argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Amber Rudd (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Women must be paid the same as men. It has been illegal, for many, many years not to give equal pay for equal work, but we are trying to take that one step further with reporting on the gender pay gap. Hon. Members will know that there has been quite a lot of reporting on substantial banking and media companies, which has shown the scale of the gender pay gap. Managing directors and senior directors are having to take action as a result, which is very welcome I am pleased to support the Hampton-Alexander review’s targets of achieving 33% of women on boards and 33% in executive committees. It is not just about getting in; it is about getting on, and women deserve to get to the top of all the professions and to get as far as their aspirations will take them I end by reminding the House of the aspirations of Emmeline Pankhurst, who famously said of the campaign for suffrage that the suffragettes had to "make more noise than anybody else" for their cause to be heard and to enact the change that they wanted. Man or woman, we must continue the legacy of the suffragettes, suffragists and their supporters. We must all make enough noise so that the agenda that I have talked about continues to be realised. This is an important debate, and I urge everyone here to continue to "press for progress", as the International Women’s Day slogan suggests, to finally achieve the true gender equality for which women have been fighting for so long.
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Cheryl Elise Kendall Gillan (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the hon. Lady on her speech and the way in which she is reflecting on International Women’s Day. Will she join me in recognising the fact that for the past 66 years we have had a female Head of State? Will she send congratulations to Her Majesty the Queen, who has presided so well over this country through smooth times and rough?
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Maria Colette Caulfield (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; she is being incredibly generous with her time. I hear with interest the proposals that the Labour party has on the table. Does she see a time when there will be a female leader of the Labour party, and if so, why has that not happened so far?
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Cheryl Elise Kendall Gillan (Conservative, Centre-right): I praise the work that my right hon. Friend does as Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee. I loved the list she gave of what we have done in government; that is an important message, because both parties have something to contribute. Does she agree that we must put forward a very positive view of women’s role in this House? The most important thing is to encourage young women to look at being an MP as a potential career. If we are always complaining and pointing out the downsides of this job, that will not be very encouraging. I encourage her Committee to look at those positives, so that young women know that this could be a job for them, and that it is one of the most fantastic jobs they could ever do.
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Maria Frances Lewis Miller (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The best thing that we are doing at the moment to encourage young women to be interested in politics is having a female Prime Minister. It was when I saw Margaret Thatcher become leader of the party and then Prime Minister of our country that politics became relevant for me. It turned politics from, frankly, a lot of old men in grey raincoats to something technicolour and relevant to me as a 14-year-old girl living in south Wales, where there were not too many Tories around. I could see an amazing role model on the television who was not only a fantastic female politician but was turning our country round from the crisis of the ’70s, when we were—
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Maria Frances Lewis Miller (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Inspiring people to get involved in politics is such an important part of our job. I want to talk about inspiring women. I might have been the first woman to be elected to Parliament in North Hampshire, but I am now joined by five other female Conservative Members of Parliament in Hampshire, including my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies). Where one woman treads, others will follow. I am very proud indeed that 60% of my borough councillors in Basingstoke are female, led by the incredibly impressive Councillor Terri Reid. It is important to recognise that as Members of Parliament, we can inspire others to become involved in politics through our work.
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Luke Patrick Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): On that point about inspiring women, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important that as Members of Parliament, we get into our schools to speak to young women and show them that being an MP is exactly the sort of job they should be aspiring to do, as is being the leader of a company? As a male MP with two female bosses, I know that women are at least as good at this job and probably better. Does she agree that a woman’s place is not, as some old-fashioned people might say, in the kitchen, but on the Front Bench?
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Maria Frances Lewis Miller (Conservative, Centre-right): What we are trying to say is that a woman’s place is in the House, which is a similar thing. I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. He is absolutely right that we need to recognise the importance of encouraging more young women into politics.
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Maria Frances Lewis Miller (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady makes such a poignant point, and I am sure all of us will reflect on the role of women in our own families in getting us here today There are other women in our communities whom we need to celebrate. We are incredibly privileged in Hampshire to have one of only four female chief constables in the country, Olivia Pinkney, who is doing an incredible job of running one of the largest police forces in the country. The chief executive of my local hospital in Basingstoke, Alex Whitfield, succeeded another female chief executive, to make sure we have some of the best health services in the area.
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Maria Frances Lewis Miller (Conservative, Centre-right): Coupled with a female Home Secretary, they make a formidable team I also want to point out the role of women in business. I represent one of the top 10 centres of business in the south-east, and it is local businesswomen in smaller businesses who I find incredibly inspiring—people like Beryl Huntingdon in my constituency, who runs a business to support other businesses. When I look at my local charities, I see it is often women who are not just helping to run existing charities—people like Evelyn Vincent, who was a founder member of Headway Basingstoke—but setting up new charities. I think of women like Charlie Porter, who set up the Muffin’s Dream Foundation to support families with disabled children, Catherine Waters-Clark, who founded Inspero to help children understand where their food comes from and how they can cook it, and Mary Swan, who is the artistic director of my local producing theatre company It does not stop there. If it was not for the women, I do not know what the Church of England would be doing. It is people like Jo Stoker of St Michael’s Church who keep our churches running. We were talking earlier about football teams. Basingstoke Town ladies football team plays in the FA women’s premier league south-west division, and I am hugely proud of the fact that they are doing extremely well—in fact, better than the men’s team.
