argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Building Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2022-01-19
Topic: Housing
Apsana Begum (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for making that point strongly. I share his concern that there is too much of a free pass in that situation and such buildings should just not be allowed to be presented. On his point, the Cuba Street development has been withdrawn for now, but it is only paused. It will come back and there is no guarantee that all the problems will be addressed, so it would be helpful to know whether the Government have any plans to address that issue and, if not, whether they will commit to a national independent review of stay put policies, particularly given that the Cuba Street proposal was allowed under existing building regulations At present, there are insufficient fire safety inspectors after decades of cuts and increased workloads. It is urgent that the fire and rescue service is properly funded and resourced, because people have a right to be safe in their own homes. The Bill is a small step forward, but it does not resolve the overall building safety crisis across the UK. In the words of the Fire Brigades Union, it is at best "a sticking plaster over a gaping wound unless the whole regime rebuild around need rather than profit."
Building Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2022-01-19
Topic: Other
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): Order. Before I call the next speaker, I just want to say that we have a fair number of people who want to speak and not an enormous amount of time, so please bear that in mind. I call Sir Peter Bottomley.
Support for First-time Buyers — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Housing
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour, Centre-left): Conservative choices have created a housing crisis by allowing developers to maximise profit, building housing for investment rather than good-quality, safe, secure, affordable homes. However, building more homes will not in itself solve the housing crisis if those homes are bought off plan by foreign investors before local people such as my constituents can even get a look in. In order to ensure that first-time buyers are not squeezed out by foreign investors and second home owners, will the Government support Labour’s proposal to allow them first dibs on new homes?
Support for First-time Buyers — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Housing
Matthew Thomas Pennycook (Labour, Centre-left): The Opposition have repeatedly criticised the Government’s First Homes scheme on the grounds that, by top-slicing section 106 funding, it drastically reduces the number of social and affordable rented homes that are being built, but we also have concerns that the scheme is failing in practice to help large numbers of first-time buyers across the country. Given that the new build premium is continuing to rise, and given that UK house price index data suggest that average house prices in England have increased by 18% since the scheme was first consulted on, can the Minister tell us in how many local authority areas the discount on those homes has not already been entirely eroded?
Help for Rough Sleepers — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Housing
Sarah Mei Li Owen (Labour, Centre-left): The Government’s rough sleeping snapshot recorded 2,440 people sleeping rough throughout the whole UK in the autumn. The Minister will know that the flawed method of data collection captures just a fraction of those without a home to sleep in. Those who are not represented in the figures include people who slept on public transport, who found a bed in a night shelter, who walked around at night and slept rough during the day, or who went under the local authority’s radar completely for any number of reasons. The reality of rough sleeping is far worse than the figures imply, so will the Minister tell me whether his Department is on track to deliver on its promise to truly end rough sleeping by 2024? If it is not, will it consider seizing the mansions of Russian oligarchs and putting those empty bedrooms to good use, once and for all?
Levelling-up White Paper: Impact on Regional Inequality — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Housing
Catherine Jane Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My constituents in Fleetwood hear about levelling up an awful lot, but they are not really seeing the benefits of it. Applications by Wyre Borough Council for the future high streets fund and the levelling-up fund have been knocked back, so can the Minister tell my Fleetwood constituents when they can expect to get this levelling up?
Building Safety — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Housing
Victoria Jane Foxcroft (Labour, Centre-left): I have met dozens of freeholders and leaseholders in my constituency who are worried about the escalating costs of fire safety remediation. The Hyde Group recently billed tenants £9,000 a year for waking watch, although, thankfully, it rescinded it. Leaseholders from the Renaissance buildings may be liable for £500,000 of costs relating to external wall investigations and the building safety fund application. What reassurances can the Secretary of State give my constituents while they wait anxiously for the Government to decide who is liable for those huge bills?
