argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Rape and Domestic Violence (Conviction Rates) — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Colleen Margaret Fletcher (Labour, Centre-left): An effective way of increasing the number of referrals from the police and increasing the prosecution and conviction rates for such crimes is to ensure that victims of abuse feel confident that they will be taken seriously when reporting the crime and supported by the whole criminal justice system thereafter, bearing in mind that many of them, if not all, are extremely traumatised. What steps is the CPS taking, in conjunction with the police, to ensure that the requisite support for victims is in place throughout the process?
Vulnerable Victims and Witnesses — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I declare an interest as a barrister and a former DPP. Does the Attorney General agree that the time has come for a comprehensive victims’ law, giving enforceable rights from the beginning of the process to the end of the process? If so, will he assure the House that there will be an early consultation on this important issue?
Vulnerable Victims and Witnesses — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: I have no legal qualifications whatsoever.Two years ago, a 13-year-old girl was subjected to three weeks of intimidatory and vicious cross-examination by a team of seven barristers—a process that she described as worse than the initial crime. Will the Attorney General update the House on what he is doing to stop such incidents being repeated?
Karl Turner (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Attorney General for calling me last weekend to brief me on the DPP’s decision to bring criminal proceedings against Greville Janner following the review by David Perry QC. Of course, we on this side of the House welcome that decision. It allows complainants to see the allegations aired before a jury and shows that the Crown Prosecution Service’s victims’ right to review scheme, which was implemented by the former DPP, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), is working as intended. I now hope that the future focus will be on ensuring that historical sex abuse cases are properly funded, so will the Attorney General give a commitment to the £50 million of extra funding that the current DPP says she desperately needs to prosecute such cases?
Prison Uniform Policy — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: What recent assessment she has made of the equality implications of the way that the prison uniform policy is applied to male and female prisoners.
Fiona Margaret Mactaggart (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for noticing that one of the problems with the prison system is that women prisoners are too often treated as though they were "not men" prisoners. Will she tell the House how far from their children the average woman prisoner is compared with the average male prisoner who has children?
Education (Equal Treatment) — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Education
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Secretary of State not agree that there is a worrying tendency, certainly in some of the schools that I have visited up and down the country? I believe that separate is never equal, and separate education for girls in many faith schools is seen as important. I disagree. What does she think about it?
Access to Jobs (Disabled People) — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Labor
Ian Lavery (Labour, Centre-left): During the last Parliament, the Government callously closed the Remploy factories, casting thousands of disabled people out of work. Less than 50% of those people are back in work—many grappling with short-time hours and low pay. What is the Minister doing to improve those horrendously unacceptable figures?
Educational Inequalities (BAME Communities) — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Education
Imran Hussain (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Education in Bradford is at the bottom of the league tables, but it is much worse for those from the BAME community or working-class backgrounds who have to overcome further hurdles. Does she believe that, in order to make a positive difference and address the problem of educational inequality, there needs to be a change in policy? Will she work to make Bradford a pilot for reinstating the highly successful city challenge, so that we can reduce educational inequality in the city?
Educational Inequalities (BAME Communities) — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Education
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Secretary of State agree that to help address educational inequalities, more academics from BAME backgrounds should be present in our higher education system? Only 85 of the 18,500 professors in UK academia are black, and within that number only 17 are women. The statistics are equally damning in senior management roles, with only 15 black academics. What are the Government doing to boost BAME representation in our universities?
Legal Aid (Domestic Violence) — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Justice on reviewing the eligibility test that victims of domestic violence must pass to obtain legal aid.
Angela Rayner (Labour, Centre-left): When criminal justice agencies fail to respond appropriately to domestic and sexual violence, women pay with their lives. What is the Government’s response to the inquiry conducted by the all-party parliamentary group on domestic and sexual violence, which established that 89% of experts had found that women did not have access to justice? Were those experts wrong?
