argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions) — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Other
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I sometimes forget that the DUP is not part of the Government, because it very much feels like that. I am very happy to say that I can live without the support of the DUP This is a cross-party motion, except for the DUP, and it continues the cross-party working which got the judgment from the Court of Justice; and today is about cross-party working to try to get us out of the mess we are in.
EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions) — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Other
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for clarifying that and for his support, but I am puzzled why Labour Members would be instructed to abstain on this motion, as it is the only means for them to fulfil their manifesto promise. However, I will leave that to Labour Members, who I am sure will have been receiving the same amount of lobbying as I have—
EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions) — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Other
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for clarifying that, and I feel more and more encouraged that many more Labour MPs will support the motion. I will not take up any more time; I simply want to thank all Members who have signed and supported my motion.
EU Exit Day Amendment — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Civil Rights
Hannah Mary Bardell (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, summing up brilliantly the exact guddle that this Conservative Government have got themselves into. Is it not the worst kind of loser who blames their opposition or opponent for their own mess? Not only are this Government completely screwing up the Brexit negotiations and the whole of the UK, but they are asleep at the wheel in government and cannot even replace their disability Minister, thus offending and not properly representing people with disabilities across the UK. It is utterly shameful.
EU Exit Day Amendment — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Immigration
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely correct: this is a complete mess, and not only over things such as not being able to replace the disability Minister. I understand that the Prime Minister has lost 28 Ministers; the previous three Prime Ministers reached a combined total of losing that many Ministers The last issue I wish to raise is the fact that EU settled status is not sorted out. People’s jobs, livelihoods and living standards—people’s lives—are being put at risk by the decisions and lack of preparedness of this Government. But we will be supporting this SI and supporting the extension, although it should be a longer one.
EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Votes) — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Other
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Notwithstanding the programme motion that says that we will be discussing these matters again on Monday and your earlier comments about the Prime Minister’s deal and the possibility of bringing it back, have you received any intelligence about whether the House will be sitting on Friday and, if it is, what it will be discussing?
Community and Sub-Post Offices — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Gavin Andrew Stuart Newlands (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It now feels like we are actually in a Friday sitting, as we have been here such a long time already. I rise to raise growing concerns that have been brought to my attention by the National Federation of SubPostmasters and by many sub-postmasters in my constituency. I know that colleagues from across the House will have heard similar calls themselves. Several colleagues have already indicated a desire to intervene, which I am keen to accommodate; all I ask is for brevity when they do so The simple and undeniable fact is that many post offices face increasing challenges and huge uncertainty with regard to their long-term financial viability. In the modern digital world, with the likes of Amazon, grocery delivery and online banking, many of our small village and town centres, particularly in rural areas, face systemic degradation and challenges unlike anything they have seen before. This is at a time when big banks continue to up sticks and close their local branches at short notice, often with little consultation with their supposedly valued customers and local representatives. The role of the Post Office as the community banker is therefore becoming increasingly pronounced.
Community and Sub-Post Offices — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Mixed Topics
Gavin Andrew Stuart Newlands (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I will go into detail on some of that. After the shenanigans of the last hour, I feel that his intervening in the Adjournment debate has restored balance to the force The post office is a community institution in Scotland, and, as we have heard, the rest of the UK. Over the years, famous firms like Woolies, BHS and Blockbuster, in addition to countless small family retailers in our towns and villages, have closed their doors for good, but the post office continues to be a fixture of our local communities Under successive Governments, we have faced decades of aggressive privatisation of nationalised industries that many, particularly in older generations, felt immense pride in contributing to. The Post Office looks very different today from 25, 50, or even 100 years ago, yet it requires still further modernisation. However, to paraphrase a former Tory Prime Minister, it remains one of the only pieces of family silver that has not been flogged for a fraction of its market value for the sake of ideological privatisation. Even as its partner, the Royal Mail, has been privatised—cheaply, I might add—Post Office Ltd remains in public hands Post office closures disproportionately affect Scotland, with 40 occurring from 2011 until March last year, compared with England’s 297. Per head of population, those closures are happening at a rate that is one third faster in Scotland than south of the border. Add to that mix Scotland’s geography and size—including 94 inhabited islands—compared with England, and it becomes clear that the continuing viability of the post office is of extreme importance to Scotland, particularly in the light of the number of bank branches being slashed.
