argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Paediatric Cancers of the Central Nervous System — House of Commons, 2018-10-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Gareth Craig Snell (Labour, Centre-left): There is also a fabulous children’s hospice in Stoke-on-Trent, the Donna Louise Trust, which goes above and beyond its remit to support not just children with life-limiting conditions, but their families. Most children’s hospices depend almost 100% on charitable giving and fundraising to undertake such work. Should not we, as a society, be considering that, and should not the state have a role in helping to provide the service when it is needed?
Yemen — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: International Affairs
Lyn Carol Brown (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister knows that I respect him, and I am grateful to him for that answer, but the United Nations says that we are losing our fight to save lives in Yemen. Some people are so desperate that they are eating leaves, and there have been more than a million cases of cholera in the past 18 months alone. What urgent and immediate action can we in this country take to prevent such huge loss of lives?
Yemen — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): The UK can indeed be proud of our efforts on the humanitarian side, but I agree with the Minister that we need to do more on the political track. What are we actually doing now to sustain pressure on all parties to the conflict? In particular, what are we doing to build the coalition that we need in the Security Council to secure a new resolution that is relevant to the circumstances in Yemen today?
Yemen — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: International Affairs
Keith Anthony Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): Yemen is bleeding to death. This could be the first time in modern history that an entire country has been reduced to famine and poverty by the actions, in part, of our allies. One hundred Members have signed a letter to the Prime Minister asking her to condemn further attacks on the port of Hodeidah. Will the Minister repeat today the Government’s commitment that they do not want to see any further action taken against the port, which would cause the death of a further quarter of a million people?
Yemen — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: International Affairs
Preet Kaur Gill (Labour, Centre-left): Save the Children is warning that 5.2 million children in Yemen are at risk of famine; meanwhile, an estimated 350,000 children caught up in the conflict have contracted cholera since April last year. I am sure the Minister agrees that urgent action is needed. Will he inform the House what urgent steps his Department is taking to ensure that delivery of food and medicine is not hindered by warring parties for strategic gains, but instead reaches those who are in desperate need of it?
Kerala: Summer Floods — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Environment
Questions: What steps she is taking to ensure that people in Kerala have access to clean water, sanitation and shelter after the floods of summer 2018.
Daniel Stephen Zeichner (Labour, Centre-left): Members of the Keralan community across the UK are understandably aghast at recent events. Will the Minister say whether, in the light of this week’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Government will heed the advice of the world’s leading climate scientists to enable us to make the rapid, unprecedented and far-reaching transitions that will be needed to avoid similar crises in future?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Education
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): If austerity is over for the police, the Prime Minister does not seem to have told the Police Federation, because it is currently taking the Government to court for failing to implement the decision of the independent pay review body. Our dedicated police officers and police community support officers deserve better than they get from this Government In the last year the Education Secretary has been rebuked four times by the statistics watchdog for making false claims about education funding. I know that the Prime Minister is a stickler for accuracy so, given her commitment to ending austerity, can she confirm that austerity is now over for all teachers, who will receive the independently recommended 3.5% pay rise?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Education
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): The reality is that over half of teachers are getting another real-terms pay cut next year. They have been subject to eight years of pay freezes, with pay rises capped below inflation. It is no wonder that there is a chronic shortage of teachers and the Government have failed to hit their recruitment target The Conservative leader of Northamptonshire County Council said that it "couldn’t cope with the levels of cuts" The Conservative leader of Somerset County Council said: "I feel abandoned… there are no solutions coming." Will the Prime Minister listen to her own council leaders and end austerity, as she promised to do last week?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Education
Tracy Lynn Brabin (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In answer to a question about school funding, the Prime Minister repeated the statistic about 1.9 million children being in good or outstanding schools that was proven not necessarily the full truth only this week following investigation by the shadow Secretary of State for Education. The UK Statistics Authority has also proven the number not to be true. Will you advise, Mr Speaker?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Helen Catherine Goodman (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State was just speaking about the commons, and many of the farmers on the commons are sheep farmers. Would he care to say whether the report in The Times that large numbers of sheep will have to be slaughtered in the event of no deal is correct?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Secretary of State not accept that, as we approach Brexit, there are concerns about food shortages and barriers to trade and to imports that may be followed by an open market situation where agriculturalists and farmers are subjected to low-price competition and perhaps questions about quality? Those investing in agriculture will face both demands for greater production and intense competition, and will that not create real problems for the industry?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