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Government Operations
Paul Phillip Flynn (Labour, Centre-left): Why does the House of Lords remain unreformed—a model of democratic perfection, where it is still possible, with the connivance of all three main parties, to buy places—while we stagger and stumble with ad hoc steps, now EVEL, that will lead to the certain break-up of the United Kingdom? Why do the Government not work with all parties and have a constitutional convention to work out a federal system that will be right for all four nations?
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Government Operations
Michael John Gapes (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Leader of the House clarify the position for London MPs? As a London MP, I have no say over transport or policing in London. Those matters come under the jurisdiction of the Mayor. I therefore feel doubly disfranchised, because I cannot vote on matters that relate to my own city and I apparently will not be able to have a say on certain other issues. This is not only a West Lothian question; it is also an east London question.
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Government Operations
Albert Owen (Labour, Centre-left): Going back to the London question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), I listened carefully to the answer of the Leader of the House gave when he talked about legal jurisdictions. The logical conclusion to that is that when the police grant and transport issues in London are discussed, Welsh Members will be allowed to vote because we come under the same legal requirement as the English. Is that the case? How is it fair that elected Welsh Members will have their powers reduced when unelected Welsh peers will not?
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Transportation
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): I must say that I think that this is one of the most ill thought through statements that I have ever heard from the Dispatch Box, and there have been quite a few recently. I want to ask about the Yorkshire problem. Given that the population of Yorkshire is greater than that of Scotland and given the Leader of the House’s so-called concern for English votes, particularly, obviously, English votes in the south, will he give Yorkshire MPs a veto on those matters that directly affect Yorkshire, such as last week’s decision to pause the electrification of the TransPennine Express route?
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Transportation
Nia Rhiannon Griffith (Labour, Centre-left): The Leader of the House has already shown his disdain for Welsh MPs by timetabling the debate on this matter for 15 July, when there will be a Welsh Grand Committee. Without simply saying that it will be up to the Speaker, will he tell us his view of what will happen to legislation on matters of economic or other importance to the whole of the UK that are geographically situated in England, such as Crossrail or a potential third runway at Heathrow? Would that legislation be subject to a veto by English MPs?
Britain and International Security — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Phillip Flynn (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Secretary of State accept that those terrible events are part of a deliberate ploy by ISIS to change what is a regional conflict between Sunnis and Shi’as, and between nations in the middle east, into a world conflict between what they see as the Christian west and the Muslim east? Would it not be a terrible mistake to react to that provocation by having mission creep that would make a world war more likely?
Britain and International Security — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: International Affairs
Michael John Gapes (Labour, Centre-left): I add my voice to those of other Members who have said that it is time for all of us, including our national media, to start to categorise this organisation, which we are against in a wide-ranging international struggle, as what it is: a criminal caliphate; murderous monsters; homophobic horrors; and people who have nothing to do with a state.
Britain and International Security — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: International Affairs
Michael John Gapes (Labour, Centre-left): It is more than a death cult. It is worse than that, because its members are interested not just in themselves dying, but in trying to kill people of all faiths and none throughout the world. There can be no negotiation with such organisations, and that means we have to rethink—sadly—some approaches we have taken in recent years In Syria we also have to recognise, as we look back to a century ago, that the system of nation states established as a result of Sykes and Picot after world war one is coming under serious strain. The states that exist in the middle east, many drawn simply as lines on a map by British and French diplomats, are now seriously in question. Arab nationalism was for many years the dominant force in the region, but since the events of 2011—the so-called, misnamed Arab Spring—it is now questionable whether Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again In the past few days an embryonic Kurdish autonomous region, Rojava, in northern Syria next to the Turkish border, has come about. The town that was taken the other day, Tal Abyad, by the PYD/YPG, the Syrian Kurdish organisation, has for the first time given it a contiguous series of enclaves On the other side, since the justified and welcome decision by John Major’s Government to introduce a no-fly zone in northern Iraq, to protect the Kurds from the murderous Ba’athist, fascist regime of Saddam Hussein, we have had for many years the Kurdish regional Government, with their own flag and armed forces, the peshmerga. The Syrian Kurds and Iraqi Kurds have been fighting Daesh. They have had setbacks, lost many people, and been poorly equipped and outgunned by the most well funded and best armed terrorist organisation that has ever existed. That is mainly because the Iraqi army ran away and handed over American-donated weaponry, but it is not simply for that reason. It is also because that organisation pays people to join it. I heard a story the other day of people leaving republics of the former Soviet Union, having been recruited—young Muslim men, paid thousands of US dollars and recruited to that organisation Daesh has an appeal to some disaffected groups and, sadly, within our own society. There is the horrific story of the family of three generations from Luton, of Bangladeshi heritage, who on their way back from Bangladesh via Turkey have apparently disappeared. It is suggested that one of the women was influenced and radicalised, and the whole family—three generations, grandparents and young children, 12 people—have disappeared and are thought to be in Syria.
