argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Civil Rights
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): There is a fine balance that has to be observed. Free speech is important, and one does not want to suppress the right of Members to hold and express, with considerable force and sometimes ill judgment, opinions very sincerely believed. But each and every one of us has in this place to weigh his or her words and to understand that we are in leadership positions. Words count. Words matter. Words make a difference. Words can cause great personal hurt and also be the trigger for actions by others I have become increasingly conscious in recent times—from Members on both sides of the House—of the escalation in hostile communications to Members and sometimes to their families. I underline that we have to call out unacceptable behaviour, including the issue of language that can induce threats or that constitutes a threat in its own right. We have to recognise also that there are some people who are so deprived of a moral compass that they think that, because they believe a particular thing strongly about a Member, that somehow justifies them subjecting that Member and his or her family to vituperation, abuse, intimidation or worse. It does not. It cannot. It will not I remember being shocked when the Leader of the House of Commons was faced by aggressive demonstrations outside his home, with people saying to his family, "A lot of people disapprove of your dad." That could have been deeply frightening to family members and young children. Other Members, on both sides of the House, have also highlighted their experiences or the experiences of their family, or of their constituency or parliamentary staff; and up with this we cannot put. We simply have to say that it is wrong as a matter of principle and that if we need to do more and better, including the investment of greater resources and an improved mindset within the police service and the House authorities, we will do that. I hope that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) will forgive me if I say that I have done my best but not enough and that more will need to be done in the period ahead. Some of the responsibility for leadership on that front will lie with the next Speaker It would be a good thing also if those who constantly prate about their rights to free speech—to publish or be damned, and say exactly what they think—were to ask themselves, "Is what we are about to produce likely to spark intimidation, harassment or violence?" and if those who put up pictures of parliamentarians on the front pages as though they are somehow public enemies because they have dared to hold and express a view that differs from that of the newspaper concerned started to realise just how desperately dangerous that is and to exercise a modicum of responsibility. Those people have got to learn to operate at the level of events. Thank you, colleagues. Royal Assent
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I know that the House will join me in empathising with and showering congratulations for his forbearance upon the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who has been so patiently waiting for his opportunity. I now call the right hon. and learned Gentleman to make an application for leave to propose a debate on a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration under the terms of Standing Order No. 24. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has up to three minutes in which to make his application.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 (Rule of Law) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Before we come to the debate proposed by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), I call the Leader of the Opposition to make an application for leave to propose a debate on another specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration under the terms of Standing Order No. 24. The right hon. Gentleman has up to three minutes in which to make such an application.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 (Rule of Law) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank colleagues on both sides of the House. The right hon. Gentleman has obtained the leave of the House. I advise the Leader of the Opposition, his colleagues and the House that the debate will be held today as the second item of public business, immediately after the first SO24 debate in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield. The Leader of the Opposition’s debate will last for up to 90 minutes and will arise on a motion that the House has considered the specified matter set out in his application.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): We now come to the motion in the name of Mr Dominic Grieve and others, to be moved under Standing Order No. 24. I remind the House that a paper with the terms of the motion has been distributed.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): I would, but I also emphasise—and that is why I emphasise it—that these are allegations, and in an ideal world, I would have preferred not to make allegations, even within the context of the privilege that this House provides. However, in the circumstances, and with the time available before 31 October and the fact that we are proroguing, there really is no alternative.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): No, I will make a bit of progress What I have attempted to do, distilling the information that has been made available, is to identify people where I think the information may be available. I repeat what I said: I make no imputation whatsoever against individuals. We could have tried to be much broader, but had we been much broader, it might have looked a bit like a fishing expedition throughout Government. It seems only right to ask the questions where we have been directed —by the information that I and others have received—that the answers may be found, hence the list of individuals I have named. I say again that there is not a single imputation against any of them. What is necessary is to establish the information that they possess.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Surely all that matters is what was in the Prime Minister’s mind—his reasons for making the decision—and we cannot work that out from the personal testimonies of lots of officials, some of whom met the Prime Minister about this and some of whom did not. The question is what was in the Prime Minister’s mind, and the House has had ample opportunity, which it has already used, to cross-examine him and to satisfy itself as to his true motive. I do not see how knowing what some officials thought helps at all.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): If I may say to my right hon. Friend, last week, at Prime Minister’s questions, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Gauke) and I asked questions of the Prime Minister seeking to elicit an answer about his motive and state of knowledge, and I was rather struck by the fact that he avoided answering both questions completely. He made not a single attempt—my right hon. Friend should look at Hansard—to answer the question. I am afraid I do not have much confidence that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has the capacity—frankly—to answer questions of this kind, because he does not appear to understand how serious they are and appears to treat them with a high level of flippancy.