argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Apprenticeships — House of Lords, 2015-10-15
Topic: Education
Margaret Prosser (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for that response. Like him, I think this has been a hugely interesting and informative debate. I was particularly pleased that we had contributions to the discussion from all Benches of the House, which was important I recognise that this is a rather tricky matter in the sense that apprenticeships come under two government departments, which is always a bit of a recipe for more problems. When I read Hansard on Monday, should I discover that my important questions have not been answered, I shall look for the Minister’s correspondence in the Library I thank all noble Lords who contributed to the debate. Many points were raised which I had not really thought of myself, so I am grateful both for them and for the very interesting and diverse contributions that were made Whenever the question of apprenticeships is raised, it reminds me of a television programme from quite a number of years ago on the industrialists and entrepreneurs of the late 1900s. They were men who had made vast amounts of money and built significant organisations in shipbuilding, the arms trade, textile manufacturing et cetera. None of those men had sent their sons—nobody thought about daughters in those days—into those businesses. They had ensured that their sons went into the professions, as they called them—into medicine and law et cetera. We have an ongoing snobbery in this country about trade. It is up to all of us here to promote the value of trade and that sort of learning. I hope the Government will be prepared to give a good lead on this because we need a big cultural shift, so that we can begin properly to compare ourselves with other countries which do not have that history and that attitude. I thank all noble Lords and the Minister for their contributions.
Redcar Steel — House of Lords, 2015-10-15
Topic: Energy
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer, but it is really only about how to help redundant workers. While it is welcome, it is not all new money and it does not help other businesses, from shops and services to suppliers and transport, which will also be affected More than this, we should not be in this place. Redcar was to be a major player in the zero-carbon industrial zone based around carbon capture and storage in Teesside. Its loss is a major blow to the project, which had received BIS funding. The Government are overseeing the death of 170 years of steelmaking in Teesside despite the site being viable We welcome the steel summit, but why not mothball the site to save the asset? There are companies which are willing to supply the coke ovens or do the mothballing, but the Government have not given the time. Could three months not be found? How can we have a northern powerhouse without this fundamental manufacturing capability? How can the Prime Minister say that steel is vital and do nothing to save it?
Redcar Steel — House of Lords, 2015-10-15
Topic: Energy
Hilary Armstrong (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the reality is that there was an offer from a local company, Hargreaves—which ironically is based just outside Consett and is essentially now a coal-mining and haulage business—to put money in and maintain the coke ovens. The coke ovens produce a new form of coke called foundry coke, which is much more value driven and therefore raises a much higher cost because it is more efficient. The Germans want to buy this coke and the only place that it can be made is at Redcar. The Government not working with the receiver to give some time has meant that the coke ovens will close today and no more opportunity will be there. That is surely something that the Government can and should do something about.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-19
Topic: Energy
Helen Lawrie Liddell (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it seems to be "Kick the Minister" time, but I do not particularly want to do that, since I know how he feels—I once had to take through a utility Bill that ended up with 1,000 amendments. However, I think everyone would acknowledge that this Bill has been a bit of a dog’s breakfast Further to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, the uncertainty facing the North Sea oil and gas industry is considerable at the moment, and there is speculation about perhaps another 10,000 jobs being marked to disappear. I ask the Minister to get some indication of certainty about what is going to happen about the OGA. We cannot go on with this miasma of uncertainty, with changes to amendments and perhaps even further amendments going through to the House of Commons, at a time when there is such a feverish atmosphere around the North Sea While I am on the issue of uncertainty, is the Minister aware of the comments by Professor Jacqueline McGlade from the United Nations this morning about the impact of uncertainty on those who are investing? She was talking primarily about the renewables industry, but it also has an impact on oil and gas, particularly in relation to decommissioning.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-19
Topic: Environment
