argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
No-Deal Brexit: Cross-channel Freight — House of Commons, 2019-05-02
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Stephen Grayling (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not know what the hon. Lady is talking about because she is not being specific. She says that the private sector has lost confidence in the Department’s procurement, but that tends only to be the case if people have not won a contract.
No-Deal Brexit: Cross-channel Freight — House of Commons, 2019-05-02
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Michael Howell (Conservative, Centre-right): I have continually voted for the deal, as the Secretary of State knows. The insurance policy protects exports from and imports to the UK, so I fully accept what he is saying. Will he join me in trying to get a change to the procurement rules, so that they include a substantial element of alternative dispute resolution to make the whole thing cheaper and quicker?
No-Deal Brexit: Cross-channel Freight — House of Commons, 2019-05-02
Topic: Transportation
Christopher Stephen Grayling (Conservative, Centre-right): I regret that any big company—particularly in the case of Eurotunnel—would take a decision to pursue a legal action at a time such as this, when the Government are seeking to operate in the national interest. But the law is the law, and we have to fulfil it. I agree with my hon. Friend that alternative dispute resolution is a good way of resolving such matters, when it can be delivered.
No-Deal Brexit: Cross-channel Freight — House of Commons, 2019-05-02
Topic: International Affairs
Thomas Christopher John Pursglove (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my right hon. Friend share my frustration with those in this House who, I think wrongly, rant that a no-deal Brexit would be catastrophic but then oppose every single step taken to try to mitigate any of the concerns that it might bring about?
Victims Giving Evidence — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward John Comport Argar (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady has done so much on this issue and on campaigning for victims more widely. While a range of special measures already exist, we can and will do more. As she will recall, last September we published the victims strategy, which sets out the steps to support victims of crime further, including in court, and those steps have recently been added to with our commitments in the draft Domestic Abuse Bill.
Victims Giving Evidence — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): Victims want criminals to face the full justice of the law and to be sure that the punishment fits the crime. What are we doing to ensure that, once sentenced, criminals serve their time in jail in full?
Victims Giving Evidence — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward John Comport Argar (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes an important point. Victims expect justice to be done, and when someone is convicted of a crime and sentenced, they expect them to serve that sentence. Of course, sentencing is a matter for the independent judiciary, and we have complete confidence in its approach.
Victims Giving Evidence — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward John Comport Argar (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman makes his point powerfully, as always. We have undertaken a number of reforms of the court system and the criminal justice process, and he will have seen in the victims strategy our clear commitment to improve each stage of the process for victims and witnesses. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), has been doing a lot of work to ensure that cases run more smoothly, with fewer adjournments, so that victims and witnesses know that when they come to court they have a high chance of actually being heard on the day on which they expect to be.
Victims Giving Evidence — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcomed the publication of the victims strategy back in September but, as my hon. Friend will know, giving evidence is one of the most stressful parts of seeking justice for any victim of crime. Will he reassure me that he will also be working with people such as police and crime commissioners to ensure that there is no patchwork quilt of support for victims across the country?
Victims Giving Evidence — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward John Comport Argar (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is consistent in speaking up for victims’ rights, and I believe that his county’s police and crime commissioner has spoken about such rights more broadly. He is right that the victims strategy seeks to adopt an approach that will give a more consistent level of support across the country.
Probation Services — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): We have been clear that probation needs to improve, and we have taken decisive action to end current community rehabilitation company contracts and develop more robust arrangements to protect the public and tackle reoffending. I am determined to learn lessons from the first generation of contracts in developing future arrangements. I believe that public, private and voluntary providers all have a role to play. We want to improve integration under new arrangements so that providers are able to work together effectively to protect the public and tackle reoffending.
Probation Services — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady talks about costs and bail-outs. We have to remember that we are spending considerably less on CRCs than was anticipated when the contracts were entered into—some £700 million less—but it is right that we learn the lessons from the first generation of contracts. I am not satisfied with where we are, and the NAO has raised its concerns. We have also heard concerns from the inspectorate of probation, and we need to learn the lessons. It is important that this continues to be a mixed market. There is a place for the private sector and the voluntary sector, as well as for the public sector, in probation.
Probation Services — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): As the Secretary of State knows, the Select Committee on Justice has looked into this area in some depth. Would he agree that the most important issue is not the ownership of the contracts or who provides this service but ensuring that there is no fragmentation of the service, which is a risk? There should be a proper join-up between leaving prison and going out into the world of freedom.
Probation Services — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Government Operations
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): These are important points, and the debate can sometimes be a little simplistic, whether it is "public sector good, private sector bad" or vice versa. A lot of this is about integration and making services hang together. One of the things we did last year was to announce additional money for through-the-gate services, which is important, but a lesson from what has happened in the past is that we need to make sure the system hangs together more, which it has not been doing sufficiently.
