argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Post-18 Education — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: Education
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): The madness of the current system is that it costs students and taxpayers a fortune. Student debt is spiralling up to £55 billion, nearly half of which will be written off and picked up by general taxpayers. I urge the Secretary of State to look forensically at how we knit together further education and higher education so that we radically expand the number of earn-while-you-learn degree places, which are collapsing in great cities such as Birmingham, where they have halved in the past 12 months alone.
Post-18 Education — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: Education
Gareth Craig Snell (Labour, Centre-left): Further to the answer that the Secretary of State gave my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on the international definition of tertiary education being post-18, I point out that the Conservative party manifesto included 16 to 18 education as tertiary. Although it is the Secretary of State’s prerogative to choose his timings for inquiries, will he give an actual date for the FE review, because colleges in Stoke-on-Trent want to know?
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: International Affairs
Margaret Eve Hodge (Labour, Centre-left): I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State. The reason I asked the question is that the EU’s anti-money laundering directive would have an impact on the UK and Gibraltar. I am interested in whether the Foreign Secretary will implement the directive, given that implementation is required by 2019.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: International Affairs
Helen Catherine Goodman (Labour, Centre-left): This is one of many Bills that we need because of our impending departure from the European Union. We agree that sanctions are a crucial lever in our foreign policy armoury. Indeed, their use and usefulness is demonstrated by the fact that we have 36 sanctions regimes on countries ranging from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, and covering terrorist organisations such as Daesh and al-Qaeda. We accept that the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972 in the EU (Withdrawal) Bill means that the Government must replace it with domestic powers. However, we have a number of questions, criticisms and challenges for the Government about the way in which they are doing that in the Bill Money laundering through the City of London is now estimated at £100 billion a year, and the two clauses in the Bill devoted to the matter are wholly inadequate to tackle this massive problem, which is illegal in itself and also hides and enables other crimes, perverts justice, distorts the economy and is seriously undermining our reputation. International standards to prevent it are set out by the Financial Action Task Force and translated—currently via the EU—to national level. We agree that legislation is needed so that we can continue to honour our international obligations.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Helen Catherine Goodman (Labour, Centre-left): That is absolutely true, but if the Minister reads a little further into the Bill and looks at clauses 6 and 7 on aircraft and shipping, he will see that there are some problems at that point. Again, we can come back to this in Committee The Bill states that prohibitions can be applied to UK nationals and companies based in the United Kingdom, but not against companies based or incorporated in the British overseas territories. Recent reports from UN monitors implicate territories such as the British Virgin Islands in the setting up of front companies that helped North Korea to evade the sanctions imposed on it. The problem of sanctions avoidance is very serious. Last week, I was told in answer to a written parliamentary question that the total cost of financial sanctions reported as having been breached last year was £170 million. This afternoon, I received a letter from the Treasury, which has looked at the numbers again and says that the number is £1.4 billion. We need to look at this in more detail in Committee I now turn to the anti-money laundering provisions—what one might call the McMafia section of the Bill. To set this in context, the Home Affairs Committee report of June 2016 found: "Money laundering is undoubtedly a problem in the UK…It is disgraceful that at least a hundred billion pounds is being laundered through the UK every year. If the UK is to remain the centre of global finance, this must be addressed." It pointed out that "money laundering takes many…forms…from complex financial vehicles and tax havens around the world through to property investments in London…and high value jewellery. It is astonishing that just 335 out of some 1.2 million property transactions…were deemed to be suspicious. This suggests to us that supervision of the property market is totally inadequate" At the moment, it is far too easy—