Britain and International Security — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: International Affairs
Michael John Gapes (Labour, Centre-left): I agree entirely. That was the point of my intervention on the Secretary of State earlier The German Government have provided far more weaponry than we have to the KRG in Iraq, but the United States and our Government are still reluctant to directly provide weaponry. The Syrian Kurds may be getting some limited support, but because of Turkey’s concerns and Baghdad’s objections, the Kurds in Syria and in Iraq are not getting what they absolutely need. These are brave people, and they are putting themselves on the line in defence, in the case of the Iraqi Kurds, of a democratic, pluralistic society that welcomes those internally displaced from the rest of Iraq and refugees from Syria I, like the former Secretary of State for International Development, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), visited a refugee camp in Kurdistan in 2013. At that point there were only 250,000 Syrian Kurdish refugees inside the KRG. The KRG has a population of about 4 million, but now 1 million people have gone there to seek refuge and survive. They need humanitarian help, but they also need military assistance, which we should be giving directly to help the Iraqi Kurds in their existential fight against Daesh.
Britain and International Security — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: International Affairs
Michael John Gapes (Labour, Centre-left): I look forward to seeing the details. No doubt, as a Select Committee member in future, I will be able to question the Minister on those matters more directly Libya is partly our creation. Members of this House overwhelmingly—I was one of those Members—supported military intervention in 2011 to stop the prospect of mass slaughter in Benghazi. An indirect consequence was the downfall of the Gaddafi regime. There was a democratic process and an election, but it all went wrong, and the weaponry that left Libya can now be found throughout north Africa. I saw that myself when I went to Mali Libya has played a major role in the destabilisation of democratic, pluralist, modern Tunisia, and the Egyptians are also facing concerns. We have a responsibility to deal with the situation in Libya and to eliminate the potential for Daesh to use it as a safe area. The former leader of the Scottish National party, the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond), was absolutely right to say that we need to look at Libya. I am not sure whether he was advocating military intervention, but that is one interpretation of what he said. I agree that if we are going to do something in Syria, we should also be considering how we can combat Daesh in Libya.
Britain and International Security — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: International Affairs
Michael John Gapes (Labour, Centre-left): That is true, although we can never be certain about anything. As we have seen throughout history, Governments change from time to time and bad people come to power. I will not go down that route now, however We have major responsibilities, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) pointed out when he referred to our global reach and our international alliances. Major threats are going to arise in other parts of the world, and we need to maintain those alliances and work with our partners, whether in NATO or the European Union, or more globally through the United Nations system. We have responsibilities, and they include the responsibility to defend our country, our values, our ideas and the world system, because that is in our interests.
Hatfield Colliery — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Energy
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue of Hatfield colliery in my constituency. The first mine shaft was sunk 99 years ago at Hatfield, in 1916. Over the years since, tens of thousands of workers at the mine have laboured on our behalf to keep the lights on. On Monday night, production ceased, probably for the final time. Four hundred miners and staff at Hatfield discovered they were losing their jobs. The vast majority of the men who turned up for work were told on the spot to turn around and go home because they had worked their last shift. The jobs they had done for 20, 30 or 40 years had come to an end The average age of a miner at the pit is 50 years old. One of the men I met on Tuesday is 57. He first went down the mines at 16. He has a job to go to, but it is at £7 an hour. That is the reality of what has happened. Hundreds of men and their families have lost their jobs—jobs that pay far better than the ones they might get in their place if they are lucky. The last deep mine in south Yorkshire—one of only three remaining in our country—has closed, with all the effects on the community that will have Today, I want to talk about Hatfield and the specific issues arising, but I also want to draw some wider lessons for Government energy policy At the heart of the debate is the following question: how do we shape a just transition to a low-carbon economy? I believe that this transition is right and necessary, and I support the Government in their endeavours to make it happen, but a just transition means fairness to workers in affected industries. Hatfield’s early closure is not, in my view, just, fair or right Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)). Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Kris Hopkins.)
