argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
HS2 Phase 2: Consultation — House of Commons, 2016-11-24
Topic: Transportation
Andrew Hanson Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend for that comment. This is an important national project, but it has such implications for people on the line of route that we have to ensure that we treat everybody with openness, transparency and respect. Making sure that colleagues are informed, so that they can deal with their constituents and make the case for their areas effectively, is a key part of that I will certainly look into the consultation process. We have already made some changes for the consultation on phase 2b. I was able to do that before the announcements were made last week. I will always take feedback from colleagues and if we can improve things, we certainly will do. We have to treat people fairly and I am sure that the significant efforts that are being made now will pay dividends later My hon. Friend the Member for Stone asked about the timing of the Bill and whether people will have the opportunity to petition. We are looking to introduce the hybrid Bill for phase 2a next year and that will, indeed, offer residents the opportunity to petition, as was the case with phase 1 As well as the measures I mentioned earlier, the publicity for the consultation took the form of leaflets distributed to households within 1 km of the proposed route, alongside information packs sent to public libraries and parish councils, with the request that the documents be made available at all community locations. Furthermore, briefings were provided for local authorities and parish councils There has often been feedback that the consultation events are not handled professionally. I have not been to the consultation events that have taken place for phase 2a, but I know that HS2 Ltd has always arranged training for staff to prepare them and clearly set out the conduct required for such events. I am confident that in the overwhelming number of cases, staff conduct themselves well, but any time any colleague has any concerns, I will be extremely available to hear them and will take them up with HS2 Ltd. On the wider implications of the process we are discussing, I assure all colleagues that HS2 Ltd will continue to build on the good engagement work that has been done thus far as it goes forward with the phase 2 consultation.
HS2 Phase 2: Consultation — House of Commons, 2016-11-24
Topic: Transportation
Andrew Hanson Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): We are, indeed, running out of time. I will go through all the points that have been raised with HS2 Ltd and ask it to contact my hon. Friend to give him an individual technical briefing on the subject. We have only seconds left, but the key thing is to treat this matter properly and not rush it. We will go through all the points he has mentioned I can quickly respond to the point about Stoke. We have asked HS2 Ltd to consider how we can have a service for Stoke, through to Macclesfield. That is a work in progress that has just been commissioned by the Secretary of State Debates such as these give us the opportunity to air and discuss the impact of HS2 on communities. They are vital in ensuring that we get the project right locally and nationally. This project will deliver for the whole country. I thank my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to highlight all that is going on. I know he will continue to be a resolute advocate on behalf of his constituents, as will my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham. As the Minister for HS2, I will always be available to be contacted and will always take up the issues they raise on their behalf Question put and agreed to.
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): Last month, we launched the White Paper "Prison Safety and Reform" and we are already implementing measures to track all drugs, drones and phones. This major overhaul of the prison system will include the recruitment of an extra 2,500 front-line officers. Our reforms will empower governors to make the changes that they need.
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Nusrat Munir Ul-Ghani (Conservative, Centre-right): I warmly welcome the Government’s decision to invest £555 million to recruit 2,500 extra guards, and I hope that Lewes prison in East Sussex, where staff had to deal with a serious incident involving threats of violence a month ago, will benefit from that. The Home Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, released a report on psychoactive substances and their increased availability in prisons. Given the aggressive and violent behaviour that they cause, what is the Secretary of State doing to clamp down on drugs of all types available in prisons?
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right about psychoactive substances. They have been a serious issue in our prison system. That is why we have developed tests, which we have rolled out across the prison estate, to detect these substances and why we have trained up 300 sniffer dogs.
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Karen Lumley (Conservative, Centre-right): The suicide rates at HMP Hewell in Redditch are unacceptably high. May I invite my right hon. Friend to update the House on what the Government are doing to ensure the safety of prisoners and to reduce suicide rates in our prisons?
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): Indeed. Finally, I can agree with a comment from the Opposition My hon. Friend is right to highlight the issue of self-harm and suicides in our prison. The rates are too high, which is why we are taking steps to increase the number of prison officers. We will have a dedicated officer for every six prisoners and they will be responsible for those prisoners’ welfare and for helping them to turn their lives around so that they do not go back to reoffending.
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. There is an issue with sick days. The the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), who is responsible for prisons and probation holds a daily meeting in which he goes through the levels of sickness at each prison and works with the governors on what we can do. One thing we are doing is strengthening the frontline to ensure that we have more officers available for support.
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): I am glad that the Secretary of State recognises the importance of the number of officers, and I congratulate her on the extra moneys available. Does she agree that in potentially violent situations one of the most important factors is the availability of experienced officers who have the knowledge and the personal relationships with inmates to calm them down? Can she give us more detail about what is being done to deal with the current very high levels of wastage of experienced officers?
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and the evidence backs him up that having experienced officers is vital. We have a higher proportion of experienced officers in 2016 than we did in 2010; more than 80% of our prison officers have five or more years of experience. I am absolutely determined to keep those officers in the service. Two weeks ago, we launched a fast-track programme to help people already in the service to progress in their careers. We are also offering retention payments, particularly in hard-to-recruit areas, because we certainly need to keep those very important staff on board.
