argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Commons, 2016-06-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Does the hon. Lady agree that the difference is that, in the days of Bletchley Park, we were at war? We are not at war now. What we are concerned to do here is not to assist this country’s enemies, but to protect the privacy of the people who live here, who include her constituents.
Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Commons, 2016-06-07
Topic: Other
Elizabeth Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I have to say that the Minister’s tone does not really reflect that which some of his hon. Friends used when addressing this debate. I have felt completely patronised at times today, because people on the Government Benches have been shouting, "You don’t understand this Bill." Just because we take a different view or come at things from a different angle does not mean that we do not understand. The right hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan) shakes his head, but it was offensive to have to listen to that nonsense, particularly when it was directed at my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), who is a learned QC and certainly does know what she is talking about.
Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Commons, 2016-06-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I and my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) have added our names to the amendments tabled to clause 68 by the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and we will give them our support if they are pushed to a vote. However, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is regrettable that the opportunity has been lost at this stage to have uniform protection across the face of the Bill for communications with journalists, lawyers and parliamentarians?
Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Commons, 2016-06-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Gavin Andrew Stuart Newlands (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I could not agree more with the right hon. Gentleman. I will come to that point shortly The question of who retains the information is secondary to the fact that it will be retained and accessible in the first place. The Government have, true to form, merely contracted out data retention to the private sector. Many people share unease about the security of this information. As we have seen recently, private providers are susceptible to sophisticated hacking operations. The consequences, should this information get into criminal hands, are deeply worrying. Indeed, the Joint Committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill shared similar concerns when it said that storing weblog data, however securely, carried the risk that it might be hacked into or fall accidently into the wrong hands.
Football: Television Rights — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Questions: If he will take steps to ensure that football supporters from all nations of the UK have non-paying access to watch their national team play on TV.
Gavin Andrew Stuart Newlands (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Like every other football fan on these islands, Scottish fans are looking forward to Euro 2016. We have our wallcharts at the ready and will be watching keenly. During qualification, however, we were unable to watch significant matches, including those against the world champions, Germany, on free-to-air channels. This month, we will be able to watch matches such as Romania versus Albania and Iceland versus Austria. How can those fixtures be regarded as of national interest when those of our national teams are not?
Divisions — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Other
John Joseph McNally (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): We will all be aware that on Monday night we began voting on the Investigatory Powers Bill at 8 pm and finished voting at 11.14 pm. Members’ meetings and other engagements were disrupted for three and a quarter hours for only four votes. Our colleagues in the Scottish Parliament are able to vote on all Divisions at once. What consideration has the Deputy Leader of the House given to a daily unified decision time?
Divisions — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): One of the defences the Leader of the House has previously given for the current voting system is that it allows Members to grab a Minister in the voting Lobby. The thing is that guys on the SNP Benches are never in the same voting Lobby as Ministers. The 269 Divisions in the last Session meant that we spent roughly 60 hours of our time hanging around in the voting Lobbies, which is equivalent to a football player’s entire season in the premier league, so are we going to see electronic voting or the continuation of an inter-party league?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Stephen Patrick Gethins (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Scottish National party welcomes the extension to registration. Our right to vote is precious, and we all bear responsibility for giving people that right, so I thank the Minister for coming to the House today. I also agree with the comments made by the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), who said that we would rather avoid legislating for an election during an election period, but we are where we are It is essential that everyone who wishes to register is able to do so, and the SNP will back the Government today on extending the registration window. This is a critical vote, and Members across the House with different views recognise the importance of this referendum. It will affect future generations, and it will have a much more substantial impact on younger voters, who will have to live with the decision that we make in two weeks’ time, than it will on older voters. We are on the final straight; there are two weeks until the referendum. Will the Minister assure us that there will be a post-match analysis, so that we can consider what lessons we can learn from what happened over the past 48 hours?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Thomas Sheppard (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is important that there is a steward’s inquiry at a later date into what happened. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must also consider the effect that moving to individual electoral registration has had on this issue? Every time the register is compiled, there is a surge of new people joining it for the first time; this year, I fear that we may have had the additional burden of a lot of people who were previously on the register checking to see whether they are still on it, or realising that they are not, and that has created a big spike in demand.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Stephen Patrick Gethins (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend raises a good point about people double-checking. I double-checked myself, and I encouraged others to do so, so I wonder whether the Government will consider that I also ask the Government to consider what lessons can be learned from Scotland. During the independence referendum, voter registration was at 98%, and everybody involved in that process should rightly be proud of themselves. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) has also reflected on that. Having had 98% registration, we had an 85% turnout in the referendum, with huge voter participation on both sides, and we should learn from that. I hope that we will reach a turnout of 85%, or even higher, in the referendum, as I am sure that colleagues across the House do, although I am not sure we will quite get there.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Stephen Patrick Gethins (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. If, as has been suggested, younger voters are the ones registering, I encourage that, and perhaps we should consider giving 16 and 17-year-olds the vote. Evidence shows that the younger a person engages in the political and democratic process, the more likely they are to be engaged in the long term, so I hope we can reflect on that.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Stephen Patrick Gethins (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point that ties into the one raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard). My hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) and other SNP Members have wondered whether we should start looking at automatic registration. We want to encourage people to register, and we do not want this problem in future. Automatic registration works in other countries, and it can be a better and cheaper system. Will the Minister commit to considering automatic registration when he conducts that post-match analysis? In conclusion, the SNP welcomes the extension to the registration period, and we encourage as many people as possible to take part in the important decision in two weeks.
