argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Official Development Assistance — House of Commons, 2020-07-09
Topic: International Affairs
Anthony James Holland Mangnall (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a privilege to speak in this debate. I stand here as chair of the all-party group on preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative. I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for her work as the Chair of the International Development Committee, including the recent work on the effectiveness of aid, which has been an exceptional insight into how we can provide better resources for our overseas projects. I am also acutely aware of the extraordinary levels of knowledge and influence in this House, from previous Secretaries of State to perhaps forthcoming Secretaries of State—I thought that was a fine interview Let me discuss something that my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) started with. In this House we are all discussing the value of aid. We have to go back to the doorstep to defend this at a time when we are in debt, almost to second world war levels. We have to be able to go out there to help define and make people understand the value of what we are trying to achieve overseas. That is a very difficult task at present. So we should not be afraid of the forthcoming changes in terms of this merger, and I say that as a sceptic. I was very sceptical about the benefits it may have for our country If we can harness the ability and knowledge of all those who work in DFID, with the experience of those in the Foreign Office, we can end this Janus-esque approach, where we give with one hand and take with the other—where a country may have multiple delegations of British diplomats visiting and helping on a diplomatic level, but we are then giving or taking away on an aid project, whichever the case may be. The other point to make relates to the need for ICAI and the International Development Committee to continue. My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) made an apt point about the value of accountability and harnessing the understanding and knowledge of different Members of this House on different Committees. I propose that we continue to see ICAI operate, to have the IDC sitting and to have regular meetings of the IDC and the Foreign Affairs Committee every quarter—or however often they decide it should be—to discuss the projects that have been undertaken The last point I wish to make is about gender-based violence. During the covid crisis, we have seen this violence rise, both in the UK and abroad. This is the area where I am undertaking work in this House, so I hope the House can forgive me for being blatantly opportunistic in raising it, but we have an opportunity to start ring-fencing spending and funding on this issue. If there is one problem that I have always identified with DFID, it has been its shortcomings on multi-year funding on projects that could make a huge difference. We have the opportunity now to be strategically forward-thinking in delivering projects that I believe will make a significant difference and we can start by tackling gender-based violence.
Official Development Assistance — House of Commons, 2020-07-09
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Alexander Courts (Conservative, Centre-right): Ten days ago, a Royal Air Force C-17 left Brize Norton in my constituency, carrying parts of a field hospital destined for west Africa. Over the course of another five flights, the 130 tonnes of that field hospital will be taken to west Africa, where members of the UN and others are doing crucial, outstanding work in tackling coronavirus. That shows this country at its best. It shows the expertise of our armed forces, together with an outward looking foreign policy, and the expertise of DFID, which funded that mission. It helps this country spread its good name around the world. I 100% welcome this and the fact that the Government have made it clear that there is a total commitment to our international aid. There is no rolling back from it. It remains world-leading and the 0.7% target is to be maintained It is morally and ethically right that we help others, particularly the poorest around the world. But these aid flights also show that in helping others we are helping ourselves, because when facing a virus we are none of us safe until all of us are safe. In making that point, I also show that it would be naive to pretend that these flights are not also an expression of soft power and in pursuance of the British national interest. The merger that has been proposed gives us the opportunity to ensure that British aid money is always spent wisely and well. Too often, despite the good intentions, there has been a feeling that the two Departments are not acting in concert. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who was of course Foreign Secretary, has said: "The Foreign Secretary may not wish to help a particular country because of its poor human rights record. The DFID Secretary might take the view that the aid that is to be provided is more important and is, in any event, not directly relevant to the human rights situation. The outcome is confusion, both in this country and in the recipient country, as to what the policies and priorities of Her Majesty’s Government are." Lord Hague has made a similar point, saying that when he was Foreign Secretary he would often be listened to politely by those abroad, but they really wanted to talk to the DFID Secretary, whose chequebook was four times bigger. That rather proves that in the real world, whether we like it or not, diplomacy and development are intertwined We could learn some lessons from how other countries do things. Norway and Denmark do things in a similar way; they are often held up as the gold standard of aid. France, a close western European ally, also has her aid distributed according to a set of pre-set policy goals. This does not mean, I stress, that it is "trade for aid". We can decide that altruistic alleviation of poverty is exactly what we want to do, provided that that is the foreign policy that we have thought about in advance. There is no sinister plot to decimate Britain’s aid contribution around the world. It is no good being moral and ethical if we are not also effective, and that is why I applaud this.