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Helen Catherine Goodman (Labour, Centre-left): That is very shocking. I did not know about it. I hope that the hon. Lady will dilate on the matter further during the debate It is obviously possible for people to buy a property, take in rent in perpetuity and have a clean income. In evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, the surveyor Henry Pryor said: "we do have the equivalent of a welcome mat out for anybody to come if you want to launder your money." Money laundering enables the corrupt to live in comfort and security. It is also used to finance other serious and organised crime such as drug dealing, human trafficking, terrorism and even the illegal arms trade and WMD sanctions busting. The click of a computer mouse in London or the overseas territories can mean untold misery across the globe. The Government’s own impact assessment for the Bill says: "As a global financial centre, the UK is particularly exposed to the threat of being exploited as a destination or transit point for illicit funds" Ministers know that this is a problem. Between 2013 and 2016, David Cameron’s Government issued increasingly strong statements and promises, culminating in the May 2016 global summit. There were three specific proposals: a transparent register of beneficial owners of all companies registered in the UK, similar registers in the British overseas territories and Crown dependencies, and a public register of foreign owners of UK property. However, the implementation has been halting, under-resourced, partial and confused. Currently we have at least 25 different regulatory bodies. It is true that we can now see on the Companies House register who the person is with significant control, but last year 400,000 companies failed to submit the information. Companies House has no due diligence procedure and employs only 20 people to supervise 4 million entries.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Helen Catherine Goodman (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend has brought precisely the point to the House in highlighting that unfortunate episode Registers have been introduced in some of the British overseas territories, but they can be accessed by the authorities in London only when the authorities have a reason to be suspicious. The inadequacy of that approach was demonstrated by the publication of the Panama papers and the Paradise papers. According to the Guardian investigators, the law firm Mossack Fonseca, operating out of Panama, acted for 113,000 companies incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, which hosts 950,000 offshore companies. That is a country with a population of 30,000. This is public interest journalism at its best—fearless, determined and forensic. Had it not been for the excellent investigatory journalism, we would not have known that Britain’s high street banks processed $740 million from a vast money-laundering operation run by Russian criminals through anonymously owned firms, nor that Mukhtar Ablyazov, who fled Kazakhstan in 2009 after $10 billion went missing from the bank he chaired, had a Cayman Islands trust set up by law firm Appleby Significantly, HMRC has been able to use the information revealed in Panama and Paradise to open civil and criminal investigations into 66 people and pursue arrests for a £125 million fraud, tackle insider trading and place dozens of high net worth individuals under review. Imagine how much more effective it could be if transparency were the rule and not the exception.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: International Affairs
Paul John Sweeney (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes a good series of points about the nature of the British overseas territories and Crown dependencies. Given that the Bill considers the whole nature of our governance structures after Brexit, does she agree that we should look in a broader sense at the curious structure of British overseas territories and Crown dependencies? We should perhaps follow the example of France, which has incorporated its overseas territories into its metropolitan country and given them a democratic place in its legislature. We could consider the same thing.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Helen Catherine Goodman (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is right that the situation is complex—we have one legal regime for the overseas territories and another for the Crown dependencies—but I think that that would be beyond the scope of the Bill The all-party parliamentary group on responsible tax, led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), has been pursuing this agenda energetically for several years now, and across the House, Members want effective action. Another scandal is the use of London property by oligarchs, corrupt officials and gangsters from across the globe. I am talking about people like Karime Macías, the Mexican wife of the former Veracruz Governor Duarte. He has been imprisoned and charged with corruption, money laundering and involvement in organised crime. His years in office saw a spike in disappearances and murders, while she claims to be a fugitive in London When I was young, if you drove through Chelsea at night, it was full of light because people actually lived there. Now, swathes of London are pitch black, as properties are bought simply as money safes. Meanwhile, in the outer boroughs, which the Foreign Secretary never visits—
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Margaret Eve Hodge (Labour, Centre-left): I am intrigued by the hon. Lady’s contribution. We all want to move forward on the basis of consent, but I slightly disagree with her about how fast the overseas territories are moving. It has been five years since David Cameron first encouraged them to develop public registers of interest. Will she give us some indication of when she thinks that the broader interest of having those public registers and the role that they could play in tackling financial crime would override her absolutely instinctive desire to seek consent in moving forward?
