argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Misogyny in Sport — House of Commons, 2020-09-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alexandra Mary Davies-Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Member for his contribution, and I completely echo his call. I have not had the opportunity to meet the hon. Lady yet, but I wish her well from the House. I know that she is a passionate advocate for women’s sport, as am I, and I am glad that we could work cross-party on this As I said, there are some real trailblazers in traditionally male-dominated sport. I am sure that we will be seeing my two nieces, Katie and Robyn, on prime-time sports programming in the near future—well, fingers crossed anyway. From Tegan Nox, a proud Welsh valleys woman who is making waves in the wrestling world, to the formidable Fallon Sherrock, who I am sure will teach the men a thing or two in the upcoming world series of darts, it cannot be denied that women really can compete alongside the very best, regardless of gender. I am sure that the Minister will agree that these women are excellent examples of the very reasons why women and girls should be given equal opportunities early on in life Lastly, it would be foolish of me to secure such an important debate without touching on the decade-long period of cuts that has seen sports clubs and facilities fold at the hands of this Government. In July 2019, it was reported that since 2010, more than 700 council-run football pitches across the UK have been lost forever.
Misogyny in Sport — House of Commons, 2020-09-16
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Alexandra Mary Davies-Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I completely agree with the hon. Member and thank her for her contribution On that subject, by contrast, the Welsh Labour Government’s Vision for Sport truly prioritises the needs of people in Wales, and we are seeing some fantastic local initiatives pop up. In my constituency of Pontypridd, the local Labour-led council set up the fantastic "Dark in the Park" project in conjunction with Newydd housing association. This project uses local outdoor spaces such as Ynysangharad park to deliver a couch-to-5k running activity in the evening for local people To conclude, I would like the Minister to join me this evening in acknowledging the deeply misogynistic behaviours that still exist across the sport industry. While it would be foolish of me to ask the Government to intervene on the practices in sports clubs boardrooms across the country, I can ask that he and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport actively encourage better practices for clubs, big and small. I specifically request that he consult the Chancellor ahead of the upcoming autumn Budget to ensure that local authority spending is not subject to further cuts that will impact the availability of sports facilities for all.
Misogyny in Sport — House of Commons, 2020-09-16
Topic: Civil Rights
Alexandra Mary Davies-Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I completely agree with the hon. Member’s calls. If we do not see women’s sport, there is no women’s sport. It needs to be visible to all of us for all of us to be encouraged to take part and see those heroes, so that we have heroes for our young people to look up to I also request that fair funding is given to the devolved nations in terms of the Barnett consequentials, which will allow for small steps to be taken to provide equal opportunities for everyone interested in sport. Ultimately, leadership to eradicate sexism and misogyny must start at the top. The road to ending this deeply entrenched inequality is undeniably long—a marathon, not a sprint, if you will—but until we see real change from the Government and a true commitment to eradicating sexism and misogyny in sport, I am afraid that the conversation will not even get off the starting blocks. Diolch.
International Travel — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alexander James Jorden Norris (Labour, Centre-left): Like many hon. Members, I have had frequent contact from bemused constituents who cannot understand why day after day they see on their television pictures of thousands of people streaming in through our airports with neither testing at the airport, which the Secretary of State said would not be effective, nor testing a number of days later, which the Secretary of State conceded would be effective, and nor, indeed, without, seemingly, tracing of where those people are going and who they are meeting. For hundreds of thousands of those journeys it is too late, and if those people were bringing coronavirus into the country then it has now happened, but we are responsible for what happens from today. Will the Secretary of State give a clear assurance that for every single person arriving at a UK airport we know where they are coming from, we know where they are going, we know whether they quarantine, and we know whether they have the coronavirus or not and, if so, we know who they met? If not, all the talk today is moot.
International Travel — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Tracy Lynn Brabin (Labour, Centre-left): It has been incredibly heartening, during this pandemic, how our communities have come together and done the right thing. They have followed the rules, and it is great to see. However, during this quite chaotic conversation about tourism, with tourists coming back from Leeds Bradford and Manchester airports, I have constituents now contacting me on email and by telephone concerned that their neighbours are not doing the right thing. Is the Secretary of State aware of this, what is he going to put in place to protect those people—particularly in constituencies such as Batley and Spen, where, in Batley, we have enhanced restrictions—and what is he going to do to reassure constituents like mine?
Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Barry Strachan Gardiner (Labour, Centre-left): I disagree with XR’s strategy of targeting the press, but there is an irony in a Government who are renowned for avoiding the scrutiny of the mainstream media and happy to undermine the impartiality of the BBC and to welcome Fox News to these shores, now posing as the protector of free speech in order to suggest they may change legislation to criminalise peaceful disobedience by Extinction Rebellion. Is the Minister not ashamed to bracket in this statement peaceful protesters with murderers on the rampage, and will he, for the record, unequivocally acknowledge that the XR protesters were peaceful?
Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Housing
Stephen James McCabe (Labour, Centre-left): I also want to offer my thanks to the police and the emergency services who dealt with the incident in Birmingham. The suspect in Birmingham appears to have been arrested in a house in multiple occupation in a residential part of my constituency. By happenstance, I had a useful discussion today with officials at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government about the dangers of an over-concentration of HMOs and non-commissioned supportive accommodation in particular areas. I want to express my thanks to the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall), for arranging that. Does the Minister agree that if this person was resident at such accommodation, it further raises safety and security concerns regarding that type of accommodation and suggests that the Home Office as well as MHCLG and the Department for Work and Pensions should be involved in any review?
Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
George Edward Howarth (Labour, Centre-left): On behalf of the people of Knowsley, may I express our solidarity with the people of Birmingham? In a free society, peaceful protest is important, as is a free press, but does the Minister agree that that does not extend the right to any group to prevent the people of Knowsley from going about their lawful business? Will he also confirm that the police have all the powers they need to prevent the unfortunate events that took place in Knowsley and elsewhere over the weekend from being repeated?
Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour, Centre-left): Five white billionaire men own the vast majority of the papers in our country. That is not free press; that is monopolistic press. It is laughable to suggest that one day of disruption causes a disruption to the fundamental principle of the free press. Protests are disrupting. If we are to support the idea of protest, we must not overblow the issue. Of course there are crimes and people will be punished for them, so why has the Minister decided to give a statement on XR and not on the far-right protesters who disrupted Dover this weekend? Does he only care when it is climate change protesters and not when it is racist thugs in our ports?
Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand, and the democratic right to peacefully protest is absolute but sits alongside a responsibility to respect the law. Parliamentary time is at a premium. On the radio yesterday, the Minister’s former colleague and ex-Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, stated that no new law laws were required if the police used the substantial powers they already have. So is this partly a question of police resources, and how do we ensure that the existing laws are used?
Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Richard Burgon (Labour, Centre-left): Direct action is a proud part of our history and democracy. Through it, the Chartists and suffragettes helped secure the right to vote and trade unions won the eight-hour working day and paid holidays, and it played a key part in securing legislation for gay rights and for women’s and racial equality. If pursued, would not the Home Secretary’s suggestion of defining Extinction Rebellion as a criminal gang be a betrayal of our proud tradition of civil liberties?
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sarah Ann Jones (Labour, Centre-left): Let me begin, as I have at every stage of this Bill, by saying that we on the Opposition Benches support the Bill. The Minister knows that. We are keen to be as supportive as possible, but let me reiterate the point that I have also made at every stage, which is that this Bill is a shamefully inadequate response to the multiple problems for fire safety, which were so tragically brought to the fore when 72 lives were lost in the Grenfell Tower fire. The Bill—all three clauses of it—goes nowhere near far enough to prevent a tragedy like Grenfell from happening again The Government said that the introduction of the Fire Safety Bill would take them a step further in delivering the inquiry’s recommendations and recently cited the Bill as one of their key priorities in response to a deeply frustrated letter from Grenfell survivors. Yet the Bill does not even include provisions for any of the measures called for by the first phase of the inquiry The Grenfell community were failed by a system that did not listen to them. We must never forget that failure. I pay tribute to Grenfell United, the families and the whole community for continuing to tirelessly fight for justice. They should not have had to fight so hard, and hundreds of thousands of people across the country are now being failed by a system that does not listen to them—those stuck in buildings with flammable cladding, those using their income to fund waking watch and other safety measures, and those who cannot buy or sell their flats because the mortgage market has been ground to a halt by confusion and lack of Government leadership.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Housing
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend starts absolutely with the crux of the matter. She will be aware that, in my own constituency of Cardiff South and Penarth, we have thousands of residents in apartment blocks who are affected by these issues. The failure of companies such as Redrow, Laing O’Rourke and Taylor Wimpey to hold to their responsibilities for fire safety and other building defects is a huge problem. Does she agree that they need to take responsibility for mistakes that they may have made in construction?
