argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Legal Professionals: Pro Bono Work — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): It is always a pleasure to hear from my hon. Friend, who is an excellent Chair of the Justice Committee. I wish Victoria and James every success on Sunday. He is absolutely right to highlight the fact that there are many elements to the legal profession. There is of course private work, as well as legal aid and the free service provided through the pro bono work that lawyers provide. We spend £1.6 billion every year on legal aid, and we are continuing to look at how we can best support people in need through legal aid.
CPS Engagement with Local Communities — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): The Attorney General’s Office has regular engagement with the Crown Prosecution Service, and we know that the issue of community engagement is of key importance to the CPS. In May 2018, it launched its inclusion and community engagement strategy in addition to the existing consultation groups and scrutiny panels, all of which are pivotal in building trust with all communities in relation to CPS decisions.
CPS Engagement with Local Communities — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend’s constituency falls within the Merseyside and Cheshire CPS area, and the inclusion and community engagement manager there is Jennifer Friday. She manages an ambitious programme of community engagement that includes sessions in high schools and a community conversation with people with learning disabilities, and I commend her work. The local criminal justice board has set up a sub-group to focus on hate crime, which is chaired by the CPS and includes Sefton Council.
CPS Engagement with Local Communities — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): It is absolutely vital that the CPS engages with all communities in the region where it operates. There is a variety of local engagement strategies, including through the local scrutiny boards, and I am aware that the local chief Crown prosecutor for the west midlands has specifically engaged with the Muslim community to help to build local relations there.
CPS Engagement with Local Communities — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): It is absolutely vital that the CPS talks to victims and understands both them and local communities. In fact, the CPS produced an inclusion and community engagement strategy in May 2018, which has been widely recommended. Hate crime and violence against women and girls strategy boards can discuss such issues locally.
CPS Engagement with Local Communities — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): Rape is an absolutely terrible crime, and those who suffer it need to be supported through the criminal justice system. I am pleased that the reporting figures for rape have gone up over the years, and that more people are feeling able to report rape. We have managed to improve those figures through the pilots that we have run in various regions, which are going to be rolled out. Conviction rates still need to go up, and we are looking at how to improve them.
CPS Engagement with Local Communities — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): As the hon. Gentleman will know, rape is one of the most difficult offences to prove, with cases often relying on say-so and the testimony of individuals—the evidence of two people. I recently met the Director of Public Prosecutions to discuss the issue, and he reiterated the importance of collecting evidence in these terrible crimes so that we can bring successful prosecutions.
Prosecution Rates: Electoral Fraud — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Charles Geoffrey Cox (Conservative, Centre-right): The Crown Prosecution Service works closely with the police, including by providing early investigative advice, to consider any allegations of electoral fraud in accordance with the code of Crown prosecutors. The Crown Prosecution Service recognises the importance of protecting democracy, and all cases involving election offences are referred to specialist prosecutors within the Crown Prosecution Service’s special crime and counter-terrorism division.
Prosecution Rates: Electoral Fraud — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Government Operations
Charles Geoffrey Cox (Conservative, Centre-right): I cannot comment on any ongoing investigations that may be carried out, as the hon. Gentleman will understand, but the Electoral Commission, as he knows, is independent and is charged with responsibility for ensuring the integrity of elections. The commission has a full range of powers that it is able to use, and it takes its decisions with full independence I assure the hon. Gentleman that if any prima facie case of electoral fraud is referred to the Crown Prosecution Service, it will be dealt with with complete and utter impartiality, and will be prosecuted.
Support for Parliamentarians (Intimidation and Harassment) — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Charles Geoffrey Cox (Conservative, Centre-right): Everyone should be free to go about their business without facing abuse or harassment, and the Crown Prosecution Service recently published an information pack to help Members of this House and the other place to recognise possible criminal conduct and to report it to the police. Criminal offences committed against Members of this House imperil the democratic process and public service, and the Crown Prosecution Service is fully committed to pursuing prosecutions in these cases, wherever appropriate.
Prosecution of Sexual Offences (Criminal Gangs) — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: What recent discussions he has had with the Director of Public Prosecutions on ensuring more effective prosecutions of cases of (a) rape and (b) other sexual offences where the victims are involved in criminal gangs.