Regional Airports — House of Commons, 2016-04-28
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Inward tourism is a major industry in Ayrshire, whether it be for golf and sailing or the Scottish Dark Sky Observatory. My local airport, Prestwick, has 660,000 passengers a year, but no connection to London—and, on the basis of discussions I have heard in this place, there is no sign of a connection to London. Will the Minister consider developing a strategy to support regional airports with connectivity in the short and medium term to bring more inward tourists?
World Autism Awareness Week — House of Commons, 2016-04-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Hannah Mary Bardell (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is making interesting and powerful points and has mentioned the problem that people with autism face. In my office I have employed someone on the autistic spectrum. Does the hon. Lady agree that we need to change the narrative in some respects, because people on the autistic spectrum have specialist and incredible skills, and it is so important that we are positive about those people and the opportunities that they provide to society?
HMRC: Building our Future Plan — House of Commons, 2016-04-28
Topic: Domestic Commerce
William Arthur Roger Mullin (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that the loss of service will not only be geographic? Specific services are being abandoned. For example, HMRC has recently announced the abandonment of its valuation check service for small and medium-sized enterprises, thus completely compromising employee share ownership schemes.
HMRC: Building our Future Plan — House of Commons, 2016-04-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Charles Stephens (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am aware of that and I hope to touch on it later. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention Middlesbrough has the third highest unemployment rate in England, and nearly 3,000 people are already on the dole in Bootle, while Derry has the highest unemployment rate of any constituency. To see those places on a list guaranteed to create job losses at HMRC and in the wider community is to see a plan that will, in the words of the Public and Commercial Services Union, "consciously increase unemployment in areas which are already employment blackspots." I suspect that the word "Mapeley" will come up in the course of this debate, so let me touch on it. I referred earlier to the more than 700 offices formerly used by HMRC. Mapeley Estates snapped up more than 130 of them for its offshore property portfolio after loading itself up with debt in order to front up its side of this rotten charade with the then Government: 84% of the funding that Mapeley obtained to acquire that lucrative contract came in the form of loans. That shabby deal with a shabby company comes to an end in 2021. For the privilege of renting publicly built offices sold off for a song, HMRC will have the "right to occupy buildings, with leases based on market terms" after that date. That is very generous of Mapeley. I commend the National Audit Office on its 2009 report on the deal. It is redolent with phrases such as, "the Department has not achieved value for money…The Department did not fully appreciate the risks… The Department has not had strong processes to monitor the overall cost of the contract and whether it is achieving value for money" The Exchequer Secretary admitted to this House last year that the end life of the Mapeley contracts represented a "one-off opportunity to make this change to the estate footprint."—[Official Report, 24 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1300.] That is part of the truth behind the closures—a private finance initiative deal worth billions from the public purse, used to enrich a Bermuda-domiciled corporate entity, with the public left with nothing at the end of 20 years, except the right to sign a commercial lease I will end with the words of a PCS member and HMRC employee, my constituent Bobby Young, who is chair of the PCS Revenue and Customs branch: "Whilst my branch welcomes the news of a slight increase of jobs in Glasgow, we absolutely oppose it if it comes at the cost of jobs elsewhere. Communities from Bathgate to Bootle will be devastated by these closures—that is not a price worth paying for the sake of a few extra jobs in Glasgow." If anyone should know about prices, it is an employee of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Sadly, it seems that their superiors know very little about value.
HMRC: Building our Future Plan — House of Commons, 2016-04-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Hannah Mary Bardell (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Offices in my constituency are going to be moved to Edinburgh, as are many others in West Lothian. I am sure he will share my concern that the number of redundancies in February was the biggest ever across the civil service, and that carers and people with disabilities are being disproportionately affected by those compulsory redundancies. We should be doing all we can to support them and stand up for their jobs.
Turkey — House of Commons, 2016-07-19
Topic: Immigration
Lisa Cameron (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I warmly congratulate the Minister on his new and elevated role. What discussions has he had with colleagues in the Department for International Development to ensure the safety of and provisions agreed for refugees, including humanitarian aid arrangements?
Homelessness — House of Commons, 2016-07-18
Topic: Housing
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for his answer. Part of the difference in Scotland is that we abolished the right to buy, thereby allowing housing stock to be maintained. Will he also look at Wales, which has seen a reduction in homelessness, too? Its interesting practice of early intervention is helping to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.
Social Housing — House of Commons, 2016-07-18
Topic: Housing
Questions: What assessment he has made of the potential effect of the UK leaving the EU on the level of funding available for social housing.