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope that before this debate concludes my right hon. and learned Friend will have an opportunity to look at the evidence submitted to the Select Committee, and I hope that, on that basis, he will be able to take those assurances as appropriate. I should be very grateful for his indication that he would do so.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. If I may say so, had the House more time I would not have tabled that part of the motion. We could have waited, sensibly, to see that the House will be gone by midnight tonight—or shortly thereafter, depending on how long our proceedings continue—and we will not be back until 14 October. At that stage, because of the way in which the House starts a new Session, the opportunities will not necessarily be there in quite the same way, and I suggest to the House that 14 October is far too close to 31 October for us to be able to accept that. Of course, if we do not vote for this motion in this form we will have no leverage over the Government should, for example, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) suddenly find that he is overridden by No. 10 advisers and the Prime Minister, who decide that they want to delay a little bit and that these papers might come later on. As I have said, the great difficulty that we now have in this House—and, I must say with great regret, that I have—is this terrible, compelling sense that trust is eroding That brings me to my final remark—
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): I am afraid this classically illustrates the problem that we now have: these extraordinary utterances —pronouncements—from No. 10 Downing Street that bear absolutely no relationship with the operation and conventions of our constitution. It is impossible to know whether they are froth, whether they are Mr Cummings’s thoughts, or whether in fact they represent some settled policy view of Government, in which case this country is facing, frankly, a revolutionary situation in which this House has to exercise the utmost vigilance to ensure that our rights and privileges are not simply trampled upon I am very mindful of the fact that in this current crisis we are a divided country and a divided House, which pains me very much. I would like to work, even with those with whom I disagree such as some of my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench, to try to get this matter resolved in a way that is compatible with healing some of the divisions in our country, but that simply is not going to happen if the atmosphere of confrontation keeps being ratcheted up, slowly undermining the institutions that are the only props of legitimacy—that is the truth, for all of us—and in which everybody is happy to go into greenhouses and chuck bricks all over the place but expect the structure to provide some shelter afterwards.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Charles Geoffrey Cox (Conservative, Centre-right): I have been listening with great care to my right hon. and learned Friend’s observations and part of his draft Humble Address troubles me. What legal right do the Government have to require their employees to give up private email accounts and personal mobile numbers? If there is no legal right—I imagine he would contend that there is not—how on earth would the Government enforce the Humble Address if they desired to do so?
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman has made his own point in his own way, and he may wish to expatiate further on that matter if he catches my eye in the course of the debate. Meanwhile, it is on the record and will be widely observed.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Charles Geoffrey Cox (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. and learned Friend has just refined the Humble Address to confine the request for personal mobile information and personal private accounts only to communications that ought to have been carried out as official business on official accounts. The difficulty with the Humble Address that I invite him to consider is that it is a blunt instrument and that, in truth, what this Humble Address requires is careful refinement so that it complies with legal rules. This Humble Address has no binding legal effect on individuals. It potentially has a binding effect on the Government, if they observe it, but not on individuals. There seems to be a risk that it will trespass upon the fundamental rights of individuals, as it is currently drafted.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): No, I want to finish For all those reasons, I believe that, while I am the first to recognise that any attempt at a motion of this kind will have a degree of bluntness that is unavoidable—
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): Not at all! Absolutely not at all! They are entitled, correctly, to say, "I have been asked by the House of Commons in a motion under a Humble Address to Her Majesty the Queen to provide that information", and they should do so, if I may say so, with a public spirit and, indeed, a degree of pride—that is what I would do—because that request has been made of them Mr Speaker, I do not want to detain the House any further. As I said, I am the first to accept that this is a difficult matter, and I am the first to accept that finding a uniquely perfectly tailored instrument to meet the gravity of the situation that has arisen will always be difficult and might be open to some reasonable criticism. However, for all those things, I think the nature of what has happened, the immediacy of the crisis and the fact that we are proroguing require this motion, and I commend it to the House.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope the right hon. Lady will forgive me, but I was immersed—there is no point in my pretending otherwise—in a Socratic dialogue with an hon. Gentleman, as the Chair sometimes is. Therefore I did not hear what the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) said. I find it hard to credit the notion that she would impute dishonour to a colleague, particularly to a colleague on her own Benches, and certainly she should not do so. At this stage I have to declare her innocent, because there is no evidence of guilt, but nevertheless it is useful to be reminded of the dictate of "Erskine May" that moderation and good humour in the use of parliamentary language are reliable watchwords in conducting our debates.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
