argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
EU Withdrawal: Changes to UK Legal Framework — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): I have just quoted the remarks of Professor Wyatt when he gave evidence in the other place. There is no doubt that considerable time and effort would be required in those circumstances. Of course it is difficult to be specific, because it would rather depend on what alternative arrangements were sought, post-departure from the European Union. The hon. Gentleman is right to say the onus is on those who wish to leave to explain what the world would be like if we did so.
Internet Trolling and Online Abuse — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: What steps the Crown Prosecution Service has taken to increase prosecution rates for internet trolling and other forms of online abuse on social media; and if he will make a statement.
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): Online abuse can sometimes be worse than face-to-face abuse, because it is all-pervading and does not end at the school gates or allow for privacy at home. The Director of Public Prosecutions has met several social media providers, and the CPS will continue to work with them on measures to improve the reporting and prosecution of such abuse.
Internet Trolling and Online Abuse — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Education
Questions: What steps the Crown Prosecution Service has taken to increase prosecution rates for internet trolling and other forms of online abuse on social media; and if he will make a statement.
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman will be aware that a massive amount of work is being done by not only the Department for Education, but the third sector on cyber-bullying and its effects on young people. The combined approach that is being taken in schools the length and breadth of the country is not only alerting young people to the dangers, but empowering them to make complaints, so that they do not have to suffer in silence.
EU Withdrawal: Effects on Human Rights — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): Through the European Union, the UK amplifies its work to promote and protect democracy around the world, increasing the UK’s influence on a range of issues. When 28 member states speak out against the most serious violations of human rights, that can help to set the agenda at the UN and other international organisations. That is a valuable way in which the UK can promote its values.
Prosecutions for Offshore Tax Evasion — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): All tax evasion prosecutions are conducted under domestic tax law and no distinction is made in central records between offshore tax evasion cases and other tax prosecutions, but I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that the total number of convictions since 2010 for tax offences is 2,647.
Prosecutions for Offshore Tax Evasion — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): As the right hon. Gentleman may know, the Serious Fraud Office, an agency that I superintend, is contributing to that taskforce, and £10 million of new money is available to support the work of the taskforce. As he would expect me to say, the question of who, if anyone, gets prosecuted as a result of that work is not for politicians, but for independent prosecutors, to determine. I am confident that the Crown Prosecution Service and the SFO have the resources they need to pursue this. As he will also know, the Government are providing additional tools by which that can be done, including the creation of new offences, both for individuals and for corporate entities that fail to take the necessary action to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion.
State Pension Age — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Labor
Shailesh Lakhman Vara (Conservative, Centre-right): All women affected by faster equalisation reach state pension age under the new state pension system, which is more generous to many women than the previous system. In the first 10 years, around 650,000 will receive £8 per week more on average, due to the new state pension valuation.
State Pension Age — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Shailesh Lakhman Vara (Conservative, Centre-right): The transitional arrangements that were put in place in 2011 were debated in both Houses. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that initially it was proposed that the equalisation should be fast-tracked by two years. Following various debates and intensive negotiations, that was reduced to 18 months, at a cost to the Treasury of £1.1 billion. Transitional arrangements were made in 2011 and the Government have no plans to review them.
State Pension Age — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Labor
Questions: This is about women and equalities. We know that a woman born in early 1953 will already have retired; a woman born in early 1954 will not retire until the second half of 2019—two and a half years later. That cannot be right. In a spirit of fairness, will the Minister look at this again and give some solace to the women who have to wait an unbelievably long time to collect what is rightly and fairly theirs?
Shailesh Lakhman Vara (Conservative, Centre-right): We need to accept that equalisation was necessary, first, because it was required by European Union directive and, secondly, because people are living longer. Women on the whole recognise that we need to equalise the state pension ages. We are not doing so as fast as some other countries, such as Germany and Denmark, which have already achieved what we are seeking to do.
Effects of 2016 Budget — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): The 2016 Budget helped 790,000 women and 540,000 men by cutting their income tax to zero. It helped 7.4 million women and 5.6 million men with an increase in their state pension, thanks to the triple lock. It helped millions of men and women drivers by freezing their fuel duty. Finally, the national living wage gave an immediate pay rise to 900,000 women and 500,000 men this month.
Effects of 2016 Budget — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): We completely do not accept that analysis, which, by the way, has not been published. It appears to take into account the fact that the child benefit for higher rate women, such as myself, has been removed. Is the hon. Gentleman making the case that that child benefit should be returned to higher rate taxpayers? Also, that analysis has not even been published, but similar analysis assumes that extra Government borrowing can make everybody better off—that does sound like the Labour party.
Maternity Discrimination — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Social Welfare
Nicholas Edward Coleridge Boles (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but I know that he will welcome the introduction of the right to request flexible working and all the Government’s interventions to provide further childcare support for working women of all ages and all income levels. I believe that that will help women who want to be able to balance engagement in the workplace with bringing up young children.
LGBT Young People — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): We want every young person, regardless of their sexual orientation, to reach their full potential. That is why in March I announced a further £1 million fund to support schools to address homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying, in addition to the £2 million fund I announced in October 2014.
