argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Enforcement Agents: Regulation — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Emma Elizabeth Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for that answer. It is unacceptable that many people, including the disabled constituent of mine she referred to, have suffered at the hands of aggressive bailiffs, who seem to think that they are above the law. Debt collectors and debt advice charities are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, but bailiffs are an anomaly in all this and do not have independent regulation. I hear what she says about the timetable, but when the Government do respond to the call for evidence and the Justice Committee report, will that include plans for an independent regulator of bailiffs?
Child Sexual Abuse Victims — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): Given that so many victims of child sexual abuse have spoken out about their horrendous experiences through the family courts, what consideration is being given to a full inquiry into the treatment in those courts of women and girls who have suffered domestic abuse and violence?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Marsha Chantol De Cordova (Labour, Centre-left): A staggering 72% of decisions on personal independence payments and 65% of decisions on employment and support allowance are overturned in the first-tier tribunal. That means that not only are ill and disabled people having to fight for the social security support to which they are entitled, but a great deal of money is being wasted on the administration of appeal tribunals. May I ask the Secretary of State how much is being spent on the administration of PIP and ESA tribunals? If those figures are not recorded, will he agree to start producing them?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Questions: What steps is the Minister taking across Government to spread the successful best practice of organisations such as Care after Combat, which is doing brilliant work with veterans in prisons and driving down reoffending?
Richard Burgon (Labour, Centre-left): Climate change is now receiving the public attention that it merits. Greta Thunberg is in the House today, and my party pays tribute to her work. All too often, however, our justice system restricts the ability of citizens to take legal action against environmentally damaging decisions. Last month, the United Nations criticised the Government’s failure to meet their international obligations relating to access to justice in environmental matters Labour’s 2017 manifesto proposed the establishment of a new type of environmental tribunal with simplified procedures so that citizens would have alternatives to prohibitively expensive judicial reviews. Will the Government follow Labour’s lead, and commit themselves to the establishment of a tribunal that would empower people to use our legal system to protect our shared environment?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: What steps is the Minister taking across Government to spread the successful best practice of organisations such as Care after Combat, which is doing brilliant work with veterans in prisons and driving down reoffending?; I went to prison last week—to Downview Prison, which is a women’s prison—for the Sycamore Tree course on restorative justice. Does the Minister agree that restorative justice programmes of this nature, and also those run by the Chris Donovan Trust, can have a real impact on reoffending rates and provide some comfort to victims who want to go on them by helping them to recover from a crime?; Will Ministers make a commitment today that the Domestic Abuse Bill will include guaranteed access to special measures in courts for survivors of domestic abuse and that that will apply equally across all our court systems and our entire courts estate?; In South Tyneside, disabled claimants are having to wait over 12 months for a tribunal, and 80% of those appeals are successful. What discussions have the Minister and the Department had with the Department for Work and Pensions about this flawed decision making?; The Health Minister will soon be meeting the parents in Hull affected by the baby ashes scandal, including mothers who do not know how their babies’ bodies were transported from hospital with no coffin, no funeral director and no funeral service for the family. Does this not yet again show the need for the local independent inquiry that is still being sought by those parents, and was it not unwise for the Ministry of Justice to accept the assurances of Hull City Council that the parents’ concerns had all been dealt with, without asking the parents?; How are we getting on with securing the 26 prisoner transfer agreements that are currently in place with the European Union to ensure that they are in place at the end of this year?; The number of recorded child sexual abuse offences increased by 178% between March 2007 and March 2017. Can the Minister explain how his Government’s substantial cuts to the MOJ, the CPS and, of course, the police have helped victims achieve justice?
