argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Abimbola Afolami (Conservative, Centre-right): It provides a very good advantage to small businesses. If anyone from the Treasury is listening, they will have heard how popular the Budget appears to be on the Government Benches as well as on the Opposition Benches. In this House, whether on Budget day or on big issues of foreign affairs and the like, we often focus on the macro big-ticket items, but often comparatively smaller things in money terms have the biggest impact in local communities. Libraries, and indeed the British Library, are an example of that The British Library is enjoyed by more than one and a half million people a year, with another 27 million visits to its website. Its origins in the British Museum Library go back 250 years or so. It is home to Magna Carta, handwritten lyrics by the Beatles and, I am told, even a gravestone. I am not quite sure where they have put it—perhaps in the same place as the "Ed stone" from the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). Sorry, that was rather mean of me, but I could not resist it When I visited the British Library last week to talk about the Bill, the staff were very kind. They showed me some of their manuscripts and exhibits, including manuscripts from the Anglo-Saxon era. As somebody who did his thesis on the development of the burghal system of Edward the Elder, that was a real interest to me, though not to too many others in the world.
British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Other
Abimbola Afolami (Conservative, Centre-right): I am on the moderniser wing I also saw letters from the Anglo-Saxon period to the 20th century, including those from the Conservative Prime Minister Arthur Balfour—his statue is in Members’ Lobby—to a young, ambitious, thrusting Conservative Back Bencher called Winston Churchill, basically telling him to calm down. They showed me everything in between. The collection is almost unparalleled not just in this country but across the world.
British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Abimbola Afolami (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with my hon. Friend. It is probably worth saying at this juncture that giving the British Library the power to borrow does not mean that I now do not wish everything the British Library does to be done better; of course there are things it could do better. Indeed, my hon. Friend makes the point about the British Library showing off much more of what it has. I agree that these items should not just be for showing to Members of Parliament before they present a Bill. They should be presented much more to the public. Having the ability to borrow will give the British Library the freedom to innovate much more than it does today, and that will enable it to show more of its collections to the public. If it does not do so, I am sure that the Minister will say, "Well, hold on—you have now the ability to borrow. Why not push the boat out a bit more with different types of exhibition and exhibits?"
British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): Will there be any restrictions on what the British Library can borrow the money for? Local authorities have borrowed lots of money from the Public Works Loan Board and bought some things that, I think it is fair to say, they do not necessarily understand, such as very expensive shopping centres that may not be part of the commercial retail space in the future. What borrowing restrictions will be put on the British Library?
British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robert Butler (Conservative, Centre-right): I wonder whether my hon. Friend could explain how the British Library will repay the money it borrows, because we are the party of responsible borrowing, as he knows, and indeed as the Chancellor outlined in his Budget only this week.
British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Abimbola Afolami (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend asks a very good question. The British Library will first have to submit a business case that satisfies the Government. For example, it might want to make its members’ centre bigger and more attractive, in order to attract new members—I think the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Batley and Spen, is a member. Its members pay a yearly subscription, so that investment could recoup the library money over time.
British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is getting to the nub of the matter and he is making a fantastic speech. On the other services that the British Library could provide and the commercial aspects, can he tell us whether some of them will be charged for? Obviously, the overwhelming service provided by the British Library is free to use, but some of us would argue that, if it provides a competitive charge for services to cross-subsidise that, that could be justifiable.
British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robert Butler (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that actually there is a distinct joy in having a physical book and turning the pages that simply cannot be replicated by moving everything online and having an entirely digital world?
British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Neil John O'Brien (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for drawing that to my attention. It seems a typically Gladstonian move. I would love to visit that library at some point; perhaps we should have a library exchange It should be a great source of pride for this country that the British Library is literally, by catalogue size, the largest library anywhere in the world. It currently holds between 170 million and 200 million items and, frankly, I love the uncertainty of that. I have often wondered, "How do you know if you have too many books?" I think if one is unable to number them except within a range of plus or minus 15 million, it is possible that one has too many books. That is slightly unfair on the British Library, because it knows how many books it has; the uncertainty comes from the fact that there are so many other things in there, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden already mentioned the gravestone and the possibility that the "Edstone" may reside there As well as 30,950,000 books, there are 824,101 serial titles, 351,116 manuscripts, 8,266,000 philatelic items or stamps, 4,347,000 cartographic items or maps, and 1.6 million music scores. As has been mentioned, the British Library grows its collection by 3 million items every year and currently requires 625 km of shelf space, which is growing by 12 km a year. To put that into context, that is enough for roughly three speeches by my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts)—[Laughter.] In the virtual space, the library harvested over 70 terabytes of web content for the UK web archive in 2016. We are not sure at present how many of the 70 terabytes consist mainly of cat gifs, but we do know that the library is cataloguing everything with a .uk domain, so we are in a slightly meta position here in that, as we speak, our words are being catalogued by the very institution that we are discussing The British library also contains a huge amount of recorded music and sound, much of which is available on British Library Sounds. I will return to this point about digital content, but someone can go on to the site, as I did in preparation for this speech, and listen to Dinka songs from South Sudan, endangered Micronesian recordings, which are sort of like mid-1980s rave music, or someone from the Edwardian era singing "Seventeen come Sunday" on to a wax cylinder. It is difficult to think of a more consequential library in history than the British Library.
