argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Racist Abuse on Social Media — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Technology
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the prevalence of racist abuse on social media.
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend alights on an important point. This power is already within the reach of internet companies. Those companies seem to think that their community rules somehow take precedence over the laws of our country, and I imagine that is the same across other countries in the world. The message to those tech companies is this: please listen to the public’s outrage at some of the posts festering on your platforms, and deal with them. It is simply not acceptable to expect players, or victims of such abuse, to deal with it themselves. The tech companies have the algorithms and no doubt the powers to intervene, and they should use them now.
Racist Abuse on Social Media — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Technology
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the prevalence of racist abuse on social media.
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): Very much so. My challenge to these tech companies is, "Look: you have some of the brightest brains in the world. You recruit from the top universities. You pay—I imagine—handsomely. Use those brilliant brains to do some good and to stop this abuse on your platforms."
Racist Abuse on Social Media — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the prevalence of racist abuse on social media.
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, I am very happy to confirm that of course we are looking at legal but harmful material. Let me draw the House’s attention to the fact that the Online Safety Bill is a really significant piece of legislation but there will be other vehicles for legislating on these sorts of crimes, including not only the victims Bill but the Law Commission’s work on online hate law more generally. It is really important that we get this right. The law has probably struggled to keep up to date with some of these developing advances in technology and we have to make sure it is future-proofed to cover these terrible crimes.
Racist Abuse on Social Media — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Technology
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the prevalence of racist abuse on social media.
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): I most certainly do agree. In fairness, as the House would expect, I should say that we do a lot of work with online companies across a great range of subjects. Indeed, only yesterday I met business leaders, including tech leaders, to discuss how we can create opportunities for our hardest-to-reach young people who are at risk of serious violence. I am grateful to them for those activities, but the message is coming out loud and clear not just in this country but across the world that somehow we must tame the wild west of the internet so that these more hateful practices are not dominating our national headlines and taking away from the great achievements of our England team.
Racist Abuse on Social Media — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Technology
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the prevalence of racist abuse on social media.
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend has identified the opportunity for the Government, and indeed the House, in the Online Safety Bill. The powers-that-be in the tech companies are no doubt watching the debate closely, and I assume they have got the message loud and clear from all parts of the House about our expectations on their next moves.
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): The Belfast/Good Friday agreement enabled peace to come to Northern Ireland and opened up the prospect of a much brighter future for that part of the United Kingdom, but does my right hon. Friend agree that young people today and future generations will be able to enjoy that brighter future only if Northern Ireland can find a path to reconciliation and if it is able to address—and, crucially, move on from—the legacy of the past?
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Education
Brandon Kenneth Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes. My right hon. Friend, who I know has had a great interest in Northern Ireland for many years, is absolutely right. It cannot be right that, 23 years on from the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, still only some 7% of children in Northern Ireland are able to enjoy integrated education. If we want to see society move forward, we need to be clear and honest with ourselves that there is much more work to do on that. She is absolutely right that we need to end the intergenerational trauma that we are seeing and find a way to help Northern Ireland move forward so that the next generation and today’s younger generation can look forward, while always understanding where we have come from and what has happened.
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: International Affairs
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend should be commended for trying once again, as others have done, to resolve legacy. As we do so, can we resolve not to use the language—I know that he has not done so—of drawing a line and closing a chapter? For those who suffer still, that is something unreachable. We need to show the utmost sensitivity on that point The work of Operation Kenova has commanded cross- community support. Where do that model and approach fit into my right hon. Friend’s thinking as he tries to pursue truth and reconciliation? How will he evolve these plans, working in concert with the Irish Government, to ensure and maximise buy-in for a joint approach? Is there a George Mitchell-like figure hovering in the wings who could be deployed to help and to act as an honest broker as we try to resolve this all-too-long issue?
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: International Affairs
Brandon Kenneth Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): I appreciate the comments of the Chairman of the Select Committee. There is a lot of work to do with our partners, not just victims and veterans—who of course are also often victims of the troubles themselves in a wider sense, and in some cases directly—but the parties in Northern Ireland and also the Irish Government. There are still a range of cases that I know exist, which the First Minister of Northern Ireland wrote to the Taoiseach about not that long ago. That is why we are looking at how we can work together on information recovery to ensure that we find a way that gets to the truth and to information that we have not yet been able to secure in a process that works for families and victims. I do think Operation Kenova is a very good example of showing how we can get to the truth and can get information in a format we have not had before. We need to accept the difficult reality that, over the last five years, it has not yet seen any successful prosecutions, but the model of how it has worked—worked with victims and with families—is an important part of the discussions to have about information recovery I share with my hon. Friend the view that this is never about ignoring what has happened. We should not do that, and it would be wrong to do that. We have to be conscious of our past to be able to understand and learn more about where we can go for our future, and that has to be the aim for people, including the young generation of people, in Northern Ireland.
