argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-06
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is the Mona Lisa in so many ways. I do not know what to make of that. My point is that the Government are protesting too much. I think that is counterproductive and will lead to the exact opposite of what they are trying to achieve. They virtually invite the courts to have a pop at them, which is a mistake. We should rely on the fact that proceedings in Parliament shall not be impeached or questioned in a court of law or any other place, under the articles from the Bill of Rights. I am concerned about what constitutes a confidence motion. It should be perfectly possible to bring down a Government by virtue of refusing to allow them either money, or the basic thrust of their programme through the Queen’s Speech, or a major item of foreign policy, such as sending troops into war. In 1784 that was one of the first reasons a Government were brought down by a motion in the House. If I am honest, I was perplexed when David Cameron and William Hague—now Lord Hague—did not resign or even seem to think worthy of comment the fact that they lost a vote on sending British troops to war. In any other generation of our political history, that would have meant the Government would have fallen. This is an important principle: on big national issues, whether something is a matter of confidence should not simply be a matter for the Government. We all know that money, major policies, and issues of war and peace are fundamentally matters of confidence.
Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-06
Topic: Other
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): I think I am right in saying that the original motion tabled by the Government did commit, but the version carried by the House, which was an Opposition amendment, said that the matter would be brought back to the House.
Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-06
Topic: Other
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): I am sorry to do this, but I just want to push back against the words "game playing". There were very passionately held views on both sides of the argument on every single constitutional matter that was going on. I do not think that anybody was playing a game. Everybody was in deadly earnest—we just disagreed.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Public Lands
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): In 2007 there were major floods in Sheffield, which not only affected homes but destroyed large parts of industrial areas, including Meadowhall shopping centre, Forgemasters and other industries. A great deal of work has been done on flood defences, with the council and the private sector working together, with some Government support. However, one thing that would really help is the preservation of the peat bogs in the moorlands above Sheffield, which act as a massive sponge to stop the run-off and the cascading of water down into Sheffield. Will the Minister take action now to stop heather burning on the peat bogs and to make sure that peat does not end up in unnecessary products, such as compost for gardens?
Voter ID: Fraudulent Votes — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Civil Rights
Christian John Patrick Matheson (Labour, Centre-left): The commission has made no detailed assessment of the number of fraudulent votes that could be prevented as a result of the Government’s proposed policy to introduce voter ID requirements. While levels of reported electoral fraud in the UK are consistently low, they do vary and there is no reliable methodology for forecasting instances of electoral fraud. The commission has highlighted the lack of an ID requirement as a vulnerability in polling stations in Great Britain. Public research shows that this issue concerns voters.
Voter ID: Fraudulent Votes — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Mixed Topics
Christian John Patrick Matheson (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that question, and he raises an interesting point. Hon. Members will have seen that, at both state and federal level, there are discussions at the moment about electoral law. We may have lessons to learn from fellow democratic countries, and I will pass that recommendation on to the commission for its consideration.
Rewilding in New Tenancy Agreements — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Public Lands
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Member for his engagement with me on this issue—and his tolerance, in some cases. I am pleased to see that the commissioners will be carrying out a natural capital audit of their 105,000 acres of land. Can he say whether that is likely to result in recommendations on conservation and rewilding? If so, will he consider looking at the National Trust’s model tenancy agreements to see whether that is something that could be put in future tenancy agreements on the commissioners’ land?
Voter Registration: Principal Residence and Secondary Address — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Civil Rights
Christian John Patrick Matheson (Labour, Centre-left): Following the 2017 UK general election, the commission recommended that the UK Government should consider making just such a change to the registration system. It is possible for somebody to be lawfully registered to vote in more than one place. At local elections, such people are able to vote in each place in different elections. However, it is an offence to vote twice in a single election, such as in a parliamentary general election. The commission report in 2017 highlighted that requiring such voters to choose which area they will vote in at a UK parliamentary election could reduce the risk of electors voting twice. One practical issue is that we do not have one single national register, but lots of local registers held by individual registration officers.
