argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-02
Topic: Civil Rights
Bellavia Janet Ribeiro-Addy (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to speak to new clause 7, on equality impact analyses. The Government’s efforts to date on equality impact assessments overall have been woeful. There should not be a need for me to speak to any detail of the new clause. We cannot talk about sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, poverty and regional inequality properly without talking about the economy, because we know that structural inequality and discrimination hold many of our communities back. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (James Murray) said, we have a right to know exactly who benefits from the Government’s policy agenda, but their continued refusal to publish proper impact assessments for their Bills speaks for itself I want to emphasise how the Government and the Bill are deepening already existing inequalities. For all the talk of levelling up, the Government’s policies amount to a sharp widening of all types of inequality, which are already among the widest in western Europe.
Government Contracts: Underperforming Suppliers and Legislative Proposals — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Nicholas Desmond John Smith (Labour, Centre-left): Given that the Government’s VIP lane for personal protective equipment contracts has been ruled unlawful, will there be immediate publication of contracts after emergency procurement to restore faith in the system? It would help avoid having the Government hauled so embarrassingly through the courts.
Government Contracts: Underperforming Suppliers and Legislative Proposals — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Nia Rhiannon Griffith (Labour, Centre-left): During the pandemic, UK companies stepped up to the mark and changed production lines to meet our needs and increase our resilience. They were encouraged to think that they would get ongoing business for helping out during the PPE shortages. A local SME in my constituency invested more than £700,000 in automating its hand sanitiser production, but now finds that most of its UK Government Department customers have gone back to their original foreign suppliers. What will the Minister do to recognise the resilience that British firms provided, improve the uptake of British-made products by Government Departments and ensure that build back better is not just a slogan?
Press Conference Rehearsal: Consequences for Staff — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Questions: What consequences staff have faced who were involved in a video reported in the media in December 2021, which showed members of the Prime Minister’s office rehearsing for a press conference.
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): But now we know that there were parties at Downing Street in lockdown and the Prime Minister was present. It is serious. He knowingly breached the rules that he himself set for the country. He broke the law, and over recent weeks he has told the House things that turned out not to be true, breaking the ministerial code. Allegra Stratton paid the price for joking about parties at Downing Street—parties that the Prime Minister attended. Why is it always the little people who get the chop to save this unsaveable Prime Minister?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Angela Rayner (Labour, Centre-left): Earlier, in his response to the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), the Paymaster General talked about poor performance. The Government’s VIP lane for personal protective equipment procurement was not just dodgy, but actually illegal. That was not my opinion, but the judgment of the High Court yesterday. Once again, this Government have been shown that they cannot seem to stay on the right side of the law. Listening to the Paymaster General, anybody would think that they had won their case in the Court yesterday. Time and again, Cabinet Office Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box and told us that detailed diligence and full financial checks were done. Yesterday, the Court found that the Cabinet Office simply did not have the resources necessary to undertake due diligence. Officials simply searched online to confirm that one company existed, and another received a red warning but it was not passed on. Can he tell us how much, from those two contracts alone, was spent on equipment that was not even used by the NHS?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Questions: As part of the celebrations for Her Majesty’s 2022 platinum jubilee, 39 places are in competition for city status, including the town I represent, Dudley. Does my right hon. Friend agree that city status can deliver more jobs and business opportunities, and play a vital part in the wider regeneration of towns such as Dudley?; Last week, I met my constituent Mark Isaacs from the UK Veterans Hearing Foundation, who explained that services for veterans with hearing loss got considerable funding from the LIBOR fines, but that since that money has not been available many veterans are struggling to get the support they need. Will my hon. Friend meet me to discuss how veterans can get the services they need for often considerable hearing loss?; The civil service fast stream graduate programme to recruit more black civil servants has been an abject failure. Out of over 14,000 black applicants, only 98 were successful. That is one in 143, compared to one in 44 for white applicants. That is clearly not levelling up. Does the Minister agree that that is because of deeply entrenched institutional racism? Will he explain what assessment has been undertaken on levels of diversity and what actions will be taken to deal with such significant under-representation?; Given the damage that the self-styled Minister for the Union has done to public trust in recent days and the decision of some Cabinet colleagues to diminish the role of the Scottish Conservative leader, the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), will the Minister prove that the Government can at least try to do one thing right and commit to supporting my private Member’s Bill, which would at least ensure that the boards of public bodies include appropriate representation from the devolved nations?; Does the Paymaster General, as a former Law Officer, agree that there is a fatal flaw in our system when the person who ultimately makes judgment on the ministerial code is a Prime Minister who is at the centre of allegations of breaking the law and misleading the House? Does it not go against all the rules of natural justice to be judge and jury in your own case?