Probation Services — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman takes a somewhat simplistic view. His approach appears to be that he wants all probation services to be nationalised and every offender intervention to be done by the public sector. I think there is an opportunity to make use of both the private sector and the voluntary sector. If he takes the approach he appears to advocate of closing off any activity performed by anybody other than the public sector, we will not get the best probation service we could have.
PAVA Pepper Spray — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady and I have sat down and discussed this matter with the unions. We are determined to make sure that we have safe and appropriate ways to protect prison officers, which is why we have piloted PAVA at four sites, two of which I have now visited. We are currently completing an equalities assessment, and we should be in a position to begin the full roll-out in April.
PAVA Pepper Spray — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): Absolutely. As the hon. Lady will bear in mind, we have to be thoughtful about how we use this spray. It is there to deal with issues of extreme violence. This type of pepper spray is a new measure, and we have to be particularly clear when we use it against people with protected characteristics, which is why we are conducting the assessment. I believe that once we have conducted it, this will mean less extreme violence in prisons.
PAVA Pepper Spray — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): The important thing is to begin by paying a huge tribute to prison officers, who are doing an incredibly important job. They are probably one of the most important operational bits of any public service, and we owe them a huge duty of care. We have to make sure that the drugs and weapons do not get in. We have doubled the sentence for people assaulting prison officers, and I am happy to sit down with the hon. Gentleman to talk about this in more detail.
European Convention on Human Rights — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the future status of the UK as a signatory to the European convention on human rights.; What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the future status of the UK as a signatory to the European convention on human rights.
Edward John Comport Argar (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has regular meetings with Cabinet colleagues relating to the UK’s exit from the EU and issues such as our approach to human rights and the ECHR. The UK is committed to membership of the ECHR, as my right hon. Friend has previously set out, and we will remain a party to it after we have left the EU.
Female Genital Mutilation: Prosecution — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): Last night, the House unanimously passed legislation to further protect women and girls from the horrific crime of FGM, and I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Faversham and Kent served on the Bill Committee that was part of the passage of that legislation through the House. My hon. Friend asked particularly about improving prosecution rates, and I am pleased to tell her that each CPS area now has a lead FGM prosecutor. Those prosecutors will be working with their local police forces on arrangements for the investigation and prosecution of FGM offences.
Female Genital Mutilation: Prosecution — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the importance of all cases that come to court. Obviously, for those who have been the victim of horrific sexual crimes, including domestic violence, we are committed to ensuring that those crimes come to court and are dealt with swiftly. There are a number of ways to do that, including by using judicial resource. We recently saw a significant increase in the number of hours allocated to judicial sittings in the family court. Listing is a judicial matter, but in some courts those trials are fixed for particular days, whereas other cases float and and may come on that day or be adjourned to a later date.
Living Wage — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Labor
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): The point, which is an important one, is that we have to ensure that our subcontractors follow exactly the same rules as Ministry of Justice direct employees. We insist that the national living wage should be paid both to Ministry of Justice employees and to our subcontractors.
Living Wage — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Labor
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I take this opportunity to pay tribute to those staff—the people who maintain the courts and the people who provide the security—who do a very important job. We are absolutely clear that this is a Government policy across the board and that everybody, regardless of whether they are in the private sector or the public sector, is obliged to pay the national living wage.
Prison Estate: Reducing Costs — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): Although our real-terms spending on the prison estate has increased, we continue to drive efficiencies through to make sure that we can put as much money as possible into keeping our prisons safe, decent and secure. The best way of driving down costs is through technology, particularly video conferencing, which reduces the costs involved in moving people to and from courts; facial recognition technology, which has begun to deal with queues in visitor areas; and kiosks, which are overcoming some of the challenges around logistics supply.
Prison Estate: Reducing Costs — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Ranil Malcolm Jayawardena (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Minister for that considered answer, but may I ask him to assure me and the House that, in his efforts to reduce the cost of the estate on the taxpayer, he will not scrap short sentences, given that 4,300 knife-wielding criminals last year would have remained on our streets?
Prison Estate: Reducing Costs — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): First, I make it absolutely clear that no decision on sentencing policy will be driven by anything other than public protection. That is the key in any sentencing decision. Secondly, I make it absolutely clear that we are fully behind the Home Secretary and the work that is being done on knife crime and we want to make sure that judges have the full powers at their disposal to deal with people who are wielding knives.
Prison Estate: Reducing Costs — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, this is something that we are continuing to look at very carefully and we are continuing to learn both from what has happened in Scotland and the evidence that suggests, on the basis of a study of 130 different characteristics in 300,000 separate offenders, that people are more likely to reoffend with a short custodial sentence and therefore that tens of thousands more crimes are committed every year by the wrong use of a custodial sentence.
Prison Estate: Reducing Costs — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Gregory Knight (Conservative, Centre-right): In seeking to reduce costs, will the Minister give a pledge not to cut corners? He is seeking to build a new prison in my constituency at Full Sutton, but the traffic assessment that has taken place is, I believe, deeply flawed. Will he look at that again? Even if it means extra cost, if he deems it is warranted, will he order a new traffic assessment please?
