argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
Dominic Rennie Raab (Conservative, Centre-right): Absolutely. We take the consular work that we do for citizens abroad exceptionally seriously. We deal with those cases day in, day out, often below the media or public radar. I am very happy for Ministers in the Department to look again at the case she has raised to see whether there is anything further we can do. That is very difficult and always very complex, even in European countries, but we must be able to satisfy ourselves that we are doing everything we can to provide closure and accountability for the families affected.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
Dominic Rennie Raab (Conservative, Centre-right): I know my hon. Friend has a strong vested interest in that conference, beyond her international interest. Ahead of the leaders summit—I let her and the House know—I will be convening the G7 Foreign and Development Ministers meeting from 3 to 5 May here in London. That will be a very important opportunity to build on and tee up our work on equitable access to vaccines in relation to the pandemic, our ambitious global girls education targets, the rigorous and ambitious approach we are taking to climate finance, and commitment to media freedoms, human rights and democracy.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
James Philip Duddridge (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his engagement in this issue. We are already doing an awful lot on debt suspension, most importantly on the common framework and on those remaining countries such as Somalia and Sudan, which were left out of the HIPC—heavily indebted poor countries—process, but there are other parties and complexities, China’s sovereign debt being one of them and multilaterals another, as well as sovereign nations’ private sector debt, which we would encourage to participate where appropriate.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: Education
Nicola Jane Aiken (Conservative, Centre-right): The covid-19 pandemic has shone a depressing light on the digital poverty that exists in developing countries. Without access to the internet, millions of children across the world have lost thousands of hours of education. Sadly, the problem is even more acute for girls. What action is being taken to ensure that the UK uses its presidency of the G7 and the Global Partnership for Education to enable the most marginalised children, in particular girls, to return to school and catch up with their lost learning?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: Education
Wendy Morton (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right to highlight this important issue. She takes a very keen interest in girls education and 2021 is a crucial year for it, with multiple opportunities for us to take co-ordinated action with our international partners to address the learning losses from covid-19. That is why the UK has put girls education at the heart of our G7 presidency. We are working with G7 members to champion two SDG 4 milestone targets: 40 million more girls in school and 20 million more girls reading by the age of 10 in low and lower-middle income countries over the next five years. The UK with Kenya will also host the global education summit in July to mobilise much needed financing.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
Wendy Morton (Conservative, Centre-right): First, we really welcome the Colombian Government’s continuing commitment to the full implementation of the 2016 peace agreement with FARC. We will continue to support them in doing so. Colombia is an FCDO human rights priority country. We regularly raise concerns with the Colombian Government and at the UN. We will continue to do so. Our embassy will continue to support at-risk human rights defenders, social leaders and ex-combatants, and will work to tackle the root causes of the violence.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
John Robert Lamont (Conservative, Centre-right): It is brilliant to see the UK and Israel working so closely together in the roll-out of our world- leading vaccination programmes. Israel has vaccinated almost half its population with both doses of the covid vaccine, so will the Minister provide an update on the status of discussions with Israel on establishing a travel corridor arrangement?
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
James Stephen Heappey (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend for calling for this urgent question. I do not entirely share his analysis of what would have happened next. The relatively benign, by Afghan standards, security situation in the country at the moment is not the norm; it is the consequence of the accommodation that the US and the Taliban had come to last year. That means, in effect, that there are three options for the international community. One is to prepare for a fighting season this summer once the 1 May deadline expires. The second is to come to a new accommodation with the Taliban that effectively removes all of the political imperative to reaching a solution. The third is to agree that, effectively, the military mission is done and that what remains now is a political one, and the way to accelerate that is to force the hand and agree to leave as we have done My right hon. Friend asks some great questions about the route to being in Afghanistan and the prosecution of the campaign thereafter. I think that those of us who have served, as he has done, take some solace from the way that these things are considered deliberately after the event. It is not for me to agree to such an inquiry right now, but one would hope that the lessons would be learned. I do not necessarily accept all of his analysis of how the campaign has played out, but obviously we have reached the point where the military mission has effectively culminated and what remains is a requirement for politics. To keep our people there indefinitely with 1 May approaching does not seem to me to be the right use of the military instrument.
