argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Brett Charles Anthony Elphicke (Conservative, Centre-right): It is pity to hear that from the shadow Secretary of State who served in a Government who allowed the sort of integration in the energy market that permitted generators to integrate vertically so that providers at the downstream end were able to have an unnecessary and wrongful monopolistic position That brings me to the key point that switching is a really important part of a competitive market. It is a real shame that the Opposition have sneered at switching and mocked its importance. They seem to want some kind of monopolistic Leviathan of energy oligopolies that they had when they were in office. I think that is wrong and that we need to encourage competition and switching. When I switched, I made a substantial saving and all Members should encourage people to do the same. We should be there for our constituents as consumers, helping them by urging them to be aware of how to get the best possible deal What we have seen in today’s debate is complete chaos in the Labour party’s position on the energy market, just as we have seen complete chaos when it comes to their economic policy. Time and again, and so close to an election, the Labour party is simply all over the place when it comes to the kind of policies that go to the heart of how our consumers, our constituents and our people will live. That underlines the fact that we need a long-term economic plan, which Government Members have, and that this Government’s longer-term planning on the energy market is clearly the right way forward, getting consumers the best deal.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
David Mowat (Conservative, Centre-right): I have a quick question on the price freeze—or price thaw, as it now is. In the event that prices fall during the time of the price freeze, will companies be permitted to increase them subsequently, and if so, to what level: the previous level, the new level—or will some pronouncement be made on that subject?
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Amber Rudd (Conservative, Centre-right): This has been a welcome opportunity to debate one of the biggest issues in British politics, and there have been some lively contributions from both sides of the Chamber. Helping households to stay warmer for less has been the No. 1 priority for this Government. That is why, since coming into office, we have been working hard to make the energy market more competitive and to break the stranglehold of Labour’s big six We have taken action to encourage switching, to reduce policy costs on bills and to support the first competition inquiry since privatisation. Indeed, since 2010, the number of independent suppliers has nearly trebled, to 19, and their market share is now the highest on record, at 10.5%. We have slashed the number of energy tariffs and ensured that suppliers are putting people on the cheapest variable tariff, helping consumers to save up to £200. New figures suggest that the savings could be up to £300. We supported the first competition inquiry since privatisation. The Labour Government did none of those things when they had the chance Yesterday, E.ON announced that it was cutting its standard variable gas price by 3.5%. That is very welcome news for households, and energy suppliers must continue to pass on savings from lower gas prices. Yet the chief executive officer of E.ON has admitted that, given the possibility of a price freeze, the company was "undoubtedly taking a risk". We should be clear that this reduction would not have happened under the Opposition’s ludicrous price freeze policy, which would have resulted in high bills being frozen until 2017 and families being unable to feel the benefit of falling global gas prices.
Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Environment
Andrew Theakstone Percy (Conservative, Centre-right): I share with the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) the Scunthorpe steelworks, which are very important to our constituencies, as well as to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers). One mistake made by this Government—my hon. Friend and I voted against them on this—was on the carbon floor price. One way to make things better would be to increase accessibility to UK Government work and contracts. There is general agreement on that, but we have not seen a great deal of progress.
Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Edward Vaizey (Conservative, Centre-right): If I am unable to answer any of the specific questions that were asked in the time allocated to me, the Minister responsible for the industry will write to each and every Member who has contributed to the debate The main issues that arose from the debate are the need to compensate the steel industry for the high energy costs resulting from the renewables obligation and other mechanisms designed to reduce carbon, a procurement strategy as part of a metals strategy, business rates, the future of the long products division, and CARES. As the Secretary of State explained at length, we are giving as much energy compensation as we are allowed to give under European rules. We are working as fast as we can to get state aid clearance, so that we can increase the level of compensation. We are working with industry to introduce a metals strategy. We hope that such an industry-led strategy will be produced in the next few months, to be published, provisionally, in the summer The future of the long products division is a very serious issue and Ministers are engaged with it. The Prime Minister and the Business Secretary met north Lincolnshire MPs, and the Secretary of State and the Minister with responsibility for such matters met Klesch. As I understand it, our officials are supporting the Syndex report, which will be published this month and will look at the rationale for sale and alternative proposals. We hope that the proposals will come forward at the end of February or the beginning of March. Those could include a commercial solution or working with organisations such as the Green Investment Bank or Infrastructure UK. As has been well trailed, an extensive review of business rates is being undertaken, and a £1 billion package of business rate support is already in place. We do understand that the steel industry, like other large industries, is concerned that new investment in plant and equipment affects the business rate valuation, thereby increasing business rates. It wants such new investment to be excluded, and I would expect the Treasury to consider that as part of its ongoing consultation. However, Members should understand that this includes the whole business rate framework, and needs to be consulted on.
Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Edward Vaizey (Conservative, Centre-right): We are in the hands of the European Commission. There is a bottleneck on state aid and, having previously dealt with a state aid issue myself, I know that despite time being of the essence from the UK Government’s perspective, that is not always the Commission’s view. On energy prices, I remind Members that France has the benefit of extensive nuclear power, and Germany has the benefit of having grandfathered previous state aid rights into its current energy prices and state aid support As I have said in other debates, the important issue of rebar has been looked at in some detail and we have asked CARES to examine how it is dealing with it. It has increased sampling and checks—
Horticulture (Skills and Training) — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Edward Vaizey (Conservative, Centre-right): I apologise for it being me again. I seem to be dominating proceedings in the House this afternoon, representing the Government across a range of fronts, from steel to vegetables. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) on an important and timely debate on the horticulture industry. He is quite right that we do not have enough time to go into all the issues that we could cover under the auspices of this debate. Certainly, I could have carried on listening to him for a great deal longer, particularly his pun-tastic approach in talking about home-grown skills I was interested to hear about my hon. Friend’s boy scout gardening badge, which shows that we are never too old to learn a new skill. He was slightly modest in outlining his horticultural achievements. I have been informed by a good source that he has made a prize-winning blackcurrant jam.
London-based Civil Servants — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Macroeconomics
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): As part of our long-term economic plan to save taxpayers money and to pay off the deficit, this Government have reduced the size of the civil service like for like by 21%—that is after adjusting for machinery of government changes. That has increased productivity and saved the taxpayers £2.4 billion last year alone compared with spending in 2009-10. The reduction includes a substantial cut in the number of London-based civil servants.
London-based Civil Servants — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Government Operations
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely share the right hon. Gentleman’s hope about the United Kingdom, and wish to add my thanks and congratulations to the civil servants at DFID who do such a fantastic job in Scotland. There is scope for civil servants to work in many places other than central London and we will continue to pursue that.
London-based Civil Servants — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Government Operations
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): Although transferring civil servants to other locations and downsizing are necessary, do they not make the whole business of managing the personnel in the civil service much more difficult? Will my right hon. Friend give full backing to the new chief executive of the civil service to strengthen the data held by the Cabinet Office on the skills and capabilities among civil servants so that we do not disrupt the training and career paths of the people on whom we depend?
London-based Civil Servants — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Government Operations
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): As my hon. Friend well knows, the quality of data in central Government that we inherited was not good. It is getting better, but there is much more that needs to be done. The new chief executive of the civil service, who has got off to a terrific start, has a lot of experience in the management of big, complex dispersed organisations from his business background and I am sure that he will want to discuss that further with my hon. Friend.
London-based Civil Servants — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Government Operations
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the need to support the development and skills of civil servants and to provide them with rewarding jobs. Obviously, the purpose of the civil service is not to provide jobs but to serve the public. I am happy to tell him that morale in the civil service, as measured in the annual people survey, has held up very well—it has certainly not fallen since the last year that his Government were in office—despite the very considerable demands made on it and the downsizing to which I have referred.
