argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Syria — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Immigration
Alistair James Hendrie Burt (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question, and I thank her for her kind comments. Essentially, it is a UN assessment. The UNHCR and UN agencies are the bodies most likely to give their assessment of when areas of Syria have become safe for return in every sense of the word—not only an end to physical conflict there, but the circumstances being right for people to return—and we support the UN agencies in doing that The most likely difficulty will be differences of opinion. For example, it is clear at the moment that it is the practice for some in Lebanon to return to Syria at the weekend or from time to time. Those who fled earlier go back to certain areas, and the Lebanese Government draw attention to that and say that people would not be going back if they did not feel safe to do so. None the less, that is not a definition of safety per se I think the honest thing to say is that there is real pressure, rightly so, from host nations that are worried about the burden they are bearing. The first thing we can do is to make sure we continue to support them and that we do not, just because of the passage of time, neglect their needs. Secondly, we should make it clear that we do wish for and support the return of refugees. However, the international community must continue to say that that can only be when the conditions are right for safe and dignified return, and at this stage the facilitation and promotion of returns does not meet that test.
Commonwealth Day — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Mixed Topics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, though I cannot imagine what could be distracting you from this celebration I am grateful to the shadow Minister for her comments about the values of the Commonwealth and the power of this association of friendly countries to share the values that she rightly stands up for. I will take her points in turn. I can give some great examples of how the solidarity of the 53 countries can lead to progress on the important topics she raises On human rights, she will be aware that not only the Commonwealth secretariat but the associations work closely with member states to raise standards on human rights, including by supporting countries going through the universal periodic review process. I am sure that she knows that, using UK funding, the Equality and Justice Alliance is working to create a fairer, more equal and more inclusive Commonwealth, not only for women and girls, but for the LGBT community, through civil society capacity building. It is working on a project to create a cross-Commonwealth network of high-level champions and offer technical assistance in the reform of laws that discriminate against or fail to protect women, girls and LGBT individuals. It is currently speaking with six countries about the offer of technical assistance for legislative change. That is an update since last year On our special responsibility, which the hon. Lady rightly drew our attention to, she will be aware that the Commonwealth charter itself states that members are opposed to all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, colour, creed, political belief or other grounds. She will also be aware that the largest ever number of visiting LGBT activists came from around the Commonwealth to attend all four of the official forums and a wide range of special events at last year’s summit. At that event, the Prime Minister expressed her regret at the legacy of the discriminatory legislation in the Commonwealth and committed to supporting those countries who wished to make a change The hon. Lady asks about the letter. It gives me the opportunity to put on the record how grateful we are to all those Commonwealth servicemen and women who served with Britain during the war. She will be aware that, from April 2019, UK aid will protect more than 7,000 Commonwealth veterans and widows who served with British armed forces from extreme poverty. It is an £18.2 million programme working with the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League and will support 4,500 veterans and 2,500 widows of veterans in the countries eligible for official development assistance. I acknowledge the letter that we received from the shadow Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, Defence and International Development, and I can assure her that the Government will respond in due course.
Commonwealth Day — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Mixed Topics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is right to highlight the important role that the Commonwealth can play in ensuring that climate change remains at the forefront of the world’s agenda. Last year, for the first time, the UK Chair-in-Office spoke for Commonwealth members at the United Nations General Assembly. As the hon. Lady will know, the UN has asked our Prime Minister to lead the work of this autumn’s conference on resilience. An enormous amount of work is being done across the Government to establish how we can work with Commonwealth members and others to tackle the important resilience strand of this crucial issue.
Commonwealth Day — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Mixed Topics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): Madam Deputy Speaker, have you ever heard such a compelling application to Her Majesty to recognise more cricketers from around the Commonwealth? I am sure that it will have been heard by the relevant people. My hon. Friend is right; I mentioned Bangladeshi women’s cricket. I am also thrilled that in Rwanda, which is one of the newer members of the Commonwealth, cricket is fast growing into a very popular, if not leading, national sport. He is right to make the link between the Commonwealth and cricket.
