argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Civil Rights
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): I have two answers to that. First, this has been tested, and there were no fines, no systematic investigations and no equivalent front-page corrections. Secondly, there is no substitute for a systematic look at these issues and for asking why that culture was allowed to exist and why in certain cases it is still allowed to exist Conservative Members rightly express concern about the freedom of the press, and they must vote in the way that they think is right, but this is not about the freedom of the press. The National Union of Journalists, which after all represents journalists, states: "Not allowing Leveson 2 is bad for journalism and bad for the public" The NUJ’s concern is that the ongoing actions of the minority are undermining the brilliant journalism that we have in this country. It therefore believes that it would be better for our trust in the press if this inquiry were to go ahead.
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Civil Rights
George Edward Howarth (Labour, Centre-left): Going back to the example of the bereaved family and the gross intrusion into their privacy and grief, does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons why such families choose not to use the current system is that it runs the risk of things that have been wrongly said about lost loved ones being repeated in the media as part of the process?
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Other
Tom Watson (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is a great man and I admire his courage and fortitude in reading that manifesto, which Conservative Front Benchers and I have always considered to be a dynamic document. That is why Conservative Front Benchers are no longer in favour of foxhunting and the dementia tax. I implore the hon. Gentleman to view it not as a rule book, but as guidance.
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Timothy Grogan (Labour, Centre-left): I will not because there is little time. I am a great fan of the BBC, but it was involved in the Cliff Richard case, yet it is exempted from the inquiry by another clause The Kerslake report has been mentioned at length. I have read it not seven, but a couple of times. It is damning about many practices that happened after the Manchester bombing. By the way, it praises the only journalistic organisations that it mentions. It praises the Manchester Evening News, and it praises the BBC for having only one reporter approach any victim. However, it is very damning. It may have been freelancers or people who work for the main news organisations who abused their position—it does not name them There is no civil servant closer to the Labour party than Bob Kerslake. When there is a problem, Bob Kerslake is sent to sort it out. It is therefore interesting that, in his recent report, which was published on Tuesday 27 March, he recommends not Leveson 2, but strengthening the IPSO code It was a little grudging, but I think that the deputy Leader of the Opposition said today that he cannot envisage circumstances in which we would go back to the absurd idea of imposing punitive damages on newspapers. He said that he could not speak for others, but he is the deputy Leader of the party, so I presume that he is speaking for the party.
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Civil Rights
Ian Colin Lucas (Labour, Centre-left): I want to say a word about Sir Brian Leveson. The first part of his inquiry was greatly valued and welcomed by all parties. Sir Brian Leveson said that he fundamentally disagreed with the Government’s decision not to proceed with part 2 of the inquiry. We should respect his view, and we should also keep the promise made by both sides of the House to the victims of press intrusion. This is very straightforward, and we should therefore support the Lords amendment.
Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Other
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): As indicated on the Order Paper, the Speaker has certified that the Bill relates exclusively to England on matters within devolved legislative competence. As the Bill has not been amended, there is no change to that certification Under Standing Order No. 83M, a consent motion is required for the Bill to proceed. It has been tabled and is available in the Vote Office. Does the Minister intend to move the consent motion?
Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): I am afraid that that the hon. Gentleman cannot move that in this Committee I remind Members that if there is a Division, only Members representing constituencies in England may vote on the consent motion Motion made and Question proposed, That the Committee consents to the Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill.—(Rishi Sunak).
Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Other
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): Order. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire may have been drawn down certain paths. I have been listening carefully to what he has been saying, and I have given him some leeway, but I remind him that the motion before the Committee is that the Legislative Grand Committee (England) consents to the Bill. I hope he will not be drawn down other tracks and will confine his remarks to that proposition.
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
Siobhain Ann McDonagh (Labour, Centre-left): Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the last time the Government’s target of 300,000 homes in a year was met was in 1969, when not only was the private sector developing, but so too were the councils and housing associations? What can he do to ensure that councils and housing associations can expand their activities?