Hatfield Colliery — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Macroeconomics
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): I attempted in my remarks to make the tone of this debate as constructive as possible. It is correct that the mine would have needed more money to keep going, but does the Minister or her officials dispute the central proposition that more money would have come back in tax and VAT revenue? That is the central economic question that faces the House.
Hatfield Colliery — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Macroeconomics
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): Forgive me, Mr Deputy Speaker, for intervening on the Minister again. With respect, she acknowledges that contracts were possible for 50% of the coal from one company. I have the email and could read it out, but I will not trade emails with her in the House. Another significant part of the coal could have been sold. It is acknowledged that more money would have been required, but, on the basis of the contracts that she has acknowledged could have been put in place, my contention is that more money would have come back to the Government. That is why it does not make economic sense.
Hatfield Colliery — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Energy
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): I hope the hon. Lady does not run out of time I shall read an email from the head of generation liaison at the company concerned—I will not name the company but the Minister knows it. Let me just read this paragraph, because it is important: "with the objective of working with you to support a managed closure of the mine with dignity, we have reviewed our procurement strategy and have determined upon a higher risk/higher stock approach that we could manage within to facilitate contract volume with you. Indicatively, subject to internal approvals, we could therefore commit to procuring" Then it lists the procurement of, essentially, half the coal. If that is not an offer, I do not know what is.
Hatfield Colliery — House of Commons, 2015-07-02
Topic: Macroeconomics
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): The contracts were not put in place because the Minister was saying, "Not a penny more." That is the whole point. It was a chicken-and-egg situation. An offer was made by the company concerned but it required the Minister to agree to further aid. My contention is that that would have been economically rational.
Armed Forces Covenant — House of Commons, 2015-02-23
Topic: Social Welfare
David George Hanson (Labour, Centre-left): I am sure the Minister will welcome the fact that Flintshire county council, which is in my area, has signed the covenant, but what assessment has she made of the number of services charities that understand what it means in practice?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-02-23
Topic: Labor
Questions: Further to that answer, will the Secretary of State update the House on his assessment of the recent militaristic threats of action in Ukraine by Russia?; May I also congratulate the Defence Secretary on his forthright warning about an expansionist and aggressive Russia under President Putin representing a real and present danger to the Baltic states and, therefore, to NATO and European peace? May I be the third former Defence Minister from the previous SDSR to urge the Defence Secretary to use the current SDSR to improve defence capability rather than reduce it? May I also reassure him that there is a huge groundswell of opinion on the Benches behind him in support of an increase in defence spending and certainly not in support of a cut?; The RAF has been using precision munitions effectively in Iraq, which, as far as is possible, are good at minimising collateral damage. Further to the earlier comments by the Secretary of State, will the Minister reassure the House that that important capability will not be lost when the Tornado combat jet is retired in 2019?; What assurance can the Minister give that the costs of the new Type 26 global combat ship will not rise ever upwards? How much clout does his Department have in avoiding some of the mistakes of the past?; As civil nuclear developments expand the market for skilled nuclear engineers, what steps is the Minister taking to ensure that we maintain the skills levels of the hundreds of nuclear engineers at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Berkshire?
Russell Leslie Brown (Labour, Centre-left): Ministry of Defence police officers and their colleagues in the defence fire and rescue service are currently subject to the state pension age; yet their counterparts in the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government can retire up to seven years earlier. Does the Minister think that is fair?