argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Early Parliamentary General Election Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-29
Topic: International Affairs
Catherine Jane Smith (Labour, Centre-left): This Government are in complete disarray. After yesterday’s vote, we now have a Prime Minister who has suffered 10 embarrassing defeats in this House and two historic court rulings against him. He has shown his utter incompetence as Prime Minister The Prime Minister came to office promising to deliver Brexit by 31 October, accompanied with the usual sensationalist language about dying in a ditch that we have come to expect from him. It has been clear for some time that this was never a realistic proposition. Sadly, rather than accepting the reality, fronting up and admitting to making an irresponsible pledge, he chose simply to break his promise, costing the taxpayer over £100 million in advertising, not to mention the production and destruction of 10,000 commemorative 50p coins in the process—things are literally in meltdown To this day, the Prime Minister continues to try to deflect the blame for breaking his word on to anyone he can think of. I would call it the politics of the schoolyard but frankly at Parkview School we were better behaved than this, and I believe the vast majority of our children and young people would behave more honourably in similar circumstances It is clear that a general election is needed because this Government have lost the trust of our country, because we know the damage a no-deal Brexit will do to jobs and industries all across this country, and we cannot trust the Prime Minister to be true to his word. We have consistently said that we will support a general election once no deal is absolutely off the table, and when the date for the election can be fixed in law. We have now reached that point.
Early Parliamentary General Election Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-29
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): This is just a technical question. If the general election is on 12 December, when will the new Parliament sit and when will we have a Queen’s Speech? When this was last done in 1923-24, with the general election on 6 December, the Queen’s Speech was not until 15 January, which would make it difficult to get any serious business done by the end of January.
Early Parliamentary General Election Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-29
Topic: Government Operations
Ian Colin Lucas (Labour, Centre-left): We are talking not about technical breaches, but about collusion to break electoral spending limits: collusion in which the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Dominic Cummings were involved. That is important. I voted for article 50 and I was misled by a campaign that I found out about after I had voted. I take that seriously. Clearly, the hon. Gentleman does not. I believe in keeping the law.
Early Parliamentary General Election Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-29
Topic: Education
James Ian Mearns (Labour, Centre-left): As a school governor, I know about the disruption caused to schools used as polling stations on a Thursday. If the school has to close, that often means that children will miss not only the Thursday but the Friday, because parents will keep them off for an extended weekend. That situation would be circumvented if the poll took place on a Monday, because parents would bring their children in from Tuesday to Friday—[Interruption.] I am being told by Government Members that that is a load of nonsense, but as a school governor with about 37 years’ experience I know, unfortunately, that kids have missed important days of education on many occasions. If the amendment prevented that from happening in some schools, it would be good for that reason only.
19A First Bus Glasgow service — House of Commons, 2019-10-29
Topic: Transportation
Paul John Sweeney (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to present a petition on behalf of my constituents to maintain the 19A First Bus Glasgow service and to establish a free municipal bus service The petition states: The petition of residents of Glasgow North East, Declares that the 19A local bus service between Robroyston and Glasgow City Centre and operated by First Glasgow is a lifeline for local residents and allows them to frequently access vital local services and the city centre of Glasgow; the provision of public transport in this area is already poor, and this service cut, and the move to an hourly motorway express service with no Sunday service, would only isolate the communities in Robroyston, Provanmill, Germiston and Royston further The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons instruct that the Secretary of State for Scotland engages with First Bus and the Scottish Government to do all within his power to maintain the 19A bus service and to promote the creation of a free to use municipal bus service across the entire city of Glasgow And the petitioners remain, etc [P002537]
High Speed 2 — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Transportation
Questions: What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Transport on the potential benefits of High Speed 2 to businesses in the north.
Lucy Maria Powell (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for that reply, but six regional heads of the CBI say that High Speed 2 should be built in full and the Northern Powerhouse Partnership recently published its excellent independent review saying the same, arguing that only HS2 can really rebalance our economy. Will the Secretary of State, as the business representative at the Cabinet table, advocate for business in the north?
