argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
G7 — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Mixed Topics
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that it was not a park. It was the beautiful Bavarian Alps, where I think the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) comes from originally—she was waxing lyrical to me about it yesterday Of course there was a long discussion about ISIL, and I will take the hon. Gentleman’s question in two parts. First, the reason why ISIL is so well armed and well funded is that it is a death cult that has effectively taken over a country, oilfields, money and weaponry. Where I part company with him completely is on the idea that ISIL has been caused by the Iraq war, western aggression or whatever. I think it is nonsense. We can see the growth in extremist Islamism dating back to well before the attack on the twin towers, which of course itself happened before the Iraq war. We have to confront the real problem, which is the rise of this poisonous extremist narrative and death cult, which long predated the Iraq war. If we get that the wrong way round, we will get ourselves in a total mess.
G7 — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Other
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): I am delighted that my hon. Friend refers to my majority as huge. I take that as an indication that he will be part of it at all times throughout this Parliament I am pleased to report that I did have a number of pleasant discussions with Prime Ministers and Presidents inquiring after the general election, and some of them who are coming up for re-election themselves were seeking some tips and ideas.
G7 — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Mixed Topics
David Nuttall (Conservative, Centre-right): As the Prime Minister may be aware, the European Commission issued a report last year on the level of corruption within member states. The report claimed corruption cost the European economy about €120 billion a year, and was apparently to have included a chapter on corruption within the EU institutions themselves. The fact it did not clearly suggests it thinks there may be something to hide. I urge my right hon. Friend to press for an independent investigation into the extent of corruption within the institutions of the EU.
G7 — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Mixed Topics
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes an important point. Perhaps we should start by looking again at the European Court of Auditors and what it does to demonstrate the problems sometimes of corruption and sometimes of wasted or inappropriate use of money in nation states, as well as in the organisation of the EU itself.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Stephen William Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): I think that everyone in the House will agree that more houses need to be built. In that spirit, will the hon. Lady agree that the Government’s proposals on brownfield land and for a London land commission are bringing excess public sector, non-operational land into use for housing? That should be welcomed across the House.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the hon. Lady to her new post. I had the pleasure of debating against her during the general election campaign. When she was shadow Housing Minister, she was right that rent controls would not work in practice, and her leader was wrong. May I take it that her appointment means that Labour will once and for all abandon this misguided policy, which would drive up rents and choke off investment in the sector?
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): In January 2014, the hon. Lady’s party placed a motion before the House which was not dissimilar to this one but which claimed that 5 million people were on the waiting list for social homes. In this motion, it claims there are only 1.4 million families on the waiting list. To what does she attribute the reduction?
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Byron Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): Will the hon. Lady comment on the fact that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher built more houses in Wales in the last year of her premiership than the Welsh Labour Government have built since they came to power in 1999?
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Richard Quentin Fuller (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady and the motion talk about us facing a housing crisis. The social landlords are owners of a substantial balance sheet of housing assets. What I want to get clear is whether the hon. Lady is stating the Labour party’s opposition to the extension of the right to buy in principle, or is she criticising on the basis of whether a practical solution could be brought about. It is important to get the best use of all balance sheets of housing, whether they be social tenants or otherwise.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am unclear about the premise of the hon. Lady’s argument. Is she ideologically opposed to the policy, or does she think that it will not work? If it is the latter, did she not advance a similar argument about the affordable rent model? She said then that no money would go back into the system to fund the building of new housing, but that has not been the case. Along with organisations providing other forms of tenure, housing associations have built more homes as a result of the affordable rent model, which was pioneered by the last Government.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Johanna Peta Churchill (Conservative, Centre-right): I have spent the last 21 years in the building industry, in a construction firm. The things that you are talking about, the brick shortages and so on, are a direct result of the lack of certainty and the appalling way in which the events of 2008 decimated our industries. We are just returning to those levels. Now, you can talk all you like about—
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the hon. Lady agree that the origins of the difficulties in today’s housing market are to be found not in the last Parliament but in the Parliament before that and the Parliament before that and the Parliament before that?
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) to the Dispatch Box. I had noticed that she had changed jobs, and let me say from the outset that she is absolutely right to raise this issue of huge importance to our country: making sure that people can get a home of their own. It is entirely right that this should be one of the first of our debates. However, in the light of the experience of the past few weeks and the tone that the interim leader of her party took, I was surprised that the hon. Lady was not a bit more rueful about her party’s contribution to the record that this Government are tackling. She herself has admitted in the past that when Labour was in office it built too few homes, so I was surprised at her response to the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). Many Members have made that point, including the former Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who was here in the Chamber but who has gone; he said that the Government that he supported did not build enough homes. So I would have expected a bit more humility from the beginning of the hon. Lady’s remarks.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome my right hon. Friend to his post. I know from my own experience that he will be an excellent, top-class Secretary of State Is it not extraordinary that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) said just now that she was proud of the Labour party’s record, when under Labour waiting lists went up from 1 million to 1.8 million and the number of social homes available for rent declined by 420,000?
