argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Restoration and Renewal — House of Lords, 2022-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Fowler (Independent, Unknown): In my position as a Cross-Bencher, I think that it is a very odd position for the Conservative Party. I do not believe that it is in our national advantage. I gently say that it might be better for the Government to go down the privatisation route in this area rather than in one or two others that they seem to support. That brings me to my second point about the joint report. Frankly, I did not find it to be the clearest exposition of the case or the clearest piece of writing. I give one example, from page 6: "The Panel recommends that the parameters ‘should be augmented by clear evaluation criteria’ which are designed to support option assessment, and key trade-offs which will need to be made to arrive at a progressively shorter list of possible options for the works. These criteria should take account of longer-term perspectives and link to the programme’s end-state vision and intended outcomes." I am sure that that is persuading people around the country to be in favour of this report, but I am not altogether sure that it persuades me. There is much in the joint report about generalised vision but precious little about some of the real issues, such as the real cost of eight years of work—carried out prior to what is now called a "new mandate"—that we are turning our backs on Thirdly and finally, after the Great Fire of 1834, to which the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst, referred, various efforts were made to agree a rebuilding plan, and it took 30 or 40 years for it all to be agreed. We should learn from that. I am concerned not just because of the complexity of the task but because of the many interests, including the Government’s and government Ministers’, all intervening at the same time. Unless we are very careful, we are likely to face exactly the same kind of indecision and delay as they did in the Victorian times—we have certainly done that in the first eight years. So far, we lack both leadership in this project and a determination to stay on the plan I agreed with the spirit and almost every word of what the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said, but I was not encouraged when the Leader of the House said that it would take "decades" to complete this project—I think I quote her right. Is it really going to take decades? If it is, we are in for a certain amount of difficulty. We need to get on with this; we should decide a plan and stick to it, rather than having the kind of debate and discourse that we have had over the last eight years.
Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-29
Topic: Technology
Edward Vaizey (Independent, Unknown): Now that I am in the swing of things, does my noble friend genuinely believe that outside the main metropolitan areas there is genuine competition between telecoms providers? Is it his view that he should support measures from the competitors of Openreach to prevent the rollout of broadband in rural areas, simply to protect their interests in the main metropolitan areas?
Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-29
Topic: Technology
Edward Vaizey (Independent, Unknown): My Lords, this is an interesting debate on these proposals, which are potentially linked and will develop into a theme which perhaps redresses the balance. When commenting on the amendment to notify emergency services, it must be acknowledged—by those of us who regard our telecom infrastructure providers as providing an extremely important service to the country, doing difficult, tedious and time-consuming work with private investment—that they do not always get it right. I again remember—this will become a theme of my speeches—that, in my time as Minister, one would have local authorities refusing to give permission to broadband providers to put in place infrastructure because of the mess they had left behind from their previous work. The most notorious and, I thought, slightly irritating resistance came from Kensington and Chelsea Council, which did not like the design of the green cabinets—perhaps it wanted them designed by David Linley or someone like that. Both the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and this emergency services amendment highlight the fact that, too often, when infrastructure providers are allowed in to upgrade their apparatus, they do not take account of the knock-on effects of their work, either by not taking into account building safety regulations or by not notifying the occupiers that there might be disruption. The amendment is well placed to raise these points and for this House to remind infrastructure providers that they must continue to improve on this What I find interesting, from the perspective of landowners, is the balance between wanting, obviously, a reasonable rent for the disruption and visual intrusion that telecoms equipment can bring when it is placed on one’s land—certainly one’s property rights should be sacrosanct and no one should be allowed simply to arrive without notice and put infrastructure where they please—and the point about bringing huge benefit to a local community where one’s land is situated, and indeed to one’s own operations when infrastructure provides the connectivity. I can never get my head around that.
Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-29
Topic: Technology
Edward Vaizey (Independent, Unknown): My Lords, having followed this debate quite closely, I thought I would make a brief intervention. I want simply to put the case for the operators, since they have been hammered pretty much from all sides—surprisingly, from the Liberal Democrat Benches as well; they have now rediscovered their landed gentry roots and gone in to bat for them It strikes me that the mobile operators, in particular, are not charities. Much as it is a good thing that they were able to pay generous rents to local community rugby clubs, and much as I would not wish to stand in the way of such clubs receiving generous rents, those operators are commercial organisations. It is important to emphasise that the country benefits, as they have paid enormous amounts of money for the radio spectrum that they use. Famously, they massively overpaid for 3G but certainly paid substantial amounts for 4G and for the 5G spectrum that is now being rolled out. All that goes into the Treasury coffers and no doubt finds its way to various rugby clubs as well It is also a mistake to believe that the mobile phone companies in this country are particularly profitable. As I understand it, their margins are pretty low at between 1% and 2%. I always joke that that is entirely the fault of my noble friend Lady Harding, because of course it was TalkTalk that, as a company, got the British consumer used to paying low prices for mobile phones. The large cost of a monthly mobile phone bill often relates to the cost of the smartphone that the consumer is determined to have. I emphasise again to your Lordships that there is a balance to be struck between charging a reasonable rent and the benefits one gets—
Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-29
Topic: Technology
Edward Vaizey (Independent, Unknown): We ought to remember that Vodafone is a global company and a great British success story. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, on reading out the successful efforts of the Protect and Connect PR campaign in picking individual stories that appear to show rapacious mobile operators riding roughshod over small community organisations The key point is that, if you put a mobile mast in a rural area, it is not going to be a significant generator of revenue for you as a company because it will be used by only a few people. If the market is left entirely to its own devices, most of the masts—as with most of the fibre that is going into the ground—will go into our main metropolitan areas. That is why if you walk down Oxford Street, you will see a mast pretty much every 10 or 15 metres because that is where the revenue is generated. If one insists on charging very high rents in rural areas, we will slow down the connectivity and build-up of rural networks. I simply want to make the point that mobile operators do not exist, much as one would wish them to, to supplement the income of community sports clubs, much as I love and admire the work that they do.
Police National Computer — House of Lords, 2021-01-19
Topic: Technology
Edward Vaizey (Independent, Unknown): My Lords, I, of course, accept my noble friend’s assurances that this was human error. Indeed, human error has brought down the biggest and most sophisticated IT companies, such as Facebook, Google and Twitter. Nevertheless, this shines a light on the still creaking government IT procurement systems. I echo the comments of my noble friend Lord Dobbs. Is it not time to get departments out of their fiefdoms and working more effectively with the Government Digital Service to provide an IT strategy that is fit for purpose as we end the first quarter of the 21st century? We still have these fiefdoms procuring huge IT projects at vast cost and overrun which are not fit for purpose. It is time to centralise this procurement process.
Clerk of the Parliaments — House of Lords, 2021-04-13
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Fowler (Independent, Unknown): My Lords, before I put the Question on the Motion in the name of the Lord Privy Seal, I add that Ed has been invaluable during my time as Lord Speaker. The advice he has given on a range of issues has been an enormous support. His approach was always cautious. On more than one occasion, he counselled that what I was proposing would not be appropriate, and what was worse was that he was always right. Importantly, he always spoke with authority, and the Deputy Speakers also thank him for the enormous support that he gave When Ed assumed office as the Clerk of the Parliaments in 2017, little did he know what lay ahead. His advice and practical guidance acted as a bedrock during one of the most tumultuous periods in recent political history, as the United Kingdom left the European Union and the House found itself at the heart of a landmark Supreme Court case. Recently, of course, he has led the radical procedural changes and wholesale operational transformation that has enabled the House to keep working during the Covid-19 crisis. It was an enormous achievement On behalf of the House of Lords Appointments Commission, the Deputy Speakers and the whole House, I express very sincere gratitude and wish Ed a very happy and well-deserved retirement.
