argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Refugee Family Reunion — House of Commons, 2018-06-21
Topic: Immigration
Thangam Elizabeth Rachel Debbonaire (Labour, Centre-left): It truly is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O'Brien), who makes an excellent case for why we should improve the welcome we give refugees. I am glad he feels that way. It was good to hear about the lovely things his constituency organisations are doing to welcome refugees, and I thank him for that. I also thank the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) for bringing us this debate today, in Refugee Week, and for marking the fact that yesterday was World Refugee Day by reading out the moving and beautiful poem that was read by its author, a young refugee, so movingly in Speaker’s House yesterday This debate is an opportunity for us to celebrate, welcome and improve the huge contribution that refugees make to this country. My constituency has been particularly enriched by people who have made long and often arduous, dangerous journeys across continents, fleeing war, persecution and other disasters. As chair of the all-party group on refugees, I ask myself every day: what can we do in this place to improve the way this country treats refugees? I know we can do this, and I think it is part of who we are as a country to do better. As hon. Members will know, we are living through a global migration crisis: 65 million people were forcibly displaced in 2016, through poverty, environmental disaster, war, conflict and persecution. We have moral, as well as legal, obligations to assist, but we currently take only a tiny fraction of those people. Refugee family reunion is one area where we can make a difference. Current laws and international agreements exist to help reunite separated families, but they do not go far enough and leave many refugee families separated by international borders. The Second Reading of the hon. Gentleman’s private Member’s Bill on refugee family reunion, including the right to legal aid, was really significant. The fact that a huge number of MPs turned up to a Friday sitting was a testament to the fact that not only do those MPs, from right across the House, care about refugee rights, but their constituents are also concerned. Our making that difficult decision to be here on a Friday usually has to be done with some level of informed consent, informal or otherwise, from our constituents, whose engagements we may have had to cancel.
Refugee Family Reunion — House of Commons, 2018-06-21
Topic: Immigration
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, because she is talking about some of the practical steps the Government can take. Children I have visited in the Calais camps—as close as that—have the prima facie right under the Dubs amendment and Dublin III to come here but are simply not being assessed. They will therefore eventually risk their lives under trains or lorries in order to get here. Those are the sorts of issues, along with the funding of English language teaching and the right of asylum seekers to work here, that would make a practical difference and would help this country.
Refugee Family Reunion — House of Commons, 2018-06-21
Topic: Immigration
Thangam Elizabeth Rachel Debbonaire (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for making those excellent points. He is absolutely right to say that there are children in Calais—other hon. Members have been to see them, too—who appear to have a relative who already has status in this country, and who should be here. Making those safe and legal routes available is very important in order to protect children and adults In closing, let me say that the forthcoming immigration Bill may give us scope to support amendments in many of these areas, and I hope it does, but we need to create other opportunities to improve the treatment of those looking for sanctuary in this country and to improve our welcome. I urge Members from across the House to read the report that my all-party group compiled, researched and wrote last year, "Refugees Welcome?". One recommendation was about the right to work, but others were about the other matters I have mentioned. We can all improve the welcome that we as Members of Parliament give to our own constituents. I have been learning Arabic for the past 18 months to make myself a better MP for Syrian and other middle eastern refugees. I am smiling because it is very slow progress—painfully slow; they are learning English faster than I am learning Arabic—but the idea is to make that welcome as genuine and sincere as possible This is about who we are as a country. It is about how we want to be seen in the world. It is about the fact that in our increasingly, heartbreakingly divided world, differences are reinforced more than they are bridged. It is about those countries that live out their values and provide safe haven for those who flee war and persecution. Those are the countries that light up a more hopeful future for us all.
