argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not accept that that is a necessary extension. We are dealing with new clause 1 of this Bill, and if somebody wanted to extend it to something else, they would have to find a Bill in which to do that, and argue for that extension. That would be a matter to consider at that time, and it has nothing to do with this Bill. My hon. Friend could be right—I do not say he is wrong—but I ask Members to consider the new clause in the context of this Bill, rather than thinking about its repercussions on other legislation
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Julian Carlton Knight (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is generous, as ever, in taking interventions. Is it the case that the earlier people register, the less of a bottleneck and a jam there is, and the more likely we are to ensure a robust system, and that those who register are bona fide and legitimate? We have seen in more recent elections that people voted in one place when they should have been in another.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I am accused of many things when discussing private Member’s Bills on a Friday, but I think it best if I stick to one at a time. If we get on to the hon. Lady’s Bill, I am sure we can go through its merits, or otherwise, and I look forward to that. I hope she will forgive me if I resist the temptation to start that debate prematurely. Mr Speaker would probably rule me out of order if I started discussing her Bill in a debate on this one.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): Clearly, I have more faith in the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for City of Chester that the hon. Gentleman does. I do not seek to take over the responsibility of people who are more expert in these matters than me. It is not the job of hon. Members to be prescriptive to experts in this field about how they should go about their job—I am happy to leave it to them. The hon. Member for City of Chester can correct me if I am wrong, but I see this as a matter of principle, and not really about the nitty-gritty and practicalities, which I am happy to leave to the experts The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) may or may not be right to say that the new clause will not make a massive difference, but that is not a reason not to include it, because it might help. Indeed, as he acknowledged, the new clause will help with one group of people, and that is an argument for taking a step forward, rather than saying, "Let’s not bother because I don’t know how many people it will benefit or how it will be used".
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Housing
John Michael Howell (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is generous in giving way. Has the new clause taken into account the situation of people such as those who work in the City who have to move at short notice? What he has described admirably covers those who are planning to move quite a long time in the future, but it does not take into account those who need to move at short notice. How will he deal with that?
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): The new clause does not exclude that category of people, and the same principle applies. My hon. Friend seems to suggest that perhaps the new clause does not go far enough, and I am happy to take that criticism on board. Others say that we should not include it at all—I think I now have the full gamut of opinion in the House. Some say it is a bad new clause, some say it is good, and some say that it does not go far enough.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I had not looked at it that way, and I would be slightly horrified if that is how it was perceived. New clause 1 is merely enhancing my reputation as a moderate; I will put it no stronger than that. I appear to be slap-bang in the middle of the debate, as I so often find myself.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am going to take her comment that I am a moderate on this issue as a compliment. I am not sure whether it was meant as such; I would like to think that I am on all issues, but it is best that we do not have a Division on that, too. I am sure that my hon. Friend is right, but if she will forgive me, we will come to the merits of the Bill as a whole on Third Reading. I am rather anxious to get to the merits or otherwise of my amendments.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I think the right hon. Gentleman is also referring to the merits of the whole Bill, and I had just said that I did not really want to get into that at this stage. Third Reading is probably the best time to deal with that. Indeed, I am sure that we can save up all these points for then. I am rather anxious to get back to new clause 1, but I will first give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Neil John O'Brien (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is further burnishing his credentials as a centrist with new clause 1, so I hesitate to introduce a European dimension into the debate, but is he confident that it is compatible with the general data protection regulation? He is imposing a new duty on registration officers. Let us suppose that someone comes to an electoral registration officer and says, "My next-door neighbour is planning to move to another country. You should contact them and send them the forms to register overseas." Can such information, not gleaned by the registration officer for any particular purpose, be turned into a list under GDPR and used for a different purpose, such as to send the prompts that my hon. Friend is proposing? Is that compatible with European law?
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Housing
Margaret Ann Throup (Conservative, Centre-right): I appreciate the sentiment behind the new clause, but I have moved house on numerous occasions and have never found a way to tell anybody in authority where I was moving to, nor would I have wanted to. Will my hon. Friend explain a bit more how the new clause would work in practice?
