argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
DWP Estate: Office Closures — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Labor
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have said to other hon. Members, our top priority right now is working with the staff and supporting them through the changes. Most of the colleagues affected will be moving to other facilities that are really close by. In terms of the impact on the specific communities involved, typically the number of staff involved in a particular area is quite small. However, we will seek to see what we can do to improve. I do not have the details in front of me, but I am sure there will have been new, front-facing Jobcentre Plus offices put in place in Liverpool, because that is our commitment to help more people to get into work.
DWP Estate: Office Closures — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Labor
Robert Henry Halfon (Conservative, Centre-right): In Harlow, the Department actually expanded the jobcentre, so it is now in two buildings, one in the Harvey Centre, which I visited recently and which is doing an enormous amount of work in getting Harlow people back to work. Will my hon. Friend or the Minister for employment come and visit the two jobcentres we now have in Harlow that are doing so much to help employment in our town?
DWP Estate: Office Closures — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Labor
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): As my right hon. Friend highlights, we are doing a huge amount of work to help claimants to find work and to help people to progress in work. I am delighted that he has those facilities in Harlow and I or the Minister for employment will gladly come and visit in the very near future.
DWP Estate: Office Closures — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Labor
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand the point that the right hon. Gentleman makes, and he says it with authority as the Chair of the Select Committee, but I think he also understands that we are making a major investment in the front end—the customer-facing side—of our Department. As I said, over the past two years we have been increasing the number of jobcentres to 194. That will enable us to do exactly what he wants—to provide support for individuals across all ages through the plan for jobs.
DWP Estate: Office Closures — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Labor
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): As I indicated to the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown), I will gladly meet both him and the hon. Gentleman after this to discuss those concerns further. The Minister for employment will actively engage with affected colleagues, and we are engaging with the staff as we speak.
DWP Estate: Office Closures — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Technology
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): This will not impact on services because the services we are talking about are primarily telephony and digital. Clearly, our primary concern now is to see what we can do to support people who might be impacted by the changing terms for staff. I will of course meet the hon. Gentleman after this, or during the course of today, to discuss his concerns more fully.
DWP Estate: Office Closures — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Social Welfare
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have said before, we are working with the vast majority of the individuals who can be relocated very close to their current facility. We will continue to work hard with others, too. This is our top priority. We value our colleagues, who have helped the Department through some incredibly challenging times over the past couple of years, and we want to support them through the period now. I highlight to a couple of Members who have made this point that we continue to be committed to the Newcastle area, but I will meet those colleagues after this urgent question.
DWP Estate: Office Closures — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Labor
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): Right now, we are speaking to the colleagues affected. We have engaged PCS every step of the way to ensure we are following the right process so far as colleagues go. The engagement with parliamentary colleagues will take place as planned at 1 pm today, when letters will be made available. If the right hon. Member has further concerns, I will make sure that the Minister for employment contacts her after this urgent question.
DWP Estate: Office Closures — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Macroeconomics
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): We had a full debate in Westminster Hall yesterday that the hon. Member was successful in securing, and we discussed this in more detail. What we can do to support his area is not just around the changes we are proposing today, but is much broader. There is a big broad economic agenda to improve the north-east, which his constituency will benefit from, too.
DWP Estate: Office Closures — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Environment
Matthew James Offord (Conservative, Centre-right): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. At last week’s business questions, the Leader of the House announced that there would be a debate this afternoon on protecting and restoring nature at COP15 and beyond. Unfortunately, it seems to have dropped off the Order Paper and no one understands why. I am sure that Government business has changed, but through your offices, may I encourage the Leader of the House and the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee to allow time for that debate, plenty of time before COP15 happens?