Samuel Peter Tarry (Labour, Centre-left): The Government’s VIP lane for personal protective equipment contracts has been ruled by a judge to be unlawful. The judge found that the "operation of the High Priority Lane was in breach of the obligation of equal treatment…the illegality is marked by this judgment." The House needs to know what steps Ministers will take to ensure that there are no corrupt processes, particularly involving contracts to Conservative party cronies. In particular, I would like to hear confirmation from Ministers today in relation to some of the serious questions about PPE Medpro. Will the Minister agree to release details of the financial checks done on that company, including its connections to a Conservative party peer?
Draft Online Safety Bill Report — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Margaret Eve Hodge (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) and the members of his Committee on bringing forward an incredibly thorough and very good report. I know Ministers have been consulting well with all Back Benchers, and I hope they do not pay lip service to the report’s conclusions, but really take on its important recommendations. What is interesting about this whole debate is that there is a broad consensus on the Back Benches. None of us are bound by ideology on these issues; our approach is based on our experience, the data and the wide body of research I will also say at the beginning that the business model of the platforms means that they will never tackle this themselves. They make their money by encouraging traffic on their platforms, and they encourage traffic by allowing abusive content to exist there. Their algorithms are there almost to control and encourage more abusive content. The idea that there can be any self-regulation in the legislation to be proposed by the Government is false I will draw attention to three sets of issues in the short time available to me. The first, the recommendations on paid-for scams and frauds, has already been discussed. It is ridiculous that user-generated content can be subject to regulation but that paid-for scams and frauds cannot be. Everybody who gave evidence to the Committee, including the Financial Conduct Authority, pleaded for its inclusion. The figure I have is from Action Fraud: 85% of the £1.7 billion lost in fraudulent scams in the past year resulted from cyber-enabled frauds. During the pandemic, this figure of course exploded. Again, there is no incentive for the platforms to do anything about this. They get paid for by the advertisements so they wish to encourage them. Indeed, there is a double benefit in this particular space for them, because the FCA also pays for them to prioritise the legitimate websites over the scam adds, so again self-regulation will not work. I know that Ministers support the proposal, and I hope that they are not swayed by advice that it is not legally possible, as I just do not accept that. I hope that they do not miss this opportunity by way of promises of legislation down the line.
Draft Online Safety Bill Report — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Civil Rights
Mohammed Afzal Khan (Labour, Centre-left): I too want to say how important this work is, and I urge that this Bill is desperately needed. Refuge has found that one in three women have at some time in their life experienced abuse online. I would say that Muslim women in particular experience a triple whammy of race, faith and gender, and Tell MAMA has told us of the 40% increase in abuse against Muslim women during the lockdown. I hope my hon. Friend agrees that the social media companies must be held to account for their repeated failures.
Misuse of Fireworks Bill — House of Commons, 2022-01-21
Topic: Public Lands
Sarah Mei Li Owen (Labour, Centre-left): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time I am grateful to present my Bill for Second Reading. I appreciate fireworks’ beauty, as we all do—how they can light up the sky and add magic and awe to our special occasions. I am here not to spoil the fun of fireworks, but to bring forward some common sense solutions that I hope the Government will take on board There is a harmful side to fireworks that must be addressed and challenged. We have spoken before in the House about the fire safety hazards, their use as weapons, and the extreme nuisance that the noise can create, but the Government are yet to bring in any meaningful regulations. We have a debate almost every year about the nuisance of fireworks, yet regulations have not followed In the Bill, I call on the Government to show compassion to the communities affected by the relentless use of noisy fireworks by committing to limit the volume of fireworks, increase the minimum fine for the misuse of fireworks, review the laws around the licensing of sellers, and consult with relevant charities to ensure that their reforms are informed and effective. Last year, more than 300,000 of our constituents signed a petition calling for Government restrictions on the sale and use of fireworks. One of my residents in Luton North started a petition to make fireworks silent, while more than 13,000 people signed a similar petition on the Government website to call for quieter fireworks. That is where I will start The current decibel limit for fireworks is 120 dB. I am not sure that many people could say exactly how loud that is, so to put it into perspective, the legal sound limit for a rock concert is 107 dB. I am painfully aware how old it makes me sound to say "rock concert", but that is how it is described. A Formula 1 race typically reaches 140 dB. One of the loudest ever recorded sounds is a volcanic explosion that reached 172 dB. The pain threshold for humans is breached by anything above 130 dB, yet our limit for legal firework noise sits between that and a rock concert. That simply does not make sense.