Refugee Family Reunion — House of Commons, 2018-06-21
Topic: Immigration
Charalambos Charalambous (Labour, Centre-left): This is the 65th anniversary of the signing of the European convention on human rights. One of the fundamental rights guaranteed under article 8 and enshrined in UK law is the right to family life. The article states: "Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence." My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) has already mentioned the UN convention on the rights of the child. Unfortunately, the UK is out of sync with its own law by not applying the right to family life to refugee children. As we have heard, the Refugees (Family Reunion) (No. 2) Bill, promoted by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), seeks to amend the law so that child refugees are allowed exactly the same rights as adult refugees, as well as legal aid to make their application. I support his Bill I emphasise that that only applies to children who have been processed and have lawfully acquired refugee status, and who therefore have the legal right to be in this country. I am sure that anybody with children of school age still worries a little when their children go on a school trip, even if it is only for a day. Imagine those children having to flee their home after witnessing the ravages and horrors of war and to make dangerous journeys over thousands of miles alone, having left their family behind. It is not something that any parent would wish on any child, let alone their own. Then imagine that, having made that journey and reached a safe haven, that child cannot be reunited with his or her parents or siblings. Imagine the mental trauma that the child has to go through alone. It is inhumane to prevent any child from having access to their family There is an EU directive on family reunion, which has been adopted by 25 out of the 27 EU members. Article 10 of the directive specifies that unaccompanied child refugees are entitled to be reunited with their family members. Two countries chose not to opt in. Ireland has introduced its own domestic law right to allow child refugees to be sponsors for their family members, so that they can join them. Only Denmark and the United Kingdom are out of step with the rest of the EU.
Refugee Family Reunion — House of Commons, 2018-06-21
Topic: Immigration
Alexander David Sobel (Labour, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, when the Prime Minister says "Brexit means Brexit", this is what she means—that refugee children will not be able to be reunited with their families? Does not our international reputation potentially suffer in the same way that the United States’s has this week if we adopt such policies?
Refugee Family Reunion — House of Commons, 2018-06-21
Topic: Immigration
Charalambos Charalambous (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He is right that, given the uncertainty about what will happen post Brexit, we cannot be sure of anything, and these issues need to be spelled out and confirmed as soon as possible Why would anyone want to deprive these child refugees of the right to be with their parents and families? These are vulnerable children, some suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, dealing with the bureaucracy of being a refugee, having difficulty accessing support, in a culturally different environment and now lacking the support network of their family. Why heap that unnecessary cruelty on a child when it is obvious that a child refugee will do so much better in all areas with the support of their family The UK has already failed in its promise to accept 480 children from the Calais camp, which is shameful, and it is only thanks to the phenomenal work of charities such as Help Refugees that some of the Calais children living in the woods are alive today. I hope that hon. Members at least have the humanity to do the right thing by supporting the children who are already here Having looked at the first part of the Bill, I will now focus on the second part, which relates to legal aid. Legal aid was made unavailable for refugee family reunion cases following the passing of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. It is difficult enough for adults to navigate the myriad complex legal procedures and forms that need to be completed. With family reunion applications, there is an additional requirement: family members have to attend the closest British embassy, which will necessarily mean travelling through conflict zones. In some cases, there is a need for DNA tests, and documentation gathering is also a necessary part of applications. The British Red Cross highlighted the complexities of applying for family reunion in its report "Not so Straightforward" As child refugees have no other way of accessing the legal support they need because of the bureaucracy created by the Government, it is only right that they should have access to legal aid to help them to navigate this process. If the Government want to reduce the cost of the Bill, perhaps they should look at making the process of family reunion easier and therefore cheaper. Since the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act came into effect in 2013, there has been a cut of more than £600 million in the legal aid budget, which is over and above the savings that the Treasury was demanding of the Ministry of Justice. The Act is due to be reviewed this year. I am not aware of how much progress has been made on that front, but the Bill gives the perfect opportunity for the Ministry of Justice to examine the impact of the legal aid cuts, particularly in the field of family reunion, and to put some money back where it is needed.
Refugee Family Reunion — House of Commons, 2018-06-21
Topic: Immigration
Charalambos Charalambous (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is right about refugee camps needing more support and the provision of education. Many people spend years and years in refugee camps and their education suffers. However, we want to tackle the cause of this. The reason that people are in refugee camps is war. Unless more is done to stop war and conflict, these refugee camps will continue to exist and there will be more asylum seekers and refugees There will no doubt be critics who say that this will open the floodgates, with more people traffickers exploiting young people and more migrants wanting to come to the UK. However, I remind hon. Members that the countries neighbouring Syria, such as Jordan and Turkey, have taken in millions of Syrian refugees, while across Europe, Germany, Italy and France received at least twice as many asylum applications as the UK in 2017. The UK received less than 3% of all asylum claims made in the EU last year. I also remind hon. Members that, in 2017, 3,119 people lost their lives in their desperate attempts to cross the Mediterranean to claim asylum. Even for those who make it to the UK, the asylum system here is extremely tough, with only 29% of initial asylum applications made in the UK being successful and only 35% of appeals being successful I want to give hon. Members an idea of the numbers that will be helped by the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar. Last year, only 794 children who arrived in the UK as unaccompanied children were granted asylum. The Bill seeks to help those 794 children—that figure is less than the number of peers in the other place—and allow them to be reunited with their families. Not allowing child refugees to be reunited with their family members is morally wrong, legally wrong and inhumane. I invite all hon. Members to support the hon. Gentleman’s Bill, and I encourage the Government to bring forward a money resolution to allow the Bill to progress so that these children can be reunited with their families.