Commonwealth Day — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Other
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, I think it is eSwatini, to give it its latest name, is it not? [Interruption.] Oh, the hon. Gentleman meant here. Perhaps I should not be on his team next time he takes part in a quiz.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Mixed Topics
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In wishing you and others a happy Commonwealth Day, I want to reference the fact that it is now close to 50 years since the remarkable events that eventually brought large numbers of Ugandan Asians to these shores. The success of that generation has been quite extraordinary, and the philanthropy associated with their entrepreneurial success is almost as remarkable as their commercial achievements. For example, two of my constituents, Babu Odedra and Ash Chavda, bought a redundant theatre that they are in the process of helping to restore as part of their contribution to our city. I wanted to seek your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, as to whether you think that a celebratory 50th anniversary debate about that generation of Ugandan Asians would be appropriate.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time Members will know that this is a private Member’s Bill, so I will start by putting on the record my thanks to the Government and the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), for giving it Government time and for their broader efforts to help tackle the scourge of FGM and to protect those at risk of it. The Bill has passed through the other place and received cross-party support in its Second Reading Committee a fortnight ago and again last week in Committee, and I put on the record again my thanks to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) for her words in Committee and for the cross-party manner in which the issue was tackled The Bill was initiated by Cross-Bench peer Lord Berkeley, who became aware of an omission in existing child protection law whereby family courts do not have the power to compel the involvement of a local authority in an interim care order relating to FGM. He decided to act and piloted this simple, two-clause Bill through the other place with passion, clarity and decency, and I am grateful to him. It has been my pleasure to work with the Government to attempt to get the Bill through this place, notwithstanding one or two hurdles earlier on I also want to place on the record my thanks to the FGM survivor and extraordinarily effective campaigner, Nimco Ali, who will be known to many Members. She is probably this country’s best-known FGM campaigner, and using every opportunity at her disposal to push the issue right to the top of the political agenda. It was wonderful just three days ago to see on Twitter a picture of her standing in No. 10 next to the Prime Minister. Nimco has taken the issue literally to the heart of Government Nimco Ali’s work has extended well beyond what she has achieved in this country. She famously persuaded all three contenders in the 2017 Somaliland presidential election to commit to legislating against FGM, and I do not think that many people thought that she had the slightest chance of succeeding. The election was won by President Muse and, good to his word, he introduced the legislation as soon as he took office. Incidentally, the vote itself was a model election, the first in the world in which iris-recognition technology was used to avoid electoral fraud. In one of the most troubled parts of the planet, we had the extraordinary scene of the contenders shaking hands and accepting the result without any fuss whatsoever—something that we could perhaps learn as we discuss ongoing Brexit problems.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Other
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): I commend my hon. Friend for his work on this matter. Given Nimco Ali’s great powers of persuasion and advocacy, maybe a role in the Whip’s Office might be of use as we approach difficult times.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a good point. Nimco is effectively my Whip. Most of what I do in this place in relation to FGM is down to her wagging finger telling me exactly what and what not to do. At a recent event with her, someone described me as "Nimco’s intern", but it is a great honour to be her intern. She is an extraordinary campaigner, and if I can help her in any way, it is an honour to do so Members will be familiar with the horrors of FGM, but I think they bear repeating to remind us why this issue matters so much and why it should matter to everyone here. According to the World Health Organisation, female genital mutilation includes "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons." FGM is almost always carried out on very young children, rarely by medical professionals and rarely with pain relief.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Edmund Francis Hughes (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend says "very young children" and the information I have read—I do not know whether this is the case—says that FGM is, in some cases, carried out very soon after birth. Has he heard that?
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I believe that the average age is five, which implies that girls are subjected to FGM at a very, very young age. FGM is a practice that has absolutely no basis in medicine.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Stephen Anthony McPartland (Conservative, Centre-right): FGM is completely shocking, and it is not something I knew anything about until it was raised up the political spectrum a couple of years ago. The House recently talked about sex and relationships education. Will FGM be a central part of that so that people in this country are educated about what is actually happening?
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend raises an important point. Had we been having this debate two weeks ago, I would have said that I hope so. There have been subsequent announcements—I think we had an announcement from the Department for Education on the day the Bill was in Committee—that that is exactly what will happen, with education being introduced at the appropriate level so that children, both boys and girls, know that FGM is a practice we should not tolerate.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): I could not agree more vehemently with my hon. Friend. FGM is not just a kind of child abuse; it is child abuse by any definition or metric I said earlier that FGM has no basis in medicine and, despite what we are often told, nor does it have any basis in any religion. The practice is often wrongly blamed on Islam—this can particularly be seen on social media—both by extremists who want to justify or, in some cases, even advocate FGM and by others who wish to use FGM as a stick with which to bash the religion itself. In fact, the practice predates Islam, and the Koran neither advocates nor justifies it in any way at all The consequences of FGM can be extreme. It can lead to severe pain, excessive bleeding, infection, menstrual problems, pain during sex and childbirth, and deep, long-lasting psychological trauma. In fact, the effects of FGM can, and often do, last for the duration of a person’s life. It is estimated that, around the world, at least 200 million women and girls alive today have undergone FGM. In England and Wales, shockingly, the figure is around 137,000, although not all of them were subjected to FGM in either England or Wales I apologise to those of a sensitive nature, but during a recent urgent question on this issue, after the Bill was blocked by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), a number of colleagues raised concerns about male circumcision as if there were some kind of comparison between the two. Whatever our views on male circumcision, it must be obvious that it does not compare to FGM. The male equivalent of FGM would not be circumcision; it would be the removal of the entire head of the penis and much of the shaft, too.