argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Public Libraries — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Education
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): Ebenezer Scrooge, and indeed Charles Dickens, would recognise exactly the mood in this country at the moment, with libraries closing and children being unable to go there to do their homework or access computers. What kind of Britain is this, when we think of Dickens and Scrooge at this time of year, with this Government?
Public Libraries — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Education
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): My tie is very plain, Mr Speaker I can announce to the House that over 100 libraries closed this year. Libraries are genuine engines of social mobility. Why are the Government content with that situation, because the Minister seems to be? Does he agree with the editor of Public Library News, who recently stated: "The example of other countries shows that the decline of the library in this country is not a natural thing: this is a man-made disaster, brought on by short-sighted but long-term cuts" He is right, is he not? And merry Christmas.
Public Libraries — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Education
Elizabeth Anne McInnes (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for that response. My local authority, Labour-run Rochdale Borough Council, has endeavoured to keep all our public libraries open, recognising their importance to our communities. They are much more than just books; they are information, support and advice centres. I hold surgeries at our libraries, as does the citizens advice bureau. What action will the Minister take to support such good practice and, in the face of further cuts, how will he ensure its sustainability?
Superfast Broadband — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Technology
Conor Patrick McGinn (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister join me in welcoming moves by the Advertising Standards Authority to ensure that providers advertise more accurate average broadband speeds rather than "up to" speeds? Will the Government push for that to be introduced immediately rather than next May, as currently proposed?
Superfast Broadband — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Technology
Nicholas Dakin (Labour, Centre-left): Constituents in parts of my constituency, such as Cadney, Howsham and Cleatham, are getting very poor broadband services at the moment. Do they really have to wait until 2020 for the USO or will the Minister act more quickly?
Public Funding: Charities and Voluntary Organisations — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Lee Amesbury (Labour, Centre-left): Charities are set to lose a massive £250 million a year in EU funding, but the Government appear to have no plans to replace it. Will the Minister give charities some Christmas cheer and ensure that no charity loses out post-Brexit?
Jermaine Baker — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: What the timetable is for the Director of Public Prosecutions to complete her review of the charging decision in relation to the fatal shooting of Jermaine Baker; and if he will make a statement.
David Lindon Lammy (Labour, Centre-left): I am very grateful to the Attorney General for that answer. He will understand that in a democracy there is nothing more serious than death as a result of police contact. This case has caused tremendous concern across my constituency and beyond in the wider black community. It is a very important decision and a number of lawyers up and down the country think, following the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s address, that this matter should come before a jury. I want it to be clear that the decision will be looked at very closely indeed by the wider country.
Public Legal Education — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Education
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): As the Solicitor General knows, this is one area in which ignorance is not bliss. So many of our constituents all over the country suddenly have to know something about the law for a short period of their lives, but the level of knowledge is very poor indeed. Could not our further education colleges provide some help?
Public Legal Education — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (Labour, Centre-left): May I wish you, Mr Speaker, and all Members and staff a very happy Christmas Public legal education is also important in giving victims the confidence to come forward. This week the Attorney General published data on the use of complainants’ sexual history in the most serious sex trials. He also announced the provision of training. When will that training be available?
Public Legal Education — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (Labour, Centre-left): The data collection exercise has been necessary because we do not systematically collect data in every case. Could we consider doing that, and also recording the reasons why judges grant such applications or not, as the case may be? Would that not increase confidence in the process?
Serious Fraud Office — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour, Centre-left): Merry Christmas to you as well, Mr Speaker I am grateful to the Attorney General for his response about the Government’s plans for the future of the SFO. However, following the Home Secretary’s written statement last week, will the Attorney General clarify how the SFO will continue to operate free from ministerial interference when tasked to investigate by the National Crime Agency?
Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: International Affairs
Jessica Rose Phillips (Labour, Centre-left): I want to say thank you to the Leader of the House for having a very open process, which I have personally felt that I could take part in throughout. Good progress has been made, but what worries me about what has been said today is that there seems to be quite a lot of potential for kicking the can down the road, and that we are not going to hear what is going to happen. I fear that politics is still stopping some of these decisions, and I want assurances that, whatever sanctions regimes and independent regimes the working group has worked towards, they will come to fruition as swiftly as possible.
Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Government Operations
Stella Judith Creasy (Labour, Centre-left): I join others in commending the Leader of the House for the work that has been done so far, but I recognise that the journey is not over, because we all have some way to go before we can actually practise what we are preaching in this House. On that point, I ask the Leader of the House to clarify something. She said in her statement that "further work needs to be carried out to ensure sanctions are appropriate, fair and enforceable" Will she confirm that recall is on the table as an option and also that there is clarity on whether Members who may be found to have behaved inappropriately will receive severance payments?
Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): There are some awful employment practices in Parliament. I know of MPs shouting at their staff till they cry, never advertising for staff before they appoint, interviewing on their own without anybody else in the room, not going through a proper shortlisting process—all sorts of terrible practices. Would not the best thing be for us to have a proper human resources service available through the House so that all MPs, the moment they arrive here, have a proper opportunity, especially if they have never employed or recruited people before, to learn good practice from the beginning?
Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Government Operations
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): If there is an HR service, surely it could recognise trade unions for Members’ staff in the way described. I thank the Leader of the House for her work on this, but it cannot be right that it is easier to sanction a Member for disorderly conduct in the Chamber than to sanction them for disorderly, disreputable and disgraceful conduct outside of it, so can she press ahead on that? I also gently remind her that this issue belongs to the House, and if she cannot find unanimity on the working group, perhaps she should publish a draft report that we can all comment on, because we would welcome more progress and momentum behind what she is doing.
Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Labor
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), I was branch secretary of Unite the union in Parliament a few years ago, and I was involved in legal conversations about recognition. It is a complex process, but there is not a firm legal barrier in its way, and it is crucial to cleaning up the culture in this place. I am grateful for your support, Mr Speaker, but I beg the Leader of the House to reconsider her statement just now that there will be no recognition of Unite the union here.
Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Social Welfare
Helen Elizabeth Hayes (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister clarify how funding domestic violence refuge provision at the same level as today will address the shortfall in provision throughout the country? Between 2010 and 2014, 17% of refuges closed, and every day around 90 women and their children are being turned away from refuge provision throughout the country. Without an increase in the funding for refuge provision and the establishment of a national network, the Government will fail to guarantee that every woman and child fleeing domestic abuse can be kept safe in a refuge.
Russian Interference in UK Politics — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Government Operations
Patrick Bosco McFadden (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I ask him to emphasise the point about the resources that are needed to investigate. There is a danger that we are sidetracked into the social media side of this, when, ultimately, the more important thing is the money. Does he believe that the Electoral Commission is sufficiently equipped, resourced and empowered to properly follow the money and to ascertain where donations come from, whether the original donors really own that money and whether the agencies and the Electoral Commission need more powers to properly track the finance and the politics?
Russian Interference in UK Politics — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Government Operations
John Francis Spellar (Labour, Centre-left): Until we get a change in mindset among these bodies, additional resources will not have the necessary impact. These bodies have to have the will and the necessary policy framework, and action on the resources may follow that if they are not sufficient. That applies not just to the Electoral Commission, but right the way across the agencies of Government.
