argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Education: Return in January — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Education
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): I want to return to the issue of exams and assessments. Young people have a real sense of fairness. When they are seeing some areas of the country where infection levels are incredibly high and other areas where these are lower, they are concerned that there will not be equality across the country to demonstrate their ability and for their futures. How will the Secretary of State ensure that every single child will have their assessment in such a way that their full ability will come to the fore?
Education: Return in January — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Education
Eleanor Claire Reeves (Labour, Centre-left): The importance of ventilation in schools was first highlighted in spring 2020, yet it has taken until 2022 for the Government to offer just 7,000 air-cleaning units when there are well over 20,000 schools and 300,000 classrooms in England. Schools in my constituency are doing a brilliant job, but I have seen an email from one school asking children as young as four to come to school in extra layers so that the windows can be kept open in winter. Is not the Government’s failure to get to grips with ventilation in our schools another example of them treating our children’s education as an afterthought?
UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Agriculture
Anthony Joseph Lloyd (Labour, Centre-left): Happy new year, Madam Deputy Speaker The Secretary of State will know that at some point we will need to have a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the EU; that is in the interests of our agricultural community across the board, and in Northern Ireland in particular. Can she give an absolute guarantee that there is nothing in this agreement or any other negotiations she is contemplating that would put that SPS agreement at risk?
UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Francis Spellar (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome a trade deal with our allies, friends and family in Australia, especially for the motor industry. Along with AUKUS, I hope it will provide a renewed international democratic dynamic and closer working for more resilient supply chains in both goods and raw materials. I am concerned that Ministers may have been desperate to do any deal, rather than getting the best deal. If there are concerns about meat imports, will the Secretary of State press other Departments, the NHS and schools to prioritise local meat, just as every other country does?
UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Environment
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): Happy new year, Madam Deputy Speaker Australia is the only country in the developed world on WWF’s list of global deforestation hotspots, and beef production is the No. 1 driver of this. In the great barrier reef catchments, 94% of land clearance is linked to it. It is destroying the habitats of threatened species, including the koala—and I am sure we would all want to preserve the koala’s habitats. Can the Secretary of State assure me that we will not, under this trade agreement, allow the import of more beef that is linked to deforestation? This morning we had a debate in Westminster Hall and the reassurances from the Minister there were pretty weak. Can she confirm that this will be something the Government try to uphold?
UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Agriculture
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I wish you a happy new year, Madam Deputy Speaker. From the enthusiastic way in which the Secretary of State is selling this deal, she has clearly been drinking a lot of the Prime Minister’s Kool-Aid, but no matter how much positive spin she puts on it, it is a bad deal for County Durham beef and sheep farmers, including those in my constituency. Those people are already struggling because of the restrictions that have come about because of Brexit, so I ask her what discussions she has had with her counterparts in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about support for those farmers in years to come. In many cases, they are marginal anyway, and if they are opened up to worldwide competition from Australian lamb and beef, that will make their job 10 times harder.
UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
William Roffen Esterson (Labour, Centre-left): Happy new year, Madam Deputy Speaker. In the Committee stage of the Trade Act 2021, I tabled a series of amendments to include environmental chapters in all future trade agreements. The Government rejected all our amendments of that nature on the basis that such chapters would be included on a deal-by-deal basis, but that was not true, was it? The procurement chapter of the agreement specifically excludes the environmental chapter. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) said, the failure to include 1.5°, added to the exclusion of an environmental chapter, means that the Government have completely undermined in this trade agreement any commitment to tackling the climate crisis.
Hospitality Sector: Covid-19 Support — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): Tory failures on the economy now show all too clearly that the Tories are no longer the party of business. Business taxes and costs are rising, revenues and profits are falling, and businesses face a cliff edge in March as support is withdrawn. Yet when hospitality businesses were losing, on average, £10,000 a week, the Chancellor was in California, with the Business Secretary nowhere to be seen. Does the Minister agree that hospitality businesses, hit hard by covid and Government chaos, need more than the one-off grants finally announced, and will he now back Labour’s calls for the Government to consider extending the VAT discount for hospitality?
Science and Innovation: Levelling Up — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Technology
Daniel Owen Jarvis (Labour, Centre-left): The University of Sheffield’s new gene therapy innovation and manufacturing centre shows that South Yorkshire can lead the world when it comes to research, but nearly half of all R&D spending goes into the golden triangle. What is the Minister doing to ensure that the north gets its fair share?