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Housing
Sarah Ann Jones (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The system as a whole is fundamentally broken, and it is the developers as well as the Government who need to look to their own actions and correct them The Government have made many promises to bring justice to the survivors and their families, to change building and fire safety regulations and to do this quickly, but the Government are yet to make their promises a reality. At every stage, we have had to drag them into action. During the passage of this Bill, we have sought constructively to improve it, so that it goes further as a piece of primary legislation towards improving fire safety New clause 1 would do what the Government say must come later. It would place robust requirements on building owners or managers and implement the recommendations—the key recommendations—from phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower inquiry. The Government said that they would implement the Grenfell phase 1 inquiry in full and without delay. This new clause, which we are moving tonight, would fulfil that promise. In what is a very complex world of building and fire safety, the new clause is relatively simple. It seeks to do four things: the owners of buildings that contain two or more sets of domestic premises would share information with their local fire and rescue service about the design and make-up of the external walls; they would complete regular inspections of fire entrance doors; they would complete regular inspections of lifts; and they would share evacuation and fire safety instructions with residents. These measures are straightforward and are supported by key stakeholders. Frankly, it is pretty extraordinary that they are not already enshrined in law.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sarah Ann Jones (Labour, Centre-left): The Welsh Government have a proud record on fire safety, and I point the hon. Gentleman in the direction of the many actions that have been taken. In this case today, we are looking at the actions of the Government and their failure to act since the Grenfell Tower fire three years ago Time and again in Committee, the Minister supported what we were saying in principle but told us that we must wait for a consultation to finish, a taskforce to report, or the experts to tell us what to do. That is not good enough. We have seen with covid what can be done with political will: hospitals built in days, and whole systems restructured to respond where there is a need. If the political will was there, the Government would support this new clause and we could take one step in the direction of keeping the promises that we all made in those days and weeks after the Grenfell fire. The Government have given no timetable for when they will deliver the inquiry’s recommendations through secondary legislation. The Government have continuously pushed back on their promises while thousands of people across the country are stuck still in unsafe flats.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Housing
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend will know, and the Minister will recognise, that there are thousands of leaseholders living in flats—I support all steps being taken to improve fire safety—where, as each day passes, more bills are coming in for increased insurance and waking watches. They live in dread of the final bill for the cost of replacing the cladding, which will be completely unaffordable. It is not fair to our constituents to make them live with this nightmare that they did not cause, and I hope she will continue to urge the Government to play their part, because only the Government can solve this.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Housing
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), who have set out amendments to the Bill that are reasonable, proportionate and non-partisan, and I cannot see any reason why the Government should not support them. I do not intend to repeat the arguments they have made cogently; I will just add a few comments of my own As the hon. Member for Southend West said, he has chaired or been part of the all-party group on fire safety and rescue for more than 20 years. I cannot claim to have been a member for that length of time, but I have learnt a huge amount in the time that I have been. It is one of the most effective groups within Parliament. The all-party parliamentary group on online and home electrical safety, which my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) chairs, has equally made a huge contribution on this issue, with the support of professional bodies. I urge the Minister to listen to the advice coming from those sources I do not know anybody who does not support this Bill. It is a very short Bill, and it aims to do two things. First, it clarifies what is meant by "common parts", particularly in relation to external cladding and the responsibilities therein. Secondly, it is permissive, in terms of the introduction of secondary legislation to modify and add different classes of building in the future Had we been debating this two or three years ago, I think everyone would have said, "This is very sensible. Well done to the Government for getting on with it," but we are not. We are three years post Grenfell. It seems like a piece of emergency legislation, when we should be on to discussing the nitty-gritty and more comprehensive measures. These amendments achieve that in