argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Arrangement of Business — House of Lords, 2021-10-18
Topic: Other
Thomas Ashton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, before we proceed to the Motion in the name of the Senior Deputy Speaker, it might be helpful to the House if I say a few words about the proceedings for the remainder of this afternoon. After the Motions in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, the House will adjourn during pleasure until 4 pm. This is to allow tributes to Sir David Amess to begin in the House of Commons and for the Prime Minister and leader of the Opposition to speak in the other place. The House will then resume for tributes to Sir David There is no speakers’ list, and any Member may speak from the Chamber. Arrangements have been made to allow those who are permitted to participate virtually to do so. There are three virtual speakers, and they will come after the most reverend Primate has spoken on behalf of the Lords spiritual. Tributes will last until 5.20 pm. The House will then adjourn until 2.30 pm tomorrow, and there will be no further business today At 6 pm, there will be a service of prayers and remembrance for Sir David at St Margaret’s Church. The Lord Speaker will lead from the Chamber to the church at 5.30 pm, after the House adjourns at 5.20 pm, so noble Lords who are attending the service in St Margaret’s should be ready to move from the Chamber by 5.30 pm St Margaret’s has limited capacity, and preference is rightly being given to Members of the House of Commons. There are limited places for Members of this House to attend. I am sure noble Lords appreciate the reason for this and, on behalf of the usual channels, I ask that only those noble Lords who knew Sir David best seek to attend the service this evening. For those going to the service, St Margaret’s has requested that face coverings are worn in the church and that those attending take a Covid test. Tests are available now in the Bishops’ Bar and in the atrium in Portcullis House. The Chapel of St Mary Undercroft remains open for private prayer and reflection, and a condolence book is available in the Royal Gallery The main business that was due to take place this afternoon—namely, the second day of Report of the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill—will now be taken on Thursday.
Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-10-18
Topic: Other
Thomas Ashton (Conservative, Centre-right): It is not going to Committee; it is going to Grand Committee. It will be rather like a statutory instrument. The debate will take place in Grand Committee and then it will come back to the Chamber for a vote to commit the Bill so that if—which I hope is unlikely—a Member wanted to vote on not giving the Bill a Second Reading, they would be able to do it in this Chamber.
Tributes: Sir David Amess MP — House of Lords, 2021-10-18
Topic: Other
Michael Howard (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, David Amess and I entered the House of Commons together at the 1983 general election. He was my colleague and friend for nearly 40 years. He was, as so many others have said, a really lovely man. He was one of that select band of people who are truly life-enhancing. When you left a meeting with David, even a chance encounter, you felt happier and better than you had felt before. He was one of those rare human beings who looked for the best in others and, in doing so, brought out the best in them. He was a living antidote to the cynicism with which so many regard politics and politicians, and I join so many others in expressing my heartfelt sympathy to his family. He was, of course, a Conservative, and his conservative beliefs were deeply held and truly felt. However, as so many have said this afternoon, they did not in any way prove an impediment to his working with others across parties for the causes in which he believed.
Tributes: Sir David Amess MP — House of Lords, 2021-10-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as time is short, I will not say very much about David. So much has been said already. We both entered the House of Commons on the same day, along with my noble friend Lord Howard. David served for 38 years; I lasted 14 before I was asked to leave I am grateful for that in some ways, because I missed the cesspit that is social media. I used Twitter for about three months, but that was as much as I could stand. That is not to say that lots of negative material was directed at me, but social media is a cancer at the heart of our political system. The fact that people can write this stuff anonymously and without being accountable for it is something that needs to change David was an exceptional person, but there are many exceptional people at the other end of this building, as there are in this House. The role of an MP is not a job, but a vocation. At this moment, as we think of David’s family, we should think of the sacrifice they have made. There are the endless phone calls on a Sunday afternoon about drains, someone’s views or to say that "You’re not getting your message across". Those who have been in the House of Commons will be very familiar with those. There are the distractions—the inability to go and see your children play sport and so on. It is a complete way of life and the support which David had from his family is something we should all be profoundly grateful for. That he should be robbed of the joy of retirement and the chance of seeing his children perhaps go on to produce grandchildren is a particularly savage thing to have happened to such a nice man I looked at Hansard for this year to see what David had been saying. He spoke on topics from endometriosis to forced adoption, from car charging points to the Maldives fishing industry, from motor neurone disease to night flying, from knife crime to Operation Yewtree, and of course the now celebrated campaigns for city status for Southend and a memorial for Vera Lynn. Both David and Vera were great patriots and supporters of our country and, to echo the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, David was also a fantastic supporter of the union of the United Kingdom The launch of the campaign for the statue of Vera Lynn included a song called "Irreplaceable"—how ironic. David is irreplaceable to the people of Southend; he was a one-off—I hope that will not be used by anyone in the by-election campaign. I began to think about which song would be appropriate for David. I thought of Vera Lynn’s "When You Hear Big Ben, You’re Home Again", but then thought that, with David’s hugely energetic campaigns, it is probably "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" David Amess and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, worked tirelessly in support of persecuted Christians around the world. We should honour that by tackling these issues and recognising that it is in all our interests and in our nation’s interests that we support freedom of expression and freedom of religious belief. David Amess was a champion of that.