Elizabeth Anne McInnes (Labour, Centre-left): In 2010, the then Secretary of State for Justice said that he wanted to examine what could be done to use technology more effectively so that fewer people have physically to attend court for routine purposes. Nine years on, however, this Government have admitted to not collecting information on how many times video links break down; nor have they published the business case for their modernisation programme. Will Ministers commit to undertaking that research before proceeding with any more closures or cuts to our courts?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: What steps is the Minister taking across Government to spread the successful best practice of organisations such as Care after Combat, which is doing brilliant work with veterans in prisons and driving down reoffending?; I went to prison last week—to Downview Prison, which is a women’s prison—for the Sycamore Tree course on restorative justice. Does the Minister agree that restorative justice programmes of this nature, and also those run by the Chris Donovan Trust, can have a real impact on reoffending rates and provide some comfort to victims who want to go on them by helping them to recover from a crime?; Will Ministers make a commitment today that the Domestic Abuse Bill will include guaranteed access to special measures in courts for survivors of domestic abuse and that that will apply equally across all our court systems and our entire courts estate?; In South Tyneside, disabled claimants are having to wait over 12 months for a tribunal, and 80% of those appeals are successful. What discussions have the Minister and the Department had with the Department for Work and Pensions about this flawed decision making?; The Health Minister will soon be meeting the parents in Hull affected by the baby ashes scandal, including mothers who do not know how their babies’ bodies were transported from hospital with no coffin, no funeral director and no funeral service for the family. Does this not yet again show the need for the local independent inquiry that is still being sought by those parents, and was it not unwise for the Ministry of Justice to accept the assurances of Hull City Council that the parents’ concerns had all been dealt with, without asking the parents?; How are we getting on with securing the 26 prisoner transfer agreements that are currently in place with the European Union to ensure that they are in place at the end of this year?; The number of recorded child sexual abuse offences increased by 178% between March 2007 and March 2017. Can the Minister explain how his Government’s substantial cuts to the MOJ, the CPS and, of course, the police have helped victims achieve justice?
Stephanie Louise Peacock (Labour, Centre-left): Three of the four men convicted of killing my constituent Jacqueline Wileman were on probation at the time of her death. Does the Minister recognise that that demonstrates the devastating failure of the privatised probation system? Will he meet with me to discuss both the case and how to prevent similar deaths, including by removing the maximum sentence for death by dangerous driving?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Barry Strachan Gardiner (Labour, Centre-left): I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) for his timely question The right to protest is one of the foundations of our freedom. From the Chartists to the suffragettes, and from the civil rights movement to the anti-apartheid campaign, all those victories were won by citizens uniting against injustice and making their voice heard. Extinction Rebellion and the school climate strikers are doing just that. I, too, thank the police for the way they have policed the demonstrations: on the whole, they have done so with good humour. I was delighted to meet the demonstrators at Marble Arch yesterday and I thank them for speaking the truth Many of us listened to Greta Thunberg earlier today. She spoke about truth—the truth that we are in the midst of an ecological and climate emergency. She also spoke about our refusal—our fear—to acknowledge the truth that stopping this catastrophe requires a complete rethink in the way we run our economy, so that GDP growth is no longer the touchstone. We are on track for catastrophic levels of global warming, yet in the UK we pride ourselves on the 40% reduction in emissions that we say we have achieved on 1990 levels, while achieving a 72% increase in GDP. But the truth is out there. Schoolchildren are teaching it to us. Those figures do not include aviation or shipping emissions. They do not include our imports, our exports and they have largely come from the clean power directive in the European Union, which forced us to announce an end to coal-fired power stations. That is why thousands of our schoolchildren are on climate strike: they know that we are not acting with the speed and seriousness that the climate emergency demands Therefore, I ask the Minister: will she listen to the voice of Extinction Rebellion and of our own children? I echo the call from my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North: will she join my party in declaring a national environmental and climate emergency and commit to bringing forward the Government’s response to the Committee on Climate Change’s recommendations, which will be published shortly, to achieve net zero urgently? Will she do more to engage with the public in tackling the climate crisis, because it is clear that our citizens need to be in the driving seat for a sustainable future? Will she work with Treasury colleagues and the Bank of England to address what Mark Carney has identified as climate-related financial risks and make the emissions curve and natural capital the key elements of our future economic viability? We know that, however disruptive the climate demonstrations may have been in this past few weeks to businesses, they pale into insignificance against the capacity of climate disasters to wipe out human prosperity and human life itself.
