argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Rishi Sunak (Conservative, Centre-right): As we have reopened our economy since the last lockdown, we have continued to provide extensive support through our £400 billion plan for jobs, protecting businesses, families and individuals. I am pleased to say that the early data on household incomes, employment, corporate insolvencies and consumer and business confidence all show that our plan for jobs is working.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Jonathan Edward Gullis (Conservative, Centre-right): The mother town of Burslem in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke is blessed to be the home of the outstanding British brewer, the Titanic brewery, founded and run by Keith and Dave Bott. More than 80 Conservative colleagues and I have shown our support for the introduction of a lower draft beer duty on beer sold in pubs from containers over 20 litres in size. Will my right hon. Friend assure us that the proposal is being considered as part of the alcohol duty review? Will he tell us when the review will conclude? Our pubs need urgent help today.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Rishi Sunak (Conservative, Centre-right): I can assure not just my hon. Friend, but Keith and Dave from the Titanic brewery, that we have consulted industry on the prospect of such a lower rate as part of our ongoing alcohol duty review. The team and my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary are working closely with HMRC to further understand the practicalities and the cost of the proposals; we will provide further updates in due course. My hon. Friend is right about securing hospitality in the meantime. The temporary VAT cut, the business rates holiday and, indeed, freezing beer duty at the last two Budgets are all helping in the short term.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Environment
Rishi Sunak (Conservative, Centre-right): The net zero report will of course be published imminently, but the hon. Lady talked about last autumn. Last autumn, the Prime Minister published the green 10-point plan, perhaps the most comprehensive plan from any Government anywhere in the world, on how we will meet our net zero ambitions. Contained within that plan was £12 billion of new investment, creating probably a quarter of a million jobs when all is said and done, ensuring our leadership in industries such as offshore wind and creating jobs in places such as Teesside and Humberside, which is important to the future prosperity of this country, so I think we are doing a great job of getting on with meeting our climate ambitions and demonstrating leadership to the world.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Environment
Rishi Sunak (Conservative, Centre-right): Meeting our climate ambitions is obviously at the heart of everything that the Government are doing. The hon. Lady talked about sectors where we should show leadership: I have just talked about offshore wind, and we can keep going, with electric vehicles. This country now has more rapid charging points per mile than any country in Europe other than Norway, and we are doing more.[Official Report, 28 June 2021, Vol. 698, c. 3MC.] She talked about showing leadership: as the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) reminds me, we recently published the Dasgupta review, which is a groundbreaking piece of work on tackling biodiversity. She talked about infrastructure: we launched the UK Infrastructure Bank just last week, not a million miles away from her in Leeds, the home of the infrastructure revolution. And at the G7 summit that I recently hosted, we reached a landmark global agreement to get the G7 to agree to mandatory climate disclosures, because, much as she would like us to, this Government alone cannot solve all these problems. The private sector will have to play its part, which is why climate disclosures across the world would help to unlock billions in private capital to help us to meet our climate ambitions.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Energy
Andrew Griffith (Conservative, Centre-right): Businesses and local government alike will join me in welcoming the launch of the UK Infrastructure Bank last week. Its doors are now open for business and it is deploying capital. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is precisely the sort of intervention we need to deliver net zero?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Technology
Rishi Sunak (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I briefly pay tribute to him for his work last week on tech net zero. We launched the UK Infrastructure Bank last week in Leeds. Capitalised with £12 billion from the Government, it will unlock £40 billion of investment into tackling both levelling up and our net zero ambitions, and the team there are fantastic. I want to take this opportunity to say an enormous thank you to Chris Grigg for his superb leadership. It is brilliant that we can attract people of his calibre to lead these organisations, and I feel very confident about the UK Infrastructure Bank’s future progress.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Mark Simon Eastwood (Conservative, Centre-right): The youth investment fund remains an important manifesto commitment and will be valuable in supporting young people. Will my right hon. Friend inform me of its intended launch day and briefly outline the benefits it will bring to young people in Dewsbury, Mirfield, Kirkburton and Denby Dale once it is launched?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Paul Barclay (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of the youth investment fund. It was a manifesto commitment and it is due to launch in the coming months. He will recall that at the spending review 2020 we allocated some funding to inform pilots, as we shape that launch.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Paul Barclay (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman will know, as we have discussed it on many occasions, how we have absolutely bent over backwards to attempt to include as many people as possible and have leant into considerable discussion, both with excluded groups and with other related groups. As he will know, it is not a single picture; different groups are not included for different reasons. As a result, we have in part been able to evolve and extend the programmes, and he will be aware that we did so in the last iteration of the self-employed scheme.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Transportation
Angela Joy Richardson (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the launch of the national infrastructure bank. Road infrastructure projects are needed in my constituency to meet the additional 14,000 homes to be delivered in our local plan, which is why I am calling for the A3 to be tunnelled under Guildford to ease congestion. As we move towards our target of net zero and transition our vehicles to being electric and hydrogen-run, there will be a decrease in revenue raised by fuel duty. Will my right hon. Friend outline what steps he is taking to replace that revenue and to help fund road infrastructure projects such as my tunnel?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Transportation
Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the Government will need to ensure that revenue from motoring taxes keeps pace with the change away from petrol and diesel vehicles so that we can continue to fund infrastructure such as the A3, which she mentions. I am sure that colleagues in the Department for Transport can speak about her petition specifically, but I would like to reassure her and her constituents that this Government will continue to focus on record, unprecedented investment in the strategic roads network over this Parliament, through the £27.5 billion road investment strategy, which will deliver about 70 major upgrades.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
John Philip Glen (Conservative, Centre-right): It is absolutely clear that there are significant lessons for the FCA to learn from the Gloster review, and I have regular conversations, including just last week, with the new chief executive on the transformation programme. He has employed five new senior executives to drive that programme forward urgently, and I look forward to seeing the results of that intervention.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Sally-Ann Hart (Conservative, Centre-right): The role of regulation has been in the spotlight recently in an independent report by the taskforce on innovation, growth and regulatory reform, which was welcomed by the Prime Minister. The report highlights that as the EU has expanded, its internal processes and regulation have become slower and more bureaucratic, impacting on economic competitiveness. What steps is my hon. Friend taking to reduce onerous regulation as regards UK Treasury matters to ensure that all such regulation reflects our national interest and ensures that the UK maximises its economic agility and competitiveness?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: International Affairs
John Philip Glen (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend rightly recognises the value of the TIGRR report, which we received last week, and we will be looking very carefully at those recommendations. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor chairs the better regulation committee, which has been established to drive forward a new strategy to deliver better regulation outside the EU. There is a lot of work to be done, but progress is being made.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady will be aware that the Government have made available to local authorities, initially at least, £1.5 billion and a further top-up sum, in order precisely to meet hard cases that may fall between the cracks of the very wide-ranging support that we have given otherwise. I strongly encourage her constituent to talk to her local authority about that funding.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Robert Largan (Conservative, Centre-right): On 3 March, when the Chancellor announced the £4.8 billion levelling-up fund, High Peak was designated one of the top priority areas, and the Government committed to giving more than £100,000 to the council to help it deliver a world-class bid. However, despite my urging, and having had nearly four months, I regret to inform the House that my Labour council has failed to submit a levelling-up fund bid in time. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House and my constituents that there will be a second round for further bids and that High Peak will still be considered a top priority area in any future rounds?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stephen Paul Barclay (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand my hon. Friend’s frustration. He will know from the announcement at the Budget that the prospectus set out the process, the types of projects, and indeed how bids will be assessed. To reassure him, there will be further opportunities for local authorities to submit bids to the fund. One of the things that we are encouraging those local authorities to do is to work with elected Members of Parliament in the shaping of those bids, and I hope that they will now take the opportunity to do so.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Labor
Rishi Sunak (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady talked about outcomes in the labour market. She will know that we have now had six consecutive months of more people in work, which is something to be celebrated. Vacancies are now running higher than they were at the start of the pandemic, which is a fantastic sign of things to come. The unemployment rate, as I highlighted earlier, is now half what was forecast: 2 million fewer people are forecast to lose their jobs, which is lower than most of our major competitor countries. She is right to highlight, as we have discussed previously, the plight of young people. Our interventions, such as the kickstart scheme and the apprenticeship incentive, will continue to provide opportunity for them up and down the country.
Events Research Programme — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Technology
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Lady for her comments and agree with her that many people have been involved in the events research programme. We thank David Ross, Nick Hytner and all those involved—including hundreds of volunteers up and down the country—who have made the events so successful When we announced the programme, we outlined our intention to release the report prior to step 4 and that is exactly what we will do: we will release the report very soon. The ERP report is subject to a comprehensive and rigorous co-ordination and approval process across Departments; the academic institutions that have been involved in the programme, as the hon. Lady knows; and the ERP governance board The programmes have been selected in consultation with the science advisers on the events research programme science board. Those events involved in the latest phase, phase 3, have been approached based on the advice we received on the information we need to get out of the events research programme. They were approached on an equal basis. We will announce further ERP programmes shortly.
Events Research Programme — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): We are co-operating with the devolved Administrations, as I mentioned. They run separate programmes. The programme held in England is the largest that we are aware of in the world, and the most comprehensive and broadest. We will be sharing information and data. The spirit of co-operation is there across the nations, but there are no plans for the English-based ERP programme to consume the Scottish programme at this moment in time. We need to co-operate.
Events Research Programme — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): First, may I thank the Minister for his personal visit to my constituency and to the fantastic Puzzlewood attraction? I know that he had a fantastic time and helped to sell the benefits of my constituency more widely. On this particular subject, though, I am a little confused. When the Government do not publish something, it is normally because it is bad news and they are trying to hide it away. I have a very strong suspicion that this set of data is fantastically positive. It must be ready for publication because it must have been prepared for last week when step 4 was due to announced. My fear is that it demonstrated the opposite of the decision that the Prime Minister announced last week and that we could have opened safely on 21 June. That is the real reason it has not been published. Why does the Minister not publish it today and put our minds at rest?