High Speed 2 — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Transportation
Questions: What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Transport on the potential benefits of High Speed 2 to businesses in the north.
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister may know that I am a fierce opponent of the £100 billion that is going to be wasted on HS2. Has he looked at research in France, where we see that high-speed trains actually suck more power and wealth into the metropolitan area of Paris, rather than the renewal of provincial towns? Will he have a look at the £100 billion, because that is how much it is going to cost, and will he spend it instead on investing in the workforce of this country?
Hydraulic Fracturing — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Environment
Danielle Rowley (Labour, Centre-left): Definitely not, Mr Speaker. No offence to the hon. Gentleman The decisions that we take over the next year will be critical in preventing climate change from becoming irreversible. The Committee on Climate Change has said that fracking on a significant scale is not compatible with UK climate targets. It increases local air pollution, generates huge volumes of chemical waste water, causes earthquakes and is just not necessary for the UK’s energy security. Yet the Secretary of State recently reiterated her support for fracking. Given the climate emergency, will the Government reconsider and commit now to banning fracking?
Workplace Access Rights — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Labor
Mian Faisal Rashid (Labour, Centre-left): This week shocking reports have emerged about dire workplace conditions at Amazon. Those exploited workers desperately need a union, but workers at Amazon have had their shift patterns interrupted just to prevent them from talking to union officials on the way to work. When will the Government put an end to those draconian anti-union practices, and will the Secretary of State launch an investigation into reports of workers’ rights being violated at Amazon?
Workplace Access Rights — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Labor
Questions: I believe that my constituents’ workplace rights should keep step with those of citizens across the EU, but on reading the WAB, or European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, last night I see that my constituents will have to wait on Tory Ministers deciding to replicate progressive EU change. I believe that back in 2010 the Secretary of State said her vision was for small firms to give“no minimum wage, no maternity or paternity rights, no unfair dismissal rights, no pension rights”.—[Official Report, 10 May 2012; Vol. 545, c. 209.]Is it therefore not the case that so-called progressive MPs who support the Withdrawal Agreement Bill will never be forgiven for putting the rights of workers into the hands of Thatcherites?
Laura Pidcock (Labour, Centre-left): Wow! What an answer. This is the situation for workers at Amazon: their bones are being broken, they are being knocked unconscious and they are being taken away in ambulances. Where is the urgency to step in and stop what is happening to these workers? Are the Government going to demand an urgent inquiry, or do they wash their hands of these workers? At the heart of the issue at Amazon is a hostile environment for trade unions, which are often the only force that can resist exploitative practices. A Labour Government would legislate to enforce access rights for trade unions and a robust enforcement regime. Why are the Government sitting on their hands while the richest man in the world treats his workers so disgustingly on their watch?
Photovoltaic and Battery Storage Systems: VAT — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Energy
Questions: What assessment her Department has made of the potential effect of changes to VAT for solar on the uptake of photovoltaic and battery storage systems.
Karen Elizabeth Lee (Labour, Centre-left): By raising the VAT threshold for solar installations, the Government are disincentivising the transition to green energy, and this is just one example of the Government’s failure to act with the urgency that the climate crisis demands. Will the Minister undertake today to consider adopting Labour’s plans to fit solar panels to 1.75 million low-income homes, which would combat climate change while creating jobs and reducing energy bills for people in Lincoln and across the UK?
Hydro-electric Power Generation — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Energy
Albert Owen (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the support given to hydroelectricity generation at this time. Exciting new projects in marine energy need the same support. We would not have a successful offshore wind industry had not support been given to that for decades. Will the Minister follow the work of his predecessor on this and work with the Welsh Government to ensure that this happens around the UK coastline?
Electric Vehicle Technology — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Transportation
Conor Patrick McGinn (Labour, Centre-left): Some London boroughs have hundreds of electric vehicle charging points while whole towns in the north have none, but given the lack of public transport options in places such as St Helens would it not be economically and environmentally better to invest in places such as mine to get people out of their cars?