Housing Disrepair — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Housing
Ian Robert Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): One in four properties in the private rented sector are classed as non-decent. Every day that the Government delay their White Paper is a day that millions spend in cold, insecure, unsafe and unaffordable homes. The words "levelling up" will ring hollow in the minds of millions of tenants living in these awful, awful conditions. Will the Minister commit that the White Paper will actually have teeth to resolve the crisis that we are seeing in our communities and hold rogue landlords to account, which is not happening now?
Islamophobia — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Mohammed Afzal Khan (Labour, Centre-left): Islamophobia remains in all elements of our society, and that includes our major political parties. The difference is that while the Labour party has taken decisive and swift action, the Government have not delivered on any of their promises. The anti-Muslim hatred working group’s own Qari Asim has been critical of the Government’s failure to take tangible action. Will the Minister now follow in the footsteps of the Labour party and take steps to tackle Islamophobia in the UK, starting with a truly independent investigation into the Conservative party? Will she outline when the UK last submitted a report to the UN’s International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, as required of all signatories to the convention?
Islamophobia — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Imran Hussain (Labour, Centre-left): I have listened to the Minister, but the tragic reality is that Islamophobia is on the rise and is rife in our society today. If anyone is in any doubt, they should speak to the Muslim communities up and down this country who have to face this evil on a daily basis. How can my constituents have any confidence in a Government who cannot even tackle Islamophobia in their own ranks?
Second Homes: Devon and Cornwall — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Housing
Luke Pollard (Labour, Centre-left): More west country families are being turfed out of their homes through no-fault evictions, only to find those homes appearing on Airbnb a few days later. Every west country family should have a first home, but we are becoming known as a region of second homes and holiday lets. Will the Minister meet a delegation from the First Homes not Second Homes campaign so that we can look at how the Government can adopt Welsh Labour’s proposal to charge 300% council tax on empty properties and second homes that are empty for much of the year, and ensure that every family can have a first home?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Lisa Eva Nandy (Labour, Centre-left): It is three months since Russian troops massed at the Ukraine border and not a single detail has been published about the community sponsorship scheme that the Secretary of State is supposedly leading. We stand alone among European countries in insisting on a visa that takes months while desperate people are being turned back at Calais. Nearly 2 million people have fled Ukraine and only 50 visas have been granted. Will he really ask desperate people to wait months for his Department to get its act together or will he pick up the phone to the Home Secretary, cut out the bureaucracy and help people now?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Housing
Lisa Eva Nandy (Labour, Centre-left): I point the Secretary of State to last year’s inspectorate report that highlighted that his existing scheme is an absolute shambles. People are being asked to wait months on end to access it and still not a single detail has been published. I cannot bear to listen to that with the scenes that we are seeing unfolding in front of our eyes—it is too slow. While he quarrels with the Home Office, we are turning away refugees and, worse, letting oligarchs off the hook Seriously, how can the Housing Secretary sit there without any sense of shame while, just down the road, Russian oligarchs linked to the Kremlin are offloading millions of pounds from the UK property market in a fire sale? That is the dark money that sustains the Putin regime. He could set that right this afternoon through amendments tabled by his Back Benchers and by Labour that would start to put an end to the shameful situation that his party has presided over for too long. Will he back those amendments?
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Home Secretary clarify whether the Home Office has set up a visa application centre in Calais, or are people still being sent on journeys of hundreds of miles back to Paris or Brussels for the checks that they need to get safely into this country?
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): There seems to be bit of a gap between the Home Secretary’s rhetoric and the reality. Last week, the Government were briefing the press that they were drawing up plans to seize British property and use it to house Ukrainians fleeing their homeland. Well, if there are only 50 Ukrainians, that is probably only one property. However, where is the freezing and seizing of assets here? All that this Bill is proposing is a relatively generous time limit on the publication of information. When are we going to get the steps that actually bite?
