argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
General Election Count — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: On what authority and for what reason it is a requirement that the count for the general election must be started within four hours of the close of poll.
Margaret Olivia Hillier (Labour, Centre-left): The question of the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) underlines the complexity of our current polling system. I was proud to be a member of your Commission on Digital Democracy, Mr Speaker, which recommended a move towards online voting. That, of course, would obviate the need for the counts. Will the Electoral Commission spokesman tell us its views on how fast we can move towards delivering on that?
General Election Count — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: On what authority and for what reason it is a requirement that the count for the general election must be started within four hours of the close of poll.
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): In most things, I want to move with the times, so I am in favour of the Commission on Digital Democracy recommendations. There is a long tradition in this country, however, that we count on the night of the poll. Increasingly, because of local government cuts, up and down the country, returning officers and chief executives—very often the same people—are deciding to count the vote the next day to save money. That is a retrograde step; what is the hon. Gentleman going to do about it?
Economy — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Macroeconomics
Questions: What assessment he has made of the implications for the Commissioners’ policies of the Church of England report, “On Rock or Sand”, published on 21 January 2015.
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): I certainly hope to avoid the right hon. Gentleman’s big gun when he answers my question. I know that he referred to selective quoting, but the archbishops said in the book that Britain had been "dominated" by "rampant consumerism and individualism" since the Thatcher era, and described our economy as "a tale of two cities" The latter comment is certainly true of Bristol, where we still see huge economic divides. What work is the Church of England doing with politicians to try to rectify that?
Birmingham Schools — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Education
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and her offer of additional resources to Park View school to get the teachers who are needed. I know that she would want to recognise a number of parents, including Sabina Kauser, Waheed Saleem and Arshad Malik, who helped to rebuild the governance along with Adrian Packer, Bev Mabey and the extraordinary group of teachers who came in to help restore the schools and ensure that, thanks to their work over the summer, they opened on time in September. I very much welcome the emphasis that the Secretary of State put on the teaching of British values, in particular democracy and the rule of law. She will agree, I know, that it is important that we practise what we preach. It was therefore regrettable that parent members of the trust were not able to be elected by parents at the school. Instead, the trust took a decision to go through the most mind-bending process of selection to hand-pick parents to serve at trust level. I hope she will now encourage the trust to revisit that decision and ensure that democracy prevails.
Birmingham Schools — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Education
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Secretary of State agree that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in our country do not want to take over schools and are not extremists, but just want a darn good education for their children The Secretary of State’s remarks have disappointed me, because there is a systemic failure. For whatever reason, the Government have bypassed local authorities’ power to exercise authority over, and supervision of, schools. We all know that is true. I am in contact with people who rushed to save the Birmingham situation, and they say that the problem is a lack of power locally. Everything has to go through the Department for Education, which rushes in to help, but it does not have the capacity either. If senior advisers, including Ofsted, are saying that there is systemic failure with the academy model, surely she should recognise that and do something about it.
Birmingham Schools — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Education
Pat Glass (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State will know, as I do, that one of the tools that the previous trustees used was isolation. They prohibited any relationship with neighbouring schools or any school that did not share their warped philosophy. The Education Select Committee report published this week on academies and free schools identified that 47% of converter academies—schools that have converted to academy status since 2010—were stand-alone academies, which worried us enormously. We felt that Ofsted had a role and that no school should receive an outstanding judgment unless there were positive signs of co-operation with other schools. Does she agree that that would be one structural way of trying to prevent what happened in Birmingham from happening again?
Birmingham Schools — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Education
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): If our constituents have problems with the delivery of public services, ultimately they have recourse to the ombudsman. That was true of parents who had problems with working relationships in their children’s schools until 2012, when the Government changed the policy. Now, if a parent has a problem with an academy, they can go to the Education Funding Agency, but not with a complaint about the school, only with a complaint about the operation of the complaints procedure itself. Does that not need addressing?
Birmingham Schools — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): The matters raised by the Education Secretary today, particularly the work she mentioned about her Department’s counter-extremism group, overlap considerably with the issues covered in the Home Office consultation on the Prevent duty, which closes tomorrow. I know that some groups in my constituency are keen to have some input. How can they have input into the work of the counter-extremism group in the right hon. Lady’s Department as well as influence the Prevent duty?
