argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Sky/21st Century Fox: Merger — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): I refer to my earlier comments regarding the Leveson inquiry—I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand. I thank him for his welcome for the decision. I look forward, as he does, to seeing the reports from Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority, which will enable me to use my quasi-judicial role to make a fair and transparent decision.
Sky/21st Century Fox: Merger — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Civil Rights
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my right hon. Friend agree that the freedom of the press, and indeed of press ownership, is a bastion of our liberties? It is for Ofcom—objectively, not subjectively—to define, as a narrow term of art, a fit and proper person; it is not for Ministers and politicians to get involved in this.
Sky/21st Century Fox: Merger — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend’s point is exactly what I concluded, having considered the representations. There needs to be a distinction between the work of the independent regulator in determining who is a fit and proper person to hold a broadcasting licence versus the role of the Secretary of State when it comes to determining whether a media merger can go ahead under the terms of the Enterprise Act.
Sky/21st Century Fox: Merger — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for welcoming this. If he wants to make representations to me regarding the Enterprise Act and areas in which he feels changes could be made in the light of changing broadcasting and consuming habits, I will of course look at them carefully.
Sky/21st Century Fox: Merger — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jeremy John Elton Lefroy (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, but will she assure me that the question of plurality is not just examined occasionally—when a big merger such as this comes up—but kept constantly under review by Ofcom and, indeed, her Department?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, I will take a point of order now. There are a couple of Select Committee statements coming, but we can await those with eager anticipation and bated breath. I am sure colleagues do so, but let us first hear the point of order from Mr Christopher Chope.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I say two things to the hon. Gentleman. First, the practice of announcing only the first day of the provisional business for the second week is not unknown; there are many precedents for it, although I certainly accept that the norm is that the House receives two weeks of business, so the hon. Gentleman is broadly correct in what he says The second observation I would make is that the Leader of the House has toppled into the Chamber at a most fortuitous time. Whether he has done so because he was excited by the hon. Gentleman’s point of order or because he wants to listen to the Select Committee statements, I do not know. The Leader of the House is perfectly welcome to spring to his feet and come to the Dispatch Box and respond to the hon. Gentleman, as is the Deputy Leader of the House, but notwithstanding the extraordinary temptation to do so, both of them may feel inclined on this occasion to resist—and it appears that they do. But the hon. Gentleman has made his point, and, for what it is worth, I think that if it is possible, it should be done, but it is not always practicable. I hope my response has been helpful.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order, of which she gave me advance notice It is very difficult for the Chair to assist the hon. Lady. First, I would say that Governments of both hues in this country have not always been overly preoccupied with meeting their own deadlines. It has not always been regarded as an overriding priority by them, although it is often the case that people who have depended upon their words would prefer a greater fidelity to the commitment that has been made Secondly, as the hon. Lady will know, there is often something of a debate about what falls within the seasons of the year. It is not uncommon for Ministers in a Government to refer to an intention to do something "in the spring", for instance, and for them sometimes to have a slightly different interpretation of the period covered by a season of the year from that which hon. Members or members of the public might have Thirdly, I have been advised by the Clerk, who has helpfully volunteered some text to me, that it is not unprecedented for Government Departments to be unspecific about when they are going to do something. However, I am sure that the hon. Lady will use her ingenuity to pursue the matter further. My advice to her is almost, if you will, geographical advice. It is that she should wend her way to the Table Office to see what sort of questions she can table that might provide satisfaction. I do not wish to be unkind to her, as she is an extremely diligent Member, but my broad advice to her—not merely as Speaker but as someone who was for 12 years a parliamentarian mainly sitting on the Back Benches—is that she should make as much of a nuisance of herself as she possibly can. That might avail her. She needs to persist to such a degree that Ministers feel that it is better to provide satisfaction to her.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): It has to be said that, not for the first time, I have learned of something from the right hon. Gentleman. I was not aware—because nobody had told me—of any possible public statement of the kind that he envisages. Secondly, it is not always completely to be assumed that what is bruited in the media is correct. There may be no plan for any such statement today. It could even conceivably be a quiet news day, leading some people in the media to speculate that there will be such a statement, or that they would like such a statement to be made, or that there ought to be one. I am not aware that there is intended to be any such statement. The Prime Minister has, over many years, including during her tenure as Home Secretary, been fastidious in coming to the House to make statements on important policy developments. I am not aware of any plan for her to do so today, but if she were minded to make a public statement of the kind that the right hon. Gentleman envisages, and wanted to come to the House to do so, it would be open to her to do that. Whatever other plans I might have for the day, I would happily reschedule them in order to be in my place to hear the Prime Minister. Perhaps we can leave that there for now.