Community and Sub-Post Offices — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Stephen Patrick Gethins (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, as his commitment to local businesses in his area is very strong. Bank closures have had such an impact on small towns in rural areas like my own. Will he ask the Minister about the charges, given that post offices are increasingly taking the burden of those bank closures in rural areas?
Community and Sub-Post Offices — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Gavin Andrew Stuart Newlands (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Absolutely. I will go into more detail on that subject in my speech and I will press the Minister on the issue The important role that the post office plays in our lives is felt more sharply in small towns and rural communities, which are disproportionately dependent on designated community post offices and sub-postmasters. In this debate, I will emphasise the challenges that the latter face due to unfair deals with big banks for providing basic banking services. Despite the growth of online and phone banking, there is still—and, for the foreseeable future, will remain—an undeniable need for easily accessible face-to-face banking, which is of particular importance to the elderly and those with additional support needs. As banks flee the high street, post offices are fulfilling this vital role.
Community and Sub-Post Offices — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Is it not bizarre that the Department for Work and Pensions has pushed people to open bank accounts away from the post office in order to receive benefits, when they actually end up back at the post office? Maybe we should make post offices more secure to provide access to cash.
Community and Sub-Post Offices — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Gavin Andrew Stuart Newlands (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I agree 100% with my hon. Friend that the entire exercise is, quite frankly, a piece of nonsense; she makes her point well. The fees that banks pay to Post Office Ltd, which in turn compensates its sub-postmasters, to carry out this work have been ridiculously low––so much so that the majority of these transactions are actually carried out at a loss to the sub-post office. For example, for every £1,000 of cash accepted over the counter, Post Office Ltd is paid 24p. There is no differential between the commissions paid for coins and for notes, so in effect if the post office had to count 100,000 pennies, they would get to keep 24 of them as payment. To be clear, Post Office Ltd also pays a transaction fee, but the combined fees are insufficient to cover those costs. It is clear that the current deal is deeply unfair and unsustainable.
Community and Sub-Post Offices — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Mixed Topics
Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend made an excellent point about the fact that our post offices are being expected to pick up the slack because the banks have abandoned our high streets. Does he agree that this is putting postmasters in crisis, because the remuneration is so poor that, on average, many earn below the minimum wage?
Community and Sub-Post Offices — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): There is a fantastic post office in the village of Dunlop in my constituency where people do great work. It has a fine range of whiskies and beers, by the way, so it is well worth a visit. They have the same issue. The sub-postmaster has worked out that on the hours he does, he gets paid less than the minimum wage, yet he hires staff and correctly pays them the money they are due. Is this not an injustice?
Community and Sub-Post Offices — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Mixed Topics
Gavin Andrew Stuart Newlands (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It absolutely is. That sub-postmaster will have even less money once he has paid the commission to my hon. Friend for the advert he has just given At this point, it is worth giving some background and context regarding sub-postmasters’ remuneration. Previously, all post offices received a fixed element of pay—a core payment—that also allowed for six weeks’ annual leave. Now, only a small number of offices—about 400—that did not go through the network transformation, plus offices designated as community offices, continue to receive a fixed element of pay. Overall, the total amount paid to sub-postmasters has dropped as a result of the removal of this fixed element of pay from the majority of offices. The total amount paid by Post Office Ltd across the whole network in 2017-18 was 17% lower than in 2013-14, and that is before adjusting for inflation. As a result of the transformation programme, new post office models—main, local, and local-plus offices—are paid on commission only for the transactions they carry out. Main-model offices receive commission rates that are roughly one third higher than local-model offices It is with this backdrop that the Post Office is currently engaged in renegotiating the deeply unfair banking contracts with UK Finance, the body that represents the banks. Given that the Government have hidden behind the post office network countless times at the Dispatch Box while defending bank branch closures since 2015, and that, on behalf of the public, they own the Post Office, I hope that they will act as the proper stewards of the Post Office they should be and ensure that the deal ends up being a fair and sustainable one.
