argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Seema Louise Ghiassi Kennedy (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend not agree that the entire point of the Bill is to dissociate the charities from the Government and to provide independence, which is what gives them such a great reputation in their local areas?
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Mark Quin (Conservative, Centre-right): I am desperately trying not to look at my hon. Friend; I will try to imagine him. He is being typically modest in saying that these are modest proposals, as they go to the heart of the Bill. He refers to the necessity of an audit trail, and I agree. However, there are plenty of very good firms of auditors fit and proper for making such pronunciations, so I do not see why we need to trouble the Comptroller and Auditor General, who is a busy man with lots of other stuff to do.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course not. "May" is a very precise word: it is an allowing factor and it gives permission to somebody to do something, and they are allowed to use their discretion to do it. The amendment uses "may" so that people may go directly to the Secretary of State, who is democratically accountable, and get the decision made, rather than have to go off to a bureaucracy that is not accountable or that is accountable only indirectly. "May" is about restoring democratic and, ultimately, parliamentary control over something that belongs to the nation as a whole.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend has been caught up in this idea of fashion, and I am afraid that he speaks of yesterday’s fashion of judicial review. The great work done by the now Lord President of the Council and former Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, in restricting judicial review means that I simply do not think that that would now be a risk. It would have been a risk in those fashionable new Labour days, when people were judicially reviewing everything and having bogus consultations, which I spoke about earlier. That set the fashion for judicial review, but it is yesterday’s fashion. Those of us who are modern and who are with it—in the current phraseology—know that judicial review is yesterday’s news in such a context. Therefore, I do not believe that this would be a risk. It is a sensible way to deal with a problem that has arisen and to prevent it from arising again.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Technology
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I assume that my hon. Friend was not a shareholder of Marks & Spencer at the time. For those of us whose families were shareholders, it was a complete disaster, but I am glad that she was able to munch her pasty. The answer to her question is no; it is quite the reverse. The modern mind is much more akin to group-think, indeed to group hysteria. As politicians, we experience that daily on social media. We have all seen how small untruths, half-thoughts or theories can whip themselves up, on Twitter and Facebook, to become reality in a short space of time.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Technology
Richard Michael Bacon (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with my hon. Friend. Was not one of the most profound and surprising examples of that, through the use of social media, the collective view that suddenly gained ground among hundreds of thousands of people that the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) would be a good leader of the Labour party?
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Technology
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a remarkably good point. For Members of this House, that is a very pertinent example of the damage that social media can wreak on our ancient institutions, such as the Labour party The truth is that the modern mind is much more susceptible to such things, and particularly to charismatic leaders. One only has to look at the effect of Instagram, and the millions of followers that otherwise unmeritorious individuals have on it, to see how willing people are to go along with such things these days, like sheep in a herd.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): No, I am not tarring them with the same brush. I am saying that all boards—commercial, charitable or even political—must bear this in mind. That is the whole foundation of our modern governance structures. It is the idea behind having non-executive directors, who are meant to be external and to provide a challenge to make executives and those more involved in the work of an organisation think more carefully about what they are doing.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Seema Louise Ghiassi Kennedy (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend clearly feels passionately on this matter, but he paints a bleak picture of a nation of volunteers and charity workers led by demagogues, where everybody follows their leader blindly. I have been a trustee and can reassure him that that is not the case. There are challenging voices. Given that his amendments would reinsert the power of the Secretary of State, he seems to lack confidence in people’s independence of mind and confidence in their charities.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not, and the reason is that the Secretary of State currently has control of the appointment of trustees. That is exactly why. If I were Secretary of State—I assume that the same is true of the current Secretary of State and past Secretaries of State—I would be very careful about who I appointed, so that I was sure that I was handing that fiduciary duty to people whom I trusted and who had an element of accountability to me.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): The truth is that there have not been adequate safeguards in charity law, as my hon. Friend will know. That is why the Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill is going through the House at this very moment. Anybody who has followed the passage of the Bill or sat on the Committee will know that part of it will beef up the powers of the Charity Commission to give it greater control in the event of financial misdemeanour or charities getting into financial trouble. It will strengthen exactly those powers about which I am talking.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I recommend to the House his book, which is filled with examples of Government incompetence, many of which were brought about by the group-think phenomenon and a lack of good governance. He is an expert in National Audit Office reports, having pored over many of them in his time on the Public Accounts Committee in the last Parliament and, I think, the one before that.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Margaret Ann Throup (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend’s amendments would undermine the whole purpose of the Bill, which is to give these charities their independence. As he rightly says, the Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill, which is going through the House at the moment, will strengthen the protections and the governance arrangements for charities such as these.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right. Proposed subsection (2B) in amendment 1 provides that the Secretary of State would be allowed to use the powers only by permission of the House. I am with my hon. Friend in his desire to protect the House’s privileges and powers. I did not get elected to give the Government a free run. When the good people of North West Hampshire elected me, they placed two votes: one for a Government and the other for somebody to hold them account. I will try to do that job. Should the Secretary of State wish to step in, he would have to lay a statutory instrument before both Houses of Parliament and seek their support. It could not be done easily, on a whim or through a signature on a piece of paper. It would require debate and examination, and need all of us to do our job of scrutiny and reach a settled decision to allow him to step in. I recognise that it is a fundamental step and that an element of separation should be maintained.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is making some valid points. Does he agree that instead of a laser focus on the number of trustees in charitable organisations, the motivation, character and skills of those trustees is the important element to investigate?