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
James Dolan Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the point that the Minister makes about building on brownfield sites first, but how much credence is he going to give to residents groups who have objections to building on the green belt? An example would be the Kings Hill estate in Coventry, around Cromwell Lane and Westwood Heath. All those residents are objecting to building on the green belt, so how seriously is he going to take their views?
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
Maria Eagle (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State talks about fairness. What will he do to ensure fairness for those who buy new houses? Sixty-nine per cent. of new houses in the north-west were sold as leaseholds, purely and simply so that home buyers can be financially exploited into the future. What will the right hon. Gentleman do to ensure fairness for them?
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): This is the Secretary of State’s first housing debate, but it is a bit like Groundhog day. He is the fourth Secretary of State, with the seventh Housing Minister, now in the ninth year of a Conservative Government, and it is clear from this debate that the Conservative party still has no plan to fix the housing crisis. The Secretary of State may be new to the job, but he has been in government since the start in 2010. Surely he cannot look at the Government’s eight-year housing record and conclude that more of the same is what is needed. After eight years of failure on all fronts, how is the answer more of the same when, since 2010, we have seen 1 million fewer under-45s owning their own home and the lowest level of home ownership for 30 years? How can the answer be more of the same on homelessness when it has risen every year since 2010, and we now have 120,000 children growing up with no home? And how can the answer be more of the same when private renters face rents that are soaring way ahead of incomes? The average rent is now £1,800 a year more than before Finally, house building rates are still lower than they were at their peak under Labour, and fewer new social rented homes were started last year than at any time since records began.
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is a hard-working, loyal Back Bencher, and I have to give him credit. He is making some of the same arguments the Secretary of State made when he said the Government are making good progress on supply. In truth, a full decade on from the worldwide financial crash, house building is still below the level it was before that global downturn.
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
Siobhain Ann McDonagh (Labour, Centre-left): Is my right hon. Friend aware of the article in The Huffington Post at the beginning of the week, suggesting that 1,000 homeless families from Birmingham have been housed tens of miles away from their schools, families and jobs? Does he agree that that is probably because London councils are busy placing their homeless families in Birmingham, because that is the only way they can afford to house them, given that the public purse spent £1 billion on temporary accommodation last year?
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): I am surprised if the hon. Gentleman has not already done so, but he should read the housing manifesto that I launched with the Labour leader during the election campaign last year. It pledged longer tenancies, with a cap on the rent increases during that period. I shall come to the Labour plans for private renters in a minute. This debate is about differing views and very different visions of the housing problems that people face and the solutions that the country requires Our determination to get built the new genuinely affordable homes that are needed in this country was redoubled after the terrible Grenfell Tower fire. When the Grenfell survivors who contributed to our review say that "tenants were victims before the fire" and "we’re treated as second class citizens in social housing", it is clear that radical, root-and-branch reform is required, so we will build more and we will build better, as the public sector has always done in housing. We will have leading-edge standards on energy efficiency and smart-tech design, so that Labour’s new affordable homes will be people’s best choice, not their last resort A huge majority of us in Britain aspire to buy our own home, yet the dream is currently denied to millions, especially young people facing a lifetime locked out of the housing market. We set out in our Green Paper a plan for Labour’s living rent homes, which would have rents set at no more than a third of average local household incomes and would be aimed at ordinary working families, young people and key workers—those who need to be able to save a bit for a deposit or who need a bit more to spend on the other things they need Labour’s low-cost home ownership home would be a new type of low-cost home, called first-buy homes. Again, they would be discounted, so that mortgage payments would be no more than a third of average local incomes. Crucially, the discount on those homes would be locked in so that it could potentially benefit not just the first first-time buyer, but future first-time buyers.
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
James Dolan Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): In the past, local authorities were able to handle housing crises, such as when way back in the ’60s they were building 300,000 homes a year. Having said that, local authorities also built houses for sale, helped first-time buyers and actually offered mortgages. It was the Thatcher Government who abolished that. Can we not do something about that?