British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Joy Inboden Morrissey (Conservative, Centre-right): I would like to highlight the work of the British Library and what it has done to promote entrepreneurship with its business and IP centres. As a Conservative, I believe in small business and entrepreneurship. The British Library has done an excellent job in promoting not only small businesses, but young entrepreneurs and ethnic minority entrepreneurs not just in London, but across the country I was able to interact with the British Library at a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group for black, Asian and minority ethnic business owners. A gentleman from Burnham in my constituency who is a business owner was there. It was wonderful to see the British Library so actively involved in trying to help start-ups, and I think we need to have such things across the country. We need to support our entrepreneurs at every level, and what is great about the British Library is that it is doing that for young entrepreneurs as well. It is using city libraries and existing libraries across the country to have these hubs and the results have been really positive. All that has a measurable impact for thousands of start-ups and young entrepreneurs. More than 12,000 businesses have been created with the network’s support since 2016. I hope my hon. Friend will join me in welcoming the new endeavour, and I hope the Bill will allow the entrepreneurship programme to expand across the country.
British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Other
Nigel Martin Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. Before the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O'Brien) comes back in, I have to say that the hon. Lady’s intervention was longer than some of the speeches I have given. By their very nature interventions should be short, as interesting as hers was.
British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Neil John O'Brien (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend made an important intervention that was, like the British Library, content-rich. I welcome her words. She is absolutely right that the British Library is helping entrepreneurs, and also that the Bill will help the British Library to be more entrepreneurial. It was the library’s brilliant idea to decide to set up these IP centres—the first in the world—and we are now helping it to expand them I welcome the fact that the British Library is going to renew the Boston Spa campus, with all the opportunities around that. The point about having borrowing powers is that it allows for the most to be made of opportunities. I welcome the fact that the library is exploring a presence in Leeds. I love the idea of British Library North. I really like the idea that it might use the old Temple Works. It is a famous building of the industrial revolution that at one point contained the world’s largest room, which is pretty cool. The only thing I would say—to grind my own axe for a moment—is that I would love to see some of these things happening in the midlands, especially the east midlands. So, "British Library, if you are listening, do not forget your old friends in the midlands! Please use your new borrowing powers to help us too." All the things that the British Library is doing create opportunities to drive economic growth, in small ways and big. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) made the good point that there is an excellent café there. It reminded me of the old advert for the Victoria and Albert museum that described it as a very good café with rather a nice museum attached. So there are small things but also much bigger things. One can imagine the physical regeneration and wonderful things that could be done in Leeds with the new campus. The fact that the British Library could borrow would let it go that little bit further This is a slightly different category of thing, but Network Rail recently rejigged Market Harborough railway station. It is great, but everything was replaced, like for like, whereas we could have made more of the opportunity of that regeneration. I hope that this new set of powers for the British Library will enable it to make the most of the opportunities and exciting things that it is doing I recently published a report on—Members should not groan—levelling up. It looked at, among other things, innovation, science and culture spending. I was struck that, taking Arts Council England and Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport direct funding of national institutions such as the British Library together, London received 47%—nearly half—of the total spending in England in the period from 2010-11 to 2017-18. Amazingly, that is a slightly lower percentage than in previous decades, but the spending is incredibly London-centric.
British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): I, too, rise in support of the Bill and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) on bringing it forward. I am also going to mention those dreaded words "levelling up," as they are a key part of this. It is something that many of us have been banging on about for years. We did not call it "levelling up" then; we called it "a fairer deal for the north" or something like that. Having said that, I fully concede that this is not just about the north; it is about every region in the UK. It is about spreading both facilities and jobs throughout the country. It is great to hear that the north-east is doing well in terms of DCMS funding. That has not been particularly apparent in my trips around the north-east—perhaps it was north-east London.
British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Other
Abimbola Afolami (Conservative, Centre-right): With the leave of the House, I very much thank all hon. Members who contributed to the debate, and I thank the British Library, its leadership, and all its staff for their work. My plea is that they reach out to me and other Members of this House, so that we can work with them to spread the British Library across the country Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).
Public Sector Exit Payments (Limitation) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Other
Christopher Robert Chope (Conservative, Centre-right): No. I am going to bring my remarks to a close in the hope that we will be able to hear something from my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury before we reach 2.30 pm.
Public Sector Exit Payments (Limitation) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Civil Rights
Shaun Stephen Bailey (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that, while we agree on the sentiment of the Bill, we need a wider cultural change and to encourage more diversity in such roles? Organisations should look not at lateral hires but at hires from outside—perhaps more people from the private sector. A cultural change in addition to the initiative in the Bill is perhaps the way in which to bring about proper fundamental change.