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is right that current levels of violence in our prisons are not acceptable. That is why we launched the prison safety and reform White Paper, with measures to deal with drugs, drones and phones, as well as to bolster the number of front-line staff. We are also working directly with governors to help them to deal with issues that might trigger incidents in their prisons while we build up that front-line capability. I announced in October that we are recruiting an extra 400 staff in 10 of the most challenging prisons; we have already given job offers to 280 people, so we are making progress.
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey is working with drone manufacturers and leading a cross-Government taskforce to get in place the technology needed to do that. We are also employing solutions such as installing extra netting. Last week I was at HMP Pentonville, which now has patrol dogs whose barking helps to deter drones. We are using all sorts of solutions to deal with contraband entering our prisons.
Mental Health: Prisons — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Phillip James Lee (Conservative, Centre-right): Every death in custody is a tragedy. We are committed to reducing the number of self-inflicted deaths. We have reviewed the case assessment care in custody and teamwork process for prisoners assessed as being at risk and we are piloting revised safer custody training in response. All prison officers, both new and experienced, receive training to help offenders with mental health issues.
Mental Health: Prisons — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Phillip James Lee (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course the initial assessment is important, as is who does that assessment. In addition to our work on that, the care following the assessment and ongoing care, as well as the observation of prisoners, are being closely looked at.
Apprenticeships: Prisoners — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): As outlined in the prison safety and reform White Paper, we will introduce a prisoner apprenticeship pathway that will offer prisoners opportunities that count towards the completion of a formal apprenticeship on release. This scheme is being developed as part of our offender employment strategy which will be published in the new year.
Apprenticeships: Prisoners — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): HMP Lewes is exactly the kind of local prison that will benefit from the new prison apprenticeship pathway. I anticipate that the prison will also benefit from the new Prison Service apprenticeship scheme that we are launching in 2017, which will help recruit members to the Prison Service by widening the number of entry points into the service.
Apprenticeships: Prisoners — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: Most apprenticeships require literacy. What proportion of prisoners was functionally illiterate at the start of their sentence and what proportion was functionally illiterate on release?
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman asks a very important question. At the moment, roughly 50% of prisoners are illiterate as far as English and maths are concerned. Our prison safety and reform White Paper proposes that we test prisoners’ literacy on entry and on exit so that we can measure the distance travelled and progress made in prison.
Apprenticeships: Prisoners — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: Most apprenticeships require literacy. What proportion of prisoners was functionally illiterate at the start of their sentence and what proportion was functionally illiterate on release?
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend asks a very important question. Across the Prison Service there are patches of good work aimed at employment post-release. We want to create a system to measure that, and to identify and rank prisons according to how well they do in that respect. That is precisely what our White Paper does. Employment post-release is one of the outcome measures against which governors will be judged once we proceed with reform.
Apprenticeships: Prisoners — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: Most apprenticeships require literacy. What proportion of prisoners was functionally illiterate at the start of their sentence and what proportion was functionally illiterate on release?
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): Release on temporary licence has a huge role to play in helping prisoners to gain employment in the wider world. I have been speaking with Timpson’s, for example, which employs a lot of ex-offenders, and that is how they are trialled before release. We are looking at that to ensure that the guidance that governors receive allows them to do more with release on temporary licence, specifically in relation to employment opportunities.
Prison Reform — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Government Operations
Victoria Mary Boswell Prentis (Conservative, Centre-right): Procurement is a complicated business. What guidance and training are governors being given to ensure that they can complete the procurement process properly, be that for the provision of mental health services or even the recruitment of the dogs that bark at drones?
Prison Reform — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): It sounds like my hon. Friend is asking for some of those patrol dogs at her local prison, HMP Bullingdon, which I am delighted to say will be one of the 30 prisons that will be recruiting locally to build up a local cadre of staff, starting next January. The answer is that we will be setting up a What Works network to help governors gain the expertise they need to take those decisions and make those things happen locally.
Prison Reform — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We are being very specific about what we are asking governors to achieve in raising education standards, getting prisoners into apprenticeships and work, and improving health standards. We are specifying the what, but giving governors much more freedom over the how, because they are the people with the expertise. The officers on the landing are the ones who talk to the prisoners, and they need that freedom to be able to turn people’s lives around.
Dangerous Driving — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Craig Paul Tracey (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the consultation. Does the Minister agree that it presents the perfect opportunity to close a loophole whereby in the event of a pedestrian being hit by a driver under the influence of alcohol or drugs, as happened to my constituent Sean Morley, who was tragically killed as a result, the maximum sentence available for failing to stop and report is just six months, leaving no incentive for the driver to stay around? In Sean’s case, the Crown Prosecution Service and the judge had only the charge of failing to stop available to them, not death by dangerous driving.
Dangerous Driving — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Transportation
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I congratulate him on his long-standing campaign on the issue. We looked very carefully at the distinction between careless and dangerous driving, which he wants us to get rid of, but we came to the view that a sense of culpability needs to be reflected in the decisions that the courts come to. For example, someone could be momentarily distracted by their children crying in the backseat and—God forbid—something bad then happens. That is very different from someone involved in speed racing. That is why we have chosen to keep that distinction.