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Dominic Rennie Raab (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a bit surprising, on an issue of such seriousness, that the hon. Gentleman resorted to making the usual partisan political points. Frankly, I think the House can rise above his partisan approach The hon. Gentleman says that this is too little, too late. In fact, in January, when he says Labour called for this, Justice Ministers had already made it clear that we were actively working on proposals. Indeed, I made that clear in the House in February. He referred back to 2018, or a couple of years ago. We had one case in 2018. As I said, this is now a burgeoning problem. Frankly, an element of "Captain Hindsight" seems to have crept along the shadow Front Bench In relation to the broader points that the hon. Gentleman makes about oligarchs, I set out in the House yesterday the scale and the level of sanctions that we have imposed—indeed, with cross-party support. We have led the way internationally The hon. Gentleman did not really make any substantive points about the consultation. [Interruption.] He did not really, actually—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) is chuntering from a sedentary position. He did not really ask me anything—
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Dominic Rennie Raab (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend. He is absolutely right to pay tribute to the cross-party nature of this, notwithstanding the statement by the Opposition spokesman. That is very important, and he has helped to lead it, as is often the case. He asked about the timetable. As he will see, these are substantive proposals—not a Green Paper but a set of proposals. It is important, with regard to libel, which is there to defend the reputation of decent, upstanding people, that we get this right. It is about testing the evidence so that when we go to legislation, we get this right. After the consultation, I will look for the earliest opportunity and the earliest legislative vehicle. It may end up being a third Session Bill, but he has my reassurance that we are already looking at the appropriate legislative vehicle. It depends how much of this we do in primary legislation. I suspect most of it will require primary legislation.
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Dominic Rennie Raab (Conservative, Centre-right): Forgive me if I do not get drawn into Chelsea football club, which is outside the scope of what we are discussing in this statement. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman. Since doing BackBench Business debates on Magnitsky in 2012, he and I have always, whatever else we may differ on, made common cause on the need for robust sanctions. He has been one of the leading lights in relation to SLAPPs, and I will certainly look carefully at the important specific points he has made.
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert William Henry Seely (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very impressed by the Deputy Prime Minister’s action, and I thank him. It is a great shame that over recent years, we have allowed a corrupting cottage industry of legalised intimidation and legalised gangsterism to be offered by unscrupulous law firms in this country to some of the most wretched and unscrupulous people on earth. I hope that the senior partners in firms such as Carter-Ruck, CMS, Mishcon and Harbottle & Lewis will consider whether they feel that they have played an entirely negative role in enabling Kremlin neo-fascism. My brief question is that I was bringing forward a private Member’s Bill on this issue so that the tools of abuse—data protection, privacy and libel laws—can be wrapped up in a series of amendments. Should I continue to try to bring forward that private Member’s Bill in the hope that I can help write some clauses that would be of value in an upcoming Bill, or should I offer that in evidence to the consultation process? I am keen for the Bill to be strong, just and transparent.
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Dominic Rennie Raab (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend should do both. I thank him for his campaigning tenacity on all this. As ever, he is very forensic, as well as tenacious. I make one point. He makes a perfectly reasonable point about legal ethics—as I mentioned, we will look at the SRA regime, which is important—but I want to avoid this being an anti-lawyer push, because the vast majority of legal practitioners are as aghast as us at the abuses we see. Let us have a targeted approach, because we are more likely to be effective at dealing with the real problem that he has been so tenacious and eloquent in highlighting.
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Government Operations
Dominic Rennie Raab (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his long-standing interest in this area and the very constructive points he has made. We need to act swiftly, and I said that in my statement. We also need to recognise that we are constantly balancing the right of honourable people to protect their reputation—libel law has a role to play in this country—with not allowing libel law to be hijacked by those with deep pockets to muzzle the very transparency that we want in this country. That is a balance, and we need to be careful to get that balance right. We also remain a global country with a global outlook, and we want investment into this country. That is crucial and is part of our USP. What we do not want is dirty money or the money of those with blood on their hands. We will move swiftly, but the most important thing is that we do not do this in a knee-jerk way, because when this House does things in a knee-jerk way, we get it wrong and we repent at leisure. Let us move swiftly, but firmly. That is why the call for evidence is about how we shape these reforms, not whether we do them.
