argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Northern Ireland: Political Developments — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Deidre Leanne Brock (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): As the Secretary of State alluded to in his statement, this has been coming down the line for a couple of months. Although it is deeply regrettable to see the Assembly stumble, it may need a serious jolt to get it going again. People will have differing opinions about the circumstances of Mr McGuinness’s resignation, but it leaves the Secretary of State with limited room to manoeuvre and leaves Northern Ireland stuck on pause. Can he clarify what steps he is taking to ensures that public confidence remains in the future of the institutions in Northern Ireland Can the Secretary of State also assure us that he is taking steps to ensure that democracy remains at the centre of the debate in Northern Ireland? As it seems clear that the relationship in the Executive has broken down and, as he said in his statement, the clock is ticking, and unfortunately it appears unlikely that the parties will get back around the table, is he prepared to face that fact, act quickly and let the people of Northern Ireland get on with choosing who they want to sit in Stormont Furthermore, the Secretary of State’s opportunities to affect the direction of Brexit negotiations appear as limited as those of the Scottish Secretary, given that neither is regularly invited into the room. Now that there is no effective Administration at Stormont who can speak up for Northern Ireland in the Joint Ministerial Committee, and remembering that Northern Ireland voted to remain, can he tell us what he is doing to ensure that the interests of the people of Northern Ireland are being looked after when Brexit negotiations are considered Finally, will the Secretary of State tell us of his discussion with the leader of the Ulster Unionist party regarding the possibility of suspending the Stormont Assembly until an inquiry into the RHI is concluded? Is he seriously considering that course of action?
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): ODA flows and gross national income can go up or down, so if, for some reason, GNI were to contract, and the ODA budget were to contract, surely it would make sense for the amount of overall capital investment in the CDC to contract so that more money was available for the traditional aid flows.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Thomas Sheppard (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I shall speak in support of a number of the measures on the amendment paper, but first I want to make a couple of comments about the political context in which this debate is taking place. I turned on the television over the weekend to see on the tickertape at the bottom of the news channel screen the information that our Government had stopped funding a girl band in Africa. I was shocked by this—I did not realise we were funding girl bands or bands of any other kind in Africa or elsewhere—so I thought I would look into the matter a little more. Of course, on doing so, I discovered that that was not the story at all The story was loosely based on a project in Ethiopia called Girl Effect, which is a huge programme that is aimed at empowering young women throughout that country. It has 500 direct participants and more than 10,000 participants online, and it operates from 8,000 schools throughout the country. It is designed to use music and performing arts to give young women in that country confidence so that they can take part in Ethiopian political and social life. It is undeniably a good thing. It was set up by DFID in 2011, and every time that DFID has reviewed it, it has been given an A* rating. It is exactly the type of project that we should be supporting, but it is unusual and unconventional. It is not the same as handing out food to people who are starving, so the case needs to be made for it. We also need to be aware of how these things can be caricatured and used to argue against the provisions that we are talking about today That entire Girl Effect project was described in the Daily Mail as the British Government funding the equivalent of the Spice Girls. The implication was quite clear: millions of pounds of our taxpayers’ money was being used not to feed the poor, the starving or the illiterate, but to fund five young women and turn them into rich pop stars. That was not true. The reporting was a good example of what we might call fake news—I believe that that is the term used these days. It was connected to reality by the thinnest threads of truth, yet for many people reading the Daily Mail and the other papers that took up the story, or looking at the tickertape along the bottom of their screen, it created the impression that they were given Lots of people, including some in this Chamber who ran to the press to comment on that story, will use these caricatures to denigrate and oppose any foreign aid activity by this country. They use the ridiculous argument that we should be spending money at home before we spend it abroad, as though the poverty and inequality in this country, which we must tackle, was on a par with the hell in sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty, oppression and the daily grind are the normal way of existence for the mass of people in those countries. Knowing that those caricatures exist and that we need to be careful about how we present these arguments brings me to the new clauses and amendments before us today.
Network Rail — House of Commons, 2017-01-12
Topic: Transportation
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Minister for his answer, but can he explain why the Government are happy to devolve responsibility for maintenance and track operations on the Oxford to Cambridge line, yet they are so reluctant to devolve the same responsibility to the Scottish Government for Scotland?
