argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Security of Ministers’ Offices and Communications — House of Commons, 2021-06-28
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is not acceptable to have covert surveillance at work for Ministers, Members or anyone else, but the public are entitled to transparency on issues raised about things such as private emails. The Government already have answers to give on donations for the Prime Minister’s flat, peerages to donors, tax breaks by text and unlawful contracts to associates, so does the Minister agree that her Government’s murky dealings are the real sordid affair that the public should see a light shone on?
Security of Ministers’ Offices and Communications — House of Commons, 2021-06-28
Topic: Government Operations
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): First of all, is a Department-led inquiry sufficient for the gravity of this situation? We need to know whether these recordings extend to other Departments, who all this footage is offered to, and who benefited from the release of the footage. We need to understand the security risks of Ministers doing business by private email, as has been said. The Minister cannot just say, "Oh, it’s complicated." It is simple. We have a parliamentary email address and Ministers should use it—end of story. Also, it is only because of this leak that we have found out about yet another crony appointment that the Government did not bat an eyelid about, so who is taking the lead in investigating all these other matters?
Committee on Standards — House of Commons, 2021-06-28
Topic: Government Operations
Allan Hopkins Dorans (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): As a recently appointed member of the Committee on Standards, I welcome this appointment. Elected Members of this Parliament are already expected to meet high standards in public life, as defined by the Nolan principles, and to adhere to the House of Commons code of conduct and related rules of the House. It cannot be right for MPs alone to be the sole adjudicators and decision makers on whether other elected Members—who may be friends, political colleagues or indeed political adversaries —may be in breach of the code of conduct. That would, I believe, be totally unacceptable to the public whom we are all elected to represent and serve From my limited experience on the Committee, I can say that the contribution of the current lay members is exceptional: they bring a wealth of knowledge, skills and experience of public life at a senior level across a diverse range of sectors. Lay members also bring a fresh perspective that is not clouded by political affiliations or party loyalties. Their independent and impartial status allows them to focus on the circumstances and the evidence in individual cases. They are therefore crucial to maintaining transparency, confidence and trust in the Committee’s work and decision making From what I know of Ms Mian from her curriculum vitae, her previous experience and involvement in public life will enhance and complement that of the existing lay members, and she would make an excellent addition to the lay membership of the Committee. I understand that she has been through a thorough and rigorous selection process and is recommended for appointment by those responsible for carrying out that process This appointment will bring the number of lay members up to the full complement of seven, equal to the number of MPs on the Committee, and will enhance the diversity of the Committee. I therefore fully support the appointment.
Adult Social Care Reform — House of Commons, 2021-06-08
Topic: Social Welfare
David Michael Doogan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Many in this place and across England will be asking, "Where is England’s long-awaited social care Bill?" because they will have seen that the SNP Government are delivering a new deal for the social care sector in Scotland, building a new national care service that will improve workers’ conditions and standards of care, and increasing investment in care by 25%. Will the UK Government follow Scotland’s lead in transforming social care, and will the Minister contact Scottish Government Ministers to learn from our over a decade-long experience of integrating health and social care?
British Council — House of Commons, 2021-06-08
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Murray Alexander Law (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The decision by the UK Government to refuse to support the British Council in its hour of need is further evidence of the "little Britain" attitude at the heart of this Government. Indeed, this new little Britain approach is so small that the Scottish Tory party wrote to the UK Tory party to question why the Scottish Government have the temerity to pursue links abroad. Yet we learn only a fortnight later that the Government are happy to slash the British Council’s international outposts. So, is the Prime Minister’s "global Britain" pledge as hollow as these moves suggest Furthermore, the Government previously described the British Council as a "key driver of UK soft power overseas." If it is integral to the UK’s global outlook, why have this Government decided to withdraw their support? Lastly, once again we see the Government renege on their word. The last Conservative manifesto stated: "We will work with our cultural institutions like the BBC and British Council to expand our influence and project our values." Just like cuts to life-saving support for the world’s most vulnerable, is this yet another broken promise for this Government?
British Council — House of Commons, 2021-06-08
Topic: International Affairs
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Does the Minister not understand that funding for next year is no remedy for cuts, decisions and closures that will take place now? There will be long-term consequences as a result of what he is trying to describe as short-term funding shortfalls. Is that not the problem with the likes of the Prime Minister viewing aid as a giant cash machine in the sky? The Government are losing sight of the long- term consequences of their short-term decisions.