Community and Sub-Post Offices — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, because the point he is making is absolutely correct. More and more people are becoming dependent on post offices precisely because of the bank closures. The whole of Maryhill Road in my constituency, which I know he is familiar with, is going to be left without a single bank due to closures of all kinds of branches, and that is just since we were all elected in 2015. It is absolutely vital that the post offices on that street—a very long street—are supported to continue to maintain support for the people who need face-to-face banking services.
Community and Sub-Post Offices — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Gavin Andrew Stuart Newlands (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. I will come on to detail some of that shortly, if I get a minute between interventions The recent survey by the National Federation of SubPostmasters makes for stark reading both for Post Office Ltd and the Government. It found that 77% of sub-postmasters believe that their remuneration rates for business banking are unfair, while only 9% thought them fair, and 67% thought the rates for personal banking were unfair. If that is felt in such huge numbers, I am confident that there is a serious problem emerging that must be addressed quickly. If the number of banking transactions were to continue to increase, 76% of sub-postmasters would be concerned that the level of profit from these transactions would be inappropriate, but 50% of them also had concerns about the volume of cash they had to hand, and a further 42% were concerned about the impact on customer queuing time I have visited post offices in my constituency, and unfortunately a picture has emerged that matches the one painted by the federation. When I spoke with those at Ferguslie Park post office, they agreed that the fees they received were not adequate, especially for the amount of transactions that they carry out. That post office plays an important role in administering and advising on benefit payments and has had little success in making sales on the likes of life insurance, savings accounts, mortgages and home insurance. It is therefore especially important that the post office has a secure financial future The federation is also concerned about post office closure rates. In July 2018, nearly 1,000 post offices in the sub-postmaster network were listed as temporarily closed—8% of the entire network.
Community and Sub-Post Offices — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Gavin Andrew Stuart Newlands (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I totally agree. The first thing that has to be done, though, is to increase the rates that make post offices viable in the modern age. I hope the Minister will take that step In 2018, sub-postmasters were far more likely to state their intention to close in the coming year than small businesses in general, with 22% intending to close or downsize their operation. Those with such plans overwhelmingly came from deprived areas. Sub-postmasters also face increasingly difficult working conditions, with often 40-plus hours being dedicated just to the post office side of their business and 27% of them working longer hours in 2018 than 2017. They average fewer than 10 days’ holiday each year, and one third took no time off whatsoever. They also face less take-home pay, with 61% taking home less in 2018 than 2017, 76% making less than the national minimum wage for hours worked and 19% of them or their partners taking on extra work to supplement their income Since network transformation, many post offices designated as local post offices, such as Kirklandneuk in my constituency, have had some services removed, such as Parcelforce services and passport services, which may otherwise cross-subsidise the lack of remuneration for banking services. Clearly that would be less of an issue were they simply paid a fair rate from the banks.
Syria: Civilians in Idlib — House of Commons, 2019-06-18
Topic: Immigration
Questions: To ask the Minister for the Middle East what assessment he has made of attacks on health facilities and the fate of civilians in the Idlib area of Syria, and if he will make a statement.
Martin John Docherty-Hughes (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The signatories 70 years ago to the fourth Geneva convention, which is international humanitarian law, would not have been surprised that the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) has had to request this urgent question As a constituency MP with more than 40 Syrian families seeking refuge in my home town of Clydebank in West Dunbartonshire, it is my duty to represent them here. I have two specific points to raise with the Minister. First, in engaging with the United Nations, and maybe reforming international humanitarian law, we need to recognise that NATO leads on what is now called the importance of civilians in operational planning to ensure the protection of civilians. Secondly, with any increase in refugee numbers, will he assure existing refugees across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that the necessary investment to ensure their safety, wellbeing and health will not only continue but increase?