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Stella Judith Creasy (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister put her finger on it when she said that this is going to be about some tough decisions. She expressed concern about describing this as a climate emergency because what she really wanted to do was to move the dial. Ireland has been able to move the dial not by leaving the public out on the streets but by bringing them into a citizens’ assembly—a proper citizens’ assembly that hears the views not just of the activists but of everyone. That has supported carbon taxes and an end to subsidies for peat extraction, meaning that Ireland is now the first country to divest from fossil fuel. Will the Minister meet me and others who are supportive of the idea of a citizens’ assembly to talk about whether that is the cross-party, cross-country way forward by which we can actually tackle this climate emergency?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): Looking at the climate science, I do not suppose that a single Member of the House does not ask themselves, "How can we make the changes that are needed?" The Minister will be aware that the Committee on Climate Change said in November that emissions from homes are off track and we will need to replace gas with hydrogen boilers and supplementary electric heating. Given that about 80% of homes depend on gas for heating or cooking, how will that change happen?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Agriculture
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): The global food system accounts for 30% of emissions, and it is said that without any action—if we do not do anything about it—food and farming will take up the whole of the Paris carbon emissions budget, so why is no one talking about it? I have been sitting here listening to this, and I have sat here listening to many of these debates, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of parliamentarians who are ever prepared to ask what we are going to do about the global food system.
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Thangam Elizabeth Rachel Debbonaire (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister asks what would be the point of her declaring a climate change emergency. Well, it is because it is an emergency. It is an emergency right now and it is an emergency across the world—glaciers are melting, seas are rising—and the Minister knows this. I just do not understand, and I do not think people watching or my constituents in Bristol West will understand, what is stopping her declaring a climate change emergency and then treating the problem as an emergency.
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Energy
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): The west midlands was the home of the industrial revolution. We sparked the carbon revolution; we would like to lead the zero-carbon revolution. However, it has been harder to decarbonise our power system since the Government phased out feed-in tariffs for solar. It is harder to decarbonise our transport system because of the confusion, identified by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee before Christmas, around electric vehicles. It is harder to decarbonise energy in our homes when the Minister cannot tell me, in parliamentary answers, our share of the energy company obligation funding that might fund that retrofitting. Cities in this country would like to lead the green industrial revolution, so why does she not help them?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Energy
Helen Catherine Goodman (Labour, Centre-left): One way we can decarbonise homes is by using geothermal energy, particularly in former mining areas. The University of Durham has done a lot of research on this subject. Would the Minister like to come to learn about the research it is doing and consider how we can implement it?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Energy
Clive Anthony Lewis (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the Minister’s comments about listening to and acting on the science. If that is the case, the Committee on Climate Change has questioned whether support for oil and gas may become incompatible with the Government’s long-term climate change objectives. In the spirit of not disappearing down a rabbit hole of conflict, perhaps we can agree, on both sides of the House, on whether there is a sustainable way to reduce fossil fuel extraction to move from maximum economic recovery to sustainable economic recovery.
