argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-09
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I want to speak briefly to Amendment 35. Having a definition of "road", as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, is essential. I know there are lots of different definitions of roads within the various road traffic Acts, but I happened to come across a case a few years ago where somebody who was driving a 4x4 on a road which did not appear to be a road within the definition of the road traffic Acts was arrested and charged with drink-driving. He was convicted in the end and it is quite clear, which I did not understand before, that that offence can occur anywhere—in a field, a factory, or anywhere else—because it is not particularly a road traffic offence: it is being drunk in charge of a vehicle. I do not know whether that will be reflected when we get to who is in charge of these vehicles, but it demonstrates the importance of having a definition of "road" where such legislation will apply.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-09
Topic: Agriculture
John Alston Maxton (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister keeps talking about "vehicles" and not "cars". Vehicles are already being used in agriculture. They do have to go on roads, however; for example, to go from one field to another. Is that part of the definition?
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-09
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, about "must" and "may". It is interesting that the Government like to put "must" on its own. I am sure the Minister will have a view on that. I have a short comment on Amendment 12, which is in this group. I support it. The Minister may say it is too early but, if you are going to have a written notice under proposed new subsection (2), surely the documentation, certificates or anything relating to not only the vehicle but the software, control system and everything else should be included.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-09
Topic: Transportation
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 21 in this group. The Bill as currently drafted means that the insurer or owner of an automated vehicle is not liable where the event was caused by a person allowing the vehicle to drive itself where it was not appropriate to do so. However, it does not define when it is or is not appropriate to do so. This amendment requires the Government to provide regulatory guidance for when it is and is not appropriate for a person to allow an automated vehicle to drive itself It would clearly not be appropriate in some circumstances for vehicles to drive themselves: for example, early automated vehicles might be deemed safe to use only on motorways and not on some urban roads. Another example would be that a software issue might arise so that using the automated function at that point would be inappropriate. Clause 3(2) is not clear enough in its intentions. Does it even apply to fully automated vehicles or bimodal vehicles? We need more clarity on this One of the primary purposes of Part 1 is to provide a framework to give insurers, manufacturers and potential users greater clarity, providing confidence and encouraging progress on automated vehicles. However, it is still not clear from the Bill what the Government have in mind about when their use would be appropriate. We are asking for regulations to be brought forward to better define those circumstances, because we cannot afford to have confusion here. People must be clear about where their obligations lie. If we are to see the growth in the industry we all wish for, we do not want to leave this issue hanging over it.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-09
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will make what I hope is a helpful suggestion to my noble friend in connection with Amendment 21. The most appropriate authority to make these regulations would be the Office of Rail and Road. It is responsible for safety on the railway; it should be responsible for road safety, but we have not got there yet. Maybe the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would support me on that one. However, I hope that is a helpful suggestion.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-09
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Minister has mentioned the Law Commission report several times. Can he give any timetable for when the Law Commission will report on various issues? I am not just thinking about this one. One report on railway level crossings was completed about five years ago. I know that you are supposed to wait two years after a report has been produced before it is introduced into legislation. However, if one waits three, four or five years, the report’s conclusions may get out of date. I remember threatening the last coalition Government with putting the whole Law Commission report on level crossings down as amendments to a suitable Bill—it would have been about 50 pages long, but that was not the problem—in order to get the coalition Government to do something. My impression is that, because of all the Brexit legislation, everything has come to a grinding halt. I am not necessarily suggesting that the Minister will be able to answer my detailed question, but if he or a colleague could write to me on that, I think it would be a useful subject for discussion later.
Renewal of G4S Contracts — House of Lords, 2018-05-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, does the Minister agree that this whole horrible saga has once more raised the strategic question of how far commercial culture can satisfactorily replace the tradition of public service, with its concentration on people? Has there not once again been too much concentration on targets and systems? We are dealing with people in crisis. It is difficult to imagine the turmoil and trauma that they and their families are going through. However firm our policy—and I am certain that it has to be firm—does the Minister not agree that we must have people in place who understand human relations and the predicament of the people with whom they are coping?
Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (Consequential, Transitional, Transitory and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-05-09
Topic: Education
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): That this House regrets that the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (Consequential, Transitional, Transitory and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2018 do not provide sufficient independence for the Office for Students (OfS) from Ministers; do not enable the OfS to engage effectively with students, student unions and the National Union of Students; do not enable the OfS to protect the institutional autonomy of universities, or the autonomy of the OfS board; and overemphasise the marketisation of higher education (SI 2018/245).
Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (Consequential, Transitional, Transitory and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-05-09
Topic: Education
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am very glad that I gave way to my noble friend because that was a very important speech. By the same token, I applaud my noble friend Lord Hunt’s speech. He reflected my own misgivings very powerfully. I should declare an interest because I have been, over many years, involved, and still remain involved, in the governance, in the widest sense, of some of our university institutions We applaud the standing of British universities. We cannot reflect enough on how that standing and admiration across the world has been achieved. It has certainly not been achieved with the language of "providers", or of "customers" instead of "students". In other words, it has not been involved in the context of an overriding commitment to market ideology. It has been achieved because of a long-standing and continuing commitment to scholarship, to learning and to the concept of the value of education as an end in itself, not as a means to an immediate end.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-09
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, these are interesting amendments. When my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe was speaking to Amendment 25 and mentioned the word "victim", I began to think, "Well, who is a victim? Can a car be a victim, or only a person?" I think it is too late tonight to start a long debate on that, but perhaps the Minister could think about that some time I turn to Amendments 23 and 28. My worry about Amendment 23 is: what happens if the manufacturer has gone bust? In other words, the manufacturer does not actually have to be the person who supplies updates; it can be anyone. My gut feeling is that my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s Amendment 28 is better because it just says that the vehicle may not be operated unless the application software relating to the vehicle’s automated function is up to date. I think that would cover what Amendment 23 covers but in a better way What nobody has mentioned tonight, which the noble Baroness touched on, is what happens if the software does not work and you are stuck on a motorway or in a one-way street and cannot move the car? Again, I think that is a debate for another day, but I hope the Minister will have some response to the points made by many noble Lords, particularly about who updates the software.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-09
Topic: Transportation
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): Perhaps the Minister could help me a little here. If a vehicle is not insured today, and a pedestrian is harmed, say, who had no responsibility at all, my understanding is that they will get an instant payout from some sort of collective fund. Is that correct? If it is, is it the intention of the Bill to have a similar situation, including possibly defective software?
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-09
Topic: Transportation
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, we all agree that in the future automated vehicles have the potential to improve personal transport arrangements as well as air quality, which is crucial given the dire state of the environment and its impact on health. Solving questions of how automated vehicles can be insured is essential and we welcome the fact that the Government are setting out how to do that. However, it is important to assess how measures work in practice, not only in legislation. It is particularly important that the Government should ensure that regulations are working as intended and should monitor unexpected impacts, which are always there, before attitudes and practices become entrenched and before automated vehicles become common on our roads Although the list in the amendment is not exhaustive, given the focus of Part 1 of the Bill it makes sense for a report to consider the impact that measures have on the insurance industry, on the cost of premiums for policyholders, on the uptake of automated vehicles and on disagreements between insurers and manufacturers on liability. This will be a fast-moving area and—who knows?—we may have to revisit areas of this Bill in the future as advances in technology take place and the advances impact on how these vehicles are insured It is important that Parliament is kept informed of the effectiveness and impact of the legislation to make sure that we keep it up to date as new technologies in this area are developed. I beg to move.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-09
Topic: Transportation
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response. There is a wider point, which perhaps I should have made before—though I think she is erring towards agreeing with me—which is that it seems possible that the first fully automated vehicles could be ferrying children to school in, say, five, 10 or 15 years’ time, without this issue coming back to this House at all, by virtue of the wide powers that many of the road traffic and other Acts have to do things by order, for example. Therefore I hope that we will be able to find some sort of reporting compromise that ensures that this House and, ideally, Parliament in general, is kept informed of developments in this exciting and innovative area. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Gaza — House of Lords, 2018-05-15
Topic: International Affairs
Raymond Collins (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, all our thoughts are with those Palestinians in Gaza whose loved ones have been either killed or injured as a result of IDF action. During subsequent questions, Alistair Burt appeared to support the Secretary-General’s call for an independent and transparent investigation of these actions. He said that a team at the United Nations was working to find the right formulation, bearing in mind that a Kuwaiti attempt failed because it set out to apportion blame. What timescale are the Government working to in respect of a United Nations response, because it is clear that these matters need urgent and independent investigation?