EU/British Citizens’ Rights — House of Commons, 2019-06-18
Topic: Immigration
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I commend the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) not only for securing this urgent question but for his tireless efforts on behalf of EU nationals in the UK and of UK nationals overseas. I welcome the assurances in the Secretary of State’s letter, but two big questions still remain. First, why has it taken so long to get not very far? Three years since the referendum, the UK Government have still failed to give the assurances that the Scottish Government were prepared to give the day after the referendum if only they had the powers to do so. I welcome the assurances from the Government, but those assurances ring hollow when we remember the shameful complacency this Government showed two weeks ago when they completely washed their hands of the fact that thousands of these same citizens were denied the basic right to vote in European elections. Why do the Government still insist on a settled status scheme based on, "You apply and we might say no"? And they do say no; far too often, and for no valid reason, they turn down applications from my constituents and others. Why do the Government not go for the scheme the Scottish Government have suggested, which is simply an approach of, "This is your home, thank you for being here, please stay"? Why can we not have a system that recognises residency here as a matter of right, not as a privilege at the whim of the Home Office The Secretary of State’s letter said that devolved Administrations support his approach. The letter he referred to from Mike Russell finished with the words that EU citizens "are our friends, our colleagues and our family and they deserve to stay in the place they have chosen to call home without the insecurity that Brexit has created." If the Government agree with that, why do they not get rid of the insecurity right now, and guarantee unconditionally and permanently the rights of all 3 million EU nationals who currently call these islands their home?
EU/British Citizens’ Rights — House of Commons, 2019-06-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): A significant number of my constituents in Edinburgh South West are EU nationals, and many have been in touch with me to say that such confidence as they had in the British Government’s commitment to their rights post Brexit has been severely dented by what happened, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) mentioned, on 23 May, when many EU citizens throughout the United Kingdom were denied their right to vote. What specific steps is the Minister taking to rebuild the confidence of EU citizens in the UK in the Government’s commitment to their rights, given that many of them were denied the basic right to vote in the EU elections?
EU/British Citizens’ Rights — House of Commons, 2019-06-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Stuart Campbell McDonald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Contrary to what the Minister said earlier, the problem for the Windrush generation was not the fact that their status was declared in law; the problem was that they could not access documents to prove their status. Against that background, why do the Government continue to ignore calls from the3million to provide citizens with documentary proof of their status, rather than merely digital proof?
EU/British Citizens’ Rights — House of Commons, 2019-06-18
Topic: Immigration
Carol Frances Monaghan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Minister said that 750,000 EU citizens have applied through the settlement scheme, but that means that more than 2 million have not yet applied. Having spoken to many of those EU citizens, including many in the academic sector, in the NHS, and in education, I can tell the Minister today that they are not feeling the love. Does he not he realise that by continuing to use language such as "prove their rights" with regard to EU citizens, it sets the wrong tone when we are also trying not just to encourage them to stay, but to guarantee the rights of British citizens in the EU?
EU/British Citizens’ Rights — House of Commons, 2019-06-18
Topic: Housing
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The worry for people is that this has been going on for far too long. In the highlands, this issue affects families and neighbours and the very sustainability of communities, businesses and services. It is an aberration to ask highlanders to register to apply to stay in their own homes. Does the Minister not realise that the best thing to do is to simply acknowledge and grant the right for people to stay and live in their own homes?
Children and Young Persons — House of Commons, 2019-06-18
Topic: Other
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Despite the title of the motion, it was certified by Mr Speaker as falling wholly within devolved competence and therefore under the English votes for English laws scheme, so sadly the need for us to contribute on the Floor was limited. Given, however, that the Minister was very complimentary about the Scottish authorities, we thought it important that we at least heard her.
Cox Report: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-06-18
Topic: Other
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The tie example was a bad one, even though that change took a long time, as I said. The right hon. Gentleman is a proud exponent of the non-tie arrangements and decorum of this place. I do support the idea that there are things we could do. If we are to move out of this place, why are we moving to a temporary place that does exactly the same things and looks, feels and appears to be the same place? Why not try to do something different? I know the right hon. Gentleman has been paying attention to my clear and detailed agenda to replace the current Speaker. The proposals I have put forward include things such as electronic voting. Let us try to bring this place into the 21st century—
Cox Report: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-06-18
Topic: Other
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I have a very small request. I was in the Scottish Parliament the other week. In the toilets, they have posters that give contact details to report behaviour if someone feels that they have not been treated with dignity and respect. Could something like that happen in this building, and could it happen quickly?