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: International Affairs
Dominic Rennie Raab (Conservative, Centre-right): As ever, my hon. Friend absolutely nails the point. These reforms are targeted at a specific problem, which is recent and burgeoning, and we do not want to conflate that because it might hit other areas and do ancillary or incidental harm and because that is a displacement of our effort and our energies My hon. Friend asked more generally about what we are doing around the world. When I was Foreign Secretary, we ramped up the Media Freedom Coalition, which, in my time, we chaired with the Canadians. I am not sure whether it is them or us who currently hold the chairmanship—I think it is the Canadians. We expanded that coalition. The idea was to help with the legislation that countries have to protect free speech and to ensure that, when journalists come under attack, they get legal support. We raised quite a lot of money and we keep working on it. I know that the current Foreign Secretary is enthusiastic and energetic about it.
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Dominic Rennie Raab (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and makes one of the most important points. If he looks at the call for evidence and the menu of options that we set out, we look at the threshold for bringing SLAPPs and whether there ought to be a new right of public participation. We look at the various defences in defamation law to see whether they are sufficient to deal with this problem. That includes the public defence and the serious harm test of a defamatory statement. We are trying to look at it from every angle. I should add for completeness that we will look at whether we are getting the right balance in terms of being an attractive destination for litigants to want to solve disputes, which is a great USP for the country, and whether we have allowed and given succour to libel tourism in this particularly pernicious area. We will look at all those things and I look forward to his further thoughts in those areas.
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: International Affairs
Dominic Rennie Raab (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes. Whatever other differences we have had over the years, I pay tribute to the hon. Lady’s campaigning tenacity on the issue. I think she is right. Of course, although we have oligarchs and Ukraine in mind, it would need to be something that applied across the board.
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. I was lucky enough to meet Tom Burgis recently, who, alongside other journalists such as Oliver Bullough and others, does an incredible job of highlighting the dirty money, corruption and general economic crime. The other cohort that does that most effectively, and has been involved in every case that I have been involved in in those circumstances, is whistleblowers. Will he, with his Home Office colleagues, seek to put protections and compensation for whistleblowers into a future economic crime Bill? Those people are critical in identifying this stuff and bringing those guilty of it to justice.
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Dominic Rennie Raab (Conservative, Centre-right): As my hon. Friend will know, we are sanctioning over 100 individuals and entities—I think the sum involved is $45 billion—and the economic crime Bill has come in. I regard the issue we are dealing with today as a forensic target issue. We will move swiftly—I have heard hon. Members calls for that—but it is right that we move on a firm basis, identify and target the problem itself, and that the pendulum does not swing too far the other way. I am confident that we can get the balance right, but we need to test the evidence for the reforms I have put forward and then proceed as swiftly as possible to legislate.
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Education
John Henry Hayes (Conservative, Centre-right): I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests relating to higher education. In accepting my congratulations on her robust counter to the small minds who have criticised the Sewell report—small minds that cannot tell the difference between disadvantage, disparity and discrimination—will the Minister ensure that every Government Department effects what she has said today and what the report proposes? Education is at particular risk, from Brighton and Hove Council’s destructive and pernicious racial training for primary school teachers, which still has not been dealt with despite a cursory inspection from the Department for Education, to Nottingham University—my old university, by the way—which, appallingly, withdrew Tony Sewell’s honorary degree, while giving them to Chinese holocaust deniers. Will she issue guidance to each Government Department to stop the nonsense about critical race theory and white privilege?
