argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Tracey Elizabeth Anne Crouch (Conservative, Centre-right): Mr Speaker, I am not sure that the reference to my supporting Tottenham Hotspur endears me to you, but I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. We looked at the proliferation of bookmakers in our high streets as part of our call for evidence. We concluded that local authorities do have the powers to address the issue. However, taking the whole package of measures, I am sure there will be a reduction if the stakes are reduced significantly in the future.
Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Peter William Bone (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling another Spurs fan immediately. Your neutrality in the Chair, of course, would not prevent you from intervening. This excellent Minister is bringing forward a really sensible consultation. What worries me is that if we make the wrong decision, we may make the situation worse by driving problem gamblers out of betting shops, which are a controlled environment, and towards online gambling. The consultation is right, but we should look at that issue as part of it.
Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Tracey Elizabeth Anne Crouch (Conservative, Centre-right): Online gambling has, in many respects, a better opportunity to protect players, because sites have all the details of players’ practices. Obviously, as part of the consultation, we are going to look at how we can protect online gamblers, but we definitely have more opportunity to do that than we do to protect somebody going in and out of different bookmakers.
Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Other
Tracey Elizabeth Anne Crouch (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I hope he and many others will respond to the consultation with their views. We are trying to ensure that we take all people’s views into account before we make a decision on what the stake is.
Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): My constituents will be shocked by the figures the deputy Leader of the Opposition shared with the House. He said there were 430,000 problem gamblers and that the number had gone up by a third in recent years. Are those numbers that the Government recognise? What do the Government say are the causes of this? Were the Minister to limit the stakes on FOBTs to £2, how many fewer problem gamblers would there be?
Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Tracey Elizabeth Anne Crouch (Conservative, Centre-right): The deputy Leader of the Opposition was absolutely correct—those are Government figures. There are 430,000 problem gamblers in Great Britain and a further 2 million who might be at risk. About 50,000 call the national helpline on gambling addiction every year, and about 8,000 are getting treatment—but that figure does not include those who get treatment under the NHS system. We are looking at all the areas of harm around this. It is not just about problem gamblers: it is also about those at risk of harmful gambling, and the consequences for and impact on those individuals and their families. I encourage my hon. Friend to look at the consultation and the impact assessment and come to a view on which will be the best stake, and encourage his constituents to do the same.
Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Tracey Elizabeth Anne Crouch (Conservative, Centre-right): We are following due process on this issue. It is really important that we do not rush measures through, because we have seen that hastily made legislation in this area can cause great impact and great harm, as with the Gambling Act 2005.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for his notice a few moments ago of his intention to raise it. The short answer is that I have received no indication from any Minister of an intention to come to the House to make a statement on that matter. However, not being unconscious of the indefatigability of the right hon. Gentleman, I am confident that if the matter is not brought to the House, he will try to ensure, by one means or t’other, that it is.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Whether it is incompetence or discourtesy, one knows not, but I think that most people would be interested to know, because of course it could happen to the constituent of any Member. The Minister is poised ready like a panther to pounce, and it would be a pity to disappoint the right hon. Gentleman. Let’s hear the fella.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Other
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Mr Speaker. As the Minister responsible for this policy area, I would be very happy to meet the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) and see what we could do to ensure that he gets the appropriate response to his constituents’ concerns.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Ordinarily I find that if one is sufficiently persistent and demonstrates by one’s behaviour—entirely lawfully, I hasten to add—that there is no question of one’s going away, an institution will, in the end, tend to think that it is best to respond. I have had some modest experience of these matters in the past when seeking to secure a refund for a very elderly constituent in relation, I think, to a satellite dish. In the first instance, the company thought it proper simply to ignore my representations, but I made approaches with notable and perhaps spectacular regularity, as a consequence of which, in the end—this was probably 15 years ago—my constituent was able to seek redress. I never secured anything remotely approximating an apology from the company, but in a sense that mattered not. My constituent got his refund, and I rather doubt that the company would have tried to play the same game, at any rate in relation to any of my constituents, again. If I was able to succeed, I am confident that the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), with due persistence, will also be able to do so.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Immigration
Brett Charles Anthony Elphicke (Conservative, Centre-right): I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s case with interest. I am curious why, in their first 12 years in power, the last Labour Government did nothing whatsoever about non-domiciled individuals, and then reacted reluctantly only when they were humiliated and forced to take action by the then Conservative Opposition. Why is he not praising the Conservative Government for taking further action on this matter?
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. I am not doing anything. It is not that I do not want to talk about this or I do not want to do that. That is simply not germane. The debate goes through the Chair, as the hon. Lady knows on her best days.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my right hon. Friend agree that we do not make these decisions in isolation? We are competing with other countries, which might also like to host very rich individuals and investors. While we in the UK are making the climate more hostile and difficult to raise more money for our public services, the opposite is true in many other countries. In the EU, Malta, Portugal and, most prominently, Italy are moving in the other direction and creating their own non-dom regimes to draw away such individuals from the United Kingdom.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robert Alexander Courts (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend makes a very important point: how important it is that this country does not deter people who bring in money, which in turn funds our public services. Does he agree that if we were to take the course of action urged upon us by the Labour party, we would put at risk the £9 billion of investment into our coffers brought in each year by those who are not domiciled in this country?