Voter Registration: Principal Residence and Secondary Address — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Other
Christian John Patrick Matheson (Labour, Centre-left): I am very grateful for that and I think the House is aware of the hon. Gentleman’s professional experience in this area. If he has solutions to suggest to the Commission, I could ask it to meet him to discuss what is possible.
Church Estates: Rewilding, Tree-planting and Sustainable Farming — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Public Lands
Alexander David Sobel (Labour, Centre-left): The Church is a significant UK landowner, owning 105,000 acres of land, with a property portfolio worth over £2 billion. May I ask what plans it has for rewilding, tree planting and sustainable farming on its estates, as well as for being more transparent about what land it owns and how that land is used?
Voter ID — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Civil Rights
Christian John Patrick Matheson (Labour, Centre-left): The commission has regular discussions with the Cabinet Office at both official and ministerial level, including to provide feedback on the development of the Government’s policy on voter ID. These discussions followed the commission’s independent evaluations of the Government’s voter ID pilot schemes at the local elections in 2018 and 2019. The commission recommended: "Any ID requirement should deliver clear improvements to current security levels…ensure accessibility for all voters", and "be realistically deliverable, taking into account the resources required to administer it".
Speaker’s Statement — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Other
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): Before I call the Leader of the House, I want to pay tribute to Sir Roy Stone, the principal private secretary to the Government Chief Whip, who is leaving the civil service this week. Sir Roy is only the fourth person to have held this role in a century, and he has done so with distinction for more than 20 years In helping facilitate the smooth running of parliamentary business, he has served this House, as well as successive Governments. I am sure that the whole House will join me in wishing him well for the future. I have to say that personally I have always felt he gave great advice and worked very well behind the scenes, in charge of the usual channels. He will be missed by all sides of the House, and I wish him well I now call the Leader of the House to make the business statement.
Future of the Planning System in England — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Housing
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Father of the House for his question and his invitation. I am happy to take up the invitation; let us hope that two of us accept it and come along. He is absolutely right: there are many issues not contained in the initial proposals. We hope that the Government will address them in their response to the consultation and the eventual Bill. Again, it is a major omission that local councillors are not mentioned. Local councillors are absolutely key to the local planning system. We must recognise the amount of work they do and ensure that they are not bypassed by any proposals ultimately adopted.
Future of the Planning System in England — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Housing
Mohammad Yasin (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for his statement and for his tireless work on producing this report. Does he agree that the Government’s approach to permitted development undermines their own policy objectives in the planning White Paper, with a particular emphasis on local and neighbourhood plans?
Future of the Planning System in England — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Housing
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is a very valued member of the Select Committee. He has contributed to this report, and he is absolutely right. The Housing Minister came to the Select Committee yesterday to talk about permitted development rights, and a point we made in our questions to him was that the overall reform of the planning system, and giving greater certainty to what developments will or will not happen in a local plan, must not be undermined by permitted development running contrary to the proposals in the local plan. Local authorities must have the right to shape the place for which they are responsible, and that is something we will be looking at further in the report we produce on permitted development.
Future of the Planning System in England — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Housing
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman again for his role. He is a long-standing member of the Select Committee and was around in 2016 when we produced our previous report on the changes that we want to see to local plans The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that this level of detail is so uncertain at present, and if we are going to produce a zoning system, particularly in growth areas with major development proposals effectively being given the go-ahead without much more scrutiny at the local planning stage, there will have to be an awful lot of detail and consultation put into that local planning stage. This comes back to the question of whether that can realistically be done for every single site in a local plan within 30 months. The Committee simply does not believe so.
Future of the Planning System in England — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Housing
Rachel Louise Hopkins (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for his work on the report and I thank the Committee Clerks for all their hard work on this excellent report We heard in the Committee how local people want to continue to be able to comment on specific local planning applications, so the proposal to remove the legal requirement to publish planning notices in local newspapers and on lamp posts and the like, with that becoming only a discretionary element, would create a postcode lottery as to where that service would continue. That would undermine local democracy and create barriers for those who do not have digital access, such as the elderly or those on low incomes. It would also damage local and regional newspapers, which are an important source of local information for people. Does the Chair agree that the existing statutory notice requirement must be retained for all local authorities, to safeguard transparency, equality and democracy in our communities?
