argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Immigration
Lisa Eva Nandy (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Over many decades through the child migration programmes, the UK Government, churches and charities sent British children in their care overseas. Many of those children were physically, sexually and emotionally abused. They were separated from their families, and they were wrongly told that they were dead. Earlier this month, the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse published a report that recommended surviving child migrants be paid compensation urgently; many have died and others are seriously ill. Originally the Department of Health and Social Care had lead responsibility for this matter, but when the report was published the Home Secretary published a written statement to this House. When I asked further questions of the Home Office, however, they were answered by the Department of Health and Social Care. I have spoken to the Table Office and we cannot get to the bottom of who is actually responsible. This has made it almost impossible to hold anyone to account. I am concerned that this reflects a lack of urgency and priority to this matter within Government. Can you advise me, Mr Speaker, on how, given the confusion within Government about who is actually responsible, Members can progress this important matter?
EU Referendum: Electoral Law — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Mixed Topics
Frank Field (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful. Although the debate is about electoral law, might I put it on the record, as somebody who wanted to leave, that the law is the law and nobody is above it, and if the law has been broken, or if there are grounds to suspect that it has been broken, the full weight of that law should be thrown at those organisations?
EU Referendum: Electoral Law — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Mixed Topics
Paul John Sweeney (Labour, Centre-left): Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that when the former chief executive officer of Cambridge Analytica, whose subsidiary, or associated, company AIQ is linked with many Leave campaigns, is openly bragging that it can alter election outcomes for a fee, that is a shaming indictment of the nature of British politics today, and shows that money tends to be seen as more important than our democracy and the force of argument?
EU Referendum: Electoral Law — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Civil Rights
Darren Paul Jones (Labour, Centre-left): Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport should table urgent amendments to the Data Protection Bill on Report to give the Information Commissioner the initial powers that she needs, but also to enhance co-operation between the Information Commissioner’s Office, the Electoral Commission and the Financial Conduct Authority so that they can follow the money as well as the data?
EU Referendum: Electoral Law — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Civil Rights
Benjamin Peter James Bradshaw (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on securing this emergency debate. As Members will know, I have been raising this issue and concern in the House for almost 18 months now, and when I first did so I was treated as a bit of a crank. Subsequently, however, almost every single allegation that I have used parliamentary privilege to put on the record in this place has proven to be correct This debate needs to be taken extremely seriously. It is not about who won or lost the referendum; it is about the integrity and security of our democracy and electoral system. Any of the sceptics who have cast doubt on the nature and quality of the evidence of the whistleblower, Chris Wylie, should watch the four hours of testimony that I watched today before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee: it was absolutely shocking and astonishing, and it should go to the heart of anybody who cares about our democracy Mr Wylie laid out clear evidence of serious lawbreaking by the leave campaign: not only collusion between Vote Leave and BeLeave, which is the one that has got most publicity, but collusion between Vote Leave and some of the other leave organisations, including Veterans for Britain, and indeed the DUP. Each of those organisations used either Cambridge Analytica—we know all about that, having heard the revelations last week about how it illegally harvested the Facebook data of tens of millions of people—or Aggregate IQ, a supposedly separate company based in Canada. It is not separate at all; it is all part of the same organisation. We know that 40% of Vote Leave’s budget was spent on Aggregate IQ and the work that it did. We still do not know how AIQ got that data, where the data came from or whether it was legally obtained and used. These are serious questions, and I am very pleased that the Chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, who is a Conservative, is clearly taking the allegations seriously. He will be putting them to the Prime Minister at the Liaison Committee later this afternoon.
EU Referendum: Electoral Law — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Mixed Topics
Tulip Rizwana Siddiq (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. The accusations that he is outlining go to the heart of the Government, and the people who led the leave campaign are now senior Cabinet members. Does he therefore agree that the Ministers in question should excuse themselves from this investigation and possibly from Brexit-specific Cabinet meetings in the future?
EU Referendum: Electoral Law — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Other
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): Well, I am profoundly concerned about that. Again, facts are emerging day by day, and they need to be forensically examined and it is very important that the resources are there to do that. That sort of information coming forward gives us greater reason to be enormously concerned about this. That is why I am so saddened to see that the Government Benches are empty, when the essence of our democracy, as we are about to step on the biggest journey—
EU Referendum: Electoral Law — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Other
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): One moment. I am still dealing with the previous intervention For the record, the Government Benches are virtually empty. They may be 1% full—I do not know—but, frankly, it is pathetic. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to point out that the Government do not seem to care about the integrity of democracy and the law.