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Mixed Topics
Anna Mary Soubry (Conservative, Centre-right): I am enjoying the very good speech that my hon. Friend is making. Obviously, I do not want to get into a Brexit debate. Heaven forbid that he and I fall out in some way, or even worse do our impersonations of bygone sketches, which he clearly could not remember because he was not born then, but, on a serious point, does he share my concern that we are already seeing great businesses looking at relocating as the time comes for us to leave the EU, along with individuals who do not feel welcome in our great country?
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Domestic Commerce
James Spencer Cleverly (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is spot on. I cannot help but think that new clause 1 is more to do with Labour Members feeling that they need to table revised clauses because they do not know what to say. A call for a review of this kind invariably occurs when people are not sure what to say Mr Speaker, you will be disheartened to hear that I am about to conclude my comments. I strongly urge Members on both sides of the House to reject the new clause. We should do everything we can to send a positive message to businesses currently in the UK, to businesses that may think about coming to the UK and to business people who are deciding where they will domicile and to pay tax. We need to let them know that the UK is open, ready to do business and welcomes business people, as long as they pay their fair share in tax and help to support the public services that we value.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): On that point, would my hon. Friend care to reflect on the issue of footballers? The Labour Front-Bench team was saying that footballers often got away with things under this heading, whereas I thought many people in Britain like the idea that very talented footballers could come to our country for a limited period of time under sensible arrangements for their tax affairs. Does my hon. Friend think that is reasonable?
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Mixed Topics
Abimbola Afolami (Conservative, Centre-right): I hugely respect my hon. Friend. It is worth mentioning for the benefit of those who do not know it that he was a top tax lawyer, so he knows the value that complexity brings to tax lawyers in the City of London. On his point about the EU, I am no expert on these matters and defer to the Minister and other Members, but my view is that we must be more realistic and accept that a lot of things are of our own making; and with the advent of our leaving the EU we have the opportunity to make ourselves even better as a place to do business. I am sure that my hon. Friend and the Minister would support that.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Other
Edmund Francis Hughes (Conservative, Centre-right): I rise because it is dreadful to hear this wrong story being perpetuated in the House of Commons. It is a myth that that conversation ever took place, in my opinion—people can check it now on Google. We have in Birmingham a fine comedian called Jasper Carrott who once told that story as a joke. Such is the way that Google works these days that when someone tells a joke like that, it finds its way on to a website somewhere and a myth is perpetuated. We are hearing that story told again in the House of Commons today. I am concerned that it will be recorded inappropriately, so I hope that my hon. Friend will consider that.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Other
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) for his interesting and informative contribution. Alas, I am going to have to disappoint him and say that I will urge the House to reject new clause 1, but I thank him most sincerely for the generosity with which he gave way to the wave upon wave of Government Members who wanted to challenge him—it was a veritable intervention-fest. My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) mentioned the "The Morecambe & Wise Show" but in the hon. Gentleman’s case, I was reminded more of the 1980s show "Game for a Laugh"—[Interruption.] Perhaps that was unkind, but we had some fun along the way.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Anna Mary Soubry (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my right hon. Friend agree that an important point to make about non-doms is that the idea that they are all multimillionaires, if not billionaires, is an absolute fallacy? Many non-doms quite properly have that status, but the idea that they are fat cats or rich people with oodles of money who are up to dodgy dealings is an absolute myth. Many of them are actually of modest means, but invariably those of more substantial means are great entrepreneurs and we need them in our country arguably more than ever before.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Immigration
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is entirely right and pre-empts the point that I was about to make, which is that it is quite wrong of the Opposition to castigate all non-domiciled individuals in this country and to characterise them as tax dodgers. In fact, the hon. Member for Bootle made the point that there are over 100,000 non-doms in the United Kingdom. The vast majority of them do not have lots of overseas assets or may have no overseas assets; they are not opening up trusts and putting assets in them. They simply come over here, sometimes for a couple of years or so, to work and contribute to our economy.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Immigration
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that, where a non-dom has a family trust or some other perfectly legitimate arrangement—they might not have been to this country at all when the trust or arrangement was set up—and is subsequently deemed to be domiciled in this country, it is not unreasonable that the contents of that trust should be protected, with the important caveat that tax is due to the UK tax authorities as soon as income is taken out of the trust.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Mixed Topics
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): I simply wish to point out that, as I think the hon. Lady will know, the statutory instrument on changing the £30,000 threshold would have to be passed by the House under the affirmative procedure. It would be an affirmative SI, so it would have to be voted on by the House.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Mixed Topics
Nigel John Mills (Conservative, Centre-right): At a Public Accounts Committee sitting last week on the future customs border and the software upgrade for that, the permanent secretary appeared to suggest that Making Tax Digital was the highest priority IT programme for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Would the Minister agree with that, or does he think that we should prioritise making sure that our systems can cope with the many changes that may come about through Brexit?