Roadworks: Rayleigh — House of Commons, 2020-03-13
Topic: Other
Mark Gino Francois (Conservative, Centre-right): I have only been a Member of Parliament for 19 years, but I have learned when not to look a gift horse in the mouth. If there is a lacuna in the current legislation, I would be pleased to talk to the Minister and his colleagues about how I might genuinely be able to help them address it.
Sustainable Agriculture — House of Commons, 2020-07-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Wendy Morton (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend makes an important point. As she will appreciate and understand, rain forests are the world’s lungs. Through the Partnerships for Forests programme, the UK supports sustainable agriculture in Brazil, including through support to address deforestation caused by cattle ranching in the Amazon region, as well as through measures to eliminate from the supply chain cattle produced on illegally deforested land. The UK also supports sustainable agriculture in the soya-producing region of Cerrado.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2020-07-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Our thoughts are very much with Eva and her family, and we will of course look at everything we can do to support her and her travel arrangements.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2020-07-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I will indeed think about what we can do. As he knows, these are matters for the honours committees, which are independent of Government, and I urge him strongly to make his representations to them.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2020-07-15
Topic: Housing
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): It is not only the kitchen sink, but every part of the kitchen. We are going to build, build, build our way forward. We are going to be supporting the building of 300,000 new homes a year. We are going to do everything we can to ensure that we get jobs, jobs, jobs throughout this country. Whether by installing kitchen sinks or any other part of the house, we will take this country forward.
Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship — House of Commons, 2020-07-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Gareth Alan Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the CBI—hardly the biggest fan of Brexit—says that if we extend the implementation period it will create uncertainty for business and completely advises against it? What does he know that the CBI doesn’t?
Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship — House of Commons, 2020-07-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Penelope Mary Mordaunt (Conservative, Centre-right): When I came into office I spent a considerable amount of time working with the central office of information and all Government Departments to improve our communications with business. An enormous number of meetings and forums take place not just with me and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster but with every single Department across Whitehall. Our officials continue to have those discussions and consultations, as do Ministers I would say to the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, who mentioned one or two sectors: you have not spoken about any of the Government schemes. You have not spoken about the phased approach. You have not spoken about free services that are available from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and how they can be improved. You have not called for any of that The right hon. Gentleman began the debate calling for leadership and for the Government to adapt. Indeed, the past few months have been an inflection point for nations and individuals. I call on the SNP to adapt: try co-operation; try finding some common ground for the sake of all our businesses and citizens. I would say that to you at any time but now more than ever, against the backdrop of this unprecedented time that we face.
Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship — House of Commons, 2020-07-15
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. Before I call the spokesman for the official Opposition, many people in the Chamber are making the serious mistake of calling other people "you"—even the Minister, whom I have never heard make such a mistake before today. I am anxious that people who are new to the House and have not really seen the Chamber operating properly should not be led astray by those who should know better. Throughout Prime Minister’s questions today, people called the Prime Minister "you". In the Chamber, "you" means the Chair. One addresses other Members as "the hon. Gentleman", "the hon. Lady" or something else, but not "you". [Interruption.] Quite. I call Paul Blomfield.
Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship — House of Commons, 2020-07-15
Topic: Other
Jacob Young (Conservative, Centre-right): We have already heard how important this decision is, so will the hon. Gentleman elaborate on where the Labour party is? Why are the Labour Benches empty? Where are his Back Benchers? Why are they silent on this important issue?
Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship — House of Commons, 2020-07-15
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman knows—[Interruption.] Please do not talk so loudly while I am talking. The hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) can heckle other people, but he cannot heckle me. Well, he can try. The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) knows that his point of order is not a point for the Chair, but a point of debate. The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) will give way when he is ready to give way, and I look forward to hearing the retort from the hon. Member for Glasgow North.
Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship — House of Commons, 2020-07-15
Topic: Immigration
John Robert Lamont (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am going to take an intervention—don’t you worry—but I want to conclude this important point about the completely unacceptable behaviour towards our neighbours, friends and family members trying to cross the border between Scotland and England, coming into my constituency to work, to see family members and to visit friends. Nationalist protesters with "Yes" banners were shouting abuse at them. That is totally unacceptable.
Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship — House of Commons, 2020-07-15
Topic: Immigration
John Robert Lamont (Conservative, Centre-right): The fact that the hon. Lady refused to condemn that behaviour on the border speaks for itself. Similarly, the delay from the First Minister of Scotland to condemn that behaviour also caused great concern, not just in my constituency but across Scotland. That is not the Scotland I represent, and it is not what we are about. That behaviour on the border is unacceptable, and we should condemn it.
Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship — House of Commons, 2020-07-15
Topic: Other
Jacob Young (Conservative, Centre-right): Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating Liberal Democrat, Plaid Cymru and the Democratic Unionist party Members on outnumbering the Labour party Members on the Opposition Benches, with not one Labour Back Bencher to speak in this important debate?