Gender Pay Gap — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Labor
Caroline Julia Dinenage (Conservative, Centre-right): We are reviewing this at the moment, but the hon. Gentleman must be aware that many more cases are going through ACAS—over 80,000 more cases went through ACAS last year. Surely he agrees it is actually much better to sort something out through mediation—in a friendly and consolidated way—so that people can go back to their workplace without stigma or any form of hostility.
Welfare Reform and Disabled People — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the effect on equality for disabled people of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016.
Shailesh Lakhman Vara (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government set out our assessment of the impact of the welfare policies in the Welfare Reform and Work Act on 20 July 2015. Spending on disabled people will be higher in real terms in every year to 2020 than in 2010.
Welfare Reform and Disabled People — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the effect on equality for disabled people of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016.
Shailesh Lakhman Vara (Conservative, Centre-right): If we look at the facts, we find that the Government are spending £50 billion every year on benefits alone to support people with disabilities or health conditions—that is more than 6% of Government spending. I think that answers the hon. Lady’s question very clearly.
Welfare Reform and Disabled People — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Labor
Questions: What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the effect on equality for disabled people of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016.
Shailesh Lakhman Vara (Conservative, Centre-right): I remind the hon. Lady that this Government have done more for disabled people than any Government before us. [Hon. Members: "Rubbish!"] I have just outlined the amount of money that this Government are spending. Under this Government, there are more than 3.2 million disabled people in employment. Employment helps people to have more fulfilled lives. We do not give up on people, unlike the Opposition parties.
Employment Tribunal Fees — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Labor
Questions: What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Justice on the effect of the introduction of employment tribunal fees on access to justice for women who have experienced discrimination at work.
Shailesh Lakhman Vara (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there is a post-implementation review of the introduction of fees in employment tribunals. That will consider, so far as is possible, the impact the fees have had on those with protected characteristics who use employment tribunals, as well as the types of case they bring.
Gender Pay Gap — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Education
David Mowat (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Minister for that answer. A continuing cause of the pay gap is the lower incidence of women studying science and engineering at university. Does she agree that closing the STEM gap is a prerequisite for closing the pay gap?
Gender Pay Gap — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Education
Caroline Julia Dinenage (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right that jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics carry a significant wage premium. Although women make up 50% of STEM undergraduates, that simply does not translate into the workplace. That is why we have set up a new careers and enterprise company to bring schools and businesses together to inspire and inform young people. We have also published guidance called "Your Daughter’s Future" to help parents to guide their daughters in subject and career choices.
Gender Pay Gap — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Labor
Caroline Julia Dinenage (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is absolutely right. That is why this Government have done more than any before to extend the right to flexible working to all employees. We will continue to work with businesses to encourage them to get the very best out of every single one of their staff.
Iraq Inquiry Report — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: International Affairs
David Michael Davis (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not think it is a question of "may be"; I think there will be the continued disruption of international affairs and the continued threat of terrorism. Europol’s assessment that there are 5,000 jihadists in Europe implies an arrival rate of 1,000 a year, and the rate is going up, not down. It is clear that the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right That brings us to a significant point. When the individual Prime Ministers involved in each of the decisions I mentioned made their decision, I am sure that in their own mind they were doing the right thing—they were trying to save lives, to save a civilisation or to intervene to prevent further terrorism. The trouble is that every single one of them made simplistic decisions, without detailed understanding. The complexity of the issues they were reaching into was beyond their knowledge. It is correcting, enhancing and improving that knowledge that the inquiry report is all about I am no pacifist, but I find myself horrified at the thoughtless, aggressive and unnecessary interventions by the west in areas that it does not understand. I did not like the Gaddafi regime; I did not like the Saddam Hussein regime; I do not particularly like the Bashar Assad regime, but ripping them out has led to something even worse. The hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) is therefore absolutely right in his analysis, which demonstrates why this report and its speed of preparation are so important.
Iraq Inquiry Report — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Government Operations
David Michael Davis (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not follow him down his comparison between Dr Strangelove and past Prime Ministers, but he is right in one respect: the most important element of this is what we learn from our mistakes. However, there are also issues of accountability and closure, which I will return to in a moment.
Iraq Inquiry Report — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Government Operations
David Michael Davis (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman has made his point well, but one of the issues that the report will face up to, one hopes, is the veracity of what was told to the House that day. That will be one of the key issues, which is why the argument between Sir John Chilcot and Whitehall is very important. Reading between the lines of his letters, that argument was very much about what decisions were taken before the House made its decision and after—what was told to the House, whether it was accurate, whether it was based on impartial briefings and whether, indeed, the politics of the issue coloured the views of important components of the state. I am not going to attempt to answer those questions today, but I would be incredibly disappointed if the commission’s report did not actually answer them in plain English. That is why I would not be drawn by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield, who is a very great friend of mine. The report has to answer those questions; what the tabloid and other press do with the report the day after publication is not for me I will press on, briefly, with the lessons to learn not just about the war but about how we should conduct these inquiries. The Government now intend to review the Maxwellisation process, in which those who have been criticised in a report are given the chance to respond. That is to be welcomed, as Maxwellisation has been responsible for half the delays here. It is clear that strict time controls are needed for future inquiries. It cannot be right that those who are to be criticised can delay publication for their own interests, so I hope that strict time controls will arise as a result There is no reason for further delay. It has been suggested that the delay between the report being security cleared and its publication is because it needs to be proof-read and typeset. That would be unacceptable if true. The report is already in electronic format. It has already been repeatedly checked for accuracy, and will be checked again by the security services. It will have been read by more people than some newspapers. The fact is that the report has been pored over by many people for five years. We are in the 21st century, not the era of hot lead typesetting. Someone said to me this morning that I might have summarised the rather long motion rather more crisply by saying, "This House instructs Sir John Chilcot simply to press ‘send’."
