argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Engagements — House of Commons, 2017-04-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Questions: Does the Prime Minister support the people of Darlington who oppose the downgrading of their A&E and maternity services? They want an answer they can trust, Prime Minister. Is it yes or no?; May I welcome the fact that, because the Conservatives have managed the economy so well, there is record school funding this year? East Sussex, for example, has some of the best performing schools in the country, and they are set to receive an increase of 3%. However, in Lewes, in my constituency, many of my small rural primary schools are set to see a reduction. Will the Prime Minister guarantee that she will look at the issue of rural primary school funding so that we can even out the distribution of money?; Every school in Hyndburn is facing a massive budget cut. Why is a child in Hyndburn worth less than a child in Tory heartlands in the south?; Small businesses provide the lion’s share of jobs in Cornwall and on the Isles of Scilly. The difficulties of attracting credit, rising operational costs and red tape make running a small business an increasingly difficult task. What can my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister do to help small businesses so that they can continue to be the engine of rural economies like West Cornwall’s?; The Government wish to pursue a national industrial strategy. Cumbria has some specific strengths, such as tourism, agriculture and nuclear, but it also has some weaknesses. Will the Prime Minister agree that any industrial strategy in the next Parliament must take into account regional and sub-regional factors, and will she be receptive to a Cumbrian industrial strategy that works within a national one?; I have seen rats and fly-tipping as a result of bins not having been emptied for up to three weeks across Lib Dem-run Sutton following a shambolic change to refuse collections. [Interruption.]When bin collections get into the national headlines, you know something has gone wrong. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in accepting greater delegated powers, elected councillors must consult residents properly, plan major changes carefully and take full responsibility as accountable representatives when things go wrong?
Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Will the Prime Minister join the Scottish Government, North Ayrshire Council and all Ayrshire local authorities by today pledging to support the Ayrshire growth deal, which requires £350 million of targeted investment to regenerate Ayrshire and improve the lives and prospects of all its people?
Early Parliamentary General Election — House of Commons, 2017-04-19
Topic: International Affairs
Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Prime Minister says that she wants unity and an end to division; she intends to achieve that by crushing opposition, with political opponents described as "saboteurs". I invited her earlier to distance herself from that, but she was not prepared to do so. This is not a vision or an understanding of mainstream democracy that I share with the Prime Minister For months we have heard from the Prime Minister that "now is not the time" for the public to vote, that "no one wants it", and that it is important to "get on with the day job" We have been told that the Prime Minister needs to concentrate all her time on the Brexit negotiations and that nothing should get in the way. In the past 24 hours, however, we have learned that that was all empty rhetoric There are two key reasons why there is going to be an early general election. The first is total political expediency—it is about the woeful, unelectable state of the Labour party, and not wanting to repeat the political error that Gordon Brown made. The Prime Minister wants to receive her own electoral mandate and to crush political opposition in England. The second reason for holding an early general election is that it has finally dawned on the UK Government that the Brexit negotiations are going to be very difficult and the realities of the hard Brexit that the Prime Minister is pursuing have not yet fully dawned on the public. As one commentator wrote today: "The EU is not going to roll over and give the UK free and ‘frictionless’ access to the internal market. The Prime Minister is cutting and running; getting a vote in before the reality of hard Brexit hits home" The Prime Minister might think she can get her way with all this against the Labour party in England, but she will not get away with it in Scotland.
Early Parliamentary General Election — House of Commons, 2017-04-19
Topic: Government Operations
Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I do not think that the Prime Minister would manage that with Nicola Sturgeon. However, I am surprised by, and welcome, what the hon. Gentleman has to say in encouragement to the Prime Minister. I think that the public deserve a debate—indeed, more than one debate—during the election campaign, and I think that the Prime Minister should have more confidence in herself. She should be prepared to address the country, and to debate the ideas presented by all the different political parties in the United Kingdom. We in Scotland, of course, have already learnt that the Prime Minister is prepared to ignore the mandate and wishes of the Scottish electorate, the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government, so why would anyone in Scotland vote for such a dismissive and disrespectful party and Prime Minister?