Charles Geoffrey Cox (Conservative, Centre-right): The offences of gang-related rape and other sexual violence, including child sexual exploitation, are dealt with by specially trained rape and serious sexual offences lawyers who work closely with police investigators to build strong cases. The training is regularly updated, as is the legal guidance, to support the effectiveness of rape and sexual offences prosecutions, including building awareness of victims and the issues connected with victims in the context of gang-related violence.
Prosecution of Sexual Offences (Criminal Gangs) — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: What recent discussions he has had with the Director of Public Prosecutions on ensuring more effective prosecutions of cases of (a) rape and (b) other sexual offences where the victims are involved in criminal gangs.
Charles Geoffrey Cox (Conservative, Centre-right): Whether the hon. Gentleman is referring to organisations inside or outside the Crown Prosecution Service, I am very happy to meet him if the matter is within my sphere of responsibility. I can assure him that the Government are now reviewing why there is a problem of reported cases of rape going up and the number of convictions and prosecutions going down. We are concerned to tackle it, which is why we are seeking to get to the bottom of the factors that affect it, but they are complicated factors. It is not as easy as saying, "Well, the prosecutors are not prosecuting enough." There are many factors affecting this question, and we all need to come together to inquire into it and to reach the right solutions.
Whorlton Hall — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Caroline Julia Dinenage (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is saying from a sedentary position that we should close settings, but we are talking about very vulnerable people who have complex needs and require special care, and we need to make sure that there are sufficient services in the community to support them. It would be a complete dereliction of our duty and responsibility to take people out of one setting that is not working for them and put them into another setting that will be as bad, or worse.
Whorlton Hall — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Caroline Julia Dinenage (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me clarify what I said, because I think the hon. Lady might have slightly got the wrong end of the stick. I did not say that Cygnet was being put on a group that is investigating this situation. I said that a group was established to deal with the immediate problem as soon as the issue came to light. That immediate problem was the safety of the individuals living in this particular setting and the conduct of those whose behaviour had been so outrageous. At that point, we were told that 21 people had been suspended. The safety of the individuals living in the setting was therefore our immediate concern, as well as finding alternative places for many of them to go. At that point, there was an incident co-ordination group that included Cygnet because it is the owner, but that group was set up to deal with the immediate situation that needed to be dealt with very promptly.
Whorlton Hall — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Caroline Julia Dinenage (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady knows that I listen very carefully to what she says. I completely share her frustration about the delays to the social care Green Paper, but I do not think that we should ever be held back from making progress on all the things that are wrong in society that we care very deeply about because we are awaiting the publication of such documents. We will therefore be pushing forward with all the work on a lot of the issues that I have spoken about today as a matter of great urgency.
Whorlton Hall — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Robert John Blackman (Conservative, Centre-right): Mencap has called for a cross-Departmental ministerial working group to review the system, and a taskforce made up of people with real-life experience of dealing with people with learning disabilities and autism. Will my hon. Friend confirm that she will set up both such groups so that we can get some action in helping people who are suffering?
Whorlton Hall — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Caroline Julia Dinenage (Conservative, Centre-right): I greatly respect all the work that the hon. Gentleman does with autistic people, and I know he is passionate about this. He is right. We have committed to review the autism strategy. The Autism Act 2009 is the only condition-specific piece of legislation in British law, and we want to ensure that it continues to be fit for purpose. The consultation on the autism strategy review has just closed, and we will look carefully at everything that comes out of it.
