argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
EU Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Foreign Trade
Rachel Helen Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): There is a deal on the table that the Government have negotiated with the EU, and it provides a transition period that would provide certainty for all these trade agreements to be completed in time for our exit. It is my understanding, although I have not checked his voting record, that the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie), who has posed this urgent question, voted against that deal.
EU Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Foreign Trade
George Michael Edward Hollingbery (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and as we have already discussed, there is plainly some very real inconsistency in the Opposition position. I point out to my hon. Friend that the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) is a champion of free trade and actually spoke in this House in the debates on the EU-Japan EPA and CETA back in June, when I have to say he voted with the Government and, indeed, for the deals in that case, unlike his Front Benchers.
EU Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Foreign Trade
George Michael Edward Hollingbery (Conservative, Centre-right): We have staff in post in all the markets where we are attempting to transition these deals. An enormous amount of internal resource has been applied to what we in the Department call TAC—trade agreement continuity. Indeed, we have taken resource out of parts of the other workstreams we do to concentrate on exactly this issue. We have been negotiating on all these agreements, not just the larger ones. There is of course a financial incentive to concentrate on the larger ones, for the sake of our own businesses and for the sake of employees and families who want to put food on their table. At the same time, however, there are small businesses, as I know perfectly well, that trade under the preferences enjoyed through EPAs. There are also developmental reasons why we want to continue those arrangements, because it is the right thing to do, and the hon. Lady may be reassured that we are putting effort into all these agreements.
EU Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Foreign Trade
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I must say that I welcome the work the Secretary of State is doing out in Davos to push forward the UK’s trade policy. His work is certainly far more welcome than the pontification of the former Member for Sedgefield there. To put these deals into perspective, will the Minister confirm that the Swiss trade deal on its own is worth 21% of the value of all trade done under these 40 agreements?
EU Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: International Affairs
George Michael Edward Hollingbery (Conservative, Centre-right): Indeed, I can: that is the correct figure. There are two or three other agreements that will add substantially to that if we manage to transition them, and I am very hopeful that we shall be able to do so.
EU Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Foreign Trade
George Michael Edward Hollingbery (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a complex web we weave, and there are clearly incentives in many different directions for many different companies. I have every sympathy with workers in Wales and others who find their jobs threatened by the decisions that companies make. The UK Government continue to engage with those companies, and to try to mitigate any moves they may make. We engage widely through POST with the parent companies of many of those organisations, and we are doing everything we can to ensure that foreign direct investment continues in the UK. Indeed, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development announced a week or two ago that the UK remains Europe’s primary choice for foreign direct investment.
EU Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: International Affairs
George Michael Edward Hollingbery (Conservative, Centre-right): The withdrawal agreement and political declaration are clear: we will be able to negotiate with third-party countries once we have gone through the process of withdrawal and after Brexit day, but we will not be able to sign and implement those agreements until the end of the implementation period.
EU Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Foreign Trade
George Michael Edward Hollingbery (Conservative, Centre-right): There are, give or take, some 165 members of the World Trade Organisation, and if 24 object to new schedules laid by a new partner, that is a relatively small number and there is a well-understood formal process through which those objections will be dealt with. Most objections are on the basis of loss of privilege through the existing relationship with the EU—and therefore access to the UK—being changed, and such things are not unusual. Indeed, the EU operated on uncertified WTO schedules from 1995 until the present.
EU Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Foreign Trade
George Michael Edward Hollingbery (Conservative, Centre-right): Nobody wants any family to be affected or anybody to lose their job as a result of us not being able to transition these free-trade deals, and that is why we are making every possible effort to ensure that all deals are transitioned. I have explained to the House why, in some cases, that is extremely difficult, but the Department is ensuring that every effort goes into ensuring as few adverse consequences as possible, and I am confident that the majority of the deals will be passed. It would help to ensure smooth continuity if Opposition parties were not so resolute in trying to vote down the Trade Bill.
