argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I apologise for not wishing you a very happy new year from the sunny shores of Clacton-on-Sea.Does my hon. Friend agree that sheer numbers of police is not the whole answer in tackling crime? In Clacton, Tendring District Council and Essex police have established a successful community safety hub with some 47 partners. Will the Minister please come to sunny Clacton to see how the scheme has been working and to look at some of the successes that we have achieved for ourselves?; Given cuts to police numbers and resources, how many police forces have notified the Home Office that they will not be pursuing certain types of crime?
Nicholas Richard Hurd (Conservative, Centre-right): I know the hon. Gentleman knows this, but the proposed funding settlement will lead not to cuts, but to increased investment of £450 million in our policing system, which will help police forces across the country to cope with the changing face of crime.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I apologise for not wishing you a very happy new year from the sunny shores of Clacton-on-Sea.Does my hon. Friend agree that sheer numbers of police is not the whole answer in tackling crime? In Clacton, Tendring District Council and Essex police have established a successful community safety hub with some 47 partners. Will the Minister please come to sunny Clacton to see how the scheme has been working and to look at some of the successes that we have achieved for ourselves?; Given cuts to police numbers and resources, how many police forces have notified the Home Office that they will not be pursuing certain types of crime?; Ministers have already spoken about online crime. My constituent Anne Gleed was defrauded out of a considerable sum when she was given false bank account details for the seller of a car after her emails were hacked. She reported the matter on the same day, but has been unable to recover her funds. This is an authorised push payment scam. What are the Government able to do to reduce crimes of that nature?; Since 2010, according to the Fire Brigades Union, Cheshire fire service has lost more than 170 firefighters, incident response times are up, the number of available appliances is down, and casualties are rising year on year. Will the Minister now accept that his Government’s cuts are having a detrimental effect on local services?; Will the Home Secretary confirm her commitment to the right to peaceful protest in this country? Given that there have been no successful prosecutions for harassment outside abortion agencies in recent history, will she resist the campaign to set up buffer zones? Does she accept that if peaceful protest outside abortion agencies is banned, the Government will also have to ban it, for instance, at hunts and outside animal life laboratories?; One of the missing links in tackling violence against women and girls has most certainly been caused by a failure to deal with perpetrators. Although the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), responded to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) with sympathy, how precisely can we use research on what makes a difference to ensure that we empower our police forces and other agencies to deal with perpetrators?
Amber Rudd (Conservative, Centre-right): Among the many things we can do is to carry out effective inspections, which we already have. We will be introducing a domestic abuse and violence Bill, on which we will consult. I hope we will get lots of contributions to the consultation, perhaps including from the hon. Gentleman, so that we can ensure that we stop domestic abuse and violence at an early stage and ensure that perpetrators are properly dealt with.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Philip Martin Dunne (Conservative, Centre-right): I am glad that the hon. Lady has referred to the social care Green Paper, because that will be published this year, providing an opportunity for all Members to participate in it. It does not sit within my set of responsibilities, so I will come back to the hon. Lady on exactly who will be leading on it.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): The Minister is a very good man and an excellent Minister, in my opinion, but what does it say about the priorities of the Government when they are allowing so many operations to be cancelled over the next few weeks, while also pouring more and more money every year into overseas aid? I say to the Government through the Minister that people are now angry about this in the country. Billions of pounds every year are being spent on overseas aid when it is so clearly needed by vulnerable people at home in the UK. Will the Government get a grip on this? They will be massively out of touch with public opinion if they do not.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): On the point of process, Mr Young’s appointment to the board of the Office for Students was made in line with the Commissioner for Public Appointments’ code of practice, and Mr Young was appointed following a fair and open competition. He was selected for interview based on the advertised criteria and interviewed by the same panel that interviewed all other board candidates. Sir Michael Barber, who is the chair of the Office for Students, was one of the panel members, along with a senior civil servant and an independent panel member from the higher education sector, and that panel found Mr Young to be appointable As for whether the Department for Education exaggerated Mr Young’s qualifications, it absolutely and categorically did not. Mr Young was a teaching fellow at Harvard and a teaching assistant at Cambridge, positions for which he received payment. The Department for Education never claimed that they were academic posts. As I have said, Mr Young is a Fulbright commissioner and co-founded the West London Free School, and that experience will be vital in encouraging new providers and ensuring that more universities are working effectively with schools.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Robert Henry Halfon (Conservative, Centre-right): The Minister will know that I am a supporter of his work and of universities, but things have gone badly wrong here. I accept that Mr Young has done great work on free schools, but so have many other people. I am not talking about the things he has done on Twitter; I am more concerned about some quite dark articles in which he talks about the disabled and the working classes. Much more significantly—I have the article here—in 2015 he talked about what he calls "progressive eugenics", which is incredibly dark and dangerous stuff. I suggest that my hon. Friend look again at the appointment, because I do not think that it will give students confidence.