argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Prayers — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): The principle is that vote should follow voice. It is disorderly for a Member to voice in one direction and vote in another. However, it is not obligatory for someone who has shouted "Aye" to vote "Aye". He or she is perfectly free to abstain. The same applies to a Member who votes "No", a point that the hon. Gentleman acknowledged in his point of order That said, in an age in which we prize intelligibility and transparency, it is much to be preferred if Members are, and appear to be, consistent in what they do relative to what they say. I think we will leave it there for now. I hope that that satisfies the constitutional palate of the hon. Gentleman.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a sound point: one must always balance the benefit and the cost. I do not have figures on the cost of the consultation, but I think he will agree that the principle of a public consultation is a sound one, and that is what I am speaking to.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): Will my hon. Friend explain what he means by "appropriate"? Does it mean the Secretary of State should ask a few mates in the pub what they think of the proposals, or a more formalised system through petition of this House?
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): I shall turn to what I mean by "appropriate" in due course, but I think hon. Members on both sides of the House will know on plain reading of the word "appropriate" what is or is not appropriate.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
Jeremy Mark Quin (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), a far from mediocre figure in any sense, is far too self-deprecating, but I want to come back to the point he made. He referred to the consultation in west London, which was on a huge issue that affected vast numbers of people and had been the subject of a hard-fought political campaign. It was also a very costly consultation, but that was appropriate and proportionate. A lot of the changes that your amendment refers to—sorry, that the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) refers to—are purely technical in nature and this would not be necessary.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): I envisage the consultation being as wide as possible. My hon. Friend mentions everyone who has been to see "Peter Pan", and that would be a pretty wide consultation—perhaps not everyone has seen "Peter Pan" and I highly recommend that those who have not, do so. I envisage that the principle is that it is as wide a consultation as possible The Bill, which has wide support on both sides of the House, is the product of a public consultation, so I fail to see how Members can disagree with this proposal.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. I gently exhort the hon. Gentleman to consider the merits of moving on to one or other of the two other amendments that he has for consideration. I would not want him to be led astray by someone, discontented with his previous answer, somehow feeling that he requires to attend to the point beyond what he has already done. The hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) has made her point and he has made his, and I know that he would not want to engage in tedious repetition.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
Wendy Morton (Conservative, Centre-right): We have discussed the use of the word "appropriate". Does my hon. Friend feel that these two amendments are appropriate and necessary? I do not feel that they add anything to the Bill, and there is no need for them.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful for that intervention, but my view is that in this case it is unnecessary to use the affirmative procedure to approve the matter and the negative procedure would suffice. I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes, but I respectfully suggest that these amendments are appropriate. I was looking up one of the notes in the Library, perhaps one prepared by one of your predecessors, Mr Speaker, and I found that it stated that the affirmative procedure is less common, being used in perhaps only 10% of cases I will not take up time by referring to the other amendments, merely noting that several and other hon. Members will speak to them in due course. I look forward to a constructive debate on this group.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend says that this is being slipped in, but surely now, today, we have the opportunity to debate it and he has the opportunity to speak against it. We are having that discussion right now.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): Moving away from the dangers of fashion back to the substance of what we should be debating, will my hon. Friend address the point about the principle of the public consultation and the fact that this very Bill was the product of public consultation?
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jeremy Mark Quin (Conservative, Centre-right): I challenge my hon. Friend on that remark. Surely it is not public money but charitable money. It has been invested in the charity by donors, and the last thing they would expect is for the Comptroller and Auditor General to opine on it.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): What a pleasure it is to see you taking the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. We have been waiting for this happy hour to arrive to help us carry our debates forward No, I do not think my hon. Friend is right. When people give money to a charity that is linked to the Government, they are even more concerned that it will be spent well, and they therefore want extra protections to assure them of that.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. I am trying to be helpful to the hon. Lady in saying that I know it is a great temptation to address her remarks to the hon. Gentleman and look at him to gauge his reaction—looking at him is always, of course, a very great pleasure—but if she turns her back on the rest of the House, it does not work. It is really important that she should face the Chair. She can still speak about the hon. Gentleman and imagine him in her mind as she does so.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): Is my hon. Friend not at risk of falling foul of his own test? He criticised my amendment’s use of the word "appropriate", but is not his use of the word "may" just as vague and risky?