Network Rail — House of Commons, 2017-01-12
Topic: Transportation
Christopher Murray Alexander Law (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for his reply. The Reform Scotland think-tank published a report in November calling for Network Rail to be devolved—perhaps the Secretary of State has read it. The Minister will also be aware that an ever-growing list of people advocate further rail devolution, so will he do the right thing and commit to a date for opening discussions with the Scottish Government on this matter?
Network Rail — House of Commons, 2017-01-12
Topic: Transportation
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): A report commissioned by Transport Scotland showed that Network Rail’s original cost estimates for Scottish projects were unreliable. Does the Minister agree that, especially when projects overrun by hundreds of millions of pounds, those who commission the work should have the power to hold Network Rail to account?
High Speed 2: Costs — House of Commons, 2017-01-12
Topic: Transportation
Margaret Ferrier (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Adam Smith Institute has warned that HS2 could end up costing up to £80 billion, which would equate to nine times more per mile than comparable high-speed tracks in France. How can the Government assure the public that the already sky-high costs of this project are not going to spiral even further out of control?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-01-12
Topic: Transportation
Questions: I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), is as frustrated as I am by the constant delays to the tram-train project between Sheffield and Rotherham. Will he confirm that passenger services will start next year? Will he also give a date by which lessons can be learned from that project and rolled out across the country? Will he give particular consideration to the availability of hybrid tram-trains, which would mean that the vehicles could run on non-electrified heavy rail routes?; The excellent report “The Free Ports Opportunity”, written by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), sets out the possibilities for UK ports to become free ports, post-Brexit. It estimates that that could create 86,000 jobs in the UK. Will the Minister of State outline the possibilities for ports such as that in Newhaven in my constituency to become free ports, post-Brexit?; Ministers will be aware of the comments in Public Health England’s recent alcohol evidence review that drinking alcohol up to England’s drink-drive limit increases the risks of fatal accidents by 13 times. We have the highest drink-drive limit of any country in Europe expect for Malta, so will the Government look again at reducing the limit as a matter of urgency, in line with the views of the Police Federation, the RAC, the House of Lords, the Fire Brigades Union and 77% of the public?; The A75 in my constituency benefits from Euro-route designation. Will the Secretary of State assure my constituents that he will support the continued designation of Euro-routes after the UK leaves the European Union?
Kirsten Frances Oswald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The RAC has estimated that drivers have been over-charged by hundreds of millions of pounds owing to over-zealous enforcement by private car parks. Requiring operators to sign up to accredited trade associations would help to stop that type of behaviour. Does the Secretary of State agree that having all companies sign up would ensure that their business models were based on fair treatment of the motorist?
Yemen — House of Commons, 2017-01-12
Topic: International Affairs
George Kerevan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): There is a hidden element running through this debate. This House and the UK Government can hope to influence the conduct of Saudi Arabia and the other states of the Gulf Co-operation Council. We have less hope and opportunity of influencing the Houthi and the various elements active in Yemen, including Iran. No Opposition Member who wishes to be critical of Saudi is blind to the crimes committed against humanity, against their own people, by the Houthi leadership and other elements of the coalition Government. So if we are talking with emphasis about Saudi, it is not because we ignore the other side and its crimes, but if we are to move the debate on, all we can do—as a major ally, weapons supplier and market—is to influence Saudi. That is why we are doing it. Some Members have tried to present the discussion in terms of some people being anti-Saudi or forgetting about the Houthis, but that is not where we are going. We can influence Saudi. The argument from Opposition Members is that Her Majesty’s Government have been niggardly in how they have tried to influence Saudi. I will provide some evidence On 13 December, the United States Government vetoed the sale of 16,000 guidance systems for munitions that were going to be sold by US companies to Saudi Arabia. That tells me a couple of things. Why does Saudi need 16,000 guidance systems for bombs? It is something to do with the disproportionality of the air offensive that Saudi and several other air forces in the Arab world have been conducting. That disproportionality is getting in the way of a settlement. What began as a civil war—yes, there were some implications around the Saudi border—has been turned into a humanitarian disaster by the sheer scale of the action the Saudis have undertaken The fact that the Saudis are continuing after there is very little left to bomb suggests an unwillingness by the Saudi regime to come to a compromise before it is able to impose the political settlement it wants. It is therefore incumbent upon the UK to try to put pressure on the Saudis to reduce the scale of the bombing and say that they have to do something else. If the United States can do it, so can we. The US spokesman, when announcing the veto of the weapons sales in December, said, "We will not give a blank cheque to the Saudi regime." My criticism of HM Government is precisely that they are trying to give a blank cheque to the Saudi Government.