Yemen Peace Process — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: International Affairs
John Michael Howell (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me start by saying how pleased I am that the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) has brought forward this debate, and how pleased I am to participate in it and follow what he has said. I think we all agreed with his feelings, which he set out very clearly and quite emotionally in his speech, for the people of Yemen, who have suffered so tremendously. I thought his description of that was very powerful indeed. I may be only the fourth speaker in this debate, but the three speeches before mine have covered so much of the ground and so many of the points that there are only a few additional points I want to comment on First, I think it is a cause for celebration that we do have the outlines of a truce. We should take great comfort from that. I know it is just the outlines and that it could always go further than that, but in this sort of conflict one has to grab whatever one can to try to keep some sanity in the whole process. The peace process is now more akin to a mediation than to a conference set up to tell the Yemenis what to do. In any mediation, the system only works if there are two people who are genuinely prepared to sit down and talk to each other. Only then can the essence of a mediation, which is for the participants to agree and to bring out themselves the solution to the problem, actually come through. That is a very important point to bear in mind, including for the role the UK may want to play A lot more work needs to be done on the triggers that can bring two warring sides to the realisation that they need to come together to agree a peace. I do not think we have done enough work on that internationally. We have done a lot of work on conferences that can take place to cover these issues, but I do not think that they are as important as trying to get the people themselves to agree. The triggers may be very different for different conflicts. The trigger may be the crisis of hunger in the country. The triggers may be external, such as stopping arms sales, in which case we need to stop arms sales to both parties. There may be a whole range of things that we need to look at to make sure that we can really get to grips with this It is worth remembering that this whole war started as a result of a Houthi rebel insurgency. I know that some speakers have particularly said that they need to condemn and we all need to condemn the faults on both sides. However, the Houthis are a very unsavoury group of people. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) raised the issue of boy soldiers. Whether the Saudis are also generating boy soldiers is a separate issue, but we know that the Houthis are employing boy soldiers, and that has to stop because it is a great attack on everything that we all believe in. We must bear in mind that they killed Saleh, the former Prime Minister, and the hon. Gentleman has already mentioned landmines as well.
Yemen Peace Process — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew John Bower Mitchell (Conservative, Centre-right): Part of trying to move the Government to a better place is to accept that there are no good people in this conflict. My hon. Friend mentions the murder by the Houthis of Ali Abdullah Saleh, but the Saudis murdered al-Sammad, who was the President of the Houthis. I had met him, and he was a dove who wanted to negotiate. Part of moving the Government’s mindset is just to accept that there are no good people in this, and that includes the Houthis and the Saudis.
Yemen Peace Process — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: International Affairs
John Michael Howell (Conservative, Centre-right): I have a great deal of sympathy with that statement, but I am trying to make sure that we achieve some sort of balance from our perspective when we look at the situation there. It should not be seen solely as a Saudi exercise in the bombing and intimidation of the Yemeni people; it started as a result of a particularly unsavoury group of people among the Houthis. I cannot remember who mentioned it, but I think the drone attack on the Riyadh pumping stations is very important because sources from the region state very clearly—very clearly—that this was inspired and paid for by Iran and Hezbollah. I think that is really unchallengeable and we would be unable to go against it, and I want to come back to that in a minute First, however, let me comment on the scale of the humanitarian crisis, which I think could be a trigger for getting the sides to agree. Some 71% of the population are living in extreme poverty—an enormous number— and 84% are malnourished. The loss in economic output from the country is enormous at something close to $700 billion, which is a phenomenal amount. UNICEF has estimated that more than 12 million children are in desperate need, and the number of internally displaced people is also large and must be considered I completely agree that in this case it is not good enough just to pledge aid, although the almost three quarters of billion pounds that we have pledged should not be sneezed at. We must, however, keep the pressure on and ensure that that money is paid, and used in a good way, in particular to help children in that area. The British Government are helping with the creation of the UN civilian co-ordinator in the area, which is a good thing for us to be involved with Let me return to my earlier point about Iran. It is true that we do not have the sort of relationship with Iran that we have with Saudi Arabia, but we are not the United States. We have a better relationship with Iran than the United States does—it would be impossible to have a worse one—and we should use that to talk to the Iranians about the geopolitical situation. In addition to what is happening in Yemen, a geopolitical discussion between Iran and Saudi Arabia is being played out, and I view this as a proxy war that is taking place against Iran. As I said, the attacks on the Riyadh pumping stations appear to have come from drones that were supplied by Iran through Hezbollah Will the Minister redouble his efforts in negotiating with Iran, so as to take this forward in a positive way? We must ensure that as part of the complicated discussions that must now take place between the Houthis and the internationally backed Yemeni Government, and between Saudi Arabia and Iran, we try to find a trigger point that could solve this conflict.
Yemen Peace Process — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew John Bower Mitchell (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to talk about cholera. It is a truly terrible medieval disease, and the outbreak is the largest in the world. Does he understand that the cause of the outbreak is the smashing up of the infrastructure through the nightly bombings by the Saudi and Emirati air force? If infrastructure is smashed up like that, and if sewage is mixed with clean water, cholera emerges. Will he bear that in mind as he makes progress in the Foreign Office on this difficult issue?