Early Parliamentary General Election — House of Commons, 2017-04-19
Topic: International Affairs
Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I need to make some progress as time is limited. I will try to take some interventions later The Prime Minister promised that she would establish a unified approach with all the devolved Governments—an agreement—before triggering Brexit. She did not: she broke her word. As we have learnt in recent weeks in connection with the appalling rape clause, the one thing that the Scottish Tories do not like talking about is Tory policy, but this election will highlight the dangers posed to Scotland by unfettered Tory Westminster Governments. We live in one of the most unequal countries in the developed world, but the Tories want to make it even more unfair. Experts say that their policies will cause the largest increase in inequality since the days of Margaret Thatcher.
Early Parliamentary General Election — House of Commons, 2017-04-19
Topic: Government Operations
Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): What I have difficulty understanding is the commitment that the Prime Minister gave when she went to Edinburgh. On the front page of the house journal of the Conservative party, The Daily Telegraph, it was stated in terms that the Prime Minister wanted to seek a UK-wide approach and an agreement with the devolved Governments. The hon. Gentleman may wish to rewrite history, but the Prime Minister gave a commitment to reach an agreement, and she did not reach an agreement The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 was supposed to stop political parties abusing their position and putting party before country. Today the Tories are going to do just that, and, sadly, the Labour party is going to vote with the Tories and make life easy for them. We on these Benches will not vote with the Tories but, given the reality—the Labour party will be voting with the Tories—there will be a general election, and boy, we look forward to that contest—[Interruption.]
Early Parliamentary General Election — House of Commons, 2017-04-19
Topic: Government Operations
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman says that Parliament will decide on this question, but the Prime Minister went on television yesterday and staked her reputation across the world by declaring that there would be a general election. If she does not get the support of 422 MPs and a two-thirds majority today, would such a public humiliation mean that she had to resign?
Early Parliamentary General Election — House of Commons, 2017-04-19
Topic: International Affairs
Thomas Sheppard (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I believe this is the sort of thing that gets politics a bad name in our country and it is what is leading to the alienation of many of our citizens from the political process. There is only one reason the Prime Minister wants a general election on 8 June: she figures she has a better chance of winning it now than she does in the future. It is therefore the most blatant abuse of the democratic procedure for party political advantage, and as this campaign goes on it will be seen as that This election has nothing to do with the country’s interests and everything to do with the management of the Conservative party, and I give two clear reasons why that is the case. The Prime Minister has suggested that she needs to have a majority, but she has not won any vote on Brexit over the past year with a majority of fewer than 30, so the majority is already there. She also says that this election will give clarity to the Brexit process, but we on these Benches have been trying for 10 long months to get clarity on the Brexit process, and every question we have asked has been met with silence and with a refusal to say what Brexit does indeed mean. I do not believe for one minute that the Tory party manifesto for 8 June will spell out exactly what the plan for Britain is post-Brexit, so who is kidding who? We will not be any clearer after this election as to what Brexit means than we are right now.
Early Parliamentary General Election — House of Commons, 2017-04-19
Topic: Law and Crime
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The media are reporting that up to 30 sitting Tory MPs face being prosecuted for electoral fraud and that the Crown Prosecution Service will announce very soon whether it intends to press charges. Does my hon. Friend think that might have anything to do with the Prime Minister’s change of heart?
Early Parliamentary General Election — House of Commons, 2017-04-19
Topic: International Affairs
Thomas Sheppard (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Yes, I do; I think that is remarkably suspicious. But my concern is that the Prime Minister wants to silence dissent and disagreement in this House and in this country. Therefore, her instincts are not democratic, but authoritarian, and that is a great worry for our country May I just turn to the situation in Scotland? There are two reasons why the people of Scotland should be given another choice on their self-government. The first is not because the people who lost the referendum in 2014 do not respect the result, but because the people who won that referendum changed the deal afterwards; the United Kingdom that people voted to be part of in 2014 will no longer be there in the future. The second is that although the Scottish Government took a compromise position, which neither challenged the Brexit deal nor argued for independence, it was thrown back in our faces. So there is no option now but to offer people in Scotland the opportunity of the choice between a hard, Tory, isolationist Britain or taking control into their own hands. This election is not required as a mandate to have that second referendum, because the Scottish Government already have that mandate, but this will be a judgment, Prime Minister, on your refusal to agree to the wishes of the Scottish Parliament. I would like to ask this in finishing: if the Conservative party loses the general election in Scotland, will you stop blocking the right of the Scottish people to have the choice in the future?