Yemen — House of Commons, 2017-01-12
Topic: International Affairs
George Kerevan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am well aware of that. Politics is politics in the western world, so while the US was banning the guidance systems, it was simultaneously agreeing a major contract to supply battle tanks to Saudi Arabia, but that just makes my point. If we presume, as HM Government do, that Saudi Arabia is an ally, the way we should deal with it is not to give it a blank cheque but to give it a choice. It is carrot and stick. The British Government have not done that. They spent a long time pretending or arguing that British cluster weapons had not been used. Once that was definitively proved, they moved back to saying that Saudi should conduct its own inquiries We have been training the Saudi air force. For the past 40 years, we have been helping to set up the command and control system for the Saudi air force. If it is not getting it right now, it is for political reasons, not because of any defectiveness in its command and control system. Waiting on the Saudis to investigate is a subterfuge. We have to put political pressure on the Saudis to come to the negotiating table to reduce the scale of the bombing and move towards some kind of ceasefire, and to do it properly. If we do not do that, we let them off the hook. As long as the British Government are being so soft—I use the word advisedly—on the Saudis in this context, we will never to get the international inquiry, which is the start of the process The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) crystallised the debate right at the very beginning by asking at what point do the British Government move on from demanding the Saudis investigate the failures in the bombing war to having an independent inquiry. That is the simplest thing. It is an even more modest request of HM Government than suspending arms sales temporarily, yet they will not even do that. That is the issue My final point is that as long as the British Government continue to underwrite the excessive Saudi bombing offensive, it becomes more and more likely that British personnel, in the military and in the Government, could be culpable legally.
Yemen — House of Commons, 2017-01-12
Topic: International Affairs
George Kerevan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I fully accept what my hon. Friend is saying about the use of child soldiers by the Houthis. Does he not recall, however, that the United Nations found Saudi Arabia to be culpable of being the biggest killer of children in the war in Yemen through its bombing, and that the Saudi regime forced the UN to take Saudi Arabia off its list of states with the worst records of dealing badly with children?
Yemen — House of Commons, 2017-01-12
Topic: International Affairs
Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): As we have heard, the conflict in Yemen has sometimes been labelled a forgotten conflict. I want to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who mentioned earlier that it has not been forgotten in this House. I also want to pay tribute to the hon. Members for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) for their excellent contributions to the debate, which I have thoroughly enjoyed. It has given all of us here in Parliament a chance to keep the issue at the forefront of the public debate and to remember those killed and injured as a result of the ongoing violence and those who are starving or stricken with illness as a result of the breakdown of civil society We must also remember the UK’s central role in the middle east, and in particular in this conflict. It is our moral and civic duty—and also in our best pragmatic, strategic self-interest—to do all we can to end the conflict and bring peace to Yemen. I think that there is consensus across the Chamber that that is what must happen, first and foremost because the humanitarian suffering in the country has now reached a horrifying tipping point I was grateful this week to have the opportunity to host a presentation by a range of aid organisations, setting out the scale and scope of the human suffering we are now seeing in the Yemeni population. We were warned by Oxfam, Christian Aid and the Yemen Safe Passage Group that the dangers of famine in the country are now very real indeed.
