argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Tenant Fees Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. I beg the House to be a little quieter because, as a matter of practicality, I could not hear the hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] I am politely asking for a little bit of quiet. Just talk quietly among yourselves The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly reasonable point. As to whether it is extraordinary, I cannot possibly comment from the Chair. However, he has asked me, as a point of order, whether his amendment (a) to motion 4 was selected and, indeed, whether amendment (b) was selected, and I can tell him that I do not know the answer to his question. The selection of amendments is entirely a matter for Mr Speaker, and the Deputy Speakers have no part in the consideration or discussion of whether an amendment should be selected. I do not know whether either amendment was selected, but I have every sympathy with the hon. Gentleman.
Tenant Fees Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Other
Christopher Robert Chope (Conservative, Centre-right): Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I accept your ruling in relation to the prerogative of the Speaker to decide which amendments are selected and which are not, but what I was really concerned about was the fact that the Member who tabled the amendment was not notified as to whether it had been selected. Is there now a new convention in this place that a Member does not know whether their amendment has been selected until the debate starts? If that is a new convention, let us all be clear about it, but my understanding, after more than 30 years in this place, is that if a Member moves an amendment, they normally get advance notice of whether it has been selected.
Tenant Fees Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): Again, the right hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly reasonable point. I should point out to him and to the House that Mr Speaker‘s selection of amendments is published as a provisional selection of amendments. It is then up to Mr Speaker which amendments he finally selects. That would be the normal course of action. I am unaware of a provisional selection of amendments having been published in relation to motion 4 today.
Tenant Fees Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Housing
Mark Gino Francois (Conservative, Centre-right): Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. As you can well imagine, there may be a lot of interest in this House about the selection of amendments over the next few weeks, so this is not merely some esoteric question. Now, I have been here for only 18 years—I am a relative newbie—but the Speaker’s conference would have taken place this morning, and the usual practice is that a provisional selection of amendments is issued thereafter. As you say, it is provisional, but it can at least guide the House as to what is likely to be available for debate Now, today’s Bill was relatively uncontroversial. Being able to rent a home is important, but it was not as controversial as, say, some of last week’s debates, so it was not beyond the wit of man to work out that the debate on the Tenant Fees Bill would end early. The Speaker’s conference should have practically been able to foresee this situation. That being the case, why was no provisional selection of amendments issued in the normal way?
Tenant Fees Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s point, and I can give him a very direct answer. I will not disclose to the Chamber or in any other way what happens at the Speaker’s conference in the morning. It is a private meeting between Mr Speaker and his Deputies and senior Clerks, and I will not and cannot answer questions about it.
Tenant Fees Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): I am delighted to answer the hon. Lady’s perspicacious point of order. She is absolutely correct that amendments cannot survive the withdrawal of the main motion. I will say it again that the selection of amendments is entirely a matter for Mr Speaker, and I am sure that if Mr Speaker had been here, as he will be at some future point, he would have been delighted to answer these questions.
Fire Safety and Cladding — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Public Lands
Chris Ian Brian Mynott Philp (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this important issue in the Chamber. Like the constituents of my other neighbour, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), many of my constituents had possessions at the facility. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is essential that the London fire brigade carries out a full investigation to establish whether the operators of Shurgard had implemented all the relevant fire safety measures? It seems that the fire spread so quickly and so extensively that it requires a thorough investigation.
Fire Safety and Cladding — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Housing
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): It is very clear—the Government have made this clear—that leaseholders should not be left footing the bill. When the developer is also the freeholder, as was the case in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and is prepared, because of the potential reputational damage, to step up to the mark, the problem is resolved. However, as he will know from experience, a difficulty arises when the freehold is sold on, often to a trust company or a financial institution. Unlike a firm of developers, such a body will not be trying to sell houses to the public and is not subject to any reputational pressures, and will use very common clauses in their leases to pass back to their leaseholders any cost that, say, the local authority or Government push on to them. Do we not need a legal mechanism to override that, which is difficult to do with leases, or, in such cases, to compensate leaseholders directly so that they do not lose out? It has to be one or the other.
