argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Seaborne Freight — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Other
Christopher Stephen Grayling (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. I give him an absolute assurance that I will continue that work. Frankly, the tragedy is that the Labour party seems to have abandoned interest in the national interest.
Seaborne Freight — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Christopher Stephen Grayling (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right; that is normal, and we do not actually do enough of it. The Government are frequently criticised for contracting only with big business and not with small business. Ironically, now we are contracting with small business for a small part of a package we need, we are getting criticised for it, so we cannot win either way.
Seaborne Freight — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Christopher Stephen Grayling (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not sharing, nor is it my responsibility to share, the company’s commercial information. I simply remind the hon. Gentleman that no money will change hands unless the company is running this service. That seems to me to be the best possible protection for the taxpayer’s money.
Seaborne Freight — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Christopher Stephen Grayling (Conservative, Centre-right): My officials have had detailed discussions with the management team and have gone through their plans in detail. My hon. Friend might have seen the article in Lloyd’s List, which has also been shown the business plan and gave it a thumbs-up as being a viable option. This is a team of people who have experience in this industry and who we believe will deliver this service, but of course they will be paid only if they do so.
Seaborne Freight — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Stephen Grayling (Conservative, Centre-right): We received three compliant bids, all of which we judged acceptable and accepted. Two of them were from major operators that will provide around 90% of the capacity, plus there was this small additional contract. Should we choose to return to the market, there is also potential interest in the provision of extra capacity. I hope we will not need that, because I hope that we will have a proper deal come next week.
Seaborne Freight — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Stephen Grayling (Conservative, Centre-right): I appreciate that the Scottish National party does not support Brexit and, indeed, would like to do everything it can to stop Brexit, but we will work to make sure that every part of the United Kingdom, including Scotland, is able to continue to trade freely around the world and gain from the benefits that will be achieved in this country in a post-Brexit world.
Seaborne Freight — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Christopher Stephen Grayling (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course, it is not a single contract. There are multiple contracts, of which 90% is going to two of the biggest cross-channel operators—something the Labour party appears to be completely ignoring. The fact is that we have chosen to give a small proportion of the business to a legitimate bid from a small start-up business, and I think that is something the Government should do more often, not less.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Other
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am absolutely certain that if in the urgent question anything disorderly had happened you would have immediately corrected it, but I wonder whether there is any way that the House could be asked to reflect on how much longer privilege can survive in a democratic society if it seems to appear that privilege is used for party political purposes to smear those who, perhaps, do not deserve to be smeared.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I think the hon. Gentleman knows that he has found his own salvation—he has just done that. I am bound to say to him—I hope that he will take this in the right spirit—that over the past three and a half years or so, certainly since the 2015 election, spats between members on the Scottish National party Benches and on the Government Back Benches, particularly involving those on the Scottish Government Back Benches, have become an increasing sport. They have become not merely an increasing spectator sport, but, increasingly, a participant sport. The hon. Gentleman has corrected the record as he sees it, and I hope that, as a consequence, he will go about his business for the rest of the day with an additional glint in his eye and a spring in his step.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I will go so far as to say that I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the answer to his question was not helpful. Moreover, I hope that he is with me when I say that, ordinarily, the deployment of the three words, "In due course," tends to suggest and to be interpreted by Members to mean not for quite some time. It is therefore at least mildly surprising that the hon. Gentleman got such an uninformative response, but one that perhaps suggested that progress would not be speedy only to discover indirectly, rather than at first hand, that the announcement had in fact been made. I do understand his discontent, and I can only repeat my view that ministerial replies to parliamentary questions should be both speedy and substantive. In providing such replies, it would always be helpful if Ministers saw it as a proper courtesy to answer Members first. If there are no further points of orders—
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I cannot say that I am entirely surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman volunteer that view. He and I came into the House together in May 1997, so I have known him for nearly 22 years. I think that he is probably well familiar with, and even given to regularly reciting to himself, that old adage of Lord Falkland, which is that if it is "not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change." I think we will leave it there for now, but I will always profit from the right hon. Gentleman’s counsels.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): Given the heinousness of the charges that the shadow Minister has laid against Her Majesty’s Government, I presume that this is further grist to his party’s mill for a no-confidence vote. When will that be tabled and debated in this place?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Other