Future of the Planning System in England — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Mixed Topics
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution to the report, and she is absolutely right: we made this point in our recommendations. We welcome the Government’s proposals to digitise the system, which could bring in a better system with more community public access to it, but we should not then take steps that would exclude those who are not comfortable in the digital environment. Therefore we want to see the retention of statutory notices in physical form, in newspapers or on lamp posts, alongside digital arrangements.
Future of the Planning System in England — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Housing
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): The housing needs formula is a desperately difficult one. and the Government have a difficult job. It is right that we should try to have a housing needs formula, because it can reduce the amount of time taken up with planning inquiries in the local plan. They nearly always devolve down to long arguments about housing numbers, which is not really helpful. If local areas have particular problems they should highlight them, because a one-size-fits-all needs assessment does not necessarily meet the requirements of every individual authority On the particulars on the sort of housing, local councils ought to be given an opportunity to be more granular in their approach. Indeed, we made a specific recommendation in a previous report that every local plan should not just have an assessment of housing numbers but, particularly in relation to elderly people’s housing, how many of those units should be built and where they should be built to ensure provision for elderly people going forward.
Future of the Planning System in England — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Housing
Mary Elizabeth Twist (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for its very thorough report on the future of the planning system in England. In particular, I welcome the Committee’s recommendation that all individuals must still be able to comment and have an influence on all individual planning proposals. I see from paragraph 226 of the report that a major feature of responses as part of the public engagement work was the importance attached to nature and wildlife. Does my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee agree that the Government must be absolutely explicit about how the provisions in the proposed planning Bill and the Environment Bill will work together to ensure that the key issue of safeguarding our natural environment and ensuring biodiversity gain is actually achieved?
Future of the Planning System in England — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Housing
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend, a past member of the Committee, for those comments. There are omissions in the Government’s proposals so far. House building is connected to other issues, and how the planning system deals not just with house building but with a variety of environmental concerns needs fleshing out. One thing we commented on in relation to the environment was that the Canal and River Trust and Natural England are currently statutory consultees on individual planning applications, but they are not statutory consultees on local plans. If in future all the details on particular sites are going to be in the local plan, how will the statutory consultees relate to that? Most of them say that they could not possibly to do all that in 30 months, so there are some real challenges that need bringing together in the eventual proposals when they come forward.
Future of the Planning System in England — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Housing
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is those sorts of issues that are often resolved at the planning application stage. Whether they can all be dealt with in a local plan, however well intentioned, is the real challenge. Often, it is the particular designs of a scheme—how they relate to the environment and how traffic issues are dealt with—that really cause most concern and problems for people. We must ensure that the public voice on those issues is not lost in any reforms.
Future of the Planning System in England — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Other
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): I hear the problem. It was not one that the Committee specifically considered in our report, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that this is something that the Government could take into account in their legislative proposals.
Future of the Planning System in England — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Housing
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman: it is absolutely essential that we recognise the shortage of financial resources and the shortage of staff resources, particularly skilled expertise. In past years there has been an exodus of some of the younger, brighter people out of the planning system, often into private consultancies. The Government have promised that they are doing a strategic review of planning resources, including staffing expertise. The Minister said to us yesterday that that was something he was looking to give further information on, I think when the Government respond to the consultation on their proposals. We very much want to see that, because unless we get that right, there is not a chance of bringing any reforms into play and getting the system to work as it should.
Future of the Planning System in England — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Housing
Ruth Margaret Cadbury (Labour, Centre-left): I add my congratulations to the Chair of the Committee, his members and his team on a comprehensive report into quite a detailed and lengthy White Paper. The Government set great store by their levelling-up agenda and have also committed themselves to net zero. The planning system is central to delivering these and many other key objectives, so does my hon. Friend believe that the White Paper has enough detail on either of those two issues?