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend might be interested to read the fine detail of the Green Paper that we launched last month, because it makes the commitment to look into enabling local authorities once more to provide mortgages for local people who may find the mortgage market closed off to them.
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): I have less concern than the hon. Gentleman about that. I recommend that he read the Green Paper. The point of Labour’s proposal is to create almost a parallel market that is permanently affordable to local people who are in work and on ordinary incomes—the very people the Government are currently failing and to whom the housing market is closed. [Interruption.] I give way to the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon). No? I beg your pardon, Madam Deputy Speaker. Labour’s policy on home ownership is about first-buy homes, first dibs for local people in all new developments and tightly targeted Help to Buy. That is the real hope that first-time buyers need I promised to come back to the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) on private renters. Since 2010, the number of households renting privately has gone up by more than a third, and there are now 5 million households renting privately throughout the country. The one thing that we cannot do is see a further slide back to those bad old days around the time of the second world war, when we had private rented housing that was unregulated, overpriced and badly maintained, and it was the only default housing for people earning ordinary incomes. What is needed is very clear: it is Labour’s plan for legal minimum standards, longer tenancies, a cap on rent rises and local licensing to drive out the rogue landlords. They are similar consumer rights that we all expect and all have in other markets, but not in housing Finally, the tragedy and unforgiveable scandal of the rising levels of homelessness in this country, particularly of those sleeping rough in the streets, is that we know what works because we have done it before. We did it before when the country was faced with rising homelessness in the early 2000s. Our action as a Government then led the independent Crisis and Joseph Rowntree Foundation homelessness monitor to declare that, by 2009, we had in this country seen what it called an unprecedented decline in homelessness. We back the new Homelessness Reduction Act 2017—we pay tribute to the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for steering it through—but we cannot help the homeless without more homes. I say to the Minister: go beyond the Housing First pilot; consider requiring housing associations to set aside, let us say, 8,000 of their homes across the country so that those with a history of rough sleeping have a low-cost, secure home in which to rebuild their lives; and then help to fund a replacement, like for like, of those homes.
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): I gave the hon. Gentleman the chance to speak earlier. I will conclude now, because many Members wish to speak In conclusion, this has been a disappointing first debate with the Secretary of State, who seems—[Interruption.] I listened very carefully, but saw no evidence that he is willing to challenge his own Government’s thinking or to make the radical changes required to fix the housing crisis. This is the test for the Secretary of State and for the Government. It is a big challenge to political thinking, not just to policy decisions. When the evident answer to the housing crisis lies in a bigger role for councils, stronger regulation of private markets, greater investment by Government in new low-cost homes, higher legal standards on everything from energy efficiency to safety, and tougher conditions on public contracts and public funding, it is clear that Conservative ideology, not just Conservative policy, must change. I say to the House that it is also clear from the Secretary of State’s speech this afternoon that the country will only see this change—the change that millions of people need and want—with Labour in government.
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
David Drew (Labour, Centre-left): Should not the Government at least look seriously at land value taxation? It is about time that we had a proper review of how the issue that the hon. Gentleman is describing can be capped by land value taxation.
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
Maria Eagle (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome that fact, but what tends to happen is that companies add an extra £5,600 or so on to the initial purchase price and then put restrictive covenants into the transfer document I have constituents who have been told that into the far future, even when they are freeholders, they will have to pay to get permission to change their mortgage provider, paint their door a different colour or make any alteration to their garden or property. That is not a proper freehold; it is finding a way to make sure that restrictive covenants can carry on, be sold on and then used financially to exploit people who have such restrictions in their deeds—whether in a lease or in a transfer document when the freehold is transferred I want the Government to go further than they have so far said they will go and consider banning some of these ridiculous restrictive covenants from being put into transfer documents as well as into leases. If they were to do that, I might be able to welcome their package of measures rather more than I have been able to so far.