Electric Vehicle Technology — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Energy
Chinyelu Susan Onwurah (Labour, Centre-left): Electric vehicles represent a fantastic opportunity to combat climate change and boost manufacturing jobs. That is why Labour is committed to investing £2.3 billion in three new battery gigafactories, £3 billion in support for manufacturing new car models, and £3.6 billion in our electricity grid and charging infrastructure, and we will also provide targeted interest-free loans for new electric cars for up to 500,000 people a year. We will do all that while retaining membership of the world’s largest customs union. Apart from a few ad hoc pots of money, the Government are proposing green licence plates. When it comes to climate change and manufacturing, is it not true that the Government are all hot air and no action?
British Children: Syria — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Emily Thornberry (Labour, Centre-left): I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) for securing it. His contribution was powerful and it was right. I entirely share his concerns about the dozens of innocent children—many just infants—who are legally British citizens and who find themselves, through no fault of their own, caught up in the latest upsurge in violence around the Daesh detention camps in northern Syria, triggered by the unilateral withdrawal of US troops and the subsequent invasion of the region by Turkey and its mercenary militias. The reckless and treacherous actions of the Trump Administration were always going to have human consequences, including the increased endangerment of the innocent British children living in the detention camps, nearly all of whom have already experienced—as the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden says—huge physical and psychological traumas in their lives because of what they have seen and the conditions in which they have grown up It is all very well for some to say that the sins of the father, and in many cases the mother, should be visited on the children, but that is not who we are as a country or a people. Instead, we have a moral and a civic duty to ensure that these British children are brought back to the UK to receive the shelter, care and counselling they need, even if that necessitates bringing back their mothers to face justice in our courts for the crimes they may have committed. If the Minister of State agrees with that, as I hope that he does, I must ask another difficult question, and one with which we need to wrestle If we were having this discussion two months ago, we would have been talking about negotiating the repatriation of these children with our Kurdish and American allies. Now, as a result of Donald Trump’s actions, that negotiation will need to involve Assad’s regime, Russia and what are now their Kurdish allies. So I ask the Minister of State, unpalatable as it may be, does the Foreign Office believe that in order to achieve the repatriation of these children, it will be necessary to restore formal diplomatic relations with the Assad regime, and will that be on a permanent or a temporary basis?
British Children: Syria — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): Rather than dealing with children on a case-by-case basis and risking some of the parents being released and causing further mayhem, is not the solution to repatriate all UK citizens and, if any are guilty or suspected of committing offences, to put them on trial?
British Children: Syria — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Madeleine Moon (Labour, Centre-left): I trust the Minister’s integrity and honesty, and while he has been vague about the actions that are being taken, I accept his assurance that action is being taken. But the House still requires an assurance not only that the orphans who have been identified will be repatriated, but that we will look at the children who are with their mothers, because they cannot fail to have been traumatised. I suggest that the Minister looks at the work of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, which has been asked by the UN and Washington to put together a system for bringing foreign fighters to justice.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Thangam Elizabeth Rachel Debbonaire (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to ask your advice about what measures you think the House should be taking to deal with the possible security risk of the Government’s programme motion, which tomorrow sets us up so that all Members, staff and others will be leaving at the same time, when there is no public transport and the likelihood that there will not be enough taxis. Ministers may be able to go home in their ministerial cars, but for everyone else, including staff, this is surely a security risk. What advice can you give us about what precautions we can take?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Labor
Tracy Lynn Brabin (Labour, Centre-left): I know that the Prime Minister has been doing a good job trying to reassure MPs such as me from towns that voted leave, but can he explain the loopholes on workers’ rights in the document that would not give us the security we would need on non-regression for manufacturing communities that need those workers’ rights?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Labor
Melanie Onn (Labour, Centre-left): I am sorry to say that there is a difficulty and a fundamental issue of trust in the Prime Minister’s word. If he tells the House that he is committing to reviews of matters such as unfair dismissal protections, including reducing the qualifying period from two years to one year, and anomalies in employee terms and conditions in relation to TUPE regulations, will the Government write into the Bill the date by which BEIS will begin the consultations on those really important rights?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Labor