Future of the Planning System in England — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Housing
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): I do not think either is really mentioned in the White Paper, which is something we drew attention to. The lack of any mention of climate change comes back to the lack of any linkage with some of the Government’s environmental proposals. On levelling up, I refer to the fact that the Government changed the housing needs formula midway through our inquiry and moved some requirements to build homes from southern, more rural areas to major cities, many of them in the north and midlands. Many cities will struggle to deal with that without building on their green belts—that is the feedback we are getting, including about problems in London. However, the requirement to build homes for areas outside the major cities in the north will be reduced, which does not quite square up with an ambition to get more development, infrastructure and jobs in the north outside the major cities, and removing that requirement will also mean a lack of support from Homes England to get the building under way. That is a major concern, which we have drawn attention to and needs addressing.
Misuse of Drugs Act — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Immigration
Jeffrey Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have the evidence in the UK. There have been some very good diversion schemes in Durham and the west midlands, and there are others. We do not need to look at the evidence abroad; we can look at the evidence in the UK.
Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Civil Rights
Sarah Deborah Champion (Labour, Centre-left): I am always grateful to hear the hon. Gentleman speak, because he speaks with such passion. He talks about the reported cases. In the UK, it is estimated that about 15% of women report cases, so I absolutely agree that the reported cases of PSVI will be the slightest tip of the iceberg.
Levelling Up, Housing and Communities — House of Commons, 2021-10-25
Topic: Housing
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): We come now to the newly named Department. We have questions for the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communications—[Interruption.] I mean Communities, not communications! I hope that there will be communications, because otherwise we will be in trouble.
Planning Rules — House of Commons, 2021-10-25
Topic: Housing
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the Secretary of State to his new role and look forward to seeing him at the Select Committee next week. I do not know whether he has had the chance to read yet the Select Committee’s review of the planning reforms. May I suggest that local plans need to be at the heart of a plan-led system, indicating where development is likely to happen? To do that, local plans need to be simpler, easier to understand and get more people involved in the process so that there is real community buy-in to them. Finally, even when local plans are in place, there still needs to be an opportunity for local people to be able to comment on, object to, and, where necessary, influence the outcomes of individual planning applications.
Planning Rules — House of Commons, 2021-10-25
Topic: Housing
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): Today, York has been voted Britain’s most popular city. However, if we get planning wrong, we will embed inequality into our city. The governance structures over projects such as York Central are currently in the wrong place, so they will not deliver for the people in my city. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss York Central, as I have met many of his Ministers, so that we get the governance structures right for the future?
Planning Rules — House of Commons, 2021-10-25
Topic: Housing
Ruth Margaret Cadbury (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the new Secretary of State to his role. I also welcome his replies to hon. Members, as he said that, effectively, the Government’s developers charter is being reviewed. I have not seen the right hon. Gentleman torpedo something so effectively since he sunk the Prime Minister’s leadership bid in 2016. But we know that, like Lazarus, the Prime Minister came back. Will the Secretary of State therefore take this opportunity to confirm that the Government’s wholly unpopular and disastrous planning reforms will never return?
Building Safety — House of Commons, 2021-10-25
Topic: Housing
Fleur Anderson (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the action taken so far, but it is not fast enough or far enough for the thousands of leaseholders in Putney who are trapped in a perfect storm, with some living in unsafe buildings and many more caught up in a crisis of confidence in building safety. They cannot sell their homes, yet through no fault of their own, they are forced to pay thousands in ongoing costs for waking watch—or sleeping watch, as they call it—and insurance, before we even get to the costs of remediation works. They need Ministers to get a faster grip of the situation and solve the crisis. Will the Minister agree to Labour’s plan for a building works agency to find, then to fix, fund and, crucially, certify these buildings as safe; and then pursue those who are responsible for the costs, not the leaseholders?