argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Emergency Summit on Knife Crime — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): It certainly is a time to make that clear, and I imagine that the proposition that the hon. Gentleman has just put to me in the Chair would be endorsed by every single Member of this House. We should try to remember, in this matter as in others, the precepts of "Erskine May". Moderation and good humour in the use of parliamentary language conduce to the best possible debate Parliamentary democracy is of the essence, and even though our system here in this country is not always enormously admired by those who write about it, the reality, as I know from travelling around the world and as other colleagues can testify, is that it is enormously admired by people in countries across the globe. The British parliamentary system is constantly imitated—great attempts are made to emulate the best practice that we apply—and it has been sustained for the very good reason that, as Churchill put it in a slightly different context, democracy might be a lousy form of government, except for all the others. It is superior to any of the alternatives, and at the heart of it is the notion that the Member of Parliament is a representative, sent here to do his or her duty, including to exercise judgment as to what to say and how to vote The notion that anyone should be threatened with violence because of his or her beliefs or parliamentary conduct is anathema. It cannot stand, because if such an attitude were to stand, that would sound the death knell for democracy, so every effort must be made, and it is made by those who look after us on the estate, and in some cases provide us with assistance—in security terms—in our constituencies. We must all be prudent in the way that we go about our business, but democracy will persist, and it should persist, because it is the best.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the hon. Gentleman: I do not see how it is relevant New clause 7 requires the Minister for the Cabinet Office to publish a report on postal voting arrangements for overseas electors. We talked earlier about the scale of the number of people who would be affected if the Bill were to take its full course. I think that all the issues raised in new clause 7 will have to be considered, and that the Government should keep an eye on whether or not everything is in place to deal with the consequences. This new clause is also fairly self-explanatory.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Neil John O'Brien (Conservative, Centre-right): New clause 7(3) says: "The report shall, in particular, consider the effectiveness and cost of the International Business Response Licence for postal votes and any associated implications". What particular concern did my hon. Friend have about the international business response licence? I could not understand what the concern was here.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Neil John O'Brien (Conservative, Centre-right): For the benefit of the Minister who will have to implement new clause 7 can my hon. Friend make clear what his expectation is on timing? It seems from the tenor of his remarks that he is expecting this review to take place before commencement; is that the case?
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I would like that to happen: before having an extension it would be useful to have a review of where we are now, because that might highlight some of the areas of concern. So, yes, I would like to see that done sooner rather than later.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Alexander John Gervase Chalk (Conservative, Centre-right): May I gently suggest that my hon. Friend is uncharacteristically proposing unnecessary bureaucracy? The reality is that if something were perceived to have gone wrong, he has shown himself to be well able to draw it to the attention of the House. Does he not agree that if such a matter needed to be ventilated in public, there is no doubt that that could be done fully and robustly?
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend thinks that flattery is going to get him everywhere, but on this occasion I am not entirely sure that it will. It is very kind of him to say what he did, and—if I may reply in kind—no one is better than him at asking incisive questions and getting to the nub of things, particularly given his background. The problem is that we pass so much legislation in this place covering such a wide area that, no matter how good or bad any of us might be, we just cannot keep on top of it all. It is impossible to do that, and we sometimes need a prompt to remind us of the pieces of legislation that have gone through. I do not think it would do anyone any harm if a report came out that made them think, "Oh yes, I remember this piece of legislation. I’m interested in this one." Even the best of us forget from time to time what legislation has been passed through this House.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Neil John O'Brien (Conservative, Centre-right): I tend towards agreeing with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) rather than with my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) about this and about the importance of evaluation. For the benefit of the Minister who would have to compile the report, I think my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley is quite right to ask for a breakdown by parliamentary constituency, but would he also advise the Minister providing the report to provide a breakdown by host country of overseas electors, so that we could see whether our efforts to improve take-up were doing better in some countries than others? They might be going well in Spain but not so well in France, for example. Would my hon. Friend also welcome that information?
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am certainly not going to disagree with him about that. However, I fear that he might have done untold damage to his career in this place by saying that he tended to agree with me rather than with my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham. I am sure that the Whip on duty is busy writing that down even as we speak, in order to thwart his attempts at getting promoted. He might need to say at some point that he did not really mean it. We can pretend that he never said it and move on, if that would be of benefit. I certainly would not encourage him to say it on a regular basis—that would be fatal—but I am grateful to him for his support I am sure the whole House will be relieved that I am not going to read out the whole of new clause 10, because it covers more than three pages and that could take some time. I will take it as read that people can see it for themselves. It is quite detailed, and it may or may not find favour with colleagues, but I am anxious to move on—
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Neil John O'Brien (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am genuinely confused about some parts of new clause 10. The deadline for registration for a general election in the UK is midnight 12 working days before polling day, and the deadline for applying for a postal vote is 5 pm 11 working days prior to an election. In the new clause, however, we have deadlines of both 18 and 13 days and at a time of 5 pm, which is before the end of most people’s working day these days. Will my hon. Friend explain why there is a discrepancy between the deadlines for UK-registered voters and those who will be voting overseas? Does he agree, on reflection, that 5 pm is not necessarily the right deadline?
