argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Covid-19: Contracts and Public Inquiry — House of Commons, 2021-07-07
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Burgon (Labour, Centre-left): This pandemic has been a time of extreme hardship and suffering for millions of people. In my constituency in east Leeds, many have lost loved ones, and others, who were struggling to make ends meet even before this crisis, have fallen into deeper poverty. But it has been a very good crisis for some—for British billionaires, who increased their wealth by £100 billion in the last year; for outsourcing giants such as Serco, pocketing money that should have gone to our public services; and for those with friends in high places in the Conservative party who have got their hands on huge covid contracts The one sure-fire way to make money over the past 18 months has been to be a mate of a Tory Minister. Access to the so-called VIP lane made someone 10 times more likely to win public contracts. Ministers have been found to have broken the law with contracts. A world-leading anti-corruption body says that one in five Government covid contracts has corruption red flags. Over £800 million in covid contracts went to donors who had given the Tories £8 million in total—a very good return for those in the know, with the inside track. Those super-rich donors hand over huge funds and expect public contracts and favours to come their way in return. The Conservative party, I am afraid, is up to its neck in it Because the Tory party is using the system to help super-rich donors with covid contracts, it thinks that that is what other people are up to, too. We have seen a Tory MP this week implying that the British Medical Association’s medical advice to wear masks is because of lobbying from mask manufacturers, and Ministers have admitted that they are refusing proper sick pay because they think that people out there would abuse the system. Is that not telling? It is a telling insight into Ministers’ thinking: the assumption that everyone else is as dodgy and corrupt as they are—that is why Ministers think that Polls show that huge swathes of the population believe that the Conservative party is corrupt, and the stench of corruption has grown ever stronger through this crisis. They have been using a crisis where tens of thousands have died needlessly as a money-making scheme for their mates and their super-rich donors. The link between big money and our politics has been exposed more than ever during this crisis. Of course, many will hope to get their reward with directorships and comfortable jobs when they leave this place, but this is rotten to the core. It is undermining confidence in our democratic system and we need to put an end to it.
Post Box in Stoke Village — House of Commons, 2021-07-07
Topic: Government Operations
Luke Pollard (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to present this petition on behalf of the people I represent in Stoke Village in Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport. Stoke Village is a vibrant community, and what every vibrant community needs is a post box, but it has been removed by Royal Mail. In the past year of lockdown, a written note or a birthday card—something to have and to hold—from the people we love has meant so much more. I hope Royal Mail takes note of this petition and restores the post box to Stoke Village as soon as possible The petition states: "The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to support the campaign for a new post box in Stoke Village and call on the Royal Mail to install it without delay." Following is the full text of the petition: [The petition of residents of Stoke and surrounding communities in Plymouth, Declares that Stoke village is a vibrant shopping centre and the heart of the local community but that the loss of its post box is detrimental to the local shops and community; and further that the Royal Mail should restore its post box in Stoke Village as soon as possible. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to support the campaign for a new post box in Stoke Village and call on the Royal Mail to install it without delay. And the petitioners remain, etc.] [P002673]
Sprint Route and Car Park — House of Commons, 2021-07-07
Topic: Transportation
Valerie Carol Marian Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): Can I start by wishing the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) a speedy recovery? He is a great person and a great parliamentarian My petition is about the Sprint route car park, and it is from the residents of Walsall South The petition declares: The petition of residents of the United Kingdom, Declares that Transport for West Midlands should withdraw its proposal to build a 300-space Park and Ride car park on land adjacent to the Bell Inn, Birmingham Road; further that the proposed location of the car park is green belt land, which contravenes the National Planning Policy Framework and Walsall MBC’s Site Allocation Document; further that there was no consultation with local residents before this decision was made by Transport for West Midlands and that four mature trees have now been removed along Birmingham Road as part of this project, also without any consultation; further that no consultation was carried out by Walsall MBC before it approved an Environmental Impact Assessment Screening option for this site, removing important environmental safeguards by exempting the proposals from a full Environmental Impact Assessment The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to ensure that Transport for West Midlands withdraws its application to build a car park on green belt land And the petitioners remain, etc [P002674]
Covid-19: Equal Economic Recovery — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Social Welfare
Christopher Philip James Elmore (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for her answer. Analysis by the Women’s Budget Group has highlighted that young women aged 18 to 25 are the largest group to be furloughed, by age and gender. Will the Minister set out what discussions she is having with the Chancellor to ensure that those women are supported, so that we do not have a lost generation of young women even further adversely affected by the pandemic?