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Margaret Eve Hodge (Labour, Centre-left): The Bill commands general support on both sides of the House, and, like the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), who made an excellent speech, I welcome it. As currently drafted, however, it fails to include one vital measure that would at a stroke transform Britain’s contribution to the fight against money laundering, tax avoidance and evasion, corruption and financial crime. That measure has been debated many times in both Houses, and is strongly supported by parliamentarians in all parties and by the all-party parliamentary group on responsible tax We simply want to ensure that British overseas territories, many of which constitute the leading tax havens in the world, have registers of beneficial ownership that are public and open for anyone to interrogate: businesses, individuals, the press or civil society. I for one have had enough of the endless rhetoric proclaiming that Britain is leading the global fight against corruption and money laundering. The reality has to start to match that rhetoric, because at present it does not. By failing to insist that our overseas territories have public registers of beneficial ownership, we are complicit in facilitating the very corruption that we claim to want to eradicate Our overseas territories play a central role in the scourge that is corruption, tax evasion and money laundering. Of the 200,000 companies exposed in the Panama papers, more than half were registered in the British Virgin Islands, a UK overseas territory. More than half the offices of the law firm Appleby that were exposed in the Paradise papers are located in UK-controlled tax havens, and 90% of the world’s top 200 global companies have a presence in a UK tax haven. A World Bank review of corruption cases over a 30-year period found that our tiny overseas territories came second only to the vast United States of America among jurisdictions that provide anonymous shell entities for those involved in international corruption We all know that the effect of this financial crime is immense, and that the impact on the poorest in the world is particularly pernicious. We in the UK lose money that we desperately need for our schools and hospitals, but developing countries are even more adversely affected. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has estimated that developing countries lose at least $100 billion a year as a result of tax havens, and the OECD has estimated that they are costing those countries up to three times as much as the total global aid budget. What happens in our tax havens really matters. Persistent collusion by the UK in enabling them to endure, because of the Government’s failure to clamp down on the secrecy that pervades our British tax havens, is inexcusable.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: International Affairs
Joanna Meriel Stevens (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend is making an extremely powerful speech. Does she agree that whatever is in the Bill, it will lack any credibility if we point the finger at secrecy in other countries but do nothing about the secrecy in the overseas territories and Crown dependencies?
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Margaret Eve Hodge (Labour, Centre-left): I strongly concur. Interestingly enough, David Cameron recognised that in 2013 when he told the overseas territories to rip aside the "cloak of secrecy" by establishing public registers of beneficial ownership. He wrote to them in 2014 saying that public registers were "vital to meeting the urgent challenges of illicit finance and tax evasion." In September 2015, he accused them of "frankly…not moving anywhere near fast enough." He said that "if we want to break the business model of stealing money and hiding it in places where it can’t be seen: transparency is the answer." When he launched the UK’s public register, he argued that "it’s better for us all to have an open system which everyone has access to, because the more eyes that look at this information the more accurate it will be." I agree with all those sentiments and arguments. All that we are asking of the present Government is that they stand by the promises made by their colleagues, their right hon. and hon. Friends, in a Conservative-led Government nearly five years ago. I also agree with the current Prime Minister, who said: "If you’re a tax-dodger, we’re coming after you. If you’re an accountant, a financial adviser or a middleman who helps people to avoid what they owe to society, we’re coming after you" However, our tax havens are "middlemen". It is time that the Prime Minister and her Government turned their rhetoric into practical action, and put an end to the nefarious activities that take place in so many of our jurisdictions.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: Government Operations
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): On public registers, is it not also the case that firms that are more transparent are often more successful than those that are not? We see that in the examples of Santander, SSE and many others.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: International Affairs
Helen Catherine Goodman (Labour, Centre-left): On negative and affirmative resolutions, the Minister is choosing to draw a distinction based on the origin of the sanctions—whether they are from the UN or the EU—but would there not be a greater logic in drawing a distinction between individual sanctions on people, which obviously have to be done quickly, and the rules of the game for the regimes, where the House would be reasonable in seeking to be consulted before they are introduced?