James Dolan Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Secretary of State spell out what assurances he can actually give on food standards and various other standards that apply to this Bill? A lot of people want assurances on that and, in particular, environmental issues too.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): I am enjoying the speech—not all of it, but most of it—but I hope that the Secretary of State will remember not just to tilt at windmills that are easily demolished, but to take on vested interest that will oppose him. I would like to hear more on the supermarkets. The role of the supermarkets in the agricultural and food sectors in this country is very dominant and sometimes very negative. Is he willing to take them on?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Ruth Stephanie Nicole George (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate the Secretary of State on his reading ability. He has mentioned animal welfare. Various Members have asked about the difference between Wales and England. Local abattoirs are very important—as important as farms—to high standards of animal welfare. Will he commit to supporting small abattoirs, a third of which have closed already, in the investment that they need to comply with the regulations and to looking again at DEFRA’s decision last week not to award grants to small abattoirs as is being done in Wales?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): In the timeline that was published this morning, it says that higher animal welfare standards will be defined in 2020. Will the Secretary of State assure me that the bar for those will not be set any lower than they are at present? Ideally, they should be considerably higher.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Environment
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a marvellous speech. She will be aware of the warning from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that we will reach the 1.5° C threshold in 12 years, by 2030, and of the contribution of cattle and agriculture in general towards our carbon emissions. Does that not underline the importance of having targets, which are so sadly missing from this Bill?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. The report was deeply shocking and the Bill must reflect that urgent action needs to be taken Let me bring the Secretary of State’s green Brexit dream into the cold light of day. At first contact with the Chancellor and all the other competing demands on the Treasury, the reality is that the Secretary of State’s green Brexit will soon wither on the vine without any commitment written into the Bill to maintain the current levels of spending. Farmers and green campaigners are in complete alignment on this.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. I had hoped to intervene on the Secretary of State but he refused to let me. I would have told him that many small upland livestock producers in my constituency are really concerned about the lack of detail in the Bill, particularly given that the Secretary of State says that he wants to support them and enhance their profitability. Does my hon. Friend share my concern about when we might get this detail and whether the Government will even consider the different scenarios that Brexit could bring to these upland producers?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes an important point. There are also many upland farmers in my constituency, and they have raised exactly the same concerns with me We know that for farmers to be sustainable environmentally, they must also be sustainable economically. I remind the Secretary of State who the farmer he quoted earlier actually was: Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers Union, who said that farmers cannot be green if they are in the red. Farmers need to be able to invest with certainty over long periods, especially in sectors such as forestry. How can they be expected to stay afloat when the Secretary of State has proved himself unable to make good in the Bill any of the funding promises?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Government Operations
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): Well, I think that more powers are provided in this Bill for some Welsh Ministers than for English Ministers. I have had a long discussion with my counterparts in the Welsh Government and will continue to work with them to discuss these points.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): As I have said, we believe that greater powers are provided for Welsh Ministers than English Ministers in this Bill; there is more certainty. It is really important that we bring that back On Sunday, I attended a harvest festival at my local church, and I am sure that many hon. Members did something similar. I know that the whole House will join me in expressing our thankfulness for everything that the farming community in this country achieves to help feed the nation, often against the odds. After the extreme weather that farmers endured last winter and this summer, they are probably more affected by climate change than any other sector However, agriculture now accounts for 10% of UK greenhouse gas emissions—a larger share than at any time since 1990—and the Committee on Climate Change has reported that there has been virtually no change in agricultural emissions since 2008. This means that agricultural emissions are not on track to deliver the carbon budget savings required by 2022 Net carbon sequestration from forestry has flatlined but the Bill provides only for mitigating or adapting to climate change. It seems that the Secretary of State has not heard the Committee’s call, made only in June, for this Bill to link financial support to agricultural emissions reduction and increased carbon sequestration.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): I do not believe that I made that commitment, so it is not something on which I have done calculations at this time Continuing to deplete soils, lose pollinators and pollute waters does nothing for farm productivity; that is why we need a Bill that delivers food security as well as environmental outcomes. It is self-defeating and academic to separate those objectives, as the Secretary of State is attempting to do. This is the first time in more than 40 years that a Secretary of State has been directly responsible for the nation’s food security, yet food security has drifted off the Government’s agenda, and they are not offering any clear vision for the future of our nation’s food supply. The Bill is worryingly silent when it comes to food poverty. It says nothing about the balance between the production of healthy and sustainable British food and reliance on imports, the jobs and health and safety of agricultural workers, and preventing trade deals involving lower standards, undercutting British producers It is 71 years since the Agriculture Act 1947 was passed by the great post-war Attlee Government. Attlee judged that its author Tom Williams "effected nothing less than a revolution in British agriculture" and that "his place in history is assured as the greatest British Minister of Agriculture of all time" I remind the House that the purpose of the Act was "promoting and maintaining...a stable and efficient agricultural industry capable of producing such part of the nation’s food and other agricultural produce as in the national interest it is desirable to produce in the United Kingdom, and of producing it at minimum prices consistently with proper remuneration and living conditions for farmers and workers in agriculture and an adequate return on capital invested in the industry." Article 39 of the treaty of Rome set out the aims of the common agricultural policy, including ensuring "a fair standard of living for the agricultural community…the availability of supplies", and that "supplies reach consumers at reasonable prices." It is a matter of strategic national interest and social justice that we should ensure that our country is better able to feed itself with healthy, nutritional food while protecting itself against volatility. That is why it is important for sustainable food production to be a central part of the Bill.