Bryony Worthington (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his introductory comments. As we start the first day of Report on the Bill, it is welcome to hear from the Government a reiteration of their commitment to action on climate change and to decarbonising the UK economy I add my voice to those of noble Lords who have spoken ahead of me in reflecting on the way in which the Bill has been conducted. I am probably not alone in not having had much of a weekend; I am sure that the Minister has had similar issues to deal with. I take these issues incredibly seriously, as people know, and it makes me genuinely unsettled and discomfited to know that I am not able to do the best job that I can because of the timescales that we are working under. I think that many noble Lords share that feeling. As I have said before at the Dispatch Box, we are where we are—but it could have been so different In these opening comments on Report, I want to reflect on the question of why we are making such haste. Why is such an important body as the OGA being created in such a piecemeal way, with amendments coming forward and new issues arising in a very febrile and fast-changing environment? There seems to be no time for the Government to take stock and review. It is because the timing of the Bill is not about the major portion of it, which is the OGA, but Clause 66 which closes the RO a year early. It was closing anyway in 2017, so we are in rather a rush to make that deadline in order for this not to be a complete waste of our parliamentary time. That is why we are racing through. That is why we have not had enough pre-legislative scrutiny and why there are so many fundamental issues that have not been properly addressed in Committee. That is why we are facing an inundation of amendments now. It is a very regrettable situation and one that I personally take very seriously, as I am sure the Minister does, too. I only wish that perhaps people in other parts of the Government took this issue as seriously as those who are represented here today, because it is not good enough.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-19
Topic: Transportation
Bryony Worthington (Labour, Centre-left): The last time this legal form was used to create an agency was when the Highways Agency was created, and at the time numerous articles stated that this was a very convenient way to allow a future Government to privatise it. Therefore, there has been a previous discussion about this form of legal construct and this issue has been raised in that context. In addition, it is true that in the current form there would be nothing to stop the Government privatising without returning to Parliament to seek its approval.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-19
Topic: Labor
Bryony Worthington (Labour, Centre-left): So the Minister is happy to have a two-tier system for remuneration but not for pensions. It seems rather odd to insert a clause that carries forward many of the benefits of Civil Service remuneration packages for all employees—the Minister said that it could be for new employees, too—yet we are going to unlock the salary levels at the same time. This seems very imprudent.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-19
Topic: Environment
Bryony Worthington (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing these amendments. The extent to which operations across the UK can conduct flaring or venting is important, and it is clearly right that there should be an ability to issue a financial penalty if there is a failure to comply. Therefore, many of the provisions introduced here appear to make sense I have one question. Venting and flaring would require careful correspondence with the environmental aspects of the regulation of the North Sea, in particular, and indeed of onshore oil and gas operations. Has the Environment Agency been involved in and consulted on these amendments? How would the proposed arrangements work in relation to the requirement to include the venting and flaring of gases under the European Emissions Trading Scheme, which is administered by the Environment Agency?
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Bryony Worthington (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in moving Amendment 11 I shall speak also to Amendments 27 and 28 and to government Amendment 26, which is in this group. The Government’s Amendment 26 is a welcome concession. It is obviously a response to the debate held during the passage of the Bill where a number of noble Lords from different sides of the House raised the very important issue of whether the OGA’s powers, and indeed from my perspective its principal objectives, were fit for purpose. There was a strong sense that a review ought to be provided for in the Bill which the Government would undertake and then report back to Parliament. We are pleased to see that an amendment which would at least introduce a review has been tabled. I would say, however, that the review is of performance alone and not of purpose, and certainly makes no mention of a review of the primary objectives of the Bill. It is those primary objectives which are causing me the most concern. If noble Lords will bear with me, I should like to spend a little time articulating why that is, which will explain why we have brought forward Amendment 11 to change the principal objective of the OGA Noble Lords will be aware that the OGA was first created as a temporary executive agency under the Infrastructure Act 2015, and the intention was to implement the recommendations made by Sir Ian Wood as set out in the Wood review, which coined the phrase, "maximising economic recovery". The eagle-eared among us will note that often when the Minister refers to MER, he actually describes it as "maximising economic return", which is quite a significant difference. It may just be one word, but it indicates a subtle shift in focus that has happened since we received the Wood review in 2013. It has been eloquently alluded to on many occasions by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and my noble friends Lady Liddell and Lord O’Neill, and others. There has been a significant change in the North Sea in particular since the Wood review was published and now, when we find ourselves looking at the detail of the OGA and how it will go about meeting the objectives of MER.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-19
Topic: Energy
