argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-05
Topic: Environment
Clive Brooke (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, I shall move the amendment she has tabled. I shall not speak at any great length on it. The change which has been tabled is welcome, but it falls considerably short of what we were hoping for and, in particular, what the mayors were hoping for. They do not feel that the Bill gives them the powers to tackle the fundamental problems they have with air pollution. They see it as an important part of several pieces of equipment they need to tackle air pollution. In particular, as I said in my earlier intervention, they have to be able to bring pressure to bear to ensure that there are more electric charging points in car parks. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, made the point very clearly. Most people using electric cars are not concerned about long journeys. They have bought their electric cars for good green reasons and for other reasons, and they are using them principally in cities. They are looking for the infrastructure to back them and, in particular, they find that in many areas in which they park there is no facility The mayors recognise this. They know what their cities have and what their citizens want. I am sure they will feel that while they welcome this change, there are a lot of words but little change and little benefit for them. Others may speak on this but we hope that the Government might take this away, reflect on it and see if they can come back and do better on it next time around. I beg to move.
Electronic Communications (Universal Service) (Broadband) Order 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-06-05
Topic: Technology
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): That this House regrets that the Electronic Communications (Universal Service) (Broadband) Order 2018 proposes a universal service obligation for broadband with a download speed of 10 megabits per second (Mbps) and an upload speed of 1Mbps; notes that in its December 2016 advice to Her Majesty’s Government, Ofcom modelled a scenario of superfast broadband with download speeds of 30Mbps, an upload speed of 6Mbps and a guaranteed minimum speed of 10Mbps; and calls on Her Majesty’s Government to adopt a more ambitious universal service obligation which promotes investment in broadband infrastructure and facilitates increased consumer access to ultrafast "full fibre" services (SI 2018/445).
Electronic Communications (Universal Service) (Broadband) Order 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-06-05
Topic: Technology
Jonathan Mendelsohn (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Stevenson for moving this Regret Motion and giving us an opportunity to debate the order. I also thank him for an outstanding speech setting the right context for this, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for an excellent speech that placed in context the consequences for small businesses. I share the frustrations of previous speakers—the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare and the noble Earls, Lord Cathcart and Lord Lytton—about these speeds. I share it although I do not suffer from any of the difficult consequences, as they do I live in north London. We have three suppliers into the house. We have all sorts of cabling across the house, with boosters and all sorts of signals, but I have never achieved the stated packages from any of the services. We have problems of latency, contention and all those matters. In fact, my business has a dedicated phone line, which has boosters and other cabling to try to make sure that the signal is not lost, and we are fairly close to BT Tower itself—but our service is barely better than the much cheaper super broadband. It is frequently a problem that the claimed capacities are never fully achieved. That is something that we have to be very wary of, even when we establish a universal service obligation I turn my attention to the universal service obligation in this particular order. I want to make the simple point that the order does not achieve its objectives, and I would like the Minister to address that problem. When the Act was passed and the level at which the USO would be introduced was set, it was based on a series of assumptions none of which I believe to be true. I do not believe any more that it achieves the purposes of equity by trying to sort out the digital divide and deal with the problems of rural communities, and nor do I believe that it achieves any of the stated benefits of economic growth Some rather good documents on economic growth were produced by DCMS, and I thank it for the work that it did on that. In parenthesis, I acknowledge that the digital team at DCMS has steadily improved, and I suspect that if the same team had been around during the passage of the Bill last time we would not have been stuck with this level of USO. The economic growth benefits are said to be £257 million a year, which relates to: "Local enterprise growth … Enterprise productivity growth … Increased teleworker productivity … Increased participation of carers and the disabled".