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
Adam James Harold Holloway (Conservative, Centre-right): I was in Afghanistan with the Afghan resistance, and I know that when the foreigners leave, the theological justification for jihad finishes. The problem we have is that Afghanistan still faces attack from the Taliban, fully supported by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, with the simple aim of conquering the country. Given the success since 2015 when the coalition moved into an advisory CT mode, what is the coalition’s plan now to prevent even larger swathes of the country from falling to the Taliban—indeed, to prevent Kabul itself from falling? If it does, I would call that strategic failure.
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
James Stephen Heappey (Conservative, Centre-right): I share my hon. Friend’s assessment of the requirement for regional partners not only to step up and take a stake in Afghanistan’s peace, but to behave responsibly in the way they go about their diplomatic affairs in the region. His characterisation of what remains of the coalition is, if he does not mind my saying so, somewhat out of date. We have been down to a residual counter-terrorism mission for some time. For five years or more, the coalition has not extended its writ across the whole country. Actually, the Afghan national security forces have done a good job of maintaining security within the borders of Afghanistan since the NATO mission stepped back towards the current CT mission. I am full of optimism for what the Afghan national security forces could achieve. It depends, of course, on their being empowered to do so by a future Government in Kabul.
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
James Stephen Heappey (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman picks up on one of the great successes of the intervention in Afghanistan: for 20 years schools have been open to girls, and the education of girls remains one of the Government’s key foreign policy aims. Around the world seldom are those aims underpinned by military effort, however, and there are two things from which we should take heart. First, there are now so many women, relatively speaking, within the Afghan institutions—its Parliament, academia and media—that there is an expectation within Afghan civil society that women and girls will have more rights than what they had to endure under the previous Taliban Government. Secondly, the Taliban want legitimacy within the international community if or when they become a part of a future Afghanistan Government. Therefore it is reasonable to expect that they will not want to be the international pariah that they were, so they will be responsive to the diplomatic efforts to promote opportunities for women and girls that we are pursuing bilaterally and through the United Nations and our alliances. I wholly expect that future Afghan Governments would not want to reverse all the great progress that has been made in this important area over the past 20 years.
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew John Bower Mitchell (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend speaks with great experience and knows of what he talks, but I am still struggling to understand precisely what the NATO strategy or plan is here. In addition to the great bravery and sacrifices of our own military, some very brave Afghan leaders, including women, believed that NATO would stay the course and will now feel very let down while the Taliban have little need to negotiate but increasingly will be in a very strong position. Does this not underline the very real limits of hard power and the importance of using soft power judiciously?
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
James Stephen Heappey (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He is of course correct that the military could underpin an accommodation of sorts almost indefinitely, but that is not an enduring solution for any country. The decision NATO took last week recognises that we are at a moment of decision. The accommodation with the Taliban is coming to an end, so the decision is to extend the deal, which removes the political imperative, to fight this summer, and who knows where that would have gone—and from a position of having far fewer troops in Afghanistan than has been the case since five years ago—or to force the pace of the political settlement. All those options are imperfect, but what matters now, exactly as my right hon. Friend says, is that the Governments who have formed the alliance now use their soft power to ensure that the parties come round the table and an enduring peace is found.
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
Alun Hugh Cairns (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to my hon. and gallant Friend for his service. Some three years ago, I had the privilege of visiting Kabul and seeing the Welsh Guards serve in Afghanistan and contribute to the building of a civic and civil society in the community. Given the fragility of that society, what tangible steps does my hon. Friend propose to take, as we leave Afghanistan by September, to ensure that the steps taken in recent years are not lost?