Early Parliamentary General Election — House of Commons, 2017-04-19
Topic: Government Operations
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): As several hon. Members have pointed out, the Prime Minister heads up a party with a majority gained partly by it cheating in the last general election, and it has been fined by the Electoral Commission as a result. Yet today she had the brass neck to stand there and give a speech all about leadership, so I want to know, what leadership is the Prime Minister showing on this issue? She refused to answer the questions from the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) and from my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) about election cheating and some of her current MPs participating again in this forthcoming general election. What leadership intervention has she made within her party to make sure that this spending cheating does not happen again?
Early Parliamentary General Election — House of Commons, 2017-04-19
Topic: International Affairs
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I have a bit more—about further non-leadership interventions by the Prime Minister. She consistently said that there would be no general election, but she has now done a massive U-turn. She could not answer why she has changed her mind on the single market. We have heard no evidence as to what this hard Tory Brexit is going to mean and what it would mean compared with Scotland staying in the single market. She has consistently ignored the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament, so I ask her to show some real leadership now.
Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993 — House of Commons, 2017-04-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
William Arthur Roger Mullin (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is perfectly reasonable for the EU to make such a statement and to seek to have some control over debt. It is interesting to note that the Scottish Government can at least say today, all these years after the Scottish Parliament was created, that they have absolutely no debt. That is certainly something that this Government cannot claim Regardless of whether we were going to be in or out of the EU, this country—the UK and all its member nations—would still face major economic challenges that require will and intelligence to address. Surely that is the message that we should all be taking to our constituents as we face the future.
Leaving the EU: Justice System — House of Commons, 2017-04-25
Topic: International Affairs
Gavin Andrew Stuart Newlands (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The recognition of enforcement of judgments across the EU has benefited millions of citizens. Does the Justice Secretary agree with the Law Society of Scotland that if we leave the EU with no deal and return to pre-EU mechanisms, the likely outcome is that the weakest and the poorest in society will suffer, as the processes become costlier?
European Convention on Human Rights — House of Commons, 2017-04-25
Topic: International Affairs
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Earlier this month, when I met UN officials in New York to discuss human rights issues, they were appalled to hear that the British Prime Minister had said that at the next general election she would be campaigning to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European convention on human rights. Can I take what the Minister said previously as a guarantee that this abhorrent commitment to withdraw from the European convention on human rights will not be in the Tory party manifesto for 8 June?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-04-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I warmly welcome the new hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) to what is left of this short Parliament. I am particularly pleased that we have finally broken the barrier of the number of women who have been elected— I am really delighted that that has happened. As a child I holidayed in her constituency, and I fondly remember visiting where Beatrix Potter created her animals and the Beatrix Potter museum. I can see the passion with which the hon. Lady speaks about her constituency and the amount she obviously cares about the area in which she was born and bred. She is a truly local MP, so I offer her a huge welcome to the House. Who knows whether she, or any of us, will be coming back in June? But welcome, anyway This first group of measures addresses income tax, but I will also comment on the way that the Bill is progressing through Parliament. With the surprise announcement of a general election, the Bill looks rather different from when it was first introduced. I am sure the Minister is in a similar position, but we received provisional notification of the amount of withdrawals and changes only last night, so there will not be the normal level of scrutiny of some things in the Bill. There will possibly also be slight confusion in today’s proceedings, given that so many things are being withdrawn. I welcome the Government’s withdrawal of the dividend tax threshold changes, which we argued against on Second Reading. I am pleased that they have chosen to do that because it was a particularly contentious part of the Bill. More generally on the income tax changes, I have said previously and am happy to state again that I appreciate the Government’s increases to the personal allowance and the minimum wage. But I have said previously and say again that the Government have not gone far enough. We have a national living wage, but there has been no calculation of whether people can live on it.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-04-25
Topic: Labor
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that the national living wage is not actually a real living wage but a pretend living wage and that it does not go far enough in that it is available only to people over the age of 25?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-04-25
Topic: Labor