Rachel Helen Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you for that clarification, Mr Speaker. The question I was asked in the earlier intervention was how many I have worked with. I have not worked with Dominic Cummings, so I was answering a question in a quite straightforward way. I have made my point and I will bring my remarks to a close. I will not be supporting the Humble Address, for the reasons I have laid out, and the House would do well not to support it.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
Justine Greening (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with what the hon. and learned Lady says. Were we able to have a voice on this, many Members of this House would think that we should not even have the conference recess for three weeks and that Parliament should be here doing its job at a time of crisis, speaking on behalf of our communities.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. I am extremely grateful to the hon. and learned Lady, but I gently point out to her that, as there is a significant number of other Members waiting to contribute, and as the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has every right and reasonable expectation to think that he will have 10 minutes or so to speak, I am cautiously optimistic that she is approaching her peroration.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Owen William Paterson (Conservative, Centre-right): I will be extremely brief, Mr Speaker, as I came to the debate with no intention of speaking. I just want to make the point that the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) talks about "secrets" and "poison". We are naming nine individuals here, some of whom have never worked for the Government before, and some of whom have been working as special advisers for only a week or 10 days. Bluntly, this whole debate offends my sense of fairness. We have a long tradition that people are innocent until proven guilty, yet the hon. and learned Lady assumes instant guilt on the part of these people. We all know that there are probably two names that she would love to flush out, but there are other individuals listed here. Members should just think about this, because these are junior people who have not worked for the Government for very long.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me see—[Interruption.] Oh, I do beg the pardon of the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare); I think he used to make those sorts of coughing noises when he was at Oxford with my wife 30 years ago. Yes, very good—he has three or four minutes now.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): We need to have even shorter speeches, because the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster must have his opportunity to respond. I am sure that a great intellectual colossus such as the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) can express her thoughts in two minutes.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): No, I will not give way If the Humble Address had been shaped in such a way as to say that official advice was requested, the Government would have sought to collaborate that—co-operate, I should say—with my right hon. and learned Friend about. But this is a trawl—a fishing expedition in which every single communication from public servants is being requested if it has anything to do in any way with Prorogation. If there are officials or special advisers who are communicating with one another about personal matters, then that would be within the scope of this Humble Address. It is unprecedented. It takes a coach and horses through our data protection legislation. It is questionable in terms of the article 8 rights that individuals have under the European convention on human rights, and it would, for the first time, say—
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): No, no It would, for the first time, say that the House of Commons, by a simple majority vote, can say that any individual’s communications should be rendered transparent. Do Members realise what they are doing? No criminal offence is alleged. The sole purpose of this is to determine what may or may not have been the private opinion of civil servants and special advisers. The idea that, in order to discern exactly what they thought, we will trample over data protection law, ECHR rights and the principle of safe space is an unprecedented example of those who claim to revere—
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. There is so much noise that it would be understandable if the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster were unable to hear the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who was bidding to intervene. Whether he accepts the intervention a matter for him, but it is important that attempted interventions are audible.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I shall not take any interventions because it is important that I make progress I want to underline that these propositions are being put forward by people who say—and I believe them—that they take the rule of law seriously, but in their desire to rifle through the private correspondence of individuals, they set aside legal precedent, set aside the good workings of government, and set aside the rights of individuals Let me turn briefly to the particular part—
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I am sorry to take him back to the issue about Prorogation and its origins. Would he like to explain at the Dispatch Box why that no affidavit was filed by any official relating to the circumstances in which Prorogation was decided upon? He will understand that the suggestion is that, in fact, the explanation given by the Government is inaccurate, that the decisions and work on proroguing this House to prevent us from scrutinising the Brexit process were taken earlier and that there is evidence of it in the interchange of communications between special advisers and others in government.
Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): I know what the right hon. and learned Gentleman suspects, and he has been fair in laying it out clearly, but the question that this House has to ask is, are we prepared—[Interruption.] The question before the House is this—[Hon. Members: "Answer the question!"] I am answering the question. The question before the House is this. We know what the right hon. and learned Gentleman is concerned about, and we know what his concerns are, but are we willing, in order to satisfy his curiosity on this point, to make sure that data protection legislation, the EHRC and the standard practices of government are overturned? I should say to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that we have published in unprecedented detail, in conformity with the duty of candour, all the information required—
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 (Rule of Law) — House of Commons, 2019-09-09
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I seek a right hon. or hon. Member on the Government Benches, but it is not immediately obvious that any wishes to contribute. [Laughter.] I do not see why that is a source of such hilarity; I am just making a rather prosaic, factual observation. [Interruption.] Order. Who was that chuntering from a sedentary position?