Uber: Supreme Court Ruling — House of Lords, 2021-03-01
Topic: Labor
Edward Vaizey (Independent, Unknown): I refer to my entries in the register of Members’ interests. I proudly declare myself a user of Uber’s services, as well as those of home-grown, UK global companies such as Deliveroo. I congratulate the Minister on his thoroughly Conservative—indeed, three-Shredded-Wheat—response to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. But why has the position of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement, previously occupied by the distinguished Matthew Taylor, been left vacant, despite his offer to carry on until a replacement is found? It is an important role, given where we are.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-19
Topic: Education
Kenneth Clarke (Independent, Unknown): My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for her reply, and I realise the constraints a Minister has in replying to a debate of this kind in the Lords. She was obviously trying to be helpful. I was very grateful for the wide level of authoritative support that the amendment received. I hope that, before we return to this subject on Report, she will try to come back with a little more substance in response to the points that were made Very briefly, on the first point in the amendment, that we should put the Government’s lifelong learning guarantee on a statutory basis, my noble friend’s only reply was that she saw no need to put it in the Bill. Well, given the problems that often arise between Governments announcing noble intentions and the actual delivery of things on the ground, I beg leave to doubt that. Of course, one can ask the opposite question: what exactly is the reason for resisting putting it in the Bill if the Government are all in favour of it? Given that I so welcome the lifelong learning guarantee, perhaps the Government would consider signing up to it—not in blood exactly, but at least putting themselves under a legal obligation to those who should be entitled to it On the questions of expenditure that we have been asking, it is certainly the case that noble Lords kept referring to my being a former Chancellor. I am also a former Minister of Employment and Secretary of State for Education. As a former Chancellor, I am quite traditional; I am fiscally responsible—a bit of a fiscal hawk, sometimes—but I do think there are two subjects on which it is unavoidable for the present Government to spend more money. That means I would probably be at least as hawkish as the present Chancellor in resisting all the other lobbies which are inevitably piling in as the atmosphere of free money prevails. Social care and skills training—filling the skills gap—are irresistible things to which we must devote more resources.
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Agriculture
Richard Benyon (Independent, Unknown): It does not go way beyond Article 13, but it does create a committee that did not exist. There were other measures in the European Union which sought to give substance to the wording in Article 13—we will come on to talk about some of them, perhaps in the next group of amendments—by referring to cultural and other issues that were of concern to member states. We have tried to transpose the legal wording recognising animal sentience into UK law and have sought to make the Government’s decision-making better by giving them an expert committee to advise them.
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Agriculture
Richard Benyon (Independent, Unknown): I start by wishing my noble friend Lord Mancroft a speedy recovery, and I am sorry he is not here. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Marland for moving his amendment and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and others for speaking to it The amendment seeks to clarify the role and detail of the animal sentience committee. I reassure my noble friend Lord Marland and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that the Bill already makes it absolutely clear that the only role of the committee is to provide an assessment of the extent to which policy decision-making has considered whether a policy may "have an adverse effect on the welfare of animals as sentient beings." We are sure that the Bill already makes it clear that the committee will not be authorised to stray into making value judgments, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, just said, on how well a given policy decision balanced the welfare of animals with other matters of public interest. There is no need to specify explicitly in the Bill that it is for Ministers to take other public considerations into account when formulating and implementing policy, because this requirement applies as a matter of course. Amendment 48 concerns the structure of the committee, criteria for appointments to it and how it is to operate. My noble friend’s amendment raises a number of points about the design of the committee, which I will address in turn. I agree with him about the optimal size of the committee. That is why we have already made it clear that there will be eight to 12 members, working part-time. We want the committee to have everything it needs to do its job well, and its members will be its most important asset. We are committed to ensuring that the committee is large enough to have a suitable breadth of expertise among its members, while not making it so large as to be unwieldy. Of course, the committee will always be able to consult outside experts when needed. Defra’s hosting allows it to be affiliated to the animal welfare centre of expertise and, as I have said, this means there will be enhanced liaison and co-operation between experts The committee has the statutory power to issue reports giving its opinion on whether, or to what extent, the Government are having, or have had, all due regard to the ways in which a policy might have an adverse effect on the welfare of animals as sentient beings. The Bill already places a legal duty on Ministers to respond to the committee’s reports within three months of their publication. Once established, it will be for the committee to determine how it fulfils its statutory functions. The draft terms of reference set out how we expect it to work.
