argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Closure of St Paul’s Place BIS Office (Sheffield) — House of Commons, 2016-01-29
Topic: Labor
Conor Patrick McGinn (Labour, Centre-left): I do not know why the Minister seems to be taking criticism of her decision so personally. The people who should be doing that are the hundreds of workers whose jobs are at risk and who have not heard a shred of sympathy or regret from the Minister. Local government leaders in Sheffield and places such as St Helens do not need to receive the praise of the Conservative party; they are already doing fantastic work in encouraging investment and jobs to come to our areas. Public sector jobs provide the economic ballast for our areas. The Government cannot keep cutting jobs and services and expect us to build a northern powerhouse. We are the people who are working on the ground in communities and we do not need to hear from the Minister on a day when people might be losing their jobs.
Closure of St Paul’s Place BIS Office (Sheffield) — House of Commons, 2016-01-29
Topic: Labor
Steven Mark Ward Reed (Labour, Centre-left): May I invite the Minister to do what she has so spectacularly failed to do so far this morning—apologise to the people who are at risk of losing their jobs and just show a little human compassion for people who this morning are fearful for their livelihoods, for themselves and their families?
Child Victims of Human Trafficking (Central Government Responsibility) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Steven Mark Ward Reed (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case against what is going on, but is he aware that, according to the police, the most common route by which men who want to abuse women find them is through classified ads—small ads—in local newspapers? Does he agree that Government organisations and publicly funded bodies should seek to exert pressure on those newspapers to abandon carrying such adverts by withdrawing state funding if they refuse to do so?
Gangs and Youth Violence: London — House of Commons, 2016-01-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Chuka Harrison Umunna (Labour, Centre-left): I have asked just two questions at Prime Minister’s questions on a Wednesday since I was elected in May 2010, although I have had various exchanges with the Prime Minister in this Chamber outside Prime Minister’s questions. On 7 July 2010, I told the House during PMQs that my constituent, Zac Olumegbon, had been murdered a few days before in a planned attack close to his school. He was just 15. On 8 June 2011, I came straight to the House from meeting the family of my 18-year-old constituent, Nana Darko-Frempong, who had been fatally shot outside his block of flats on the Tulse Hill estate in my constituency just a few days before On both occasions, I told the Prime Minister that this loss of life was totally and completely senseless and unacceptable. I said that I did not feel that we were getting to grips with this problem, which has been blighting our inner-city streets. On both occasions, the Prime Minister said that he agreed with me and that the Government would do all they could to stop the tragic loss of life and violence that we see Last Friday, more than five years after I first raised this issue with the Prime Minister, another constituent and his family came to my surgery. Last year, my constituent’s younger son was stabbed on the same estate as Nana. He has since been taken into foster care in another part of London for his own safety. In recent weeks, his brother was stabbed on another estate in Streatham, critically injured and taken to hospital. He cannot leave hospital because it is deemed too unsafe for him to return home Both those sons are victims, like Zac and Nana, of the serious youth and gang violence that continues to grip parts of my community. My constituent had come to the UK with his sons from Somalia, a country ravaged by lawlessness, extreme violence and civil war, because he wanted a better future for his children and for them to be safe. He is completely bewildered by what has happened. When I asked him whether he felt his sons would be safer in Mogadishu than in London, he told me that he felt it would be less dangerous for them to live there than here. He massively regrets moving them to our capital city. That is a damning indictment of the situation on London’s streets.
Gangs and Youth Violence: London — House of Commons, 2016-01-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Karen Patricia Buck (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech. Two days before Christmas, a young man I had last seen when he was doing work experience in my office was surrounded by a group of 20 youths and stabbed through the heart. He was incredibly lucky to survive. That is just one example of what a Home Office report recently indicated—that gang membership is rising, not falling. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is the worst time for the Government to consider creating insecurity through either their policy on tackling gangs and serious youth crime or their resourcing for it?
