argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Northern Ireland Question Time — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Other
Thérèse Anne Coffey (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have already indicated, we have given this matter careful consideration and, for the reasons I have set out, decided that it is not appropriate to introduce topical questions at Northern Ireland Question Time—and that would also be true for Wales and Scotland.
Northern Ireland Question Time — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Other
Thérèse Anne Coffey (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his place; I think that this is the first time he has asked a question from the Dispatch Box. I genuinely want to put across quite carefully the level of consideration that we have given to this matter. The Table Office is a very useful filter that enables us to ask questions that are in order. The risk is that Members could end up being ruled out of order while trying to ask their topical questions, which would not be good for their reputations either.
Divisions — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Other
Thérèse Anne Coffey (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government do not collect this information and do not have the information available. However, the House publishes a record of the time taken on all types of business in the House, and that will be available in the next Sessional Return when it is published in due course. As has been published, hon. Members had the opportunity to participate in 269 Divisions during the last Session, but the total time taken for all business that gave rise to one or more Divisions was 471 hours and 46 minutes.
Divisions — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Other
Thérèse Anne Coffey (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government made sure that on Monday a decent amount of time for debate was protected rather than compressed. On having a decision time, as in the Scottish Parliament, I suggest that separating decisions on an important piece of legislation from the discussion of them is not to the benefit of that discussion. We should try to ensure that we vote on matters that the House has debated. As we have seen in many debates, people have changed their minds as a consequence of listening to what was said.
Divisions — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Other
Thérèse Anne Coffey (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman has made an estimate based on the information I have just given him, but a lot of Members value the opportunity to see each other in the Lobbies. I recognise what he says about SNP Members often being in a different Lobby from the Government, but perhaps he should learn from his more experienced neighbours on the Labour Benches, who certainly use the voting process to grab Ministers when they leave the Lobby. Frankly, this Parliament spends more time scrutinising legislation than any other Parliament in the world, and I genuinely believe that our voting system is appropriate for that.
Divisions — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Other
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank you, Mr Speaker, and the Leader of the House for changing the list of initials under which we go through the Lobbies to vote. Moving the Gs to the left-hand column has speeded up the voting process, and as an H, it is now bliss to vote. I might add that I know from personal experience that it is very easy to vote against the Government and then to nip to the other Lobby to wait for the Minister to come out and ask them a relevant question.
Divisions — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Other
Thérèse Anne Coffey (Conservative, Centre-right): I was trying to suggest that that was what Opposition Members tend to do, but I recognise what my hon. Friend has said. As a C, getting the Gs in with us has seemed—apart from the fact that I now vote in the same queue as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who is a G—to increase the time it takes for us to vote. Nevertheless, we are all happy together in our Division Lobby.
Divisions — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): While I am sure we are all very sorry that the hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) had his dinner plans messed around on Monday night, may I urge my hon. Friend not to listen to those people who come here and within five minutes want to change long-established proceedings in this House that many of us value?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg to move, That the draft European Union Referendum (Voter Registration) Regulations 2016, which were laid before this House on 8 June, be approved It will probably help the House if I restrict my remarks simply to explaining the nature of this statutory instrument, as the issues it raises will no doubt be debated in the ensuing discussion. The House will already be aware that on Tuesday night, between 9pm and 10pm, there was a huge surge of applications for registration—three times as many in one hour as have ever been experienced—and that, as a consequence, the website crashed at around 10 o’clock. Therefore, there were two hours during which it was lawful to apply to register in time to vote at the referendum, but people were denied that opportunity. The House will also be aware that it is the Government’s intention, following the strong cross-party support and the Electoral Commission’s approval, to introduce legislation to enable people to apply for registration up to midnight tonight and, if they are registered, to vote in the referendum. I want to explain to the House how the statutory instrument will achieve that.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Other
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): I am listening to my right hon. Friend with great interest. He says that the website was down for two hours. What was the hourly rate of applications, and therefore what is his official estimate of the number of people who wanted to register in that timeframe but were unable to do so?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Other
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend asks a very good question. Unfortunately, I can give him only a very partial answer. We know as a fact that there were, if memory serves, 214,000 applications in the hour leading up to the crash. What we cannot know, because it is in the nature of the computer system that it cannot tell us, is how many people either tried or would have tried to apply during the succeeding 90 minutes or so during which they were unable to apply. The answer is therefore that I cannot tell.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I think the question that most people want answering is: what is the rationale for extending the period for voter registration by 48 hours, given that when the system crashed it deprived people of the opportunity to register for two hours? Why not 24 hours or 72 hours—why 48 hours?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): That is another very good question that I am very happy to answer for my hon. Friend. If we had been able to work out more quickly how to bring forward legally watertight legislation—in two or three hours, rather than 24 hours—it would have been possible to introduce the statutory instrument yesterday, and it might then have been possible to have an extension for a 24-hour period. We are anxious that the legislation should not be in any way retrospective, and it therefore makes sense that it should apply from midnight tonight, after the time at which this House and the other place will, I hope, have passed the statutory instrument. In the meanwhile, we have of course been doing our utmost to promulgate the fact that people can apply to register during this period and will still be able to vote in the referendum, thereby correcting the error that occurred as a result of the crash.