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): Does my right hon. Friend agree that, had the Government got a move on with this years ago, we would be able to deal with phoenix companies today, which rip off members of our communities day after day? We could have dealt with that, too, in one blow.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes an important point. For example, there is discussion as part of this Bill about shell companies and ensuring that action is taken on economic crime. However, we had similar discussions about shell companies on the Elections Bill, where the measures taken were not strong enough Overall, we welcome this Bill, although we want some of the further measures to be introduced swiftly. We welcome the Government’s agreement to some of our amendments, which have pushed them to go further; we will press them still further in Committee on some of those issues, but we want to continue to work with them, and there are many areas of consensus That is why the scale of the Government’s failure to support Ukrainian refugees is so troubling, and I must pick up some of the points the Home Secretary made earlier. She said, "I confirm that we have set up a bespoke VAC en route to Calais but away from the port" No. 10 has said, "I don’t believe there’s one there now but we’ll keep it under review" The Home Office website is still telling people to go to Paris. Journalists in Calais, looking for any centre that there might be, are still unable to find anything; all they can find is a few Home Office staff, in a building with a crisp machine but no visas. One family, who have been there for five days, have been told they cannot get an appointment in Paris until 15 March I must ask the Home Secretary what on earth is going on. If she cannot tell us where that visa centre is en route to Calais, then there is no hope or chance of Ukrainian families being able to find it on the way to Calais in order to get sanctuary.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): That would be very helpful. But we also need to know when this visa application centre will be set up and operational, because right now this means that people are being turned away from Calais because they do not have the biometrics or the security checks they need and so are being sent back to Paris in order to do so. We need to know when that is going to be in place.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Daniel Joseph Carden (Labour, Centre-left): Are not the Government and the Home Secretary absolutely out of step with the British public on this? When bombs are raining down on families across Ukraine, the public want us to open the doors and welcome them in.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): I think the public want to see us doing our bit, and that is not what is happening. What people are seeing time and again is families having to leap over additional hurdles—additional bureaucracy. People are being told to wait 72 hours after their security checks are all cleared just because of bureaucracy. Lots of relatives are still being left out. Elderly aunts or 19-year-old nieces are not included and are being turned away. That is the point. [Interruption.] If the Home Secretary says that is not correct, I really urge her to stand up and clarify it, because at the moment her guidance says that elderly aunts and 19-year-old nieces are not included in the family visa scheme.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Other
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): I think I need to come in here, just for a minute. At the end of this debate I expect the Minister’s wind-up to pick up on some of the points that have not been answered—that is the idea of having a Minister speak at the end. Hopefully we can make sure that the Government, having been given time to think about the answers, are prepared to respond to some of the questions that have been raised.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful, Mr Speaker, because there are some very serious questions The Home Secretary has just said that elderly aunts are included, but that is not what the website says. Elderly parents are, yes, but elderly aunts are not. We really need to know what the facts are, because right now a lot of families are being turned away. Lots of relatives who are families of Ukrainians working here on healthcare visas or on study visas are also not allowed to come. They are not included in her scheme and families are desperate now What is happening is shameful. There are too few relatives arriving and no sign of the sponsorship scheme that the Government have promised will allow those who are not family members to come. Will the Home Secretary please stop claiming that this is all world-beating and world-leading and that she is doing everything possible, and accept that it is not working and things are going wrong? Otherwise, how can we possibly have confidence that she is going to put this right and make sure that refugees can get the sanctuary they need?