Covid-19: Equal Economic Recovery — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Labor
Charlotte Louise Nichols (Labour, Centre-left): The economic impact of covid has hit women disproportionately hard. According to the Women’s Budget Group, 52% of people who have been furloughed are women, despite their making up only 47% of the workforce. The Government have promised to strengthen pregnancy and maternity protections "when parliamentary time allows". Does the Minister not agree that this is an urgent priority given that the end of furlough is approaching and there is grave concern about unequal job losses in the autumn?
Prison Places for Women — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Janet Jessica Daby (Labour, Centre-left): When mothers are imprisoned for minor offences, the separation and loss for the child are detrimental to their wellbeing. The charity Women in Prison tells us that the most effective way to tackle the causes of crime and to prevent women from reoffending is to invest in women’s centres. Given that the Government’s own female offender strategy pledges to reduce the number of women in prison, why are they proposing to invest £150 million on new female prison places, and what representation has the Minister made to recommit to reducing the number of women in prison?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Government Operations
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): Can I remind the Prime Minister that one year ago, almost to the day, he said of his former adviser "in every respect he has acted responsibly, legally and with integrity" This morning that same adviser has said that senior Ministers—these are his words— "fell disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect of its government" and that lives were lost as a result. Does the Prime Minister accept that central allegation and that his inaction led to needless deaths?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Government Operations
Gerald Jones (Labour, Centre-left): When any Member of this House is suspended for 10 days or more because of a Standards Committee report, constituents can then recall that Member. When the Independent Expert Panel suspends a Member, that cannot happen. The Prime Minister was talking a moment ago about closing loopholes in legislation. Will he introduce emergency legislation to close this particular loophole? Does he agree that it would be completely dishonourable for any Member to exploit that loophole, and that they should instead do the decent thing and resign?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Social Welfare
Gareth Thomas (Labour, Centre-left): There are over 4.3 million children—and rising—growing up in poverty, including some 18,000 in Harrow. Will the Prime Minister agree to put right the error of a previous Prime Minister, and commit to publish a strategy to tackle child poverty and ensure that no child is left behind?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Macroeconomics
Helen Elizabeth Hayes (Labour, Centre-left): A global minimum rate for corporate tax would help to tackle tax avoidance by large multinational corporations and online giants. It would stop them undercutting British businesses who pay their fair share, and it would make a transformational difference to high streets and town centres at the heart of communities across the UK. Why is the Prime Minister the only G7 leader not to support this proposal? Why is he on the side of tax avoiders, instead of British businesses and communities?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Social Welfare
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): I have asked the Prime Minister a series of questions about charities. In November, he promised support. By March he had turned his back, but this month, he broke that promise, giving them nothing this winter. His words and deeds are as unfaithful as his principles and beliefs. He has neither the commitment to honour his word, the capacity to care, nor the compassion to act. Does the Prime Minister really believe that charity is all about supporting him and his lifestyle or recognise that charities now £10 billion in debt and struggling to survive need Government support to help people in real need?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: International Affairs
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): Covid has triggered the first global rise in extreme poverty this century, but at the G7 the Prime Minister could act. He can ask leaders to reallocate the International Monetary Fund’s £1 trillion-worth of special drawing rights and restock the World Bank’s £83 billion-worth of International Development Association funds. This is a multi-billion pound package of support for the world’s poorest. Will the Prime Minister today commit to leading that argument at the G7, so that a pandemic of disease does not now become a pandemic of poverty?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: International Affairs
Zarah Sultana (Labour, Centre-left): Tala, 13, Rula, just five years old, her big sister Yara, aged nine: three Palestinian children killed in an Israeli air- strike. The Israeli military murdered 63 other children and 245 Palestinians in its recent assault on Gaza. The call for Palestinian freedom has never been louder, but this Conservative Government are complicit in its denial. They have approved more than £400 million in arms to Israel since 2015, so can the Prime Minister look me in the eye and tell me that British-made weapons or components were not used in the war crimes that killed these three children and hundreds of other Palestinians? [Interruption.]