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): What is more extraordinary is that the hon. Lady was frank enough to say that she was not proud of that record and that Labour should have built more homes, yet immediately after the election, which might be a time for candour and reflection given that she is supporting one of the candidates for the leadership who wants to change things, she has changed position and become wholly defensive.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): It is right to make sure that all homes, including social homes, are in a good state. I served as a trustee of a housing association and we worked very hard to do that. No one is going to gainsay the importance of having decent homes.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me make some progress and remind the House of the situation that we inherited from when Labour was last in government, because the electorate clearly has not forgotten. In fact the previous Government’s record led at the end of their time in office to the lowest level of house building since the 1920s. The banks were not lending, the builders were not building, and working people were being denied the opportunity of home ownership. There was a dysfunctional, top-down planning system based on regional strategies. Does everyone remember them? They were very good at producing paperwork and resentment but not very good at producing homes. The stock of affordable homes—
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker Under the previous Government, the stock of affordable homes had fallen by 420,000 since 1997, with 1.8 million families languishing on social housing waiting lists. I say that because it is right to be candid about the inheritance if we want to go on and build, across both sides of the House, a strong case for improvement.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
James Stephen Heappey (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend mentions the regional statistics. Some 24,000 new homes have been made available in the south-west since 2010, and in Somerset specifically between 1997 and 2010 there were only 440 homes per annum, whereas there have been 900 homes per annum since 2010.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right The point I wanted to make is not that we have built all the homes that were needed—it would be absurd to say that—but that we have turned around a situation that was proving ruinous and was destroying the aspirations of people up and down the country.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I will make some progress but then of course I will give way to the hon. Lady I think it is fair to reflect at the beginning of this Parliament on the situation we inherited and that that had gone wrong under the previous Government. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East and other hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), have been good enough to admit that not enough was done under that previous Government, but as for the solutions that Labour has suggested, the hon. Lady should again reflect on the fact that she was the shadow Housing Minister in the period running up to the election campaign, and I again might have expected her to be a little more self-deprecating about her own record of promoting solutions to the problems of getting homes built Yesterday, one of the hon. Lady’s close colleagues, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), cited Labour’s failure on housing policy as one of the reasons that Labour lost the election. She said that her party’s plans for housing at the election "lacked ambition" and that they failed to explain to the voters how they would help first-time buyers. The prescription that she offered the British people just four weeks ago included a mansion tax, rent controls and restrictions on home ownership. Does she still agree with those policies? Are they still party policy? They would have been a disaster for the people of this country, and that is not just my view; it is the view of the electorate and also of the acting leader of the Labour party.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): The verdict on the hon. Lady’s proposals at the election was delivered very comprehensively I mentioned the interim leader of the Labour party. She commissioned polling on why Labour did not win the election and said that it "uncovered a feeling of relief among Labour voters that the party had not won" She also said: "It doesn’t matter how many leaflets you deliver if the message is not right." Even senior Labour Members have reflected on the fact that their housing policies at the election were not adequate for the task. I concede that there is one exception, however. The right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who I gather is running for office, has said very boldly that the last election manifesto was "the best manifesto I have stood on in four general elections for Labour" That gives us an insight into the future of the party’s prospects. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East agrees that it was a manifesto worth fighting on.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to make some progress and answer the hon. Lady’s question Housing starts, and the number of first-time buyers, have doubled since their low point under Labour, and they are continuing to rise. In the shadow Minister’s city of Wolverhampton—a place that I know well—the number of housing starts has more than tripled since 2010, and 200,000 households have been helped to buy a home of their own by Government schemes such as Help to Buy. We were the first Government since the 1980s to finish with a larger stock of affordable homes than when we came to office. Homelessness is an important issue. I am a former trustee of a hostel for homeless women, and this has been a great passion of mine for many years. Homelessness obviously still needs to be tackled, but it has been at half the level that it was under the previous Government, and it is now lower than in 26 of the last 30 years. Our manifesto committed us to build on that progress, supporting the aspirations of home buyers and building more homes.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the hon. Lady to the House. Not everything needs primary legislation to enable us to take action. Today, the Minister for Housing and Planning, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), allocated a fund to help to improve standards in the private rented sector, and it is important to drive those up. One of the features of the city deals that I was responsible for negotiating in the last Parliament was the investment in very high quality private rented sector accommodation, and I am glad that the hon. Lady shares the aspiration to ensure that private renters can enjoy high quality accommodation.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): Housing zones are being implemented right across London. I was with the Mayor yesterday at City Hall, where on the ground floor there is a great map of London which I invite Members to visit. Emblazoned on that map are emblems for all the housing zones right across London, with images of the plans that are being implemented to provide accommodation. That is an important step in the right direction, and it will be important for the people of Islington.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Andrew William Murrison (Conservative, Centre-right): I very much support the Government’s plans for more affordable housing, but does the Secretary of State acknowledge that it is important to implement the neighbourhood planning process that was introduced in the Localism Act 2011 so that people are able to form local plans to increase affordable housing?