EU Referendum: Electoral Law — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Mixed Topics
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I am glad that you prompted me because I could not remember the "North East" bit so I inadvertently said "Moggy". I am sorry about that. The hon. Gentleman is on the record as saying that perhaps there should be a second referendum when the negotiation is completed As we go through this unhappy episode and find that we have had electoral breaches, that there is an inherent breach in our democracy, that there are questions over the legitimacy of the referendum, and that there is a need for fair play, people are now asking whether Facebook and Google should have these sorts of powers. Should they not be publicly regulated, as they are becoming very much instrumental in our democracy and we need to overturn that so that the public and our democracy can be protected People who were 13 during the referendum will be 18 by the time it is now planned to leave. Surely their futures are paramount. Sadly, many of the people who voted will not be with us then any longer. Now that we are seeing the legitimacy of these votes cast into doubt, surely there is a compelling case, in terms of fair play, that the public should have a vote on the deal. We should move forward, refresh and renew our democracy, and do the right thing for Britain.
EU Referendum: Electoral Law — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Other
Luciana Clare Goldsmith (Berger) (Labour, Centre-left): I would have liked to speak in this debate had I not had other matters to participate in. Is it not astounding that the only contributions we have heard from Conservative Members thus far have been what-aboutery and trying to draw equivalence with other matters? On the critical issue that we are addressing today, we have heard nothing. Not one Conservative Member has found it in themselves to address this issue, which is at the heart of our democracy.
EU Referendum: Electoral Law — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Mixed Topics
Susan Elan Jones (Labour, Centre-left): Does the right hon. Gentleman think it is an irony that the same Government who were so keen on the lobbying Act—to such a degree that small charities around the country were frightened of intervening near elections—and who are introducing voter identification and all sorts of ID, simply so that they catch the 29 people or however many it was who committed electoral fraud last time, seem remarkably lacking in concern over this?
EU Referendum: Electoral Law — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Other
Benjamin Peter James Bradshaw (Labour, Centre-left): Is the hon. Gentleman also aware that according to reports, that statement was approved by the Prime Minister’s chief communications officer, Robbie Gibb? There is no way that that was not an official statement, as the Prime Minister claimed yesterday.
EU Referendum: Electoral Law — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Mixed Topics
Benjamin Peter James Bradshaw (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister address the concern raised not only by me, but by the whistleblower Christopher Wylie, who spent a great deal of time with the Information Commissioner this week, that it does not have the resources or the expertise that it needs to do these investigations properly?
Council Housing — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Housing
Matthew Raymond Western (Labour, Centre-left): We are all agreed: the UK has a housing crisis. No matter which party is speaking, there is universal recognition of the desperate need to urgently increase the supply of housing. So there is no debate, then, is there? The global financial crash had a catastrophic impact on the house building industry in this country. Given that much of the credit crunch was down to bad debts, particularly those resulting from bad lending in the US domestic housing market, this was perhaps to be expected. In just two years, the number of homes built crashed by 30%, and with this the supply of housing just dried up. That economic shock forced the then Labour Government to drive for affordable house building as part of an economic stimulus programme to help the country through the deep recession By 2009, the foundations for a new era of affordable house building were laid, with a £4 billion annual affordable housing programme, backing for councils to receive grant funding and build new council housing, full localisation of council housing finance agreed with the Treasury to boost building still further, and a programme of progressively higher standards agreed with industry to make all new build homes zero carbon by 2016. It was a comprehensive programme Since the change of Government in 2010, public policy has been perceived as at best indifferent and at worst hostile to affordable housing. One of the first decisions made by Conservative Ministers after the 2010 election was to cut back new housing investment by more than 60%. As a result, the number of new Government-backed homes for social rent started each year has plummeted from almost 40,000 to fewer than 1,000 last year. The number of new low-cost ownership homes being built has halved. The plans that Labour left to get councils building 10,000 homes a year were undermined, dashing any hopes of councils being able to build at scale again At the same time as the number of new homes being built has fallen, there has been a huge loss of existing social homes. In 2012, right-to-buy discounts were hiked to a massive £100,000.