Official Development Assistance — House of Commons, 2020-07-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Anthony Andrew Amess (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) on securing this debate, and on her superb leadership of the International Development Committee, which she chairs In 1997, there were only 165 Conservatives sitting on these Benches. When the incoming Labour Government announced that they were going to set up this new Department, I have to say that I was against it. However, without any doubt at all, Clare Short did a magnificent job as the first Secretary of State, and even though she led in Northern Ireland, I think she would say that that was what gave her the most pleasure in government I was particularly taken by what the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), said. We have the letter from the Prime Minister dated 16 June, and I just hope it does turn out to be like that. I certainly do not want to see the present Secretary of State no longer sitting around the Cabinet table. It is very important that her voice continues to be heard We all know that some constituents will have said that what David Cameron did in dedicating the 0.7% figure was not on, because more money could be spent elsewhere instead, and that some people would say, "You shouldn’t bother about what goes on overseas." Well, I have learned at first hand that investing in other countries where they face challenges brings us huge bonuses and we should continue to do that. I was very grateful for the briefing that UNICEF sent me I want to end with some special pleading. I have my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) sitting behind me. When he was Secretary of State, I remember going to see him to ask him for a bit of money, and in a very nice way he said no. I speak as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the Maldives and the all-party parliamentary group on the Philippines; any trips we have done are all in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The Maldives have tremendous challenges at the moment, not only with coronavirus—they are also treated badly in terms of tuna. Whereas other countries are getting a 5% tariff, they are still stuck with a 20% tariff, which is not acceptable. Also, thinking about the air bridges that the Government have announced, the Maldives have not been included. This is hitting the Maldivian people terribly hard in the two sectors they depend on As for the Philippines, what would we do in this country, during this coronavirus crisis, without all the Filipino nurses and doctors working everywhere to help us? That country has been hit very hard by hurricanes and other challenges. I do hope that we will intervene and see if we could just give a bit more development money to the Philippines.
Official Development Assistance — House of Commons, 2020-07-09
Topic: International Affairs
Robert William Henry Seely (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) on calling this debate. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess). I will try to make three or four points as briefly as possible The idea that foreign policy is separate from aid has been well and truly kicked into touch by my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts). Whether we like it or not, there is a link between them, and it is better to recognise that, to understand that foreign policy should be moral as well as aid and to understand their combination I would ask the Minister three things. First, can we look at strategy as part of global Britain? We have the National Security Council. However, I feel that since the end of the cold war we have been a little complacent in preparing for future problems We need a national strategy council to permanently look five and 10 years ahead, whether that is into pandemics, the behaviour of nation states such as China and Russia, or climate change. We are not forward-thinking enough, and that is one of the contributions I would like us to make to understand how we can bring strategy more into our forward-looking policy Secondly, when it comes to overseas spending, when I was writing the "Global Britain" document last year that the Prime Minister very kindly wrote the foreword for, we tried to understand where our overseas money was going. Some of it was being spent by the Department for International Development, some by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, some by the Home Office and some by the Foreign Office—quite badly, often. I can congratulate DFID on the quality of its spending, no doubt about it. We do not have an audit of our overseas spending, and I believe that we badly need one. There is no doubt in this House that poverty alleviation is critical—it is moral; it is right; it is good. Grassroots development is critical—it is moral, right and good My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) talked about gender-based violence. I was involved in the campaign against ISIS when we were trying to liberate Mosul and it haunts me still, and makes me deeply upset still, that we knew that we were trying to liberate a city where not only were people being tortured, but women were being raped until their internal organs were collapsing and dying. These things are deeply worrying, and we need strategy. We need DFID and the Foreign Office to be working together on this, but there is a lot of DFID spending that is not on priority areas and spending that is justifiably questionable, so can we please have an audit of overseas spending In the 30 seconds I have left, I say that we do need to look again at ODA. We are permanently trying to revise the rules on ODA and we should not be ashamed to do so. For example, we can fund a coal-fired power station but we cannot fund the BBC to develop civil society. I believe that the BBC World Service should be funded from ODA.