Misuse of Fireworks Bill — House of Commons, 2022-01-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jessica Elizabeth Morden (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend and fellow Whips Office colleague for bringing forward a brilliant private Member’s Bill, which will be hugely appreciated by many residents of Newport East and by my local Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. On the issue of noise, does she agree that we need to do something about illegally imported fireworks, which are so much noisier and more powerful, that are sold online?
Misuse of Fireworks Bill — House of Commons, 2022-01-21
Topic: Public Lands
Sarah Mei Li Owen (Labour, Centre-left): Absolutely. I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and for the experience and expertise he brings to this place in raising that point As a bare minimum, we must change the maximum limit to 90 decibels. I am aware that that measure alone does not tackle all the issues, such as the one the hon. Gentleman has just raised, but it will make a strong start in addressing the impact of fireworks For my constituents, fireworks are not just a disturbance on bonfire night or new year, they are a constant year-round and sometimes weekly nightmare. When I have posted on social media about the frequency and intensity of fireworks in Luton, I have been flooded with streams of distressing stories from constituents. One Luton resident wrote that she had become so accustomed to the intrusive noise of fireworks that, shockingly, when someone was shot outside her home, she did not call the police or an ambulance because she did not register the sound as unusual. The person, thankfully, survived, but my constituent was no less shaken.
Misuse of Fireworks Bill — House of Commons, 2022-01-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sarah Mei Li Owen (Labour, Centre-left): From the son of a fireman to the daughter of a firefighter: I wholeheartedly agree. Legislation has not been able to catch up with the speed of development of fireworks When I spoke in a debate on this issue in November, a local Luton parent wrote to me about her experience, which sums up the distress that fireworks cause. She wrote: "We can hear fireworks every single night. Without exaggeration, I counted, they can go off every 10 minutes between 6 pm and midnight. Sometimes at 1 am. The stress caused by them is enormous and growing. My child is terrified. To a point where she screams and begs me to stop them. We have to put on a white noise sound on a tablet in her room in order to reduce the sound of the bangs. If she wakes up, she cries, shivers and goes back to sleep with earmuffs on. Before bedtime she begs me for no fireworks. Mental health in our family is in pieces. I am genuinely worried about the wellbeing of my daughter. We can’t live like this."—[Official Report, 8 November 2021; Vol. 703, c. 10-11WH.]
Misuse of Fireworks Bill — House of Commons, 2022-01-21
Topic: Other
Jonathan Neil Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this Bill forward today. I think the whole House can agree that this is an area where the law has not kept pace with developments, and that what my hon. Friend has put forward is well researched and well argued. Although the timescale of the day means that the Bill is unlikely to proceed, I just wanted to place on the record my thanks and support for the Bill from the Dispatch Box.
Misuse of Fireworks Bill — House of Commons, 2022-01-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sarah Mei Li Owen (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend. I am grateful for everyone’s interventions and support. I think we can all agree that it is crucial that, in taking this legislation or any other relevant changes forward, the Government—I urge them to do this—consult veterans charities and mental health organisations to learn from the people affected about the very real impact that fireworks have on their lives, hear their wisdom and show a willingness to learn. It is clear that there are simple steps, laid out in my Bill, that could go a long way in ensuring that our children, pets, animals, veterans and all our neighbours have a much more peaceful life Firework displays can be a really beautiful and joyful spectacle without being so loud that they become medically and mentally harmful. Limiting the noise to 90 dB and reviewing who can sell and use fireworks will go a long way to solving the issues faced by residents in Luton North and thousands of other people across the country. The noise from fireworks is currently unreasonable and unregulated. Thankfully, today we can go one step further towards changing that. I hope that Ministers will work with me and support the measures laid out in this Bill.
Prayers — House of Commons, 2022-02-04
Topic: Mixed Topics
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): First, may I say I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving notice of her point of order? She may be aware that the issue was raised by the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) yesterday. I repeat what was said in response to that point of order. Although the Chair is not responsible for the content of contributions made by Ministers, I am sure that the concern was heard by those on the Treasury Bench. If an error has been made in this instance, I am sure that the Prime Minister will seek to correct it as quickly as possible. She will no doubt also be aware of paragraph 8.15 of the ministerial code, which deals with the use of statistics. I am sure she will find ways of pursuing this issue, should she wish to do so.