Kirsten Frances Oswald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The UK has had £43 billion of European Investment Bank loans over the past eight years, whereas non-EU countries such as Norway or Switzerland have had only £1 billion. Can the Minister provide any detail on his contingency plan for the funding of social housing and infrastructure projects when that EU finding inevitably dries up?
Rough Sleeping/Homelessness — House of Commons, 2016-07-18
Topic: Housing
Margaret Ferrier (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): According to the Combined Homelessness And Information Network database, 8,096 people slept rough at some point in London during 2015-16—a 7% increase on the previous year. With an ever-growing housing crisis in this city, when are the Government going to take action and learn lessons from the different approaches taken by the devolved nations?
Terrorist Attack: Nice — House of Commons, 2016-07-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Margaret Ferrier (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I was privileged to attend an inter-faith Eid celebration dinner last night hosted by the Ahmadiyya community—a group that the new Prime Minister is aware of, and a fine example of a group teaching love, not hatred, and committed to helping local communities by raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for UK charities. Does the Home Secretary agree that we need to work with our Muslim communities to ensure that they are not targeted by hate crimes in the UK and that they are not linked to appalling attacks, which they condemn?
UK's Nuclear Deterrent — House of Commons, 2016-07-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way in the last 10 seconds of his speech. Is he aware of the book by Peter Oborne in which the author tells of the Iranian leadership describing nuclear weapons as "haram"?
UK's Nuclear Deterrent — House of Commons, 2016-07-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Murray Alexander Law (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but he needs to listen to the facts. People are going hungry in this country, and people are going without jobs and are suffering. He may think that this status symbol is the most important thing, but I will not support it tonight and of course neither will my colleagues.
UK's Nuclear Deterrent — House of Commons, 2016-07-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Thomas Sheppard (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): As I was saying, we have to ask ourselves whether we are prepared to see the mass execution of non-combatants. Is it right to have the genocide of innocents? Unless the hon. Gentleman and the other people who support this motion can answer those questions in the affirmative, there is no deterrent at all and it should not exist.
Manufacturing — House of Commons, 2016-06-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Deidre Leanne Brock (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Secretary of State will know that Northern Ireland exports as much to the rest of the EU as it does to the rest of the world combined. Does she therefore appreciate just how important that makes continued membership of the EU to businesses in Northern Ireland, and will she encourage a remain vote to help those businesses?
Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Thomas Sheppard (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I do not think that we can understate the seriousness of the great catastrophe that has happened. If we consult the people of this country on such an important decision for the first time in 40 years, and deny tens of thousands of our citizens the ability to participate, that will tarnish and call into question the entire process. It is not enough to come to the House and say that registration is open and it is okay for people to continue to register; we need an assurance that people who register today and from now on will be able to vote on 23 June. I had hoped that the Minister would have come here today not just to say that there might be a need for legislation. We want to see it! The Government should bring forward the emergency measures, and they will have the support of the SNP.
Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): In 2014, we achieved 98% registration in Scotland and an 85% turnout, with no collapse of a website or registration, and no difficulty at the polling stations. However, we were not starting from a position where hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens had been effectively disfranchised by the process of individual registration and the lack of electoral canvass. The Government were not worried about that, because it mostly involved young people whom they did not think would vote for them anyway. Now the Minister is concerned, and he is standing in this House, hoist by his own gerrymandered petard.
Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond), I remember the glorious sunny day in September 2014 when hundreds of people queued up outside their local authority offices to hand in their voter registration forms. Were any lessons learned from the surge before the Scottish independence referendum and the 2015 general election? Will the Minister confirm whether there is now capacity to deal with any further surge when the deadline is finally announced? As the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) hinted at, will he also confirm that we are talking about online registration and that the paper registration deadline has passed?
BBC White Paper — House of Commons, 2016-06-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
John MacKenzie Nicolson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I welcome this opportunity to speak about the BBC in the aftermath of the publication of the Government’s White Paper on charter renewal and the Secretary of State’s appearance yesterday before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, of which I am a member We on the SNP Benches are passionate defenders of public service broadcasting and independent journalism, so throughout the charter renewal process the SNP has engaged constructively in the debate about how the BBC can be protected and improved. At its best the BBC is unsurpassed. Since its foundation in 1922, the BBC’s mission has been, as we all know, to inform, educate and entertain. It forms one of the cornerstones of all our national lives. In our homes daily it can be an intimate friend or sometimes an infuriating relative, but we are proud of it at its best, not least for its world-renowned reputation Any organisation that is successful over such a period of time must adapt. It must be able to embrace changes in technology, as well as changes in the society in which it operates. Charter renewal allows the BBC and Parliament to take stock and assess what the BBC is doing well and where it needs to improve. For some on the Government Benches and in the press who dislike the BBC, the process holds out the opportunity to attack the corporation’s core functions, and indeed during the charter renewal process we saw some wild notions floated. Some, of course, were newspaper fabrications. Other were clearly the result of Government kite flying. All of us know how that works. Ministers are able to float fanciful notions for radical reform and assess the reaction before the Secretary of State fans himself with faux horror and tells us that, of course, he had absolutely nothing whatever to do with the ludicrous and impractical proposals splashed across the pages of the madder right-wing tabloids.