argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Regional Infrastructure Development — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Lee Amesbury (Labour, Centre-left): Devolution in the Labour-controlled Liverpool city region and Greater Manchester is beginning to unlock opportunities for investment in infrastructure, research and development, and innovation in the north-west, allowing facilities such as the Daresbury campus in my constituency to develop and prosper. Does the Minister agree that if we are to be able to realise the full potential of our regions, devolution needs to extend to the many of my constituents and not the few?
Local Authority Funding — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on trends in the level of funding for local authorities since 2010.
Fiona Oluyinka Onasanya (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for that answer, but between 2010 and 2020, Peterborough City Council will have had its direct funding cut by 78.7%. Can she explain how my authority is expected to meet the rising children’s services and adult social care demands?
Deficit Reduction — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Transportation
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): Mr Speaker, you will know that I am not the most radical Member on the Labour Benches, but I want to tell the Minister that if the Government had been successfully reducing their budget, my constituents in Yorkshire could forgive her. The fact of the matter is that we have had the money for the electrification of the trans-Pennine railway stolen from us, and the Chancellor refuses to give it back. When will he make amends?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Macroeconomics
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): The Chief Secretary gave a speech last year calling for better value for money from the public finances and not spending money we do not have, and she has talked about not wasting money today, so how can she justify spending hundreds of millions of pounds on further tax giveaways worth £2,000 per child to the wealthiest families—those, for example, using private schools—via the tax-free childcare scheme? Is that not a waste of money and spending money we do not have?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: Last week in the Chamber, we yet again heard an Opposition MP complain that they believed they should personally be paying far more tax. Will the Minister confirm the mechanism by which anybody can currently do exactly that voluntarily?; Four in 10 of Enfield’s children are living below the poverty line, which is almost 34,000 children. The borough is the 11th most impoverished area for children in the UK, and my constituency is now among the top 20 constituencies in the country with the fastest growing levels of child poverty. Is the Chancellor pursuing any kind of joined-up policies with other relevant Departments to do what the Prime Minister said, and“make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us”,including those 34,000 children?; What preparations has the Treasury been making for leaving the European Union, and will the Treasury be ready on day one to ensure frictionless borders when we leave the European Union—deal or no deal?; “The health and social care system has been pushed to its limits in recent weeks”—those are not my words, but those of my local hospital trust. Last month, it was forced to cancel about 325 operations and 640 outpatient appointments. That not only means that my constituents who are unwell or in pain are being made to wait longer for treatment but makes the trust’s already challenging financial situation even worse. When is the Chancellor going to give our health and social care system the sustainable funding it needs?; Members have already raised the insufficient funding of local authorities by this Government. A recent campaign in Lewisham prevented local children’s and adolescents’ mental health services from being cut, but they are still facing a 5% loss in funding from national Government. When will the Government finally take this seriously and reverse the cuts to children’s mental health services?; Could the Chancellor set out the benefits or otherwise of the arrangements the Government appear to have for a customs union between Camden, Islington and Westminster?
Catherine McKinnell (Labour, Centre-left): Cold weather payments were triggered in all postcodes in my constituency yesterday—information that I shared on social media—yet a constituent contacted me this morning to say that when she contacted the universal credit people, they said they knew nothing about it. Given the freezing weather and the fact that people will be nervous about turning on their heating if they do not know they can pay for it, will the Minister work with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to resolve the situation as soon as possible?
Office for Students — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Education
Angela Rayner (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question Weeks ago, the Government told this House that the process was "a fair and open competition" and "in accordance with the code of practice".—[Official Report, 8 January 2018; Vol. 634, c. 42-52.] But the commissioner has found that this is not the case. One candidate was rejected on the basis of their past public statements. Incredibly, this was not Toby Young; it was the student representative, rejected due to the desire of "ministers and special advisers not to appoint someone with close links to student unions", as the report notes. Can the Minister tell us why being elected by students makes someone unsuitable to represent them? How could the then Minister tell us that it was not "reasonable" to vet social media, when that was done for the student representatives The report found that the appointment was influenced by special advisers at No. 10, and not by the panel. The commissioner concludes that, as the Minister said, the code was broken. Is the Cabinet Secretary now investigating that breach? Is the Minister’s predecessor really still suitable for ministerial office given the findings of this report? Does the Minister believe that after this level of interference we can possibly call the Office for Students an independent body The report also notes that an all-male appointment panel was used twice. Will the Minister end that practice immediately? The commissioner made a number of other recommendations. Will the Minister tell us which of the lessons that he talks about his Department will take on board? He has a simple choice: learn the lessons, or make the same mistakes again. What will it be?