Glue Traps (Offences) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-04
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Mark Richard Tami (Labour, Centre-left): I raised earlier the availability of these traps on eBay and in other places. When the Bill comes in, we need to be sure that people cannot still access them—this is a problem with all sorts of things—via the internet.
Glue Traps (Offences) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-04
Topic: Other
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): Before I call the Minister, may I just mention that the word "you" has been used quite a lot to address Members directly? Let me remind everybody that, when they say "you", they mean me. Fortunately, this morning, it means that I have had an awful lot of praise—inadvertently. This is just a reminder, because I know that it is sometimes tempting in these Friday sittings to address each other directly, so please beware.
Down Syndrome Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-04
Topic: Other
Ruth Lorraine Jones (Labour, Centre-left): The right hon. Member is making such a powerful point. He and many other Members have had numerous letters questioning the narrowness of the Bill. Will he reassure us that this is only the beginning and most definitely not the end of the process?
Down Syndrome Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-04
Topic: Mixed Topics
Feryal Demirci Clark (Labour, Centre-left): I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) for introducing this important Bill. I also pay tribute to all the hon. Members who have contributed today and thank them for the wonderful personal accounts that we have heard, especially from the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie), who told us about her sister and nephew As we have heard, there are about 47,000 individuals in the UK with Down syndrome. We know that they are at increased risk of some medical conditions, more susceptible to infections, and more prone to hearing and visual impairments. It is recommended that those individuals should have extra health checks in early life and regular health reviews thereafter. They may also need ongoing support for different aspects of life both in childhood and as adults. People with Down syndrome and their families are often reported as struggling to access services such as speech and language therapy, additional support in school and appropriate levels of social care. I very much welcome the measures in the Bill that seek to address those challenges I also support the Bill for personal reasons. At the same time I became a mother about eight months ago, some friends of mine, Sevcan and Richard, had a baby boy called Asher. He is a bundle of joy and he also has Down syndrome. In the very short time that Asher has been in this world, he has had many challenges and many operations. I see Asher’s family already struggling and having to fight for him, and I see them getting ready to continue that fight, like the families mentioned by so many hon. Members today The experience of Asher’s parents has given me an insight into the challenges faced by families with Down syndrome children, and it was that insight that encouraged me to stand for election as the vice-chair of the all-party group for Down syndrome. As vice-chair, I know the impact that properly informed and resourced services can have on those living with Down syndrome. Too often they are forced into provision or services that are just not suitable for their needs. That means they are unable to access the support they need, whether that be education, healthcare or housing Being unable to access those services properly means the life experiences and the quality of life of people with Down syndrome can be seriously affected. By ensuring that the relevant authorities—the NHS, schools or local authorities—have the correct guidance, we will have a very real impact on the experience of those living with Down syndrome. It is incumbent on all of us as policy makers to ensure that people in this country, regardless of who they are, can live as full lives as possible. I am pleased that the Bill is taking the steps to better enable people with Down syndrome to do so. For that reason, I am pleased to support the Bill today and I look forward to it progressing in the other place.
New Homes for Social Rent — House of Commons, 2022-01-24
Topic: Housing
Bethan Winter (Labour, Centre-left): In Wales, the Welsh Government are delivering new social housing at an accelerated rate, year on year, with an 18% increase in the last year. There were 20,000 new affordable houses built in the last five years, 65% of which were social rented, and another 20,000 will be built in the next five years, all of which will be social rented and at a low carbon specification. Unfortunately, in England the opposite is the case, with affordable house delivery falling, so will the Minister say what conversations he has had with the Welsh Government Minister, and what lessons he can learn on delivering the much needed increase in the affordable and low carbon social housing required?
Support for Town Centres and High Streets — House of Commons, 2022-01-24
Topic: Housing
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): The towns fund is a limited beauty contest. All town centres, such as Crownpoint in Denton and Houldsworth Square in Reddish, matter. Twelve years ago, those town centres had hanging baskets and planters, the street furniture was beautifully painted, and our main town centre park, Victoria park, had bedding plants. All those things have gone as the councils have faced 60% cuts. How are we going to get some civic pride back in communities such as Denton and Reddish?