Excessive Speeding and Driving Bans — House of Commons, 2019-05-23
Topic: Transportation
Nusrat Munir Ul-Ghani (Conservative, Centre-right): It is good to see you in your place, Madam Deputy Speaker, for this final debate before the recess, which is a good omen for when we return I thank the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) for raising the important subject of excessive speeding and driving bans. I also thank her for extending the opportunity for us to continue working together on an issue on which she has not only campaigned for a long time but has been given an award.
Cameroon — House of Commons, 2019-04-02
Topic: International Affairs
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): The UK regularly discusses the violence in Cameroon with international partners, including France and the United States, and I welcome French support for the recent UK-Austria joint UN Human Rights Council statement about the deteriorating situation in Cameroon.
Cameroon — House of Commons, 2019-04-02
Topic: International Affairs
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the first question on the Order Paper, because this is a worsening crisis. The UK has been strongly engaged with our international partners to find a way forward. Of course, the UK respects the territorial integrity of Cameroon, but we also believe that, where there are calls for more autonomy in the south-west and north-west, the Government of Cameroon need to engage in an inclusive political dialogue, because the violence from both sides is creating a serious situation for civilians on the ground.
Cameroon — House of Commons, 2019-04-02
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Crabb (Conservative, Centre-right): In her discussions with her US counterparts about the worrying situation in Cameroon, has the Minister asked them about suggestions made that resources they have given to help the Cameroonian Government in the fight against terror and Boko Haram are being diverted, misused and used in attacks on some of the communities in Cameroon?
Cameroon — House of Commons, 2019-04-02
Topic: International Affairs
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): As I often find myself saying during questions, I am happy to be accountable for what the UK Government have been doing, and I can confirm that we have extensive discussions with the Government of Cameroon, who, as my right hon. Friend will know, are a partner with the international community in the fight against Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa in the north of the country. We also have discussions with international partners to find a way forward on the views expressed with increasing violence by those of a separatist tendency in the south-west and north-west provinces.
Cameroon — House of Commons, 2019-04-02
Topic: International Affairs
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the range of different human rights violations and abuses noted in the statement which we were pleased to see 39 countries sign at the most recent UN Human Rights Council. Specifically on the Commonwealth, I can tell the House that Lord Ahmad, the Minister for the Commonwealth, wrote to the Commonwealth Secretary-General recently to share UK concerns about Cameroon and press for further Commonwealth engagement on the matter.
Cameroon — House of Commons, 2019-04-02
Topic: International Affairs
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend states the UK’s policy aim to be an ambitious investor in African economies, and I can confirm that there are UK companies that invest in Cameroon; businesses are absolutely free to choose to do. In terms of the political track, though, we are trying to engage with the Government of Cameroon—I spoke to the Prime Minister there recently—to encourage them to find a way forward in a political and inclusive dialogue that can address some of the concerns being raised.
Cameroon — House of Commons, 2019-04-02
Topic: International Affairs
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): As the right hon. Gentleman says, there is an ongoing humanitarian crisis. Earlier this year I authorised work by us, through UNICEF, to provide immediate humanitarian assistance. More than 400,000 people have been displaced in the crisis, and more than 30,000 have fled to Nigeria. DFID is doing programming work, and we are urging the Cameroon Government to allow humanitarian actors access to all parts of the country.
Cameroon — House of Commons, 2019-04-02
Topic: International Affairs
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is right: there have been human rights abuses and human rights violations on all sides in the conflict. Hospitals have been burnt and villages torched. We drew attention to a range of issues in a statement at the United Nations Human Rights Council, which the UK sponsored. Obviously the UK is a member of the Commonwealth, and our Commonwealth Minister has written to the Commonwealth Secretariat suggesting that it encourage discussions on this topic in future meetings.
Cameroon — House of Commons, 2019-04-02
Topic: International Affairs
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Before we move to Question 2 and I call the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), I hope that the whole House will want to join me in extending a warm welcome to Gareth Evans, QC, who served with great distinction as a Cabinet Minister in Australia from 1983 until 1996 under—if memory serves me—the Hawke and Keating Governments. As we have just been talking about human rights, let us not forget that he was a key architect of the United Nations’ responsibility to protect. We celebrate that achievement, and many people around the world, sir, will be thankful to you for your leadership on that front.