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I always listen closely to what my right hon. Friend, the Chair of the Education Committee, has to say, and I will look carefully at the article he has with him. Mr Young has expressed his regret and has apologised unreservedly for comments that, in some cases, were made in the 1980s. These are often very old writings and old pieces of work. I think that it is more helpful to Members if we focus on what he does rather than what he says. He has been a champion of students and of children with disabilities in mainstream education. He has a brother with learning disabilities and is a patron of the residential care home in which his brother lives, so we should not characterise him in the crude terms that Opposition Members have used. His deeds matter much more than the terms and the tweets that he has disowned.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course, the Office for Students is there to represent all interests in our higher education system. The Higher Education and Research Act 2017 puts an obligation on the Secretary of State to have regard to a wide range of factors in making such appointments, including that board members must reflect the broad range of higher education providers, those who experience higher education—the students—and those, such as taxpayers and businesses, who either pay for higher education or are on the receiving end of its product in the flow of graduates into the workforce. The Government are, of course, attentive to reactions to appointments to the board, and we want the board to be highly effective in delivering on the core duties of the Office for Students.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): In response to the question of the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), and to many other questions that might relate to individual tweets, articles or comments made by Mr Young over a long period of time, the answer is basically the same. Mr Young has acknowledged, and the Government have recognised, that much of what he said was foolish, wrong, offensive or obnoxious, and it is right that he has apologised and expressed regret for what he has said, written and done. It clearly does not reflect the values of the Office for Students or of the Government, but it is also important to recognise that, since he made many of those remarks, he has continued to make a valuable contribution to our education system, to the work of the Fulbright Commission and to the network of free schools across the country, and it is for that reason that he has been appointed to the board of the Office for Students.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Transportation
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. I just say to the shadow Transport Secretary: sir, if you were a motor car, you would go from 0 to 60 in about five seconds. It is a discernible trait that I have discerned in you over a period of years and I wish to help you with this condition. Calm yourself. Just be a little calmer. There are many, many hours to go and there are many important developments to take place. Now, after due patience having been exercised, I call Lucy Powell.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): We have armchair critics who do not do half as much good as Mr Young does for disadvantaged students in London and across the country. The hon. Lady has questioned the record of the West London Free School, but its GCSE results for 2016 put it in the top 10% of all English schools in the country.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I recognise that, as I have said, many of the tweets have been obnoxious and repellent in many ways—obviously, I have not seen all 40,000 of them—but it is also important to recognise that that tweet was probably eight or nine years old, since which time Mr Young has been on something of a developmental journey. It is possible that there is a capacity for reform, and we want to encourage Mr Young to develop the best sides of his personality—those that have led to him setting up good schools and to working with disadvantaged children in London so that they can make the most of their potential. It is for those reasons that he has been appointed to the board.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): Mr Young’s work on behalf of disadvantaged and disabled students speaks for itself. He has championed inclusion in the educational institutions that he has set up. I cannot speak for the content of specific articles or tweets because, frankly, there are too many, and he has apologised for any offence he has caused, but I think that we should judge him by what he does—more so than we are currently doing.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Government Operations
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee oversees the public appointments process and we hold the public appointments commissioner accountable for the conduct of the code. This is a timely reminder that public appointments are to be held accountable. Is my hon. Friend satisfied that the panel had the due diligence they should have had when they made their appointment? What representations has he received from any member of the panel about the appointment since it was made?
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Government Operations
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for his questions. The panel was correctly composed. As I said earlier, it consisted of a senior civil servant from the Department for Education, Sir Michael Barber himself and an independent panel member. They conducted the interview with Mr Young in the same manner as they conducted interviews with other candidates and found him appointable. In respect of due diligence, one has to look at what is reasonable and proportionate for a panel to do. Neither I nor the Department were aware of the offensive tweets before the appointment was made, but there is nothing unusual about that. Many of the remarks were made years—in some cases, decades—ago and it is not reasonable or proportionate for the Government to trawl through tens of thousands of tweets over many years when making public appointments.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the sentiments the hon. Lady has expressed. Those comments and tweets are obviously obnoxious and repellent, and that is why it is right that Mr Young has apologised for them, it is right that he has expressed regret for them and it is right that he has committed not to repeat them at the risk of being immediately dismissed from the Office for Students board.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I have been interested to hear the Minister’s answers. Can he reassure me about what evidence he took in relation to Mr Young’s current appointment as a Fulbright commissioner and what reassurances he has that some of the behaviour we have discussed this afternoon will not be repeated?