various ways. I will not go through each one, but I would like to mention new clause 1 We now have the results of part one of the Grenfell inquiry, and new clause 1 effectively asks the Government to take some of those recommendations on board. They include: that information on materials and construction is available to fire and rescue services; that plans of high-rise residential buildings are available; that inspection and testing of lifts is done properly; that evacuation procedures and information to residents are carried out properly; and that there is proper inspection of fire doors. A lot of us would have probably thought, pre Grenfell, that those things already happened, but they do not, and they did not. It is about time that they did. It is about time that the Government legislated and implemented these measures, rather than put out general, catch-all clauses.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Housing
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a very good point about new clause 1 and the responsibilities. Would he accept that there is a significant responsibility on the original developers, architects and those involved in construction—I mentioned Laing O’Rourke, Taylor Wimpey, Redrow and others—to make sure that they are providing and have available the original construction diagrams of buildings? We have had a huge problem in Cardiff South and Penarth of not being able to get hold of those and then very expensive testing having to be done. Of course, the cost is then passed on to leaseholders, on top of the bills they may face for rectifying these problems in the first place.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Mary Kelly Foy (Labour, Centre-left): Of course, those of us on the Opposition side welcome the Bill and support the clarification to fire safety law that it brings. In the wake of the terrible Grenfell Tower tragedy, which will stay etched in our minds despite the passing of time, it is so important that building owners take responsibility for managing and reducing the risk of fire. A key element of that is to seek to clarify which parts of the burden are covered by those requirements and what the responsibilities are. So why does the Bill feel like such a missed opportunity? It is partly about the amount of time it has taken for us to get this point, as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) outlined Back in October 2019, the Government pledged to implement the Grenfell inquiry’s recommendations in full and without delay, yet here we are with the thinnest of bills amounting to three clauses, ducking the main issues and failing to include even the simplest of recommendations such as inspections of fire doors and the testing of lifts. But it is also a bigger missed opportunity, precisely because the Government have failed to learn the lessons. Of those there are many, but I want to briefly focus on one.
Fire Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2020-09-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Katharine Helen Brooks-Osborne (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate Over three years after the Grenfell Tower fire, any improvements to fire safety legislation are of course welcome; however, the Bill in its current form is only a modest improvement on the current fire safety regime. I do not have the experiences of so many hon. Members speaking in this debate today, but as the daughter of an ex-firefighter I certainly understand the importance of these issues, and I share the concerns highlighted by the Fire Brigades Union that the views and concerns of the people who live and work in high-risk buildings should be at the heart of the new system of fire safety across the UK That means that the voices of tenants must be heard in this process. Residents have raised concerns about the removal of flammable cladding and the role of waking watches. It is disturbing that three years on from Grenfell, there are still issues around the removal of flammable ACM cladding from both social and private-sector tower blocks. Coronavirus has caused many contractors to stop work on cladding sites, while others have not even begun due to complex legal disputes. These delays mean that residents of buildings continue to face extortionate fees for interim safety measures, most commonly waking watch. The National Fire Chiefs Council’s advice on waking watch has become outdated. Its guidance suggests that waking watch should be a temporary measure, yet some residents have been forced to pay for waking watches for a number of years. This is not a sustainable solution. New clause 5 would require both this Government and the Welsh Government to specify when a waking watch must be in place for buildings with fire safety failures The voice of firefighters also needs to be heard with regard to the Bill. The FBU believes that this legislation requires investment in professional firefighters and an expansion in the number of fire inspectors. Therefore, I have great concern that the Bill gives little consideration to the additional costs to the fire and rescue services in implementing these additional inspections. That comes on top of Government cuts to central funding to fire and rescue services by 28% in real terms between 2010 and 2016, followed by a further cut of 15% by 2020. These cuts have led to 11,000 fewer fire service personnel—that is 20% of the service. On Boris Johnson’s watch as Mayor of London, in eight years the London Fire Brigade was required to make—