New Nuclear Power — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Energy
John Francis Spellar (Labour, Centre-left): I was disappointed that, in his reply, the Minister did not refer to small modular nuclear reactors, which surely are the future in this sector. Can we take the lesson from the vaccine taskforce that rigorous scientific methods can be combined with speeding up the process and cutting out dead time? Can he convey that message to the regulators so that this world-beating technology can be built in Britain to the benefit of British industry and British workers?
Off-grid Homes: Emissions — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Energy
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): I am sure that the Secretary of State is aware that off-grid customers’ gas and oil supplies are not covered by the price cap, and that they will therefore experience even higher price fuel price increases this spring than the £600 or so now predicted for on-grid customers. Is the Secretary of State intending to provide any special assistance to off-grid customers, or is he going to let them stew alongside their on-grid neighbours, as the Government seem happy to do at the moment?
Baglan Energy Park — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Energy
Questions: What recent discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on ensuring that the power supply for Baglan energy park remains connected until a permanent connection to the national grid is secured.
Stephen Nathan Kinnock (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister knows that in just three days the official receiver is due to turn off the power on the Baglan energy park. The intransigence of the official receiver is putting huge pressure on local businesses and also creating massive environmental and public health risks. Section 400 of the Insolvency Act 1986 clearly gives the Business Secretary the power to direct the official receiver. Why will the Minister not step up, take urgent action and direct the official receiver so that the potentially catastrophic consequences for these businesses, houses and communities can be averted in just three days?
Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Energy
Jessica Elizabeth Morden (Labour, Centre-left): For UK steelmakers, paying 61% more than their German competitors for industrial energy is not only a barrier to investment but a direct barrier to decarbonisation, with the future of this foundation sector being fundamental to our net zero ambitions, so when will Ministers commit to providing Government support to bridge the electricity price gap?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Energy
Michael Lee Amesbury (Labour, Centre-left): May I echo the sentiments in regards to my late good friend and fellow trade unionist, the Member for Erdington Energy-intensive industries such as Tata Chemicals in my patch, and the Daresbury labs on the Sci-Tech site that the Secretary of State will be familiar with, need support and they need it now. Why does he not swallow his pride, support the windfall tax that Labour is proposing, plus the VAT measures, and help companies such as Tata and indeed British Steel?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Energy
Questions: I commend BEIS Ministers for their enlightened decision to locate part of their team in Darlington. At the same time as we level up with more jobs in Darlington, LNER is planning to reduce services to Darlington, which will have a detrimental effect on connectivity. What steps is my hon. Friend, in collaboration with colleagues, taking to protect connectivity vital to businesses in Darlington and right across the country?
Jonathan Neil Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the tribute that the Secretary of State just paid to our friend Jack Dromey, who was a great champion of British industry and of British workers and simply an all-round great man Over the last decade, Conservative Ministers cancelled the zero-carbon homes programme, banned onshore wind development, launched the eco-insulation programme and tore it up within one year. They reduced the UK’s gas storage capacity and at one particularly silly moment, the current Foreign Secretary claimed that solar panels were a risk to domestic food production. All those decisions have made this country more dependent on volatile wholesale energy prices than we otherwise would be. We know that means that there is an extremely difficult situation for British households, but it also risks making large swathes of British industry uncompetitive. The Secretary of State says that he is working hard, so what is his plan?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Energy
Questions: I commend BEIS Ministers for their enlightened decision to locate part of their team in Darlington. At the same time as we level up with more jobs in Darlington, LNER is planning to reduce services to Darlington, which will have a detrimental effect on connectivity. What steps is my hon. Friend, in collaboration with colleagues, taking to protect connectivity vital to businesses in Darlington and right across the country?