Electronic Communications (Universal Service) (Broadband) Order 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-06-05
Topic: Technology
Jonathan Mendelsohn (Labour, Centre-left): I will specify that the figures themselves are on page 3 of the impact assessment and are for the USO. The stated growth figures themselves came from figures previously reported by Ofcom and from other reports. I can cite the reports for the Minister, but they are all in the documents that I mentioned. The assumptions on which they were made were an extrapolation from higher numbers, so even now to suggest that these numbers are consistent with the service is suspect, largely because the key factor in what is happening in the market and in the use of these things is the software and other services that are laid on top of them, which are the applications that people use. There is an idea that this level of service can be delivered on figures a year later when software has increased in order to deal with a market of higher usage, but that does not mean we can achieve these growth figures The other options that were rejected, 20 and 30 megabits, still fulfil both objectives, whereas this order fails on both objectives. That has had counterproductive effects. It is certainly true for those of us who spend a lot of time in industry that by setting the USO at 10 megabits we have ended up in a situation where there has been a chill on potential investment from other players. Other people have not been able to enter the market, and even the main providers that are looking to bid have found it hard to justify business cases when the USO is at 10 megabits. That is a huge problem. I agree with all the speakers who have raised the issue that there will be a dramatic impact on our relative position with this low, unambitious target The Government’s argument is that the reason why the level has been set is that it is all Europe’s fault, or it is in the directive. I beg to differ. The directive is all about how you interpret it and we have chosen to interpret it in a more restrictive way than others have done, as well as offering interpretations of some of the aspects in the most limited possible fashion. The most significant one is about what the minimum specification is. The documents that were provided state that the connection should be available to, "permit functional Internet access, taking into account prevailing technologies used by the majority of subscribers and technological feasibility" That interpretation has been highly restrictive in how we have looked at the issue. We assume that the sorts of things that people are using in these different areas are based on easy-to-apply averages, but that is not the case. When you start talking about 10 megabits as being the sort of level that people can use, you come to the wrong conclusion. If you are in the rural community and using many of the technological features that are now used to enhance your business, you will tend to use them on a mobile. When you look for a broadband wi-fi connection, you will find that it does not meet the requirements that you can gain if you can get access to 4G.
Freedom of Information (Designation as Public Authority and Amendment) Order 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-11-06
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): I too thank the noble Baroness for explaining the content and purpose of the draft statutory instrument. It is straightforward in its objective of designating the National Police Chiefs’ Council as a public authority for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I have a few questions but if necessary, I am happy to accept a written response; we do support the draft order Article 2 of the draft SI sets out the functions of the NPCC for which it is designated a public authority under the 2000 Act. Do the functions include the NPCC’s finances and administration, and correspondence between the NPCC and the Government, as being covered by the provisions of the Act? What functions of the NPCC, if any, are not covered under this draft order by the Act? Is the relevant body for police and crime commissioners also designated a public authority under the Act? If so, in respect of what functions? In a way, that follows on from the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about the College of Policing Paragraph 7.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that, "it appears to the Secretary of State that the NPCC exercises functions of a public nature in relation to all its functions" That is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Does being subject to those provisions apply in relation to the NPCC, or indeed any other designated public authority, in respect of designated functions that it then outsources to an outside private firm or organisation? Is outsourcing part of its function—a means for anybody designated a public authority under the 2000 Act to get around or reduce the extent of the provisions of the Act being applied Paragraph 7.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to the current revision of the agreement of 1 April 2015 that established the NPCC. What is the purpose of that revision? How extensive will it be? When will it be completed Paragraph 10.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that, "the average cost … of handling a request for information … for public authorities in the wider public sector", is £164. It goes on to say: "There is no obligation for public authorities to comply with vexatious requests or those that exceed the costs threshold … Costs for disbursements can be recovered" What is the costs threshold and how regularly is it increased? Do increases in the threshold reflect increases in either the cost of living or pay? What is included in the "costs for disbursements" that can be recovered Finally, when this draft instrument was discussed in the Commons, the Minister for Policing in the Commons stated: "There is no statutory obligation to publish statistics".—[Official Report, Commons, First Delegated Legislation Committee, 30/10/18; col. 6.] However, he said that he would check whether there had been any "specific requests" from the Home Office to the NPCC in that regard. What was the outcome of that?
International Road Transport Permits (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-11-06
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): May I ask a question supplementary to that? If the criterion is going to be the greatest economic benefit, how can the Government identify something vital for a small business, as the noble Baroness suggested—25 tonnes of oranges, or the parts for a major car manufacturer who says, "If I do not get the parts today, I am going to close the whole thing down"—when we are only going to get a quarter or so of the permits we need at the moment? It seems there is going to be chaos either way. Does the Minister have a solution?