Housing, Communities and Local Government: Departmental Spending — House of Commons, 2020-07-09
Topic: Government Operations
Ben Everitt (Conservative, Centre-right): I should start by drawing the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests We must reform local government finance. The formula grant system is unbalanced, outdated and unfair. It is a shame that we have delayed the review into local government finance, although that is for perfectly obvious reasons. But as well as reforming it, we must increase the quantum of funding, and I think this needs a grown-up conversation on localisation of revenue raising The current settlement is not ungenerous. Indeed, the increase in core spending power of 4.4%, which is £49.2 billion for local authorities, was the biggest in a decade. Milton Keynes received an increase of 6.6% in core spending power. This, of course, was all in February, before the world changed and before funding changed. Since then, £4.3 billion in support for councils has been issued by the Department for their additional pressures, for lost income and for the extra costs. The entire package for councils, businesses and communities comes to £27 billion. In my own local authority of Milton Keynes, we have received £137.6 million, which includes over £77 million for business rates relief Councils are our frontline. They deserve certainty and they deserve fairness. So it is very promising that the aforementioned review into local government finance is called the fairer funding review. This review should not, though, be an exercise in reslicing the cake. We need to level up local government finance—a phrase that I think may stick—but we also need to address the elephant in the room, which is social care. The rising costs of delivering social care are well known and recognised, but these costs are magnified by the unfairness of the current formula grant system We need to level up local government finance. We need to have a grown-up conversation about localised revenue raising. We need to increase the quantum. We need to remove the unfairness. We need to bake in a cross-party solution to social care. We need to deliver the fairer funding review.
Housing, Communities and Local Government: Departmental Spending — House of Commons, 2020-07-09
Topic: Government Operations
David Anthony Andrew Amess (Conservative, Centre-right): I was shocked to read in the evening Echo that, apparently, a new super council is to be created in Essex and that everybody had been told about it. I certainly had not heard anything about it, and I am one of the local Members of Parliament. Apparently, the leader of Essex County Council had a meeting with the chief executive of Southend-on-Sea Borough Council. They had a discussion but apparently she was not able to answer any questions. I am not surprised. There are many questions I would like to have answered, because this seems like a white elephant.
Housing, Communities and Local Government: Departmental Spending — House of Commons, 2020-07-09
Topic: Government Operations
Mark Gino Francois (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a white elephant, but what is worse, it has been cooked up in private for two years by six council leaders—six chief executives. The Essex MPs are against it and did not know. So are all the back benchers on the six councils. The whole thing is a farce.