Jonathan Neil Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): There was a lot of talk from the Secretary of State, but no answer. However, let us take up the point that he made. Earlier, one of his Ministers gave me an answer about UK steel production. The Secretary of State talks about net zero, but that cannot be achieved by exporting UK industry and jobs. We have pledged £3 billion of investment in steel, which would match fund pilots in hydrogen in place of coal and joint fund investment in electric arc furnaces. Domestic steel is essential to net zero; it is relevant to levelling up because it provides the jobs and the wages in many parts of the country; and it relates to Brexit because our producers now pay higher tariffs than companies in the EU to export to the US. Net zero, levelling up and Brexit amount to the Government’s entire agenda, so Secretary of State, again—
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Labor
Questions: I commend BEIS Ministers for their enlightened decision to locate part of their team in Darlington. At the same time as we level up with more jobs in Darlington, LNER is planning to reduce services to Darlington, which will have a detrimental effect on connectivity. What steps is my hon. Friend, in collaboration with colleagues, taking to protect connectivity vital to businesses in Darlington and right across the country?; Storengy is a company in my constituency that provides gas storage. It tells me that levels of storage in this country have been decreasing. Can the Minister tell me how many days’ worth of gas storage there is now on a cold day, as defined by the National Grid, and whether he thinks that is sufficient?; Energy bills are crushing families in the cost of living crisis that this UK Government are presiding over. One million more UK households could fall into fuel poverty this year, but that is not inevitable. Will the Secretary of State ask the Chancellor to act by cutting VAT on energy, increasing the warm homes discount for vulnerable households, providing support to energy companies so that they can help consumers, making an emergency energy support payment and restoring the universal credit uplift? Will he also revisit the Department’s recent position and consider freezing the energy price cap?; Will my hon. Friend join me and my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) in backing Intelligent Energy’s bid for investment from the automotive transformation fund, which will bring a hydrogen fuel cell gigafactory and highly skilled green jobs to Rushcliffe and the wider east midlands? Will he accept my invitation to visit Rushcliffe to learn more about those exciting plans?; A recent survey showed that 91% of Wandsworth businesses are suffering negative effects from new Brexit regulations. Will the Minister commit to a region-by-region impact assessment of how businesses are adapting to the Government’s Brexit deal or are the Government leaving businesses to sink or swim?; The Minister for Corporate Responsibility has spoken about the Horizon Post Office scandal and the need to compensate victims properly. He will agree that the object of the exercise is to put those victims in the position that they would have been in had the insult not occurred in the first place. Will he ensure that any such scheme adopts the common law principles of compensating for pain, suffering and loss of amenity; exemplary damages; and past and future pecuniary losses and costs to put those people in the position that they should have been in?
Nicholas Desmond John Smith (Labour, Centre-left): The Treasury has benefited hugely from the miners pension surplus over the years. Even though the Prime Minister pledged in the 2019 election that no miner would be left behind and out of pocket, they have been. Will the Government look again at giving miners their fair share or is that another example of the Prime Minister saying one thing and doing another?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Energy
Questions: I commend BEIS Ministers for their enlightened decision to locate part of their team in Darlington. At the same time as we level up with more jobs in Darlington, LNER is planning to reduce services to Darlington, which will have a detrimental effect on connectivity. What steps is my hon. Friend, in collaboration with colleagues, taking to protect connectivity vital to businesses in Darlington and right across the country?; Storengy is a company in my constituency that provides gas storage. It tells me that levels of storage in this country have been decreasing. Can the Minister tell me how many days’ worth of gas storage there is now on a cold day, as defined by the National Grid, and whether he thinks that is sufficient?; Energy bills are crushing families in the cost of living crisis that this UK Government are presiding over. One million more UK households could fall into fuel poverty this year, but that is not inevitable. Will the Secretary of State ask the Chancellor to act by cutting VAT on energy, increasing the warm homes discount for vulnerable households, providing support to energy companies so that they can help consumers, making an emergency energy support payment and restoring the universal credit uplift? Will he also revisit the Department’s recent position and consider freezing the energy price cap?; Will my hon. Friend join me and my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) in backing Intelligent Energy’s bid for investment from the automotive transformation fund, which will bring a hydrogen fuel cell gigafactory and highly skilled green jobs to Rushcliffe and the wider east midlands? Will he accept my invitation to visit Rushcliffe to learn more about those exciting plans?; A recent survey showed that 91% of Wandsworth businesses are suffering negative effects from new Brexit regulations. Will the Minister commit to a region-by-region impact assessment of how businesses are adapting to the Government’s Brexit deal or are the Government leaving businesses to sink or swim?; The Minister for Corporate Responsibility has spoken about the Horizon Post Office scandal and the need to compensate victims properly. He will agree that the object of the exercise is to put those victims in the position that they would have been in had the insult not occurred in the first place. Will he ensure that any such scheme adopts the common law principles of compensating for pain, suffering and loss of amenity; exemplary damages; and past and future pecuniary losses and costs to put those people in the position that they should have been in?