Martin O'Neill (Labour, Centre-left): I am very pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Howell, because we had a conversation some time ago about how, as a young Back-Bencher in the early 1980s, when the noble Lord was the Secretary of State for Energy, he advocated the gas-gathering pipeline, which would have been of great significance to people in my former constituency who at that time worked in Grangemouth. Much of the energy debate is about purpose, being not just retrospective but prospective, and looking at technological advance and the possibilities this offers to facilitate greater efficiencies and better exploitation of the resources we have. Therefore, it seems very strange that we have a piece of legislation recalibrating—we might say—the Oil and Gas Authority, and that one of its main purposes is to be retrospective rather than prospective. I back my noble friend on the Front Bench because I think that we would be missing a trick here if we simply imposed on this authority in its new form the business of conducting retrospective triennial reviews. A review of past performance is desirable. You could argue that in the first instance three years might be appropriate, but thereafter I think it would be far more appropriate to have annual reviews so that we would have an annual report and perhaps an annual debate.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-19
Topic: Energy
Bryony Worthington (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful for that very thorough response from the Minister and for the contributions from noble Lords in this debate. I am afraid I am not reassured. Perhaps I did not make myself sufficiently clear in my introduction of Amendment 11 about the root of my concern. This is not to do with whether we can review the functions of the OGA or whether the performance of the OGA as set out in the Energy Bill is sufficient. I am referring to the primary objectives of the OGA as set in the Petroleum Act as amended by the Infrastructure Act. As I read out, those primary objectives are very odd for a regulator, for a body that is meant to be providing stewardship and oversight to an industry in the private sector part of the economy. It is that which causes me the greatest concern about this aspect of the Bill I am not reassured by the Minister’s references. In fact, I found myself questioning: which is it? Is it the case that this is not needed and that Amendment 11 is simply unnecessary? All these decommissioning references and CCS references were concessions we won from the Government in Committee. When the Bill appeared before us, there was no explicit mention of CCS or decommissioning. We had to extract that from the Government in Committee. Having done so, I contend that the primary objectives of this organisation do not fit those new powers.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-19
Topic: Energy
Bryony Worthington (Labour, Centre-left): Thereby hangs the problem—it is put back into the atmosphere. These carbon-negative technologies would have to be permanently stored and would have to be over geological timescales, or at least decadal timescales, in order to help in tackling climate change. Of course, CO2 is part of the biosphere but we are talking here about fossilised CO2 that built up over millennia and is being released over a much shortened timescale—a massive chemical experiment that we do not yet know the consequences of This could be a rich seam for policymakers and the department, which has already moved a long way in improving the Bill. I certainly hope that if we carry on in this spirit, we will resolve these issues of how to get CCS and CCU deployed so that we can save our industries, attract inward investment and reuse infrastructure sensibly. We could do that through a strategy or the creation of a group—there must be many ways in which this can be done. An Energy Bill should be addressing these issues. They are urgent—we are losing our industrial players—but on the plus side many innovative engineers around the country are coming forward with great ideas. We need to capture that, turn it into something tangible, use it to comply with our obligations and show that we can do decarbonisation at least cost while preserving our industrial might. If we can do that, we shall have an example to show the Premier of China, whom I am sure is grappling with this too There is not a single industrialised country that does not now have in its mind how it is going to create steel in a low carbon environment. How is cement going to be produced? What about plastics? We cannot simply ignore that aspect of the decarbonisation challenge. I am not saying that the Government are ignoring it, but we do seriously need to get going now in thinking this through—sooner rather than later—so that we do not see any more unfortunate examples of employers in our heavy industries leaving these shores. We need to keep them here and we need to set incentives for reinvestment. CCSU is one of the few groups of technologies that enables us to do that successfully. We must press on.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-19
Topic: Energy
Bryony Worthington (Labour, Centre-left): By way of clarification, I do not think that I stressed enough that this would apply not just to UK operations but, significantly, to the increased importation of fuels in the oil and gas sector. Obviously, it would be excellent if the Treasury could use the funding that would flow from that to invest in UK infrastructure for decarbonisation. This is not intended as a punitive measure for UK operators but as a way of addressing the fact that an entire half of our economy—fuels that we use for heat and transport—is uncapped, with no explicit carbon price. This would be a way of dealing with that and having that money flow from the ultimate sources of these imported fuels, which are overseas, into UK infrastructure.
