argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Commons, 2018-05-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady makes the important point that to have the full protection of staying in Euratom would be the best thing to do, not just on nuclear safeguarding but on a range of other civil nuclear activities, until we are absolutely certain that we have ticked every box and ensured that we have alternatives that are as good as what we have under Euratom. That, very largely, is what Lords amendment 3 seeks to do. It seeks to ensure that there is recourse to the full covering arrangements of Euratom if those boxes have not been ticked After waiting until the very last moment to tell us that Lords amendment 3 is not needed and will be opposed, the Government have finally come up with an amendment in lieu of their own that suggests that perhaps a fall-back plan is needed after all. Its wording is, in many respects, very similar to Lords amendment 3. It places the signing of these treaties as the essential element in securing the transition to a full nuclear safeguarding role without Euratom, and specifies, as amendment 3 does, what they are. That in itself is a considerable victory for those who counselled for this over a period of time, and is a substantial turnaround from the Government’s previous position. But, at the last, the amendment falls short. It places the option to decide not on whether principal agreements have been signed—for that will be evident, or not, at the time of departure—but on what one might call an interim stage on a fall-back which provides for circumstances where, at the beginning of a period of 28 days prior to exit, agreements may not have been signed and completed, but will in the Secretary of State’s opinion have been so signed before that 28-day period is up. In other words, there is a very abbreviated, but nevertheless significant, period during which the Secretary of State will decide whether treaties are going to be signed. That will, in effect, be putting off the relevant request to the European Council for an extension of the time during which Euratom provisions hold, because the Secretary of State thinks it is, after all, going to be all right. That is a far shorter period than under the original general provisions that the Secretary of State said he would try to organise and get right in time for exit from the EU, but we are still back to that assumption that it will be "all right on the night" with no complete plan B in place. I accept that the amendment in lieu proposed by the Government comes a very long way, and that it has taken a considerable amount of U-turning, if we want to call it that, to put in place these arrangements, but in reality it is not quite far enough.
Criminal Legal Aid — House of Commons, 2018-05-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Alexander Gordon Martin (Labour, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the basic fundamentals of our society is equality before the law, and that without access to legal aid, very many people are being denied equality before the law?
Criminal Legal Aid — House of Commons, 2018-05-08
Topic: Immigration
Michael Joseph Patrick Kane (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. My constituent Caitriona McLaughlin works in the particular area of migrants and justice. With the Bar refusing to take new work at the new rates, she says that more and more people will suffer miscarriages of justice because of this statutory instrument. Does he agree with her?
Criminal Legal Aid — House of Commons, 2018-05-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Karen Patricia Buck (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. On the issue of recruitment, is he not particularly concerned that if the Bar is to reflect the whole of society and is to draw more widely on people from less privileged backgrounds, black and minority ethnic backgrounds and so forth, it is essential that a career at the Bar is seen to provide a reasonable income?
Equality and Human Rights — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Stella Judith Creasy (Labour, Centre-left): "Cruel, inhumane and degrading"—not my words, but those of the United Nations on our treatment of women in Northern Ireland. Given the absence of an Assembly, why does the Secretary of State choose to recognise the importance of a free vote in this place on same-sex marriage while refusing to extend the same protection to Northern Irish women’s fundamental right not to be forced to continue an unwanted pregnancy?
Leaving the EU — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): The Department for Exiting the European Union’s own impact report predicts an 8% hit to economic growth in Northern Ireland—a part of the UK that has long been less economically developed than others—after we leave the EU. Why are the Secretary of State and the Minister prepared to let Northern Ireland suffer, when they could avoid that by following the Labour party’s lead and committing to a new customs union?
Leaving the EU — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Other
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): Order. Mr Speaker is attending the funeral of the late Michael Martin, who was Speaker of this House and a true family man who was committed to his community in Glasgow. I know that the House wants to pass on its prayers and condolences to his wife, Mary, and family There is important business to come in Prime Minister’s questions and we want to hear from as many colleagues as possible. May I remind all Members, Front and Back Benchers, to ask succinct questions? I trust that the replies will be as pithy.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Questions: Does the Prime Minister think that it was the Labour party voting against the abolition of stamp duty for 69,000 first-time buyers, or the Labour party voting against 50,000 extra school children getting free school meals that convinced local voters in the elections last week to vote Conservative as the only party on their side? That is why the Conservatives retained control of Westminster and Wandsworth councils, and it is why they gained control in places such as Redditch, Basildon and Barnet.
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): I would have thought that after 23 months, we would have a better answer than that from the Prime Minister How can the Government negotiate in the future interests of people’s jobs and living standards when Cabinet members are more interested in putting their own futures first? Fundamentally, how can this Government negotiate a good deal for Britain to defend people’s jobs and living standards when they are unable to reach an agreement between themselves?