Environment Bill — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Environment
Gareth Thomas (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister will know that England lags significantly behind the other countries of the UK on tree planting to help tackle climate change. She will also be aware that there is no ring-fenced component to the nature for climate fund for innovative, green-minded local authorities, such as my own in Harrow, to put in bids so that we, too, can play our part in increasing tree coverage.
Environment Bill — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Environment
Luke Pollard (Labour, Centre-left): Two years ago this month, it was Parliament that declared a climate and an ecological emergency. We were the first Parliament in the world to do so in what was a truly landmark moment in the fight against the climate and ecological crisis. I was proud to work on that declaration and proud that it was a Labour motion. We need more landmark moments such as that if we are to tackle the climate and ecological emergency in a meaningful way. We were promised that the Environment Bill would be a landmark Bill "Landmark" is what the Government kept saying, seemingly until England’s rolling hills were littered with press releases as far as the eye could see, but, sadly, it is not a landmark Bill. Let us be clear about what the climate crisis means. If we do not take the bold action now that is required, the freak weather, the destruction of homes, job losses, food shortages, habitat loss and species extinction will only get worse. Since Parliament declared that climate emergency, the Department for Food and Rural Affairs has issued 508 press releases about the environment. The group plural for a set of press releases evades me. It could be a discombobulation, a tedium, or a wafer. None the less, the Government seem to have been more focused on the spin than the substance of the matter. The press releases, ambitions, targets and soundbites are no substitute for the bold action that we need on the climate.
Environment Bill — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Environment
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): What does my hon. Friend make of the World Wildlife Fund’s statement that the Bill does not go far enough to protect the world’s forests and oceans? Specifically, I know that there is interest across the House in what is happening in neighbourhoods and suburbs. In my own constituency of Muswell Hill, Highgate and Stroud Green, there is a lot of concern about trees coming down unnecessarily. How can we make that vision a reality?
Environment Bill — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Environment
Luke Pollard (Labour, Centre-left): Both my hon. Friend and the WWF are right that we need to see bolder action on forests and the oceans. It is a shocking indictment of this Bill that there is barely a mention of the oceans, which is a really important part of our environment Ministers must act in a quicker and more decisive way on the environment than we have seen to date. I hoped that the delay in the Bill would have given Ministers that time to be bolder, but I am afraid that they have not used their time as wisely as I would have liked. I welcome the steps forward that the Minister has announced, but they are not enough. The pace and urgency seem to be absent. Our rivers are polluted. There is not a single river in England safe to swim in. More species face extinction at home and abroad; more bees are dying from bee-killing pesticides, the use of which is legitimised by this Government; more plastics are entering our oceans; and dangerous particulates are entering the lungs of some of our most vulnerable. Where is the vision? Where is the landmark boldness that we were promised? Where is the rock-the-boat carbon cutting innovation? Where is the determination to push harder and harder to clean our air, protect our species, plant more trees and get us back on a course for nature recovery? Where is the World Health Organisation’s air quality targets in the Bill? Where is the boldness on ocean protection? We need that bold action not only to cut carbon, but to step up and protect our natural environment as well. If we have this approach that we can either solve a carbon crisis or an ecological crisis, we will solve neither. We need to solve both of them together, or neither of them at all.