Russian Interference in UK Politics — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: International Affairs
Michael John Gapes (Labour, Centre-left): There has always been, on the left of British politics, a group of useful idiots for authoritarian communism, and it has included people who have been very sensible on other issues. I refer Members to "Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation?" written by Sidney and Beatrice Webb in the 1930s. There has also always been, on the far right of politics, a group of admirers of the strong leader, the national identity and the patriotic purpose of the Russian, and even the Soviet, regime. They loved Uncle Joe, and many of them today like Vladimir Putin Putin has, over recent years, tried to develop a relationship with various groups in Europe to further his own national interest and ideological goals. He has used, in that process, a man—an ideologist—from the far right who has connections with the American alt-right and with people including Nick Griffin, Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen, who all attended conferences in Russia. That man is Aleksandr Dugin, and Members can google him and read about his vile ideology of trying to create some kind of Eurasian monolith based on authoritarianism and the crushing of religious minorities That is the essence of the nature of the Russian state. How is it going to develop? Putin has used that man, who was at one point referred to as "Putin’s Rasputin". There is some concern in many other European countries about this type of work. On 25 November 2016, the European Parliament carried a resolution, by a very large majority, referring to Russia’s use of "a wide range of tools…to challenge democratic values" and to "divide Europe". Different tools have been used, including the interference in elections, which has already been mentioned, and the attempted coup in Montenegro. The Hungarian regime of Orban has been given financial support via various forms of investment. It acts as an ideological Trojan horse in the European Union against the sanctions on Russia that are the result of the invasion and annexation of Ukraine.
Russian Interference in UK Politics — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: International Affairs
Michael John Gapes (Labour, Centre-left): Yes, absolutely. There is an idea that there was a fantastic, miraculous transformation in 1989-90, but, sadly, that was not the case. There is an authoritarian kleptocracy—that word was used earlier—and a regime under which opposition leaders are locked up, journalists disappear or are killed, and polonium is used to murder people on the streets of London. The Russian system of government is not a democracy in any sense that we would understand. Everybody knows that Vladimir Putin is going to be President until 2024 and that this regime will continue, and that is not democracy There are very serious flaws in that society, but even more serious is the attempt to undermine cohesion and to sow discord among Europeans in our societies. In the time I have left, I want to mention the kind of tweets put out by the Russian embassy. It put out a picture of a European Union stockade on fire, with a giant Russian bear, and the flag flying over the EU stockade was the LGBT one. That tells us all we need to know about the ideology of the Russian Government and the Russian state. These are not fringe elements; this is the core of the Government I refer hon. Members to the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the last Parliament, which was published in March, and the Government response. We must look seriously at these questions. I do a lot of tweets, and I get quite a lot of trolls. Some of them can be identified by the fact that there are eight numbers after the name, because they are produced by algorithms and come at very odd times during the night. I often tweet back, "What’s the weather like in Moscow?" The fact is that we all need to recognise that they are trying to interfere in our politics and to create discord. We need to be vigilant, and the Government must do much more.
Russian Interference in UK Politics — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: International Affairs
John Francis Spellar (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman clearly does not understand that Russia, all the way through, has a full-spectrum response. During the cold war, it had all the stuff in the cultural areas and hard power. Has he noticed the size of the recent exercises conducted by Russia in the Baltic? Russia does not see this as different. It is part of a full-spectrum approach.
Russian Interference in UK Politics — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: International Affairs
Michael John Gapes (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman has referred to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs inquiry. He will also recall that when we took evidence from RT and Sputnik, we were told that they had a charter just like the BBC’s. We asked, "Where is it? Is it published?" They said, "We’ll send it to you." As far as I am aware, it was never received by the Committee, however.