EU Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Foreign Trade
George Michael Edward Hollingbery (Conservative, Centre-right): The Department for International Trade will be responsible for the Trade Remedies Authority, when established. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the principal job of the TRA will be to ensure a level playing field internationally for products where there is potential for unfair international competition, as there is from several source countries. We are clear that the TRA must be in place as soon as possible, and as I said previously, it is not helpful for the terms of the Trade Bill to be blocked by all sorts of manoeuvres in both Houses. The Bill will allow us to establish the TRA, which will produce a robust defence of our industries, and particularly those that are most vulnerable, such as steel. I encourage him and his colleagues who represent areas of steel manufacturing, or indeed car manufacturing and ceramics, to get behind the Bill and put the TRA on a statutory footing, as it is there to help exactly those industries.
EU Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Foreign Trade
George Michael Edward Hollingbery (Conservative, Centre-right): I will be completely straight with you, Mr Speaker: I am not entirely sure that I totally understand the hon. Gentleman’s question, but I shall give it a go. There are a number of agreements that are negotiated exclusively between the European Union and third-party countries. Those are between the European Union and those countries, and we will not be a member of the European Union, and therefore will not be able to benefit from their preferences. The whole point of the trade agreement continuity programme is to transition those into a UK-only form, such that we can continue to benefit from those preferences.
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the shadow Minister for his questions, which essentially focused on three separate issues: the transforming rehabilitation programme, reoffending rates, and accommodation. On accommodation, I absolutely share his concerns. He asked for the absolute numbers. As I said, the current numbers suggest that across the country, of the more than 10,000 people being released, 56 are being put in emergency accommodation—so a very small number. The number of those going into hotels would be a fraction of that—something in the region of half a dozen. However, as I said, we are doing all we can to eliminate this entirely. One of the ways in which we are aiming to do so is by building over 200 additional places in approved premises, of which half will be delivered next year The hon. Gentleman’s second question was on reoffending rates for sex offenders. Any reoffending by any offender is a tragedy; reoffending by a sex offender is a horrifying tragedy. The reality is that reoffending rates among sex offenders are significantly lower than reoffending rates among the population as a whole. At the moment, reoffending rates among short-term prisoners are running at about 60%, while reoffending rates among sex offenders are about eight times lower than that. In the case of low-risk sex offenders, the re-conviction rate is 0.8%. That means that 99.2% of people are not re-convicted. But 0.8% is still too high a figure, and there is much more that we can do to try to drive it down Where I would disagree slightly with the hon. Gentleman is in connecting this matter to the transforming rehabilitation programme. The question of the management of sex offenders is not about the community rehabilitation companies. Almost every sex offender is managed by the national probation service—in other words, managed by the Government, by civil servants, by a public agency. It has nothing to do with a move towards the private sector or the decisions that have been made to bring in the charitable sector. The report is absolutely explicit—both inspectors are clear on this all the way through—that it is on the performance of the national probation service, not the CRCs. The CRCs are not engaged with in this report. There has been investment in the national probation service since the beginning of the transforming rehabilitation programme. There have been many challenges for the national probation service in terms of its caseload and the types of offences that are coming forward, but, when all is said and done, there is a 9.7% budget increase in the resource going into the service.
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the Minister’s frankness about the extent of the problem. Dame Glenys Stacey is a highly regarded and robustly independent inspector, and what she says is grave The Minister has rightly highlighted a number of specific areas that need to be looked at, and I have no doubt that the Justice Committee will wish to take this matter further. In addition to the specifics that he is going to work with, what is to be done to deal with an underlying problem highlighted in the report—the disconnect between what the leadership of the national probation service perceives is being done and what is actually delivered on the ground, with the lack of face-to-face contact, the over-reliance on emails, and the sense that staff are not fully supported? That is a systemic problem, and it is not the first time that the Select Committee and the inspectors have found it to exist. What steps will he be taking to deal with that underlying issue?