Mary Kelly Foy (Labour, Centre-left): Households up and down the country are facing a cost of living crisis, with energy prices set to rise in April. While many are facing the choice between heating and eating, North sea oil and gas producers are posting record profits. Can the Secretary of State tell me why the Government are not backing the windfall tax on North sea oil and gas producers’ profits that would help measures to ease the burden on ordinary people?
Downing Street Garden Event — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Government Operations
Angela Rayner (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. It is incredibly disappointing but not surprising that the Prime Minister, of whom I asked this question, is not here today despite not having any official engagements. His absence speaks volumes, as do his smirks on the media. The public have already drawn their own conclusions. He can run but he can’t hide I received an email this morning from a man called John. He told me that on 20 May 2020 "I found my long-time partner dead on the bathroom floor. I had been unable to get a GP visit for her and she had suffered terribly for some time before the blood clots stopped her heart." On that day the House heard from the Prime Minister himself that 181 NHS workers and 131 social care staff had died. Many people made huge personal sacrifices Frankly, the Minister hides behind the Gray investigation. There is no need for an investigation into the simple central question today: did the Prime Minister attend the event in the Downing Street garden on 20 May 2020? It will not wash to blame this on a few junior civil servants; the Prime Minister sets the tone If the Prime Minister was there, surely he knew. The invitation was sent to 100 staff, many of them his own most personal senior appointees. This was organised in advance, so did the Prime Minister know about the event beforehand, and did he give his permission for it to go ahead? If so, did he believe this event was in keeping with the restrictions and guidelines at the time, and was the chief medical officer consulted before it went ahead? What did the Chancellor know about the party given that he lives and works next door, and can the Minister confirm that no other Ministers were present? Finally, may I ask the Minister here today whether he still believes the Prime Minister to be a man of honour and integrity?
Downing Street Garden Event — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Angela Eagle (Labour, Centre-left): Perhaps it would be faster if Sue Gray were to investigate the days when there were not parties—[Laughter.] I have sympathy for the Minister, because he has been sent with his "gatherings" excuse to defend the utterly indefensible. We know, do we not, that an invitation to a "bring your own booze" party was sent out for 20 May, when 268 people died in hospital that day? We know that it was illegal to meet anyone outside one’s own household, except one person overnight. So what is there to wait for? The Prime Minister should come here now, fess up and tell us what happened.
Downing Street Garden Event — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Government Operations
Zarah Sultana (Labour, Centre-left): More than 150,000 covid deaths, the highest toll in Europe; a cost-of-living crisis, with universal credit slashed and bills rocketing; a second jobs scandal; an attempt to let his corrupt mate off the hook; a dodgy flat donation; accusations of cash for access; and now this, a Downing Street party that was against the law and that the Prime Minister claimed did not happen but that he reportedly attended. After all this, does the Minister not feel embarrassed that the Prime Minister does not have the decency to resign?
Downing Street Garden Event — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Charlotte Louise Nichols (Labour, Centre-left): A constituent of mine, who I will call Malcolm, got in touch this morning having been fined with a £100 fixed penalty notice for breaching the coronavirus regulations. He accepts his wrongdoing, but it strikes me as incredibly unfair that, at the same time as the Downing Street parties were happening and Ministers and MPs seemed to be flagrantly breaching the rules, constituents like mine should have to pay. When will Malcolm and everyone else who has been fined for breaching the regulations be getting their money back?
Downing Street Garden Event — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Burgon (Labour, Centre-left): The unavoidable truth is that the public believe the Prime Minister is a liar who treats them with contempt. There is a crisis of public confidence. Is not the only way to restore public confidence for the Prime Minister, for once, to act in the public interest and resign now?
Downing Street Garden Event — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Government Operations
Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour, Centre-left): Page 1, section 1.3(c) of the ministerial code says: "It is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister" If the Prime Minister knowingly misled Parliament about the existence of this or any other party, will he resign as the ministerial code says he should?
Downing Street Garden Event — House of Commons, 2022-01-11
Topic: Social Welfare
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): In May 2020, a constituent told me this: "I had a little baby boy on 17th April but because of [pandemic] conditions we have been unable to have anyone round—not friends, not family. We’re completely on our own. It’s been really hard. My Dad hasn’t met his grandson and I’m feeling exceptionally isolated and alone without any support." How does the Minister feel—how does he himself feel—about the behaviour of the Prime Minister and Downing Street staff enjoying a drinks party while new mothers such as my constituent felt unsupported and desperately alone?