argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Appointment of Sir Roger Scruton — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
James Whiteside Gray (Conservative, Centre-right): Anyone who has taken the trouble to study any of the 70-odd books on the subject which Sir Roger has written, or read his extensive lectures and articles, will know that, quite contrary to how he is being painted by the Opposition, he is one of the most compassionate and even-handed men that I have ever met. He is my constituent and a good friend, and I know his works extraordinarily well. He is nothing like an antisemite, nor an Islamophobe . Nothing could be further from the truth, and it is an outrage to describe him as such Does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State not agree that someone who has written so well on the aesthetics of architecture—that is one book, and the classical vernacular another—is the most ideal person there could possibly be for this appointment? Rather than traducing him, which is what Opposition Members are doing for their own purposes, we should be congratulating my right hon. Friend on making an outstandingly good appointment.
Appointment of Sir Roger Scruton — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Housing
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): I do, and Sir Roger has been an important champion of this work. I believe he is the right person to chair this commission to enable us, yes, to have the debate that we want to have on this important issue and to see that we build the homes and the communities that our country needs.
Appointment of Sir Roger Scruton — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Housing
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): I note my right hon. Friend’s personal thoughts on aesthetics. I certainly will be looking carefully at further appointments to the commission, because it is important that we have a good reflection of views there so that we are challenging, thinking and making the case for building beautiful places that are designed to last and to reflect a sense of community and identity with the places in which we live and of which we should be proud.
Appointment of Sir Roger Scruton — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): The Clerk at the Table advises me that I am under no obligation to say anything about Sir Roger, because of course one meets all sorts of people in the course of one’s work and one’s life, but in the light of what the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) have just said, I simply inform the House that I have of course met Roger Scruton many times over the years. I express no view about the appointment—that is not for me to do—but I did read his book "The Meaning of Conservatism" in 1982 and I have read many of his articles over the years, and I simply took the view that this issue should be aired in the Chamber. That is what is happening, and Members are very properly expressing their views on the subject.
Appointment of Sir Roger Scruton — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Housing
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): I appreciate the support that my hon. Friend is giving to the work of the commission. I believe that our focus should firmly remain on how we build communities for the future, how we build a sense of community at their heart, how our built environment is key to all that and how Sir Roger has been a champion of freedom and liberalism, which is something that we should not forget.
Appointment of Sir Roger Scruton — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Other
John Henry Hayes (Conservative, Centre-right): I am extremely grateful, Mr Speaker. As has already been said, Sir Roger Scruton is an extremely distinguished academic with a long pedigree in these subjects. He has made the case—in direct contrast to that made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey)—for a gentle, generous and harmonious built environment, and it does the Secretary of State great credit that he has appointed Sir Roger as chair of this commission. As you have implied, Mr Speaker—although not said, because you would never breach the proper terms of your office—Roger Scruton will bring a lively, imaginative, well-researched report that will inform all of our thinking, and my goodness we need that after years of dull, egalitarian modernism.
Appointment of Sir Roger Scruton — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Other
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): I will not comment on my right hon. Friend’s last point, because I want the commission itself to come to some of those conclusions, but I know that he is a passionate advocate of this debate and that he has shown himself to be so on previous occasions. His comments on the contribution that Sir Roger will make are well made, as his comments always are.
Appointment of Sir Roger Scruton — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): Sir Roger is a leading philosopher, and his extensive work clearly provokes responses and debate, as it is intended to do. However, my focus is on the core skills that he brings to his work on beauty in the built environment, which is why he is so well placed to do this work.
Appointment of Sir Roger Scruton — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Other
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure that, like me, the Secretary of State noted the contrast between the claims of widespread outrage from the shadow Secretary of State and the fact of the virtually deserted Labour Benches behind him when he made those claims. Does my right hon. Friend agree that many of those accusations are easily refuted by actually reading what Sir Roger Scruton has written and said, rather than by selectively quoting him?
Appointment of Sir Roger Scruton — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Other
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with what my hon. Friend has said. Many of the allegations, claims and smears have been highly selective and taken out of context. I would certainly encourage people to read all the articles that they have sought to point at, and they will see that their claims are misjudged.
Appointment of Sir Roger Scruton — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Other
Jeremy John Elton Lefroy (Conservative, Centre-right): If the qualification for such an appointment is that someone should not have said anything offensive or controversial to anyone during their life, how many Members of the House—with the exception of course of you, Mr Speaker—does my right hon. Friend think would qualify?
Appointment of Sir Roger Scruton — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Civil Rights
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): The short answer is probably very few, which is the point my hon. Friend is making. We need people who are prepared to come forward to advise Government and provide support. It is important that we continue to attract skilled, talented people to do that, and the Government will continue to champion freedom of expression and speech.