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Benyon (Independent, Unknown): My learned noble friend will know that there will be attempts to judicially review Governments at every stage of a process of policy, particularly in areas that are emotive and that carry great weights of public opinion in one way or the other. The question is not whether judicial review will be attempted but whether it will be successful. Last week Defra won a court case—as we do many times—against an attempt to take things to judicial review because the judge said it was not permissible to take the matter any further. That is why we have strictly limited the duties on Ministers that lie behind the Bill to only two areas. So I am not saying at all that there will not be attempts to judicially review, but I hope I can convince my noble friend that those attempts will not be successful because we have been so careful to limit the scope of the Bill.
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Benyon (Independent, Unknown): If, as my noble friend suggests, we put details in the Bill that incorporated the types of people who had to be on the committee, and then if, for example, someone were off sick or had not been appointed or for whatever reason was not available at the point at which the committee wrote a report, that would leave the Government open to a successful judicial review. These are matters that we think sit absolutely in accordance with other committees that are set up across government, where the terms of reference are amendable without having to go back to legislation. This is a fast-moving area of policy and, in future, we may feel, after thinking about it for a while, that the terms of reference need to be amended. This allows, in an entirely normal way, the Secretary of State to make those amendments in consultation with others. I do not think that it would be wise to put it in the Bill because that would increase the risk of judicial review.
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Agriculture
Richard Benyon (Independent, Unknown): Let us deal with the second question first, then I will see if I can remember the first. A future Government can bring in legislation, if they have a big enough majority to get it through, to do anything they like within the law. We are a sovereign nation and they could take those decisions—indeed, they could populate arm’s-length bodies and expert committees with who they like On the first question, no we could not, because the Animal Welfare Committee has a different remit. For starters, it is a UK-wide committee and it is not a creature of statute; it gives expert advice as and when required. We wanted to have a body that is a creature of statute, so that there is parliamentary accountability in the process of policy-making.
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Agriculture
Richard Benyon (Independent, Unknown): No, I do not include the noble Lord, Lord Robathan. Both Houses lack the kind of expert rigour that we need in decision-making. I thank my noble friend Lord Moylan for his Amendments 23 and 35 concerning the academic rigour of the committee. We will ensure that the animal sentience committee is comprised of members with the right expertise. They will be best placed to decide what the committee’s priorities should be and, in doing so, they can consult others. I reassure my noble friend that the annual work plan of the committee will be made publicly available. This will ensure that its priorities and approach are fully transparent. As the draft terms of reference for the committee show, we fully intend to appoint members through a rigorous procedure of fair and open competition Of course, peer-reviewed evidence from academic journals has a role in informing the committee’s work. However, I do not believe it is necessary for the committee’s reports themselves to be published in academic journals. It is critical that the committee should be able to advise in a timely way—this is the key point—on policies that are being developed. To require the committee’s recommendations to undergo the full academic peer-review process would cause considerable delays in enabling Parliament to hold government to account. This amendment would severely compromise its role. I hope with those few words I have reassured my noble friend, and he will be content to withdraw his amendment.
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Technology
Richard Benyon (Independent, Unknown): I hope I can reassure my noble friend that science and good scientific evidence is at the heart of decision-making and that is why we need the right advice for Ministers—so, yes. However, his experience and mine will have been that one can get conflicting scientific advice, so one needs to choose scientific experts with care and make sure that they give clear, unbiased opinions to Ministers and that their information can make better policy. Therefore, scientific evidence will be at the heart of this and we will follow it in the selection of committee members.
Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Agriculture
Richard Benyon (Independent, Unknown): I will make sure that every single person who applies for the committee has the necessary expertise, whatever background they come from. We will be looking for a range of people, from those with agricultural experience, those with experience of animals at the end of life in the slaughter process, and veterinarians. I made a list earlier; I will not repeat it because there were some long words which I cannot remember, but they will undoubtedly be a factor in deciding who will be members of the committee.