Iran Nuclear Deal — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): Will this unilateral decision in effect mean that the United States—a country that we are setting great store by in terms of trade—will be introducing sanctions, or the threat of sanctions, against UK companies that continue to trade with Iran?
Iran Nuclear Deal — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): France, Germany and the United Kingdom have stood shoulder to shoulder in supporting the nuclear peace deal, and the US has walked away. Does that not show that it is not the customs union that is crazy, but the idea that we can instead have a trade deal with the United States that we think will put mutual interests before Trump’s and the US’s self-interest?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Immigration
Anna Rhiannon McMorrin (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your advice, after trying to raise this matter with the Prime Minister today. A constituent of mine’s wife and seven-year-old daughter are facing a deportation order next Tuesday. Having fled Saddam’s Iraq in 1998, Sarbast Hussain has served this country loyally and is a British citizen, but he has been waiting for a new passport since last summer. In view of the extreme urgency of this case, what recourse is there for me to help them urgently to turn this around?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Other
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): The matter that the hon. Lady raises is not a point of order, but I understand her concerns. She has put them on the record and those on the Treasury Bench will have heard them. I suggest she raises this matter directly with Ministers or through other channels, and I am sure she will do so.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Other
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): I have not received any notification that the Secretary of State is about to make an appearance but, again, I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns, and I am absolutely convinced that he will find ways of raising them with Ministers directly.
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Secretary of State confirm to the House that the BBC, Channel 4 and every other broadcaster operates under much more stringent rules, and yet nothing seems to have got in the way of their powers of interrogation and investigation? Does he think that they are operating second-class investigations today?
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State has talked about victims of abuse, but he seems to have forgotten that Leveson was set up because of the victims of press harassment and abuse in the first place. Many of those victims have written to Members on both sides of the House, rejecting the ridiculous IPSO scheme and asking for part 2 of Leveson to proceed. He has heard concerns from Members on both sides of the House today, so why will he not think again? What has changed his mind about those victims over the last three or four years?
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Ian Colin Lucas (Labour, Centre-left): May I bring the Secretary of State back to the United Kingdom and to Manchester last year? The Kerslake review said: "The panel was shocked and dismayed by the accounts of the families of their experiences with some of the media." That happened last year, so the Secretary of State should not represent the threats posed by press misbehaviour as being from the past; this is a real and pressing problem now. Will he keep his promise to the victims who have suffered from this in the past and are continuing to suffer from it?
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Christopher Paul Farrelly (Labour, Centre-left): May I add another voice? There is no journalist more respected on these shores than Sir Harold Evans, the former editor of The Sunday Times. He wrote to everybody today in support of the previous Government’s promises: "Whatever your party, I and many of my associates, look to you to honour that commitment. To renege would be an affront to every citizen who suffered intrusion, but also the many independently-minded journalists of talent and integrity." Is it not time today for fair and independently minded MPs to vote as Sir Harry advises?
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): That point is well put by the hon. Lady. If there is one ambition that we share in this House, it should be not only for a free press, but for a clean press. The idea that there is nothing to see and that we should all walk on by has collapsed.
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): The point of inquiries is to get to the nub of the truth. There was much that the first half of the Leveson inquiry could not consider because of the courts cases that were ongoing. As a Member of this House, I want to know whether the press regulation system that we are setting up takes account of what we have learned about the sins of the past. I do not think that those sins should be buried and forgotten, and that we should walk on by—unless, of course, people are lucky enough to live in Northern Ireland.
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): I am listening very jealously to the hon. Gentleman. I would like the privileges he has just secured for Northern Ireland for the rest of the country, because the victims who live in England and Wales deserve the same rights.
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Other
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman may be assured by the process that he has been offered by the Secretary of State this afternoon, but the Opposition are not. We want Lord Leveson to be given the right to finish the job and do the work that he was commissioned to do by the last Prime Minister.