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure that many other people are like my hon. Friend in that regard. It is not a question about how the new clause will work in practice. It seems to me that it is self-explanatory, in that it says: "If the registration officer receives information that leads him or her to believe that a registered elector has moved, or is going to move, outside the United Kingdom, the registration officer shall contact that elector to prompt him or her to register as an overseas elector." How it would work in practice would seem self-explanatory. If the registration officer finds something out, he will contact the person concerned and say, "Will you register as an overseas elector?" I am not sure that I can add much to what the new clause already says.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Julian Carlton Knight (Conservative, Centre-right): I thought earlier during my hon. Friend’s speech about the GDPR issue, which our hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) has raised, but the truth of the matter is that, throughout government, people find ways to comply with GDPR. I do not think it is beyond the wit of registration officers to find a way for my hon. Friend’s new clause 1 to be operable within the confines of GDPR. We should not fear GDPR in that respect. We should always try to find ways to work within it, but at the same time it should not stop us making law.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right. The other point is that if we find that the new clause is useful but is being stymied by the general data protection regulation, there would be nothing to stop this House amending it to make it easier for the new clause to operate, so I agree with him. I do not think we should fear doing anything because there might or might not be a problem further down the line. If there is, we can deal with it when it appears.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): If I could come on to my new clauses, the hon. Gentleman might get to hear my explanations. To be perfectly honest, I have not yet had a chance to get going on my explanations of my new clauses, so it is bit curious to be accused of not giving them before I have even started. That is new one. However, I am delighted to hear at least one Labour Member state clearly on the public record that it is important to scrutinise Bills that come before us on a Friday. I am sure that is welcome, and I hope that view will spread like wildfire across the Opposition Benches, because we are usually told that we should not scrutinise them at all, so that is a step in the right direction. If we keep going, we will be on to a winner I am also surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman make what I consider to be a criticism of his hon. Friend on the Front Bench, the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson).
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I knew it was a mistake to give way to the hon. Gentleman for a second time after his first effort. I am not entirely sure which new clause he was referring to, but I am still on new clause 1, and new clause 1 is not about whether someone should vote here or vote there or vote at a polling station. It is about what a registration officer should do if he finds out that someone is going to move abroad. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was ahead of me or somewhere else, but let me say, just for the record, that I am still on new clause 1. I hope that that is helpful to Members.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Kirstene Janette Hair (Conservative, Centre-right): It is indeed new clause 1 that I wish to discuss. Does my hon. Friend think that the information that registration officers would be able to obtain could then be available to political parties to further encourage people to sign up and to vote? In the past, parties have, for example, sent cards encouraging people who have just turned 18 to do so.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend, particularly for putting us back on track. Yes, I do think that that would be the consequence. What we are trying to do is encourage people to register as overseas electors, and to do so as early as possible. The earlier they register, the earlier that information will be available more widely, and will enable party representatives to campaign. Not only will it solve the problems that we have had with late registrations—as the hon. Member for City of Chester made clear in Committee—but it will help people to engage with the political process. The sooner they are registered, the sooner everyone can engage with them. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting a point that I must confess I had not really considered.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): It was clearly a forlorn hope to expect the right hon. Gentleman to stick to the Bill. All I can say, to try to clear the matter up, is that I did not table this Bill. It is not my Bill. Whether he thinks that we should be concentrating on this Bill or that some other Bill would have been a better use of the House’s time, this is out of my control. I found out that this Bill was top of the pops for today, and I decided to try to do what I think is the duty of Members. Explanations are usually aimed at people outside the House, but it seems that today we are having to give them to people inside the House. The purpose at this point—the Report stage—is to scrutinise the merits or otherwise of this Bill and to see whether it can be improved in some way. It is not to decide whether or not this Bill should be first on the agenda, which is a question over which I have no control Whether or not this is the most important Bill that should come before the House is a matter of debate that is not particularly relevant on Report. It is not my Bill. I did not choose for it to be debated. I am simply picking it up and trying to make the best of it and trying to improve it, and the improvements that I am suggesting have largely been suggested by Labour Members. I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would be encouraging me to try to improve it in the way that his own party wants it to be improved.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Immigration
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. That was a very good and sensible intervention, if I may say so. I do not envisage people registering before they have moved, because something might change and they might not do so. I think that that would be quite improper. The purpose of the new clause is to prompt them to be sure to register as soon as they have moved overseas. However, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which I think was very helpful.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Michael Alex Burghart (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. He is being customarily generous with his time May I return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), who raised the prospect of helpful neighbours sending information to registration officers about people moving? Is not the more pertinent issue that some parts of the Government machine—Departments and officers—may become aware that someone is moving away for work and may choose to share that information with a registration officer, and new clause 1 would then give that registration officer the agency to act?
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with my hon. Friend. He has made a very good point. I think it has long been a policy of everyone in the House—certainly a policy of Members on both sides of the House—that we should do what we can to encourage more people to register to vote. I have never known anyone to argue against that principle. As my hon. Friend says, this measure could easily help more people to register, which I would expect to be a welcome move The hon. Member for City of Chester touched on this when he moved his new clause in Committee. He said that it was likely to engage more people in voting. He referred to the Electoral Commission’s overseas voter day on 10 May 2016, which was supported by embassies and consulates around the world and which was intended to encourage British citizens who were eligible to register as overseas voters to do so in time to vote in the EU referendum. The commission ran a public awareness campaign for overseas voters between 17 March and 9 June, and more than 135,000 overseas voters registered during that period As the hon. Gentleman made clear in Committee, the new clause could go some way towards making overseas voters aware of their voting rights at an early stage. I think we should all welcome that, because presumably we want more people to register and we think that the earlier they do so, the better.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Neil John O'Brien (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) has done a better job than me of teasing out one of the problems this new clause might cause for registration officers. My example of the helpful neighbour was in one sense unhelpful, because a more real difficulty for ROs would be on the question of what it is to be aware that someone is planning to move overseas, but as my hon. Friend pointed out, many other parts of Government might hold information that implies someone is about to move overseas My fear is that there will be differences in practice around the country in that some ROs will be quite effective and determined to seek out that information from other parts of Government, including local government, while others will not be, at which point there will be a row, because this is not an entirely unpolitical subject: some people are keener on registering overseas electors than others. We can imagine a world in which people say, "Look, in Rutlandshire we are using a data sharing system to pull information from this part of local government that people are about to move overseas in order to send out these prompts, but you over in Blodchester are not doing that. Why are you not doing that? You are failing in your duty to send prompts to people who parts of Government have become aware are about to move overseas."