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Charalambos Charalambous (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister mentioned her international influence in relation to reducing carbon emissions. The USA is one of the biggest CO2 polluters in the world. Can she ask the Prime Minister to use all her influence when President Trump comes to the UK to get the US to recommit to its obligations from the Paris summit and to set up a climate emergency in the USA to tackle global warming?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Danielle Rowley (Labour, Centre-left): If you can believe it, Mr Speaker, it was not in the too-distant past that I was a young activist. What I hated then and what I know young people hate now is when politicians say the future is theirs, because the present is theirs and this planet is theirs. One of the four demands of the climate strikers is extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds. They are so passionate about this topic. Will the Minister agree to giving them the vote so that they can vote on it?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): Complacency in government is the reason young people have left their classrooms to educate politicians and to challenge us in this place. Rather than just warm words, in the light that we are going to miss our fourth and fifth carbon budgets, will the Minister commit to setting every public authority and local authority stringent carbon budgets?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Julie Elizabeth Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): Climate change is not a party political issue, but an issue of global importance. In the light of that, the Government’s complacency today, and their refusal to take leadership at a national level, is extremely worrying I feel very emotional about this issue. I listened to Greta earlier, and I applaud her for pointing out the obvious, for inspiring us, and for reminding us how crucial it is that we take action now. This morning my granddaughter was born. Looking at her, I feel that we owe it to these children and young people—the Government owe it to them, and let me politely say to the Minister that she owes it to them—to demonstrate that we are doing more than talking about this. What actions will the Minister take to ensure that those young people have the future that they deserve?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): Tragically, Ella Kissi-Debrah lost her life to asthma, and the courts are currently looking at whether the authorities had any responsibility in that tragic death. I believe there is a crisis in children’s respiratory health. There is a meeting tonight with the title "Pollution Has No Borders". One thing the Government could do would be to take away the cuts to local councils, which were looking at having more clean buses. Just increasing the number of bus journeys rather than car journeys would help not only lots of people on low incomes but the planet. Please could that be one thing that the Minister takes away from these questions and pledges to look into? Will she give that money back to councils so that action can be taken on our terribly polluted air?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Clive Stanley Efford (Labour, Centre-left): I think I could sum up the Minister’s response today as, "The rest of the world is rubbish. We are better. We are doing things ahead of everybody else. I can’t understand why people came here and demonstrated." By definition, it was a peaceful definition, but over 1,000 people managed to defy the authorities to the point where they were arrested. These people are not going to go away. So, Minister, what has changed as a result of their protests over the last few days?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Anna Rhiannon McMorrin (Labour, Centre-left): The Extinction Rebellion protest over the last few days has prevented business as usual, but that is nothing compared with what climate change will do, and is doing, in certain areas of the world. It is not good enough to talk the talk and not walk the walk. This issue needs a fundamental, transformative shift in our economy and in what we do. The Secretary of State is shutting her eyes and ears on this. Will she tell us today what action is actually being taken across Government to demonstrate that fundamental shift and to challenge business as usual?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): My city of Oxford is the first in the country to create a citizens assembly focused on the climate crisis. The Minister said that she wanted a broad-based debate, but we all know what happens far too often: we have a politically expedient knee-jerk reaction to anything that goes against the status quo. So please will she come to Oxford, see what we are doing, and look genuinely at these cases so that we can have a much more broad-based discussion about the climate crisis and do something about it?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Daniel Stephen Zeichner (Labour, Centre-left): One of the sectors that has not done well on reducing carbon emissions is road transport. One of the policy levers that used to be available was the fuel duty escalator, which the coalition Government ceased to proceed with and which the current Government do not want to return to. Does the Minister agree that that matter needs to be looked at again and that, in terms of carbon emissions, those decisions were a mistake?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Matthew Thomas Pennycook (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister will know that over half of the UK’s planned carbon reduction is tied up in some way or another with EU regulations and that EU agencies are key to enforcement. Assuming that the Government’s new office for environmental protection is ever established, will it have a climate change enforcement remit? If not, why not?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): I extend my thanks to and express my admiration of Greta Thunberg, whose speech I had the honour of hearing today—her microphone was working, which I know was of concern to her at some points. Much needs to change, and we need to move forward together as a country to deliver that change sustainably. Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), what substantial and specific plans does the Minister have for how we should formally engage with the public on how we respond, in policy and legislative terms, to our climate crisis? Why will she not consider a citizen’s assembly?
Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion — House of Commons, 2019-04-23
Topic: Environment
Darren Paul Jones (Labour, Centre-left): Alongside a growing list of my Opposition colleagues—71 as of now—I have written to the Minister, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House calling on the Government to table at least a day’s worth of debate in Government time to discuss their response to the Committee on Climate Change on how we will achieve net-zero carbon emissions sooner rather than later. Will the Minister support that request today and join us in that debate?