Growth Deals — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Government Operations
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): Devolution of expenditure needs to be transparent and beyond reproach. In August, I raised with the Minister the role of the chair of the North East LEP, Paul Woolston, who had just been appointed to the chairmanship of Middleton Enterprises, a company owned by Jeremy Middleton, a Conservative party member and donor who is now also on the investment board of the LEP. The Minister promised me, outside the House, to look into that arrangement. Is he satisfied with it?
Growth Deals — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Government Operations
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): May we have a reality check? The extra money for the Sheffield city region—£30 million over a number of years—needs to be put in the context of the £60 million of cuts to Sheffield city council in the next year alone. The Minister is recognised as one of the most committed devolutionists in the Government. We can accept and welcome extra money and extra powers going to our city regions and combined authorities—more money where the decision on how it will be spent is made at the local level not the national level. Will he explain, however, why we cannot have a package of devolution measures that transfers responsibility for raising taxation at a local level in England—this is done in Scotland—and therefore give more powers to local councils in that way? He probably believes that that is the right approach, so why can he not convince his Government colleagues of it?
Growth Deals — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Government Operations
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister will know that Huddersfield is not a city but that the Kirklees local authority is one of the largest in the land. Nobody from my constituency would not welcome new money to the university of Huddersfield or our area, but may I put this in context? The research published last week by the Centre for Cities gives a very different picture of the way in which over the past five years power and resources have flowed to the richest parts of our country, particularly to London and the south-east. Is he aware of how much of a cut people in Kirklees have suffered in recent years and face in the future? Services are being cut at every level.
Growth Deals — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Labor
Stephen James McCabe (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister will be aware that the National Audit Office says that the original figure claimed for jobs likely to result from these initiatives was 54,000, which was later revised down by the Government to between 6,000 and 18,000. What steps is the Minister putting in place to ensure that there are comparable outcome measures so that these initiatives can be properly analysed and assessed and we have a true picture of what they are achieving?
Iraq Inquiry — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: International Affairs
John Whitaker Straw (Labour, Centre-left): I am pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I welcome the debate, and in doing so I formally draw the attention of the House to the fact that as Foreign Secretary between 2001 and 2006, I have been a witness before the Iraq inquiry Of all the many decisions I had to make as a Minister, none was more serious than my decision not just to support military action against the Saddam Hussein regime, but actively to advocate that course in the final speech in the momentous debate in this House on 18 March 2003. The House went on to vote by 412 to 149 in favour of military action if Saddam Hussein failed to meet the terms of an ultimatum presented to him If one accepts the privilege of high office, one has to accept the consequences that flow from the decisions one makes. It was therefore entirely right that there should be a comprehensive and independent inquiry about the Iraq war, not least to hold those of us who had to make those decisions properly to account. There was an issue between the parties about the timing of the inquiry, and I shall discuss that briefly later in my speech, if I have time. The inquiry was established in mid-June 2009 and when it began its oral evidence sessions, in November 2009, its chairman, Sir John Chilcot, said: "We aim to report, if possible, by the end of 2010" Any inquiry of this nature has to follow rules of natural justice and public law principles, including that it judges decision takers on the circumstances that obtained at the time, on the information then available and without the benefit of hindsight. Alongside that, there is the Maxwellisation process to give witnesses an opportunity to respond to the drafts of any criticisms intended to be made of them, and the inquiry then has to have time and space to consider those representations.
Iraq Inquiry — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: International Affairs
John Whitaker Straw (Labour, Centre-left): With great respect, no, and this is not the occasion to do that. I gave extensive evidence to the Iraq inquiry, as I will explain As part of the process of Maxwellisation, all relevant witnesses were required to sign undertakings of confidentiality. The House will therefore understand that those who are part of the Maxwellisation process are constrained in what they can say. I would, however, like to say this. I gave oral evidence to the inquiry on three occasions: twice in early 2010 and then on 2 February 2011. The third time I was before the inquiry—four years ago this coming Monday—was the inquiry’s final evidence session. At that point, Sir John said it was "going to take some months to deliver the report itself", which was taken to mean that publication would take place by the end of 2011. However, 18 months later, in July 2013, the inquiry announced that the Maxwellisation process would begin in October of that year. As the House now knows, it did not begin for more than 12 months after that.
