beneficial ownership, both domestic and for the overseas territories, but I wonder whether UWOs can be administered effectively without a register of beneficial ownership We have other amendments in this group, some of which simply repeat the first amendment at different points in the Bill. Amendment 26 is the same as Amendment 54. It would change "must" to "may"—it is usually the other way round in this House, is it not? This is intended to probe why we would be restricted to the same proceedings in the paragraph that I would amend. In this context, does "same proceedings" mean the same case but allow for separate hearings? That would be sensible so that there can be a later application for a freezing order without starting new proceedings.