argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Nissan: Sunderland — House of Commons, 2016-10-31
Topic: Mixed Topics
David Jonathan Edwards (Plaid Cymru, Centre-left to left): Around 200,000 jobs in Wales are reportedly sustained by single market membership. With the UK Government so far picking the automotive and the financial sectors as their Brexit winners, how many of the aforementioned 200,000 Welsh jobs does the Secretary of State think will ultimately be safe after Brexit?
Rail Infrastructure (Train Operating Companies) — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Immigration
David Jonathan Edwards (Plaid Cymru, Centre-left to left): From what I can gather, integration is at the heart of what the Secretary of State is endeavouring to achieve. With that in mind, now that the UK Government are devolving responsibilities for the Welsh franchise to Wales, is it not logical to devolve responsibility for the Welsh network?
Casey Report — House of Commons, 2016-12-06
Topic: Civil Rights
Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru, Centre-left to left): I fear that the Secretary of State’s fine words mask little-England identity politics. Can he assure me, as a south- east Londoner representing the most Welsh-speaking constituency for Plaid Cymru, that British values do not equate to a British state-imposed identity, and can he commit to bringing forward a strategy addressing poverty, inequality and inter-community respect?
Nuclear Management Partners (Sellafield) — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Energy
Michael Fraser Weir (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Obviously, we need to deal with the cost of legacy waste, but as well as announcing the change in the contract the NDA has announced an increase in the estimated cost of cleaning up the site, which now comes to a staggering £110 billion over 120 years. Given those figures and that time scale, how can the Secretary of State possibly give the assurance he gave to the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) that the costs of new nuclear will be met by the companies, which may well not be around in anything like 120 years?
Charter for Budget Responsibility — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman has said that he supports this motion on austerity. Tonight he will walk through the Lobby hand in hand with the Tories. Will he tell us how the Labour party differs from the Tory party?
Charter for Budget Responsibility — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I was struck by the shadow Chancellor’s contribution. His criticism of the charter appeared to be that it was not particularly clear when some of the Government’s targets or aims might be met—not an unreasonable criticism, although I was reminded that the last Labour Government used to try to balance the books over the economic cycle and then change the start time of the economic cycle to make the numbers fit. However, that is ancient history What is also history is that five years ago this month on 5 January, the then Labour Government debated their Fiscal Responsibility Bill. It set out the framework that they would work within to halve the deficit in a four-year time frame. This Government went further and announced that they would eradicate the entire structural deficit within a single five-year Parliament, and the following year the first charter for budget responsibility was introduced. To meet the provisions of that charter, the Government said that debt would begin to fall as a share of GDP by this year, 2014-15, the current account would be in balance next year, 2015-16, and public sector net borrowing then would be reduced to £20 billion. We know now from the autumn statement, given one month ago, that debt will not now fall as a share of GDP until 2016-17 at the earliest, the current account will not be in the black until the following year, and borrowing in 2015-16 will not be the £20 billion promised, but nearly four times that at £75 billion. The new targets are the essence of the new charter The Chancellor and the Government have failed to meet a single one of the targets that they set for themselves. The policy of a fixed-term approach to deficit reduction strangled recovery in the early years of this Parliament, and with £75 billion of cuts and tax rises to come, the inescapable conclusion is that austerity has failed. So today’s measure is less about the purported updating of the charter for budget responsibility and more about providing cover for a failed policy of fixed-term deficit reduction; cover for a plan for further attacks on the welfare budget, which are in the charter; and cover for a plan to balance the books on the back of the poor when public spending goes back to 1930s’ levels.