London-based Civil Servants — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Government Operations
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman and I have discussed that in the Chamber before, and I completely understand his concern, particularly about the shared service staff in Alnwick. The machinery is not always as simple as it might be, but there is more that we can and should do to ensure that jobs are located in places where they can be undertaken efficiently and effectively with good results for the taxpayer and the citizen.
Miners Dispute (Outstanding Documents) — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Government Operations
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): I really have nothing to add to what I have already said and what has been said on previous occasions. The same considerations were applied to these papers as apply to the release of Government papers generally, which means that those that are personal or sensitive are not released in the normal time scales. I know that there are very strong feelings about this. I was a Member of Parliament for a coal mining constituency during the mining strike, and the mining community was deeply divided during that period. I am well aware of the sensitivities of that period.
Miners Dispute (Outstanding Documents) — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Jonathan Peter Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): Will my right hon. Friend note that the appetite for everything to be disclosed is shared by some Government Members, most particularly because I can recall the unlawful killing of the taxi driver David Wilkie and the recent revelations from the former right hon. Member for Pontypridd that following the event a number of papers at the NUM offices in south Wales were deliberately burnt and destroyed?
Miners Dispute (Outstanding Documents) — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Government Operations
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I am a strong supporter of transparency and am proud of what this Government have done to make us the most transparent Government in the world. There is a concern, and that was a very bitter period in our nation’s life, but the normal considerations about the protection of personal papers must be followed in this case as in others.
Miners Dispute (Outstanding Documents) — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Labor
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): I think that the hon. Gentleman’s case would be stronger if at that time he had made the case for the National Union of Mineworkers to have a proper ballot of all its members so that they could decide whether they wanted to be brought out on strike, rather than being bullied and intimidated into it.
Miners Dispute (Outstanding Documents) — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Labor
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): As I say, the papers have been released, subject to the normal considerations about protecting sensitive and personal documents. Again, I do not recollect—the right hon. Lady and I were elected on the same day and were Back-Bench Members of Parliament during that period—hearing her voice being raised to support a proper ballot of mineworkers on whether they wanted to go on strike at all.
Big Society Network/Society Network Foundation (NAO Report) — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: What assessment he has made of the implications for his Department’s policies of the findings of the report from the National Audit Office entitled “Follow-up: grants to the Big Society Network and the Society Network Foundation”, HC 840.
Robert Owen Biggs Wilson (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the NAO report into the matter, which found that there were no issues with Cabinet Office processes and, as a result, did not make any recommendations. Therefore, I do not feel that there are any wider implications for the policies of my Department.
Big Society Network/Society Network Foundation (NAO Report) — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What assessment he has made of the implications for his Department’s policies of the findings of the report from the National Audit Office entitled “Follow-up: grants to the Big Society Network and the Society Network Foundation”, HC 840.
Anthony Brian Baldry (Conservative, Centre-right): One of the lessons for us all to learn is the transformative potential of social enterprises encouraged by the Treasury—social enterprises such as the Cinnamon Network, which does everything from running food banks to helping people when they are released from prison. Social enterprises have the potential to make a real change in our society.
Big Society Network/Society Network Foundation (NAO Report) — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: What assessment he has made of the implications for his Department’s policies of the findings of the report from the National Audit Office entitled “Follow-up: grants to the Big Society Network and the Society Network Foundation”, HC 840.
Robert Owen Biggs Wilson (Conservative, Centre-right): As the hon. Lady knows, it has long been the convention in this and previous Administrations that the minutes of ministerial meetings are not routinely released, but all the information pertinent to this issue was shared with the NAO in the course of its investigations. As for the Tory party donors that she mentioned, it is not the case that any of the trustees gained financially from the Cabinet Office funding. The matter has been investigated by the Charities Commission and the NAO twice, and which both found no evidence of what she suggests. Furthermore, the trustees of the charities have invested significant personal resources into them.
Trade Union Facility Time — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Labor
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): At the time of the last general election there was no proper monitoring of trade union facility time in government. We now have controls in place that have saved taxpayers £25 million in the last rolling year to date, and have reduced the number of taxpayer-funded full-time union officials in central Government from 200 in May 2010 to fewer than 10 now.