European Council — House of Lords, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Bruce Joseph Grocott (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, on the renegotiation, there was one line in the Statement that was close to being amusing, which must be a first for a Statement on Europe from any leader. It said: "I will be writing to the President of the European Council in early November to set out the changes we want to see" It is about two years since a referendum was promised and still, if we are to believe what we read, the heads of government of the other 27 member states are not at all clear about the terms that the Prime Minister is trying to achieve; certainly, the people in this country are not clear about them. I want to register my astonishment at that. He will answer in general terms, of course—indeed, there are general terms in the Statement itself—but negotiations are not about general terms: they are about quite specific matters, about which we still do not know I put it to the Leader of the House, in her role as Leader, that if the Prime Minister is saying that he is going to spell out these terms by November, and the mechanism by which he is going to do so is a letter to the President of the European Council, copied to member states and presumably to Members of both Houses of Parliament—for which we thank him very much—and of course for the British public to see, at the very least this House, and I can ask her only about this House, ought to see at long last the precise terms that are the bottom line for the Prime Minister’s negotiations, so that we can examine this crucial aspect of the Government’s European policy and question the Prime Minister precisely on the efficacy of the demands that he is making.
European Council — House of Lords, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
John Tomlinson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement in this House. Has she noticed that two pages out of the five and a half pages that she read out stated concerns about renegotiation? Can she confirm that much of the content of those two pages is aspirational and relates to issues that were not raised at the Council meeting? Can she confirm that what was raised at that meeting was that little summary bit under "Other items"—the two lines that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, read out? As we are writing to the President of the Council, will the noble Baroness spell out quite explicitly that we will all receive not only a copy of the letter that is sent to the President of the Council but of any annexe appended to that letter which enumerates the demands that we are making so that we receive from the Prime Minister exactly what the President of the Council does?
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Bryony Worthington (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for speaking to Amendment 21 and to the Minister for speaking to the government amendments in this group. Part of the reason why I did not have a weekend is that these are quite substantial amendments to be bringing forward on Report. It is regrettable that we are considering this much detail on Report. However, on the positive side, they reflect that the Government have been listening to the concerns raised in this House. Those concerns have been consistently about the fitness of the purposes set for the OGA. We have tonight managed to win a vote that will look at again at those principal objectives I do not wish to go over old ground, but the fact that here we do need to change those objectives in order to add a new category of people into Section 9C indicates a need for those primary objectives to keep pace with what we are asking the OGA to do. Here we are making it clear that the decommissioning of the North Sea in particular is complex and is going to be a difficult job. Far from it being a distraction to make it clear that this is part of the OGA’s job, this recognises that maximising the usefulness of that infrastructure going forward is clearly a fundamental aspect of what the OGA has to do. The concept of maximising economic recovery has indeed changed. Some of these amendments do change it, so it is only right and proper that the objectives of the organisation have been changed and should change.
Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Bryony Worthington (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful for that explanation, which answers my question: this involves only activities which relate to devolved Administrations. Obviously, the OGA can charge fees to people whose activities are caught by its functions even if the word "benefit" might be open to interpretation. The Minister said that those who were not benefiting could not be charged fees. Would everyone necessarily benefit from the OGA? It is a regulator, so it might not always be seen to be beneficial. Can he clarify that?