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a good point, but I do not agree with the thrust of where he is coming from. I am sure he will correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that he is criticising the fact that there could be a postcode lottery, to put it in common jargon. Therefore, it seems to me that he is basically advocating that, to avoid that, he would rather nobody could do something, rather than have some people doing something. I would sooner some people did something and we encouraged the others to follow suit than say, "Because I can’t guarantee everyone is going to do it I would rather nobody did it." So I have a slight difference of principle.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a good case. I had not given that point a great deal of thought before now, but I am finding her very persuasive; I always find her very persuasive, but particularly on this point—and it is great to see her in her place doing her duty, which is to represent her constituents in Parliament, unlike those who occupy the Scottish Nationalist party Benches opposite, who are absent without leave. She could teach our friends from the SNP a few things about how best to represent their constituents in Parliament We could be in for a long morning here because I have only just covered new clause 1 and have barely got going to be perfectly honest. We still have quite a few new clauses to go through as colleagues will see from this group, and we have three groups of amendments to go through, notwithstanding the urgent questions and so on, so if Members will allow I will—
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Leo Docherty (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend. I share his confidence that ROs and administrators in local government would be fully capable of implementing new clause 1 if it were put into law. I used to have great confidence in Andrew Colver in Rushmoor who was given an OBE for his contribution to democratic services in Rushmoor. Does my hon. Friend agree, however, that the burden of this new clause should fall not just on the point of departure, but on the point of arrival, and that if this is to be done effectively consular officials and our diplomatic teams will need to have a public awareness campaign, so when people arrive at their new place of residence they are encouraged to register?
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I am going to move on now, or else we could be here all night. I shall move on to new clause 3, and I will try to crack on a bit; otherwise, we could be here forever. New clause 3 in effect requests a report on the awareness of how to participate in elections as an overseas elector. Again, I have taken this from the hon. Member for City of Chester, who mentioned it in Committee. I commend him again for doing that. When he introduced this change in Committee, he said: "We heard in the discussion of previous clauses about the dangers of overseas electors piling in as soon as an election is called. We discussed with the Minister the importance of electors participating early by registering as early as possible. Based on the 2016 survey conducted by the Electoral Commission, it is clear that there remains widespread confusion about what it means to be an overseas voter and the eligibility criteria necessary to vote." This is no doubt one of the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire brought forward the Bill in the first place. I think we can all agree that that is the case. The hon. Member for City of Chester went on to say: "This lack of awareness has the potential to create a significant barrier to casting a ballot. The survey found that there was widespread lack of awareness about eligibility requirements, with 31% believing that eligibility required receiving a UK state pension and 22% believing that it required owning a property in the UK."––[Official Report, Overseas Electors Public Bill Committee, 17 October 2018; c. 67.] Those were particularly pertinent points that he highlighted when he brought forward his new clause. We should all be concerned about the level of confusion that that survey revealed. The purpose of new clause 3 is to raise awareness among overseas voters of how they can participate in elections. Given that we are trying to get more overseas electors to participate in elections, the new clause, helpfully suggested by the hon. Member for City of Chester, would be a pretty important way to ensure we did that.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend again highlights the importance of the scrutiny of Bills, particularly on a Friday, and I am grateful to him for doing that. He makes a very good point; I am sure that a date would have been beneficial to this proposal. As it happens, I am not trying to pass on responsibility, because that is not the purpose of the new clause. I have merely taken what the hon. Member for City of Chester tabled before, because that was a good proposal. However, I obviously take full responsibility for the new clause that I have tabled, and my hon. Friend is right to say that it would have been better with a timetable. I hope that, if new clause 3 is passed, pressure could be brought to bear on the Minister to speed things up in the usual way that we do in this House.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Neil John O'Brien (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not regard the absence of a date as in any way fatal to new clause 3, or as an argument against it, but for the benefit of those who have to implement it, I wonder whether my hon. Friend could guide them by specifying now in this debate, which they will read, whether he expects this to be done prior to commencement or in a progress report sometime later, and indeed whether he expects there to be a regular report produced every year or every couple of years?