argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Migration: Western Balkans — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Immigration
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): I strongly agree with my hon. Friend’s point. Of course we must not be part of the Schengen area. We will not be part of the Schengen area, and thanks to the special arrangements we have negotiated with the European Union, we are able to enjoy the benefits of membership without being forced to take part in the passport-free area I would say to my hon. Friend that although the Syrian civil war was clearly the immediate cause of the flow of refugees that Europe faced, primarily last year, statistics show that about 50% of those arriving in Greece are actually not from Syria or the surrounding area but come from further afield. What started as an exodus from the Syrian civil war and the Daesh occupation has become a wider movement of people.
Iran: Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Civil Rights
David John Barrington Burrowes (Conservative, Centre-right): Since the signing of the nuclear deal, a religious minority still suffers from systematic persecution. Baha’is and Christians are routinely harassed, arrested and detained, and have received sentences totalling 193 years for simply manifesting their faith. What will the Government do to ensure that the new dawn in relations shines a light on Iran’s human rights abuse of religious freedom?
Departmental Estate: Rodent Eradication — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Other
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): He is definitely not a mole and I can "cat-egorically" assure my right hon. Friend that Palmerston has been regularly vetted. As for being a sleeper, he is definitely a sleeper—I am told very often in my office. But unlike Freya, who went missing for two years, his attendance record has been 100%. My experts tell me that that pretty much rules out the possibility of him being a Commission employee. I should also tell the House that while Palmerston has so far caught only three mice, his Twitter account, "Diplomog" has attracted 8,158 followers, with a rate of growth that implies he will overtake me by the summer recess.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Civil Rights
Questions: What specific commitments can the Government make to support Burundian civil society organisations in their peace-building efforts in light of the need to foster and strengthen social cohesion among Burundian communities from conflicting political, ethnic and social groups?; Last year, Nepal suffered a major earthquake, which badly injured the country’s spirit. In the meantime, the world has contributed hugely to rebuild the nation. At the same time, Nepal has adopted a new constitution. What support have the Government given to Nepal to help with the implementation of its new constitution?; What assessment has the Minister for Africa made of the International Monetary Fund’s regional economic outlook and the opportunity of the result to tackle extremism in the region?; What recent representations has the Minister made to his counterparts in the Nigerian Government on the continued detention of the British citizen Nnamdi Kanu of the indigenous people of Biafra? Is the Minister confident that Nnamdi is receiving all his rights under international law?; The 26th of June will mark one year since the attack on holiday makers on the beach at Sousse, resulting in the loss of 38 lives, with 39 people wounded. What is the Minister doing to assist families in marking this anniversary in peace? What are the Government doing to assist the Tunisian Government in promoting security and the country’s economy?
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): If the hon. Lady is asking why we are holding a referendum, it is because the British people are entitled to have their say on this important issue. For 40 years, their voice has been ignored, and because we have a Conservative Government, they will now have their say on 23 June. I hope that we politicians will listen to what they say and will accept their verdict.
Yemen: Cluster Munitions — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Philip Martin Dunne (Conservative, Centre-right): The United Kingdom last provided BL755 cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia nearly 30 years ago; the final delivery was in 1989. We ratified the convention on cluster munitions on 4 May 2010 and we no longer supply, maintain or support these weapons. We have not done so since we signed the convention in 2008. Based on all the information available to us, including sensitive coalition operational reporting, we assess that no UK-supplied cluster weapons have been used, and that no UK-supplied aircraft have been involved in the use of UK cluster weapons, in the current conflict in Yemen We are aware of reports of the alleged use of cluster munitions by the coalition in Yemen. We have raised their use during the current conflict in Yemen several times with the Saudi Arabian authorities and, in line with our obligations under the convention on cluster munitions, we continue to encourage Saudi Arabia, as a non-party to the convention, to accede to it. The Saudis have previously denied using UK cluster munitions during the conflict in Yemen, but we are seeking fresh assurances in the light of this serious new allegation.
Yemen: Cluster Munitions — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Philip Martin Dunne (Conservative, Centre-right): This is a civil war and in civil wars, difficult things happen. This is a very complex environment. Actors use whatever is available to them, in respect of the terrain that is there, to adopt positions. It is not a nice, straightforward, clinical exercise like a training event. Therefore, accidents do happen. As a result of our relationship with the Saudi Arabian armed forces, we are in a position to exert some influence on the coalition and, in particular, its leadership in respect of investigating accidents when they occur and allegations of incidents such as those that the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned. We are putting that pressure on the Saudis and they have given us undertakings that they are undertaking those investigations, and we are awaiting the outcome.
Counter-Daesh Quarterly Update — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. A further 29 hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye and I am keen to accommodate all of them on this important statement, the timing of which was flagged up last week by the Government, but there are also about 30 people seeking to contribute to the subsequent debate, so pithiness personified is what we require.