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Mark Quin (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend paints a very dangerous picture. He was referring to circumstances in which a charity strays into inappropriate political activity, but that is purely the remit of the Charity Commission. In such circumstances, the last person who should be intervening is the Secretary of State—we would be inviting them to wade into a political quagmire.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Craig Whittaker (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend raises a point about charities going off and lobbying. Does he feel that enough safeguards were included in the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, which was designed specifically to prevent charities from taking non-transparent action?
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I apologise if that is a vision of doom, but much of our life in this House involves dealing with the stream of human misery that comes through our letterbox daily. We have urgent questions and statements on all manner of horrific events here and overseas, and much of our legislation is to plan for the unexpected, which seems sensible. Much of our legislation dates back many hundreds of years, and I hope that this Bill will last for a similar period. Who knows whether there will be trustee vacancies in the generations to come. I hope not, but if there are, it would be sensible for the Secretary of State to appoint someone. At the moment, there is nobody else to do it.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Mark Quin (Conservative, Centre-right): In these hopefully extremely unusual circumstances, does my hon. Friend envisage that, once again, the process could drag through both Houses? If a charity tragically loses all its trustees, are we expected to go through the full rigmarole of full parliamentary scrutiny? That seems strange.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is generous in allowing interventions. Barely 150 years ago we abandoned press-ganging for the Royal Navy, yet we are now reintroducing it for the charitable sector. It strikes me as odd not to "encourage" the Secretary of State or chief executive to recruit more trustees, but rather to force them to do so. As my hon. Friend rightly said, trustees are volunteers who step forward and step up for the community. They do something that is above and beyond their social duty every day, and we should encourage them in that. He is right to place such an important weight on that, but I question the legislative requirement of making the Secretary of State able to make those appointments. He seems to be asking not for the Secretary of State to be able to ratify a volunteer, but rather for them to go out and call somebody in from the fields, factories and cities and tell them to take up that position. That is slightly losing the focus. If the Secretary of State is not required to do that, all we need is for people to have the opportunity to volunteer, in which case the chief executive or Secretary of State can merely advertise the post.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): That is exactly what I am proposing. If there are no trustees for three months, the Secretary of State will have the power to appoint someone. They could run an advert, or decide to press-gang somebody if they want—they can choose their own method. The point is that somebody has to do it. An interesting technical point that Members who belong to Conservative associations may know is that if an association runs out of trustees its members can appoint a new trustee in a special general meeting. Great Ormond Street charity has no members. There is no group of people who can appoint a trustee, so if it all falls vacant the thing effectively dies. In my view, the amendment is very sensible and I am amazed it is causing such controversy. This very sensible amendment would allow the Secretary of State to appoint one or more trustees to get the thing going again.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Craig Whittaker (Conservative, Centre-right): I need to challenge my hon. Friend on the assumption of "Who else better than the Secretary of State?" Of course, our current Secretary of State is a very highly esteemed colleague of great standing—I do not question that at all. What I question is the previous string of people who have appointed politically biased appointees to various quangos around the country. Surely he can see that a Secretary of State would have the potential to be not the best person to make the decision.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Seema Louise Ghiassi Kennedy (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is making a very good point. Members may have seen a report in today’s Times about trusted professions. Apparently doctors are trusted by 89% of the population, but Ministers—not politicians as a whole—are trusted by only 22%, although I am sure that that does not apply to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. Surely vesting independence in these charities independently and drawing them away from Governments will only enhance their local reputation.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Margaret Ann Throup (Conservative, Centre-right): I entirely agree. That is exactly why I feel that they need to be independent from Secretaries of State and Governments. I must read the whole of that article: it sounds extremely interesting. We must think about how we can improve our image in the public domain.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I am conscious of the time, so I shall be careful not to be either repetitive or irrelevant, and to confine my remarks to the amendments. I should make it clear at the outset that, while I respect the points of passion—and fashion—that have been made in support of them, I do not think that any of them would enhance the Bill Amendment 4 deals with public consultation. We surely do not want to ask people to comment on a matter that has already been decided, or in circumstances in which a response to a consultation will not make any real difference to the outcome—other than, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), potentially helping to take funds away from either the charity and its objectives or the Department of Health, which is paying for the consultation As several Members said, nothing is more likely to build public cynicism about politics than the idea that people have been asked to comment on something and their comments will then be virtually ignored. I can think of an example in local government. A council wanted to reduce free weekend parking, because that had been a manifesto commitment and the council had been returned with a majority. However, it then had to engage in a legal public consultation to find out whether motorists objected to the idea of free parking at the weekend, as opposed to the idea of paying for it. That was absolute nonsense. Several thousand pounds were wasted on advertising in the local press with public notices, and, funnily enough, no motorist wrote in saying, "Do you know what, I would actually like to pay two quid next time I park." We should not introduce measures that will engender cynicism. We should not say that a measure has been decided on and announced, but will be subject to a consultation; nor should we provide for a consultation on a matter that is highly technical, and with which very few people will be able to engage. When I was preparing for the Second Reading debate and for today’s Report stage, I found myself burrowing into a huge amount of detail. I do not see how a consultation would be effective.