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Mixed Topics
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course there are a number of HMRC-led IT programmes; Making Tax Digital is but one of them. A new system for customs, the customs declaration service system, will replace CHIEF—the customs handling of import and export freight system—and that has very high priority. We are on target for full roll-out in January 2019; we will begin the CDS pilot in August next year. I am satisfied that the balance is correct at the moment.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): It is pleasure to appear before you for my second appearance, Madam Deputy Speaker To pick up quickly on a point made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), digital exclusion is covered in clause 62, which provides that the digital exclusion condition is met if "for any reason (including age, disability or location) it is not reasonably practicable for the person or partner to use electronic communications or to keep electronic records." That is the test, and the Bill contains powers to allow HMRC’s commissioners to bring in further grounds for exclusion as the measure is rolled out and we see how it operates I see that the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) has been on her phone and has already tweeted that I have rejected her advances in this debate, but I am now at the Dispatch Box trying to make my points. She makes her points powerfully and raises an important issue, as I signalled earlier, but she has to accept that new clause 2 would not actually do what she would intend it to do. It confuses non-doms with residents, which is the critical distinction, and would classify companies as being non-domiciled, which they cannot technically be. This is a complicated area about which we had an extended debate in Committee, but I have made it clear that we will continue to consider it. We take on board the general thrust of what the hon. Lady wants to achieve.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Mixed Topics
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): I have already conceded that point. We are looking at this, which rather trumps any questions about why we are not. We are considering it very seriously, and I said earlier that we are looking closely at the issue of non-residents and capital gains tax on commercial property.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Other
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): It is not a question of publishing information on every area we look into, but I have made it clear that we are seriously considering the issues that have been raised. I have also made it clear that new clause 2 would not do what the hon. Member for Walthamstow describes.
Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-31
Topic: Other
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have said, we are looking at this and we will continue to do so. I have carefully considered the points raised by the hon. Lady both on Report and in Committee, and I think I have a clear understanding, as she does, of what she wishes to achieve. New clause 2 would not do what the hon. Lady intends. I hope that she will take some comfort from my assurances about our looking at this matter and that she will not press the new clause to a Division. Whether or not she does, I urge the House to reject the Opposition amendments and new clauses.
Royal Mail Privatisation — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
Margot Cathleen James (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand that Royal Mail’s offer of a pay increase to its workforce is far from frozen. I do not propose to comment much further, however, other than to say that the figures the hon. Gentleman refers to are misleading, because they go way beyond the chief executive’s base salary and include performance-related benefits, which are in line with a position of that stature.
Royal Mail Privatisation — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
Margot Cathleen James (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said earlier, Royal Mail contributes £400 million a year to the pension scheme and, since privatisation, has provided access to capital of £1.5 billion and converted losses of £49 million into profits of £700 million. I would say that that was a pretty successful record.
Royal Mail Privatisation — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Margot Cathleen James (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman has made a good point. Royal Mail is regulated by Ofcom, which benefits everyone involved in the service. The universal postal service includes a parcel service. Companies must have regard to fairness in setting delivery charges, and any failure to be clear to customers before bookings breaches consumer protection law.
Electric and Autonomous Vehicles — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): Two weeks ago I announced the location for the new national Faraday battery scale-up facility, which will be built in Coventry. On the same day, Jaguar Land Rover announced its intention to produce battery electric vehicles in the west midlands, thus bringing the region to the forefront of modern mobility in the United Kingdom.
Electric and Autonomous Vehicles — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
Stephen James Metcalfe (Conservative, Centre-right): When it comes to autonomous and electric vehicles, public trust in the exciting technology involved is key to making the most of the opportunities that it presents. What discussions has my right hon. Friend had with industry to combat the Luddites and dispel the mythical fears of that exciting technology that are currently being promoted?
Electric and Autonomous Vehicles — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that I shall be meeting the head of Ford’s European operations immediately after this session to discuss the fact that Ford has based its new development of electric and autonomous vehicles in Britain.
Electric and Autonomous Vehicles — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I will indeed. The industrial strategy makes it clear that being at the forefront of the regulatory standards for these new technologies gives us a big advantage. The Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill, which is currently before Parliament, is intended to establish—before most other countries—the right regulatory standards, so that we can make progress with those technologies.
Electric and Autonomous Vehicles — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I think the hon. Gentleman knows that I have continuous discussions with all the sectors for which I am responsible, including the automotive sector. They lead me to make sure that, as part of our negotiating mandate, we get the best possible deal. The agreement achieved in Brussels last week, including the transitional phase, had been pressed for by the automotive sector in particular.
Industrial Strategy — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Housing
Johanna Peta Churchill (Conservative, Centre-right): Productivity in the construction industry is a key requirement of building houses. How will the Secretary of State ensure quality in on and offsite builds for the £1.7 billion investment in construction in the industrial strategy?
Industrial Strategy — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I am glad my hon. Friend mentions that, because the construction sector is one of the areas in which there are big opportunities. It has a sector deal that has been concluded as part of the industrial strategy, and representatives of the sector have said that this represents a major opportunity, especially in offsite manufacture.