Tributes: Sir David Amess MP — House of Lords, 2021-10-18
Topic: Other
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I will pay a very brief tribute to David, based on 32 years of shared friendship in the other place. As my noble friend Lord Howard said, he was basically loyal to his party. Speaking as a former Chief Whip, of the 876 votes in the 2010 Parliament, David supported the Government 97.6% of the time. No one could complain about that. However, he was a man of strong principle, impervious to the bait of ministerial office, as my noble and learned friend Lord Clarke said When he voted against the Government, he did so on a matter of principle. Your Lordships might be interested to hear that he voted against the Government on the House of Lords Reform Bill in 2011. He also voted against military action against Syria, when the Government were defeated, and he opposed the badger cull, animal welfare being one of his special subjects. More recently, he actually voted against the Government on leaseholder compensation post the Grenfell tragedy, on which many of us may share his views His sunny optimism, revealed by that broad smile, his basic decency, his generosity and his modesty made him a great colleague. We would see him walking briskly from engagement to engagement with a sheaf of papers under his arm, his timetable fractured both here and in Southend by his willingness to stop and talk to colleagues. The shadow Leader mentioned his insistence that the House of Commons should not adjourn for the Christmas Recess until it had answered 18 issues of great importance to the burghers of Southend. Just pity the Leader of the House replying to that debate I mention one other factor about David. He was generous with his time and happy to visit and speak in the constituencies of Conservative MPs—an obligation often overlooked by his more self-important colleagues. He was also capable of mischief. He once came to North West Hampshire, and the convention is that the visiting speaker pays a glowing tribute to the industry and energy of the incumbent, however well founded in truth that may be. But there was none of that from David. "Great to be here in George’s patch," he began, "but I don’t want to waste time talking about him. I want to tell you about myself." Reading and listening to the tributes paid to David over the weekend, I asked myself whether people would join the dots and link the tributes we are paying to David today with those we paid last week to James Brokenshire and those we paid earlier to Jo Cox. I realised that those public servants, whom fate has cruelly taken from us too early, were between them more representative of this country’s often-abused public servants than the bad apples who get us unfavourable publicity. David’s family has expressed the hope that some good should come from this tragedy. David was essentially a generous man, and he would not mind sharing some of the tributes to him more broadly if it helped to change the perception of the profession to which he has selflessly given his life.
Tributes: Sir David Amess MP — House of Lords, 2021-10-18
Topic: Other
David John Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I was also elected in 1983, but I first discovered Sir David’s fundamental decency, integrity and courtesy when I was a junior Whip. Later, I was David’s Chief Whip for four years. I held him in the highest regard because he was the sort of MP we Chief Whips liked and rated—not because he sycophantically voted for us 96% or 97% of the time, but because he always told us well in advance on the 3% of occasions when he could not because his conscience and constituency priorities prevailed. Chief Whips can live with MPs who have that level of courtesy and decency As has been said, he was deeply religious. That clearly influenced his views on political issues, but he was always capable of seeing the other point of view. He always disagreed with the viewpoint, not the person making it; that is a sign of greatness and generosity of spirit. He followed the great commandment of Jesus to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. Well, David loved 70,000 neighbours —all his constituents in Southend West—and people further afield in the UK and even further afield around the world, as has been said. In fact, those suffering in the world were David’s neighbours—and not just people; as the great hymn by Cecil Alexander says: "All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all." If the Lord God made them, David Amess defended them I say this carefully: I think that David died a Christian martyr. I mean "martyr" in the proper Greek derivation of the term meaning a witness and nothing else. He died a witness to his belief in the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity and to their practical realisation, including in working for others until the very end. He did his duty to his God, his family, his constituency and his country. What truer passport is there to eternal life? I am reminded of the opening to the anthem "In Paradisum", which was sung at the funeral of Lady Thatcher. It begins: "May the angels lead you into paradise"— but there will be no resting in peace for David Amess in paradise, for even now he will be campaigning among the angels and archangels for heaven to be granted city status I pass on my sincere condolences to Lady Amess, David’s children and all those others who may have been traumatised by his awful murder. It was a privilege to know him and I really liked serving with him.