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Sheryll Murray (Conservative, Centre-right): With individual consultations as well, there is no guarantee we are going to reach everyone. I remember when a consultation was entered into on whether Cornwall should have a unitary council, and the company used admitted in the end that it had not reached all the households concerned, so a lot of people were missed. This is one of the downsides of consulting on individual things.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Wendy Morton (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that these amendments on trustees, which seek to re-establish the powers that my Bill wishes to remove, represent a regressive step, rather than the progressive step the Bill seeks to deliver?
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Mark Quin (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster). Like him, I am a great supporter of the Bill and, like him, I think that it emerged in good shape from Committee. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on steering it on its merry path to get here today. It is because I support the Bill that I look askance at some of the amendments. I wish the Bill a smooth passage today; that is why I oppose the amendments, particularly amendments 4, 2 and 7. My hon. Friends have been incredibly generous in giving way to a number of Members this morning, including me, so I do not feel the need to speak at length. However, there were one or two points that I thought would be useful contributions to the debate On amendment 4, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg)—the fashionable Member for North East Somerset—was somewhat cynical in his approach to public consultations. There are at least three circumstances in which public consultations can be valuable. My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay mentioned one: cases of great constitutional import for this Chamber and this country. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) referred to others, and made an excellent point about the consultation on the congestion charge in London—a matter of wide regional interest. The cost of that consultation was borne to ensure that the relevant authorities had a proper appreciation of the views of the electorate, which was a wise step in those circumstances There are also circumstances in which consultation is appropriate at a local level. One such case in my constituency related to school catchment areas, which matter greatly. It is important that those consultations are carried out properly, and that all those who will be affected—or, in this case, whose children will be affected—are able to contribute to those consultations. Not every consultation is conducted to as high a standard as we would all wish The amendments are extremely technical. I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole to reconsider his amendment 4, as it would place a huge burden on the Secretary of State and on the trustees to go through a process of consultation on highly technical issues that are not matters of constitutional, regional or local import affecting individuals. Although I greatly respect my hon. Friend, going through a process of public consultation is unnecessarily burdensome, particularly where the matter will be reviewed and can always be brought to the attention of this House through the normal procedure. We should empower the trustees to take decisions Understandably, my hon. Friend was not able, although pressed by my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) and by me, to give an approximation of the costs or who may bear them. That should be a point for consideration by the House.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for not being quite so cynical about public consultations as other hon. Members have been during the debate. Perhaps he should cite one further consultation: that which was the foundation of the Bill. On cost, he does not press me to come up with a precise figure, I know, but does he accept the broad point that if public consultation is right in principle, the cost will have to follow, come what may?
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Mark Quin (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for clarifying his views. I have no problem with paying for consultations when they are necessary and appropriate, but I do not believe that the circumstances likely to pertain to the Bill will be in that category. Issues worthy of consultation are those described by my hon. Friends the Members for Torbay and for North West Hampshire, and the local issues to which I referred On amendment 2 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire, I hope he will not be upset if I refer to it as the magic circle amendment—now you see it in the Bill, now you don’t—hey presto. With one stroke, his amendment would remove a power that is at the core of the Bill, as it creates clarity for the charities concerned. I know that every hon. Member who has tabled an amendment today is a passionate supporter of those charities, as are we all. The benefit of the Bill is that it provides clarity to the charities. Under the Bill, trustees will become fully independent. They are left in no doubt about who is responsible for the conduct of the charity and about their own corporate governance. That is a good thing, which empowers them and encourages responsibility.
NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Government Operations
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend has made some excellent points. Does he agree that the point of the Bill is to make these charities independent and regulated like others? This is the Peter Pan Bill, but the tale of disaster behind the amendments will make them the Tinker Bell amendments.