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Brandon Kenneth Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: victims must be a huge and important part of this process. We have been engaged with organisations such as the WAVE Trauma Centre, and I met the South East Fermanagh Foundation myself just last week. Their stories, and those of others whom I have met and talked to, are moving and in some cases, as he and many in this House will know, harrowing. He is right to talk about Members of this House, and members of my party have obviously been victims. I noticed Lord Tebbit’s powerful comments this morning about his views It is right that we have victims in our mind. As the right hon. Gentleman rightly outlines, we often forget that many of those who served are also victims and close to victims, which is why taking the thoughtful approach he outlines is absolutely right. It is right that there is a point at which we need to be honest with people and deal with the very painful reality of where we are and what is achievable for people. This is about acknowledging the reality of where we are with retributive justice following the sentencing Act that followed the Belfast/Good Friday agreement—the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998—and actually looking at restorative justice and reconciliation as a way forward, and at how we facilitate getting the information we need to reach accountability, truth and reconciliation. We think, after so many years of looking at this, that it is the right way forward, but I look forward to having that discussion and debate with him and with others.
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert Butler (Conservative, Centre-right): For many families who lost loved ones during the troubles, the chances of achieving a criminal justice outcome are vanishingly small, which is leading, understandably, to pain, suffering and disappointment. Despite that, however, for many of them the proposal to apply a statute of limitations will be extremely difficult to accept. So will my right hon. Friend assure me that he is working with communities on all sides to ensure that everybody’s voice is heard?
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: International Affairs
Brandon Kenneth Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, I can absolutely give that assurance. We have been doing so over the past 18 months, and with wider civic society as well. We were certainly doing so in the intensive talks that began after the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference on 24 June. That process effectively started the week before last and will continue for the next few weeks, so we will certainly be doing that.
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: International Affairs
Brandon Kenneth Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point. As he will appreciate, I know about the Robert Nairac case, which is a very good example of where we have not been able to get to information. That is why it is important to try to work with our partners, with the Irish Government and potentially the United States as well on how we can find a way forward that delivers information in a way that we have just not been able to do so far, and what allows us to step forward and do that. As I say, I think these proposals give us the basis for doing that My right hon. Friend also makes a very powerful point, which I absolutely accept, about legislation. He, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) and others in this House have, for a very long time, made the case for needing to move this issue forward, and I absolutely accept that they want to see that delivered as quickly as possible. He makes a very strong, powerful point that I support; I alluded to it earlier and it is worth making again. Those who served their country with honour, to protect life and to protect their country, are victims as well and have just as important a voice in this as anybody else in looking at how we move things forward for the people of Northern Ireland.
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Brandon Kenneth Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): I just say to the hon. Gentleman, as I said earlier, that there is a very important difference here. This is a statute of limitations. We are not pardoning terrorists for the heinous crimes that they committed. We are very clear as a Government that we will never accept any moral equivalence between those who upheld the law and served their country and the citizens of Northern Ireland, and those on all sides who sought to destroy it. I absolutely want to find a way to work through this with people in Northern Ireland—parties, civic society, representatives of the victims groups and victims themselves—to find a way forward. I ask him to look carefully at what we are talking about and engage positively on how we are looking to deal with information recovery in a way that means we can get to the truth, and with truth comes accountability. The way in the past 23 years has failed everybody. There has to be a better way of doing this and there is a duty on all of us to find it.
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (Conservative, Centre-right): Having served on three operational tours, I have some knowledge of the Province and more about the ongoing witch hunt of our veterans. Of course, I welcome any move to try to end this injustice, but I am afraid that I do not believe that former terrorists, on both sides of the sectarian divide, will now participate in a truth recovery process, if I have understood my right hon. Friend correctly. This is not South Africa. Does he agree that it is time for the long-awaited and frequently discussed and promised Bill, not further discussions?
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: International Affairs
Brandon Kenneth Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), I do recognise the desire of colleagues to see legislation and they will see legislation before the end of the autumn. I would have liked to bring legislation forward earlier, but it is important that we are working with our partners, not just the Irish Government, as I have outlined, but interested parties and political parties in Northern Ireland, to find a way forward if we can. This paper is intended to inform those discussions in the next few weeks so that we can find a mutual way forward. I recognise my hon. Friend’s point about who will and will not come forward with the information, but one challenge of the situation at the moment is that information is not coming forward. If we do not find a way of doing something different, we are, sadly, in a position where, because of time, that information will no longer be with us. We believe it is time to do something bold and different to find a way forward that can get to the truth, as far as we can, to get answers for families who have waited for far too long, as well as to help Northern Ireland to move forward.
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Brandon Kenneth Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure people would have asked our predecessors those sort of questions with the equivalence that came from the Belfast/Good Friday agreement under the Labour Government at the time of that agreement and the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 that followed it. That is the reality of where we are. As I have said, there is a difficult, painful reality of where we are and the situation where we are in: the reality of not seeing prosecutions and painfully being honest with victims about what is achievable. In the conversations that Operation Kenova and I have had, people have talked, as we have seen in the past 24 hours, about wanting to get to the truth, get to information and get an understanding in many cases of what actually happened. The current system is not working and we need to find a different way forward to do something that can make a difference to get to the truth. That is what we want to achieve with a proper, genuine, delivering information recovery process.