Appointment of Sir Roger Scruton — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Other
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said in my initial response, this has been misjudged. Professor Sir Roger Scruton is one of the most qualified people in this field to do this job, and that is why I am so grateful that he has said yes. I look forward to working with him.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Member for giving me notice that she wished to raise this matter on a point of order, and I trust that she also informed the Secretary of State of her intention to do so. The hon. Lady has made her view clear and it is on the record. If the Secretary of State believes that she has inadvertently misled the House she can, and in those circumstances should, take steps to correct the record. It may be—I put it no more strongly—that she takes a different view of the matter Perhaps I can say, without fear of contradiction by any Member of the House, that it is not uncommon for Members to interpret the facts of a matter in different ways. I am grateful to the hon. Lady.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): It is open for a Minister to do so In response to the hon. Gentleman, I take the opportunity to observe that I am not aware that a Minister plans to come to the House to make a statement on this matter. However, I believe this matter has crossed my desk before, and Members have expressed interest in it. He will know that there are means open to him to ensure that the matter is discussed in the Chamber. I offer him no guarantee of that, but in lieu of and, if you will, as a backstop against the unwillingness to volunteer a ministerial statement—yes, I know we do not want to talk too much about backstops—it is perfectly open to him to deploy that device, and the same goes for other Members.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend, as usual, makes a very significant point, which is that by increasing the national living wage by, as I said earlier, 4.4% last year, and by 4.9% coming up in April next year, and by raising that personal allowance to take more and more people out of tax altogether, we are supporting the lowest paid in our country.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Robert William Henry Seely (Conservative, Centre-right): I support so much of this Budget, which was superb, with the cut in business rates and, especially, the beer duty freeze. Will the Minister agree to meet me and pub owners from the Isle of Wight, because there is still a problem with the way that publicans—small business owners—are being treated by the big pub companies, especially Enterprise Inns, which has quite an aggressive business style that is pushing many of my local pubs into bankruptcy? Is there more that we can do on the pubs code?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): As the hon. Gentleman will know, the scope of this tax is very clearly targeted on businesses that make substantial value in the United Kingdom as a consequence of the interaction of UK users and the digital platforms they trade across. He will know that there is a small number—relative to the size of the UK economy—of important businesses that are therefore within the scope of the measure. A figure of 2% is very much in line with the kind of figures that the EU was looking at or is continuing to look at—[Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) is talking about 3%, but she is not actually comparing like with like, because different revenues would be in scope under the two different approaches. The short answer is that this has to be proportionate: it is about levelling the playing field. Along with this particular measure, we have also announced that, for our high streets, we will be reducing business rates by a full one third for 90% of smaller retailers.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): Given that digital companies know no borders, does the Minister agree that, while we take this first step to introduce taxes on international digital companies, it is important to continue to work with our neighbours and others across the world on an international effort to do so?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Other
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) asked a very straightforward question, and I am going to give the hon. Gentleman another chance to answer it. Will he, as suggested by my hon. Friend, engage in cross-party support—yes or no?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Housing
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Indeed. Modern diesel engines are much cleaner, and are comparable to petrol engines. The Government have damaged our industry needlessly, and that, along with the squeeze on car loans, has led to a sharp drop in car output, which is not welcome. The other issue is stamp duty. The Government have cut it for many people, which is extremely welcome, and I am pleased that they are continuing the trend so that houses can become more affordable for those who do not own them. However, we need to think about people who are trying to buy a different house, perhaps to move up the property ladder in expensive parts of the country; we need to think about the impact of transactions at the dearer end on chains and on people buying cheaper houses; and we need to think about the workloads of removal firms, estate agents, decorators and so forth I think that the Government have overdone the tax attack at the top. The market has become ossified, and they must be losing quite a lot of revenue. As the Red Book shows, they are having to scale back the stamp duty revenue forecast, and I am sure that that is to do with the damage that the tax attack has done in relation to the more expensive properties.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Housing
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree. I do not think we will reach the happy position that my hon. Friend and I would like to see, with no stamp duty at all, but I think we could make a great deal of progress by introducing a more realistic stamp duty rate so that people could fulfil their dream of moving up in the world on the housing ladder, or go the other way and buy a smaller home or one in a cheaper location. At present, those penal stamp duties are getting in the way of all kinds of mobility and the fulfilment of aspiration. Surely we should be helping people to fulfil their aspirations, and the wish to live in the right home in the right place is an important part of that I strongly welcome the relaxation of austerity in the public sector. We did need more money for health services—I certainly needed it for the hospitals and surgeries in my part of the world—and for social care. More needs to be done, but there has been a bit of progress. I also strongly welcome the extra money for road improvement and maintenance, although, again, more needs to be done.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Housing