Council Housing — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Housing
Matthew Raymond Western (Labour, Centre-left): Yes, the figures do show that, but if one drills down into the number, one will find that they were provided by Labour authorities, and that is despite the borrowing cap that has been placed on them. Without that cap, to which I shall refer, far greater supply would be available Despite a promise that there would be one-for-one replacements, in some areas only one in five homes sold under the right to buy has been replaced. A new kind of publicly funded housing was introduced. Ministers branded it "affordable rent", with rent set at up to 80% of the market price and thereby directly linked to often unaffordable private market rents.
Council Housing — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Housing
Siobhain Ann McDonagh (Labour, Centre-left): I feel sure that my hon. Friend is likely to come to this point, but does he agree that the term "affordable rent" is an offence to the English language, because affordable clearly does not mean affordable if it is 80% of market rent?
Council Housing — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Housing
Mark Richard Tami (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend mentioned right to buy. Some of the right-to-buy houses that were originally bought by their renters have now been sold on, often to landlords. Some of those properties are not in the best condition and on many estates they are the ones that really stick out, often because rogue landlords are not looking after them.
Council Housing — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Housing
Matthew Raymond Western (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for his timely intervention. He is of course absolutely correct. One issue we have had over recent decades is that so much of this property has fallen into the hands of landlords and others, the investment has not been made, and they are now charging extortionate rents. Had it been left to local authority provision, those renting would be able to afford the properties more readily Organisations that bid for Government grants were told to re-let homes for low-cost social rent at the new so-called "affordable rent". It is now estimated that 150,000 homes for social rent have been lost in the past five years. More recently, the Government proposed to add to the sell-off by extending the right to buy to housing association tenants, funded by an extraordinary forced sell-off of council housing to the highest bidder.
Council Housing — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Housing
Mathew Richard Allen Rodda (Labour, Centre-left): I associate myself with my hon. Friend’s points and the genuine and deep concern that he shows for the needs of tenants throughout the country, many of whom are struggling with high housing costs, as indeed they are in my constituency. Does he agree that it was an outrageous mistake and serious error by the Conservative Government to stop many local authorities building council houses when they had fully costed schemes that were ready to go and, indeed, shovel-ready? Reading had a plan for 1,000 new council houses, but unfortunately it was stopped by George Osborne in 2015.
Council Housing — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Housing
Matthew Raymond Western (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is, of course, absolutely correct. There is a suppression of building low-cost rental properties by local authorities. Those local authorities know that there is a need, and we must allow them to have that responsibility. Preventing them from supplying that housing has had a huge social and economic cost in our communities.
Council Housing — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Housing
Siobhain Ann McDonagh (Labour, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend also agree that preventing councils from building housing means that it is unlikely that the Government will achieve their target of building 300,000 homes a year? The last time those figures were reached was in 1969 when both councils and housing associations were building, as was the private sector.
Council Housing — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Housing
Mathew Richard Allen Rodda (Labour, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a considerable need for greater house building in high-cost areas, and that there is actually a lot of available land in many of those areas? There certainly is in Reading. In our case, it is brownfield land from our light industrial past, and I assume that that may also be the case in Warwick and Leamington. Does he agree that urgent Government action is needed to free up that land in order to support the local economy in those areas and to support local public services? There is a particular pressure on local schools and the NHS in my constituency, as people move to lower-cost areas. Will he endorse my points?