Charter for Budget Responsibility — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): That is absolutely right. I will answer that question directly. Instead of the provisions in the charter, we should be tackling the deficit reduction and the debt reduction in a different way. It should not be a fixed-term approach; it should be a principles-based approach based on the medium term. It has been proven to work in New Zealand, and I want to refer to the way in which it goes about that. It says that the first principle should be about reducing debt to a prudent level, where the Government of the day specify what is or is not prudent, depending on the circumstances that they face—precisely the point that my hon. Friend made. The second principle should be that once debt is reduced, the Government should maintain a balanced budget over the medium to long term. That would not prevent any Government from implementing the steps they believe are necessary to achieve the long-term objective of having a prudent level of deficit, but it would mean that it would happen, on average, over the medium to long term, rather than arbitrarily specifying one cycle or one Parliament The third principle says that the Government should achieve and maintain a level of net worth that provides a buffer against unforeseen future factors. The fourth principle calls on the Government to manage fiscal risks prudently, and the fifth is that the Government must pursue policies consistent with a reasonable degree of predictability about the level and stability of tax rates. That is incredibly important, because the tax system, tax rates and tax certainty, which have not yet been mentioned today, are a vital component of fiscal stability and fiscal responsibility. In the sense that we have seen tax yields reduce, it is all the more important to get that bit right.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Government Operations
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): May I take my hon. Friend back to the question of costs and try to put some numbers on this? Is it not the case that according to the last comprehensive assessment, the cost was something in the order of 9% of the MOD budget, around £2.9 billion a year, moving to around £4 billion throughout the 2020s? Does that not give a clear indication of the scale—the quantum—of the money we are wasting on these systems?
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Secretary of State is right to discuss some of the new, emerging external threats, but the major external threat faced by this country is from IS—from jihadists. Would they not be encouraged if we threatened them with nuclear weapons?
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: International Affairs
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Thank you very much for that guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sure that it will be listened to by all Members present In answer to the hon. Gentleman, my hon. Friend the Member for Moray and I led the SNP debate on NATO. The policy seems to have been quite popular. Indeed, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is well aware that the SNP is up in the mid-40s in the polls. Who knows? I may have played my part in securing that. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is very pleased with the SNP’s current polling, which could have us winning as many as 50 seats at the general election. Who knows? It is certainly change for the SNP and, by definition, it is change for Labour in Scotland.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Energy
Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Will the hon. Gentleman update the House on the initiatives led by his Government to fulfil their obligations? He will forgive me, but I have not caught up with the discussions his Government have had with other nuclear powers to fulfil those obligations.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): What is the difference between the hon. Gentleman’s policy and attitude towards this issue and the policy and attitude of people in America who feel that they need to have handguns to protect themselves "for security"?
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: International Affairs
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): What has happened since the end of the second world war is that colonial wars have ended. Colonialism has gone and imperialism has gone, and that is why wars between the great powers have gone. There was a change in the mindset of many countries when colonialism went. It had nothing to do with nukes.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Energy
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): That intervention was predictable. The hon. Gentleman is like a stuck record. I have been to Denmark—I actually sold 250,000 records in Denmark with my previous group—and for him to tell the Danes that they are a nuclear power would be a gross—
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Energy
Michael Fraser Weir (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Is not the situation actually worse than that? A previous speaker talked about other nuclear installations around the country, but is it not the case that convoys are bringing these nuclear weapons through the city of Glasgow to get to Faslane?
Nuclear War — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Environment
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): A recent report suggested that the long-term climatic effects of nuclear war could include low light levels, sub-freezing temperatures and heavy air pollution that could place the global ecosystem in serious jeopardy. If nuclear weapons had existed since Roman times, statistically all that may have come to pass by now. Does not that show the danger to the planet of the madness that is nuclear weapons?
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership — House of Commons, 2015-01-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Marag is, as my hon. Friend knows, the food of the gods, and any steps should be taken to protect that vital aspect of our culture and economy Governments need to legislate and regulate in the public interest—not in the interests of corporations or shareholders, but in the interests of citizens. As things stand, there are entirely legitimate fears that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership could significantly restrict our ability to do that. Until the Government can provide meaningful and detailed assurances, public scepticism is unlikely to be assuaged, and I urge the Government to take a lot more action to spell out the detail of how it will affect different sectors of our economy.
