argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Civil Rights
Questions: How does the strategic defence spending review provide the Foreign Office with new tools to deal with the situation in Syria, particularly relating to wider strategy and co-ordination?; I spent a lot of time over the weekend listening to people in Dudley tell me their views on Syria. On the whole, they said that they think there is a case for dealing with ISIL-Daesh, especially after the attacks in Tunisia and Paris, but they want to know exactly what practical difference Britain can make, how civilians will be protected, and whether there is a comprehensive plan to rebuild Syria afterwards, with a proper Government in place of Assad, who used chemical weapons on his people.; There has been another weekend of deadly terror attacks on Israeli citizens, including a brutal stabbing yesterday. Will the Foreign Secretary condemn those attacks, and does he agree that sanctioned incitement to commit terror must end?; What steps is the Foreign Secretary taking to ensure that genuine law-abiding refugees leaving Syria are not locked out of the asylum process as a result of border measures being introduced across the EU after the brutal attacks in Paris?; I gather that I have been successful in securing a debate next Monday on Britain’s role in the middle east. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that in order that we play a constructive role in dealing with ISIS and other instabilities in the region we need a comprehensive strategy towards the middle east as a whole, not just Syria?
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): It is absolutely clear to me that the overwhelming majority of the Muslim population here in the UK and indeed across the Muslim world deplore what is going on and are sickened by the fact that it is being done ostensibly in their name. They are very clear that their religion does not in any way support or authorise the actions being carried out by Daesh, and we should help them to reclaim their religion from the terrorists and the extremists.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Questions: How does the strategic defence spending review provide the Foreign Office with new tools to deal with the situation in Syria, particularly relating to wider strategy and co-ordination?; I spent a lot of time over the weekend listening to people in Dudley tell me their views on Syria. On the whole, they said that they think there is a case for dealing with ISIL-Daesh, especially after the attacks in Tunisia and Paris, but they want to know exactly what practical difference Britain can make, how civilians will be protected, and whether there is a comprehensive plan to rebuild Syria afterwards, with a proper Government in place of Assad, who used chemical weapons on his people.; There has been another weekend of deadly terror attacks on Israeli citizens, including a brutal stabbing yesterday. Will the Foreign Secretary condemn those attacks, and does he agree that sanctioned incitement to commit terror must end?; What steps is the Foreign Secretary taking to ensure that genuine law-abiding refugees leaving Syria are not locked out of the asylum process as a result of border measures being introduced across the EU after the brutal attacks in Paris?; I gather that I have been successful in securing a debate next Monday on Britain’s role in the middle east. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that in order that we play a constructive role in dealing with ISIS and other instabilities in the region we need a comprehensive strategy towards the middle east as a whole, not just Syria?; Improving economic ties between the UK and sub-Saharan Africa is important, so what are the Government’s objectives at the global African investment summit next week?
James Philip Duddridge (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right that economic development is central to everything that we do. Ahead of the global African investment summit I will be meeting a collection of Presidents, Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers at Lancaster House, to look at economic development and at working with those countries to develop their businesses alongside British business, to grow Africa out of poverty.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Questions: How does the strategic defence spending review provide the Foreign Office with new tools to deal with the situation in Syria, particularly relating to wider strategy and co-ordination?; I spent a lot of time over the weekend listening to people in Dudley tell me their views on Syria. On the whole, they said that they think there is a case for dealing with ISIL-Daesh, especially after the attacks in Tunisia and Paris, but they want to know exactly what practical difference Britain can make, how civilians will be protected, and whether there is a comprehensive plan to rebuild Syria afterwards, with a proper Government in place of Assad, who used chemical weapons on his people.; There has been another weekend of deadly terror attacks on Israeli citizens, including a brutal stabbing yesterday. Will the Foreign Secretary condemn those attacks, and does he agree that sanctioned incitement to commit terror must end?; What steps is the Foreign Secretary taking to ensure that genuine law-abiding refugees leaving Syria are not locked out of the asylum process as a result of border measures being introduced across the EU after the brutal attacks in Paris?; I gather that I have been successful in securing a debate next Monday on Britain’s role in the middle east. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that in order that we play a constructive role in dealing with ISIS and other instabilities in the region we need a comprehensive strategy towards the middle east as a whole, not just Syria?; Improving economic ties between the UK and sub-Saharan Africa is important, so what are the Government’s objectives at the global African investment summit next week?