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): I trust that my hon. Friend’s question was not a rhetorical one, but perhaps I can try to answer it. As far as socialism is concerned, it is absolutely fine until Labour Members have run out of other people’s money to spend. That is why they are opposed to these things.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Luke Patrick Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is giving an insightful speech. One impact of the Government’s policies is the improvement in our Gini coefficient, which is widely recognised as an objective international measure of inequality. According to that objective international measure, our inequality has reduced since 2009-10. Nothing is perfect, but it seems that the direction of policies is working.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Luke Patrick Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) made a point about being able to lower business rates in Scotland. That has been fantastic. Will my hon. Friend join me in thanking the Chancellor for putting more than £40 million into the Scottish budget so that we could fund such a business rate cut?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but we should be a little cautious about assessing a particular bit of policy in isolation without considering other policy areas, because that might result in false information. For instance, if we examined a specific bit of Government spending, it may appear to be doing a fantastic job, but if we do not consider the counter-effect and the money that is being taken away from people elsewhere, it does not provide the whole picture and might lead to poor policy decisions I want us to look at the overall impact of Government policy in the round. For example, we should look not only at the impact of raising the personal tax allowance, which is positive because it enables people on low incomes to retain more of what they earn, but at where the Government are investing money. For health inequalities, we should look harder at the extra £20.5 billion going into healthcare and the impact of the NHS long-term plan, published yesterday, which has a particular focus on directing funding to reduce inequalities and increasing funding for primary and community care. Those things will particularly help those in the most deprived areas and those with some of the worst health outcomes I know that it is enormously controversial, but universal credit—I will probably get booed by the other side of the Chamber—is helping people into work and is doing so hand in hand with an economy that is strong overall, leading to unemployment in my constituency halving since 2010.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I recognise that there is poverty in working families, but I do not agree with her use of the word "trapped". It is important to ensure that people are in work, because that is the best way out of poverty, and then to ensure that we support people to raise their earnings. One way of doing that is through the support available through the jobcentre when people resume universal credit, which now tends to help people to move up and earn more money, and the other is by looking at the wider economy. As the hon. Lady will know, the minimum wage has risen and is rising, but we are also seeing wages rising independent of the minimum wage as a result of a more productive economy. What is actually key to a better level of wellbeing and fewer people being in poverty is having more people in work, which is the case, and a more productive economy, which means that people earn more. We can achieve that through driving up skills and technology, increasing exports and a swath of other things that would take me into a whole other conversation.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that making sure people can keep more of their earnings before they pay tax, introducing the national living wage and reducing the very high taper rate for people on legacy benefits will all contribute to helping people to get out of the in-work poverty trap?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Housing
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right to pinpoint the cost of living. Opposition spokesmen sometimes dispute this, but it is more expensive to live in a rural area. It is more expensive to heat one’s home. Travel costs are higher, usually in the absence of public transport, meaning that the running of a car is not a luxury but a necessity if one is to access even the most basic of public or retail services.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Other
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not, because I want to refer to the speech by the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker). I hope that he will not think it is untoward for me to say this, but the passion with which he delivered his speech was powerful and incredibly compelling. He struck on a point that I was going to make and on which I had jotted down a note or two, and it is a point I have been making in recent speeches around the place. I often admire the Labour party—
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): There is always a "but", though. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury says that my career has definitely gone now. I did not even know that I had a career, so that is going to be interesting There is usually no embarrassment on the Labour side at talking with passion about the burning injustices that we see in all our constituencies and having a clear determination to do something about them. There is no inhibition at all on the Labour side. On my side—I say this as somebody who has been a member of our party since 1985—I occasionally find that we get slightly inhibited about talking from the heart. Other Members have referred to this. We can bandy the statistics about—relative or absolute, percentage this versus percentage that, up, down, more in this, fewer than the other—but it does not matter, because if someone is poor, the statistics do not affect them: they are poor. They want to know that their elected representatives, locally, in this place and those in Whitehall are doing their damnedest to make their life just a little better. I make this plea to my colleagues on the Treasury Bench: we on the Conservative Benches do not talk enough about the whys of politics. We talk a lot about the whats, but we do not say why. We find homelessness gut-wrenchingly upsetting. We find the closing down of hope, aspiration and life expectancy intensely moving, and we burn with the desire to help. It certainly motivates me every morning to get out of bed and to do my best for my constituents in whatever way I can by supporting policies that I fundamentally believe have the power to make our local economy, and therefore my constituents’ lives, better. If anybody in this House is not motivated by that fundamental political passion to stir up the soul to go and do something about it, I say to them with the greatest of respect that they should not be here. That, I think, must be our principal function. Members from both sides of the House want to arrive at a place where aspiration, hope and opportunity are available for as great a number of our citizens as we can possibly facilitate We also want to make sure that the economy is buoyant. Why? Because warm words butter no parsnips. The emotional speeches may salve our consciences, but we need the economic policies that deliver the taxes and pay for the safety net below which, I am determined, none of my constituents should, or will, ever fall on my watch. We need to be ever vigilant to make sure that our economic policies are delivering that growth.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Other