Regional Growth Fund — House of Commons, 2015-01-06
Topic: Macroeconomics
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Surely the best way to achieve regional growth and to help areas such as the north of England is for good neighbours in Scotland to have full fiscal autonomy to counterbalance what the Minister’s colleague from Twickenham, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, called the great suction machine pulling life from the economy of other parts of these islands. Why is it Government policy to maintain a system that protects London at the expense of other areas?
Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I welcome Labour’s conversion to judicial oversight in the matter of temporary exclusion orders. Given that the right hon. Gentleman has moved so far to reach this place, will he and the Labour party now support such oversight for other counter-terrorism measures?
Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): After almost four days of debate, this Bill has almost burst into life after I do not know how many hours. Today there have been all sorts of threats of Back-Bench rebellions. The Liberals were going to get up to something; there was going to be a vote against the Government; and there are newspaper articles suggesting all sorts of things. I thought we were going to have a really exciting debate Who could believe that something as important as counter-terrorism and security could attract so little attention from Members of this House? [Interruption.] I would say to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) that I have spoken at every stage of these debates. I have turned up and played my part, and I feel that I have contributed to the debate, but where are our Labour friends and colleagues? They have made two contributions during these remaining stages; I do not know how many they made in Committee of the whole House. We are hearing a bit more from our Conservative friends today. I very much enjoyed the speech by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve); it was a worthy contribution and something we should be hearing more of Why so quiet? What is going on? Is it because this is rushed legislation that has gone through so quickly that people have not been able to keep up with what the Government intend to do? Our constituents will find it very peculiar that this debate has secured so little attention and so few contributions.
Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker We have these amendments today because there has been an intervention from David Anderson, the anti-terrorism supremo. We all have to listen very carefully to what David Anderson says about this. He is absolutely spot on, of course. With measures such as this, we need judicial oversight. A number of us could possibly trust the Home Secretary to carry out her function in approaching this with a reasonable degree of professionalism, as one would expect from a Home Secretary as upstanding as the current one. David Anderson gets to the heart of all this: the burden of proof, being able to test matters in court, and the rights of the individual who has been subject to these charges and has no recourse to justice to be able to test them in court and try to determine their innocence. That is not possible as things currently stand, and that is why I very much support what is on offer today We have to give people the opportunity to respond to particular charges laid against them. The idea that suspicion that they are involved in a certain activity is enough to stain their reputation and means that they have no opportunity of recourse to justice or to put their case is not good enough. These perfectly good amendments would be a very useful intervention. The Labour party has given us an opportunity to re-examine the issue.
Shale Gas — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Until now, the UK Government’s position has been to remove the right of Scottish householders to object to unconventional gas or oil drilling underneath their homes. What will the position be between now and the full devolution of powers over fracking? Will the Department of Energy and Climate Change give an undertaking that it will not issue any fresh licences?
East Coast Main Line — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Transportation
Michael Fraser Weir (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for that answer. He will know that the east coast main line is an important link through my constituency, but it has been reported that the new franchisee intends to drop one station south of Edinburgh from the line, raising fears that other stations may be dropped from the new service. Will he give an absolute assurance that, after the change of franchisee, services on the east coast main line will continue to stop at all the stations currently used?
Broadband and Mobile Phone Coverage — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Technology
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Mobile coverage is an important social utility, as we have seen quite recently. Because of storms and lightning, BT lines have been down for weeks in parts of Lewis and Harris. Special thanks are due to BT and hydro engineers, who have been working hard in very bad weather to repair utilities. What are the right hon. Gentleman’s Government doing to ensure that island and rural areas are not left behind with 90% 4G telephone coverage, especially considering that 2G and 3G have been bad and that, with its high data speeds, 4G coverage is an excellent system for accessing broadband?
