argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Judicial Review and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): I do not want to repeat anything that the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said in her moving contribution earlier, nor anything said by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, but perhaps I can remind the Minister that we are talking about people who do not have much money and are often in the worst position of their lives, in that they have lost somebody whom they loved very deeply. They are not at a point in their lives where they can cope with the sort of the pressure that the Government are making happen to them. Honestly, the Government are so penny-pinching when it comes to things like this—and student education; indeed, any number of other things—yet they do not make multi- nationals pay their taxes. I do not understand why we ever think that Conservatives are good at running the economy; I think that they are rubbish Every death in custody, of any sort, means that a family is bereaved. They may therefore not be thinking clearly and may be extremely upset. For them, the injustice is perpetuated and they are re-victimised because the inquest system is unable to give them the sort of justice they need. Without equality of arms against state parties, effective justice is extremely difficult to achieve. These issues come up time and again; the arguments are well rehearsed. The Government have access to unlimited public funds to instruct the very best lawyers, while the bereaved must navigate complicated legal aid applications in the vague hope that they might be awarded a scrap of money towards their legal costs. It just sounds so mean. It is absolutely mean of the Government. Far too often, the outcome is that inquests and inquiries are seen to have resulted in a damage limitation exercise—an exercise in saving reputations and finding excuses I had a grandfather who was killed in the Senghenydd mining disaster. Some 440 men and boys were killed in 1913. The mine owners were brought to court on various issues and paid a total of five and a half pence for every life lost in the mine. This debate reminds me of that: we just do not understand the sort of pressure that we put on people when we do not allow them the legal means to achieve what they need to achieve. It is a bit like the Sue Gray report. Everybody is told that they have to wait until the inquiry is finished but there is another excuse and another delay until, possibly years later, the authorities and everyone have simply forgotten about it Here, of course, we all want justice to be done. We all want life to be fair—that is why I am in politics, anyway—but these proposals are not fair. I really hope that the Minister will meet Inquest members because they can give him a first-hand understanding of the pressure and pain that families experience. Justice will not be seen to be done until families are given automatic, non-means-tested legal aid on a footing equivalent to that provided to state parties.
Ukraine — House of Lords, 2022-02-24
Topic: International Affairs
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, in responding to the Front-Bench questions, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House said the international community must speak as one. That is identifying it, I think rightly, as a world crisis, not just a European one, as it has sometimes been painted. I note the very powerful contribution from Kenya’s ambassador to the United Nations reflecting on his own country’s experience that the recovery from the "embers of dead empires" must be completed without creating new forms of oppression and domination. Will the UK go to the United Nations General Assembly to seek collective action under the uniting for peace procedure created by Resolution 377A, given that it is obvious that action by the Security Council would be blocked by Russia?
Judicial Review and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I love these debates with our legal eagles, especially when they disagree. My only reminiscence of a court was when I was in the dock for not paying my poll tax. Being a very respectable housewife, having made a statement, obviously I paid I am feeling a little generous toward the Government —perhaps that is just the effect of recess—so I will accept that there could be situations where a court might usefully add constraints to a quashing order that either delay its effect or limit its retrospective effect. However, the way in which the Government have done this in the drafting of Clause 1 is far too prescriptive. Rather than giving courts these options as tools to deploy in the interests of justice and good government, the Government are trying to force them into being the default position Obviously, my legal knowledge is zero, but I will try to inject a little politics into all this, because the reason that the Government are bringing this is, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said earlier, that they are trying to stop their own mistakes. It is already difficult for people to bring judicial reviews. They must be brought as soon as possible and within three months of the decision being complained of. This new scheme in Clause 1 would mean that for many judicial review cases, even if a claimant wins, they lose. That does not make any sense The Government have approached the whole issue by seeing judicial review as an enemy to good governance rather than as a fundamental part of enforcing good government. Judicial review is a fundamental part of the checks and balances of the UK’s messy constitution, and the idea that public decisions which are either unlawful, irrational, or procedurally unfair should be left to stand is anathema to good governance. If the Government want to lose fewer judicial reviews, they should simply make better decisions. I know that is not easy for them. I have a lot of sympathy, but they are making a mess. If their decisions are lawful, rational, and procedurally fair, then the Government will not lose. That seems obvious to me. They should not be asking Parliament and the courts to validate their unlawful decisions. To do so is to unpick the rule of law and the delicate system of checks and balances, and now the Government seem absolutely determined to push the UK constitution to breaking point Of course, the Green Party’s view is that we should have a constitutional convention and produce a clear written constitution which can be understood by everyone. However, until then, we will oppose the Government’s attempt to stop exposure of their bad decisions. I do not understand why this has been put in when it is so clearly an effort by an elected dictatorship to shut people up.