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): We want more housing for more people. There are people who need homes, and I am very much in favour of helping to provide them. The Government have many programmes relating to house building and more affordable housing, and that is all very welcome However, we need to continue the progress. We need to look at the defence budget, the social care budget, and the schools budget. Certainly, in both the West Berkshire Council and the Wokingham Borough Council areas—parts of which are in my constituency—we need more for our local schools. They are at the back of the queue for funds nationally, and the amounts that we are receiving are simply not enough to sustain the quality of service that we need to supply. There is one big issue overhanging this debate that few people ever seem to mention. I would like us to have access to the £39 billion that some people want to spend on the European Union withdrawal agreement. We do not owe that money, and I do not think we will get anything out of a 21-month additional period for an argument with the EU about the future relationship. If we cannot secure a good future relationship by March, I do not think it will be easier to do so once we have given all the money away, and signed and sealed a deal on it I urge the Government to regard the £39 billion as something that we Leave voters voted to take back control over, and to spend on our priorities. What a transformation we would see both in our public services and our economy if, instead of signing that money away in a withdrawal agreement in the naive hope that it will produce something better—which it will not—we spent it on our priorities. We could have tax cuts with a tax cost, not just tax cuts to raise more revenue in the instances that I have described; and we could have quite a lot of extra money for our schools, hospitals and defence, and our other priorities, much more quickly. We know we have access to that £39 billion over a two to three-year period, because we know the Chancellor has costed it all and made provision for it. Most of it would be spent during the period, which, over that time, would provide a 2% boost for our GDP. That would be an extremely welcome addition, and it would be rather like what the United States of America is trying to do through easier monetary and fiscal policies than those that we are following I want a true end to austerity. I am with the Prime Minister in saying that we must end austerity, because ending it means more money for our schools, hospitals and other priorities. As I have explained, we can afford that, if only we do not keep on giving all this money to rich countries that do not want a free trade agreement with us. However, I also want to end austerity for all the people who work in the private sector, and that is about more tax cuts So, Government, well done so far; but be bolder, show more courage, and then you will create a much more prosperous country.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very clearly on the record as having supported changing the tariff that people can spend on fixed odds betting terminals from £100 to £2; it is absolutely the right thing to do. Let me be clear that it is quite extraordinary for a Labour Member to stand up and start lecturing the Government on having made an incredibly important and valuable change to legislation that rights the wrong of this fixed odds betting terminals—
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Alan Mak (Conservative, Centre-right): In 2017, we had a record number of start-ups in this country, with 660,000 new businesses, up from just under 600,000 in 2015. This Budget, along with the package of measures being introduced, helps entrepreneurs across the piece. I look forward to more entrepreneurs starting their own business in this country, as I and other Members have done across the country. The work allowance measure helps those who want to get off benefits and into work, and I welcome it.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Does he agree that the whole point about being an entrepreneur is not to be reliant on benefits, but to invest in a business, grow it and succeed, so that people can stand on their own two feet and support others, including those they employ?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Housing
Colin James Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I remind the hon. Gentleman that businesses in the north-east of Scotland—large employers there—are considering knocking down warehouses and large offices, which are not redundant, as they are still fresh and good buildings. That is happening in the north-east of Scotland. One such building in my constituency, which had 2,500 office workers, may well be lost very soon.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Housing
Colin James Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I could recommend to the hon. Gentleman that he reads the famous The Press and Journal, which I was in just under a year ago, standing in front of a building that had just been knocked down and which used to house 500 people in an office—I shall send him a signed copy of it. Buildings are being demolished in the north-east of Scotland.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alexander John Gervase Chalk (Conservative, Centre-right): Income inequality is declining. Any poverty is, of course, something that we want to address, but the best route out of poverty is through employment. If we were to ask individuals whether we should turn the clock back to 2010 when we had half a million more people unemployed, I do not think that they would choose to do so. The reality is that there is no true economic strength without fairness I must take issue again with the point made by the hon. Member for Warrington South. He suggested that raising the personal allowance a year early to £12,500, resulted in only "meagre" benefits—that was his expression. For the average family in my constituency, two wage earners each earning the average wage of about £28,000, that will mean a combined addition to the family budget of £260 a year. Does he want to stand up and seriously suggest that that is a meagre benefit? Does he? It is not a meagre benefit. It is more money in people’s pockets to focus on their priorities—on support for their children, support for their futures and support for their daily lives Strong families and strong communities require strong healthcare. It is important to note what managing the economy—taking a balanced approach—means for healthcare. It was the Leader of the Opposition who suggested during the last election that a 2.2% increase in health spending would make the NHS the "envy of the world". Well, it is this Government who will be spending 3.4% above inflation every year. The figures are stark: the total budget will go from about £122 billion a year today to £149 billion a year in 2023—a real-terms increase above inflation of £20.5 billion a year.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Other
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman is making comment on the speech given by my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Colin Clark), who is being reported as having said something he did not say. The hon. Gentleman should not be permitted to say that. How can that be corrected?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point, but it is a point of debate, not a point of order for the Chair. It is, I am very glad to tell the House, not my responsibility to adjudicate between Members who sit on the Government Benches and Members who sit on the Opposition Benches on particular points of fact. The hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) is in order in the eloquent speech he is making.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he does in the APPG on fair business banking. Many thousands of small and medium-sized businesses were mistreated by the banks during the period that we often discuss in the Chamber. Does he agree that it is vital for capitalism in this country and the enterprise economy that justice is done and seen to be done for them?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right. Capitalism depends on a fair and level playing field, and that is not where we are at the moment. As well as the expansion of the Financial Ombudsman Service, which we fully support, our all-party group proposes the introduction of a financial services tribunal that works in pretty much the same way as an employment tribunal. A company could take a bank to court without standing the costs of that bank, with full powers of disclosure, and justice could be seen to be done, which is critical.