Housing, Communities and Local Government: Departmental Spending — House of Commons, 2020-07-09
Topic: Government Operations
Simon Richard Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) on securing today’s debate and I thank hon. Members across the House for their contributions. I entirely echo the tributes that have been paid to the hard work and sacrifice of local government officials and elected representatives around the country. It is a good chance to pay tribute to the frontline workers—the carers, the teachers, the mortuary staff, the social workers, the emergency planners, the refuse collectors and so many others who have done their utmost to make sure that our society continues to function at such a difficult time. Every tier of local government has come together to rise to the enormous challenges that covid-19 has created Time is very short, so I will be brief. From the outset of covid-19, the Government have said that we would ensure that councils have the resources that they need. We have already delivered a multibillion-pound infusion of support. Last week, we announced a further comprehensive package of support with several important components. First, we are providing a further £500 million of funding to cover additional local authority spending pressures. That means that since the crisis began, the total unring-fenced grant funding that has been provided to local authorities for their spending pressures now stands at £3.7 billion, and that is without including the £600 million that we provided for care homes to relieve the strain on social care services We have particularly asked councils to prioritise some core aspects of their work. The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, pressed me for detail on this, and those are: adult social care, children’s services, public health services, fire and rescue services, household waste services, shielding the clinically vulnerable, homelessness and rough sleeping, domestic abuse and managing excess mortality. I am very happy to provide any further clarity that would be helpful—
RAF Croughton Expansion: Diplomatic Implications — House of Commons, 2020-07-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): Before I call the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), I should remind all Members—although I perceive that there are no other Members seeking to take part in this debate, but in case anyone should—that the matter of criminal charges against Anne Sacoolas are sub judice under the terms of this House’s resolution. Therefore, reference should not be made to the detail of the alleged offences or the other aspects of the case. I thank the right hon. Member for her courtesy in consulting the Speaker’s office in advance of her debate, and I remind any other Member who seeks to participate in the debate to be equally mindful of the sub judice resolution and matters still before the court.
Proceedings during the Pandemic and Hybrid Scrutiny Proceedings — House of Commons, 2020-04-21
Topic: Government Operations
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg to move, That this House is committed to taking all steps necessary to balance its responsibilities for continuing scrutiny of the executive, legislating and representation of the interests of constituents with adherence to the guidance issued by Public Health England and the restrictions placed upon all citizens of the United Kingdom, and is further committed, in pursuit of that aim, to allowing virtual participation in the House’s proceedings, to extending the digital capacity of those proceedings to ensure the participation of all Members, and to ensuring that its rules and procedures are adapted to permit as far as possible parity of treatment between Members participating virtually and Members participating in person.
Proceedings during the Pandemic and Hybrid Scrutiny Proceedings — House of Commons, 2020-04-21
Topic: Government Operations
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): I rise to speak to the motion on proceedings during the pandemic and, as you have explained, Mr Speaker, I will also speak to the motion on hybrid scrutiny proceedings Mr Speaker, may I start by thanking you and the House staff for the incredible work that has taken place during the Easter recess to allow me to move these motions today? It is worth noting that our Clerks and staff often work very long hours when the House is sitting and expect to be compensated for that in recess periods. On this occasion, we have asked them to work during the recess period too, placing a double burden upon them. I am also grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for allowing these motions to be moved without formal notice, and to House staff for arranging the publication yesterday of these motions and the accompanying explanatory note From tomorrow, if the House agrees these motions, we will resume oral questions, statements and urgent questions virtually. While the new digital Parliament may not be perfect—Members may launch forth into fine perorations only to be muted or snatched away altogether by an intermittent internet connection—we must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The parliamentary authorities have done a superb job to get this up and running at short notice. Should the House agree these motions today, I would expect to bring forward further motions shortly so that we can extend our virtual ways of working for a longer period and to more substantive business, including legislation Before turning to the motions, I want to set out my gratitude to the Procedure Committee for its rapid work. These are difficult and challenging times, and these necessary changes are happening at a pace that would not be ideal in more normal times. The Procedure Committee has an essential role in advising this House on reform. I am grateful to the Committee and to its Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), for its report published today, and I commit to continuing to work closely with it. We will all want to keep under review how the procedures work. I know that the Committee has particular concerns about moving to electronic voting, and I would certainly want to work closely with the Committee on the options for that. I hope it will reassure the Committee if I say that, once we have moved to considering substantive business as well, I will be looking to make certain that we initially schedule business that is unlikely to be divided on.