argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Motor Vehicles (International Circulation) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Order 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-12
Topic: Immigration
Jennifer Elizabeth Randerson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way again. The concept of "resident in another state" is in itself quite old-fashioned. People go to work for six months, three months, even a year. They will not want to change their driving licence to make life even easier for them in that period of time; they will want an IDP for a short time. Of course, they have not had to bother about all this up to now.
Domestic Abuse Bill — House of Lords, 2019-01-31
Topic: Civil Rights
Elizabeth Barker (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this week 28 women will come from Northern Ireland to Britain to have health treatment that they should be able to get at home. They do so because the definition of abortion in Northern Ireland is so tightly drawn that it does not include cases of foetal abnormality, rape or incest. If they were to seek an abortion, they could face a sentence up to a maximum of life That is unacceptable. It is unacceptable that women in Northern Ireland do not enjoy the same human rights as those of us in the rest of the United Kingdom. Will the Minister comment on a Cabinet Office source being quoted in the Sunday Times as saying that they, "foresaw the potential for the legislation to cause problems for the DUP"? Does she think it right that the human rights of the women in Northern Ireland should be sacrificed to placate the DUP?
Domestic Abuse Bill — House of Lords, 2019-01-31
Topic: Immigration
Lorely Burt (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I asked the noble Baroness the Minister, Lady Vere, about the jurisdiction of this Bill as it applied to migrant women when it arose at Questions last week. I was heartened by her openness to consider the possibility of extending jurisdiction during the pre-legislative scrutiny stage. As my noble friend Lady Barker said, there is a whole group of British citizens to whom this legislation may not apply—women and men in Northern Ireland. Can the Minister confirm that the Government will be similarly willing to consider including the plight of every citizen in the pre-legislative scrutiny stage of the Bill?
Social Housing — House of Lords, 2019-01-31
Topic: Housing
Rosalind Grender (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on securing a debate on such a significant issue. For too long, in all political parties, social housing has been the poorer cousin of affordable housing—which, as we know, is no such thing, being 80% of market rate. Having spent over 30 years plundering stocks of social housing—with the high peaks of sales in 1981, 1989 and 2003—all political parties have failed abjectly to replace those stocks. Every political party has been guilty of inaction when in power and has failed to properly acknowledge that. The change in policy in 2012 to replace properties sold with affordable housing was in effect sticking a broken finger in a dam long since washed away. From the JRF to the IFS, calls for yet greater numbers of social housing properties to solve this are matched only by the Treasury’s increasing deafness Gordon Brown’s golden rule was but one example of the negligence the Treasury has shown for over a quarter of a century. The IFS suggests that this has suppressed social housing build over a long period. In 1996 I met with Gordon Brown and lobbied him on this issue. He was on the eve of an historic win, with an eye-watering majority and money to spend. The lack of commitment to turn this issue around, in spite of progress in other areas such as homelessness, was tragic. Today we have a housing benefit cost of £21 billion, down from £25 billion because of harsher criteria. Any normal business would look at these swingeing levels of ongoing current expenditure and ask: why is there no capital expenditure to turn this around So what of the future? First, all parties must accept that we have failed over a long period on this crucial policy. Secondly, all parties must work together with a real target for social housing instead of the usual arguments over the least lamentable record. It often sounds like a dispute about the size of the head of a pin rather than the sledgehammer required. Only yesterday we saw this in a speech from James Brokenshire promising £500 million—money that is not new and certainly not enough. Thirdly, the Treasury must be held to account and use the forthcoming spending review to make substantial change. Fourthly, no plans by any political party will deal with the immediate and urgent shortfall. The private sector must therefore be supported to be fit for purpose. Given that the main cause of homelessness is the end of an assured shorthold tenancy, this requires urgent attention and I look forward to hearing the results of the Government’s current review The long-awaited ban on fees for tenants is a great first step, but more needs to be done. Failure to act urgently on this, on a huge scale, means another Christmas with 130,000 children in Britain in temporary accommodation—a number that shames us all.