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I can certainly give the hon. Gentleman that comfort. Northern Ireland will shortly move to an online registration system, and it is clearly desirable that it should do so Let me briefly explain how this statutory instrument achieves the intended effect and avoids a problem that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), the Chairman of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, when the matter was discussed yesterday. Our aim is to enable those who are applying to register up to midnight tonight to register to vote, if they are eligible, in the referendum on 23 June. That moves that date forward by 48 hours—two working days. The statutory instrument achieves that by taking an entire block of time, which used to elapse between midnight last Tuesday and midnight on 16 June, and moving it lock, stock and barrel, without changing any of the relationships within it, two working days forward. That is why, if Members look at the statutory instrument, they will see that it inserts in a whole series of pieces of legislation a date of 20 June, which would previously, either actually or in effect, have been 16 June. The reason why 16 June to 20 June is seen as two days rather than four is that the whole of our legislation is constructed around working days, and the Saturday and Sunday— 18 and 19 June—are therefore excluded. So we have taken a block of time and moved it two working days forward. The net effect of that is twofold, and only twofold. First, it achieves the intended effect of ensuring that people can register to vote in the referendum if they do so by midnight tonight; and, secondly, it means that the registers will be published at the end of the process by midnight on 20 June rather than by midnight on Thursday 16 June. No harm to mankind arises from the delay in the register being published The reason the SI solves the problem that was very rightly and acutely raised by my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee is that we retain the full five-day period for objections to applications, and indeed all the other aspects of the process, inside that block of time, because those relativities are not altered. I think that that is what led to the question from the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) about whether we could do exactly the same thing in future now that we have discovered that it does not cause any harm at the end of the process.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Henry Edward Millar Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): I very much welcome the fact that we are allowing people ease of registering to vote; I think we all agree with that as democrats. On the checking of who is eligible to vote, with large numbers seeking to be on the electoral roll, I have had a number of reports in my constituency of EU nationals being sent postal voting papers, and last night somebody called me to say that their 17-year-old daughter had received voting papers. What sort of assistance will be provided to electoral services officers and returning officers to ensure that the vote is secure in that sense?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): First, nothing that we are doing in any way affects any of that, because the blocks of time are unaffected and therefore all the processes have the same amount of time in which to take place as they would have done previously. Secondly, there has been, in a few cases, a problem with the issue of votes to people who were not eligible to vote. That problem has been inspected and cured. We need to make sure that in future elections it does not happen. Thirdly, I have no knowledge of what might have happened to someone who is 17. I am sure that if my hon. Friend takes that up with my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), the Minister with responsibility for constitutional affairs, the Minister will be delighted to look into it immediately.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend says that the problem of ballot papers being issued to those who are not eligible to take part in this election has been identified and cured. Can he therefore give us an idea of the scale of the problem? How many of these wrong ballot papers were issued?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Other
David Nuttall (Conservative, Centre-right): Can my right hon. Friend confirm that paper applications will also be considered even though they may have arrived in the post yesterday morning or this morning, in the same way as late applications made online will be considered?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Civil Rights
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the Labour party agree with me that it is very important that the will of Parliament on whether people from the continent of Europe can vote in the referendum is enforced? It is the clear will of Parliament and most British people that they should not vote. Does the hon. Gentleman have any independent intelligence on how many of them have wrongly been sent polling cards?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): It is obviously good news that the referendum is generating excitement among people of all ages who want to take part in the ballot. However, many students are doubly registered, at their home address and at their place of learning. So that those people do not get into trouble, should it not be made clear that even if they are legitimately registered twice, they cannot vote twice? Should that not be explained, especially to those who are voting for the first time?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): Most of us, from whatever side of the argument, accept that the greater the number of voters who take part in the referendum, the better, because a high turnout, with more voters participating, gives the result added legitimacy. The hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) is right that student preoccupations are many and diverse. They do not always involve study or graduation—certainly in my experience. However, perhaps one of the lessons for the future is that leaving registration until the last two hours possible may not be the wisest thing to do. Perhaps those who follow these proceedings will in future decide to register in plenty of time if they want to have their vote The sad tale of Government, the public sector and IT continues. This is yet another chapter in it. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said that, given the demand on the system, it was unsurprising that it crashed. I am very surprised that it crashed, so I would like to know one or two things. First, how much load testing was done? Why did not we anticipate that, when people realised that the referendum was getting closer, they would want to register? Why was sufficient provision not made in the system to allow for a spike in demand? That happened before the general election—it is not unprecedented. Why did the Electoral Commission not make sufficient arrangements to determine whether its system could cope with the demand? How do we know that it will not happen again? If we have another deadline tonight, how do we know that the system will not crash in exactly the same way?