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): Resolving that problem is partly about resources. We need to make sure not just that we are putting in the 9.7% extra funding but that we are able to recruit the additional staff to reduce the caseload. It is partly about processes and management systems in order to make sure that we really record any contact with offenders. It is also absolutely about picking up on any issues where our national policy is not being followed at a local level.
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Crispin Jeremy Rupert Blunt (Conservative, Centre-right): May I join in the general welcome for the inspectors’ report in this extremely difficult area? I acknowledge that this is a growing area of criminal justice interest because of the public anxiety behind the nature of these offences, for all the reasons the Minister gave about the growing burden on the service. In order to understand the nature of the cause of the offending behaviour—for the probation officers overseeing it and for offender managers generally, but also for the offenders themselves so that they can manage their behaviour in future—it is critical that the investment in forensic psychology is appropriate to the demand placed on the system. Is he satisfied that sufficient resources from the national health service and from elsewhere are going into the criminal justice system in order for it to manage the scale of the problem that it is having to manage?
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who was a prisons and probation Minister. The connection with the NHS is central. Additional funding has gone into the NHS, and we need to ensure that that focuses on the most vulnerable offenders in terms of mental health, addiction and the need for courses provided by the national health service. Getting that right will be essential in dealing with violent crime, sex offences and short-sentence offences. The NHS connection is vital. The most important thing, from my point of view, is ensuring that we have the treatment provision in the community for addiction.
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree that there are significant concerns about transforming rehabilitation, which is why we are looking at that seriously. We have issued a consultation on that and will be issuing reforms. My point is narrower: the issue of sex offenders is for the national probation service and is not affected by the CRCs.
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Justine Greening (Conservative, Centre-right): This time last year, John Worboys’s release on parole was being planned. Many women in my part of London, including my constituent who was attacked by him, were extremely concerned about that decision. The report today underlines why people were so worried about the services’ ability to manage him, had he been allowed out of prison. I welcome the steps that the Minister is setting out, but how will he keep the House updated on the success of those steps and whether he is satisfied with the progress being made, in the light of this important report?
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I am happy to continue to update the House on progress. The Worboys case taught us some important lessons about pre-sentence reports and connections between the Ministry of Justice and the Parole Board, and we are conducting an extensive review of that. It is important to remind the House that in the most extreme cases—MAPPA 3 cases—we have very significant protections in place for the public. I can hold forth on that in more detail if Members want to talk about the protection arrangements.
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): The specific issue there is around the provision of accredited programmes, and there are two problems. The first is that accredited programmes are not suitable for all sex offenders. At the moment, we do not have programmes that are able to reduce the risk of reoffending significantly. In fact, some of the past sex offender treatment programmes can increase rather than decrease the chance of reoffending if they are delivered to the wrong type of sex offender. We have to distinguish between lower risk and higher risk sex offenders and ensure that we are delivering programmes in the right way. The Horizon and Kaizen programmes, which we have rolled out, are key to that, but they are not the key for everyone. I agree that we can do more to assess and to record, but I politely disagree with the inspector’s implication that we should attempt to deliver accredited programmes to 100% of these cases.
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
John Henry Hayes (Conservative, Centre-right): This report is largely about the risk of recidivism and the need to rehabilitate, but at the heart of the criminal justice system is the protection of the public. The malign and the malicious should be locked away, lest they do further harm, and the system can be simultaneously retributive and rehabilitative. Will the Minister look at the principle of just deserts, which has a long philosophical genealogy and is in tune with the opinion of the public, who believe that the vulnerable should be protected and the wicked punished?
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): Absolutely. In fact, if we simply look at the statistics, we see that we are much stricter now on sex offenders than ever before in British history—people are getting longer and longer sentences, and there is a reason for that. It is about ensuring that people receive indeterminate life sentences if necessary and are only released if the Parole Board approves, but it is also about ensuring that when people are released, they are on the sex offenders register, that the licence conditions are as strict and specific as possible, and that the multi-agency public protection arrangements are at the right level and properly enforced.