Employment Rights — House of Commons, 2021-06-08
Topic: Labor
Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for his statement. I know that, across the House, we recognise that strong employment legislation, regulation and guidance help the businesses that respect such standards be more successful, attract more talented and skilled people, and build better teams than those enterprises that play fast and loose with their own employees’ rights While the Minister has outlined a number of measures today, with all these things the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Will the Minister commit to working across the Chamber, with trade unions and employers to ensure that the highest employment law expectations are maintained and enhanced, and the experience of the employee is exactly what it says on the tin when it comes to fair and just working practices? Hon. Members’ casework inboxes are already too full of such cases, and if the Minister were to commit to an annual review of the measures in his statement today, that would help ensure that we were getting this right and protecting workers across the four nations of the UK Finally, on fire and rehire, I cannot speak on this subject without praising the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), and his dogged determination in supporting this campaign and his desire to seek fairness for thousands of employees who have been caught in the sordid, pathetic practice applied by unscrupulous employers. Today was the Government’s chance to right a wrong—a chance to end fire and rehire for good. The question is: why has the Minister not taken that chance to put fire and rehire out of its misery and protect thousands of hard-working people across the four nations?
Employment Rights — House of Commons, 2021-06-08
Topic: Labor
Gavin Andrew Stuart Newlands (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): May I start by saying that I very much look forward to supporting the fire and rehire Bill of the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), now that my own Bill has fallen? After months of warm words for the victims of fire and rehire from the Prime Minister through to the Minister, is this it? What do we have? Guidance that amounts to nothing more than utterly shameful lip service. The statement states: "It is unacceptable and, frankly, immoral to use the threat of fire and rehire as a negotiating tactic to force through changes to people’s employment contracts" I agree, so can the Minister tell us whether employers will still legally be allowed to do so: yes or no?
Employment Rights — House of Commons, 2021-06-08
Topic: Labor
Christopher Charles Stephens (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The irony that the Government are consulting on enforcement powers against trade unions but only on guidance for bad employers is not lost on me. Talking about bad employers, zero-hour contracts, unclear employment status and short-notice shift changes were all mentioned in the Taylor report given to the Government five years ago—no rushing into legislation there. When will the Government legislate on the Taylor report recommendations, or will it be left to other Members to bring forward legislation to address these bad employment practices?
Employment Rights — House of Commons, 2021-06-08
Topic: Labor
Kirsten Frances Oswald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Minister just said that the UK Government will do whatever is needed to enhance and protect workers’ rights, but all he is doing on fire and rehire is to provide more guidance. That is shameful—guidance is not what is needed. We needed to hear about legislation to stop fire and rehire, to outlaw pregnancy and maternity discrimination, and to give flexible-working rights from day one to protect precarious workers, but the UK Government will plainly not do what is needed on employment. Does the Minister appreciate that what is needed now is to devolve this to the Scottish Parliament so that it can do what is needed?
0.7% Official Development Assistance Target — House of Commons, 2021-06-08
Topic: International Affairs
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Prime Minister has declared his aim to secure an agreement of the G7 to vaccinate the world against covid by the end of next year, but it is hard to see how he will have the brass neck to push such a proposal when the UK will be the only one in the room cutting overseas aid. The overall budget is being cut by a third, but covid funding masks the drastic cuts to core projects, including on the health and education of women and girls, which the Government claimed was a key policy, as well as those delivering humanitarian aid and addressing HIV/AIDS, conflict zones, famine relief, refugees and child education. It is hard to believe that the Government think it is remotely reasonable to slash funding for water and sanitation in the middle of a pandemic Even if funding is restored in a couple of years, the staff, researchers, experience, knowledge, networks and infrastructure of many of those projects will have been lost. The Chancellor has justified the cuts by highlighting the cost of the pandemic, but what does he think it has been like for low-income countries that were struggling even before they were hit by covid The UK is also hosting COP26, but any promises by the Minister responsible, the COP26 President, the right hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), will have little credibility, because when he was International Development Minister he made commitments that the UK has now abandoned. In 2019, he promised more than £100 million a year for the global polio eradication initiative, only for the funding now to be cut by an eye-watering 95%. The World Health Organisation has estimated that 80 million children are at risk from infectious diseases such as diphtheria, polio and measles owing to the disruption of immunisation caused by the covid pandemic, so vaccination projects should not face cuts. They need extra support to fund the necessary catch-up programmes. We must not allow the re-emergence of polio and other infectious diseases to take a toll on the children of low-income countries Covid is a global crisis and it calls for a global response. So far, the international community has struggled to live up to its warm words of last spring, but the UK is alone in cutting aid at such a critical time. Low-income countries have received less than 0.5% of all covid vaccines delivered so far, and the UK is one of those blocking the sharing of intellectual property and technology. This will prolong the pandemic for all of us and delay the economic recovery of low-income countries, and the UK Government must not compound the problem by removing support from some of the most vulnerable in the world. I support the call to restore overseas funding, and I do not believe that it can wait until next year. The covid crisis is now.