Trade Union Facility Time — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Labor
Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure everybody in the House believes that employees in whatever sector should be given both the right and the opportunity to be properly represented with their employers, be it by trades unions or others, but the majority of my constituents and, I suspect, the majority of people in this country would still be quite shocked and unhappy to discover that we are still funding public servants, who should be working for the public service, to support trade union activity that has nothing whatever to do with what they are paid for. Will my right hon. Friend bear down on the remaining members given facility time in the public service?
Trade Union Facility Time — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Labor
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): As I say, the amount of facility time has been reduced significantly. There is a perfectly proper use of facility time for trade union duties in resolving grievances and dealing with disputes locally and effectively, and we support that, but there was also a huge amount of unmonitored and out-of-control, paid-for activity supporting trade unions, including in many cases paying for civil servants to attend seaside conferences of trade unions at the taxpayers’ expense, and that seemed to us to be wrong.
Trade Union Facility Time — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Labor
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that the proper use of a trade union presence and the use of facility time on trade union duties, as defined by law, can be very beneficial, and we support it, but what was going on went way, way beyond that. It was completely out of control, and it was quite right that we should bear down on it by first monitoring it and then reducing it. We have now reduced the amount of money spent on it to less than 0.1% of the pay bill in the civil service, and that was quite right.
National Citizen Service (Colne Valley) — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Education
Robert Owen Biggs Wilson (Conservative, Centre-right): Next year will again see NCS programmes taking place in every local authority across England. I know that my hon. Friend has seen at first hand the transformative effect that the NCS has had on participants in and around Colne Valley, where about 500 young people took part in it last year. The NCS will continue to grow this year, and I urge all MPs to visit a programme near them.
National Citizen Service (Colne Valley) — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Jason McCartney (Conservative, Centre-right): As the Minister said, I saw at first hand the benefits of the NCS when last year I attended a tea party with Moor End academy students at Astley Grange nursing and care home that brought together many different generations and people from different ethnic backgrounds. Does he agree that the NCS has also been very effective in promoting community cohesion?
National Citizen Service (Colne Valley) — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Education
Robert Owen Biggs Wilson (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes. Independent evaluations of the NCS have shown that participants feel more positive about people from different backgrounds and have a greater sense of responsibility to their community. The last evaluation also demonstrated that parents believed their children had a better understanding of their local community after taking part.
Digitising Government Services — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Technology
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): Britain already has a high level of digital inclusion, and it is rising, but we are determined to go further and get more people online. We are working closely with almost 70 organisations from the private and voluntary sectors that are signed up to our digital inclusion charter. I have no details of exactly what is going on in my hon. Friend’s constituency, but I would happily share them with him.
Digitising Government Services — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Technology
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): I am happy to welcome the hon. Lady to the movement for open data. Under the coalition, the UK Government have become the world leader in open data. There is more that can be done with sharing data, but it is very sensitive and difficult. We are determined not to make the mistake that her party made in government when it had a train wreck in trying to move data sharing too fast. We have a lot of ongoing work on this, and I would be very happy to share the thinking with her.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Government Operations
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): Our concern with public body reform has always been to ensure that accountability is improved. A number of functions have been brought within Government to make them directly accountable to this House through Ministers. A number of other activities have been discontinued completely. The number of public bodies has been reduced by about a third. When we came into office, there were no data about the actual number of public bodies. In addition to increasing accountability, we have also saved the taxpayer very considerable amounts of money.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Technology
Questions: Given the recent cyber-attacks on the United States, what strategies are the Department and the Government putting in place to protect Britain and Britain’s corporations from cyber-terrorism?
Francis Maude (Conservative, Centre-right): This is a very real and live concern. Our cyber-security strategy—I reported to the House on its third year of operation in the last month of the year—has been backed with £860 million of new money. We take this very seriously, but much more will need to be done because the threats are moving on very quickly, as well as the need for the defences.