Judicial Review and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): I do not see this as a tool in the toolbox but as opening up a nest of snakes. When you use the phrase "unless it sees good reason not to do so", it opens up some real complexity if people start to make further appeals on the basis that there was good reason not to do so or good reason to do so. I do not see that this is any sort of simplification. The Government will probably regret opening this system of quashing because it will add complications when the Government presumably want it to run more smoothly. I cannot see that there is any point to this. I hope that all those legal eagles over there will start circling round our little legal lamb here and explain to him that he has got this completely wrong.
Judicial Review and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I do not have enough experience to talk about this first hand, but I get a lot of very useful briefings from campaign groups. On Clause 2, Liberty summed up the arguments extremely compellingly. I shall not read out the whole paragraph, but I shall read out three sentences "Cart judicial reviews are only given permission to proceed where there is ‘an arguable case, which has a reasonable prospect of success" —that seems perfectly reasonable. Cart reviews "allow egregious injustices and errors to be caught not just to the benefit of the individual claimant, but the benefit of the system as a whole." As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, put it in the Cart judgment itself, they "guard against the risk that errors of law of real significance slip through the system" I cannot really see any proper way forward than removing Clause 2 in its entirety.
Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-28
Topic: Government Operations
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): Before the Minister goes on to the next amendment, I asked whether he agreed that there should be any limit. If we imagine an election campaign, one party’s spending limit is about £20 million. Does the Minister think it appropriate that one person can donate £20 million for an entire election campaign? What does he think that would do to our democracy?
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-13
Topic: Education
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I am slightly confused about the order of this but I thought it was really important that we heard the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, introduce the amendments. I want very briefly to speak for the Green group and to agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on the desire to throw all these provisions out. I also very much want to commend the noble Baronesses, Lady Chapman and Lady Wilcox, for attempting to clarify and improve the Bill. In particular, Amendment 34A is terribly important In our debate last week, I highlighted the amazing lack of the words "parents", "pupils" and "communities" in the Bill. I really commend the noble Baronesses for putting consultation with pupils in here—a principle that needs to run right through the Bill. We do not want the Secretary of State to have the power to make these decisions but if that were by some miracle to stay in the Bill, it is really important that we have consultation measures. The fact that pupils are included in this consultation is a really good principle to build into the Bill.
Government Food Strategy — House of Lords, 2022-06-13
Topic: Agriculture
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, does the Minister really think that this is a strategy about healthy meals or healthy profits for a few multinational companies? The first paragraph of the executive summary says: "The food and drink industry" is the biggest "manufacturing industry" and creates "£120 billion of value for the economy every year" Does the Minister think that food is something you manufacture or something you grow and produce in the natural environment? You have to get to paragraph 7 on the second page before health or sustainability are mentioned. It is described as a government food strategy. Would it not be better described as a corporate strategy to produce profits? Why does it not focus on healthy local fruits and vegetables? The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said that alcohol is not mentioned, but it does get mentioned once. The very first product mentioned is Scotch whisky. It then goes on to mention "Worcestershire sauce, the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie … Cornish Clotted Cream"— all lovely treats, I am sure. But where is the food to healthily feed people? Why, when we are talking about fruit and vegetables, do we focus on tomatoes and lettuces? Where are the root vegetables, the apples, pears, nuts and pulses, and the things we can do to help give people healthy stable food grown here in the UK?