Tobias Martin Ellwood (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is absolutely right that the fight is not only on the battlefield but in cutting down on finances. At the working groups where we discuss these matters we are looking to freeze accounts. Huge amounts of work have been done through the financial services authorities to identify the flow of funds coming from large donations from individuals, but we are also looking at the money streams coming from Daesh itself as it sells exports, antiquities and oils. We are winning this, and that is reflected in the fact that the amount that foreign fighters get on a monthly basis has been reduced because the funding streams into Daesh are being reduced.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his attempted point of order and for giving me advance notice of his intention to raise it. The short answer is that I have not received any indication that the Prime Minister proposes to come to the House to correct the record. It is, of course, the responsibility of every right hon. and hon. Member to ensure the veracity of what he or she says. In the event that any Member thinks that he or she has erred, that Member has the responsibility to put the record straight. More widely, I know the House will understand that disagreement about statistics is part of the currency of political debate, in which the hon. Gentleman is a practised and dextrous expert. If there is an Opposition day ere long, I have a hunch that we will hear the sonorous tones of the hon. Gentleman, very likely from his vantage point on the Opposition Front Bench. Meanwhile, he has had a bite of the cherry and I hope he was satisfied with the taste.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point of order. The question of whether a Minister comes to the House to make a statement voluntarily is a matter for the Minister. I was conscious of this matter, which was courteously drawn to my attention by the hon. Gentleman. My understanding is that the Government have just received the report and have not yet penned a response. I had a sense that the House would benefit from an exchange on the matter at the point at which the Government had determined a response, but these matters, as the hon. Gentleman knows, are kept under review. It would be perfectly open to a Minister to come to the House before Education questions or, if not, to do so pretty soon. I dare say the hon. Gentleman has his back channels by which he keeps in touch with the Government’s thinking on this, and I feel sure that it will not be long before a very thorough exploration of the issues takes place on the Floor of the House.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He speaks with all the moral force of a former Deputy Leader of the House, no less. I note his inquiry in relation to my powers. The short answer is that I do not have the power to extend Foreign Office questions or any other Question Time session—[Interruption]—although I sometimes find myself doing so anyway, as those on the Treasury Bench were quick to point out, more or less good-naturedly. The truth of the matter is that we often overrun a bit because I want to hear Back Benchers. The right hon. Gentleman has very cheekily and inappropriately, but I think on this occasion forgivably, made his point in his own way, even though he did not really have a right to do so.
Trident — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): That is a matter of debate. The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) has the floor. When it is clear that he is not taking an intervention, he must not be hollered at from a sedentary position by Members on either side of the House. He is free to develop his case.
Trident — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. We do not have ooh-ing and ah-ing in the Chamber—although we have not had any ah-ing; just ooh-ing. That is enough. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) does not wish to give way at the moment, but I am sure that he will in due course.
Trident — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Other
Michael Fallon (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is doing something very important now: explaining how this review will operate. He says his hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State will lead the review; will that be led with Ken Livingstone or without him?
Trident — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Other
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): Further to the point made by the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), the shadow Minister said earlier that the review was to be co-convened by Ken Livingstone. Will he clarify exactly what he meant by "co-convened"?
Trident — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. A great many people have indicated to me that they would like to speak in the debate. The House will be aware that another important debate is to follow, so I shall therefore have to impose a time limit on Back-Bench speeches of six minutes, starting with immediate effect as we hear from Mrs Sheryll Murray.
Trident — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, Mr Nicolson, I was just turning over in my mind whether the description "robot" for a Member of this House would be considered derogatory. I have come to the conclusion that in some circumstances it might, and in some it might not. For the moment, I am concluding, for my own peace of mind, that the hon. Gentleman was thinking of a high-functioning, intelligent robot. Therefore, for the moment, I will not call him to order for the use of the word, but I am sure the House will be warned that we should be very careful in our use of language.