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Cheryl Elise Kendall Gillan (Conservative, Centre-right): May I add to my right hon. Friend’s list someone I am going to see tomorrow in my own constituency? Sally Preston runs a company called Kiddylicious, which she has started from scratch. It is producing fantastically healthy children’s food and is now a multimillion-pound international business.
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Mary Josephine Robinson (Conservative, Centre-right): Would my right hon. Friend like to give credit to Northern Power Women, who this week have been winning awards in Manchester for the great change they have been making in driving forward engagement as role models and agents of change to transform the culture of organisations?
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Maria Frances Lewis Miller (Conservative, Centre-right): I want put on record the extraordinary work that my hon. Friend does, the experience as a former nurse that she brought to the Women and Equalities Committee, and the experience that she brings to the House as a whole, which provides an example for us all. She is absolutely right to highlight the importance of those stories in inspiring other women to come here.
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Matthew Robert Warman (Conservative, Centre-right): Not least because the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is nodding vigorously on the Front Bench, I take it that the white ribbon is a good campaign to join. It is obviously a weakness that I do not know a huge amount about it. I will do my best to join the hon. Gentleman on Tuesday I am not pretending that I am a paragon of virtue on this matter, or indeed on any other; I wanted to speak because I know that I am not. The more we are conscious, across this House, of where we are weak, the stronger we can be. I know how often I have failed to step up, at home, at work and in this Chamber—it is not always possible to do so, for a whole host of very real reasons—but personally and professionally, inequality is the loss of all of us. Now more than ever, we need men to stand up with women for fairness, because we will all be better off for it.
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): It is huge honour to be called to speak as the first woman Member of Parliament for Chelmsford on this, the International Women’s Day in the 100th year since women won the vote. Yesterday I became a member of the Women and Equalities Committee and attended my first meeting. There are a number of mothers on that Committee, and we were looking at the challenges faced by the parents of a newborn baby. We came up with a long list of recommendations, every one of which is to help fathers, because it is only by working together that we will achieve equality. I want to thank the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) and, especially, my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) for their contributions in this debate I am also a member of the Science and Technology Committee. As this is also the Year of Engineering, I want to focus my words on issues that affect women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. EngineeringUK estimates that the demand for graduate engineers outstripped supply by 20,000 people last year. We aspire to be a world-leading, 21st-century, innovative economy, but to achieve that we will need to double the number of engineering students at our universities. We will succeed only if we inspire the next generation of young women in our schools to take up the opportunities of science and tech Before coming to the House today, I attended an assembly at Barnes Farm Junior School in Chelmsford. I met Ada Barnes, who is in year 3. Ada told me that she is named after Ada Lovelace, who was the pioneer of computing. She invented the first algorithm that was run on a computer. She was the world’s first computer programmer and the mother of the digital revolution. We all know about Charles Babbage. He invented the machine, but she discovered what the machine could do. Ada Barnes asked me which woman in history had inspired me, so who do I choose? Do I choose my own daughter’s namesake, Elizabeth, our great Queen today? Do I choose Elizabeth I, who stood at the dockside at Tilbury as the Spanish armada was approaching and explained that she had "the body of a weak, feeble woman; but…the heart and stomach of a king" She defended our country. Do I choose my namesake, Queen Victoria, who not only ran the huge British empire, but was mother to nine children? Or, at a time when I said I want to focus on women in science, do I focus on Margaret Thatcher, not only our first woman Prime Minister, but a scientist, too? In areas of science we are doing really well, as 50% of those studying to become doctors at our medical schools are women.
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Rebecca Faye Clark (Pow) (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is my near neighbour—her constituency is almost in Somerset—and she is making such a passionate case. May I say in the spirit of cross-party relations that one of women’s great strengths is that they are very good at working together. I know that we have our differences, but when we get together—for example, on the Jo Cox campaign—we do great work. Perhaps we should highlight that more. On a day like today, we should give particular credit to the women who work together in so many areas and who can indeed do so much great work.
Vote 100 and International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2018-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Anna Mary Soubry (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her very thoughtful speech, and she is absolutely right. Those of us who, many years ago, marched and took to the streets to protect the Abortion Act 1967 and ensure that it was not in any way interfered with did so because we knew about the extremely important point that she is making. It was not because we wanted people to have terminations of pregnancies; it was all about women having a right of control over their bodies. That is about empowerment, a lack of prejudice, their freedom and a lack of discrimination.
Parliamentary and Local Elections — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Chloe Rebecca Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): Last December, we published our democratic engagement plan, setting out our current evidence on under-registered groups, our plans for deepening our understanding of engagement barriers and a commitment to tackling them. This year we are already delivering a number of projects focusing on young people and linked to the suffrage centenary celebrations.