Refugee Family Reunion — House of Commons, 2018-06-21
Topic: Immigration
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making an excellent point—refugees are indeed to be valued. While they are fleeing injustices from other parts of the world, we should not be following the example of President Trump in the United States. If anything, we should be showing compassion in our policy towards refugees.
Refugee Family Reunion — House of Commons, 2018-06-21
Topic: Other
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): Order. There seems to be a bit of concern—every Member who is here was here when I came into the Chair. [Interruption.] Let us leave it to the Chair to decide whether interventions can be made.
Refugee Family Reunion — House of Commons, 2018-06-21
Topic: Immigration
Mohammed Afzal Khan (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister halt the Government’s current approach, which seems to be to make the lives of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK so awful that nobody would ever want to come? I will mention two ways in which this has emerged particularly acutely First, the conditions in some private asylum accommodation are abhorrent. My attention was recently drawn to private asylum accommodation in my constituency that was infested with cockroaches, rodents and bedbugs. Nobody, let alone families with children, should be forced to live in these conditions. This accommodation passed safety and standards tests, so will the Minister review these standards? Unfortunately, we know that this is not an isolated case. Our asylum accommodation system is not fit for purpose. I fear that, on a certain level, the Government accept these conditions for a reason connected with their pull factor argument. They want the asylum process in the UK to be so awful that no one will risk it The renewal of the asylum accommodation contracts is coming up. Can the Minister tell us which private bodies, separate from local authorities, have been contracted to provide housing for refugees? Can she also tell us something about the involvement of private firms in the rehousing of refugees, temporary or otherwise? What assessment has been made of their performance delivery, and are any new contracts likely to be awarded this year Indefinite immigration detention continues to be a blight on our country’s moral record. Refugees and asylum seekers are frequently detained hundreds of miles from where they were living, and they are moved around constantly, often during the night. That makes it very difficult for them to maintain contact with family and friends, especially when phones are routinely confiscated. The current system to prevent vulnerable people from being detained is not working. We know that torture survivors and other vulnerable people are not identified before their detention and that it is extremely difficult for them to be released once they are there, although there has been a significant reduction in the number of pregnant women in detention I look forward to reading the Shaw review and the Government’s response when they are published. I hope that they will propose the far-reaching reforms that are so desperately needed The Labour party is clear about this issue. We would uphold the right to a family life. We would allow the carers or parents of child refugees to come here. We would also end the practice of deporting children who are not entitled to be here once they turn 18, even when their parents are entitled to be here. We would end indefinite detention and the outsourcing of detention, and we would ensure that families fleeing war and persecution were housed in safe and sanitary conditions.
Erasmus Plus Programme — House of Commons, 2018-06-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour, Centre-left): I agree it is very likely that the European Union would want our engagement to continue, which is why, to some extent, this is an easy door to push against and walk through. The foreign students coming into the UK are economically an export for us, because they bring foreign money to invest in this country. It might seem strange but higher education is a net export, as it brings cash into this country.
Erasmus Plus Programme — House of Commons, 2018-06-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour, Centre-left): We would all acknowledge that the Erasmus+ scheme has been of huge benefit to our country. Indeed, over the past 30 years, 600,000 people from the UK have benefited. Erasmus+ is unique in providing additional funding for disadvantaged and disabled students, which is why the Government should fully support the scheme.