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Education
Robert Henry Halfon (Conservative, Centre-right): I strongly welcome the report because it will ensure that everyone, from whatever background, can climb the important ladder of opportunity. The vice-chancellor of Nottingham University should hang his head in shame for the way Tony Sewell has been treated. I genuinely find it incomprehensible that such a thing could happen, with an honorary degree being withdrawn My hon. Friend will know that the Education Committee produced a report into our biggest ethnic group, disadvantaged white working-class children, who underperform at every stage of the education system compared with almost every other ethnic group. They are at the bottom except for Gypsy/Roma children in terms of going on to higher education. Will my hon. Friend ensure that the report also looks at our Select Committee’s recommendations and makes sure that white working-class people from disadvantaged backgrounds are disadvantaged no longer?
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is right. I have seen his Select Committee’s report, and those are things we will be working on. He is right to point out the disadvantage that children from white working-class communities face. The commission found that the issues that affect black Caribbean, black African, Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian children when it comes to deprivation and disadvantage also affect white working-class communities, which is why we know that race cannot be the factor that explains many of those disparities. What I can tell him is that the solutions we have put in place will be solutions for all children. That is one of the principles we have for this report: we are not segregating or targeting specific solutions for specific communities; we are going to be looking after everybody.
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Lady is very, very correct to raise the issue of strip-searching. The Home Secretary, I believe, wrote to her shadow and said that the incident is deeply concerning. Strip-searching is one of the most intrusive powers available to the police, because it allows officers to go well beyond a person’s outer clothing. There are safeguards and codes of practice that must be followed when the power is used, so what has gone wrong in this specific instance? That is being investigated. I do not have the full details and I am not able to provide those sorts of answers until an inquiry is finished. What I can tell her is that those figures are startling. No one has said that racism does not exist. No one has said that there are no problems in the system, but what we do ask is that we investigate every single incident and that where we see a trend, we try to understand what is going on. The action plan provides even more things we can do to support communities to hold the local police to account The other thing that we stress is that when these things happen we must not forget that every day the police save the lives of young people across the country. They save the lives of young black children, brown children and Asian children—children from all communities. When incidents such as this happen, we must not look at them as representative of every single thing that the police do, even though we will do all that we can to tackle them and reduce the number of times they occur.
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Education
Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, and my hon. Friend will find that that is what the model history curriculum will deliver I forgot to mention to the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) when she talked about black history that black is a category that cuts across so many significant ethnic groups that there is no way that one history module could go into any depth. We need a model history curriculum that explains the story of Britain and all our places within it. We cannot have segregated history curriculums for people of different skin colour. I am completely against that and I do not support it.
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Peter Alexander Gibson (Conservative, Centre-right): I know that my hon. Friend is 100% committed to implementing the commission’s recommendations. Does she agree with me that it is our Conservative belief that background should not determine destiny and promoting fairness is the key to truly delivering real social mobility? As we level up in places such as Darlington, can she comment on how "Inclusive Britain" is key to our ambitious levelling-up plans?
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Lady is right that there are actions on stop and search in criminal justice, but we are doing many different things, including improving skills training for police officers. She will find that the actions in the report will address the issues she raises. I have already made comments on the case of Child Q, which I will not repeat. I am sure Home Office Ministers will be able to respond to the questions she has specifically for them.
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities — House of Commons, 2022-03-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady said that the report was set up because of what happened in the US; I really have to stress to the House that we are not the United States and we cannot assume that the problems there are exactly the same as the ones here. That is why the commission investigated what was happening in the United Kingdom and made recommendations based on what is happening in the United Kingdom. It is really important that we understand the difference; in so many things that I see and read, people are conflating what is happening in other countries with what is happening here. Our police are not routinely armed, which makes a huge difference when it comes to our statistics. I have seen four statistics on deaths in custody that are based on US stats. There is a lot in the report that will help improve policing, but it is based on evidence from this country, not just on what is happening on social media and Twitter The fact is that the mothers of children who die as a result of knife and gun crime do not dislike stop and search. They want to see more of it—they want communities to be policed properly. That is what we are going to be doing. If the hon. Lady looks at the worst statistic in the report—that black children are 24 times more likely to die of a homicide than white children; this is not race crime—she will find that we need stop and search in communities, to help stop those types of crime.