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
James Stephen Heappey (Conservative, Centre-right): This issue has been touched on in previous questions. There is a commitment to spend up to £70 million in Afghanistan this year alone in support of the Afghan security forces, and of course there is an aid package beyond that. Very obviously, the end of our military contribution in Afghanistan does not mean the end of our wider diplomatic and development agenda in the country, and I fully expect that the UK Government will maintain that commitment so that we can do our bit in helping Afghanistan to succeed in the future.
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
Felicia Jane Beatrix Drummond (Conservative, Centre-right): Will my hon. and gallant Friend tell the House how confident the Government are that the peace negotiations will bring the right governance and security to Afghanistan by September and, in particular, that women will continue to have rights under a future regime? Only in the last few months, several women have been targeted for assassination, apparently by the Taliban. The treatment of women under the Taliban was totally unacceptable, and as the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on women, peace and security, I do not want to see any reversal of women’s rights in Afghanistan, but I am afraid I do not share the Minister’s optimistic outlook on this issue.
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
James Stephen Heappey (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for her work in chairing the APPG, to which I think my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa and I will present the annual report in the coming weeks. The work on this issue is important and characterises so much of our contribution to conflicts. My hon. Friend will be aware that 3.7 million girls are now in school—a huge step forward from zero, which was previously the case. There is an expectation in Afghan society that is far more powerful than any military stick that may be wielded, and one can only hope that that is irreversible. The genie is out of the bottle, and once women and girls have that expectation and it becomes the norm in society, it is awfully hard—even for the Taliban—to reverse it.
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
James Stephen Heappey (Conservative, Centre-right): Afghanistan is a deeply Islamic and conservative country. As my hon. Friend will know from the amazing work that she does as the Prime Minister’s special enjoy for freedom of religion or belief, those countries are hard ones in which to espouse the values that she so enthusiastically campaigns for. I know that she will keep all the pressure that she can on the Prime Minister and my colleagues in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. She is absolutely right that this is a very important hallmark of a free democracy, and we should have every expectation that the sort of things that she would want to see are things that we are comfortable and enthusiastic about discussing with Afghan Governments in future.
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
James Stephen Heappey (Conservative, Centre-right): I can. The bilateral relationship between the UK Government and the Afghan Government will endure, and so, too, will our engagement through multilateral forums such as the UN. These are hard-won steps that have made Afghanistan a better country. Our expectation must be that nobody involved in the peace process would want to row back from those, and the international community must be united in ensuring that they do not.
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
James Stephen Heappey (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not accept that we have not achieved what we were there to do in the first place. We went into Afghanistan as a direct consequence of what happened on 11 September 2001. Article 5 was invoked because an attack on one was an attack on us all, and that attack originated in Afghanistan. Since then, there has been no international terrorist attack launched from Afghanistan on the UK, the US or, indeed, any other NATO ally, so in that sense the mission was achieved Actually, the mission has gone far further, as we have explored in our exchanges on the urgent question: in the 20 years that we have been there, we have given the opportunity for the Afghan Government to establish and strengthen and for an Afghan civil society to flourish. I truly believe that we have set the conditions within which a political process now has the best chances of success.
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: International Affairs
James Stephen Heappey (Conservative, Centre-right): As my right hon. Friend will know from his extensive experience of peace processes around the world, it is very likely—indeed, almost certain—that a lasting peace settlement in Afghanistan will involve the Taliban as part of the Afghan Government. It is in all our interests to support the political process as it plays out, but if there is a return to an ungoverned space that gives succour to international terrorism that is a threat to the UK homeland or the interests of our allies, we of course reserve the right to protect our interests, both unilaterally and multilaterally through NATO.
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: Education
Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Father of the House for his question and for his comments, which I completely agree with. The issue he describes around education back in the day is actually something I experienced myself. There is still much to do, but we have come a long way from 25 years ago when I first immigrated to this country. On Gurpal Virdi, I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to fully understand what happened and to see what the Government can do.