Electronic Money, Payment Services and Payment Systems (Amendment and Transitional Provisions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-11-06
Topic: Macroeconomics
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the noble Lord for that The Minister knows exactly what I am going to say. On page 6 of the Explanatory Memorandum, paragraph 12.6 and beyond states: "An Impact Assessment will be published in due course on the legislation.gov.uk website … The Treasury’s decision to publish the regulations without a final Impact Assessment aims to ensure that industry and regulators have as much time as possible to familiarise themselves with the regulatory changes" The reason the Minister and I are familiar with those two paragraphs is that they have appeared in every Explanatory Memorandum on Treasury SIs so far; and on every SI so far, the Treasury has failed to produce an impact assessment, despite the fact that it is promised in the body of the document. For the life of me, I cannot see why it would bother, given that we will have approved the SI by the time it arrives Let me turn back to the good news for the Minister. We are certainly not going to challenge this SI. I echo the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer: it is good to see, as far as one can because of the sheer complexity of it, that it sticks with the Government’s commitment to make only the necessary changes to have a smooth transition. I cannot detect any effort from the Government in this SI to try to introduce any policy changes.
Tax Collection and Management (Wales) Act 2016 and the Land Transaction Tax and Anti-avoidance of Devolved Taxes (Wales) Act 2017 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-11-06
Topic: Government Operations
Leslie John Griffiths (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, every point I might have wanted to make has been made either by the Minster or by those who have spoken. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, about whether the Assembly has been fully consulted and whether it is the full opinion of the Assembly to move down this line. He seemed to suggest that there had been the fullest of collaborations, so I expect an affirmative answer, but it will be interesting to see how that comes back The process is under way: the various Acts of Parliament have been established, the revenue-gathering authority has been set up, and the elements that now need to be integrated into other Acts of Parliament are all referred to here I have just one remark, apropos of nothing except that I want to seem responsible in standing at the Dispatch Box, with something to say. It seems extraordinary that all these existing Acts of Parliament now have to be modified to include a reference to the organisations we are setting up. The complexity of the cross-referring required to root this measure in the legislative material of the Assembly, and of Wales in general, is really rather interesting. Given that it is so complicated to get such a simple measure established, heaven help those who are negotiating our exit from the European Union.
Police Pension Liabilities — House of Lords, 2018-11-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, my honourable friend in the other place, the Member for Bradford South, Judith Cummins MP, first raised this matter with the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s Questions on 24 October, and received a less than satisfactory answer, to say the least. Following that answer from the Prime Minister, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners issued a joint statement in the names of Chief Constable Sara Thornton and Police and Crime Commissioner Mark Burns-Williamson. Their statement backs up the question from the Member for Bradford South and makes clear that the first notification which enabled forces to calculate the impact of pension changes came in September 2018. The impact of the changes risks a reduction in the number of police officers at a time of rising crime. It is not good enough to say today that some funding will be available, unless the issue is tackled comprehensively. The only people who will welcome the situation are the criminals, as there will be fewer police officers to tackle them and bring them to justice.
Police Pension Liabilities — House of Lords, 2018-11-06
Topic: Labor
Rita Donaghy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, when people enter a pension scheme in the public sector, as anywhere, they have expectations. They also expect a certain amount of notice of any changes and to be told whether increased costs will impact on their job security. This does not seem to have been handled all that well—but that is not the nature of my question, which is: will the police be fully consulted? Will the Police Federation be fully consulted? Will there be decent notice of any proposed changes to the police pension scheme The Minister talked about the changing nature of work, but people have built up their pensions over many years and have expectations about what they will get at the end of their career. We would not want any unintended consequences from people applying for early retirement when they see little hope of enhancement in the future. Will she give some information about what consultation will take place with the Police Federation to give sufficient notice to the police of any changes?
Police Pension Liabilities — House of Lords, 2018-11-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the response on 25 October from the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners makes it clear that they have received no guidance on what the changes will mean. Does the noble Baroness think that that is acceptable?