Counter-Daesh Quarterly Update — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Charles Baron (Conservative, Centre-right): Nevertheless, Daesh remains the best funded terrorist group in history, despite the fall in the oil price. How confident, therefore, is the Secretary of State that Daesh can no longer access the financial infrastructure and resources of the Iraqi state, given that the Foreign Affairs Committee is still waiting for answers from the Iraqi banking authorities as to Daesh’s ability to make a turn on the state’s currency markets?
Counter-Daesh Quarterly Update — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Michael Fallon (Conservative, Centre-right): That is one of the areas that we are working on. When Daesh originally established its caliphate so rapidly, it was able to access finance from the central bank in Mosul and other areas in Iraq, and it levies taxes on the towns and cities that it controls, but I want to assure my hon. Friend that the work is in hand and we are making progress in restricting Daesh’s financial support.
Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Charles Baron (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend paints a picture of those of us who want to leave the European Union as wanting to retrench. That could not be further from the truth, and I suggest that "Project Fear" is once again going down a very negative path. In leaving, we would have greater freedom to trade and form trade deals with the rest of the world. At the moment we are barred from doing that; as a member of the EU, we cannot form individual international trading agreements.
Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): I will come to the hon. Lady in just a moment The first duty of any British Government is to keep our homeland and people safe and secure. Today, threats to that security take two principal forms: the immediate risk of terrorism that is associated with violent extremist Islamism, and Daesh in particular; and the longer term threat from a breakdown of the rules-based international system that has underpinned our safety and prosperity since the end of the cold war We are engaged in what the Prime Minister has described as a "generational struggle" against Islamist extremism. It is struggle not against a particular country or organisation but against a poisonous ideology that seeks to corrupt one of the world’s great religions. Terrorist attacks in the last year in Paris, Brussels, the skies over Egypt, on the beaches of Sousse, in Baghdad, Turkey, Lebanon, Pakistan, Nigeria and many other places have demonstrated that the threat from Islamist extremism is global. That threat seeks to undermine our values, democracy and freedom, and it is targeting British citizens and those of our allies In spite of the tragic loss of life, we should not overlook the progress we have made in pushing Daesh back in Iraq and Syria, and in undermining its core narrative of the caliphate. The Defence Secretary set out in his statement to the House the leading role that the UK is playing, and the military success that we are achieving in Iraq and Syria. As the tide turns against Daesh, we are turning its own weapons against it and harnessing the power of the internet to expose its lies, challenge its ideology and undermine its claim to be a viable state On the humanitarian front, Britain continues to be at the forefront of the international response. We have committed more than £2.3 billion, and at the London conference in February we raised more than $12 billion—the largest amount ever raised in a single day for a humanitarian crisis. At the International Syria Support Group meeting in Vienna last Tuesday, a British proposal to begin UN airdrops to besieged communities in Syria if Assad blocks access was agreed by all parties, including the Russians and Iranians Through its leading role in the ISSG, Britain is also at the forefront of the international effort to end the Syrian civil war—a precondition to defeating Daesh and dealing with the migration crisis in Europe. We are clear that we need an inclusive political solution to that conflict, and to get that we need all ISSG members to use their influence to deliver the transitional Government to which they have all signed up—a Government who can provide stability, represent all Syrians, and with whom the international community can work to defeat Daesh.
Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Immigration
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): I cannot answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question, but I can tell him that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is heavily engaged in that action and is trying to ensure that those affected are properly cared for and relocated in accommodation that is at least as secure and adequate as their current accommodation.
Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): We do not know by any means that the ECJ always finds in favour of the Community. Indeed, we have done rather well when challenged in the ECJ. For example, when the European Central Bank disgracefully tried to prevent euro-denominated financial instruments from being cleared in the City of London, we went to the ECJ and won the case, with a clear declaration that the ECB’s proposal was illegal. So I simply do not accept the premise of my Friend’s question.
Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Charles Baron (Conservative, Centre-right): I cannot help observing that, actually, Aunt Sallies are being created here. The leave camp is not suggesting that we are being kicked around; that is a negative view that the right hon. Gentleman puts to the leave camp. What we are suggesting is that there is a much brighter future outside the EU. There is a fundamental difference Of course we can stand up for ourselves: we are the fifth largest economy in the world. We have the world’s most prominent language, and so forth. But the fact that we have a brighter future outside is illustrated by the fact that we are currently forbidden to negotiate trade deals with countries unless they are routed through the EU. If we were to come out of the EU, we could do that, and it would lead to greater prosperity.
Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): I must pick up on that last point. The urgent question related to equipment that has not been manufactured for two and a half decades. There can be no question of any supply of that type of equipment. I do not understand why the right hon. Gentleman makes that point.
Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Civil Rights
Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point about human rights, but I stand with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on this. Britain’s history of human rights goes back hundreds of years—to, indeed, Magna Carta. On the human rights act, we are arguing not about human rights as they are practised in England but about the stretch of the judiciary into areas that are correctly the role of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman is arguing that human rights should be used to circumvent Parliament by using law to intervene in other areas.
Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Immigration
John Charles Baron (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making about "Project Fear". It is terribly counterproductive. However, we should always remember that those who are peddling "Project Fear" are broadly the same group of people who predicted doom and gloom if we did not join the euro, so they have form. There is one ray of hope. Lord Rose, leader of the remain campaign, has said that if we were to leave the EU, there would be better control of immigration for the sake of public services—
Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Civil Rights
Julian Murray Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): I have never been able to document this, but I remember my father telling me—coming as we do from a Jewish background—that when Polish émigrés who settled here at the end of the second world war began, in certain enclaves, to bring some of the anti-Semitic traditions from their homeland of the past to our homeland of the present, the Labour Government of the day made a very firm statement about that. There was nothing discriminatory about focusing on that particular problem; we must focus on the problem where the totalitarian doctrine is being applied.
Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
James Gerald Douglas Howarth (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand the shadow Home Secretary’s concern, but the rest of the nation knows that the real threat we face is a specific one. As I said in my speech, for which he was not in the Chamber, the threat is specific: with Islamic fundamentalism, barbarity on a scale previously unimagined is being carried out in the name of Islam, and it is up to the Muslim community in Britain to address this problem in its midst.
Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Civil Rights
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful case about the sad circumstances in which his constituent finds herself. The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs was here earlier, and I think the hon. Gentleman was able to speak to him briefly about this issue. As he sees, other Foreign Office Ministers are present and have heard his point, as has the Minister for Policing, Fire, Criminal Justice and Victims. I am sure that support will be forthcoming for the case to which the hon. Gentleman refers A number of hon. Members referred to the proposed counter-extremism Bill. It is absolutely right that our proud tradition of defending shared values has allowed Britain to grow into the diverse, tolerant and inclusive country it is today. We live in a society where we are free to decide how to live, what to wear and how to worship according to our beliefs. We are free to take advantage of education and employment opportunities. However, we also have a responsibility to respect the rights of others. We should be concerned about, and stand up to, those who seek to sow the seeds of division between our communities, pushing us further apart rather than choosing to bring us together. Legislation can only be part of the answer, but where there is a gap in the law we must act. That is why we will introduce a counter-extremism and safeguarding Bill. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who raised specific concerns about the Bill, that there will be consultation. We recognise the sensitivities involved.
Speaker’s Statement — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I must tell the House that nominations closed at 5 o’clock this afternoon for candidates for the post of Chair of the Backbench Business Committee. One nomination has been received. A ballot will therefore not be held tomorrow. I congratulate Mr Ian Mearns upon his re-election as Chair of the Committee.
EU Referendum — House of Commons, 2016-10-18
Topic: Immigration
Alberto Castrenze Costa (Conservative, Centre-right): The Honourable Luigi Di Maio, the deputy speaker of the Italian chamber of deputies, whom my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and I met three weeks ago, confirmed in yesterday’s edition of The Times that Britain should retain access to the single market and control its migrants. Will the Foreign Secretary reciprocate by confirming on Italian media the welcome comments made by the Honourable Luigi Di Maio? Will he also confirm that Italians continue to be welcome across the United Kingdom?
EU Referendum — House of Commons, 2016-10-18
Topic: Immigration
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sorry—forgive me I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I think that Rai TV has been requesting an interview with me for some time on this matter, and that is the most ingenious interview application I have yet heard. I will certainly do what I can to assist. Italians and all nationals from EU member states can have the assurance that their status here will of course be protected, provided that there is symmetry and reciprocity on the other side.
Iraq — House of Commons, 2016-10-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Tobias Martin Ellwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome visits such as that conducted by the Defence Committee. The more engagement we have to see what is happening on the ground, the better we can understand the challenges that are faced. The hon. Lady is right to highlight one challenge that Iraq faces. As Daesh is pushed out of the country, more and more focus will be on the domestic matters that will then start to plague it. Sectarian tensions remain, the de-Ba’athification process still needs to come through, and we still need to look at counter-terrorism laws and accountability laws that must be pushed through. I can guarantee, however, that our embassy and our ambassador, Frank Baker, are doing excellent work to support the Government of Iraq.
Iraq — House of Commons, 2016-10-18
Topic: Immigration
Tobias Martin Ellwood (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman touches on a very serious matter that is challenging, to say the least. The UNDP recognises that once the liberation of Mosul takes place, refugees will flood out of the capital city in different directions, including into Kurdistan. When I visited, the camps were not in place. The refugees were in schools, preventing the beginning of the school curriculum in September. We pay tribute to the work of Kurdistan. Indeed, much in our DFID programmes has gone to support refugees in that part of Iraq.
Italian Passports — House of Commons, 2016-10-18
Topic: Immigration
Alan James Carter Duncan (Conservative, Centre-right): There are in the UK, and especially in Bedford, a number of British nationals who are eligible for an Italian passport and have recently applied for one. That is, as I said, a matter for the Italian Government, but I can assure my hon. Friend that I will raise the matter with them as appropriate.
Yemen — House of Commons, 2016-10-18
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. I am sure that the word "inadvertent", or the word "inadvertently", was in there somewhere. One cannot accuse other Members of misleading the House We now come to topical questions. I remind the House that topical questions are supposed to be brief, and so are the answers.