Government Food Strategy — House of Lords, 2022-06-13
Topic: Education
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I will follow up on a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who referred to the Government’s attachment to the word "revolution". The strategy offers £5 million to deliver a "school cooking revolution". I believe that there are about 24,000 schools in England; with a rough bit of maths, that is about £200 per school. Is that how the Government plan to deliver a revolution in school cooking?
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-13
Topic: Education
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, this group of amendments was powerfully and effectively introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blower. I just note that I have attached my name to Amendments 41, 50, 55 and 95. I shall briefly make some comments on a couple of them On Amendment 41, the geographical spread is absolutely crucial. It ties in with a point that I made on our first day in Committee—the idea of a school being a part of a community, a civic institution. It might be that we have a chain of coffee shops scattered around the nation, and people may like to go into a coffee shop that they are familiar with and are used to going into on their local round, so when they go somewhere else, they go to that coffee shop. But a school is not like that; it is not, or should not be, a commercial operation; it is not something that you skip around to, around the country—it is at the heart of a community. That geographical spread issue really needs addressing On Amendment 50, the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, set out what is clearly an unarguable argument. The world is not set in stone: communities change and groups of students change. A new industry may open up in a particular community, and that community may become very interested in a whole different area of study and focus—but then it is still signed up with an academy that has an entirely different focus, ethos and approach. The idea that all this could be set in aspic, permanently, really does not make any sense I shall pick up on a point that the Minister made on one of the earlier groups, when talking about how the Secretary of State needed the powers to intervene against a failing MAT. A MAT might work really well for some of its members but utterly fail to meet the needs of others; the idea that they are all going to work perfectly in perpetuity does not add up On Amendment 55, since this the first time I have spoken in a relevant debate I feel I should probably make a declaration of interest, if you like, of Green Party policy: we do not believe that any religious institution should be running state-funded schools. That statement of principle is where I am coming from. The noble Baroness, Lady Blower, made the very important point that people, communities and families have to be consulted before they find themselves forced into something that may very much not be what they want for themselves and their children.
Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-24
Topic: Energy
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I rise briefly to speak in support of Amendment 5 and particularly to pick up an aspect of it that we did not really discuss in Committee. It was brought to my attention by a foreign visitor. If we are talking about the source of the fuel, it is not just about whether the fuel going into the reactor is manufactured in the UK but where the raw material, the uranium, comes from. As the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, just said, there are issues of security here, as well as issues of human rights et cetera. Looking down the list of the world’s top uranium producers, Kazakhstan is number one and Russia, China—according to an estimated figure—and Ukraine are also in the top 10. I have been trying to establish what the current situation is—perhaps the Minister will tell me, or write to me later—about our current fuel and the origin of the supplies, but it is important in the context of this amendment that we consider that.
Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report — House of Lords, 2022-03-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, back in 2000, when I was first elected to the London Assembly, the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, appointed me to the Metropolitan Police Authority under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Harris. At that point, the case of Daniel Morgan was a 13 year-old scandal, and now it is a 35 year-old scandal—and still no one has been arrested, charged or whatever. We ought, if only in Daniel Morgan’s memory, to try to create a situation where the police can be more respected I mention the vetting procedures, because obviously you need to vet new recruits extremely carefully and carry on vetting during the lifetime of police officers. But there is also the whole training issue: you have to train officers to be responsible and honest and to have a duty of candour, which was one of the recommendations. There has to be zero tolerance of the sort of misogyny, sexism and racism that we have seen repetitively over the past few years. On a final point, I do not trust the current commissioner to achieve these things, so the faster we get a new commissioner, the better.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): I think it is obvious that the Minister will accept a lot of these amendments, because they are from people who are much cleverer than most of us in this Chamber I support most of the amendments—even all the government amendments, because they are quite helpful, particularly those that require the disclosure of whether any beneficial owners of property are subject to sanctions, and the strengthening of the criminal offences for false declarations. However, it is obvious from the speeches of other noble Lords that the Government are still falling short and that the Bill needs to be tougher. For example, Amendments 23, 24, 57 and 58 all need to be inserted into the Bill. All beneficial interests should be registered, not just those acquired on or after 1 January 1999. That is a completely arbitrary date and should be removed. The Minister shakes his head; I guess he will argue that it is a very important date. I disagree This legislation is being rushed through as an emergency, but the Government are content to wait another year, following initial registration, before any changes in beneficial ownership take place. I cannot see the logic in that and I think most people will not either. It makes much more sense to update the register within 14 days of any changes.