Provision of LGBT inclusive education in schools — House of Commons, 2018-02-20
Topic: Education
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to present this petition relating to LGBT sex and relationship education. Sadly, for everybody in Hull and elsewhere in the country, the Hull equalities campaigner Colin Livett died over the weekend. He wrote this petition to ensure that no child would be left behind just because they are LGBT or struggling with their sexuality or gender identity, and it is in tribute to him that I present this today The petition states: The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to ensure that LGBT inclusive SRE is to be granted mandatory status in all schools in order that future generations leave schools informed on such matters of equality and personal safety having been educated correctly about sexual relations Following is the full text of the petition: [The Petition of residents of the UK, Declares that there are benefits of inclusive teaching of Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) to ensure that no child is left in ignorance; further that the Government should pledge that the updated SRE guidelines for mandatory SRE in all schools will be LGBT inclusive, which it is yet to do; and further that recent agreements made by the Government with a party which is not sympathetic to LGBT inclusive SRE following the general election on June 8th 2017, causes concern that education that is appropriate and LGBT inclusive, could be put at risk. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to ensure that LGBT inclusive SRE is to be granted mandatory status in all schools in order that future generations leave schools informed on such matters of equality and personal safety having been educated correctly about sexual relations. And the petitioners remain, etc.] [P002103]
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-04-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Mark Richard Tami (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman talks about recorded cases, but does he accept that in their normal line of duty, there is an acceptance that police officers are roughed up and pushed around? Much of that is not even taken into account.
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-04-27
Topic: Law and Crime
James Fitzpatrick (Labour, Centre-left): I seek a small clarification. When the hon. Gentleman says that "we" have promised magistrates an extension of their sentencing powers for some time, does he mean we the Conservative party, we the Conservative Government, we the coalition Government or we collectively as a Parliament?
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-04-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Jonathan Neil Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman says about the reality of the prosecution system and how it operates on the ground, but this Bill is about a little more than just the legal mechanisms we want the Crown Prosecution Service to follow. It is about the signal we send out. It is about trying to change the culture. Right now, we have a situation in this country in which many people think it is okay to engage in this behaviour. Yes, we need to change the technicalities of the law, but we must send out a stronger signal on what is acceptable in society. There must be a change in culture, as well as in practice.
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-04-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Nicholas Desmond John Smith (Labour, Centre-left): I understand why the hon. Gentleman has tabled these measures, and particularly new clause 4, because figures released yesterday show that prisoners attacked officers 2,327 times in the last quarter of 2017 alone. A guard is being hit every hour in our prisons.
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-04-27
Topic: Law and Crime
David Drew (Labour, Centre-left): The one issue that the hon. Gentleman missed out is the lack of prison officers. As the POA will tell him, the numbers are insufficient and they are going down because of the problems in our jails. We need to recruit more prison officers.
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-04-27
Topic: Law and Crime
David Drew (Labour, Centre-left): I think I am correct in saying that these were supporters of foxhunting, rather than people who objected to foxhunting. Does my hon. Friend accept that one problem at the moment is the lack of clarity over spit hoods? Some forces have introduced them; others have not. This does not help the situation when arrests are being made. Does he agree with that?
Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-04-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): Yes, clearly there is an issue. It is entirely appropriate that different police forces should have autonomous powers to be able to take these issues in the direction that they want. Different police forces face different challenges at particular times, then there is the issue of resources as well It is absolutely true that this is a growing issue. One problem is that, because police officers may sort of have got used to this behaviour, other emergency workers are now being treated in exactly the same way. Let me read one case from the east midlands last November: "A man spat at a newly recruited police woman 24 times while under arrest in the back of an ambulance. The handcuffed man laughs as he spits at the officer who warned him he was being recorded on her body camera. He repeatedly targets her face as he sat on the bed next to a paramedic. The police woman was in her first year on the job when she became a victim of the vile attack." I think that every single one of us wants to send out an absolutely clear, unambiguous message from this House—I know that the hon. Member for Shipley does not like sending out messages, but sometimes declaratory legislation has an effect as well—that spitting at emergency workers is not on and that the full force of the law should be used against those who do it.