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was not surprised to discover that when we replace top-down imposition at regional level, which the Localism Act got rid of, and allow local communities to embrace the need to provide for their own future, they do so with alacrity. My hon. Friend is right to point out that where neighbourhood plans have been adopted up and down the country, the number of homes has increased. The hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) served on the Localism Bill Committee, where we debated this matter at great length. It is gratifying to see that the measures are now working In effect, the choice at the general election was the same as that set out by Churchill before the 1951 election. He said that "we are for the ladder, and they are for the queue". The judgment of the public was clear in this year’s election. They chose the ladder and said no to the queue. To be the Secretary of State responsible for housing is a big responsibility, and I intend to discharge it vigorously and effectively. In 1951, Harold Macmillan was handed the housing post, along with the task of building 300,000 homes a year by 1955. On appointing him, Churchill added the helpful reminder that his actions would make or mar him. I will not reveal anything that the Prime Minister said to me, except to say that his admiration for Macmillan runs extremely deep We have wasted no time in unveiling an important set of measures, including a new housing Bill in the Queen’s Speech. We will help more people across the country to buy their own home, and build more homes right across Britain. On house building, 275,000 extra affordable homes will be built with £38 billion of public and private investment, achieving the fastest rate of delivery for 20 years, and 95,000 new homes will be built in brownfield housing zones by 2020. A new brownfield register will be created, with 90% of suitable sites granted planning permission by 2020. A London land commission will co-ordinate development of land in the capital.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Scott Leslie Mann (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the fact that 217,000 affordable new homes were delivered during the last Parliament. Will my right hon. Friend outline how he will go further, particularly in delivering affordable new houses to my area of North Cornwall?
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I think that the Opposition were complacent about the record that they left and the poor quality of the policies that they proposed. In relation to Oldham and to Greater Manchester, I hope that the hon. Lady will welcome the Greater Manchester agreement and the city deal, which has explicitly created a housing fund for the area reflecting the principles of localism that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) mentioned. This will allow the leaders of Manchester to invest in more homes for Greater Manchester. That is a big step in the right direction.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I certainly respect and celebrate the diversity of our cities. It is an essential part of their character. In the requirements that we make, we will ensure that the replacement is within the communities from which something has been taken. It is important to preserve that. I was on the board of an inner-city housing association in central London, and that made an important contribution to the city centre My hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) mentioned neighbourhood planning. He is absolutely right that that has made a big contribution. We will simplify neighbourhood planning and provide extra funding for councils so that communities can get on and accelerate such plans.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Angela Eileen Watkinson (Conservative, Centre-right): The Secretary of State mentioned the standard of private rented accommodation. Does he agree that if local authorities were allowed to use council tax application forms to ask tenants to give information about their landlords, it would help to root out rogue landlords, illegal sub-letting and the illegal development of houses in multiple occupation, which sadly are below standard?
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I am interested in my hon. Friend’s idea. I have not heard that suggestion before, but I will take it seriously. I say to all hon. Members that, for all our debates, there is a unity of purpose across the House in the desire not only to build more homes, but to improve the standards of homes available to people in the rental sector. I encourage everyone, as she has done, to join in ensuring that we can make a big difference in this Parliament to the level of house building.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I will make some progress, if I may, because a lot of people want to speak So far, we have debated statistics, targets and timelines, which tends to happen in the House of Commons. We should, however, also reflect that when we are talking about homes, we are talking about some of people’s most fundamental aspirations, which go to the heart of the security that they feel in their lives, giving them a place in which they can bring up their families One of my abiding memories of the election campaign was being with my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat)—I do not know whether he is present in the Chamber—on that beautiful bank holiday weekend. We were in a new housing estate, Edgewater Park in Latchford, near Warrington. That weekend, simultaneously, many couples and young families were moving into the new homes built on that estate. Just to be there then was a moment of huge excitement and thrill For many people, it was their first ever home and many had bought under Help to Buy. They were meeting their neighbours for the first time, establishing friendships in those moments that in many cases will last a lifetime. We could taste the buoyant mood in the air as families crossed the thresholds of their new home for the first time. It was joyful, confident and optimistic. In all of our debates about statistics, we should be clear that underneath the statistics are real people, people whose aspirations we are supporting. They want to own their own home and we will hold out that opportunity—the chance of a ladder, not a queue.
Housing — House of Commons, 2015-06-10
Topic: Housing
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to make some progress. That is why we support Help to Buy, with more than 100,000 households—on present trends—going through the scheme. Our manifesto has committed us to extend Help to Buy with the equity loan scheme until 2020. We will introduce a Help to Buy individual savings account scheme to add 25% to savings for the deposit that people need to invest in their own home.