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): We now come to the first Select Committee statement. I cannot resist observing that this is the latest of the statements to the House from the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), and that, as a Select Committee Chair, no one has taken more seriously his responsibilities in these matters or more enthusiastically availed himself of the opportunity to make such statements to the House. Perhaps other Select Committee Chairs will copy the hon. Gentleman in due course; it remains to be seen. The hon. Gentleman will speak on his subject for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, I—or whoever is in the Chair—will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement and ask the hon. Gentleman to respond to them in turn. Members can expect to be called only once. Interventions should be questions and should be brief. The Front Bench may take part in questioning. I call the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the House, Mr Bernard Jenkin.
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): As perhaps should have been done with the child sex abuse inquiry, I suggest that the Secretary of State comes to this House to ask for a Committee to be set up. Let us have an inquiry into the inquiry before we get stuck on the tramlines of legality and appointing people. She should look before she leaps and accept that Governments should not be able to establish inquiries to get themselves out of inconvenient difficulties. The House is here to assist such scrutiny, and it should be here to provide oversight so that an inquiry is properly conducted in a timely fashion.
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Other
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman has been a trouper on the Committee for many years. I accept that this was a difficult inquiry to agree. In our draft, because we were concentrating on process and procedures rather than on the substance of the issues, we had to reflect some of the tone of the anxiety that so many people feel about this issue. I hope he felt able and comfortable to support the inquiry. He fully supports our recommendations, for which I am grateful.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
Charles Ashley Rupert Walker (Conservative, Centre-right): I made this same point to my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose): the big six and Veolia behave in this way because there is a culture of arrogance and entitlement. That is the problem, and we—or, more to the point, the companies—need to address that culture.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John David Penrose (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Lady is making a very compelling case, as she did with me in the dragons’ den pitch for this debate. She is absolutely right about the CMA’s figures showing such horrendous levels of customer detriment. Not only that, but the gap between the standard variable price that is being charged and the wholesale price has been getting wider over the past four years, so the situation is bad and getting worse as time goes by.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John David Penrose (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure that transparency is a sensible and worthwhile thing to aim for, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that it does not matter terribly much from a consumer’s point of view, because consumers do not care whether their supplier has a good hedging strategy or a bad one? That is up to the supplier to deal with and to manage. Some will get it right and some will get it wrong, but if they get it wrong, it should hit their managers’ bonuses and their shareholders’ returns rather than the price that the consumer eventually pays. We might want to understand this, but we should not seek to use it as a justification for high or low prices. Ultimately we should be tougher on the suppliers than that.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2017-03-16
Topic: Other
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): This is the second debate in which I have had the pleasure of speaking this week, Mr Deputy Speaker, and, as the fellow said, truly you’re getting to be a habit with me, and I thoroughly welcome that.
National Debt — House of Commons, 2017-07-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): Those figures are welcome, but will my right hon. Friend confirm that were the Government to pursue a policy of wiping all outstanding student debt, that would cost in excess of £100 billion and cause the national debt to surge? Will he also confirm that the biggest beneficiaries by far would be the top-earning graduates in the country?
Infrastructure: Private Sector Investment — House of Commons, 2017-07-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Andrew Hanson Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): This Government are committed to supporting private investment, which finances about half our infrastructure. We have a trusted and stable regulatory system, and through the UK guarantees scheme we have supported projects worth more than £4 billion. We are also introducing innovative support such as the digital infrastructure investment fund, which will accelerate the roll-out of the ultrafast network.
Infrastructure: Private Sector Investment — House of Commons, 2017-07-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Andrew Hanson Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not going to speculate on the negotiations, as that would be way above my pay grade. I just refer the hon. Gentleman to the Chancellor’s answer a moment ago on the merits of a Brexit deal that secures our economic future.
Youth Unemployment — House of Commons, 2017-07-18
Topic: Other
Questions: Government investment in Cheltenham’s cyber-accelerator since 2015 is now yielding results, with numerous cyber start-ups benefiting from local mentoring from experts at GCHQ. Does my hon. Friend agree that mobilising the UK’s sovereign expertise in areas such as cyber boosts jobs for young people and opportunity in places such as Cheltenham?
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Well, that was a first in this place, certainly during my time in the Chair: I have never known a ministerial swap to take place mid-answer. I assume that it was inadvertent; the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury is nothing if not immaculate in his parliamentary manners. I put it down to error. But I hope that the Ministers know their own identities. I would be worried for them if they did not.
Tax Avoidance and Evasion — House of Commons, 2017-07-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): The UK has effective legislation to tackle avoidance involving offshore structures and we have announced our intention to legislate further, making it harder for non-doms to avoid paying tax on funds withdrawn from trusts. I am also pleased to say that we have been at the forefront of international work that has seen 100 countries commit to exchange financial information automatically.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-07-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Stephen Paul Barclay (Conservative, Centre-right): May I first congratulate the hon. Lady on her appointment as Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee? As she will be aware from her Bank of England days, this is a matter for the Financial Policy Committee. Indeed, the FPC noted in its recent report that consumer credit is growing at a lower rate than it was under the previous Labour Government, but loss rates on lending remain low, as they are at present.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-07-18
Topic: Immigration
Questions: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor will know from his time in the Foreign Office that one of the great strengths of our great kingdom is the perception of fairness we enjoy around the world. Will he talk a little about fairness in financial transactions, as the hidden taxes imposed by many companies on investment are grossly unfair on those who are saving in pensions for the future?; As chair of the all-party group on refugees, I am told by refugees that they are desperate to work once they have achieved such status, but are hindered by various fixable problems in the system. Will the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to make it easier for refugees to have bank accounts?