Environment Bill — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Environment
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I support the amendments, which are also in my name. Many constituents have written to me about these issues. Does he agree that there is a stark contrast here with the approach shown by the Welsh Labour Government? Let us take their tree-planting programme as an example. Since 2008, the Plant! scheme has planted a tree for every child born or adopted in Wales and also in Uganda, supporting forestation globally. The Welsh Government have also introduced a new moratorium on incineration, which affects my constituency and that of the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), when it comes to that crucial issue of air quality
Environment Bill — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Environment
Luke Pollard (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for that. What the Welsh Labour Government have shown is that we can be bold and decisive and that we can take people with us on that journey. The "people first" approach in Wales is something that could be replicated in an English approach, but sadly, England has fallen further and further behind other nations in the United Kingdom. That is why I want the Minister to do more to preserve our precious habitats and biodiversity. If a car is speeding off a cliff, it is not enough simply to slow it down; we have to bring it to a stop and turn things around, and that is why Labour has tabled several amendments to try to inject some of the boldness that we need into the Bill. Let me turn to those amendments now.
Environment Bill — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Environment
Luke Pollard (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I am a big fan of bee bricks as well as swift bricks. I fear that his intervention was aimed more at the Government than at me. I hope that the Minister will be listening carefully to her own Back Benchers, because, whether she agrees with the words of the Opposition or not, we need a bolder Environment Bill. We need it to be better joined up across Government because we are not there yet DEFRA was at the heart of Government when the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) was in charge, but it has lost its way. It has lost its va va voom. It is now dominated by a bland and dreary managerialism. Where is the energy and drive needed to tackle the climate crisis? The Department has a lot of decent junior Ministers—one of them is opposite me now—but I think it has lost its way. This Bill is okay. It is passable. It is a bit "meh". But it is not landmark. Indeed, it is deliberately not a landmark Bill I say to the Minister: look carefully at Labour’s amendments and please let us work together to get this Bill back on track. I agree with her on the need for bold action; I just do not think that this Bill delivers it. If we are properly to address the climate and ecological crisis, we need more, bolder and decisive action than I am afraid this Bill includes.
Environment Bill — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Environment
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): I would like to begin by praising the work of Wild Justice, whose members are far from ill- informed, absolutely passionate about nature conservation and do some excellent work. I was waiting for the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) to mention Labour’s amendment on peat burning. I know that is in the next group, but it was quite surprising that he—
Environment Bill — House of Commons, 2021-05-26
Topic: Environment
Mary Kelly Foy (Labour, Centre-left): My constituency is home to beautiful countryside and woodlands, with picturesque walks that even Downing Street advisers and Select Committee witnesses have been known to enjoy. The bluebells in Houghall woods are particularly beautiful in April Whether it is water quality, habitat conservation or air quality, I receive hundreds of emails from constituents on environmental issues. In Durham, we are proud of the natural beauty of our county. We want to protect and cherish it. Out of all the emails I have received on the Environment Bill, every single one without fail argues that it simply does not go far enough. So far, this Bill is largely full of half-measures and token gestures. Like me, my constituents cannot understand why the Government opposed our amendments on improving air quality and limiting the use of bee-killing pesticides when the Bill was last debated. No doubt we will be similarly frustrated if the Government vote down our common-sense amendments today The Government need to face the reality of our current situation. We are in a climate and ecological emergency, the effects of which are already being seen in the UK and across the world. We need firm and decisive action. Whether it is the social and economic recovery from the covid-19 pandemic or agricultural regulations, every decision the Government make should consider the environmental impact and how we can best restore this planet It is widely accepted that, when it comes to tackling the climate emergency, we cannot go far enough or fast enough, yet everything the Government do lacks the seriousness and urgency that the situation demands. The WWF has said that "the Bill does not achieve what has been promised: gold standard legislation, showing global leadership" Of course, we need an environmental Bill, but we need one that has teeth There is nothing in the Bill to ban fracking. The world’s oceans are being disregarded while environmental protections under the European Union framework have been replaced with flexible targets that could weaken the environmental standards we have been so proud of for so long. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Government are avoiding committing to iron-clad environmental protections in case they need to sell out British standards in future trade deals To finish, I cannot help but agree with my constituents’ belief that the Bill remains a missed opportunity. As the newest supporter of the climate and ecological emergency Bill, I urge the Government to introduce legislation that treats the climate emergency with the gravity it requires and to launch a green industrial revolution that places the environment at the heart of our economy and society.