Gangs and Youth Violence: London — House of Commons, 2016-01-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Chuka Harrison Umunna (Labour, Centre-left): I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. We have worked together on the issue since I have been in the House, and I pay tribute to her for continuously shining a light on what is happening in her constituency and across London I do not want to say any more about the case of my Somali constituents, except to highlight that I have written to Ministers about the family in detail, and I ask—I beg—that Ministers exercise their discretion to grant my constituent’s two sons in particular the appropriate papers, which they do not have at the moment, so that they may travel back to Somalia to be with their mother, as the family wishes The case illustrates that for all the promises that have been made and all the attempts that local government and national Governments of different political persuasions have made to deal with the problem—I am not making party political points today—we still have a major problem of youth violence and gang culture, which is having an impact on a small minority of our youngsters in inner-city areas such as mine. The Evening Standard’s "Frontline London" campaign has done a lot to shine a light on that, and it is reporting today yet another murder of one of our teenagers on London’s streets According to Citizens Report, a not-for-profit independent organisation that carries out data research in this area, 17 teenagers lost their lives to gang and youth violence in London last year. That is an increase on the 11 young people who lost their lives in 2014. It is true that it is not the same level that we saw in about 2008-09—in 2008, 29 teenagers lost their lives on the streets of London—but let us be clear that one life lost is one too many Much of the violence is perpetrated by young people who are deemed to be gang-affiliated. Last year’s report on gangs and youth crime by the Home Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, noted that there is no comprehensive national figure for the number of gangs or the number of young people affiliated or associated with them. Some question whether we should even use the term "gang". What does it mean? I am grateful to the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies for what it has said about that. However, if we are using that term for the purposes of this debate—I accept that maybe we should not—the Metropolitan police’s latest intelligence is that there are 225 recognised gangs in London, comprising about 3,600 gang members. Those people mainly span the ages of 16 to 24, but I know of children much younger than that—I use the word "children" deliberately —who are involved with groups perpetrating acts such as we are discussing.
Gangs and Youth Violence: London — House of Commons, 2016-01-29
Topic: Law and Crime
David Lindon Lammy (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for championing the issue and securing the debate. Does he recognise that the gangs matrix profile shows that, although older young people are being picked up, that is driving down the profile of those who carry knives? Twelve and 13-year-olds are carrying knives for older individuals. That really needs to be examined.
Gangs and Youth Violence: London — House of Commons, 2016-01-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Chuka Harrison Umunna (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising that issue. He is absolutely right. In addition to age is the fact that, increasingly, vulnerable girls and young women become wrapped up in this and are used and abused and exploited sexually. In the short time we have this afternoon, it is impossible to set out all the reasons why young people end up getting involved in serious youth violence, but there are common themes. My right hon. Friend has spoken about that many times.
Gangs and Youth Violence: London — House of Commons, 2016-01-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Steven Mark Ward Reed (Labour, Centre-left): I am delighted that my hon. Friend has brought this important issue before the House. Does he share my view, which is derived from consulting the communities that are deeply affected by gang violence, that, above all else, they want more of a say and more control over the interventions that are brought to their communities and more control over how resources are used to tackle the problem at source?
Gangs and Youth Violence: London — House of Commons, 2016-01-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Steven Mark Ward Reed (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making excellent proposals, which I hope the Minister will welcome. He has not yet mentioned the effect of domestic violence. As I understand it, one of the single biggest predictors of a young person becoming involved in violence is that they themselves have experienced, or been subject to, domestic violence in the home, leaving them to grow up without a properly formed sense of right and wrong. Does he agree that more work should be done in the home, early doors, particularly where there are instances of domestic violence?
Gangs and Youth Violence: London — House of Commons, 2016-01-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Chuka Harrison Umunna (Labour, Centre-left): I completely agree with my hon. Friend. In addition to domestic violence, we should mention the fact that some issues, particularly in the home and in the family, can arise as a result of substance misuse and mental health issues. Mental health issues are always prevalent in cases like this I will finish by saying to the Minister that I do not believe we can put a cost on the life of any young person in London, but ultimately, if the Government invest in this area, they will not have to spend the moneys they would otherwise spend on putting the perpetrators of these acts through the criminal justice system. Once and for all, let us not have to have another debate in the House of Commons—let us deal with the issue.
Gangs and Youth Violence: London — House of Commons, 2016-01-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Chuka Harrison Umunna (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Minister for touching directly on this point I raised, but the disbanding of the network is a retrograde step. It is not the same as what the Government will reinstitute in its place. The nature of how gangs operate and proliferate changes, which is why we need the constant peer review the network provides. From what I understand and the information local partners have been given, it is basically being replaced by a couple of conferences, two civil servants who have added this to their responsibilities, and a mailbox.