Events Research Programme — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend for his initial comments. I very much enjoyed meeting his constituents and visiting his constituency. I am afraid that I would not buy into some of his conspiracy theories around this. We have said already that, if there were major concerns, we would have made sure that that information was in the public arena. That would be the responsible thing to do. Some of the initial data points were already announced by the Secretary of State back in May. The report needs to be comprehensive and it needs to be reviewed by a large number of stakeholders in Government. We will be releasing it very soon.
Events Research Programme — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): Again, I am afraid that I do not buy into some of the conspiracy theories circulating around here. Clearly, the goal of the Government—the goal of the whole House—is to open up sectors as soon as we can in a responsible way. The events research programme is providing vital and pivotal information to enable us to do so. We will be providing additional guidance to the events sector, and we have been providing further support for these vital sectors—[Interruption.] I agreed with the hon. Gentleman’s first comment. These are pivotal sectors for the economy and for our livelihood and we want to provide them with support.
Events Research Programme — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend, who has a lot of credibility and experience in this area, makes absolutely the right points. Even when we can open, there will be a need to build confidence in the public arena, and some of these sectors have been hit so hard that it will take several years for them to recover. We will be continuing to support them through the next phase of the CRF and other support measures. We will publish guidance along with the report that will also help these sectors to open up.
Events Research Programme — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): I could not agree more about the sector’s pivotal role and its absolutely pivotal importance to our economic wellbeing, as a lot of sales go on at business events, conferences and so on right across the country. It is a major part of our economy and we want to get it open as soon as possible. We have had a business event as part of the ERP programme and we are hoping to have another one as well. It is a sector that I pay close attention to, as it is a pivotal part of the economy, and I will be happy to work with my right hon. Friend to promote it in the long term. It was mentioned in the tourism recovery plan last week as a major part of our potential growth.
Events Research Programme — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Technology
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course, we cannot involve every single event, worthy though many of them are, in the ERP. We have had conversations, or are currently in conversations, with those entities that are in the consideration set at the moment. I am afraid that we will not be able to include all those we would like to, but I encourage events to take place to the greatest extent that they are able within current step 3 guidance if they cannot be part of the current phase 3 of the events research programme.
Events Research Programme — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Labor
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the Minister agree that the 1.5 million people who work in the events industry are largely self-employed and thus often miss out on furlough payments, so reopening events and conferences is crucial to their and their families’ welfare?
Events Research Programme — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with my right hon. Friend that this is a hugely important part of our economy. Many have been able to access some—but, admittedly, not all—of the support programmes offered by the Government. There are additional discretionary schemes available through local government for some of the smaller suppliers. In particular, as I have mentioned previously in the House, we want the events supply chain to benefit from the additional restrictions grants; I appealed to local authorities to be very generous with such applicants.
Events Research Programme — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with my hon. Friend. As I have said, this is a hugely important sector at both a local and a national level in terms of the economic impact, and I thank those in the sector for their incredibly constructive engagement throughout the process. That engagement will continue, because we all want to see numbers increase over time so that they can get back to doing the things that they love and we love them doing.
Events Research Programme — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
Peter William Bone (Conservative, Centre-right): The excellent Minister has talked about publication being in due course, shortly, very soon, as soon as possible. I was going to ask: what does that mean in English? Does it mean this week or next week? But I want to ask him something more important, bearing in mind that this was sort of agreed with the Secretary of State in the Chamber a week or so ago. Would the Minister consider making this House of Commons a pilot event for one Wednesday before recess, ripping out these stupid barriers, getting the public back in and voting in the Lobbies to see what happens?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. It is important that, before the House is asked to take decisions on important matters, such as its being in recess for three weeks, it has available the essential information. If we are not to have an in-person Conservative party conference, we will not need to be in recess for that period. It therefore seems not unreasonable to ask the Government, in the person of the Prime Minister as leader of our party, to set that out before we are asked to vote tomorrow. That is not just important for us. As we have just heard in the urgent question, thousands of businesses across the country depend on conferences and events. If the governing party is not able to set out with confidence that an event scheduled for October can take place, the sector will draw its own conclusions, which will be very damaging to many thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of employees.
Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: International Affairs
Brandon Kenneth Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): I have to say that I do not recognise the principle on which the right hon. Gentleman outlines his point. The reality is that the UK Government are the Government of the United Kingdom. The UK Government are a co-guarantor of and signatory to the New Decade, New Approach agreement, which the parties themselves negotiated and agreed. For example, the parties agreed between themselves the cultural package, which has had a lot of attention in the past week. We have a duty to ensure that, for all the people of Northern Ireland, these things are delivered in a way that is set out and agreed by the parties. I would much rather see that delivered by the institution itself. That is why we have given time and space for the institution to be able to move things forward. It is also right that, on a range of issues, including women’s healthcare, women in Northern Ireland have access to the same good-quality healthcare as women across the United Kingdom. I make no apologies for making sure that we the United Kingdom Government are representing people across the whole of the United Kingdom.