0.7% Official Development Assistance Target — House of Commons, 2021-06-08
Topic: International Affairs
Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The decision by this Government to take essential, life-saving money from the world’s poorest people is absolutely shameful and it has confirmed, once and for all, that the idea of "global Britain" has already lost its moral compass. For this idea to have been confirmed at April’s integrated security review simply beggars belief; the idea that by making the world’s poorest people even poorer we somehow make ourselves safer is absolute nonsense and it takes gaslighting to new extremes Do the Government really expect us to believe that the best way to make the people of the UK more safe and secure is to slash vital humanitarian aid to parts of the world that are already ravaged by conflict, war and famine, and thereby to force tens of millions of people to uproot their families and go in search of a better, more secure future? It was breathtaking insensitivity, adding insult to injury, that that same Integrated Review announced that money that could and should have gone to help underprivileged and poor people across the world will instead be spent on increasing the UK’s stockpile of nuclear weapons—it is utterly abhorrent. This country has a historical moral obligation to those countries that are now in the developing world. We have to help them because we are responsible for where they are now. For more than a century the UK grew rich and powerful on the backs of the poor. The countries we invaded, conquered, divided and plundered need our help now and we cannot cut it off like this—it is abhorrent.
Seafood Response Fund — House of Commons, 2021-07-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Now that the Minister has had time to read the deal that the UK Government have signed, she will see that it is a bad deal and that there has been a lot of trade disruption. In January and February, Scottish companies were losing roughly £1 million per day. By the end of February, the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation stated that its members had lost £11 million. What does the Minister estimate is the total cost of covid and Brexit on the Scottish seafood industry? How much compensation has been paid to Scottish companies? How much compensation is still to be paid, and what has she done to resolve the issue of exports to the EU?
Support for Farmers — House of Commons, 2021-07-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Deidre Leanne Brock (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The UK Government yesterday indicated that they were willing to break their own trade deal with the EU because of consequences that they told us would not happen. The EU may then very well implement tariffs on UK exports to the EU, as it has a right to do under the Tory-negotiated deal. That would be calamitous for our agricultural sector. The Minister will no doubt answer with reference to all the new deals that the International Trade Secretary is signing the UK up to, but just days ago the New Zealand Prime Minister warned that failing to keep to treaty commitments could threaten membership of the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership. Will the Minister commit to covering the extra costs to farmers that this whole sorry mess is causing, or are the consequences of this ideological Brexit crusade to be borne by everyone but the UK Government and their Ministers?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-07-22
Topic: Agriculture
Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Shortages of workers in warehouses and food- processing centres across the UK are having a real impact on packaging food for supermarket shelves, with Tesco bosses warning that every week 48 tonnes of food is wasted. This is exacerbated by an estimated 100,000 shortage of HGV drivers. What interventions will the Secretary of State make to address this shocking state of affairs?
Elections Bill: Electoral Commission’s Discharge of Functions — House of Commons, 2021-07-22
Topic: Government Operations
Gavin Andrew Stuart Newlands (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): What assessment the Committee has made of the potential effect of the proposal in the Elections Bill to introduce a strategy and policy statement for the Electoral Commission on the ability of the commission to discharge its functions.