Free Childcare — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Joan Marie Ryan (Labour, Centre-left): I have heard nothing today to assure me that when parents seek the 30 hours free childcare they will be able to find them. I do not know if the Minister is aware that in Enfield since 2010 482 early-years childcare places have been lost and 114 providers have disappeared. When parents are looking for those places, I would be very surprised if they are there on the ground. What will the Minister do to ensure that he can meet the promises his Government have made?
Free Childcare — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): At recent constituency surgeries, I have had representations from both private providers and state maintained nurseries telling me that the funding simply will not be there. It is no good blaming the sector or blaming local authorities for the fact that the Government have a model that is half-baked, underfunded and running behind time. What is the Minister going to do to make sure that the pledge the Conservatives made to parents at the general election is made real through the availability of places and, crucially, the funding to go with it?
Free Childcare — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Jenny Chapman (Labour, Centre-left): It really is all about delivery. The Minister talks about meeting all parents’ needs, but already 59 local authorities say they do not have the places to meet current obligations to three-year-olds, never mind the additional hours. What is he going to do?
Free Childcare — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Jenny Chapman (Labour, Centre-left): My party introduced Sure Start. There was no Sure Start and there were no children’s centres—no universal offer for any kind of childcare—prior to the Labour Government in 1997. The test of this will be how many families actually use the additional hours and who those families are. How has the Minister managed to concoct a system where a household with an income of £200,000 a year benefits from the additional hours, whereas 20,000 single parents on the minimum wage will not be eligible? How has he managed to come up with something so deeply unfair?
STEM Subjects — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Education
Questions: Families for schools does an excellent job arranging for business people to visit schools to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs, including science and technology entrepreneurs. Will the Secretary of State outline plans to engage more business people with more schools to encourage more young people to help build our enterprise economy, particularly in science and technology?
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister agree that no Prime Minister was more passionate about science, technology and mathematics and their power to liberate individuals’ potential than Harold Wilson? Does he further agree that Harold Wilson set up the Open University and all those polytechnics that became our new universities in order to help in that process of changing our culture? Can we not now liberate the universities to do more in partnership with schools to get this culture change that Harold Wilson worked so hard to achieve?
STEM Subjects — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Education
Questions: Families for schools does an excellent job arranging for business people to visit schools to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs, including science and technology entrepreneurs. Will the Secretary of State outline plans to engage more business people with more schools to encourage more young people to help build our enterprise economy, particularly in science and technology?
Tristram Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): In Stoke-on-Trent, we have decided to do something about the crisis in maths teaching. Will the Minister congratulate inspiring head teachers Roisin Maguire and Mark Stanyer, along with the city council and the Denise Coates Foundation, on establishing the £1 million maths excellence partnership, which was opened by Sir Michael Wilshaw last week to attract maths graduates to Stoke and to support the continuing professional development of current classroom teachers?
Careers Education — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Education
Gordon Marsden (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister will be delighted, because he has lost the punchline for his joke. He should go easy on the self-congratulation, given that the Government have presided over the disintegration of careers services for young people. Cuts have decimated council-led youth support and Connexions, and the Department has failed to include work experience in the curriculum. No wonder the CBI told it that the careers service was broken. Young people will need that help from the Careers & Enterprise Company to start repairing five years of damage. Will the Minister tell us what resources will be given to volunteer enterprise advisers—after all, only £17 million a year is going to the company—and just how many of them there will be for the thousands of schools and further education colleges that need them?
Priority School Building Programme — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Education
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): The Priority School Building programme, which was downgraded in the last Major Projects Authority report, has resulted in just one school in York being earmarked for repairs, rather than addressing the urgent needs of 10 schools, including three overdue rebuilds. It is costing the local authority £1.23 million just to keep those schools open. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the urgent need for funding for school buildings in York? Will he also review the Education Funding Agency’s condition survey, given that the data collected do not provide the comprehensive evidence base necessary to match local authority priorities?
Disadvantaged Young People — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Education
Fiona Margaret Mactaggart (Labour, Centre-left): But the Minister will be aware that children in schools in which a high proportion of pupils are on free school meals are much less likely than they were five years ago to be able to be taught by a qualified teacher in art, dance, music or drama. Two thirds of professional parents pay for additional lessons in those subjects, but parents on lower wages are much less likely to be able to afford them. Are working-class kids going to be excluded from the creative subjects in our education system?