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I rise to speak to amendments 1, 3 and 2, which—inexplicably, given their strength—stand in my name only, as well as the splendid amendment 9 and the unfortunate amendment 4. It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Madam Deputy Speaker. In my experience, debates with you in the Chair are often the most efficient and good natured. I hope that today’s debate will be just that On amendment 1, when one tables an amendment, it is a great pleasure to have one’s speech made for one much more eloquently than one could make it oneself, so I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) for his support. Recently, there have been significant charitable scandals in this country. Much of the time of the House and of the Public Accounts Committee has been taken up with Kids Company. I have become convinced that one of the phenomena at work in that organisation was group-think. Those hon. Members who are students of psychology will know of the phenomenon of group-think: individuals in a group, often when they are led by a charismatic leader, can get lost in a miasma of consensus, in which they are unwilling or unable to acknowledge any view that departs from theirs, and indeed are hostile to outside views of their conduct The most famous political example was the Bay of Pigs disaster: the group around President Kennedy became trapped in group-think. We have seen commercial examples of it in the UK. Marks & Spencer and British Airways got trapped in group-think in the 1980s, when they went for massive international expansion. They did so against the views of everybody on the outside, but both boards convinced themselves that it was the right thing to do. Disastrously, Kodak and Swissair, which was once talked of as the "flying bank", went bust because the management were unwilling to look for outside views.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Seema Louise Ghiassi Kennedy (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend takes me back to my time as a student in Paris 20 years ago, when I was very grateful for the expansion of Marks & Spencer so that I could get my English pies and pasties, but I digress. My hon. Friend is giving examples of group-think from 30 years ago. Does he not agree that the world has moved on, and that the rise of the individual makes our children—the millennium generation—much less likely to fall into that sort of psychology?
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I thought so. I am grateful to the hon. Member for pedantry, who is right This is one of the things about which I am concerned. We saw the notion of group-think in Kids Company. A group of trustees, led by a charismatic leader, felt themselves to be invulnerable. They thought that they should not be doubted, and they were hostile to external views expressing doubt about them. One only has to review the correspondence of Mr Yentob, with his wild claims about the death and insurrection on the streets that Kids Company’s demise would cause, to see that group-think in action I studied politics and economics at university, specialising in the psychology and behavioural side of politics, and we studied group-think quite closely. When future students come to study group-think, they will look at Kids Company as a perfect example of it. Those involved were trapped in group-think. If only somebody had been able to step in and take control earlier, the charity and the remnants of its good work could have been saved.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): The truth is that non-executives are technically appointed by the shareholders, so they are appointed by people who have an interest in the board being challenged constructively. The problem with charities is that non-executives are appointed by the board, the members of which more often than not appoint people in their own likeness. When the members of a board get trapped in group-think, they will appoint people who agree with them. Brave would be the chairman or chairwoman of the trustees who appointed somebody awkward or difficult, who might question or challenge them, particularly when one charismatic person is in charge.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Pauline Elizabeth Latham (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend might not have been in the Chamber the other night for the debate on banking regulation, but the right hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) said that she had been prevented from becoming a member of the trustee board of a charity because she was a "politically exposed person". Does my hon. Friend recognise that some of us will have difficulty supporting amazing charities, such as Great Ormond Street, which are not like the one he mentions?
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is being very generous in taking interventions. I want to get to the nub of his amendments. The examples that he has cited of corporate governance, and Alan Yentob’s emotional blackmail in respect of the Kids Company charity, relate to general issues of regulation. Why should NHS charities be different? We are trying to make them independent. Why should the Bill be amended in this way? I do not think that my hon. Friend would argue that any time a business or charity goes wrong, the solution is for the Government to appoint a director, so why is he making that argument in respect of this Bill?
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Richard Michael Bacon (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) pre-empted me. One might think that there was no need for the amendments because the Charity Commission, which was established in law to supervise these functions, would step in. However, does not the evidence from the National Audit Office report, "Giving Confidently", from autumn 2001, and the much later evidence from the NAO’s studies over the past two or three years on the Cup Trust and the Charity Commission more generally, show that, in practice, the Charity Commission has a track record of not doing a particularly good job? In the circumstances that my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) describes, where swift action is needed, the existing framework is not adequate. It is not enough simply to say that what he describes has not happened yet in a way that we can readily recall. The point, surely, is that we must create the governance architecture and environment to respond quickly when it is necessary to do so.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): I support my hon. Friend’s amendment because it is an emergency provision that would be rarely used. From the tone of the debate, there is an impression that the Secretary of State would use it the whole time. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would probably not be used more than once in 10 years?
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
Jeremy Mark Quin (Conservative, Centre-right): I apologise to my hon. Friend: I rise not to support his amendment, but to oppose it, particularly on the point that he is making. His time is valuable. Does he really think that it is a good use of it for orders on this subject to be laid before this House and the other place, and for the matter to be considered on that grand scale? If he must vest these powers with the Secretary of State, does their exercise need to come back to this Chamber?