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Stella Judith Creasy (Labour, Centre-left): As of an hour ago, there was a poster up in Calais that says simply, "No visas delivered in Calais." It tells people to go to an online form and then to Paris or Brussels. Does my right hon. Friend understand why the Ukrainian community in this country are horrified, frustrated and furious to see their relatives who are in Calais being given such information and such a lack of clarity, and does she agree that we need to tell people where this processing centre is? People seeing that sign will give up hope, when hope is what they need from this country.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we in this House are so confused and cannot follow this chaos, it must be devastating for families who are desperately trying to be reunited. I hope the Home Secretary will deliver on some of the promises she has made, but there is currently a huge gap between the rhetoric and the reality, which is letting Ukrainian families down badly.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): Clearly we need updated figures, but my understanding is that 50 visas is the figure issued by the Home Office yesterday. I hope we will have a further update, but the problem is that we are now 10 days into the conflict, and the Home Office was warned—
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Other
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): I make the decisions, and I think it is all right. What I would say, in fairness, is that the Home Secretary spoke for well over 30 minutes—in fact, I think it was nearly 40—and I am therefore giving some leeway. It is a very important matter; it is also protected time, so one need not worry.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is right that we need clarity about how the legislation will work in practice and be used to make a difference. It raises questions about individuals, and we are all aware, as other Members have raised, that serious allegations have been made this weekend about the appointment of a Member of the House of Lords with close family links to the Putin regime.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): Given the seriousness of this matter and the seriousness of the allegations that security advice from our intelligence agencies was dismissed, and given the importance of the Prime Minister always demonstrating that the defence of our national security is always his priority, it is immensely important that all the information and advice pertaining to this appointment is made available to the Intelligence and Security Committee, so that it can also scrutinise this process and examine the information it is given. The No. 1 responsibility for us all, and certainly for our Government, must be the protection of our national security Today we will speed through this Bill and wish it well. We want to see stronger action against Russia at this time of international crisis. We want to see stronger action against economic crime that puts us to shame and undermines our economy and the rule of law. We need action on transparency, on regulation, on enforcement and on accountability—too many areas where there has not been progress for too long. We also need action so that the UK plays our part and properly gives sanctuary to those fleeing the Russian bombardment in Ukraine. They need our support and help here in the UK, and that is not just family members, but those more widely who need our support. We must vow that never again will we allow our major institutions to be so influenced by corrupt elites and that we will give those involved in corruption and economic crime no place to hide. Be it Russia or anywhere else in the world, we will no longer stand for this here in the UK.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): Does the hon. Lady share my concern that there are still 11,000 companies at Companies House that do not have a person of significant control registered, yet there have been only 119 prosecutions? Surely we have to transform the regulatory power of Companies House to get rid of this nonsense.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Other
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): Order. I am going to introduce a five-minute time limit. However, I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members will be aware that, if they take less time than that, we will get to Committee stage more quickly, as they might wish to do. Those who particularly wish to speak in Committee might bear that in mind as well.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Margaret Eve Hodge (Labour, Centre-left): I will try to keep my remarks short. Like others in the House, I welcome the Bill, but it should never have taken the nightmare of a war in Ukraine for us to act and to halt the avalanche of dirty money that has been allowed to enter Britain today. We are the jurisdiction of choice for not just Russian oligarchs, but kleptocrats, money launderers, people traffickers, smugglers, terrorists and other villains. That is the result of the failure of this Government and previous Governments to act. The Labour Government also had some responsibility for this, but the inaction over the last decade or so is down to this Government and the previous Conservative Governments. As every other hon. Member has said, the Bill has to be the first step. I look forward to a further Bill coming forward swiftly at the beginning of the next Session so that we can enact other important measures. The other point that other hon. Members have made is that the Bill is not something great or inventive. It was first promised to us by David Cameron; I think that was in 2015, although others think it was 2016. There was then a massive consultation, pre-legislative scrutiny and a Bill in 2018. It was in the Queen’s Speech in 2019 and reinforced in the G7 summit in Cornwall, and then we heard that there was not going to be an economic crime Bill. It was all gone, and then war came in Ukraine and suddenly it has re-emerged The implications of the Bill go well beyond Ukraine, although the Bill is vital as we try to put pressure on Putin and his utterly dishonourable gang of cronies, and to de-escalate the conflict through economic sanctions. We need to move faster and go further. Some very important amendments have been tabled; I will not use my time on them now, because hon. Members will want to talk about them in Committee, but they include freezing an oligarch’s assets while lawyers consider the case for sanctions, and ensuring appropriate funding so that we do not just put something into law without using it to go after the oligarchs properly.
Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-07
Topic: Other
Kim Marie Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that actions speak louder than words? We have had an awfully long time to get this right—it goes back to 2016—so let us see some action, and action now.