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): We are learning an enormous amount about how to do accredited programmes well, and we should do more on that. One lesson we have drawn from the past programmes is that we have to get the balance right between not focusing too much on people’s past behaviour and trying to focus on coping mechanisms for their future behaviour, to identify their risks and avoid them. One problem with past programmes was, unfortunately, that focusing on past behaviour seems to encourage people to reoffend more. We must get the balance right between these offenders accepting the shame and guilt for their past performance, understanding the drivers and, above all, thinking about what happens when they come out, to ensure that they do not put themselves in a position to do it again.
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): It is, of course, welcome that more victims are getting justice, even if it is many years after the abuse they suffered. As the Minister rightly outlined in his statement, this puts pressure on the system. Can he confirm that there will be a move towards supervised accommodation where possible for those who are released from jail following these offences, not only for their rehabilitation but to reassure their victims?
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Matthew Robert Warman (Conservative, Centre-right): My constituency is home to North Sea Camp Prison, which is a category D prison, colloquially known as an open prison. My constituents are concerned that people are put into such a prison before they are ready for that level of responsibility. Can the Minister reassure me that he will continue to do everything he can to ensure that people are only put in open conditions when they are ready for it?
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): This is a central point. We actually put very few people into open conditions. The number of prisoners in the category D estate is quite small. That is because a serious risk assessment process is conducted before someone is put in those conditions, involving the governor, the offender management in custody model and probation officers. We can continue to learn lessons when things go wrong, but by and large, we are confident that our open prisons are well managed and that the correct prisoners are in them.
Holocaust Memorial Day — House of Commons, 2019-01-24
Topic: Education
Michael Jon Wood (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Lady for giving way during such a moving and powerful speech. Like her, I was extremely moved by Ms Pollack’s testimony, although that was at a Conservative party conference. Does she agree that the declining number of holocaust survivors is another reason why it is so important for their recorded testimony to have a central role in the new learning centre?
Leaving the EU: Contingency Planning — House of Commons, 2019-01-15
Topic: International Affairs
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said, thanks to the votes of Members in all parts of the House, no deal is a matter of the law of the land. They can’t get away from it: if they don’t like no deal, they need to join me in the Lobby tonight, and vote for the Prime Minister’s deal.
Leaving the EU: Contingency Planning — House of Commons, 2019-01-15
Topic: International Affairs
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Because of the votes of most of us in the House, including the hon. Gentleman, no deal of course is the law of the land unless the House passes something else. He is a reasonable man. He is a mentor of the old Blairite moderate wing of his party. He is absolutely a centrist. I do not believe that, privately, he believes in the hard-left guff that comes from other Opposition Front Benchers. He is a very sensible man and I like him an awful lot, so after this session and before 7 o’clock tonight, why does he not take a look in the mirror and ask himself, "In the national interest, is it best to vote for the deal and avoid no deal, or is it best to play politics?"
NHS Facilities — House of Commons, 2019-01-15
Topic: Education
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, I love going to Aberdeen and look forward to another reason for going to the north-east. Of course, Aberdeen University and the UK have been at the cutting edge of this innovation for years and must be for years to come.
NHS Facilities — House of Commons, 2019-01-15
Topic: Education
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, absolutely. We support nursing associates and I am delighted to see the rapid expansion that is taking place. We want more universities and higher education institutes to come to the fore to provide that sort of education. I cannot wait to meet my hon. Friend.
NHS Facilities — House of Commons, 2019-01-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend, who makes a very important point. Of course, future allocations of capital are for the spending review. I look forward to working with her to try to sort out the problems in Torbay and across the board.
Obesity — House of Commons, 2019-01-15
Topic: Education
Stephen Charles Brine (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, I do. I was fortunate enough to visit Southend pier before Christmas to talk to Jamie and Jimmy about this. Nutrition training and the understanding of what is involved in achieving and maintaining a healthy weight varies between medical schools. Some courses have only eight hours over what can be a five or six-year degree. Together with the professional bodies and the universities, we will—as we said in the long-term plan—ensure that nutrition has a greater place in professional education training.