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): Well, in terms of the time of the deadline before an election for overseas voter registration to take place, if my hon. Friend will allow—he probably thinks I am trying to dodge his incisive question, but I want to come back to amendment 40, which touches on this subject, in due course—perhaps I can move on to that later.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend has gone way beyond my expertise, which people will probably think is not a difficult task in itself. I am afraid that it would take greater minds than mine to answer the question whether those permissions are needed, have been acquired, would be required and have been given. I do not know. This shows the benefit of having proper scrutiny of legislation in this House and I commend my hon. Friend for doing that, but I am not sure that I am the right person to answer those technical questions.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Christopher Robert Chope (Conservative, Centre-right): On the importance of being able to scrutinise proposed legislation, does my hon. Friend accept that he is essentially being chided by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) for not having provided an explanatory statement for the new clause?
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I think that my hon. Friend is the one doing the chiding. I suspect he is probably right to do so. I was unable to find the time to do that, and he is right to pick me up on it. If I had, colleagues might have had more of their questions answered. I listen to him a great deal, and particularly on these issues pertaining to Fridays, how things should be done and the importance of their being done, he tends to be right.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman has not had a very good record on interventions in this debate so far. Most of them have been wholly inaccurate. I think that it is fair to say that I have tried to answer every question that I have been asked Occasionally, there was a technical question. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough asked not about the amendment but about whether particular permissions from the Scottish Executive would be needed; I do not know the answer to that question. The hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton is obviously some kind of know-all, so given that he seems to know everything about everything, perhaps he could answer the question. No doubt, as a fine parliamentarian, he has studied every last word of the amendments, although his previous interventions would not suggest that. Given his expertise on the subject as a know-all, does he want to intervene again and answer the question asked by my hon. Friend? I will leave him to do it.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is in need of some medical attention, but I fear for his wellbeing. Perhaps he was not listening, or perhaps it was not even here—he is in a different place now, so perhaps he absented himself from the Chamber and then beetled back in. I think that I have made it abundantly clear at the start of every amendment that they have often previously been tabled by the hon. Member for City of Chester. I have made that clear. Was the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton not listening? I have said at the start of each amendment that most of them were tabled by the hon. Member for City of Chester and I thought that they made very good points that were worthy of further consideration in the House I am not entirely sure which bit of this provision, originally tabled in Committee by the hon. Member for City of Chester, is difficult for the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton to grasp, as the point seems straightforward. Is it difficult for him to understand? Does he not understand those words? The provision on the Royal Mail that I mentioned was one I tabled and we had discussed it; my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough asked a detailed question about why I had included subsection (3), and I gave a detailed answer about that point. Perhaps the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton got out of bed on the wrong side this morning, as he seems to be in a particularly grumpy mood, not only about the amendments I have tabled, but about the ones tabled by the hon. Member for City of Chester, who, apparently is his best friend, even though he seems to think that all the amendments he has tabled are a load of old nonsense. I will leave the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton to explain to the hon. Member for City of Chester why he thinks his amendments are ridiculous.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. He spoke earlier about the importance of polling stations and things like that, and I have points to make about them later. Wherever possible, the rules should be the same as they are for people here, so I think he makes a good point and perhaps we should all consider it if we ever manage to get back to it. I have every sympathy for the point he raises.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I have given up on the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton; he is certainly not taking my advice on how to get on to his amendment, so I will save him from himself and give way to his hon. Friend.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. Personally, I see a difference, which is that people can quite legitimately register in different places in the UK because they can vote in all those places in a local election. If they are a council tax payer in Yorkshire and a council tax payer in Dorset, they are perfectly free to vote in both, quite properly and legally—there is nothing wrong with that—but they are not allowed to vote twice in a parliamentary election. They can register, but they can only vote once.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I will in a second It seems to me that there is a difference for overseas voters, because they do not need to vote in the local election because they live somewhere else, so it is really about the parliamentary election. They do not need to be registered in two different places to vote in a parliamentary election, given that they can vote only once anyway. It is a question of where they last lived, so there is a difference.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, I take that point, which is a good one. These points are all worthy of further consideration. I do not disagree at all. Equally, however, democracy is precious, and when people start calling results into question, because of people voting twice or whatever, it does massive damage to our democracy. A democracy works only when the losing side accepts it has lost. If it does not, perhaps because the result was rigged or people voted twice—we see this in dictatorships around the world where people do not accept results because of various irregularities—we are on a very slippery slope. We need to do whatever we can to eliminate discrepancies that call results into question. My hon. Friend is right, though, and I certainly am not for unnecessarily criminalising decent people just because they make a mistake; I just thought the issue so serious as to be worthy of further consideration.