Tributes: Sir David Amess MP — House of Lords, 2021-10-18
Topic: Other
Patrick McLoughlin (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I had the pleasure of getting to know David when I first came into the House in 1986 after a by-election, and he was incredibly helpful to me at that time. Like my two predecessors in the Whips’ Office as Chief Whip, I got to know him over a period of time. It is fair to say that David followed two Whips: the Conservative Whip and the Whip of the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church would always take precedence over the Conservative Whip. However, I am glad to say that they did not often collide, on parliamentary occasions at any rate David was a man of true belief and deep conviction. After what happened to him last week, his family will be asking, "Why?" I do not think there is an answer. It is random devastation—devastation that could affect almost any parliamentarian. As we have heard today, the issues that David covered, the projects that he raised and the campaigns that he fought for and fronted were so widespread that everyone could see what a superb constituency Member of Parliament he was One of the things about the House of Commons is that sometimes we come across some very strange people. They are well represented in Parliament overall, and Parliament is stronger for it. We have to come across those people, meet them and listen to them—although sometimes we might not listen for too long. I hope his family can come to accept that while their husband and father was taken from them and he cannot be replaced, this was a random attack by an evil person.
Tributes: Sir David Amess MP — House of Lords, 2021-10-18
Topic: Other
Ian McColl (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I also pay tribute to Sir David, whom I admired and with whom I had dealings over many years. It would be a fitting tribute to him if all in both Houses would emulate his gracious words and actions and avoid, as he did, aggressive words, false allegations and visceral hatred. Such an improvement should also involve the media. This would be a great tribute to a great man, a loyal friend and a fine Christian gentleman.
Tributes: Sir David Amess MP — House of Lords, 2021-10-18
Topic: Other
Thomas Ashton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as I explained earlier, we have to end now because the House is going to join the House of Commons and process at 5.30 pm behind the Lord Speaker to St Margaret’s. However, I am of course aware that many other noble Lords would have liked to pay tribute to Sir David today. Those Members who have not had a chance to speak may email their speeches to Hansard by noon on Friday. Those speeches will be included in a special collection of tributes published by Hansard which will be sent to Sir David’s family. I shall now adjourn the House so we can join the procession starting at 5.30 pm from the Chamber.
Procedure and Privileges — House of Lords, 2021-10-25
Topic: Other
John Taylor (Conservative, Centre-right): At the end insert "with the exception of the recommendations relating to the conduct of divisions which should be reconsidered by the Committee because this House regrets that the proposals would (1) remove tellers from the process of divisions, (2) end any oversight of the process by Members of the House, and (3) lead to congestion through the voting lobbies and in Prince’s Chamber; considers that the Report takes insufficient account of the importance of securing tellers for votes and having votes counted in the lobbies; regrets that the process of making changes to the established processes of conducting divisions has been rushed; and believes that the implications of no longer requiring (a) the Lord on the Woolsack to repeat the Question and take the voices after three minutes, and (b) the appointment of tellers, need further consideration".
Procedure and Privileges — House of Lords, 2021-10-25
Topic: Other
Sheila Masters (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I remind the House that one precious feature of your Lordships’ House is that we are self-regulating. During the Covid pandemic, we had to do a lot of things where that went a little bit to the side lines. Now that we are operating nearly normally, we must look again at the extent to which we are a self-regulating House. We cannot be a self-regulating House if a report is produced at the back end of a week, we are notified on a Friday that a Motion will be on the Order Paper for Monday and an important change to our procedures is just pushed through that quickly. An element of being a self-regulating House is that we have a proper debate, not only in this Chamber but also in all those informal exchanges among colleagues across the House that we are accustomed to. We must find that essence of our House again. I hope that we do not divide today, although I would be inclined to support any amendment against this Motion. I hope that the Senior Deputy Speaker takes these proposals away and brings them back in a way that demonstrates that we are a self-regulating House in charge of our own destiny.
Procedure and Privileges — House of Lords, 2021-10-25
Topic: Other
John Attlee (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have been both an Opposition Whip and a Government Whip on and off for about 17 years, since 1997. I am extremely supportive of my noble friend Lord Taylor’s amendment to the Motion; I believe that the proposals in the report are a recipe for disaster and unintended consequences. I sincerely hope that my noble friend the Senior Deputy Speaker will come to the Dispatch Box right now and tell us that he will withdraw his Motion.