Fire Safety and Cladding — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Housing
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I am quite happy to intervene, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. It should be clear that in December last year, we banned flammable cladding of all types on buildings over 18 metres. This is an absolute and complete ban, and nobody should be under any illusion about that, or represent it as being anything other than that.
Fire Safety and Cladding — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Housing
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): We went through this yesterday during the urgent question. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is seeking to make an issue of it. We have made it very clear that while he is correct that there are still a number of private sector residential buildings that do not have a clear plan for remediation, it is the case, as I said yesterday, that 100% of those buildings have temporary measures in place that have been agreed and certified by the local fire and rescue service as appropriate for the building. My primary concern, and the Department’s primary concern, has been to make sure that people are safe tonight. As I am sure he would acknowledge, it is not possible, by some feat of magic, to make this cladding disappear overnight. We must, however, make sure that everybody is safe overnight. That is where we have been focused The hon. Gentleman says that thousands of people are living in terror in blocks, but that should not be the case, on the basis that every local fire and rescue service has visited, inspected and agreed temporary measures with every residential building over 18 metres in height that has this cladding, and they are going back to check and monitor to make sure that they are in place. I really would urge him not to cause undue alarm among this residential population, because steps have been taken to keep them safe.
Fire Safety and Cladding — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Housing
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again and for mentioning the problem at Northpoint. There is a certain insecurity about the risk of human error at the very least with a waking watch, but the difficulty is compounded by the cash flow impact. Most of these leaseholder groups will have a sinking fund that has been set up over the years, but that is quickly dissipated by the cost of the waking watch. In the case of my constituents, there is an enforcement notice running out in April. They could have the waking watch until then, which will exhaust all the reserves and will mean further calls on funds from people who often have mortgages, because they are often first-time buyers, and who effectively cannot raise any more money because the flats are currently valueless. It is a Catch-22: the money is exhausted, and they have no means of raising any more.
Fire Safety and Cladding — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): In all the assessments we make or have made around the ban on combustible cladding, we are guided by the expert panel. It is effectively the expert advisory panel that is setting the 18-metre limit, deciding which buildings are within scope and where there is most risk to life. This decision has not been made by politicians in the absence of expert advice. As I said yesterday, I cannot pretend to be a fire safety expert. Both I and the Secretary of State take into account the advice of a group of people that includes Dame Judith Hackitt, and it advises us regularly on these measures.
Fire Safety and Cladding — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to reiterate what I said yesterday. I agreed with whoever it was who questioned me that it was not appropriate for us to promote a particular product from a particular company. As the hon. Gentleman says, the job of the Government is to set the standards, through building regulations, to which products must adhere and to make sure that the regulatory inspection regime works so that people can have confidence that the right product is being used in the right place. To reach those assessments, the Government require the advice of non-commercially interested expert opinion. The British people would not think it unreasonable for us to assemble a group of fire safety experts to advise on those standards and the circumstances in which they should pertain. That is all I am saying. As far as I can see, the Government are acting perfectly reasonably in taking this kind of advice. He may well dispute that advice, and he might think he can go further, but he needs to find evidence of where his expertise is coming from, and if it can be demonstrated that the independent expert advisory panel—the great and the good of fire safety—is incorrect, of course we will listen.
Fire Safety and Cladding — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Housing
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me again correct the record. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was absent in December, but he should know that we have banned desktop studies, and restricted them in other circumstances, to try to discourage their use. We did that before Christmas The hon. Gentleman made a good point about the effect of insulation combined with cladding. Our ban on the use of combustible materials on buildings more than 18 metres high applies to everything that makes up the skin of a building, and that includes the insulation, not just the cladding. The 18-metre rule was of course introduced on the basis of advice from the expert panel. As I have said, if there is evidence to show that there are significant dangers to buildings that are less than 18 metres high, we will of course be happy to look into it I realise that Labour Members are trying to make this point, but I want to dispel the idea that we are complacent, because that is absolutely not the case. An enormous amount of effort, time and energy has been put into getting this right, and a large number of voices have been prayed in aid The hon. Gentleman is correct in saying that a defective industry has grown up over the last 20-odd or 30 years, under Governments of all stripes. As I said yesterday, the Grenfell disaster lifted a big flat rock from the building regulation system, which has not been functioning well for some time. It falls to me, and to the Secretary of State, to play our part in correcting that, and we are trying to do so with all speed.