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I will press on. I did not realise at the start of this morning how difficult it would prove to get through my modest amendments in the first group. I am determined to do so, even if I have to upset the hon. Gentleman.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I did not realise that the right hon. Gentleman was proposing to raise his point of order now; I thought that he was going to do so later. Nevertheless, he is seized by the moment, and I know that he is in a state of some perturbation about the matter.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Mark Gino Francois (Conservative, Centre-right): My sincere apologies to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), but when he hears this I hope he will understand, because it affects him, too Apparently, on the "Today" programme this morning, the BBC presenter, Jim Naughtie, made the following statement: "The ERG, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s group, in France would be in the National Front because that’s what they believe, and in Germany they would be in the AfD. It’s only because of our system that the carapace of this party keeps them in" That is an outrageous comment and a slur on at least 80 Members of this House. We feel passionately about Brexit, as do Members from all corners of this House, but that does not mean that we belong in the National Front, a despicable organisation that all of us would condemn. I would like to take this opportunity in Parliament, as an elected Member of Parliament, which Mr Naughtie is not—he is just a very, very highly paid bigot—to say that his comments are outrageous. If the BBC does not get him to make a full and complete apology by the end of today, he should resign as a British Broadcasting Corporation presenter. If the corporation does not take action against him, that will prove what many in this House have suspected for a long time—that it is irredeemably biased and Europhiliac.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I will not seek to arbitrate on the matter of what people regard as the position of the BBC on Brexit, because although he has made the suggestion that he has about the corporation’s alleged Europhile tendencies, I know that there are many people who feel that much of the BBC’s coverage in recent times has leaned in a very different direction. As Speaker, I do not think that I want to pronounce on that matter. Moreover, as the Clerk at the Table, who swivelled round to counsel me, observed, points of order of this kind, referring to people outwith the House, ceased to be commonplace some time ago. It was a true observation and helpful in one respect, but in another—I know that the Clerk will not take offence when I say this—at least marginally irrelevant for the simple reason that common- place and the right hon. Gentleman are not only not nodding acquaintances, but complete strangers to boot. There is nothing commonplace about the right hon. Gentleman I do not seek to treat the right hon. Gentleman’s point with levity; I recognise that he feels extremely strongly about it. For my part, I stand by what I said earlier: as far as parliamentary debate is concerned, the precept of "Erskine May" is that moderation and good humour conduce a better debate, rather than ad hominem personal attacks. People should play the ball rather than the man or the woman Moreover, though it is not for me to stand up for the European Research Group—it does not need me to do so and I am not doing so—I do want to say that, as far as the right hon. Gentleman is concerned, I have known him for 35 years and there is no way on earth that I could imagine him in the National Front. That is not the right hon. Gentleman, and it is not the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), and it is not the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), and it is not the hon. Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove). That is simply not a fair characterisation. I cannot be expected to go through all the members of the European Research Group, but the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) is a friend of mine. He has very strong views to which some people very strongly object and which other people very strongly support, but to suggest that there is some sort of National Front allegiance is quite wrong and, in my opinion, uncalled for. Let us try to lower the decibel level and treat other people’s views on either side of an argument with respect, debating the issues rather than resorting to slogans. I hope that that is fair.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): As a result of that exchange, we have been deprived for a number of minutes of the mellifluous tones of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), but I suspect that there will be an outbreak of ecstasy in the Public Gallery at the resumption of the hon. Gentleman’s speech.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I certainly do not object at all to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) interrupting me with his point of order, with which I agreed wholeheartedly. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your response. I seem destined not to get through my amendments, for different reasons.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Christopher Robert Chope (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend has been identifying the complexity of these matters in relation to both overseas electors and domestic electors. Does he agree that it might be a good idea if the Government were to commission the Law Commission to draft some legislation on the subject that could then be brought forward as a draft Bill and properly discussed? The attempts in this Session—including in my Voter Registration Bill—to get consensus across the House have failed, as indeed this Bill has failed to get consensus. Is it not time to get some expertise from the Law Commission?
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Other
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his suggestion, which has a great deal of merit. I am not entirely sure that a private Member’s Bill was the best route for this legislation, and we probably do need a bit more expertise, as he suggests. I certainly would not disagree with that I am not entirely sure whether I had got to new clause 12 or new clause 13, but, in the interests of trying to get through my amendments, I am going to move on to new clause 13 and hope that that was where I had got to.
Overseas Electors Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-22
Topic: Civil Rights
Neil John O'Brien (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to put the case against my hon. Friend’s argument in favour of sunset clauses. Last Friday, we were debating the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) (Amendment) Bill of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), which would put an end to the sunset clause put on the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act 2009. That sunset clause had no particularly clear rationale. I understand the case for such clauses when we do not know whether we will solve a problem by legislating, but when we are making a principled and permanent change, they seem unnecessary and could eat up the time of the House. Does my hon. Friend agree?