Trident — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): We will have no more points of order on this issue. Any term that is considered to be in any way derogatory towards an honourable Member of this House will not be allowed, and I will be listening very carefully for the rest of the debate.
Trident — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right Looking around the world, we might think that the real threat today is militant jihadism or a dirty bomb. That is, of course, true in the immediate sense, but I wonder how many Members on either side of the House would have looked around the world 20 years ago and said, "We’ve got to be worried about ISIS."
Trident — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): Forgive me, but I must make some progress. How many of us would have thought that, rather than being one our allies, as we very much hoped she would be in the 1990s, Russia would be resurgent after the cold war, changing the borders of a European country for the first time since 1945 and sponsoring militias in Ukraine that intend to bring death not only to the peacekeepers we send, but to civilian aircraft flying overhead? Who would have predicted that? I would wager that no one would have predicted it. Because of that inability to predict, it is essential that we in the United Kingdom guarantee the ultimate security for us and our children. It is not enough to wish for peace—we must work for it and fight for it, and the nuclear deterrent is the ultimate proof that we will both work and fight for our own security.
Trident — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sheryll Murray (Conservative, Centre-right): Given that so many nations have nuclear deterrents, does my hon. Friend agree that someone would have looked into that? Perhaps the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) should admit that she is wrong or that her argument is based on a personal interpretation.
Trident — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative, Centre-right): Exactly. I am grateful to my hon. Friend This debate is not about war-mongering. It is not about a desire to launch nuclear weapons; it is the direct opposite. It is about the fact that a nuclear deterrent has prevented major world conflicts, but today we see that there are conflicts taking place. We talk about Daesh getting its hands on nuclear weapons, or about North Korea, which would be able to launch an attack on South Korea. Let us not forget that there was never a peace treaty between North Korea and South Korea. Technically they are still at war, but they have been able to face each other off with conventional weapons for several decades. If that game changed with nuclear weapons, there would have to be western intervention concerning South Korea to make sure that it could counteract that threat from North Korea; otherwise, hundreds of thousands of innocent people would be murdered by a regime with no other intention than wiping out its neighbour. That is what a deterrent prevents. That is why this debate is so important Nobody in this Chamber, nobody in NATO, nobody in the western world and probably not even President Putin would want to use nuclear weapons. That is not what this debate is about. It is about making sure that when something exists, those enemies who would use it do not have the opportunity to do so because they know it would be pointless. North Korea will not launch a nuclear weapon at South Korea if it knows that 10 seconds later it would disappear off the face of the map as well. However unpalatable that truth may be, that is the truth that has kept the peace If we consider the first world war, and then the second world war, which was fought with conventional weapons but had a much higher death toll and in which far more civilians were killed than in the first world war, we see that as technology advances and wars increase, more and more of the civilian population die. It was noticeable that when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box earlier this week, he made it absolutely clear that military action that may be considered in Syria would be part of a wider programme with targeted intervention to try to prevent civilian deaths. Western leaders today spend most of their time trying to work out how we can intervene to reduce civilian deaths, and there is nothing better for that than having the Government who may be pushing their people into war know that they themselves would be wiped out. That is hugely important There has been a lot of talk about whether Trident is the right thing to spend money on. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence said, it amounts to 0.2% of GDP. What would a war, even one fought with conventional weapons to which we may not be able to respond, do to the GDP of Europe, of the western world?
Trident — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Other
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): There might be another reason for the absence of Labour Members. According to the newspapers this morning, they have all been told to go and campaign in Oldham West. For them, the fear of losing a by-election is far more important than the defence of the realm.