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: Labor
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): The chief economist of the Bank of England has said that "Published pay gaps are a starting point for corporate and national accountability" Business groups have called for mandatory reporting of ethnicity pay gaps. The commission recommended investigating the causes of pay disparities, but then did not recommend mandating the reporting that would identify those disparities, so will the Minister now commit to taking a different approach from the commission, and commit to mandatory reporting of ethnicity pay gaps?
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: Education
Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend for her question. I agree with her that narrative is important, not just evidence. We in this House have to ask ourselves what story we are trying to tell. In the case of Conservative Members, it is a story of a shared history, shared values, shared culture and a shared future. We want to make sure that we create a sense of belonging for young people in this country, not an environment where they believe they will never be able to succeed because other people continue to tell them so despite the evidence. I will find out about the request she has made to the commissioners, and I am sure that they will respond in due course.
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: Labor
Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and for engaging with some of the contents of the report rather than in divisive rhetoric. The answer to part of the question is that many of those statistics do not control for age. In this country, black people are much younger than the rest of the population, and that often ends up skewing some of the statistics. The report paints a picture of a continuing improvement and convergence, but the employment section is the bit that highlights the most significant problems, and there is quite a lot to do on that front. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to look at some of the recommendations and to let us know whether he agrees or disagrees. Before Government respond, I would encourage Members to put forward their suggestions, based on the evidence that the commission has produced, for what we should be doing.
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: Labor
Neil John O'Brien (Conservative, Centre-right): One of the refreshing things about the report is the careful balance between acknowledging the challenges that are still very real and the progress that is happening. Here in Leicestershire, that progress is very visible on wages and employment. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we are to make further progress it is essential to acknowledge the progress that has been made and to understand the causes—how, why and where this is happening—so that we can go further and make more progress?
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Darren George Henry (Conservative, Centre-right): Covid-19 has highlighted the importance of family units and their critical role in our communities up and down the UK. That is why I welcome, in particular, recommendation 19, which outlines seminal plans to understand and take action to address the underlying issues facing families across all backgrounds. Will my hon. Friend put those words into actions and ensure that our local authorities support the most vulnerable families who are experiencing disadvantage and discrimination?
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: Government Operations
Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend for that question. Everyone has a part to play. I cannot outline the Government response now; we are still working on it, as I announced in my statement. However, the report makes recommendations not just for Government, but for the public sector, the private sector, businesses and individuals. There will be plenty that we can do to address those issues, and we will see what the Government have to say on them in their response in the summer.
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: Education
Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch (Conservative, Centre-right): I am pleased that the hon. Lady has actually read the report. As I said, I am happy to debate and disagree, but not to be misrepresented The hon. Lady raises an interesting point about what is happening in education. I should clarify that the good news that the report highlights is around GCSEs; it probably agrees with her about what is going on in higher education. The report talks about black students being more likely to take poorer quality courses at less prestigious universities, and there is a big disparity in the fact that black students are the least likely to go to a high tariff provider and are 1.7 times more likely than their white peers to attend what the report describes as "low tariff institutions". Part of the difference is due to the high progression rate into higher education for black students, but the report also talks about the sort of advice that they are given. It is very much an issue that we should explore further and I will encourage colleagues from the Department for Education to look into it. If the hon. Lady wants to write to them directly, I encourage her to do that I thank the hon. Lady for her question and note her comments about the former Runnymede Trust. We on the Conservative Benches have worked well with people such as Trevor Phillips, and one of the commissioners, Samir Shah, is also a former chair of the Runnymede Trust, but I cannot accept the behaviour of the current chair and some staff members.[Official Report, 22 April 2021, Vol. 692, c. 6MC.]
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: Law and Crime
David Timothy Simmonds (Conservative, Centre-right): The Sewell report recognises that issues of mistrust and unfairness, whether they are real or perceived, really matter, especially in policing. Will my hon. Friend engage with her Home Office colleagues to develop proposals to build on the good work that has been done to make local police forces more representative of the communities that they serve and introduce more community oversight of local policing?