Council Housing — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Housing
Matthew Raymond Western (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for his informed and relevant intervention. He is of course absolutely right that this essentially leads to what may be described as social cleansing. We may actually be creating ghettoes of particular types of community, when we should be striving for sustainable, balanced communities for our economic and social good. I totally endorse my hon. Friend’s points It is estimated that lifting the cap would allow £7 billion to be injected over five years, providing an additional 60,000 council homes. Even the Treasury Committee, chaired by the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), has called for this and stated: "raising the cap would have no material impact on the national debt, but could result in a substantial increase in the supply of housing." The Local Government Association agrees. In my view, we should lift the cap entirely and take borrowing to invest in council housing off the country’s balance sheet, as is standard in other European countries. Why not Returning to the use of land and its availability, there is clearly much land available, but it is questionable in terms of its efficient use. As my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East just alluded to, there is land—including public sector and brownfield land—but it is all about the planning process and how that land is brought into the equation in order to deliver affordable housing. The current planning policy framework makes it prohibitively expensive for this to happen. The whole process needs radical reform Councils are currently incentivised to sell off the overpriced land that they own to highest bidder, rather than to use it for the common good. This needs to be reconsidered urgently. I am calling for us to recognise this national crisis in housing by legislating for all unused local authority and public sector land to be used exclusively for council housing. That is the nature of the crisis we face The inflated land prices across the country are preventing local authorities from being able to assemble the land to build on. Land is currently priced at its potential future development value, rather than at its existing use value, as is done in other countries. This pushes up the cost of undeveloped land that would be suitable for housing development, making investment in council housing more expensive. Bizarrely, it also rewards landowners for housing and infrastructure developments to which they do not contribute The homelessness charity Shelter has argued that a few small reforms to the Land Compensation Act 1961 and associated legislation on compulsory purchase orders would enable local authorities to purchase land at a fair market value—one that reflects both the current value of the land and reasonable compensation, and allows for the delivery of high-quality, affordable developments. This is not rocket science; it is not complicated. That is what they do in other countries in Europe and elsewhere. It is just about changing the planning approach so that it favours the local authorities.
Council Housing — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Housing
Matthew Raymond Western (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely correct, as ever. This needs radical reform. The section 106 moneys are understood by few, and the provision of those moneys for housing is not being realised. This goes back to my point about how the planning process and the planning policy framework need urgently to be addressed Councils currently retain only one third of receipts from homes sold through right to buy, while the rest goes to Treasury coffers. Why should that be? Surely it should be in the gift of the local authorities. They are the ones that are adding the value to this process, not the Treasury and not the developer. That means that council housing is lost and never replaced, with 40% of that stock now in the hands of private landlords who, in some cases, are charging up to 50% more rent than is being charged for comparable local authority-owned housing It also acts as a disincentive for councils to build. Why risk building new council homes when they could be bought three years later, and two thirds of the receipts will then go to the Treasury? Right to buy in its current form must be scrapped, or at the very least radically reformed, if we want to build the new homes we need. At the very least, councils must be allowed to retain 100% of the receipts from the homes that they lose We urgently need to change the language around housing in this country. For 40 years, the sector has become dominated by talk of assets and investment, rather than provision for people’s essential needs for security, refuge and living. Housing also meets the needs of our society more widely and determines the communities in which we live. Housing is so simple, so fundamental and so basic. It provides a sense of place and connectedness in our communities. What is rarely discussed is the vital importance of low-rent council and social housing to the UK economy and how that has been ignored by recent Governments. High rents contribute to pressure on household budgets, lead to lower savings and lower consumption and may lead to poorer health The time has come to address this failing and the urgent need to restore much needed balance to the UK housing sector by allowing local authorities to build council housing on a scale not seen since the 1970s. That would mean 120,000 new council homes being delivered per year across the UK. Council housing was and is the answer to our housing crisis—I have absolutely no doubt about that. It is about time the Government recognised that and got on with the job of building it.
Council Housing — House of Commons, 2018-03-27
Topic: Housing
Siobhain Ann McDonagh (Labour, Centre-left): Would the Minister address the issue of what "affordable" means? What would he say to my constituent, Tracey, who could not move into a brand new London and Quadrant property where she needed it? She said, "Siobhain, I can’t move in there. Me and my partner work but we can’t afford the £1,000 a month rent."
Marine Energy — House of Commons, 2018-03-13
Topic: Public Lands
Questions: What discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on the place of marine energy in the industrial strategy; and if he will make a statement.
Jessica Elizabeth Morden (Labour, Centre-left): I, too, say to the Minister that making a decision on the Swansea bay tidal lagoon is important for Wales as a whole. There is huge potential for future lagoons around Newport following the Swansea pathfinder. It is really important that we do not pass up these opportunities.
Smart Meters — House of Commons, 2018-03-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Stephen James McCabe (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister accept that his statistics are based on surveys that are carried out about 10 weeks after installation? My own survey found that 54% of constituents would currently refuse a smart meter, 97% want to see the costs of the programme shown on their bills, and 74% said that receiving one had not yet made any difference to the size of their bills. Will he also take those findings into account?