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right. I think that the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) slightly misheard my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main). My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans said precisely what the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich said, which was that although the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich was in a tight or low-income household, it was a house of work.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Chris Ian Brian Mynott Philp (Conservative, Centre-right): First, is it not the case that the UK and, indeed, the entire EU currently trade with major economies, such as the USA and China, under WTO terms? Therefore, while not desirable, they can be made to work. Secondly, if we adopt the shadow Minister’s approach and rule out no deal, we have no choice but to remain in the EU or to accept whatever the EU sees fit to give us, which is not a great negotiating position.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. I am listening to the right hon. Lady, as always, with great interest and enormous respect, but may I just very gently point out that we need to hear from other Members with amendments in the group and from the Minister? I am not certain how many more Members we need to hear, but my guesstimate is at least four, and we have 31 and a half minutes.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. Just before I call the next Member, we must hear from the Minister, and the Opposition Front Bench should really have the chance, very briefly, to comment on its own lead new clause before we come to the vote.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. If the right hon. Gentleman feels able and willing to express his views in a minute, I will be delighted to hear him—I hope he will not be offended—but otherwise I will call the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Marcus Charles Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Several media outlets are quoting that I have signed a letter to the Prime Minister saying that I will vote against a no-deal Brexit. I would like to put it on the record that this is not correct. Can you advise me whether it is in order for a Member of this House to put another Member’s name to a letter when they have not given their consent to doing so? Given the febrile environment at the moment, can you make the point to the media that they should check their facts before they publish such information?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman arrogates to me almost superhuman powers if he thinks that I can advise the media upon the imperative of first checking facts before printing a story. I appreciate his confidence in me, but I fear that he has an assessment of my capabilities that is sadly unmatched by the reality. Nevertheless, he has put his point on the record, and doubtless he will circulate it more widely amongst the people of Nuneaton. New Clause 2 Review of the effectiveness of entrepreneurs’ relief "(1) Within twelve months of the passing of this Act, the Chancellor of the Exchequer must review the effectiveness of the changes made to entrepreneurs’ relief by Schedule 15, against the stated policy aims of that relief (2) A review under this section must consider— (a) the overall number of entrepreneurs in the UK, (b) the annual cost of entrepreneurs’ relief, (c) the annual number of claimants per year, (d) the average cost of relief paid per claim, and (e) the impact on productivity in the UK economy."—(Anneliese Dodds.) This new clause would require the Chancellor of the Exchequer to review the effectiveness of the changes made to entrepreneurs’ relief by Schedule 15. Brought up, and read the First time.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Housing
Cheryl Elise Kendall Gillan (Conservative, Centre-right): I support the way in which my right hon. Friend is addressing new clause 26, on which I find myself in a similar position to her. Although we want people to pay the correct taxes, I have constituents who may face losing their homes over this, after entering into what they thought were perfectly legal and allowable arrangements. Does she agree that the Treasury must address that?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Luke Patrick Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is making a very valid point. One of my constituents, an IT contractor, was advised by his own accountant. A review would be very helpful in ensuring that people receive proper advice, so that laws can be followed and taxes collected.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Other
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): It is not often that I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, as he knows, but I strongly agree with him on this issue. Retrospective legislation is bad in principle. This is an unjust provision, unreasonable and unfair, and I urge the Government to take note of the arguments put forward.
A40 in West Oxfordshire: Congestion — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Public Lands
Robert Alexander Courts (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Gentleman for that excellent intervention. He refers to two points to which I would like to draw attention. The life of rural communities is absolutely essential. I referred to the village in which I live, Bladon. It is a small village. It is one example of many villages which find that they are clogged up in turn because the A40 is so difficult.
A40 in West Oxfordshire: Congestion — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Housing
Victoria Mary Boswell Prentis (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that in Oxfordshire we are really getting behind the Government’s housing programme and going for growth? His area and mine repeatedly top the leader board for the number of new houses built. Does he agree that our road arteries are holding us back?
A40 in West Oxfordshire: Congestion — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alexander John Gervase Chalk (Conservative, Centre-right): I have spoken to representatives of businesses in Eagle Tower, in the centre of Cheltenham, which are struggling to recruit people because they cannot persuade them to travel from London. Whether the company is GE Aviation, Spirax-Sarco or GCHQ, better communications mean better recruitment and are better for the local economy.
Social Media Platforms: Harmful Content — House of Commons, 2019-03-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes. The hon. Lady makes a good point, and I think that we should ask questions about this. It is profoundly unacceptable that material such as this should be available to young people, and older people, and we must worry about the sense it creates of proper relationships and the way in which these types of activity should be regarded by any fundamentally decent society. Of course, we must understand exactly how it has got to this point in relation to this game. As I have said, I welcome the fact that the game has been withdrawn. I think we would all have been having a very different conversation this morning if it had not been.
Social Media Platforms: Harmful Content — House of Commons, 2019-03-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): In this House, we all believe in freedom of speech, but we also believe that that freedom of speech has limits, and that when people seek to intimidate others, and potentially to break the law—the description that the hon. Gentleman has given the House this morning is potentially a description of criminal behaviour—it is unacceptable. It is beyond the reach of the type of freedom of speech that we believe should be protected. As I have said, all internet companies and all platforms for this kind of speech need to take their responsibilities seriously, and I hope that YouTube will consider carefully what the hon. Gentleman and I have said, and reconsider its judgment.
Social Media Platforms: Harmful Content — House of Commons, 2019-03-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): I will of course consider what the hon. Gentleman has said, but we must ensure that we preserve our ability, online as everywhere else, to debate and discuss issues that are sometimes uncomfortable and certainly controversial. I repeat, however, that no freedom of speech can survive in this country if we do not protect people’s ability to feel free to say what they think, free of intimidation and free of the threat of violence. Those who engage in intimidation or threats of violence should not find succour online or anywhere else.