Procedure and Privileges — House of Lords, 2021-10-25
Topic: Other
Stuart Polak (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, before he does, could I just have my say? It is an honour to be a Member of this House and I am one of the newer Members, but I have been here a little longer than 24 days. My point is—my noble friend Lord Taylor was right—that the rush is doing nothing for our reputation. The general public are watching us from the outside, and I repeat: this is doing nothing for our reputation as a House I hope that the Senior Deputy Speaker will end this now and take the message, which is clear from all of us, to revise the report. This is such an important place to be, and I do hope he will now get it right.
Procedure and Privileges — House of Lords, 2021-10-25
Topic: Mixed Topics
Patricia Elizabeth Rawlings (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I support the amendments tabled by my noble friends Lord Cormack, Lord Taylor and Lord Forsyth, and by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I wish to say just a few words urging the Senior Deputy Speaker to withdraw his Motion on behalf of a totally different subject than anybody has mentioned today, but which is in the report: heritage. It is a totally different angle, and it is a serious side of this debate English Heritage objected to the voting in the Royal Gallery. Perhaps it should object as well to the Prince’s Chamber, which is just as important as the Royal Gallery. I see that the preparations for this new voting chamber have already been erected as an ugly pair of gallows looking like they are ready to hang your Lordships, rather than vote. Forgive me Poor Pugin, who dedicated a major part of his life to the Palace of Westminster, with all the details and craftsmanship, would be horrified by the suggestions and the way they have been so thoughtlessly done. Even last week, I am afraid, a chrome lavatory bin with plastic bags hanging out of it appeared by the clerk’s desk in this Chamber, and only recently Pugin door handles have disappeared from the doors because they were being replaced as fire doors Voting terminals in the Division Lobbies are surely sufficient. Social distancing has already been abandoned in the Chamber, the Cholmondeley Room, the shop and other parts. Either we are back or not. Most importantly, as my noble friend Lady Noakes said very clearly, this is a self-regulating House. It is being seriously challenged by bureaucracy in the form of the Commission I recommend masks, as in an operating theatre the surgeons and nurses always wear masks, as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, knows. If they can wear them, we can wear them.
Procedure and Privileges — House of Lords, 2021-10-25
Topic: Other
Patricia Elizabeth Rawlings (Conservative, Centre-right): I support the noble Lords’ amendments and urge my noble friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble, the Senior Deputy Speaker, who I know appreciates the aesthetic and beauty of this Palace of Westminster, to withdraw his Motion.
Procedure and Privileges — House of Lords, 2021-10-25
Topic: Other
John Taylor (Conservative, Centre-right): Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I might ask for a point of information. First, does he no longer intend for us to change our system of voting on 1 November? Secondly, can we have some reassurance that he has taken on board the comments made about the Lobbies, telling and timings of Divisions for the future, when it is considered by the House that it is sensible for us to use the Lobbies in full?
Procedure and Privileges — House of Lords, 2021-10-25
Topic: Other
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, will the noble Lord just consider one thing, which I put forward as a constructive idea: having, at least once a quarter, a session for two or three hours in the Moses Room that he would preside over and to which all Members would be able to come? He could bring us up to speed on things that were under discussion. Members would genuinely feel that they were being consulted, which is terribly important.
Procedure and Privileges — House of Lords, 2021-10-25
Topic: Other
John Taylor (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I can think of no finer phrase to sum up the noble Lord’s intentions. In light of him agreeing to take the report back for more consultation and consideration, which is all that I asked for at the beginning of my speech, I am very happy to withdraw my amendment, and I thank the noble Lord for the way in which he has dealt with the issues.
Free Trade Agreement: New Zealand — House of Lords, 2021-10-25
Topic: Mixed Topics
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope I can reassure the noble Lord that this is a comprehensive deal. Many working groups have brought it to this stage, which is an agreement in principle. To reassure the House, this stage is now leading to signature and, once signed, the deal will be presented to Parliament. I am sure the noble Lord and others will have the chance to debate it It is very much part of the deal to allow greater flexibility for individuals to travel between the two countries. It will allow families, for example, to travel to New Zealand and stay there for a time. To answer the noble Lord’s question, that period of time is yet to be clarified, but it is part of the deal. I am sure it will be greatly beneficial to those doing business from the UK to New Zealand, and vice versa.