Fire Safety and Cladding — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Housing
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): What I said yesterday was that it was very often the case with buildings of the ’60s and ’70s that it was more efficient, and financially easier, to demolish and replace than to refurbish, and that many of these buildings, particularly LPC buildings, present technical difficulties that make them very expensive to deal with. I would add, frankly, that given the lessons over the years of high-rise living, councils should consider whether people would prefer to live in lower-rise, more gentle-density housing that could be provided on the same space.
Fire Safety and Cladding — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Housing
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that issue, which the expert panel has obviously considered. I would be happy to write to him with its considerations. In broad terms, it has focused on ensuring that purely residential buildings, where people sleep overnight, are inherently safe.
Fire Safety and Cladding — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Housing
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): Exactly. Although the hon. Gentleman is right to say that people sleep overnight in hotels, staff members are present in hotels and office buildings. There is always an awake watch in a hotel and that is not necessarily the case in a residential block. However, those matters are obviously open to review, and if the hon. Gentleman wants to put forward evidence that contradicts the expert panel’s, I will be more than happy to consider it. On all the issues, I do not want to give hon. Members the impression that our mind is closed. If evidence is presented to show that measures should be taken because there is a significant safety concern in buildings other than high-rise residential buildings, we will be happy to look at it.
Fire Safety and Cladding — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Housing
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I am happy to review the panel, but I have confidence in its members and the advice that they are giving, not least because they are a plurality of voices. The panel does include Dame Judith Hackitt, along with several other people who have been involved in the fire and rescue service over the years, but I am happy to review its membership, as we would do generally, to make sure that we have the right range of expertise thereon As part of our plans, we also have our new joint regulators group and our early adopters group. They have come forward to help to drive culture change and demonstrate that the industry can put building safety first. I recognise, though, that there is much more to do. Our implementation plan, which we published before Christmas, sets out what the far-reaching overhaul of the system will involve over the coming years. The work spans four areas: first, a stronger, more effective regulatory and accountability framework; secondly, clearer standards and guidance to support better understanding by those carrying out building work of what is required to make buildings safe. This is an area in which we have already taken action, by consulting on a clarified approved document B to enable the guidance to be revised. We have also completed a consultation on restricting the use of desktop studies and published amended guidance on this matter. Thirdly and most crucially, a stronger voice for residents will be at the heart of the new system. Finally, the implementation plan sets out how we will work with industry to help it to prioritise public safety and lead the culture change—a change that we all agree is badly needed.
Fire Safety and Cladding — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): Buildings that have already been converted and are within scope should have been part of the local authority inspection regime to ensure that they are safe. All buildings obviously have to comply with fire safety regulations and the local fire and rescue service should be engaged. I am more than happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with the details on how we are dealing retrospectively with buildings that were converted under permitted development rights Before I close my speech, let me turn to a couple of the specific points that were raised. On self-storage, as I said to the hon. Member for Croydon North, current regulations are focused on life safety and have been for many years. Pleasingly, the number of deaths and injuries in commercial fires is very low, but that does not mean to say that we should be complacent and should not consider the issue. We have called for evidence on the review of approved document B and therefore do not rule out any changes to commercial fire regulations in those circumstances as well Following Grenfell, all schools, colleges and universities have been contacted to tell them to carry out building checks. All schools have to follow a range of strict fire safety regulations, which are designed to ensure that schools are as safe as possible and extremely well prepared in the event of a fire. The Department for Education has conducted an exercise to review all its buildings and has taken action where necessary. We continue to work closely with the Department.