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: International Affairs
Mark Rory Logan (Conservative, Centre-right): Can the Secretary of State confirm that today is but one part of a process that seeks to get buy-in from both parties and people across the political spectrum in Northern Ireland, and engender hope for both current and future generations?
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: International Affairs
Brandon Kenneth Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): Where I agree with the hon. Gentleman is on the desire to end the intergenerational challenge and trauma that we are seeing, with families and people now with us who were simply not alive at the time of the troubles and have no recollection of just how dreadful a situation that was for Northern Ireland. We need to stop this intergenerational issue I will say in direct answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question that the troubles represent a uniquely troubled time in our history. The Good Friday/Belfast agreement itself acknowledged that. In focusing on a shared future for Northern Ireland, we sometimes need to make difficult decisions in relation to the past, as his colleagues did and as our colleagues did back at the time of the Belfast agreement. We are in a different situation in Northern Ireland with the troubles from most other crimes because of the sentencing Act that followed the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. We need to be honest about that and deal with the reality of where we are, however difficult that may be.
Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Brandon Kenneth Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): I absolutely understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes with clarity and passion, as I know he has done before. Obviously, as I said, the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and the sentencing Act that followed it created an equivalence legally, in the sense of how we deal legally with the troubles of the past, certainly in terms of sentencing. That is the reality we are dealing with That is why I make the point that there is absolutely no question that we would ever accept a moral equivalence between those who served their country, protected life and put themselves at risk—clearly, many suffered injury and loss of life as well, hence I agree that many of those who served are victims too—and those terrorists who put Northern Ireland through, as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) rightly outlined, a dark and dreadful period of the troubles that prevented it from moving forward in an economic way, which we are still seeing the fallout from today That is why, some 23 years on from the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, we need to be honest about the difficult reality of that, what it means and what we need to do to take that big step to look at how we free society—the young of today and tomorrow—to move forward in a positive way, but never forgetting the past and what happened.
Transport Decarbonisation — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Environment
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): I am always keen to work across the House, wherever we agree, including on that last point about aviation and, indeed, the number of car chargers in Scotland. That is all good, but I cannot understand why the hon. Gentleman is talking about the success of the car charger roll-out while also being anti-car and saying that he does not want people to use a car, or even electric vehicles that are green. I do not understand how he can be proud of both points at the same time My main point is that he comes to the Chamber quite often, either remotely or in person, and he sings the praises of the Scottish Government. I therefore thought I would check the facts for the clarity of the House, and time and again, the SNP Government have missed their own statutory target for reducing emissions. That was not for one or two years; it is now for the third year in a row.
Transport Decarbonisation — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Transportation
Selaine Rachel Saxby (Conservative, Centre-right): I warmly welcome the strategy outlined by my right hon. Friend. Will he reassure rural constituents such as mine in North Devon, where there are fewer buses and longer journeys for even basic amenities, that they will not be left behind?
Transport Decarbonisation — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Transportation
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes indeed, and the bus strategy included £3 billion to do a number of things, including getting to a London-style service for other parts of England, and the rural bus strategy. We are currently trialling that in 17 different areas, and my hon. Friend’s area will benefit from the outcome of that work. Her work in championing the bus network for her constituents is welcome, and it will pay dividends.
Transport Decarbonisation — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Transportation
Jonathan Edward Gullis (Conservative, Centre-right): The Restoring Your Railway fund and the £3 billion bus back better strategy are both vital to levelling up in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, following decades of local bus and rail decline. Does my right hon. Friend agree that by reopening the Stoke to Leek line, providing access for upgrades at Longport railway station, and ensuring that Stoke-on-Trent secures a major piece of funding to improve our services and roadside infrastructure, we can reduce emissions in our fantastic city?
Transport Decarbonisation — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Transportation
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): Nobody—perhaps apart from the other two Stoke MPs—does as much to promote the interests of everybody in Stoke as my hon. Friend, and the Stoke to Leek line is something to be passionate about. I know he has put in a bid to the Restoring Your Railway fund, which will come to a conclusion this summer. I wish him every success in that competition so that we can make active travel as well as railway lines the first choice for everybody in his city.
Transport Decarbonisation — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Environment
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): These are good questions. I just point out that the written statement was circulated to the House at 7 am this morning. It does indeed confirm that the plan is for domestic aviation to reach net zero by 2040. The hon. Lady rightly asks a list of questions about whether that is possible. I point out to the House that, with transport itself accounting for perhaps 27% to 30% of total CO2 emissions, roads account for 90% of that 27% and the aviation sector 1.2%, which is a small sliver, but a very difficult bit to decarbonise. Therefore, the answer to her question is emphatically yes, because I have been working with the Jet Zero Council over these recent months. We will, for example, have planes for VIPs returning from COP26 with the offer of sustainable aviation fuel to take them home. That is in 2021. We have until 2040 to develop some of the other great plans, including hydrogen and battery technology. So, yes, I am confident that we can get there and it is very much included in the plan.
Transport Decarbonisation — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Transportation
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that he has been doing with the midlands engine, and I thank him for welcoming the plan as well. I think it would be a great idea if we were to meet up with the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), to discuss exactly that.