Patrick Bosco McFadden (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Prime Minister agree with himself when he said: "We should go into those renegotiations with a clear agenda: to root out the nonsense of the social chapter—the working time directive and the atypical work directive and other job-destroying regulations." If that is what he said then, why should we believe a word he says on this now?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Catharine Letitia Hoey (Labour, Centre-left): Like the Prime Minister, I would like to get out of the European Union as speedily as possible. What more can he do to reassure the people of Northern Ireland, who feel they are being cut off? They could perhaps have accepted some regulations on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland because that happens at the moment, but they have been absolutely astonished to find that trading between Northern Ireland and Great Britain is somehow now treated as if they are sending something to a foreign country. That is not acceptable.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Environment
Caroline Louise Flint (Labour, Centre-left): I think we agree across the House that there is a climate emergency and that the UK must be a leader, not a follower, when it comes to low-carbon living. I welcome the pledge that the Environment Bill will enhance and not reduce the UK’s standards, but will the Prime Minister commit today to reinforce that ambition with a clear non-regression clause, as we have on workers’ rights, and write it into the Bill. Would that not provide some of the reassure the House needs about not only protecting but enhancing environmental standards?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Labor
Rosemary Elizabeth Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): Prime Minister, my constituents voted to leave, by 55% to 45%, but they want to ensure and believe—and it is a question of trust—that there will be certainty and decent rights for all workers as we leave the EU, and in the future. I welcome the announcement of an employment reform Bill, but given that he had his pen out in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), will he set the date and tell us when he is going to put it in this Bill so that we know when it will happen?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Owen Smith (Labour, Centre-left): I cannot believe for a minute that the Prime Minister is seeking in any way to deceive the House, but he has said repeatedly today that there will be no differences between the way Northern Ireland is treated and the way Kent or anywhere else in the reset of the UK is treated. Why, then, does the impact assessment produced by his own Government, slipped out late last night, make it quite explicit, in paragraph 241, that goods "moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will be required to complete both import declarations and Entry Summary (ENS) Declarations", which "will result in additional…costs" in Northern Ireland? How can the Prime Minister square that fact with the bluster and rhetoric he is serving up today?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Labor
James Fitzpatrick (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Prime Minister for his reassurance that workers’ rights—avoiding a race to the bottom, no regression, and so on—will be written into the Bill, because it is a huge issue for many Opposition Members and needs to be recognised by many Members on the Government side of the House. Can he give the same reassurance that consumer protection will also be written into the Bill?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Elizabeth Louise Kendall (Labour, Centre-left): Is it not the case that to secure a deal with the EU, the Prime Minister had to make a choice over Northern Ireland? The choice that he made was to sign up to EU trading rules in order to secure frictionless trade with Ireland and the rest of the EU. Is not the truth that at the end of all the negotiations that the rest of the UK will face, we will be confronted with exactly the same dilemma? Either we remain close and sign up to the rules, in which case we give up our say—so what is the point of Brexit?—or we break totally free, in which case what is the price We have not made that choice. The Prime Minister has made it over Northern Ireland, and we face it over the rest of the UK. This is not getting Brexit done; it is continuing the agony for years to come.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Gareth Craig Snell (Labour, Centre-left): May I start by thanking the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) and the hon. Members for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) and for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) for helping getting me noticed? I must have been hard to spot May I bring the Prime Minister’s attention to clause 31, which is basically the amendment that my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) and I tabled to the last meaningful vote? However, whether by accident or by sneak, the Prime Minister has managed to add a small addendum, which means that any future vote would have to comply almost exclusively with the political declaration, meaning that this House would be constrained in what it could set as the future negotiating mandate. Can the Prime Minister explain why that has appeared? Also, on the purpose of scrutiny, this Bill specifically disapplies section 20 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 which requires a 21-day resting period for all international treaties; why has the Prime Minister decided to do that on this, and is that something he plans to do on any future trade arrangements?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): We are challenging this Bill today and that is the whole point of this debate. As the hon. Gentleman well knows, my party’s policy is that we would negotiate an appropriate deal with the EU and allow the people to make the final decision. This deal leaves open the possibility of the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal by the end of next year.