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): It might help if I answer that point now. A massive amount of load testing was done, and the system was tested with the assumption that we would not face anything like the extent of the difference between what had been experienced previously—for example, at the general election—and now. This spike was three times as intense as the one that occurred before the general election. For today and yesterday the system has been made twice as capacious as it was previously, and we would now have to have about six times as many applications as were made at the general election before the system crashed again. I profoundly hope that that will not happen.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): We also hope that such a crash will not happen again I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend provided further information either today, or to the House in due course. First, how many of these are duplicate applications? There is clearly a problem, and a lot of voters believe from the literature provided by the Electoral Commission that registering for the referendum is different from registering for the general election or any other election. A lot of voters have said to me, "I’m registered for the general election. Do I have to register separately for the referendum?" The information given by the Electoral Commission was less than clear, and I wonder how many of the applications are in fact duplicates from people who are mistakenly asking whether they are already registered.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Other
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is asking pertinent questions, and it will be useful to have them answered for the rest of the debate. We do not and cannot know how many applications are duplicates, because until they have been verified we do not know whether those people were already on the register. Anecdotally, we think that a large proportion of applications may be duplicates, but we will know that in aggregate only once we see the published register and compare it with previous registers.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): An important lesson will be to see whether a larger number of people register for the referendum than for the general election. If it is a much larger number, it suggests that the clarity and instruction given by the Electoral Commission had a good deal missing, which would be an interesting lesson for us all. On the competence of the Electoral Commission, let me return to the point that I raised earlier about ballot papers being sent to those who are not entitled to vote in the referendum. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend said that issue was identified and cured, and I wonder whether in due course a list can be published of those local authorities that say they had no problem, and of those that did have a problem, so that we can see exactly where the problem occurred across the country and its extent. I would be interested to know whether for some of those local authorities that said they had no problem that genuinely turned out to be the case, or whether it was an estimate about whether there was a problem or not. If the issue is so difficult to identify, it is difficult to believe that people can be so sure that they did not make mistakes in sending out those ballot papers I totally accept that this is a legally watertight mechanism, but to legislate for an electoral process during the election itself is not a precedent with which I feel entirely comfortable. I understand the emergency nature of this legislation, and I want as many people to participate as possible. I understand why the crash happened in terms of the technology, but I do not find it easy to agree to in effect changing the rules of any part of an election during the electoral process. We must be careful to state that this is an emergency procedure, and that we are not in any way accepting a precedent for Governments of the future to introduce changes to the rules while the game is in play.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Chloe Rebecca Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government have answered that point for themselves many times yesterday and this morning, but I think it was a foreseeable circumstance, what with the TV scheduling and the availability of online registration. I am, however, reassured by what I have heard today about a further multiplication of capacity. It is the right response. As I have said, retrospectively allowing for a further 48 hours—we hope that gets the message out—is a sensible solution I offer one more practical thought. If would-be registrants got as far as leaving their contact details on the site before it failed, it might be possible for them to be contacted directly in the remaining hours. I offer that as a suggestion. I know that it will not cover everyone who tried to register on Tuesday night, but it might be possible in some cases, and it would be a sensible thing to attempt, in order to avoid an unlawful or arbitrary loss of those citizens’ rights. I end with a point that The Economist made last week, in reference to American politics: "Any political party that hopes for lower turnout has lost its way…lawmakers must decide whether they still believe in the good sense of those they aspire to govern, or whether they lost that faith somewhere on the way to the statehouse." That should be the principle in all our hearts, both in this referendum and, crucially, as we go about politics from hereon in.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): May I correct any misinterpretation? Everyone I know in the leave campaign—in Vote Leave, in particular—welcomes the enormous interest and surge in the number of people registering to take part in the referendum. It was clearly imperative that something be done, if possible, to address the anomaly that arose on Tuesday night. I welcome the fact that young people in particular are registering, and I absolutely take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) that anybody in politics who thinks they will thrive on a lower turnout is not thriving in a democracy that we want to be part of There will be a time for an inquest, not just by the Electoral Commission or the Government, but by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. We have already pencilled in what we will do in the aftermath of the referendum, to see what lessons should be learned, and in the aftermath of the general election, individual registration and so on.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): I was going to come to that later but will deal with it now. With individual registration, it is imperative that every new registration is cross-checked with national insurance data and, if necessary, Border Agency data. There is no post-registration audit of electoral registers, so anybody who is mis-registered stays on them. This needs to be looked at, because we have no idea how many non-UK EU nationals not from Malta, Cyprus or Ireland are recorded as eligible to vote and have been sent ballot papers, not because of a software glitch but simply because they were mis-registered, either on purpose or inadvertently. Indeed, one electoral returning officer told a member of the House of Commons Library—off the record—that if somebody lies on their registration form and it cannot be checked, nothing can be done about it. The person still has to be registered. There is no way of cross-checking to find out whether someone has lied.