HMRC Office Closures — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): The point I am making is that of course the closure of offices has an impact on some of the staff working in those offices. To answer the hon. Gentleman’s first question, by 2027, when the process will have been completed, approximately 4,000 of the existing 58,000 people employed by HMRC will not be within reasonable daily travel distance to an HMRC office. I want to be completely straightforward with the House of Commons. That is the scale by 2027 On customer service, I agree that HMRC’s standards need to be high, and there have been times in recent months when they have not been at an acceptable level. I am pleased that performance is significantly better than it was in April, May and June this year. It is still not as high as we would like it to be, but it is above the average standard over the past six or seven years. We still have further to go In order to ensure a high level of customer service and to make sure that we bring the yield in, it is important that HMRC’s resources are deployed efficiently and effectively, and it is important that we ensure that services can be delivered in the most efficient way possible.
HMRC Office Closures — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Domestic Commerce
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me just make this point and I will then give way There are significant advantages to such a system. The new offices will have the capacity to host multiple lines of businesses and have senior jobs on site. They will offer employees the opportunity to build their careers and skills in one office, and encourage upskilling. They will be in locations with strong transport links and close to pipelines of talent. They represent the way in which business is done in the 21st century.
HMRC Office Closures — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): To return to that point, I gave the statistic that 4,000 of the current 58,000 people employed by HMRC will be outside a reasonable daily travel distance by 2027, as HMRC has acknowledged. I am afraid that there will have to be redundancies for those people, assuming that they are still working for HMRC, over the course of that period. I would make the point that the vast majority of HMRC staff—I recognise that this is difficult for those who are not in such a position—will clearly be able to work in the regional centres I have mentioned.
HMRC Office Closures — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Domestic Commerce
David Mowat (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the Minister agree that the current level of customer service in HMRC is unacceptable? The speech of the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) would have made sense were it not for the fact that, currently, about 40% of calls are never answered. It is not even that they are answered after 40 minutes; they are never answered. Does he agree that regional centres enabling us to flex the number of staff must form a coherent approach to getting calls answered, which cannot be done with 190 centres?
HMRC Office Closures — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Rebecca Faye Clark (Pow) (Conservative, Centre-right): I believe that 3,000 extra staff were laid on to help to handle phone calls at weekends, and I welcome that. May I put in a bid for the Minister to reassure us that we will still have human beings at the end of the telephone in this great new system, which I fully support?
HMRC Office Closures — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, there will be human beings. It is true that, following the problems earlier this year, HMRC brought in an additional 3,000 people to work on the telephones. Those people have been trained up and are now deployed. That explains why there has been a significant improvement in performance over the past few weeks, although there is still more work to do.
HMRC Office Closures — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Other
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): If I may, I will make a bit of progress. I am conscious that I am being generous to the people who wish to intervene, but I should also be generous to those who wish to take part in the debate.
HMRC Office Closures — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Of whom—I know that the Minister will find this helpful—there are no fewer than 19. I point out very gently, because the Minister has been generous in taking interventions, that his speech, probably as a result of that, is significantly longer than that of the person who led the debate. I am sure he would not want that to be the case.
HMRC Office Closures — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. Before the hon. Gentleman, who is an experienced and versatile Member, replies, I remind colleagues that the convention—a fairly long-standing one—is that the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson for the party whose Opposition day it is not would ordinarily make a Front-Bench speech of about 10 minutes. The hon. Gentleman is a little over that. I am conscious that 18 Members wish to speak, and this is not a conventional Opposition day but the SNP’s Opposition day, so a brief contribution from the Labour spokesman is absolutely right and proper, but we need to get on to Back-Bench debate pretty sharpish.
HMRC Office Closures — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Housing
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman made the point, as did the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), that the sites were not known yet. A site is already available in the Bradford district that HMRC could move to, whereas in Leeds there is no identified site yet. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is very bad negotiation for the Government to say that they are going to go to a particular place without a site, because if they do identify a site the landowner will have them over a barrel when the negotiations take place?
HMRC Office Closures — House of Commons, 2015-11-24
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): Is there not every indication that Leeds does not want the hub to be based there, because it could attract private sector investment to any of the sites involved? Have the Government not effectively, and unnecessarily, crowded out private sector investment in Leeds?