Iraq Inquiry Report — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: International Affairs
James Gerald Douglas Howarth (Conservative, Centre-right): I am delighted to take part in this debate. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and others on securing this extremely important debate. I agree with my right hon. Friend. When the former Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary, Lord Hurd, described the delay in the publication of the report as a scandal, he was absolutely right. Many of us in this House were absolutely horrified by the way in which Sir John Chilcot buried his head in the sand amidst the criticism that was, I think last year or in 2014, all around. My right hon. Friend set out the timetable according to which we were assured action would be taken and the report published, but we have been strung along, and as has been said, it is the bereaved who are paying the price for delay The Conservative party, as the official Opposition in 2007, called for a public inquiry into the reasons for the Iraq war and the conduct thereof. We initiated that debate on 11 June 2007, and I happened to wind up for the Opposition as a shadow Defence Minister. The Labour party opposed it. The then Foreign Secretary described an inquiry as "self-indulgent" retrospection and our debate as "opportunistic". Of course, that changed, because Gordon Brown, in 2009, eventually ordered the Chilcot inquiry, but by then six years had passed We were not alone in supporting an inquiry; some in the Labour party also supported it. I cannot remember but I am sure the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) did. The late Michael Meacher certainly did. We gave three reasons why we felt an inquiry was needed. First, there was a lack of any discussion, in the run-up to the conflict, about post-conflict reconstruction. I remember going to Washington at the time. The debate there, in the run-up to the conflict, was all about post-conflict reconstruction. The fact that it was not delivered is another matter, but we were not even having that debate here. We had a debate on 30 January 2003, initiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), then shadow Secretary of State for International Development, during which the Government were simply not willing to discuss the aftermath of any conflict.
Iraq Inquiry Report — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: Government Operations
James Gerald Douglas Howarth (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. and gallant Friend has raised a very good question. I do not think that it will be the subject of my contribution to the debate, but I hope that he will be able to develop it if he is able to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker I have set out the position of the Conservative Opposition at the time. We believed that it was imperative and urgent for an inquiry to be held. I have explained why I supported the war, and have described some of the shenanigans that went on in an attempt to persuade the British people that there was a justification for it. I think that the delay in the report’s publication has been wholly unacceptable, and I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden. Five years ago, Sir John said that it would take him a few months to prepare the final report; for five years those families have been having to wait, and have been held in limbo I agree that the Maxwellisation arrangement must be revisited. We cannot allow an open-ended opportunity for people who have been criticised in a draft report to respond to that criticism. There must be a time limit. As one who was deeply critical of the Saville report, which took 12 years and cost £200 million, I think that the country needs to start looking very carefully at how it conducts inquiries such as this.
Iraq Inquiry Report — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: International Affairs
James Gerald Douglas Howarth (Conservative, Centre-right): I am afraid not. A great many other Members wish to speak Let us compare what has gone on in the last seven years with what went on after the Falklands campaign. Three weeks after the end of that war, the Prime Minister announced an inquiry, and the inquiry team took six months to deliberate and report. There were international ramifications, because the United States was initially tempted to take the side of its South American neighbour. I know that certain sensitivities will apply in this case in connection with the relationship between Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush, but there were similar sensitivities in the case of the Falklands campaign. That inquiry cost £81,000, which at today’s prices is about £280,000 This morning I was advised by a friend that the Chilcot report is likely to run to 2.5 million words and 12 volumes. Whether the interests of better understanding will be served by a report of that length I know not, but what I do know is that we in this House are right to demand that the report be published as quickly as possible.
Iraq Inquiry Report — House of Commons, 2016-04-14
Topic: International Affairs
Adam James Harold Holloway (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for that interesting intervention To continue my theme of the inexperienced political class ignoring the experts, Britain’s one ambassador who actually understood what was going on and expressed it to politicians now works for HSBC. On Syria, we have not taken advice from officials who have been deployed forward with the Syrian opposition, as was. They argue that ISIS is fundamentally a political and counter-terrorist problem, much less a military problem, and a function of broken politics in the countries concerned and in the wider region. We have again thrown ourselves behind an American-led, largely military strategy that, until recently, threatened to turn the whole of Syria into hell Iraq went wrong, and the NATO deployment to Afghanistan cannot be counted as a success, and neither can Libya or Syria. The sanctions being imposed on ordinary people in Syria today cannot be considered a success.