Prison Estate: Reducing Costs — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): Some of the staff at Nottingham, to which the hon. Gentleman is referring, have come from other establishments in other parts of the country, but when they return they will be replaced because we must ensure that Nottingham is fully staffed. That is essential particularly in order to continue with delivery of the key worker programmes so that each prison officer can be paired with six prisoners. That will be vital to getting violence under control in Nottingham.
Leaving the EU: Departmental Priorities — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): My Department continues to ensure that the necessary preparations are in place to mitigate potential impacts associated with leaving the EU wherever possible. For all scenarios, these preparations remain on track. In a no-deal scenario, we do not expect any immediate impacts on our departmental priorities, although there are risks in terms of pressures on the courts. We will react to longer-term impacts that are harder to predict, such as financial impacts, should they arise.
Leaving the EU: Departmental Priorities — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): As I say, largely because of the constitutional issues with Germany, there are issues with the European arrest warrant; I absolutely accept that. We will take every measure that we can to ensure that authorities can co-operate. With regard to security issues, leaving the European Union with a deal is much better than leaving without a deal, and therefore the House should support the deal this evening.
Leaving the EU: Departmental Priorities — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): If the hon. Gentleman cares about criminal justice co-operation, as I am sure he does—I certainly do—then there is a course of action available to him later today to ensure that we can have further criminal justice co-operation, and that is voting for the Government’s deal.
Violence in Prisons — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): In order to tackle violence in prisons, we first have to make sure that drugs and weapons are not getting into prisons. We need more prison officers, which is why we are pleased that we now have 4,700 more prison officers in place. We also need to invest much more in staff training and support. In the end, the key to reducing violence is good relationships between prison officers and prisoners.
Violence in Prisons — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Clearly, preventing violence in prisons is a priority, so, to that end, will he update us on what plans he has to increase searches of cells and wings?
Violence in Prisons — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): This is absolutely central. Getting on top of cell searching—making sure that we understand what is in a cell, what should not be in a cell, getting the mobile phones and getting the drugs—is vital to having the baseline for a safe prison, so we are investing in more dog teams, in more mobile phone detection equipment and in dedicated search teams across the estate.
Violence in Prisons — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): In order to better support our prison officers, I have suggested that anybody who is found guilty of assaulting a prison officer should lose their right to automatic early release from prison. Will the Minister take on board that suggestion?
Violence in Prisons — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): We believe that the appropriate response to someone assaulting a prison officer is to work with the Crown Prosecution Service and the police to prosecute them. That is why we are pleased that we have doubled the maximum sentence for anyone assaulting a prison officer, and we are working much more closely to increase the number of prosecutions and the sentences for those who break the law against people we should protect.
Violence in Prisons — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): Body scanners can be very useful, particularly in local prisons where prisoners are coming in and out a great deal. They are very expensive bits of kit to not only install but manage, and they have medical implications; they can be used safely perhaps 50 times in a year. We are conducting a pilot with 14 X-ray scanners across the estate. Once we have looked at the evidence and convinced ourselves that that is the best way of doing it, we will move forward and prioritise local prisons in that roll-out.
Violence in Prisons — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): In terms of inexperienced prison officers, it is about longer training courses and better mentoring on the wings, with band 4 officers in particular working day in, day out with new staff. In terms of time out of cells, this is why having 4,700 more staff is really important—it allows us to unlock people more and get back to a regime that allows people to get into education and work and protects the public.
Violence in Prisons — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): There are two separate things here. The shadow Minister is correct that experienced staff are vital, but it is also worth bearing in mind that one reason why there are so many new staff is that we have recruited 4,700 additional officers; by definition, many of them will be new. Retention is vital. The development of the advanced prison officer grade, which allows experienced closed grade officers to move from band 3 to band 4, will be very important in stabilising prisons.
Probation Reforms — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): Transforming Rehabilitation opened up probation to a diverse range of providers and extended support and supervision to an additional 40,000 offenders leaving prison. The National Probation Service is performing well in supervising higher-risk offenders, but we have been clear that the performance of community rehabilitation companies needs to improve. That is why we have taken action to end contracts early and conducted a public consultation on proposals to better integrate probation services. We are reflecting on the feedback received and lessons learned from current contracts as we develop future arrangements, and we will announce our plans in detail later this year.
Probation Reforms — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman raises a very important matter. I would like to express my sympathies to his constituent’s family for what they have undergone. I know that the hon. Gentleman has met my hon. Friend the prisons Minister to discuss this, and they may meet again. These tragic cases are rare, but that does not in any way undermine how tragic they are. Because there is a greater workload, with a greater number of people dealt with by CRCs than before, we have seen some increase in the numbers, but the rate falls below 0.5%.
Probation Reforms — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Law and Crime
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): I know that the prisons Minister would be very willing to have that meeting, but I make the point to both hon. Gentlemen that we want to get this right, we do recognise that we need to reform the probation system and that that is exactly what we intend to do.