Disadvantaged Young People — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Education
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): We know that summer schools address educational inequalities among some of our most disadvantaged pupils, as well as helping to tackle holiday hunger, yet recent surveys show that 64% of schools are worried they will not be able to offer this vital intervention because of a Government cut sneaked out just before Christmas—that was perhaps not the kind of Christmas present that vulnerable pupils were hoping to receive from the Minister. With the attainment gap now wider than it was when the Prime Minister came to office, summer schools have proven very effective in helping to give disadvantaged children a good start at secondary school. Why are Ministers ignoring this evidence and scrapping funding for summer schools?
Schools Admissions Appeals Process — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Education
Tulip Rizwana Siddiq (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State recently stated her ambition for the Government potentially to ban civil society organisations from raising concerns about the admissions processes of schools. Those organisations perform an important public duty. Constituents have been in touch with me to say that they find the admissions process too complex and too lengthy to deal with by themselves. Does the Minister agree that banning civil society organisations from raising concerns will not only exacerbate the difficulties that parents already face, but further enable breaches of the admissions code?
Numeracy Standards — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Education
Kelvin Peter Hopkins (Labour, Centre-left): May I press the Minister a little further? I have experience of teaching statistics to A-level students, and I have observed that some of those students could not do simple arithmetic because they never learned multiplication tables in early primary education. I suspect that that is still a problem today. What are the Government doing to ensure that all our children are required specifically to learn multiplication tables in their early years at primary school?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Education
Gavin Shuker (Labour, Centre-left): Luton Girls’ Academy was given £100,000 by the Secretary of State’s Department but never opened. I have repeatedly asked the Department for Education to tell me whether that money has been paid back, yet neither written parliamentary questions nor freedom of information requests have garnered an answer. When will she tell me how much money was wasted on this free school project?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Education
Questions: When I was sitting over there on the Opposition Benches I asked Prime Minister Tony Blair what he was going to do about Staffordshire, which was always in the bottom 20 for funding compared with other local education authorities. He agreed with me and said it was very unfair, and then he did nothing. May I commend the Secretary of State for getting on with this wonderful consultation? What recommendation would she give to my constituents, teachers and parents, to ensure that we get fairer funding for schools in Staffordshire?
Lucy Maria Powell (Labour, Centre-left): As the MP for the home of British cycling, may I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the amazing success of the British cycling team in the track world championships last week? On the day before International Women’s Day, the incredible Laura Trott should be singled out for her medal haul. Let us hope she is paid as much as her male colleagues, if not more—something that the Secretary of State does not seem very good at achieving for women in her own Department. There will be 156 new GCSE and A-level specifications taught from September. With just 17 teaching weeks left of this school year, how many of those are ready?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: Education
Questions: When I was sitting over there on the Opposition Benches I asked Prime Minister Tony Blair what he was going to do about Staffordshire, which was always in the bottom 20 for funding compared with other local education authorities. He agreed with me and said it was very unfair, and then he did nothing. May I commend the Secretary of State for getting on with this wonderful consultation? What recommendation would she give to my constituents, teachers and parents, to ensure that we get fairer funding for schools in Staffordshire?
Lucy Maria Powell (Labour, Centre-left): That is right: just 65 or 66 of the 156 specifications are ready—less than half. Core EBacc subjects, such as sciences and modern foreign languages, are still to be approved. The Government’s own workload challenge promised teachers a lead-in time of one year for significant changes to qualifications, but as matters stand teachers will have just weeks or no time at all to prepare for these huge changes. Is not the truth that the Government’s fixation with micromanaging every part of the curriculum—including, we hear this week, the use of exclamation marks—is causing the delay, and that they are way behind with these new exams? It is no wonder we have a teacher shortage.
Royal Naval Deployment: Mediterranean — House of Commons, 2016-03-07
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): On Friday, I had the pleasure of meeting members of the Oasis Cardiff centre in my constituency and the Cardiff and Vale Sanctuary Support group. They do amazing work in supporting people who have made hazardous journeys in horrendous circumstances. I also met the UN humanitarian co-ordinator, the former Member for Eddisbury, who raised concerns about the widening instability in the Lake Chad region and across the Sahel, which is another driving factor in forcing people to make such hazardous journeys. Is the Secretary of State satisfied that enough global and regional attention is being applied to that instability and those conflicts, as well as to those in Syria and Iraq?