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): Mr Young does important work on the Fulbright Commission. He is a commissioner and has been reappointed to that role as a result of the good work he has done. That carries on. As I said earlier, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the chair of the Fulbright Commission, has described Mr Young as an effective, committed and energetic commissioner and seen no evidence that the historic remarks—going back many years—have influenced him in discharging his duties responsibly on behalf of disadvantaged young people. He does very good work in promoting social mobility through the Fulbright Commission’s work with the Sutton Trust and other organisations.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): Since Mr Young made many of these comments and wrote these articles—which, in most cases, predate 2010—he has been appointed to the Fulbright Commission, he has been reappointed to the Fulbright Commission, he has been made director of a leading education charity and he has done important work setting up schools in west London that are delivering great outcomes for young people. That is what we should judge him by, not foolish and obnoxious tweets from the distant past.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): My constituents have no time for unpleasant and obscene remarks, no matter who makes them. Will the Minister ensure that all appointees to the board, including this one, have as one of their first priorities a close examination of the obscene levels of executive pay for some of the senior personnel in the higher and further education sectors, which many students regard as completely outrageous?
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a good point, and it is a priority for the Office for Students to address the spiralling top-level and vice chancellor pay in our institutions. It featured in the regulatory framework consultation, which closed shortly before Christmas, and will be prominent in the regulatory framework when that is published later in the spring.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Simon Richard Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): I suspect I am one of the few people in the Chamber who has been to the West London Free School. I saw there for myself the outstanding work that Toby and his team have delivered, and they have done that blind to people’s background and wealth, to the colour of their skin and to the creed that they practise. Does the Minister agree that that record deserves to be honoured and recognised? The comments were wrong, but those deeds need to be respected and they give Toby a credible platform for taking that office.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right to laud Mr Young’s achievements at the West London Free School, where the 38.5% of children who receive the pupil premium have done better than the national average for pupils on the pupil premium in both this most recent year and the previous one. Mr Young has created an inclusive environment. A parent governor at the school described him as "committed to public education, academic excellence, and greater opportunities for kids from lower incomes."
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): Had Opposition Members done half as much as Mr Young has to promote outcomes for disadvantaged students, they would be in a better position to disparage his achievements. Mr Young’s school has done better than the national average for its pupils on the pupil premium in both this most recent year and the last. That is something of which he can be rightly proud.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Government Operations
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have said, the competition through which Toby Young was appointed was rigorous, open and fair. Like all the interviews, his was conducted by a panel consisting of the three people I have mentioned. It was an apolitical and independent-minded board of panellists who deemed Toby Young worthy of appointment.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): No, that would not be appropriate. I take the same view that the shadow Education Secretary took with respect to the comments of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Jared O'Mara) when she said that he deserved a second chance and that she was happy to sit alongside him because the comments happened a long time ago. In her words, "People do change their views... it is important that they recognise that and apologise and correct that behaviour." That is what we are expecting Toby Young to do.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Labour’s priorities are curious. We have had not a word from the leadership of the party about what is going on in Iran, for example, and it is focusing instead on its feigned outrage over Toby Young. It should really focus on the priorities facing this country, not these second order ones.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): The board is representative of a broad range of higher education providers, as it is required to be under the terms of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. It contains a vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England; a former vice-chancellor of BPP University; the chair of council at an arts college, the Rose Bruford College; and a senior figure from an Oxford college, who happens to be the bursar and also a director at the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies. It is well representative of the excellent diversity of our higher education system.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): We are going over much the same ground as in previous questions. The tweets, remarks and comments that Mr Young has made were clearly wrong. He is absolutely right to have apologised for them. Since making many of those remarks, he has continued to do good work in our educational system: he is delivering good outcomes for disadvantaged pupils at his schools in west London; and he is working hard on the Fulbright Commission. We have every expectation that he will make a valuable contribution to the work of the Office for Students.
Office for Students: Appointment — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have already said, the appointment process followed by the Office for Students board and panel was conducted in accordance with the code of practice published by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Mr Young was appointable—many people were interviewed, as this is an important body—and it was determined that he had characteristics that would enable him to acquit those responsibilities well.
Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time The Government have been clear that in leaving the European Union the UK will also leave its customs union, allowing us to establish and enhance our trading relationships with old allies and new friends around the world. Further to that, the Government have previously set out that in leaving the EU customs union and exercising the powers in this Bill, we will be guided by what delivers the greatest economic advantage to the United Kingdom and by three strategic objectives.
Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): Before my right hon. Friend gets deep into his analysis, may I ask him about the expression "a customs union" in clause 31, which, according to the explanatory notes, clearly includes the EU itself? Will he be kind enough to tell me, either now or later in his speech, what the distinction is between the customs union and other kinds of customs union mentioned in clause 31?
Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): Clause 31 makes provision for this country to enter into a customs union with another territory. That territory could be the existing customs union of the European Union after we have left the European Union, or it could be another territory separate from it. As he will know, such a move would be subject to a treaty and would not be entered into until a draft statutory instrument had been laid before the House and approved under the affirmative procedure, and then subsequently approved by Her Majesty as an Order in Council.