Smart Meters Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-15
Topic: Energy
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, subsection (5)(b) of the new clause proposed by my noble friend states: "an assessment of the future developments thought feasible and desirable for the smart meter programme, including monitoring of customer activity so as to deliver least cost tariff benefits combined with the maximum ability to engage with future appliance applications, inter-operability, compatibility with smart phones and tablets, and the encouragement of self-generated capacity in the home" I shall concentrate on the word "interoperability", which I raised in Committee. I was with some friends last weekend and we had a discussion about smart meters. The general view was that the problem with them is that you cannot switch suppliers. Although we are assured by Ministers that we can switch suppliers, the public believe that that is impossible without losing some information. My friends said that some suppliers refuse to have anything to do with the meters provided by others We need today from the Dispatch Box an undertaking that under whatever arrangements are ultimately in place, there will be absolute interoperability whereby, whoever is the supplier, the meter will work and provide information on the number of units consumed, the price per unit and the total paid to that point for the power consumed. The public need the assurance that if they get a smart meter, they can switch between suppliers quite liberally without losing any of the facilities available from an existing meter. I would like that assurance from the Dispatch Box, because I am sure that it would resolve many of the existing concerns in the country on the failure of the equipment to be interoperable.
Smart Meters Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-15
Topic: Energy
Christopher Suenson-Taylor (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Minister’s reply is interesting. He is understandably reluctant to accept that his department needs the force of this amendment in the Bill. It is critical that the Government meet these three vital tests for the rollout of smart meters. First, there must be a visible plan. I can accept that the Government’s commitment to an annual report, with the current status and future milestones mapped out, meets this criteria, and I thank the Minister for repeating this commitment again today Secondly, there must be a role for Parliament to monitor progress and take evidence that all elements in the rollout are co-ordinated into an achievable programme. It should be possible to implement this part of the plan from the Minister’s commitment to the Government’s statement in a publication early next year with a report, with evidence and a stocktake on the latest technological position on the transition from SMETS 1 to SMETS 2 meters and their capabilities, the latest cost-benefit analysis provided by the NAO, and after consultations with consumer organisations and Ofgem. Parliament will be scrutinising this on behalf of consumers. The Minister has given a commitment that the Government will come forward with a statement in the first half of 2019 Thirdly, the ambitions inherent in a national plan must be embraced and consumers put at the heart of the programme. The Minister must make sure that his commitment to a separate paper at the end of this year goes ahead, making the data usage for smart meters available for the optimisation of consumers’ use of energy. I am encouraged by the Minister’s reply that the Government accept the thrust of the amendment as part of his department’s responsibilities. The Government will accept that they are on notice to perform to their timetable I welcome the Minister’s commitment to the rollout programme and the way he has responded to our challenge. It is agreed that in essence his department will conduct the national plan in all but name and that he has promised to make this available. With that secured, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Civil Liability Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-05-15
Topic: Law and Crime
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, referred at Second Reading to Clause 8(3) and the assumptions to be followed in determining the rate as set out in, notably, paragraph 3(3)(a) of proposed new Schedule A1, in which the Lord Chancellor must assume that the relevant damages are payable in a lump sum rather than under an order for periodical payments Paragraph 3(3)(d) of proposed new Schedule A1 prescribes an assumption that the relevant damages are invested using an approach that involves, "more risk than a very low level of risk, but … less risk than would ordinarily be accepted by a prudent and properly advised individual investor who has different financial aims" The noble and learned Lord observed that the Lord Chancellor would have to have, "a certain element of the prophet about him", and that: "Getting an expert panel to agree … will be very difficult" .—[Official Report, 24/4/18; cols. 1504-05.] Perhaps the Minister could confirm this, or make it clear that this a not-for-prophet provision The decisions that will be made will impinge heavily on the innocent victims of negligence or breaches of statutory duty over a wide range of circumstances, hence the noble Lord’s amendment that would provide that an order may distinguish between different classes of case by reference to the description or anticipated scale of future pecuniary loss involved. But the amendment to Section 1 of the Damages Act 1996—in Clause 8, lines 29-34—which states that the provision of the preceding subsection requiring the court to, "take into account such rate of return (if any) as may from time to time be prescribed by an order made by the Lord Chancellor", is qualified such that it, "does not however prevent the court taking a different rate of return into account if any party to the proceedings shows that it is more appropriate in the case in question" This seems to create the possibility of the courts departing significantly in individual cases from the Lord Chancellor’s prescribed tariff. This would be welcome, but can the Minister confirm that that is the intention behind the Bill in that context I certainly endorse the noble and learned Lord’s Amendment 57A and I hope the Government will adopt it.