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is exactly right, and I thank her for her intervention. It is also worth saying that, were a culture to experiment with such an extreme form of male circumcision on a comparable level to what young girls are experiencing around the world, I suspect it would not last more than a single generation, and it certainly would not require legislation and a campaign of the sort that Nimco Ali and her colleagues have waged.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): I could not agree more strongly. In fact, partly on the instruction of Nimco Ali, I am co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on female genital mutilation. Early on, the APPG took evidence from a wide group of people, all of whom had been through different degrees of FGM themselves, and it was clear talking to them that their lives have, in many respects, been defined by what they went through. They were all committed to campaigning to stamp out this practice, and none of them would have any truck with the argument that this is a cultural practice and that it would be insensitive for the British Parliament to try to legislate against it or for the Department for International Development to commit funds to try to prevent the practice.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): I could not agree more, and I am grateful to colleagues for being here to take part in this debate. I do not want to jinx it, but I hope this simple Bill will go through without a Division, which makes the presence of so many Members even more valued. The anti-FGM legislation in the UK is not insubstantial—we have actually done a fair bit. FGM has been illegal here since the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985, which was replaced by the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 that made it illegal to assist someone performing FGM or to commit FGM abroad. The Serious Crime Act 2015 amended the 2003 Act to introduce mandatory reporting of FGM and to create the FGM protection orders that courts can issue to protect girls who have been or may become victims of FGM, which could include, for example, forcing the surrender of a passport to prevent travel abroad In addition to those laws, we can collectively be proud that we have taken a lead globally. The UK was the first country in the world to create a dedicated anti-FGM aid programme, with an initial tranche of £35 million pledged in 2013. Only a few weeks ago, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development committed a further £50 million, which has yet to be allocated, for the one purpose of helping countries around the world, but mostly in Africa.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Rachel Helen Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right to emphasise the international nature of FGM, but does he agree that the Government have committed some £100 million-worth of funding to the ending violence against women and girls strategy in this country, too? We must ramp up these efforts.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): On the issue of young girls being taken abroad to go through the horrific experience of FGM, did my hon. Friend see the article by the campaigner Leyla Hussein in The Sunday Times over the weekend in which she described what happened to her aged seven? Does my hon. Friend think this extraordinary, powerful article is something that should be shared widely among other parliamentarians?
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Other
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for bringing that to the House’s attention. I know Leyla relatively well. In fact, she was one of the first people to give evidence to the all-party group, and we have had meetings subsequently. I have not read the article, but I can imagine how powerful it must be given the experience she has been through and given her advocacy on this issue. She is an extraordinarily powerful campaigner.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and I agree with it, as this is a cross-cutting issue. A colleague suggested earlier that this should form part of personal, social, health and economic education in this country, which it now will, but it is a Home Office issue and a health issue, too. It covers a lot of different Departments. If there is anything at all that I or the all-party group and my colleagues on it can do to help in the case the hon. Lady has just raised, we are at her service and will do what we can Despite the laws we have in place and the injection of funds to campaigning on this issue around the world, clearly there are gaps in the law and the problem has not gone away. In 2016-17, the NHS reported 9,179 cases of FGM, of which 5,391 were newly recorded cases. As hon. Members will know, there has been only one successful prosecution for FGM, after numerous failed attempts; this came to an end last week with a 37-year-old woman being sentenced to 11 years.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Christopher James Green (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend look to the record in France, the approach the French take in dealing with FGM and their success as a source of ideas that we could follow to help cut down on FGM in the UK?
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): We have looked at that in the all-party group. The French engage in a much more interventionist approach, with, for example, inspections of young girls. Most of the people who have given evidence to our group feel that it would not fit this country; they feel it would be stepping over a line. However, another area where the French have been more robust than we have in this country has been in trying to identify people at risk. Certain people are at risk and others are not. Where someone has not been subjected to FGM and their parents were not either, the likelihood of their going on to subject their own child to it is very small, although it is not zero. In other families where it passes from generation to generation, a newborn girl clearly is at risk. The French are much more robust than we have been in this country on that.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
John Luther Mercer (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and to his work on this, as well as that of our mutual friend Nimco Ali, who has championed this from the start. Does he agree that FGM has little to do with religious or racial sensitivities, and is straight-up child abuse and should be called out as such? Does he welcome the first successful prosecution of someone for FGM in this country only two weeks ago, the length of the sentence and the deterrent it can be in some of our communities, where some people will feel that there is no point reporting this because it will not be prosecuted? Does he agree that the length of the sentence sends a message and is encouraging in this fight against FGM?
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): I strongly agree with my hon. Friend on that. Indeed, I am going to take this opportunity to quote from what was said in response to the conviction by the National Police Chiefs Council lead on FGM, Commander Ivan Balhatchet: "Female genital mutilation is a barbaric and violent crime—a violation of human rights—often with lifelong consequences, committed by the people children should be able to trust the most." He continued: "Today’s sentencing will act as a deterrent and a warning that our society will not accept this child abuse, but prosecutions alone will not solve this problem."