Russian Interference in UK Politics — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Technology
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): I will not give way, because of the lack of time That takes us to the heart of the reform agenda that we need to look at. It has now become clear that there is a dark social playbook that is being used to great effect. We have hackers such as Cozy Bear hacking emails, and they work in partnership with useful idiots such as Wikileaks. Alongside them, we have what are politely called alternative news sites. These include Sputnik, Russia Today and, frankly, Leave.EU, Westmonster and Breitbart. They work hard to circulate news that will create a row on Twitter, then the troll farms kick in. The material is then sucked into private Facebook groups, at which point dark money is switched behind those ads to circulate them widely The study that I have commissioned for today’s debate from the data science firm Signify will be of interest to Conservative Members. It looked at the terrible front page in The Daily Telegraph attacking Conservative Members for being "Brexit mutineers". Leave.EU and Westmonster probably picked up that story. Westmonster published the original content. Leave.EU then amplified the story on Twitter and Facebook channels, calling Conservative Members "a cancer" and "Tory Traitors". Standard social listening tools show that the Twitter account attracted about 1,300 interactions. On the original post, there were only 44 interactions, yet the post on Facebook secured more than 23,000 interactions. The difference is explained by the fact that money, run in this case by Voter Consultancy Ltd, was being switched behind the story in order to attack, influence and attempt to suborn Conservative Members in the debates that we have had over the past week or two. Interestingly, Voter Consultancy Ltd is a dormant company, so we do not know quite where the money was coming from. It has, however, just set up an interesting subsidiary called Disruptive Communications, together with a man called John Douglas Wilson Carswell, formerly of this parish My point is that we now have a well-established playbook involving a method of creating rows on Twitter and sucking their content into Facebook using dark money. The ads are not going to everybody. Firms such as Cambridge Analytica or Aggregate IQ are very effectively targeting the ads at a particular demographic.
Russian Interference in UK Politics — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, because there is an interesting divergence between the three Ministers who have spoken on this topic. The first response was, "I have seen no evidence that the Russians were trying to do anything", and then the version that we have heard today is, "I have not seen any successful interventions." What would success be? How is he defining success? I presume he means that there have been attempts.
Christmas Adjournment — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Transportation
Rupa Asha Huq (Labour, Centre-left): As is customary, I wish everyone in the House a happy Christmas I want to raise an unseasonal tale of big infrastructure and small business, which affects the Park Royal chunk of my constituency. Park Royal was once Europe’s largest industrial estate. They built things such as planes for both world wars and munitions; the Heinz factory was there, and Guinness emanated from Park Royal, but now Park Royal finds itself on the receiving end of the heavy-handed High Speed 2—that is the big infrastructure. In Ealing Central and Acton, we are blessed: we have a lot of these big infrastructure projects. The planes going to Heathrow fly over us—we are on the flight path. Crossrail is coming to link east and west to our part of the world, and there is also HS2 However, in this season of good will and good faith—I voted in good faith for the HS2 project, and I like the idea of high-speed rail, connectivity and all those things—a bunch of small businesses in the Park Royal industrial estate feel that they have been shafted. Sorry, that is perhaps unparliamentary language; these businesses have been ill treated by HS2—at this time of year—and they wanted me to raise their plight I am doing that in this forum because, talking of good will, Robert Goodwill—sorry, I cannot remember his constituency.
Christmas Adjournment — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Education
Lyn Carol Brown (Labour, Centre-left): The woman Health Minister I met has read the women’s testimonies I presented to her, and she was horrified by them, as the House has been when I have read them out on previous occasions. She and I are very clear that this is about choice—informed choice—and about making sure that women get what they need, rather than what is cheapest. I do not want to put words in her mouth, but I think we are both on the same page, and it was a very happy meeting. I therefore have only three, not four, issues that I want to raise today First, NewVIc—Newham Sixth Form College—is a great further education institution that regularly sends more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to university, including to Russell Group universities and Oxbridge, than any other sixth-form college in England. Newham is a massively deprived area, and research tells us that 13 out of 20 children in Newham live in poverty, and that it is currently second worst of all local authorities in England for social mobility. The fact that our young people are doing massively well at our FE institution is therefore testimony to them, their teachers and their parents. However, NewVIc’s budget has been cut by £770 per student, and that includes £200 per student from the deprivation allocation. How on earth can that be justified I would be very grateful to the Minister if he liaised with the Department for Education on my behalf to secure a meeting about this with NewVIc and me so that we can help NewVIc to continue to be a much-needed engine of social mobility in my community and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms).
Christmas Adjournment — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Social Welfare
Lyn Carol Brown (Labour, Centre-left): I have not seen children sleeping rough, but I have certainly seen children under the age of 12 in hostels that churches run to keep people off the street. For me, that is the lowest level "roof over head" that there is. It is not a big step away from sleeping on the street.