Stephen Paul Barclay (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady will be aware that when the Home Office grants refugee status, it includes the biometric residence permit as proof of the holder’s right to stay, but I am very happy to discuss with the hon. Lady any further measures that she feels would be helpful.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-07-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Questions: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor will know from his time in the Foreign Office that one of the great strengths of our great kingdom is the perception of fairness we enjoy around the world. Will he talk a little about fairness in financial transactions, as the hidden taxes imposed by many companies on investment are grossly unfair on those who are saving in pensions for the future?; As chair of the all-party group on refugees, I am told by refugees that they are desperate to work once they have achieved such status, but are hindered by various fixable problems in the system. Will the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to make it easier for refugees to have bank accounts?; To promote the drive towards world free trade, will the Chancellor of the Exchequer assure the House that he is absolutely, personally and enthusiastically committed to following our manifesto commitment to leave not just the EU at the end of 2019, but the single market and the customs union?; The UK Government have a strong record of supporting Scottish businesses, and the British Business Bank has provided nearly £1.5 million of support to small businesses in East Renfrewshire. However, many businesses in my constituency are disadvantaged compared with competitors and counterparts in England due to the Scottish Government’s approach to business rates. Will my right hon. Friend join me in calling for the Scottish Government to reverse their decision to double the large business supplement, restore rates parity on both sides of the border and allow Scottish businesses to compete on a level playing field?; Will my right hon. Friend, for the benefit of the House, confirm the cost to the economy of cancelling student debt, say whether that is affordable and explain what effect it would have on the work we have done to reduce the deficit?; The new Conservative Mayor of the Tees Valley, Ben Houchen, is setting up the first mayoral development corporation outside London on the former SSI site in Redcar. The regeneration of the site and the attraction of inward investment are obviously vital. Will my hon. Friend work with me and the Mayor to deliver the best outcome for the site and the local economy?
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): We have to deal with two issues. One is the process by which we uprate business rates, and we all saw earlier this year that long periods followed by dramatic revision are not good for anyone. They cause disruption to business, so we are looking at how we can smooth the process. Secondly, we need to look more broadly at the way in which we address the perceived unfairness that companies that operate in bricks and mortar are effectively treated differently from companies that do not. That is not an easy challenge, because many of the digital companies operate internationally and it requires international co-operation The consultation that the hon. Lady asks for will be issued by the Department for Communities and Local Government and I will pass on to the Secretary of State her concerns about the date.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-07-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Questions: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor will know from his time in the Foreign Office that one of the great strengths of our great kingdom is the perception of fairness we enjoy around the world. Will he talk a little about fairness in financial transactions, as the hidden taxes imposed by many companies on investment are grossly unfair on those who are saving in pensions for the future?; As chair of the all-party group on refugees, I am told by refugees that they are desperate to work once they have achieved such status, but are hindered by various fixable problems in the system. Will the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to make it easier for refugees to have bank accounts?; To promote the drive towards world free trade, will the Chancellor of the Exchequer assure the House that he is absolutely, personally and enthusiastically committed to following our manifesto commitment to leave not just the EU at the end of 2019, but the single market and the customs union?; The UK Government have a strong record of supporting Scottish businesses, and the British Business Bank has provided nearly £1.5 million of support to small businesses in East Renfrewshire. However, many businesses in my constituency are disadvantaged compared with competitors and counterparts in England due to the Scottish Government’s approach to business rates. Will my right hon. Friend join me in calling for the Scottish Government to reverse their decision to double the large business supplement, restore rates parity on both sides of the border and allow Scottish businesses to compete on a level playing field?; Will my right hon. Friend, for the benefit of the House, confirm the cost to the economy of cancelling student debt, say whether that is affordable and explain what effect it would have on the work we have done to reduce the deficit?; The new Conservative Mayor of the Tees Valley, Ben Houchen, is setting up the first mayoral development corporation outside London on the former SSI site in Redcar. The regeneration of the site and the attraction of inward investment are obviously vital. Will my hon. Friend work with me and the Mayor to deliver the best outcome for the site and the local economy?; Noting that the unemployment rate is at a 42-year low, may I inquire of my right hon. Friend what the effect has been on average personal incomes for workers in Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock—and, indeed, the rest of the UK—of increases in the minimum wage and the national living wage?
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): As the hon. Lady may know, I take a clear view about the confidentiality of conversations between Cabinet Ministers—[Laughter.] While I have had many conversations with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, I make it a rule that it is for departmental Secretaries of State to make announcements when appropriate.