Office for Students — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Education
Lucy Maria Powell (Labour, Centre-left): This report is absolutely damning, particularly in relation to the previous Universities Minister and his role in this appointment. Are there not very serious questions that the previous Minister should be answering to this House about his claim that it was not appropriate and not proper to do due diligence on candidates—he made that statement from the Dispatch Box—when his Department, and he himself, ordered that very same due diligence against a candidate he did not want to appoint? When is he going to come to this House to apologise, at the very least, else further action be taken?
Office for Students — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Government Operations
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): I beg the Minister to stick to the point. We do not live in some Soviet or Putin-style kleptocracy; we are supposed to be living in a modern parliamentary democracy in which public appointments are done properly, with scrutiny and transparency. That certainly has not been the case with this appointment, and it certainly was not the case the other day when the proposed chair of the Charity Commission was unanimously rejected by the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Why cannot the Government get this right?
Office for Students — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Education
Roberta Carol Blackman-Woods (Labour, Centre-left): I start by thanking all Members who signed the letter to the commissioner for public appointments asking for his investigation. I also thank him for yesterday’s response Despite what the Minister says, the report clearly shows a lack of proper process in the appointment of Toby Young and in relation to the student appointment. We need to hear a lot more from the Minister about how lessons will be learned. The commissioner did not look at the person specification, which required candidates to want to contribute to the delivery of the Government’s priorities—not that they should have experience of higher education—but that politicised the process right from the outset. What will the Minister do to address that and to get the person specification checked?
Office for Students — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Government Operations
Matthew Toby Perkins (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister has the audacity to talk about casting the net wider when another old Etonian mate of his friends has been appointed through a process that was utterly corrupt. The report says that the key question is whether each candidate was treated fairly and impartially; the answer here is no The Government are in absolute disarray, and the Minister is making the situation worse. He says that he is willing to learn lessons. Will he at least confront the fact that this process is not fit for a modern nation like ours?
Office for Students — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Government Operations
John Francis Spellar (Labour, Centre-left): Hard cases make bad law. It is absolutely clear that the previous Minister made an outrageous, dogma-driven choice in Toby Young and, as the current Minister has admitted, clearly failed to undertake due diligence. I urge that we should not allow that to lead to the abdication of responsibility for appointments to a self-perpetuating quangocracy that looks after the great and the good.
Office for Students — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Government Operations
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate the Minister on getting his alibi in early during his response to the statement. I should not have been surprised, because on 15 January, when he answered my written question, he unusually provided quite a lot of information about this appointment, which showed that he had looked under the stone and not liked at all what he had seen. Why is the Minister who was responsible for the appointment not being held to account for his actions under the ministerial code of conduct?
Office for Students — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Government Operations
Nicholas Dakin (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister rightly reminds us that this was a judgment call for the then Minister. Does this Minister think it was a sound judgment call to allow No. 10’s political advisers to blacklist anybody with NUS involvement and then to appoint somebody who was a chum by not following any proper process? Was that a good judgment call by his predecessor?
Office for Students — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Education
Paul Christopher Blomfield (Labour, Centre-left): As chair of the all-party group on students, may I express concern about how the credibility of the Office for Students has been damaged by the then Minister’s handling of these appointments? There is a legal requirement for one board member to have experience of representing students, yet it appears that Ministers have actually taken the best possible experience—involvement in a student union—as a reason to not make an appointment.