Smith Commission — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Questions: The Smith commission agreement contained a strong desire to see devolution extend to local government. Will the Secretary of State impress upon the SNP Government the need to embrace that desire, release their iron grip on power and devolve to local government?
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Smith commission is not the only example of parties working together. Yesterday, we saw a fantastic example, when Scottish Labour walked through the Lobby with the Conservatives to support Conservative austerity. Does the Secretary of State envisage any other such "better together" moments coming before the next general election?
Terrorist Attacks (Paris) — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): On behalf of the Scottish National party, I join the Home Secretary, the shadow Home Secretary and Members from all parts of the House in their condemnation of the terrorist attacks in Paris. I also want to put on the record our appreciation for those who work so hard on our behalf to keep our society safe The Home Secretary went into great detail in her statement about the co-operation with European Union partners and other countries, which was very welcome. She did not have the opportunity to update the House on the co-operation with the other jurisdictions within the United Kingdoms on policing and safety, which is very important for all of us. No doubt she has spoken to the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Michael Matheson, since last week. Will she update the House on what was discussed and on how the UK Government plan to co-operate with the Scottish Government, the Northern Irish Government and the Welsh Administration?
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman talked about problems in the market. May I draw to his attention a problem that I have already raised with his Department, when the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) was a Minister there? In the islands of Scotland, we pay a higher price per unit of electricity than people on the mainland and in London. We are also penalised by the locational charging for renewable energy. The right hon. Member for Sevenoaks was going to look into whether renewable energy produced in the islands could be considered as consumption in the local domestic market, and into the possibility of reducing the charging either way.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Secretary of State for being very generous. He has talked about fighting for consumers. What will he do for consumers in rural and island areas, who are paying more per unit of electricity than those in big cities and doing so in areas that also have higher fuel poverty? He is in power at the moment, so what can he do?
Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): As we discuss counter-terrorism for a fifth day, our thoughts are very much on the appalling murders in Paris today. It was not only an appalling attack on journalists and a newspaper office but an attack on free speech, and today all of us can say, "Je suis Charlie". Given those sickening events, it is pretty hard to discuss counter-terror measures today, but we live in a democracy and we will discuss them. We will not let any terrorist attack deter us from our influence on the matter or how we approach our business We are eternally grateful for amendment 12, because it is the beginning of a recognition of Scotland’s distinct responsibilities for measures under the Bill. The Bill asks that we be consulted on competencies for which we are actually responsible. It is not consultation that the Minister requires, it is our consent. We are responsible for delivering those competencies in the Scottish Parliament. We are responsible for education and health, we have a distinct legal system, and we are responsible for the judiciary. The Scottish police force, Police Scotland, is accountable to the Scottish Parliament. We have our own institutions and our own set of responsibilities and competencies. Yes, we are grateful that the UK Government are going to pick up the phone and consult our Ministers, but it is our consent that they require when passing measures under the Bill We will agree with the Government on most measures, and I am sure we will get on perfectly well, but we take a different and distinct approach on a number of issues. Of course we do—we have a different culture in Scotland. We do not have the same size of ethnic communities as there are south of the border, and we have a different and distinct approach to community relations. We see and deliver some things very differently from the UK Government The vast platform of the Prevent strategy will be administered in Scotland by Scottish public bodies, responsible to the Scottish Parliament and under the guidance of Scottish Ministers. Consultation—great. Thank you ever so much, Home Secretary, for being prepared to consult Scottish Ministers, discuss things with them and maybe even ask their views, but what we need is to give consent. If we are to be realistic about the devolution settlement and the range of responsibilities we have, and if we are talking about the respect agenda, that consent is required. Consultation is certainly not good enough Our approach to Prevent is different, of course. We see it more through the lens of safeguarding, with an emphasis on keeping people safe, community cohesion, participative democracy and ensuring that action is consistent with the needs of, and risks to, all our communities.