Parliamentary and Local Elections — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Chloe Rebecca Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not think that the hon. Gentleman was listening to my answer. We are not trying to make it more difficult to register to vote. We have set out a full plan about making it easier to do so for the groups who need it most. I take this opportunity to make it absolutely clear that we have a number of record highs on our register. Since the introduction of individual electoral registration in 2014, more than 30 million people have registered to vote. Ahead of the general election last year, a record number of additional applications to register were submitted. The electoral register has reached a record level of 46.8 million electors, and we should be proud of that.
Parliamentary and Local Elections — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Chloe Rebecca Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): As I say, a range of things are set out in the democratic engagement plan. I look forward to working further with the hon. Gentleman and people across parties in this House and outside it to ensure that all those who are eligible to vote do so.
Parliamentary and Local Elections — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Ranil Malcolm Jayawardena (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that one way of increasing participation is through a clear and trusted voting system? Will the Government perhaps look at how they can roll out first past the post in more English elections?
Parliamentary and Local Elections — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Chloe Rebecca Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): The piece of evidence that I am working on at the moment relates to a call for evidence that came back from work on how to make voting in elections more accessible for those with disabilities. It is important to note that we are talking about a range of disabilities, and not just those that may be visible. That is something I am keen to focus on in my work. Indeed, I look forward to working further with the hon. Lady on ensuring that people with any disability feel able not only to participate in elections as candidates, but crucially, to register to vote.
Parliamentary and Local Elections — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Immigration
Chloe Rebecca Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): I am considering this point—a number of points need to be taken into account as we complete an orderly exit from the EU—but the broader point is that if somebody has citizenship in this country they have the right to vote, which we think is correct.
Voting Age — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Civil Rights
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government stated in their manifesto a commitment to maintaining the voting age at 18. We therefore have no plans to lower the voting age in elections. We continue to believe that the voting age should remain aligned with the age of majority at 18. This is the point at which many other key rights and obligations are acquired and is in line with international comparators.
Voting Age — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Civil Rights
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): The responsible thing for the Government to do is to stand by not just the policy we stood on in the recent general election but what we believe to be right, and it is right that the age of majority at 18 is the age at which every man and woman in this country acquires the full rights and responsibilities of adult citizenship.
Voting Age — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Civil Rights
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): I am always genuinely interested to hear what is happening in Rochdale Council, but I draw the hon. Lady’s attention to the fact that 26 of our 27 EU partners, as well as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, all have a voting age that begins at 18. I do not think that those countries can fairly be said to be not in the 21st century.
Voting Age — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Gary Nicholas Streeter (Conservative, Centre-right): May I encourage my right hon. Friend to follow the wise example of the last Labour Government, who, though they were in office for 13 years and made many radical constitutional changes, none the less did not bring forward proposals to reduce the voting age to 16—for very good reasons?
Voting Age — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Anna Mary Soubry (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree very much with everything my right hon. Friend is saying. Is not the answer to look at all the laws pertaining to the age of majority and actually have laws that make sense? As he identifies, someone is not deemed old enough to use a sunbed at 17; can get married at 16 with their parents’ permission but cannot go out and buy a drink to celebrate; and cannot drive a car until they are 17. The law is all over the place and needs a proper review. Is that not the way forward?
Voting Age — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Immigration
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend makes an interesting and valid point. I would add, of course, that we make specific protections in our law in respect of criminal justice and the asylum system, recognising that people under 18 need special protection.
Voting Age — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Other
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): I stand by the manifesto on which I stood in 2017, and, as has been made clear this morning, by the position that the Labour party took for the 13 years during which it was last in government.
Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Thomas Christopher John Pursglove (Conservative, Centre-right): As my right hon. Friend is well aware, we produce brilliant-quality steel tubes in Corby. What positive difference does he believe those public-sector procurement rules are making to our steel industry, and will he join me in promoting the use of British steel at every opportunity?
Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher James Green (Conservative, Centre-right): Severfield, in Lostock at the heart of my constituency, produces architecturally significant steel structures such as the 2012 Olympic stadium and the ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture. Will my right hon. Friend do all that he can to ensure that Government procurement buys beautiful, buys British, and buys from Bolton?
Ethical Procurement — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Oliver James Dowden (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government are committed to ethical procurement. The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 requires commissioners to consider the social benefits of their approaches to procurement, and the industrial strategy requires Departments to consider wider social and economic factors in the design of major Government contracts.
Government Procurement: SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Domestic Commerce
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and we are committed to supporting them in securing public sector contracts. Our aspiration remains to spend a third of our procurement spend with them by the end of 2022.
Government Procurement: SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Christopher Paul Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Does he agree that individual Government Departments have crucial roles to play in promoting the use of small businesses in Government procurement, in order to deliver greater diversity in the firms that are awarded Government contracts?
Government Procurement: SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Domestic Commerce
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely agree. We are working with Departments through the Crown Commercial Service to develop detailed SME action plans Department by Department, with every Department putting in place both a ministerial lead and a senior official with a role to champion small businesses. The figures so far show that more than half of Government Departments have increased the proportion they now spend on SMEs.
Government Procurement: SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-02-21
Topic: Domestic Commerce
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): I certainly hope that that will be the case, and I believe our guidelines and approach to different Government Departments will encourage small business to secure those opportunities, but it will also be a matter for the Commons Commission.