Yemen — House of Commons, 2017-01-12
Topic: International Affairs
Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Ordinarily I would give way, but the hon. Gentleman had 15 minutes to make his speech and I want to make sure that the Minister has time to answer the important questions we have all posed. Please forgive me Oxfam has stated that, if the trend of plunging food imports continues unabated, food imports will come to a complete halt in four months’ time. Adding to the spiralling economic problems now facing the country—the central bank has stopped salary payments to Government employees, pension payments to the elderly and welfare payments to the vulnerable—a human tragedy on an almost epic scale is upon us. The estimate of the experts is that, by April or May 2017, there is a high likelihood of a "cataclysmic" famine that would condemn millions to suffering and death It is important that we bear in mind that those civilian victims are not a by-product of the conflict. They are the targets of military action, with the lack of food being used as a weapon of war. We have a moral responsibility to our fellow human beings to act now to address this crisis, which is why I welcome the work of aid organisations in Yemen. They have ensured, as best as they possibly can, that aid is delivered to those who need it now. I recognise that the UK Government have contributed more than £100 million-worth of aid to the country, and the Scottish Government have donated to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s ongoing Yemen crisis appeal, but our charity alone will not avert this tragedy What the people of Yemen need now, as much as they need food, is international leadership. I welcome the efforts of the outgoing US Secretary of State, who tried to broker a ceasefire deal at the end of last year, but we know that the incoming Trump Administration are unlikely to take the same view of relations in the region. I fear that the policies of the new White House Administration will instigate a worrying degree of further instability in the middle east, a point also made by the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond).
Leaving the EU: Common Travel Area — House of Commons, 2017-02-01
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: What assessment he has made of the effect of the UK’s decision to leave the EU on the future of the Common Travel Area between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.; What assessment he has made of the effect of the UK’s decision to leave the EU on the future of the Common Travel Area between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): A hard border would be disastrous for communities that live along that border, especially in economic terms. What assurances can the Secretary of State offer that the common travel area will be top of the agenda in any Brexit negotiations? Will it be more important than restricting the freedom of movement elsewhere in the UK, for instance? Will Ministers assure us that the common travel area is part of any trade deal done with the European Union?
Inward Investment — House of Commons, 2017-02-01
Topic: Macroeconomics
Deidre Leanne Brock (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): As the Secretary of State noted, there is an Assembly election that will be followed by negotiations on ministerial responsibilities, all in uncertain times. Can the Minister offer any assurances that austerity will not be the rock upon which peace founders? Will the funding for legacy issues be guaranteed in the new Assembly, and will funding for other policy imperatives be eased? Will he ensure that the Assembly can function properly in financial terms?
Article 50: Northern Ireland Assembly — House of Commons, 2017-02-01
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Patrick Gethins (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Membership of the single market is obviously critical to Northern Ireland. Given the commitment to the common travel area, will the Minister tell us what blockages, apart from political ones, remain to Scotland and Northern Ireland remaining part of the single market?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2017-02-01
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: Today it is inconceivable that somebody would be prosecuted based on who and what they are. Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the posthumous pardon of some 49,000 men thanks to the Government’s Turing Bill which was enacted yesterday? Will she also encourage those who are still alive to come forward so that their injustices can be overturned?
Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): We on the SNP Benches associate ourselves with all the comments thus far about the tragic deaths in Quebec City and about the passing of Tam Dalyell. Respect for him was held across the political parties and he served with great distinction for more than 40 years The Prime Minister had a successful international visit this last week—to Ireland. She spoke publicly about her commitment—this is important—not to have a hard border on these islands, to the continuation of free movement of peoples on these islands and to protect and enhance trade. Given that people will be watching this not just in Britain but in Ireland, will she take this opportunity to explain how she will deliver those sensible, important outcomes?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2017-02-01
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: Today it is inconceivable that somebody would be prosecuted based on who and what they are. Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the posthumous pardon of some 49,000 men thanks to the Government’s Turing Bill which was enacted yesterday? Will she also encourage those who are still alive to come forward so that their injustices can be overturned?
Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): We on the SNP Benches very much welcome what the Prime Minister has just said on all those issues. Of course, we also welcome the intensifying of negotiations between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations ahead of triggering article 50. The Prime Minister has very helpfully explained that it is perfectly possible for parts of these islands to be in the single market, without hard borders, with free movement of people, while at the same time protecting and enhancing trade with one another. That is very, very welcome, so will she give a commitment to work with the Irish Government and a commitment to work with the Scottish Government to deliver all those things—or will we just have to get on with it ourselves?
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-01
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): That is an excellent example of the embarrassments to come. As for the economic damage, there was nothing wrong with the Treasury medium-term forecasts on coming out of the single marketplace; even if there is a bespoke deal, it will result in a 6% loss in GDP.