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): I think that is a story for the noble Baroness’s memoirs, and I look forward to reading it There are lots of good amendments in this group but I want to speak to Amendments 56, 57, 61 and 62 about the implementation period. For me, the six-month implementation period makes absolutely no sense. We are trying to rush this through—we here are going to sit until I do not know what time tonight or tomorrow morning to make this emergency legislation happen, but we are still giving people six months to do this. The Government are taking so long that activists are going into oligarchs’ mansions and seizing them in London and Paris to house refugees, if we ever get any refugees here. I cannot blame this Government for the Paris seizure, but it suggests that people are getting very tired of the fact that they are being so slow about this. Why would anyone need six months? If they have been honest about paying their taxes, declaring profits and detailing the origin of their money, why do they need six months? Surely, any decent accountant—I am sure that there are several in your Lordships’ House—could sort this out within 14 days or, at the worst, 28 days. I think there is no reason for the Government not to support one of these two pairs of amendments that shorten the implementation period.
P&O Ferries — House of Lords, 2022-03-22
Topic: Transportation
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, the Minister, in responding to Front Bench questions, rightly said that this action will have a devastating impact on the reputations of P&O Ferries and DP World. The Minister further said that any company worth their salt "would not behave in this way". The Minister said that the relationship between the Government and DP World has now changed. With that in mind, building on the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, given the fact that freeports are by definition places of, if not lawlessness, certainly reduced legal protection for workers in terms of taxation and so on, how can the Government leave freeports with that kind of structure in the hands of a company which, in the Minister’s own words, has a devastated reputation?
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-28
Topic: International Affairs
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, in Committee there seemed to be some representations from noble Lords who did not know about the plight of the Chagos Islanders; they were hearing about it for the first time. There is so much injustice in the world that it is very difficult to keep track of all the consequences of British and American imperialism, but it is one of the beauties of your Lordships’ House that any of us can table amendments that can be debated and discussed. I say a big thank you to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for debating this issue and for her powerful speeches on this cause. Having had the issue raised in Committee, and now again on Report, no one can claim ignorance of this real injustice. We have to take action. It is time for the United Kingdom to make reparations for forcing changes on the Chagos Islanders. This amendment is the beginning of that process and the Greens support it completely.
Higher Education Reform — House of Lords, 2022-02-28
Topic: Education
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, on the new lifelong learning entitlement, are the Government not simply loading even more debt on to a generation already carrying an enormous weight of debt, and extending that debt for even longer? It is a great privatisation of the cost of education, which used to be borne by the public purse collectively, by an entire society that benefited from it, and by employers who benefited from those skills. Instead, what we are seeing is an individualisation and a privatisation. For the 40 years when people would expect normally, in many cases, to be settling down, having a family and buying a house, they are going to have this weight of debt settling on their shoulders, and it will be even a higher percentage of this generation.
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I rise very briefly to offer Green support for this amendment and to address one specific point and one specific question. The right reverend Prelate, in introducing this, set out how little we know about what is proposed of these accommodation centres, and how much we know of their horrors. In Committee, the Minister and I discussed a particular horror with which I had personal contact during the Covid pandemic I also note that there is a continuing situation where the High Court ruled that people in hotels and other accommodation are entitled to £8 a week to meet some of their basic needs. This includes being able to afford a bus fare to attend an interview, or to buy some basic hygiene products. Looking at the list of people who the right reverend Prelate has included in this amendment, it is worth a question here. Imagine being a parent of a child and not ever being able to buy any sort of treat for your child. If the child really wanted some little piece of food, the parent would not be able to buy it. Instead, they would get only what is provided in the three meals a day in the canteen I know that we are still waiting for a description of what these accommodation centres are like. Can the Minister confirm, following the High Court ruling, that there will be at least a very small basic payment for people in the accommodation centres so that they can have some kind of choice and some kind of life?