Civil Liability Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-05-15
Topic: Law and Crime
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): I am not really persuaded by the logic of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. It is not as if all claims will be faced with a five-year period. If a case is brought two years before a review, the courts will be dealing with a more recent determination than if it had been five years. I do not see the advantage of the noble Lord’s proposition. There will be some cases that will obviously be closer to that date than others.
Hate Crime — House of Lords, 2018-03-13
Topic: Law and Crime
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, these disgusting letters have, quite righty, caused revulsion in our communities and been condemned. I pay tribute to community and faith leaders, charities and others for what they have done. They and others will not let us be divided. Domestic extremism needs to be dealt with. Can the noble Lord reassure us that the Anderson review recommendations to the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre will start to produce the threat assessments for domestic extremism? Can he reassure the House that the police have the resources they need? He will of course be aware that the police got less than half of what they asked for to deal with terrorism.
United States Tariffs: Steel and Aluminium — House of Lords, 2018-03-13
Topic: Foreign Trade
Jeffrey Rooker (Labour, Centre-left): I remind the Minister that the Secretary of State, whose Statement she has just repeated, has in the past, when talking about trade deals with the United States, mentioned agricultural products. Last week, President Trump—in one of his tweets; not in an official government statement—also linked agricultural products with the very issue of steel and aluminium. Can the Minister give a categoric assurance that the UK Government will not sell out the UK agricultural industry in order to get a deal over steel and aluminium?
United States Tariffs: Steel and Aluminium — House of Lords, 2018-03-13
Topic: Foreign Trade
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on her appointment, and we wish her well in her trade export work. We commiserate with her, however, for having to repeat that Statement from the Secretary of State for International Trade, which was a catalogue of name calling and impotence. If he had the influence he claims with his great long list of American friends, whom he will be lobbying over the next week or two, we would not have had these tariffs in the first place I have two questions. First, is the Minister in any way optimistic that President Trump will lift the tariff he has announced? Secondly, does the Minister not think that this situation gives the complete lie to the argument for leaving the European Union on the basis that Britain’s global trade will somehow compensate for the loss of trade with the European Union that we will suffer? In addition, does the Minister not agree that the Prime Minister’s choice of words in her Mansion House speech—she said that it is now an object of policy on the part of Her Majesty’s Government that we will have less market access to the European Union—looks ever more unwise with each tweet and utterance from President Trump?
United States Tariffs: Steel and Aluminium — House of Lords, 2018-03-13
Topic: Energy
Alan William John West (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Statement explains at length how the Americans have made an assessment of the strategic requirement for a steel industry. That begs the question of why we have not made such an assessment. Do the Government believe that there is a strategic requirement for a viable steel industry in this country?
United States Tariffs: Steel and Aluminium — House of Lords, 2018-03-13
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that it is a complete fantasy if the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, thinks that we will be in a stronger position to negotiate with the United States when we do not have the weight of Europe behind us and we are acting entirely independently? Further, does she not think that that is a controlled experiment which can only do enormous harm to the country and that we would be better off not engaging in it in the first place?