Social Housing — House of Lords, 2019-01-31
Topic: Housing
Dorothy Thornhill (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my declaration of interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. From these Benches I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Osamor, to the House. I am sure that her authentic voice will ring through for years to come. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for this opportunity to contribute in a very small way to this really important debate I am in no doubt that the Government are committed to increasing the delivery of new homes—the legislation and consultations over the last four years have been quite prolific—but my questions are as follows. Are the Government committed mainly to increasing home ownership as the core plank of their housing policy, or do they recognise that the country needs a strong social rented sector? If it is the latter, is that actually being left to local authorities to provide only if they choose to do so? How are the Government working to overcome the well-documented affordability crisis A quick calculation shows that the majority of government housing money is spent on schemes to promote home ownership, including shared ownership, starter homes and Help to Buy, to name but a few. The amount of money spent on housing benefit is also rising as the private sector as a provider is expanding, while the amount spent on social housing has significantly decreased. I acknowledge that the lifting of the borrowing cap in October was helpful, but I do not believe that local government alone can transform the social rented sector without considerable subsidy and a real plan of action. I fear that we are being set up to fail despite our best endeavours and some excellent innovative schemes, such is the scale of the task nationally My own authority has been fortunate in receiving grant in the last round of funding, which will help us to build 55 socially rented homes. That is small beer, though; we were averaging 200 a year before the damaging viability clause mentioned by the right reverend Prelate was introduced. To make those 55 homes viable we have had to gift the land, borrow £6.7 million and contribute £2 million, and we have received £3.3 million in grants. That level of borrowing and contribution is beyond many district councils and small housing companies Many councils are reluctant to build for social rent when properties can be lost to them via right to buy within three years. Will the Government consider allowing councils to set their own right-to-buy policies for their area, or at least allowing councils keep 100% of right-to-buy receipts? In future assessments of housing need, will the Government specify for all local authorities the need for social housing and set clear objectives for the number of social homes that they wish to see built?
Trade Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-06
Topic: Other
Paul Tyler (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am a co-signatory to this amendment. I will be exceedingly brief because of the late hour, and also because I am extremely optimistic about the response I will get from the Minister. On 23 January, the Committee heard an extremely helpful response from her and since then she and I have exchanged correspondence, which has underlined the commitment of the Government to try to support the objectives that we were seeking on that occasion, and which are included in the proposed new clause here. It is purely declaratory; it strengthens rather than undermines the Bill, so I hope I can expect a very positive response Much as I am tempted, even at this late hour, to wax eloquent on the merits of Cornish clotted cream, pasties and sparkling wine—particularly as, this week, the people of Cornwall celebrate their great patron saint, St Piran—it is more appropriate that we move smartly on and get a very enthusiastic response from the Minister. I am sure that the Government will recognise that what we have sought to do here is to give form to the precise reassurances that she gave in Committee, and which she has subsequently repeated in her correspondence. I beg to move.
Data Protection (Charges and Information) (Amendment) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Sarah Ludford (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I just want to add to what my noble friend Lord McNally has said. I am glad that this matter is being cleared up, because we had very confusing advice a few months ago. I also want to note, as one of the people who was involved in the European Parliament’s proceedings on the GDPR, that it is a UK decision to impose a fee on data controllers. The mandatory requirement was removed from the GDPR, and it is a unilateral UK decision to fund the ICO in this way so that, in effect, data controllers in the UK will not feel the change which perhaps will be felt by data controllers in other EEA states, where Governments make a decision to fund their data protection authorities from, for instance, general taxation. I realise that that decision was made in the Digital Economy Act rather than in last year’s Data Protection Act, but it is imposed not by Brussels but by Whitehall and Westminster.
Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Tom McNally (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am not sure the Minister is going to have quite the easy ride he had with the first statutory instrument. My eye was caught by a very detailed briefing by the law firm Fieldfisher on the consequences of this SI. It was the final paragraph that caught my eye. It says: "From a broader perspective, the creation of a new data protection regime in the UK may present additional complexities for controllers and processors who are caught by both European and UK law and will therefore need to comply with both the GDPR and (in relation to UK customer data) something that looks like the GDPR but which may start to move away from it as time goes on" Those last words are ominous. There is no doubt that the GDPR was a great success for European co-operation. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, reminded us earlier of the wide range of issues that we will have to take into account in protecting our democracy from data abuses. There are similar dangers in the protection of our commercial and business life. The value of the GDPR is that it gives us a strength of certainty of European legislation I will delay the House a little with a reminiscence. Between 2010 and 2013 I was the Minister at the Ministry of Justice responsible for the earlier negotiations on GDPR. I went to a meeting in Lithuania and throughout the day I noticed that there was one person sat at the table who never participated, voted or said anything. At the end I turned to the British ambassador and asked, "Who is the guy at the end of the table—he has not said anything?" "That is the Norwegian," he said. "He can come and listen, but can’t vote and he is not involved our decisions." I often think of that when I hear people banging on about sovereignty. Sovereignty was best exercised by British Ministers at the table briefed, I have to say, by officials who were the people to go to. I will not name any particular official, but there was one man to go to as GDPR clunked its way through the machinery. There were "light touchers" and those who had quite recently experienced a Stasi or state abuse of personal data and privacy, and balancing the requirements of GDPR was part of the diplomacy our officials showed. I was also greatly assisted by our parliamentarians in the European Parliament: my noble friend Lady Ludford was very influential in steering the GDPR through some choppy waters The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, who is not in his place, said a few weeks ago in one of our Brexit debates that the first time he went as a Minister to Brussels he felt resentment and animosity that he was being, as it were, dictated to by these foreigners. I do not think that I am being too misleading in saying that; I am sure that he will correct me later if I am wrong. He certainly did not feel at home there.
Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Tom McNally (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I will close with another one where I am sure that the Minister is not going to blame the European Commission but say that it is its responsibility. During the period that I am talking about, the stature and influence of our then Information Commissioner had a major impact on how we put the GDPR in place. Again, the Minister was unable to give us any real reassurances about whether we will be at the table in co-operation, or whether it is these difficult foreigners who are going to stop us doing that.
Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Tom McNally (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): The Minister never said anything about difficult foreigners, but there has always been the impression that this would all be as smooth as smooth. "Do they not understood that we are trying to be helpful?", we ask, when we have caused Europe so much disruption and cost by this act. In this case, it is essential that we are part of the ongoing dialogue. This GDPR is not the end of the process. As the House was discussing last week, these European laws are going to develop. How we then act and deal with them is going to affect where jurisdiction lies—with European or British courts.
Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Sarah Ludford (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I do not often get that response from Ministers, so that is very gratifying. Also, a second version of these regulations was published at the end of last week—I think the Minister referred to it—which is specifically about privacy shields in the US. I am rather surprised that we will have two separate considerations: why could they not have been incorporated into this debate? As the ICO pointed out in a notice a while ago, US companies will need to update their privacy shield commitments to state that they apply to transfers of personal data from the UK. That is a big deal for many companies. It is another reason for what I said about the need for an impact assessment. If that does not happen, a lot of companies will be in serious difficulty Will the Minister tell us what advice the Government are giving businesses on using standard contractual clauses or binding corporate rules in the absence of an adequacy decision? The European Data Protection Board issued a notice about this last week, on 12 February. Are the Government going to advise businesses, large and small, exactly how this will work? Lastly, what progress is being made on an adequacy decision? The Minister will know from discussions during the passage of the EU withdrawal Act and the Data Protection Act that many of us are worried about this issue. Last summer, the Government expressed their aspiration for a legally binding agreement that would be more than a unilateral adequacy decision and which would enable the ICO to have a seat on the European Data Protection Board. Essentially, it would be Brexit in name only and would retain all the benefits of being in the EU with regard to data protection structures. That aspiration is not recognised in the political declaration, which talks only about an adequacy decision, so the UK has been knocked back in that area. Perhaps the Minister could tell us precisely where we are. What signal is he getting from the Commission on an adequacy decision? Are we talking months or years?
Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I have some fear that I will raise the noble Lord’s blood pressure even higher, but if he takes a look at the impact assessments that are provided, I think that he will be shocked by their inadequacy. They do not move us very far on from having no impact assessment at all.
Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): This is not just a matter of time; it is whether people have the appropriate information to be able to raise and challenge issues. That is the underlying issue that the Minister is running into in this House.
Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Tom McNally (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I withdraw the word "farce". However, while the Minister is putting great emphasis on the good fit between what he is proposing and the GDPR, the reason why that good fit exists, as I said in my remarks, is that the GDPR itself was massively influenced by British officials, who played a major role in its construction. What he is gliding over in his assurances is that if, as is likely, there are changes in the European GDPR in future then we will be coming, like the Norwegians, only to listen and accept—because, make no mistake, if there are changes in future, it will be massively in Britain’s interest to accept them. This is the loss of sovereignty that the whole process is trying to glide over. We will not have the same influence on data protection in future as we have had in the GDPR itself, which is why the fit is so comfortable at the moment.
Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Sarah Ludford (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Forgive me, but I would like to follow up on that. I really think the Minister is overselling what is in paragraph 9 of the political declaration. Last June, the Government issued a technical note about wanting a legally binding data protection agreement, and I described that earlier as a "Brexit in name only" kind of arrangement. They wanted that because there are, "benefits that a standard Adequacy Decision cannot provide" Except for one sentence in paragraph 10 that talks about arrangements for appropriate co-operation between regulators, paragraph 9 is about a standard adequacy decision—no less but certainly no more. It talks about the European Commission recognising, "a third country’s data protection standards as providing an adequate level of protection" It is not what the Government hoped for last June. I do not understand why the Government are trying to pretend. We can all read paragraph 9 once we have googled it and reminded ourselves, so to say that it is more than an adequacy assessment process is simply not true.
Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
William John Lawrence Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I apologise for interrupting the Minister again. He said we are now undertaking "preliminary discussions" about how this would be handled if we leave without a deal, but that these discussions "may take some time"—I think I heard him say that. Is he suggesting that, if we leave without a deal on 29 March, there will be an unavoidable gap in mutual recognition of data protection law, which we—or rather businesses—will have to cope with somehow? That may have a significant adverse impact.
Flybmi — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jennifer Elizabeth Randerson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Statement. The company cited Brexit as one of the reasons for its problems. First, the fall in the value of the pound in the past two and a half years has obviously meant that people are finding it more difficult to afford holidays abroad. It mentioned the spike in fuel and carbon costs caused by our exclusion from full participation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme—we have been suspended from that until the withdrawal agreement is in place. The company said that it was unable to secure valuable flying contracts in the EU because of Brexit uncertainty On Saturday, we had Flybmi; today, we have the very sad news about Honda in Swindon. The trickle of job losses has become a steady flow. Today as well, we have the UK Trade Policy Observatory estimating some 750,000 job losses—that is a conservative estimated—as a result of Brexit uncertainty. What plans do the Government have to retrain people who lose their job because of Brexit uncertainty? What plans do they have to find new jobs for them? Have they estimated the total cost to our economy of retraining people and providing them with benefits while they are unemployed?
Equivalence Determinations for Financial Services and Miscellaneous Provisions (Amendment etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Sharon Bowles (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I too declare my interest in the register with regard to the London Stock Exchange I will make a couple of points on specifics, but before that I will say that I agree with noble Lords who have spoken about the manner in which things have had to be done and are done, rather than possibly what is done. By and large, the Treasury has performed well in fixing what it has to fix, but it has fallen down, possibly through lack of time, sometimes on Explanatory Memoranda and definitely on impact assessments. One of the things is that the public hardly seem to appear in the commentary. When the Minister introduced this statutory instrument, he said that equivalence was beneficial—it is in several ways—because for one thing it aided competition. He then said that that was to the benefit of consumers. That was about the only reference to consumers If prudential requirements are lower, does that benefit the consumer? It surely does in one sense: if the costs to businesses are less, perhaps the services to the consumer are less, but what does that do for stability? There are lots of questions about that, and the whole scene is not set. If I may say so, I may be the only person who was in the room when every one of these equivalence provisions was put in place, so I know why they are different, but it is still very difficult on some of the other SIs that we are dealing with even for me to work out exactly what is going on.