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): That is a good question, but one to which I do not have a detailed answer—I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for that. It is a really important point: we were increasing production, but then it began to drop. It is an issue that we need to address. If there is a dramatic reduction in UK food production, greater reliance on imports would result in a lack of control over production, animal welfare, and environmental and working standards.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): Clearly, we cannot grow everything that consumers would like to purchase in this country, but we can do more to increase the production of food that can be produced in this country. It is important that we protect standards too, and any trading deals should protect the standards that our farmers currently work to.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman makes an important point I would like to think about health, because the Bill fails to recognise the importance of food and diet for health. Why, when we spend so much money subsidising our food producers, are so many of them on the verge of bankruptcy or breakdown? Why is there so much wasted food when foodbank demand has never been higher? While the quality of our home-produced food has never been higher, why do we have an epidemic of obesity and diabetes? The Bill completely misses the opportunity to tackle those problems. We need a Bill that strengthens and enshrines support for sustainable food production, promotes healthy outcomes and supports rural economies, because we believe that access to good-quality, healthy food must not be allowed to become the preserve of only those who can afford it.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady may recall that the Leader of the Opposition discussed the environment and issues connected with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in his speech All over the world, nearly all farmers are supported financially to produce food, and our farmers must be able to compete with them, but to do so they will need the right financial and policy framework so that they are not disadvantaged in a competitive and volatile global marketplace. We need to move away from the current system of direct payments, but if we are to bring in land management contracts, they need to be accessible. The recent delivery of payments to farmers and landowners has been poor, and the hoops that have to be jumped through put many people off signing up in the first place. We need to ensure that the agencies are adequately resourced—only then can they properly help the farmers who need the support that subsidies provide.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that important contribution. It is disappointing that the digital roll-out came before farmers could access it. I would add that mobile connectivity is as important, because when farmers submit their application online, they are sent a text message with a code that they need to put in; if they do not have a mobile signal, they cannot continue with the application. All these things need to be considered before we move forward We praise all our farmers for the important role that they play in environmental stewardship. The Secretary of State talked about the fact that the food and drinks industry is such a huge manufacturing sector. It is incredibly important that we get more support for our farmers than the Bill currently offers. At the moment, the Bill offers our family farmers just a payoff, which we believe risks leaving our fields to ever larger, more intensive factory farms run by global big business It worries me that the vision of the UK as a leading free trade nation with low tariff barriers is completely at odds with the commitment to thriving British food and farming sectors. Combining and delivering those two objectives will be a considerable challenge for this Government, who are and always have been in favour of more deregulation and who have a blind reliance on the free market to deliver social outcomes. Labour will oppose any free trade deal that threatens existing standards: we will fight any such deals tooth and nail In conclusion, the development of a new post-Brexit UK agriculture policy is a seminal moment for the future of our environment, our food production and our countryside. Never has it been more important to lift our line of sight and to talk proactively about what we want to see as part of a long-term strategy for food, farming and the environment. Sustainability, above all else, has to be at the forefront of a thriving farming, food and drink sector It is right that we shift agricultural support for land-based payments to the delivery of public and environmental benefits, but the Bill sadly falls short in a number of areas. There is no strategy to safeguard our nation’s food supply or recognition of the importance of sustainability to reduce the reliance on imports. There is no provision for controls over production methods, working conditions, animal welfare or environmental standards in countries from which our food is imported. The Bill hands wide-ranging powers to the Secretary of State but includes no legally enforceable environmental protection targets, and there is no provision for current agricultural funding to continue until 2022, as Ministers have previously promised This House should have had the chance to conduct proper prelegislative scrutiny of the Bill. What we are discussing here is fundamental to the future of British agriculture, and getting it right is crucial. For those reasons, I am afraid that Labour cannot support the Bill’s Second Reading, and that is why I strongly urge colleagues to vote for our reasoned amendment tonight.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Environment
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is a true soil evangelist, but the Government have already signed up to a target in the Paris agreement to increase soil carbon content by four parts per 1,000 every year in order to sequester more carbon into our soil. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is a public good that should be funded and subsidised through the Bill?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): As the granddaughter of a Fermanagh cattle farmer, I agree with the hon. Gentleman wholeheartedly about the fantastic standards and great tradition of farming in Northern Ireland. Does he agree that it is imperative for the future of farming and agriculture across the UK that the Government avoid a no-deal Brexit, which would put World Trade Organisation tariffs of 30% on our lamb and beef and drive most of the beef and cattle and lamb producers in this country out of business? That must be avoided at all costs.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): While we may welcome payments that enable farmers to exit farming, does the hon. Gentleman agree that there should be protections for the taxpayer in the statutory instruments that flow from this Bill? We cannot have a farmer taking seven years’ payments up front to retire and then signing the farm over to his son or daughter the next day, thereby double claiming on the same land for the next seven years.