Office for Students — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Education
Paul Christopher Blomfield (Labour, Centre-left): I am sorry that the Minister shakes his head, because that is what the commissioner says in the report. Will he assure me that under the new process that he has indicated the Government will follow, involvement in a student union will not be a barrier to consideration?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Education
Roberta Carol Blackman-Woods (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation whether the person specification for the board members of the Office for Students had been checked properly and if we could be assured it met the requirements of the code for public appointments. He did not address that issue, so I wonder whether you could give any advice as to how we can take it forward.
Homelessness — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Government Operations
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): I should inform colleagues that, following recommendations from the Procedure Committee, this year the subjects for the estimates debates have been chosen by the Backbench Business Committee, based on bids from Members. The subjects chosen by the Backbench Business Committee were then recommended to the Liaison Committee, which in turn, under Standing Order No.145, recommended them to the House, which agreed to them on 22 February. The first debate will be introduced by Layla Moran, who should speak for no more than 15 minutes, in accordance with the Standing Orders. Because so many Members wish to speak, after Layla Moran has introduced the debate I will impose a time limit of six minutes Motion made, and Question proposed, That, for the year ending with 31 March 2018, for expenditure by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government: (1) further resources, not exceeding £296,942,000, be authorised for use for current purposes as set out in HC 808, (2) further resources, not exceeding £484,352,000, be authorised for use for capital purposes as so set out, and (3) a further sum, not exceeding £1,618,448,000, be granted to Her Majesty to be issued by the Treasury out of the Consolidated Fund and applied for expenditure on the use of resources authorised by Parliament.—(Wendy Morton.)
Homelessness — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Neil Coyle (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is making an incredibly powerful speech, and a lot of personal commitment has clearly been put into addressing this issue. She mentioned universal credit among other policies. Given that this has contributed to the problem, is it one of the policies that she is most embarrassed about her party pursuing while in government with the Conservative party?
Department for Transport — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Transportation
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): I thank Members from on both sides of the House for their support for this debate, including my hon. Friends the Members for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) and for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), who so ably gave the presentation on the debate before the Backbench Business Committee, as I was not able to attend. The range of support confirms that the Department for Transport’s spending priorities are of national concern across party lines and in every region of the United Kingdom. Whether it is on rail franchising or transport investment, I think that the Department is giving passengers and taxpayers a raw deal Given this breadth of interest, I am disappointed that the Transport Secretary has not come to the Chamber to hear this afternoon’s debate. I recall that he was also unable to attend our Back-Bench debate on transport in the north on 6 November. I am, however, very pleased to see the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), in the Chamber, and it is also good to see the Minister of State, Department for Transport, the hon. Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson), who will respond for the Government. As well as representing the London seat of Orpington, he serves as the Minister for London, and I note in passing that not one Minister in the Department represents a northern seat, and not one represents a seat outside England I want to highlight the significant, long-standing problems with how we run our transport services and invest in transport infrastructure. I also want to press the case for a bolder, more ambitious approach to transport spending that leaves no citizen, no nation and, crucially, no region behind, and that will boost economic efficiency and growth post Brexit The international evidence paints a stark and disappointing picture. Britain’s infrastructure spending is the lowest of any developed country in the OECD. The inequality between our regions, measured according to gross valued added, is the widest in Europe, and our national productivity, as we all know, is low compared with other countries. These problems cannot be solved without better transport investment, and without better north-south and—very importantly—east-west connectivity. Experts from the Institute for Public Policy Research North to the Centre for Cities, and from the National Infrastructure Commission to the authors of the northern powerhouse independent economic review, are all agreed that we cannot increase productivity and close the gap between our regions unless we dramatically upgrade our transport infrastructure and make up for decades of under-investment. This requires an ambitious investment programme for every corner of the country. In northern England, that means investing in bus services, not cutting them; dramatically reducing rail journey times; increasing rail capacity for passengers and freight; and modernising our rolling stock.
Department for Transport — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Transportation
Catherine McKinnell (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. The north-east received just 2.7% of overall public spending on transport from 2012 to 2017, compared with the 38.3% that London and the south-east received. Does she agree that the north has little chance of fulfilling its true potential if that unacceptable imbalance continues?