Elections Bill: Electoral Commission’s Discharge of Functions — House of Commons, 2021-07-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Gavin Andrew Stuart Newlands (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Member for that response, but under the Government’s proposals in the Elections Bill, the Electoral Commission’s powers to ensure that criminal offences under electoral law are prosecuted will be drastically curtailed. Given the numerous instances over recent years of sharp practice and outright criminality, and the corrupting influence of dark money in our democratic processes, will the Electoral Commission be able to fulfil its basic remit and properly regulate donations and spending if the Bill is passed?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-22
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Charles Stephens (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): In order to beat this virus, the Government must take care of not only their domestic responsibilities but their international ones. Will the Minister update us on what is being done to ensure vaccine supply to middle-income and lower-income countries, and update us on the international approach?
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee — House of Commons, 2021-07-22
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his statement. Clearly, the main focus of this report was on aspects of levelling up as it applies to England, but the agenda is being applied across the whole United Kingdom. Can the Chair of the Select Committee tell us what he thinks of a situation where substantial amounts of public money are being spent within the devolved nations on areas of service that quite clearly fall 100% within the competence of the devolved national Parliaments and Assemblies, but where decisions are being taken with no consultation whatsoever with those devolved Administrations? Is that something that he would find acceptable?
Summer Adjournment — House of Commons, 2021-07-22
Topic: Energy
Stephen Mark Flynn (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I believe I have three minutes, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will be unable to cover so much that could have been covered. I could have covered universal credit, the Government’s shoddy handling of the £20 uplift and their desire to plunge people back into poverty; covid and the Government’s sleaze and corruption when it comes to the multitude of contracts that have come out—friends or family members of the Government would of course have been on the VIP list throughout the pandemic; or Brexit and the destructive impact it is having on my constituency, the one constituency in the UK meant to be harder hit than any other in the UK. Indeed, I raised that issue with the Leader of the House earlier today in relation to a business in my constituency and the export challenges it is facing—it has gone from taking three days to export a good to almost six weeks. His shameful answer was, "Ask the French about it". What an utter abdication of responsibility. Shame on him and shame on this Government However, in real terms the biggest issue—perhaps the biggest issue of our times—is not the pandemic, but climate change. As an Aberdeen Member, it would be remiss of me not to talk about energy. Aberdeen has faced the triple whammy of covid, Brexit and an oil price crash, which has painted into clear focus the challenge that is going to face my city in the future. What did the Government do? They did almost nothing. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming to deliver their North sea transition deal. Where is the hydrogen strategy? Where is the commitment to a carbon capture and underground storage facility in the north-east of Scotland? Where is the desire to ensure that there is sufficient capacity within round 4 of the contracts for difference auction to ensure that Scotland does not lose out? That is an important point, because Scotland is going to lose out The great renewables robbery that this Government are undertaking is alive and well, because offshore wind projects in Scotland will have to pay to access the energy grid, whereas offshore projects in the south-east of England will be paid to access the very same grid. We face the highest grid connection charges in not only the UK, but the entirety of Europe. If this Government are serious about levelling up and about delivering for Aberdeen and for Scotland, that renewables robbery needs to end—it cannot continue.
International Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2021-06-30
Topic: Foreign Trade
Richard Gordon Thomson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Does the Minister share my concern that the devolved Governments have had no democratic involvement or oversight in the negotiation and approval of the Australian trade deal, despite the disproportionate impact it will have on their areas? When does he think that this "Union of equals" will start working equally— or, like this Government’s post-Brexit promises to farmers, is this another empty set of words that will turn out to be all bull and no beef?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2021-06-30
Topic: International Affairs
Martin John Docherty-Hughes (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Ahead of my Westminster Hall debate this afternoon regarding my constituent Jagtar Singh Johal, it has come to my attention that Members of this House have been sent briefings originating from the Indian high commission here in London. This is something, as you will be aware, that diplomatic delegations are entitled to do, but in this instance it would seem that they have included details that would seek to prejudge what is a live criminal case in that country. I am sure you will agree this is a most unusual state of affairs when one considers the separation of the judiciary from other branches of government, which is seen as a cornerstone of a well-functioning liberal democracy, and a position that flies in the face of the fundamental truth of being innocent until proven guilty. During the three and a half years of his imprisonment, I have sought myself to not prejudge the case against my constituent as it is, as you will appreciate, a matter for the Indian courts. I have only asked that transparency, due process and the rule of law be abided by—something that in this instance it would seem has been denied to Jagtar and is another indication that the growing calls for the UK Government to define his detention as an arbitrary one should now be listened to. Could you advise me and the House: what recourse is open to Members of this place on diplomatic missions to the Court of St James with regard to their ongoing business with this House?