Erasmus Plus Programme — House of Commons, 2018-06-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Rupa Asha Huq (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making an excellent and powerful speech. I went on one of the predecessor schemes. Has he seen the figures from Universities UK showing that 7.8% of black and minority ethnic graduates who have not studied abroad are unemployed, whereas 4.6% of black and minority ethnic graduates who have taken part in student mobility projects, such as Erasmus+ and its predecessors, are unemployed? I did it, and I did not turn out too badly The Government place great faith in the race disparity audit. Does my hon. Friend agree it is important that we should cherish and prioritise Erasmus+?
Erasmus Plus Programme — House of Commons, 2018-06-21
Topic: Other
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): Order. The hon. Gentleman has already used his 15 minutes. I want him to get to the end of his speech, but if he keeps taking interventions, we will not get there. We do have other speakers who wish to contribute, so I am sure that he will want to get to the end quickly.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2018-10-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): Last week, The Times reported that a young autistic woman with severe learning disabilities and an IQ of 52 was sexually exploited for months after her care provider had a court accept a plan for her to have sexual relations with men at her home. It is unacceptable that the agency charged with the care of this young woman decided that unsupervised contact with men for sex was in her best interest, yet the Government would give all such care providers a role in assessing the mental capacity of the people for whom they care. Will the Secretary of State urgently investigate this case? Given that the case illustrates the conflict of interest that arises from involving care providers in mental capacity assessments, will he pause the Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill to allow time to make it fit for purpose?
Civil Liability Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-10-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Gloria De Piero (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Even if we use RPI, the Government still do not get to their proposed £2,000 new small claims limit. Instead, using the flawed RPI from 1999 would take the £1,000 to roughly £1,700. That is what we on the Labour Benches suspect is going on here.
Civil Liability Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-10-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Gloria De Piero (Labour, Centre-left): Exactly. I do not think anybody in this House will want to shed a tear for those insurance companies whose profits are going up and up. In 2017, profits for Direct Line went up 52% to £570 million and Aviva recorded a profit of £1.6 billion—and I have not even talked about the packages that some insurance company bosses take home The Government appear to have rounded this figure up. We say base the figure on the advice and recommendations of countless experts and follow the evidence. Even if the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) does not listen to me, I wish he would follow the evidence of the experts. New clause 1 does just that. It would increase the limit only by CPI since 1999 and limit any increase to £1,500. That way, injured people with significant injuries and potentially even more significant losses will get the representation they need and deserve.
Civil Liability Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-10-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Charalambos Charalambous (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me in saying that insurance companies are paying up on a regular basis. They are not even defending these claims, yet the Bill is designed to protect them. What does he say about that?
Civil Liability Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-10-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Eleanor Claire Reeves (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the fact that the hon. Gentleman supports an outright ban on cold calling by claims management companies, but does he agree that the Government’s measures in the Financial Guidance and Claims Act 2018 do not go that far? Rather than punishing injured victims, would it not be far better to introduce that outright ban on claims management companies’ cold calling?
Civil Liability Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-10-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Ruth Stephanie Nicole George (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman, who is making an excellent speech, has answered his own question. He has talked about the prevalence of claims management companies and the way they are inciting people to make claims on an industrial scale. Surely those claims management companies, and the insurance companies they are linked to in most cases, should be bearing the brunt of this problem, not the innocent victims of accidents, as would be the case under the Bill.
Civil Liability Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-10-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): The proportion of fraudulent claims is about 1%. If I understand the hon. Gentleman’s argument correctly, he is saying that all meritorious claimants should be debarred from proper representation so we can identify that 1%, because it is too difficult for the Government to legislate. Is not the truth of the matter that the Government, as always, are joined at the hip to the Association of British Insurers, and are simply legislating in its interests?
Civil Liability Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-10-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Eleanor Claire Reeves (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He talks with great passion about the democratic accountability of this House. Does he therefore agree that any changes to the small claims limit should not be done by negative statutory instrument, as the Government are proposing, and that they should instead be debated on the Floor of the House?
Civil Liability Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-10-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Charalambos Charalambous (Labour, Centre-left): Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many of these claims companies operate on a no win, no fee basis? Therefore, if no payment is made and a claim is defended, the claimant will not be paid if they are defeated.
Civil Liability Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-10-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Ruth Stephanie Nicole George (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman talks about the underlying cause that makes these changes necessary, as has the hon. Member for Croydon South. As they have both identified, that underlying cause is surely the fact that insurance companies should not be defending claims that could be fraudulent.