Iraq Inquiry — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Government Operations
John Whitaker Straw (Labour, Centre-left): I am afraid that the answer to that is well above my pay grade. My hon. Friend would have to ask the inquiry, or those responsible for the inquiry, about that. But I just say, parenthetically, that when this is all over, there will be many issues for parties on both sides of the House to consider about the conduct of such inquiries, not least whether they would be aided, as I soundly believe they would be, if counsel and high-grade legal teams were available to them There has been much nonsense around suggesting that it has been witnesses who have caused the extensive delays in the inquiry’s progress, and therefore its final report. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden for what he said, because these claims are wholly without foundation. A moment’s thought should convince anyone that no witness has had any interest in the inquiry’s being dragged out for this long. For example, to prepare for my evidence sessions in 2010 and 2011, I had to study hundreds of records. If the Maxwellisation process had taken place at the time, the detail from those records would still have been fresh in my mind. As it is, a further four years has elapsed, requiring fresh study of reams of documents. I am conscious too, as the whole House will be, of the anxiety and concern of those who have lost loved ones in the conflict at the delays in publishing the report. When Sir John wrote to the Prime Minister last week with an update on the progress of his inquiry, he said that he could confirm that, "individuals are currently being given the opportunity to respond to provisional criticism in the inquiry’s draft report" The House should note the use of the adverb "currently", to which the adverb "recently" might have been an informative addition. It follows from this that no witness to the inquiry has remotely been responsible for any of the delays that have occurred to date. Nor, as Mr Blair has made clear in a recent statement, has he or any other witness been involved in delaying the process of declassifying previously sensitive documents.
Iraq Inquiry — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): Is there not then a question as to any obstruction that might have come from the office of George Bush, the former President of the United States, or the current White House, which seem to be very reluctant to reveal the details of correspondence and communication between former Prime Minister Blair and former President Bush?
Iraq Inquiry — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Government Operations
John Whitaker Straw (Labour, Centre-left): I am just coming to the end Everyone bears a heavy responsibility for ensuring that the inquiry is not put in a position where it becomes impossible to conduct a fair process and reach a fair and independent conclusion. As the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden importantly noted outside the House on 14 January: "The purpose of the inquiry is not vilification or vindication—it is to learn lessons." That is the path all of us wish the inquiry to follow, and I hope, as we all do, that it can be published as quickly as possible.
Iraq Inquiry — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman and I have been involved in all the debates on Iraq. Does he recall that a number of us, maybe including himself, felt that the whole inquiry process was wrong, and that there should have been a judicial inquiry that could have been seen to be totally independent of what has been revealed by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), which is, essentially, that pretty well everybody is involved in some way along the line in the decision making or the prevention of evidence coming forward?
Iraq Inquiry — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman points to what I suspect will be a grave disappointment when the Chilcot report finally comes out. Would he then favour a totally independent judicial inquiry, so that we get to the bottom of this? I, for one, will not leave this subject, and I am sure that he will not either.
Iraq Inquiry — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: International Affairs
Sandra Currie Osborne (Labour, Centre-left): I shall be brief, not least because I am anxious to take part in the next debate, which is very important to my constituency. I concur with the final comments of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) about the sacrifices that were made and where the whole debacle leaves us in relation to legitimate intervention and our general foreign policy approach We are here to talk about the delay in publication of the report and to press for its early publication. I welcome the debate on this very important matter and, as we know, the Government have said that the report will not be published before the general election if submitted after the end of February. Whether we agree with that or not, the reality is that the general election has effectively already started in all but name—one aspect of a fixed term Parliament that is different from what went before The report should have been published long ago, and I recognise the pressure to question its delay. I particularly recognise the work of the Public Administration Committee which has tried to get to the bottom of what is holding up the publication, as well as looking more widely at the use of inquiries by both Parliament and Government. That is something that should be followed up again after the report is eventually published. What has more than £10 million of public money actually achieved, when the families still have no chance of closure or moving on all these years later and the public are becoming more cynical by the day, if that is possible? We seem to see this so often with inquiries—it takes years to persuade Governments to hold them and that is followed by lengthy delays and often unsatisfactory conclusions, leading people to think it was all a waste of time and money I agree with the hon. Member for Bradford West (George Galloway)—he never said a truer word—that this House is to blame. We should have pressed much more firmly for the report to be published long ago. We did not apply enough pressure.