Govia Thameslink — House of Lords, 2018-07-03
Topic: Transportation
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): An industry readiness board was set up to review and direct "industry programmes for Thameslink 2018 operational readiness to minimise all risks associated with entry into service and ongoing sustained operations". The Department for Transport sat on that board. Bearing in mind that the Secretary of State for Transport claims that he has no responsibility for the current new timetable shambles, why was the Department for Transport on that readiness board with its operational readiness remit Secondly, the Secretary of State has set up an inquiry into the causes of the current new timetable problems under the chair of the Office of Rail and Road. Some think that the ORR, which also sat on the readiness board, is one of the causes of the current problems through its cost-reduction demands on Network Rail and their impact on train planning costs and manpower. Who, then, will be considering the role of the ORR in respect of the current Thameslink timetable problems, since clearly that person cannot credibly be the chair of the ORR?
Govia Thameslink — House of Lords, 2018-07-03
Topic: Transportation
David George Clark (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, yesterday the Secretary of State tried to reassure the people of the north that the trans-Pennine electrification schemes would go ahead. Does that apply to all the electrification schemes in the north, such as the Lakes Line, which was refused recently? On the subject of the Lakes Line, will the Government look seriously at the way in which Northern Rail stopped running trains on a whole railway line, with no trains at all for four weeks, and are now only running half the trains? The Government seem to be endorsing this as a great success.
Official Statistics Order 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-07-03
Topic: Government Operations
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for such a clear explanation, even if he did not manage to make it sound zippy or a lot of fun. It is an important and non-contentious draft order to which we are happy to give our support. Indeed, we welcome the additions to the schedule of organisations providing official statistics; the more, the better, and especially the better-monitored statistics we have, the better for all of us—the public, the press and politicians—so that we can judge the performance of the Government The system that has evolved in this country, particularly the requirement that has been mentioned to abide by a code, in how statistics are kept and how and when they are published, is one that we applaud. As mentioned, the UK Statistics Authority, an independent authority, has the statutory objective of promoting and safeguarding the production and the publication of official statistics. That is a key part of the system although of course it depends on all of the organisations on that schedule and particularly the Government abiding by the code The Minister described UKSA’s objective of serving the public good so as to mobilise the power of data to improve decision-making. That accountability includes: "Informing the public about social and environmental matters, assisting in the development and evaluation of public policy", and, "regulating quality and publicly challenging the misuse of statistics" This latter task of monitoring, and in particular when necessary challenging, the use of statistics is particularly important when we see the Government sometimes being a little too free and easy over their handling of data.
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-09-12
Topic: Education
David Blunkett (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Grocott and will say, in a slightly lighter vein, that it was not just the reputation of this House that was damaged last Friday, when I was present—it was the attractiveness to those across the world who wish to use the British private education system, because I have never heard such a load of rubbish in my life coming from those who benefited from that education system many years ago.
Police Forces: Financial Stability — House of Lords, 2018-09-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, there is a bit of a conflict. On the one hand, the NAO report is recognised and accepted but, on the other, the Home Secretary immediately says that he does not recognise the picture that it paints. But the NAO says, on its good evidence, that the Home Office, "lacks a long-term plan for policing", and, "does not know if the police system is financially sustainable", and does not understand the pressures on our police forces. I accept what the NAO says more than what the Home Secretary does. Will the Minister confirm that police funding has fallen by 19% in real terms since 2010-11? Will she accept that forces are finding it harder and harder to deliver an effective service?
Police Forces: Financial Stability — House of Lords, 2018-09-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Jonathan Toby Harris (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister has referred at least twice, or perhaps three times, to the incredible efforts of her colleague the Policing Minister in going round all 43 forces. Can she tell the House how many of the police and crime commissioners, whom he no doubt met on those visits, expressed support for the current level of policing resources that was available to them and what proportion of the population they represent? Further to the question that has just been asked about public order, given that the police were barely able to cope with the disorder that happened in 2011, what level of policing numbers are there now, even with this extra 5,000, compared to the numbers then, and would the police be able to cope with a similar incident in the future?