Fire Safety and Cladding — House of Commons, 2019-01-23
Topic: Housing
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I am certainly happy to investigate that issue but, as I say, one of the delineations that the expert panel has made in its the consideration of safety is the notion of residence and people sleeping overnight in a building. As the hon. Lady will know, all schools have to conduct regular fire drills to make sure that they are prepared. It is also worth remembering that, sadly, fires happen in all sorts of buildings, many of which do not have cladding on them. There are all manner of buildings made from materials that are potentially flammable—wood, asphalt or whatever it might be—so we need to be proportionate in respect of the risk, while bearing in mind that we want to minimise it in all circumstances, when possible. A range of measures can be taken to ensure fire safety beyond the pure construction of the building, such as evacuation procedures, fire suppression techniques—sprinklers or whatever—heat sensors or smoke sensors. A number of things can be done to ensure that buildings are safe, but I am happy to take the hon. Lady’s request away and consider it.
New Trade Agreements: Human Rights — House of Commons, 2019-02-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman raises an extraordinarily important point. Modern slavery is far more widespread than is recognised. It is a pernicious, wicked practice and it is something that this Government have taken the lead on internationally. It will certainly be reflected in all the values of this Government, including our trade policy.
New Trade Agreements: Human Rights — House of Commons, 2019-02-07
Topic: Other
Questions: Scrutiny of our trade deals is vital as we leave the EU. Given the Government’s commitment to an inclusive and fair trade policy, will the Secretary of State seek a debate in this place to talk about the scrutiny of our trade deals?
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. It is open to the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) to seek to shoehorn Question 9 into the question with which we are dealing now. It is not obligatory, but his opportunity exists if he wants it, and it looks as though he does.
British Businesses Investing Overseas — House of Commons, 2019-02-07
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not know whether the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) has observed that there is an opportunity for him now. He takes a grave risk if he waits for question 10, because we might not reach it.
UK Tech Sector Investment — House of Commons, 2019-02-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Graham Charles Stuart (Conservative, Centre-right): The industrial challenge’s grand challenge on ageing focuses on our world-leading pharmaceutical and health companies. We have a dedicated team in Tel Aviv actively promoting co-operation between UK and Israeli companies, and we have an established UK-Israel tech hub to enhance those partnerships between British companies and Israeli technology innovators.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-02-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Questions: What progress on trade reform and WTO reform was made at the recent World Economic Forum annual meeting? In particular, was consideration given to continuity arrangements with countries such as Turkey so that Ford engines can continue to be fitted to Ford Transits built in Turkey?; Employment rights are human rights, so what is the Minister doing to ensure that no trade agreement is signed that undermines our standards in employment rights, health and safety rights and equality rights?
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman mocks the agreement with the Faroe Islands; how typical that is of the Labour party when so many jobs in the fishing and fish processing industry are dependent upon it. He may want to know that when I go to Switzerland on Monday I will be signing the largest of the EU agreements of all. [Interruption.]
HPV Vaccination for Boys: Catch-up Programme — House of Commons, 2019-02-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Questions: What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on launching a catch-up programme for the HPV vaccination for boys.
Mark Andrew Menzies (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Minister for what she said about providing the HPV vaccine for gay men on equality grounds. May I encourage her to keep an open mind to extending it to boys, on the same principle?
Non-disclosure Agreements: Regulation — House of Commons, 2019-02-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Kelly Jane Tolhurst (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government share the concern that non-disclosure agreements have been used to hide workplace harassment and discrimination, or to intimidate victims into silence. That is clearly unacceptable. We will be consulting on measures to improve the regulation of non-disclosure agreements, including how best to ensure that workers understand their rights when they have signed a non-disclosure agreement.
Non-disclosure Agreements: Regulation — House of Commons, 2019-02-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Maria Frances Lewis Miller (Conservative, Centre-right): We should be very clear that employment NDAs are being used to cover up lawbreaking. Maternity discrimination and sexual harassment are against the laws that this place has put on our statute books. Therefore, as well as considering the future of NDAs, will my hon. Friend consider the future of the Equality and Human Rights Commission? It should be enforcing our laws, but it has failed to use its extensive enforcement powers.
Non-disclosure Agreements: Regulation — House of Commons, 2019-02-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Kelly Jane Tolhurst (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend, the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, for highlighting the issue; she is quite right. It is true that there has been a tailored review of the effectiveness and work of the EHRC, and the Secretary of State has met the commission. We are looking at its delivery and effectiveness, but we will welcome any suggestions from my right hon. Friend and her Committee.