Iraq Inquiry — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: International Affairs
Sandra Currie Osborne (Labour, Centre-left): I agree, and that has happened time and again, leading to public cynicism. I hope that, after the publication of the report, the Public Administration Committee will look at that issue again It is not good enough, 90 days before a general election to call this debate. Welcome though it is, it should all have been done long ago. Publication of the report was never going to happen before the general election, however. I hope that when he comes before the Foreign Affairs Committee next week, Sir John Chilcot will be able to give an indication of time scale, but I am not holding my breath.
Iraq Inquiry — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: International Affairs
Sandra Currie Osborne (Labour, Centre-left): As the hon. Gentleman knows, the policy at the time was to wait until the forces had withdrawn from Iraq, and that is why I voted against As I say, I am not holding my breath for Sir John Chilcot to throw much light on the situation next week. He has already made it clear that he will not be pressurised by Parliament into anything. It is worth having the session, but I am not confident that much will result from it Finally, we were told that the inquiry would help learn lessons that would strengthen the UK’s democracy, diplomacy and military forces to ensure that if we face similar situations in future, the Government of the day will be best equipped to respond to them in the most effective manner in the best interests of the country. I was worried before the debate but I am even more worried now, especially when I hear from the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) about how his information was treated. I hope that we will get the opportunity next week to ask Sir John Chilcot about some of the questions the right hon. Gentleman raised When I look at the situation in Iraq, Syria and throughout the Arab world today—thousands being slaughtered, an Iraqi army unable to cope in spite of the millions of pounds spent building it up after the Iraq war and wholly inadequate resources for our diplomatic effort through the FCO—I see few lessons learned so far. I cannot imagine that the Iraq inquiry will give us the answers we need. It may tell us the mistakes that were made, and it may tell us that civil servants are more worried about damaging UK relations with the US than satisfying the justified demands from many people in this country for the truth. I accept that diplomatic relations with the US are important, but the question is, how important. Do they cancel out the wishes and desires of the British people for the truth about this matter? I do not think so. Above all, for the sake of those who lost their lives and the families who grieve, I hope the inquiry will report as soon as possible after the general election.
Iraq Inquiry — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: International Affairs
John Whitaker Straw (Labour, Centre-left): I dealt only briefly with the intervention from the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) because this debate is about the Iraq inquiry and its timing, not about the substance, and I would have been slapped down very quickly. For the avoidance of doubt, however, the whole Security Council judged in November 2002 that there was a threat to international peace and security from Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.
Iraq Inquiry — House of Commons, 2015-01-29
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Phillip Flynn (Labour, Centre-left): The intervention was contemptible. On that point, I share the view of the hon. Member for Bradford West (George Galloway). We remember the ignominy of the right hon. Member for Blackburn walking behind Colin Powell after the latter had presented a tissue of lies about the threat. It was not true, and our representative was supporting him in those lies, and they sent all those young men and others to their deaths At the time, I wrote a letter and got a reply from the right hon. Gentleman. It was on my blog, and I will put it back up now. In March 2003, I told Tony Blair, "If we go into Iraq alongside George Bush, we will deepen the division in the world between the Christian western world and the Muslim eastern world, and we will create a division that will cause bloodshed from my local mosque to the far corners of the world." The right hon. Gentleman replied to that letter, and a contemptible reply it was too—as was his reply today. He should recognise the terrible error of his ways and what he did. I agree with the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). It is nonsense to suggest there were weapons of mass destruction or a 45-minute threat to Britain. We, as Members of Parliament, the people who took that decision, should be thoroughly ashamed of it, and I will stay in this House, and I will fight to be here, until the truth is known and those who committed this terrible crime are brought to book.