argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
UK Food Exports: Promotion — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Other
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): Mr Vickers, you had Question 1. You cannot have two bites of the cherry, as much as I am tempted! I know you want to talk about great Lancashire cheeses, but unfortunately you cannot. Let us move on to Craig Tracey.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (Labour, Centre-left): To say that a decision is expected shortly simply is not good enough. To ensure that this vital industry can survive, Ministers must stop dragging their feet and act urgently to safeguard the steel sector. Jobs and livelihoods in our communities are at risk. Labour backs UK steel. Does the Minister of State not accept that the reality is that, with time passing, Ministers are too busy propping up the Prime Minister to act decisively for the people?
Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests Resignation — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Other
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): I say to the Minister, for whom I have the greatest respect, that he knows that his answer should have been three minutes. I am sure that the team here could have managed to get that speech down to three minutes. I say to Members on both sides of the House, please, do not take advantage, as there is a lot of other business to follow.
Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests Resignation — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Other
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): I am incredibly grateful to the Minister for confirming to the House that the letter of resignation does exist, because the Deputy Prime Minister, who is also, I understand, a leading lawyer, said on the "Today" programme this morning that he did not know whether the letter exists, and then he went on to say that he had not read it. We are extremely grateful to the Minister for confirming that. Why is the letter not available to us now? He knew he was responding to this urgent question. We could have then discussed its contents. We have heard about Lady Bracknell; what we have before us this morning is Uriah Heep.
Private Rented Sector — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Housing
Karen Patricia Buck (Labour, Centre-left): While also welcoming the content of the White Paper as outlined now, I share the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) about the further delay before legislation—the consultation and pilots—when there is pressing urgency. The Minister does not need to wait to get on with an urgent review of enforcement capacity. Whether it is about substandard accommodation or illegal evictions, we know we have a problem of capacity in local government, housing legal aid and the police supporting people facing illegal evictions. Can he undertake to review that capacity urgently and take steps to deal with it while we wait for the legislation?
Private Rented Sector — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Housing
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): It would be good to see some security restored to the private rented sector, 35 years after a Conservative Government introduced no-fault eviction, but housing in the UK also has a crisis of affordability and disrepair. The social housing sector, although far from perfect, is better placed to tackle all these issues, but it has been weakened in favour of the private rented sector over many years. What plans does the Minister have to rebalance the housing market and restore social housing to its previous role as the leading provider of decent homes?
Private Rented Sector — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Housing
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): Nearly a quarter of my constituents live in the private rented sector and they simply cannot afford to do so. They do not want to be in the private rented sector, but there is not enough social stock and buying is too expensive. Therefore, they are trapped. Now not only are they seeing section 21 evictions, but, with rental costs the highest in the north, at £945 per month on average, people are having to leave the area, which impacts on the economy as well as on their lives. Will the Minister reconsider the issue of rent controls because the pace that rents are rising is forcing people out of my city?
Private Rented Sector — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Housing
Ruth Margaret Cadbury (Labour, Centre-left): I, too, draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Like other Members, I endorse the direction in which the Government are going, but there are a lot of gaps that they could have addressed in the White Paper, only the summaries of which I have had time to see so far. Does the Minister agree that a key element of giving greater security, transparency and power to tenants is to ensure that letting agencies which act on behalf of landlords work to the highest standards as well? Could he commit to looking at a code of conduct for letting agents, as has been done in Wales?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Other
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you. I thank her for the point of order. She has put her comments on the record. In a way this is an extension of the debate yesterday. It is not a matter for the Chair but, as I say, she has put her point of view on the record.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Other
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Lady for that point of order, which rather plays into my view that this has been an extension of the debate that took place yesterday. Now everybody’s views are on the record, so I suggest we leave it at that and move on swiftly to the Select Committee statement.
Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Other
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): Sir Bernard Jenkin, representing the Committee of Privileges, will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement, and call Sir Bernard Jenkin to respond to those in turn. I emphasise that questions should be directed to Sir Bernard Jenkin, not to any relevant Minister who might be here. Interventions should be brief, not a wider comment, and the in form of a short question to Sir Bernard. Those on the Front Bench may also take part in questioning.
Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Other
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): Before we come to the important debate on the fifth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire, I remind Members that, under the terms of the sub judice resolution, they should not refer to active legal proceedings in the debate. That includes proceedings on inquests.
Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
Sarah Ann Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I am sorry that I will not be able to make a speech in this debate as I will be in Committee Does my hon. Friend agree that it was quite extraordinary that plans for people with disabilities to leave in the event of a fire were not already in place and legally required in the first place? It is even more extraordinary that, with the evidence that emerged during the inquiry that such plans were needed, the Government, having said repeatedly in this House that they would implement the findings of the Grenfell inquiry in full, are now backtracking and putting at risk our most vulnerable people, which we find quite unacceptable.
Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
Karen Patricia Buck (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) on securing this debate. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan), whose constituency includes the area of Grenfell Tower. Of course, for 13 years I represented the constituency of Regent’s Park and Kensington North, including Grenfell Tower, and I knew it and the people living in it well. When the phone calls began in the middle of that fateful night five years ago, it was a personal horror to me as well The inferno engulfed Grenfell Tower just days after the 2017 general election. Parliament had not reconvened, but Ministers and MPs gathered in Westminster Hall for a special meeting, for which an official parliamentary record could not be provided. The newly elected Member for Kensington in 2017, Emma Dent Coad, was plunged into probably the most challenging set of circumstances that almost any newly elected Member of Parliament has had to face outside of wartime. She went on to make the case over the following two years, and she continues to do so outside this House. We should commend her for coping so well with that extraordinary challenge.
Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Other
Sarah Ann Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I believe that Emma Dent Coad is with us today, watching from the Public Gallery. I also came to Parliament in 2017, and this has absolutely been the defining issue of my entire five years. What happened was such a huge thing for those of us who were new, and I can only imagine how she managed to cope with the challenges she faced.
Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Housing
Marsha Chantol De Cordova (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I have been in this place for only five years; the Grenfell fire and its aftermath have been a defining part of my term. A number of buildings in my constituency are still wrapped in unsafe cladding. Despite many years of promises that leaseholders would never have to foot the bill for fire safety and remediation work, and despite the Fire Safety Act and the Building Safety Act, leaseholders are still being burdened with thousands of pounds of debt to pay for all the fire safety and remediation work to be completed.
Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Housing
Karen Patricia Buck (Labour, Centre-left): I totally agree. So many people still live with the fear, the risk and the stress of having to contribute financially. As we have said again and again, so many of the people who bear the burden of cost and risk are the very last people in the chain of responsibility to have had anything to do with the circumstances in which they are trapped Five years on, as the inquiry continues its work, the Home Office’s decision not to implement the inquiry’s recommendation "that the owner…of every high-rise residential building be required…to prepare personal emergency evacuation plans" sends out the worst possible signal, particularly to survivors and to the north Kensington community, who are looking to the inquiry for answers on the long road to justice This is the fifth anniversary of an avoidable tragedy of epic proportions—a tale of corporate malfeasance, incompetence, indifference and institutional inertia, even after the Lakanal House fire had given us all the signals that Government action was needed. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East, I pay tribute to Peter Apps and Inside Housing for years of painstaking work in following the inquiry, reporting on it and giving us the information that we need to follow what would otherwise be a very complex story The chains of reporting by Peter Apps make salutary reading for every Member of this House, because they lay so bare what has gone wrong. For example, contractors and developers knew that the cladding system would fail. As Peter Apps has reported: "In an email exchange…designers of the tower’s cladding system wrote: ‘There is no point in "fire stopping". As we all know; the ACM will be gone rather quickly in a fire!’" It is worth reading the dozens of reports that have been put on record in the inquiry, which give us revelations of that kind. Five years on, I pay tribute to the survivors, the relatives, their representatives, the mosques, the churches, the community and Grenfell United, who have done such extraordinary work, in the aftermath of this tragedy, to hold the community together and support people, their dignity and their campaign for justice. But five years on, there is not yet justice.
Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): I very much thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; he has put it very clearly and succinctly. I started with cladding and insulation—I have quite a long list—because that is where we have seen some activity. As I said, it is not the correct activity and it has not been done quickly, comprehensively or logically enough, but there has been a focus on cladding, then on cladding and insulation, and then on other matters that relate to cladding. It has spread out very gradually and slowly from there, but I just make the point that when we drill down, we find that there is still a long way to go, and it is impossible not to conclude that the reasons for that are partly financial and partly that the Government are overwhelmed and do not have the support they need.
Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): I am alarmed by what my hon. Friend says about a 55-storey building having a single staircase, which I believe would make it impossible both to fight a fire and get people out. Why was the building given permission, and who authorised it? Was there a fire assessment in advance of permission being granted?
Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Housing
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): Most of these buildings are in the planning process, and some have been withdrawn and resubmitted, as I hope is the case with this one. Fifty-five storeys and a single staircase is the proposal as things stand. There are many other examples across west London and the country, not necessarily of that height but 40, 30 or even 20 storeys. Grenfell Tower had 24 storeys, so we are talking about buildings of more than twice that size.
Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Housing
Marsha Chantol De Cordova (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend alluded to the number of disabled people in Grenfell Tower. If the recommendation on personal emergency evacuation plans is not implemented, and the Government have chosen to reject it, what impact will it have on the many disabled people living in high-rise buildings? What trust and confidence does it give them if their Government are choosing to reject such an important recommendation to ensure they are safe and secure in their homes? The Government are saying these people’s lives do not matter by saying they do not need personal emergency evacuation plans.
Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Housing
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): I could not agree more. The truth is that the Government have put it in the "too difficult" column, along with other things. It is not that they have an argument for why they do not need such plans; it is because they are saying, "Well, it will be too difficult, too expensive or take too much time, and we have other things to do." That is extraordinary. I have long-term concerns about disabled people, or indeed young families, living in high-rise blocks, which are unsuitable accommodation. There is a much wider debate about the type of housing we build in this country, but this issue seems to be glaringly obvious.
Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): I am interested in what the Minister says about the remedial works being done. What compensation will be made available to people who, as I outlined, have paid unbelievably excessive levels of insurance, through no fault of their own, and are seriously out of pocket and unable to continue doing so?
Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Housing
Richard Burgon (Labour, Centre-left): I thank all hon. and right hon. Members who have contributed to this very important debate. I am glad that the Government have committed to an annual debate on this in Government time I hear the Minister say that he and the Government will take seriously every recommendation from the inquiry, but I would like the Government to commit to implement every single recommendation, not just to take them seriously. I would like the Government to revisit their decision and overturn their rejection of personal evacuation plans. I would like the Government to help all people hit by the cladding crisis and surely, as we have heard from other Members, the cladding companies should pay. We need a commitment that no one in this country will live in a fire-unsafe home, and we do need the urgent implementation of the Hillsborough law, because the duty of candour from public authorities is so important Along with other Members, I was on the very moving memorial walk the other night, and we sensed the unity. I want to pay tribute to Councillor Emma Dent Coad, who has continued to pursue this injustice and advocate for local residents in the community in which she lives I want to finish with two brief quotes. One is from the journalist Peter Apps, who wrote in a recent article: "What has emerged is a profoundly depressing portrait of a private sector with a near psychopathic disregard for human life, and a public sector which exists to do little more than serve or imitate it." However, I want the final words of this debate, fittingly, to be from the families, the bereaved and the survivors of Grenfell United, who said: "We must pave a new way forward. We must hold those responsible to account."
Sharing Economy: Short-term Letting — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Housing
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is right to emphasise both the scale and the commercial nature of the problem; a lot of people think it is marginal when, in fact, in some areas it is endemic. Last week, I talked to a local headteacher who said that her school’s intake had been affected by a local mansion flat area changing from being long-term accommodation for homeless families into luxury accommodation with a substantial proportion of short-term lets, changing the character and demographics of the entire area. That is why the Government need to act.
Sharing Economy: Short-term Letting — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Housing
Karen Patricia Buck (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend has probably seen the advertising—for a while there was advertising on the London underground—saying how much more money people could get by taking advantage of short-term lets. This is creating a powerful incentive to do exactly what she is describing.
Sharing Economy: Short-term Letting — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Jeffrey Smith (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on securing the debate and on her opening speech, which set out the issues really well. We have also had excellent speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and for Westminster North (Ms Buck). What has been noticeable, as we have just heard, is the consensus here. We may be small in number, but we all recognise the issue and we all recognise that it needs to be tackled. The fact that there are not many people in the Chamber may be because it is not a controversial proposal Britain is a fantastic country, with a wealth of exciting places to visit: our remarkable cultural heritage; our world-class attractions and events; our incredible scenery; our coastal towns and vibrant cities, and our amazing capital city. But the tourism sector has really suffered as a result of the pandemic, and its recovery has been much slower than other sectors. VisitBritain found that the UK’s tourism sector lost a total of £146 billion over 2020 and 2021—around £200 million per day. The tourism sector in the UK is recovering at a slower rate than that in Europe and the USA. We have tourism recovery plan targets and a review of destination management organisations gathering dust on the shelf. Despite that, we know that we will recover. People are already returning to big events. In Manchester, last week, we had one of our biggest weekends ever, with lots of huge events around the city, with hotel rooms packed, bars packed, and Airbnbs packed. The inbound tourist trade is picking up as well. Domestic or tourist visitors want somewhere affordable and convenient to stay. Short-term lets have helped many people to do this, encouraging people to holiday domestically in the UK and housing people from abroad. That is generally good, notwithstanding the difficulties for some hotel operators that were identified by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard). We want those holidays, those visits and those day trips to continue and to grow However, short-term letting is only a good thing if it is sustainable and strengthens, rather than weakens, communities. As we have heard today, in many places, housing supply, local services, safety and wellbeing are affected by the trend towards short-term lets. Properly managed, short-term lets can have real benefits: they can increase housing options, especially at peak times —I have used Airbnb for Labour party conference accommodation, so I know how it can add capacity when all the hotels are packed out for conferences—they can ensure that empty rooms can be used efficiently and they give people an opportunity to make a little extra money A residential property that is being used for Airbnb, however—I use Airbnb as a kind of shorthand, but it is the clearly the market leader in this area—can cause the kinds of issues for residents that we have heard articulated so well today, and can take that property out of the residential housing market.
Sharing Economy: Short-term Letting — House of Commons, 2022-06-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): It is my understanding that DCMS will be looking at a registration scheme, not a licensing scheme, and there is a world of difference between them. Given the Minister’s departmental interest in this issue, could there be a roundtable to discuss the impact of this and the difference between licensing and registration? Would he advocate or facilitate such a roundtable with, for instance, the Members here and Members with a particular interest in this issue?