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I agree that it is a real problem that this increased minimum wage does not apply to people under 25. Just because a person is under 25 does not mean they are doing any less of a job than a person over 25, and the minimum wage should apply to them just as much as to those who are older The other issue is that the tax credit changes more than balance out the extra money people are getting from the increased minimum wage and personal allowance. People at the bottom of the pile are worse off as a result of the Government’s decisions. Despite the Government’s talk about how great the new personal allowance and the new minimum wage are, they have to be considered in context. People who work are worse off as a result of the tax credit changes More generally, the Government have made a few suggestions on the taxation of self-employment, some of which have been withdrawn and some of which have not. They intend to try to equalise the taxation of employment and self-employment. However, what is missing is that people in self-employment do not receive the same benefits as people in employment, such as maternity leave and holiday entitlement. I have argued before and will argue again that if the Government are making changes to self-employment, they need to do so in the round. The need to stop this piecemeal tinkering and consider the whole situation. They need to do a proper review and come back with the results, and then consult on any changes. Rather than pulling rabbits out of hats—changing national insurance contributions with very little consultation, for example—they need to consult properly on how taxation should look for individuals, whether they are employed or self-employed I appreciate that the Government are undertaking the Taylor review, but I am not sure it goes far enough. I would like to see the Taylor review, or a future Government review, take self-employment into account in the round by considering all the factors that face the self-employed. We need to remember the changes in the self-employment landscape in recent years. We have seen a massive increase in the number of women and older people in self-employment, and the Government’s changes do not take into account the changes in that landscape. I would like to see a holistic approach, rather than a tinkering approach. That is all I have to say on this group but, again, I welcome the Government’s withdrawal of the dividend tax threshold changes.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-04-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
George Kerevan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): May I, too, thank the new hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) for such a passionate and entertaining speech? It is good to have a representative of the land of Beatrix Potter here in this Chamber. I listened to her last points about the deficit and her encomium that this Government are bringing it down. I will be slightly wicked in saying that I am sure she knows that the Office for Budget Responsibility is forecasting a rise in Government borrowing this financial year, and she might care to ask why that is the case I have one specific question for the Minister on this group, as her introduction notably failed to explain why clause 5 has been withdrawn. That clause deals with the proposed reduction in the dividend income that investors in small companies can take. Are the Government embarrassed by the clause and is that why it is being withdrawn Question put and agreed to. Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clauses 2 to 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 5 disagreed to. Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 7 Workers’ services provided to public sector through intermediaries Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-04-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): People have told me that no matter what information they have put in, they have always been told that they have to pay more tax than they were expecting. Concerns have been raised with me about that online tool and its shortcomings, and about the fact that HMRC is always asking people to pay a level of tax that they think is wrong or too high.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-04-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I agree that the focus should be on maximising the tax take, but I would go about it in a slightly different way by trying to encourage companies and individuals and by encouraging the economy to grow. I would try to get people back into more productive jobs in order to increase productivity. The Government have mentioned increasing productivity, which is something we have been pretty good at doing in Scotland in recent times; our productivity increase has been significant and much higher than the productivity increase south of the border. Those are the measures I would start with to grow the economy.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-04-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Mr Hoyle, that is the end of my comments on this group Question put and agreed to. Clause 7 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clauses 9 and 10 disagreed to. Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clauses 12 to 16 disagreed to. Clauses 17 and 18 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clauses 19 and 20 disagreed to. Clause 21 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clauses 22 to 44 disagreed to. Clauses 45 to 47 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 48 Employment Income Provided through Third Parties Amendment made: 4, page 49, line 26, leave out "Schedules 16 and 17 make" and insert "Schedule 16 makes".—(Jane Ellison.) Clause 48, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clauses 49 to 56 disagreed to. Clause 57 VAT: Zero-rating of Adapted Motor Vehicles Etc Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-04-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): If the Minister changes the VAT treatment of the Scottish police and the fire and rescue service, I promise not to raise the matter again in the House. I can see that she is fed up with discussing it, but, frankly, so am I. If the Government were to move on this, we would not have to raise it again.