Department for Transport — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Transportation
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I hope that the Minister will respond to it While Ministers have admitted that following the scrapping of electrification the ongoing costs will be higher than they would have been with electric trains, they have refused to say by how much or what that will mean for future ticket prices. Although I have been told that the environmental impact of bimodal trains has been "taken into account", I am not sure that an environmental assessment has been undertaken. It seems that big decisions are made in the apparent absence of basic information It is also astonishing that we still do not know the future of trans-Pennine electrification. No official announcement has been made since the Transport Secretary cast doubt on the project during a media appearance in July 2017. I acknowledge that the rolling stock is being upgraded, but the very companies that are supplying it tell me that without improvements to the tracks, they will not be able to get anywhere near their maximum speeds. The developers at Great Western Railway have warned that its bimodal trains will be slower in diesel mode than the ones that they will replace. I hope that the Minister will commit himself this evening to an urgent, independent assessment of the impact of scrapping electrification.
Department for Transport — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Transportation
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): I shall be pleased to add that to my list of questions. The hon. Gentleman has been very clear about the subject on which he wants the Minister to respond My final point is about the need to tackle regional inequality in transport spending. Analysis produced by the House of Commons Library earlier this month shows that in the five years since 2012, London has received more than twice as much per head as the north. The figures for future projected spending look even worse. According to the latest analysis from IPPR North, London will receive £4,155 per head over the next four years, while Yorkshire and the Humber will receive £844 per head. The Transport Secretary could have responded to those figures with the candid acceptance of a problem going back over many years and by making a commitment to close the regional gap. Instead, he has sought to play down the disparity In an article in The Yorkshire Post in January, the Transport Secretary criticised IPPR North for including all Transport for London’s spending in its analysis, because many London and south-east schemes attract private funding. This is precisely the reason why northern MPs want a statutory body with the same borrowing powers as TfL: to boost private investment for road and rail schemes to go alongside a fairer share of state funding. The creation of Transport for the North, while welcome, will not correct that inequity—or certainly not any time soon. Its focus on 2050 means that many south-east schemes that are more advanced in their planning, such as Crossrail 2 and the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor, will happen many years earlier than Transport for the North’s vision. Indeed, as I pointed out to the Minister during the passage of the Space Industry Bill, we are more likely to see commercial space travel than rail electrification to Hull before 2050 In conclusion, I believe that the Secretary of State has questions to answer about the scathing National Audit Office report into spending by the Department for Transport. I also believe that he has wavered in his response to problems with the east coast franchise and let Stagecoach and Virgin Trains off the hook. He has scrapped rail electrification plans across the north, the midlands, the south-west and Wales, and failed to back up claims that those cuts will deliver the same benefits as electrification. He has also dismissed concerns about regional inequality in transport investment, even though such investment is vital for our national economic productivity and growth. As a northern MP, I am not asking what this country can do for the north; I am asking what the north can do for this country. It is time that the Transport Secretary and the Department for Transport also asked themselves that question.
Department for Transport — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Transportation
Gareth Thomas (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to raise two concerns. The first is about the ending of the operating grant for Transport for London, which is already beginning to have a significant impact on upgrades to the network, not least to the Jubilee line, and increases the prospect of the extension of the night tube to the Metropolitan line being much further delayed than originally planned Given that last time the Conservatives were fully in charge of transport in London my constituents saw a 60% increase in the cost of commuting into central London, it seems particularly unfair that, just as a Labour Mayor takes over in London, a second whammy should hit funding for Transport for London The bulk of my remarks will focus on a much less high profile part of the transport sector that does not see significant funding in the estimates, although it does see some funding. As the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) rightly said when he intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), who so ably introduced this debate, the community transport sector faces a devastating impact as a result of the Government’s proposed changes I am lucky enough to chair the Co-operative party, which has long campaigned under its people’s bus campaign for an expansion of the not-for-profit or social enterprise bus sector. The Co-op party believes that community transport and commercial bus routes should be able to be designated as community assets and should be subject to the same protections that community assets are afforded by the Localism Act 2011.