Dangerous Driving — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Mark Julian Francis Pawsey (Conservative, Centre-right): My constituents George and Giulietta Galli-Atkinson set up the Livia awards in memory of their daughter. She was killed by a driver who mounted the pavement, but who was found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving and received only a fine. My constituents have campaigned for over 20 years for tougher sentences. How might that be achieved as a consequence of the Minister’s consultation?
Dangerous Driving — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): We are proposing a new life sentence as a maximum penalty for those convicted of dangerous driving. As a consequence, we are giving the courts the tools they need to make the punishment fit the crime, and that is testimony to the campaign my hon. Friend’s constituents have been running for years.
Prisoners: Rehabilitation and Work — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Education
Questions: What further plans the Government have to provide prisoners with (a) drug rehabilitation and (b) education and skills training to improve their prospects for finding work on release from prison.; What further plans the Government have to provide prisoners with (a) drug rehabilitation and (b) education and skills training to improve their prospects for finding work on release from prison.
David John Warburton (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Minister for that. Given that 42% of adult prisoners in England and Wales were permanently excluded from school, does he agree that it is only through education that the cycle of reoffending can be stopped? What more can be done to ensure that this message properly resonates across the prison estate?
Prisoners: Rehabilitation and Work — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Labor
Questions: What further plans the Government have to provide prisoners with (a) drug rehabilitation and (b) education and skills training to improve their prospects for finding work on release from prison.; What further plans the Government have to provide prisoners with (a) drug rehabilitation and (b) education and skills training to improve their prospects for finding work on release from prison.
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): Again, that is an important point. If someone has spent quite a lot of time inside, it is highly likely that they will be unused to the world of work and certainly to interviews. One of the things we are doing is having Department for Work and Pensions work coaches work with prison governors as part of the regime. Their job is to help to prepare prisoners, alongside rehabilitation companies, for life after release.
Prisoners: Rehabilitation and Work — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: What further plans the Government have to provide prisoners with (a) drug rehabilitation and (b) education and skills training to improve their prospects for finding work on release from prison.; What further plans the Government have to provide prisoners with (a) drug rehabilitation and (b) education and skills training to improve their prospects for finding work on release from prison.; A constituent of mine has a criminal record but has been a law-abiding citizen for over 40 years. Should there not come a time when she is able to move on and no longer has to explain to prospective employers the mistake she made when she was much younger?
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend raises a point around conviction and time spent. Obviously, there is the Ban the Box campaign, which we are supporters of, that encourages employers to look beyond these things, certainly when it comes to employing ex-offenders. I would be happy to speak with my right hon. Friend directly about the case of her constituent.
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): Cell searches are carried out on an intelligence-led basis at establishment level. In addition, we are investing £3 million on a regional and national intelligence network so that we can identify where phones, for example, are being smuggled in to aid criminal activities in our prisons and deal with such situations appropriately.
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew Edmund Armstrong Selous (Conservative, Centre-right): Our prison chaplains deal with all these issues daily and are almost universally well thought of, so will the Minister tell the House what steps he is taking, first, to recruit the full number of chaplains, and secondly, to make sure that they have the time to do the important work they are there to do?
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice said, every death in prison is a tragic one. Such people are in the care of the state, and we have to make sure that we take good care of them in that respect. I am willing to look in more detail at the situation that the hon. Gentleman has outlined.
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have mentioned on a number of occasions, there is no real incentive for prisoners to behave themselves in prison because of the law introduced by the previous Labour Government that prisoners have to be released halfway through their sentence irrespective of how badly they behave or whether they are still a danger to the public. I am still waiting for the Government to give an explanation of why they think this law should still be on the statute book, and I have yet to receive a satisfactory response. Will the Minister now give us the reason why, by law, prisoners should be released halfway through their sentence irrespective of how badly they behave or whether they are still a danger to the public?
Prison Safety — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend raised this issue at the Select Committee last week, and I will give him the same answer I gave then. When prisoners are released, even at the halfway point, they remain on licence, and if there is a breach of the licence, they are recalled to prison. That remains the case.
Prison Officers — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): A core part of our prison safety and reform plan is the recruitment of an additional 2,500 prison officers. In 10 of our most challenging prisons, we have already started a recruitment programme, and we have made 280 job offers.
Prison Officers — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): In our "Prison Safety and Reform" White Paper, we make it very clear that it is important to have a skilled force of officers. That is why we are investing £100 million, which will enable us to make sure that one officer is responsible for six prisoners. Through our work, we have shown that that is effective in keeping a prison safe, and in being able to turn around the lives of offenders.
Prison Officers — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Gordon Leonard Henderson (Conservative, Centre-right): I have three prisons in my constituency. Combined, they have one of the largest concentrations of prisoners in the country. The prison officers in Sheppey’s prisons are fantastic people—dedicated, hard working and highly responsible—but Sheppey’s prisons are seriously understaffed. Because of our location in the south-east of England, it is difficult to recruit officers, given the number of other jobs available to them. What reassurance can my right hon. Friend give my prison officers that steps will be taken to solve the problem of recruitment on Sheppey?