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
Gareth Craig Snell (Labour, Centre-left): I would ordinarily want to agree with the hon. Gentleman, but if I did so on this, we would both be wrong. He is talking about the abolition of stamp duty, but in my constituency the number of properties available to first-time buyers at between £200,000 and £400,000 is almost nil, so the policy is of very little benefit to my constituents. It is a subsidy for London and the south-east at the expense of the north and the west midlands.
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): When my hon. Friend says that housing is a right and particularly that it is a right not to live in damp housing, does she agree that, thanks to the efforts of a Labour Member, tenants can now take their landlord to court, but they need legal support to do that?
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
Laura Smith (Labour, Centre-left): Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes a very good point I am of the opinion that someone should be able to aspire to buy a property; that good-quality council housing should be available to those who require it; and that those who rent out properties have an obligation to look after them and the welfare of those they are making money out of. Finally, I am of the opinion that the only way that the housing and homelessness crisis in this country can be solved is by getting rid of this out-of-touch Conservative Government.
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Siobhain Ann McDonagh (Labour, Centre-left): It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who had many very good ideas, but we have to talk about the green belt in London. There is enough land to build a million homes that are 10 minutes from tube and train stations and an hour’s journey away What is the green belt? What is the land that I am talking about? Is it nice, pleasant and green—somewhere we would wish to spend the day with our families? No. I spent my bank holiday going around and looking at some of these sites. I started over in Hillingdon, where I saw an illegal waste tip and stood on 20 feet of rubble that could be land on which we could build 3,500 new homes. I went along the A40 to Ealing, where I saw, close to a mosque, two schools and a train station, a site covered with building rubble and surrounded by chain-link fencing. I then went to the pièce de résistance: a tyre-changing shop and car-valeting service at Tottenham Hale, where a housing association had had its application for housing turned down because it was green belt At some point, we have to stop being frightened of the title and inspect what land makes up this designation. I do not want to build on a park that children use, or on rolling green fields that people enjoy on their bank holidays, but I do want to build on scrappy bits of land that nobody in their right mind would choose to regard as green belt.
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
Siobhain Ann McDonagh (Labour, Centre-left): I would love to, but I do not want to stop anyone from speaking I ask hon. Members from all parties to support my early-day motion on this issue and to support the contribution that we have made to the consultation on the national planning policy framework, which has Members from both sides of this House, academics, housing associations and businesses saying, "Yes, stop it. Please look at the green belt." We cannot keep talking about building more homes unless we have the means and the land to provide them, and we do, if only we all got a backbone and started looking at what we call the green belt.
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge). I want to focus my comments on private rented accommodation and fairness. We all know that there are many fantastic private landlords out there across the country who offer a high-quality service for the people living in their accommodation, but we also know that there are many who do not. The issue of fairness concerns who pays to regulate this sector. Who foots the bill for dealing with some of the problems that are identified? We have all, I am sure, had constituents come to us and say that they have had problems with their accommodation. One of my constituents came to me with her baby who was suffering terribly from asthma because of the damp in her private rented accommodation. I spoke to Hull City Council’s housing team, whose fantastic housing manager, Dave Richmond, dealt with the case and the landlords had to resolve the problem But what about all the people who do not go and see their Member of Parliament? What about all those to whom it would not even occur that they could go to their MP and they could help them to deal with the issue? Who goes to check that private rented accommodation is of a high standard? I have had this conversation with Hull City Council. I am sure that it would love to be able to go out there and check that some of the accommodation that people are living in meets the standard that it should, but who pays the bill? People who live in Hull are paying their council tax to deal with problems that are caused by private rented accommodation and private landlords. Can anyone name me another type of private organisation where the general taxpayer foots the bill to deal with problems created in its own industry?
Housing and Homes — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Housing
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that that is why selective licensing schemes, which allow private landlords to be charged for some of that enforcement, are important? Does she share my bemusement and even frustration that the Minister has still not signed off numerous selective licensing applications, including mine in Brighton and Hove? The Government have been sitting on those for months now, and we are still not able to move forward in many of our cities where councils want to do exactly what she says.