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): What I want to learn is the truth. I want to learn the truth about police-press collusion and I want to know how we improve our press regulation in the future, so that we have not just a free press but a clean press Let me make some progress. The Secretary of State offered us a second line of argument that has now collapsed. I am not quite sure of the exact words he used when he came to the House, but most of us walked away thinking that Lord Leveson was pretty content that the whole thing was going to be shuttered. The House can therefore imagine our surprise when Sir Brian Leveson said that he "fundamentally disagreed" with the Government’s decision to end part two of the inquiry. When Lord Leveson said that he wanted the terms to be revised, he meant that he wanted them to be expanded, not cancelled all together. The Secretary of State says that malpractice is in the past and that there is nothing more to see, officials are busy, inquiries are expensive and so we must move on. He intimated that Lord Leveson agreed with him when that was not in fact the case A third line of attack from the Secretary of State was that the review looked to the past and ignored the challenges for the press in the future. That was a legitimate challenge and if he studies carefully the words of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson), he will see that there is a new ambition to get into some of the challenges around fake news that were looked at by Brian Leveson. That was not enough to satisfy the Secretary of State, however. In a letter to Conservative Members—I did not receive a copy—he offered some more objections, each one of which we can knock down The Secretary of State, in his letter to his colleagues, says that the first half of Leveson was "full and broad" when in fact it was partial and incomplete. He says that newspaper margins are under pressure, as if economic hardship is now some sort of defence against the full glare of justice. He says that the effect of the proposals will be "chilling", when he knows that our fine broadcasters in this country operate under far more rigorous regulation than newspapers and that does not stop them pursuing the most extraordinarily brilliant investigations. He says that Sir Joe Pilling has "cleared" the IPSO scheme, but Joe Pilling was appointed by IPSO and IPSO itself says it does not comply with Leveson. He says that IPSO now has a low-cost arbitration scheme, but as the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) pointed out, MailOnline, Newsquest and Archant are all outside it, so it is not a universal scheme in the way the Secretary of State has tried to present it to the House this afternoon The final line of argument is that officials are very busy and inquiries are very expensive, and we should therefore just walk on by. I just do not think that that is good enough.
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): Mr Ford’s activity was, but not Mr Ford’s allegations that the activity is already under way Let me come on to the point the Secretary of State made about the future of press regulation. The scheme he voted for—it was elegantly designed, I think, by the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin)—was a good scheme. There have been a couple of important objections to it made by many of our constituents, but more importantly by many journalists in our local media. The first objection is that a royal charter is somehow tantamount to a state authorised, state-operated regulator, which will somehow impede free speech. Royal charters have for centuries been the basis by which we have given stature to universities and learning societies like the Royal Society. None of them confront restrictions on free speech in any way whatever. That argument, frankly, is fanciful.
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): Absolutely. It was a very delicate job. The structure put in place was designed to minimise any dangers to free speech but create incentives for the press to move to a scheme that gave low-cost arbitration and access to justice for victims. That is at the core of this debate I want to conclude with two points. The first is, I suppose, a plea to the House. If we have learned one thing from the scandals of the past 10 to 12 years—whether the expenses scandal, Hillsborough or Orgreave—it is that it is never the right thing to look at a scandal and decide that it is too expensive or that we are too busy to get to the bottom of what happened. That is the core of the argument to let Brian Leveson finish his job I want to give the last word to the father of Madeleine McCann. When Gerry McCann found out that the Government were proposing to scrap the second half of the Leveson inquiry, he said: "This Government has abandoned its commitments to the victims of press abuse to satisfy the corporate interests of large newspaper groups… This Government has lost all integrity when it comes to policy affecting the press." I hope that we can reflect on those harsh words this afternoon and rescue the integrity that is currently endangered by the Government’s determination to sweep aside the lessons of history.
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Paul Farrelly (Labour, Centre-left): The Select Committee, of which the right hon. Gentleman was a wonderful Chair, recently recommended unanimously, cross-party, the partial commencement of section 40 to give those publications protections—to protect investigative journalism—if they joined the approved regulator. That was one of the options in the consultation. What is wrong with that course?
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Other
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): I give way to the hon. Gentleman’s constitutional knowledge, but I do not give way to him on morality—and this is a question of morality and of promises we made. Remember the furore about all these events? Remember how people looked at us? Remember how all of us—Labour Governments too—were too close to the press, and how we said we would learn lessons? I take my responsibility too. We should have acted earlier. All Governments should take responsibility. To break this promise would be contemptible.
Data Protection Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): If the new clause was agreed today, the Secretary of State would within three months have to trigger an inquiry covering Northern Ireland. The point about consultation is precisely to consult with Members of the Assembly, Ministers, if they are in place, and those in Scotland as well. That is simply a point about consultation. I know the hon. Gentleman cares passionately about these issues I believe that the case is stronger, not weaker, than it was when a two-part inquiry was envisaged. Sir Brian says we should go ahead. When else do we put a presiding judge in charge of an inquiry and then ignore his advice? Frankly, it is extraordinary. As I said to the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), the wrongdoing turned out to be more widespread than we thought. I urge hon. Members, in the time left before the vote, to look at the Kerslake report on what happened in Manchester, because it is a shocking indictment of what a minority—I emphasise that it is a minority besmirching the good name of the whole press—did. I quote from it briefly: "One mother, who was herself seriously injured as was her daughter, spoke of the press ringing her on her mobile whilst she was recovering in hospital…The child of one family was given condolences on the doorstep before official notification of the death of her mother." This is what some of the relatives of the victims said: "By far the worst thing was the press", "They...are a disgrace, they don’t take no for an answer, they have a lack of standards and ethics," "The press were not respectful of grief." It is all very well people saying, "Everything’s changed", but to my mind, I’m afraid, that report is proof that not enough has changed, because the same intrusion into the lives of innocent people is carrying on.