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a mistake. I did not object to the time; my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) objected to time possibly being used on these matters. I am perfectly happy. I think that the Bill is very good and I support its broad thrust.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right. I correct myself. One clause relates to Great Ormond Street and the rest of the Bill clears up some anomalies. The debate is not about Great Ormond Street’s requirements, but about other ancillary bits in the Bill. One wonders whether the rest of the Bill could have been included in the Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill, and we could have had a short measure about Great Ormond Street, but that is a matter for the Bill’s promoter and sponsors.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right, and anyone who is putting together a board of trustees wants to ensure that it contains a full range of skills and experience. As I have said, trustees appoint themselves. No one externally is taking a wider view of how broad the ambit is of those people’s experience, how fruitful or consensual their discussions are, or whether they are being challenged. We all know of charities that are made up from small numbers of people. Often, those jobs are undervalued and take a lot of work. The people who act as charity trustees are often heroic, and there are too few of them. Many people will not take on such onerous duties, so there are often small numbers of trustees, particularly in some of the smaller charities such as friends of hospitals and so on. In such circumstances it behoves the Secretary of State to keep a weather eye, and when problems with a local charity are brought before MPs and we wish to raise them with the Secretary of State, we must be able to do so in the knowledge that he or she will be able to do something and appoint somebody to challenge or change things.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): This is a difficult area. Some charities are composed in such a way that their entire purpose is a social mission. For War On Want or the Child Poverty Action Group, for example, decisions made by politicians are intrinsic to their objectives. Other charities, including some in the health sector, are more about providing funds and ancillary support to hospitals, and that kind of political campaigning is not intrinsic. I am not knowledgeable about the 2014 Act, but since my hon. Friend has raised it I will go and have a look. He may well be right to suggest that it contains enough protections, but I maintain my point that the special status of these charities, and the fact that they raise their money because of their association with the NHS, means that the Secretary of State must maintain some kind of toe-hold. To set those charities completely free is asking for political disaster at some point in the future The second part of amendment 2 would mean that if all trustee positions were vacant for three months, the Secretary of State could—and indeed should—appoint some new trustees to kick-start the organisation. That obviously will not happen often, but much of the business of this House involves planning for the unexpected. If a charity were for some awful reason to lose all its trustees at once—perhaps they are all off on a fact-finding mission together and there is a horrible accident; who knows what may happen, but let us pray to God that it does not—the Secretary of State will have the power to appoint people.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Other
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend will make a great diplomat when the time comes. I agree there is the possibility of misbehaviour by politicians, but we politicians come with a great advantage. We have had a few thousand people vote for us and those few thousand people can vote us out if they think we have behaved badly. There are not many other people in public life who come with that brake on their behaviour.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I will make this my last intervention. My hon. Friend has been very generous. With the provisions in the Bill I was expecting today to go off on a trip to Neverland. Instead, with all the death, doom and disaster in this speech I feel we are in an episode of "EastEnders." Does he not agree that there is a very large area of charity regulation to deal with things going wrong and difficulties emerging? Charities will still be subject to that. Merely allowing the Secretary of State to appoint the odd trustee will not deal with any systemic problems. That is what the wider area of regulation is there for.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): No, I am not being pessimistic. I am, I hope, exhorting a message of confidence and optimism that we as politicians should have some sense of belief in what we do. We take our chances—sadly, only once every five years now, rather than once every random number of years—and have confidence. Like my hon. Friend, I want to be a champion for the power and the outlook of this House, so that we do not have to go out and consult constantly, that we are based in a philosophy of which we are sure, and that people understand why our decisions are made given what they have seen of that philosophy.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I cannot give my hon. Friend an exact figure, but it is enormous. Many, many hundreds of millions, if not billions, have been spent on consultation where, broadly, minds were made up beforehand. I well remember, back in 2002, the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, consulting on bringing in the congestion charge. He, of course, had already made the decision. In fact, during the consultation the gantries to put the cameras in were already going up. Of course, the response from the public came back overwhelmingly against—nobody wanted it. We could all see the disaster it would be, not least because it was not a congestion charge but a tax on central London. He just shoved it in anyway I led the judicial review against the congestion charge in the High Court and sadly failed. The only chink in the armour we could find was the environmental audit, which was useful to me then but is a vehicle that Ministers and other politicians go through to tick the box. We find ourselves, as a country, in this enormous box-ticking exercise. So uncertain are we of what we should and should not do, and so wary are we of the vagaries of public opinion and fashion, that we feel the need to consult constantly The wider point is that it communicates to the public an uncertainty about political institutions and therefore undermines respect for them. When people talk about the politicians they respect, they always talk about—even though they did not agree with him—the great Labour Member, Tony Benn. Tony Benn always used to say, "Say what you mean and mean what you say." I do not think Tony Benn ever consulted about anything in his entire life. He had his beliefs pretty much set at an early age and he delivered them. Everybody knew where he stood. Our former great leader, Margaret Thatcher, was exactly the same. A lack of consultation with her party colleagues might have done for her in the end, but consultation on the broad thrust of policy was anathema to her. She displayed and promoted what she believed. On that note, I commend my amendments to the House.